‘He left you for her?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. He had an affair with her, and when he told me about it – I suppose the right word here is “confessed” – he said he hadn’t wanted to do it, that she’d seduced him.’ Like a thermometer on to which the morning sun begins to shine, the bitterness in her voice rose as she spoke.
Brunetti waited. This was not a moment when a man could interrupt a woman who was speaking.
‘He said he thought she planned it.’ Abruptly, she raised one hand and made a waving gesture, as though she wanted to shoo away her husband, or the woman, or the memory of what he had said. Then, voice just over the edge of bitterness, she added, ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a man’s claimed that, would it?’
Vianello, in his good-cop voice, slipped in to ask, ‘You said he told you about it, Signora. Why was that?’
She glanced at the Inspector, reminded that he was there. ‘He said the woman was going to tell me, so he wanted to be the one to do it before she did.’ She raised her hand and rubbed at her forehead a few times. ‘To tell me, that is.’
She gave the Inspector a level glance, then turned to Brunetti. ‘So he didn’t leave me for her, Commissario. I told him to get out.’
‘And he left?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. He left the same day. Well, the next day.’ She sat quietly for some time, apparently reflecting on those events. ‘We had to talk about what to tell Teo.’ Then, in a softer voice, she said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can tell them – children – not really.’
Brunetti was tempted to ask her what they had told their son, but he could not justify that and so he asked, instead, ‘When did this happen?’
‘Three months ago. We’ve both spoken to lawyers and signed papers.’
‘And where was this leading, Signora?’
‘Do you mean was I going to divorce him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course.’ More slowly and far more thoughtfully, she added, ‘Not for the affair; please understand that. But because he didn’t have the courage of it, because he had to play the victim.’ Then, in a savage voice, she said, one arm raised across her breast and hand grabbing her shoulder as if to contain her rage, ‘I hate victims. I hate people who don’t have the courage of their own foul behaviour and blame it on someone else or something else.’ She fought herself into silence, but lost the fight and went on: ‘I hate the cowardice of it. People have affairs. They have affairs all the time. But for God’s sake, at least admit that you did it. Don’t go blaming the woman or the man. Just say you did it and, if you’re sorry, say you’re sorry, but don’t go blaming some other person for your own weakness or stupidity.’
She stopped, exhausted, perhaps not so much by what she had said as by the circumstances in which she had said it. Two complete strangers, after all, and policemen, to boot, who had come to tell her that her husband was dead.
‘Assuming that you are not the person responsible, Signora,’ Brunetti said with the smallest of smiles, hoping that his irony would turn her away from the path this conversation seemed to have taken, ‘can you think of anyone else who might have wanted to harm your husband?’
She weighed his question, and her face softened. ‘Before I answer that, let me tell you one thing,’ she said.
Brunetti nodded.
‘The papers said the man in Venice – Andrea – was found on Monday morning,’ she said, but it was a question.
Brunetti answered it. ‘Yes.’
‘I was here with my sister that night. She brought her two kids over, and we had dinner together, and then they all spent the night here.’
Brunetti permitted himself a glance in Vianello’s direction and saw that the good cop was nodding. Signora Doni’s voice called his attention back as she said, ‘As to your other question, I don’t know of anyone. Andrea was a…’ She paused here, perhaps conscious that she had now to speak his epitaph. ‘He was a good man.’ Taking three deep breaths, she went on. ‘I do know he was troubled at work or because of work. It was only during the last months we were together that I realized this; that’s when he was…’ Her voice trailed off, and Brunetti left her to remember what she chose. But then she spoke again. ‘It might have been guilt about what he was doing. They were doing. But it might have been more than that.’ Another long pause. ‘We didn’t talk much in the months before he told me.’
‘Where does he work, Signora?’ Brunetti asked, then cringed at the realization that he had used the present tense. To attempt to correct it would make things worse.
‘His office isn’t far from here. But two days a week he works at another job.’ Unconsciously – perhaps because she had heard Brunetti do it – she had also fallen back into the present tense.
Brunetti assumed the work of a veterinarian must be pretty standard; he wondered what extra work Dr Nava could have done, aside from his private practice. ‘Was he working as a veterinarian at this other job, too?’
She nodded. ‘He was offered it about six months ago. With the financial crisis, there was less work at his clinic. That’s strange, really, because people will usually do anything or pay anything to take care of their pets.’ She twisted her hands together in a cliche gesture of helplessness, and Brunetti found himself wondering if she worked or whether she stayed home to take care of their son. And if so, then what would become of her now?
‘So when they offered him the job, he took it,’ she said. ‘We had the mortgage for the house and the costs of the clinic, and then there were the medical bills.’ Seeing their surprise, she said, ‘Andrea had to do it all privately. The waiting time for a scan at the hospital was more than six months. And he paid for all the visits to specialists. That’s the reason he took the job.’
‘Doing what, Signora?’
‘Working at the slaughterhouse. They have to have a vet there when the animals are brought in. To see that they’re healthy enough to be used.’
‘As meat, do you mean?’ Vianello asked.
She nodded again.
‘Two days a week?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. Monday and Wednesday. That’s when the farmers bring them in. He arranged things at the clinic so that he didn’t have to be there in the morning, though his staff would accept patients if necessary.’ She stopped there, hearing herself describing this. ‘Doesn’t that sound strange: “patients”, when you’re talking about animals?’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘Crazy, really.’
‘Which slaughterhouse, Signora?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Preganziol,’ she said and then added, as though it still made a difference, ‘It’s only fifteen minutes by car.’
Thinking back to what she had said about what people would do for their pets, Brunetti asked, ‘Did any of the people who took their pets to your husband ever display anger at him?’
‘You mean, did they threaten him?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘He never told me about anything as serious as that, though a few did accuse him of not having done enough to save their pets.’ She said this in a level voice; the coolness of her face suggested her opinion of such behaviour.
‘Is it possible that your husband might not have told you about something like that?’ Vianello asked.
‘You mean to keep me from worrying about him?’ she asked. It was a simple question, not a trace of sarcasm in it.
‘Yes.’
‘No, not before things got bad. He told me everything. We were…’ she began, then paused to search for the proper word. ‘… close,’ she said, having found it. ‘But he never said anything. He was always happy with his work there.’
‘Was the trouble you mentioned at the other job, then, Signora?’ Brunetti asked.
Her eyes seemed to drift out of focus, and she turned her attention to the neglected garden, where there were no signs of returning life. ‘That’s when his behaviour started to change. But that was because of… other things, I’d say.’
