'Come where, Alvise?' Brunetti asked.
It took Alvise a moment to answer. 'She didn't say, sir. But she said you had to come now’
'Why?' Brunetti asked. 'She said they killed Poppi.'
17
The name galvanized Brunetti. Forcing his voice to remain calm, he asked Alvise, 'Did she say where she was calling from?'
‘I don't remember, sir,' Alvise said, confused that his superior should ask for such a detail in the face of such an urgent message.
'What, exactly, did she say, Alvise?' Brunetti asked.
At the new tone in his superior's voice, Alvise released his hold on the door jamb and stood up straighter. With an effort that was visible in his face, he recalled the conversation. 'The call got transferred to the switchboard when you didn't answer, sir, and Russo thought you might be with Vianello, so he transferred the call to our office, and I picked it up.'
Once again wanting to hit the person in front of him, Brunetti said only, 'Go on.'
'It was a woman and she was crying, I think, sir. She kept asking to talk to you, and when I said I'd find you, she said to tell you to come now because they killed Poppi.'
'Did she say anything else, Alvise?' Brunetti asked with iron calm.
As if being asked to recall a conversation that had taken place some weeks before, Alvise closed his eyes for a moment, opened them and stared at the floor, then said, 'Only that she just got there and found her. Poppi, I suppose.'
'Did she say where she was, Alvise?' he repeated, voice tight.
'No, sir,' the officer insisted. 'She said only that she just got back from lunch, and she was there.'
Brunetti relaxed his hands, which were clenched into tight fists at his sides, and told the officer, 'You can go now, Alvise.' Turning back to Vianello and Signorina Elettra and ignoring the sound of Alvise's departure, Brunetti said, 'Find out where she lives. Vianello, you go over and see if she's there. I'll go to the office.'
'And if she is, sir?' Vianello asked.
'Find out who 'they' are and why she thinks they killed the dog.'
Brunetti turned away and was out of the office even before Signorina Elettra reached for the phone book. Checking that his
By the time he got to the end of Salizada S. Lorenzo, his shirt and jacket were clinging to his back and his collar was sodden with sweat. When he left the protective shadows of the
He hurried down the last broad bridge and turned into Via Garibaldi. The sun had driven almost everyone indoors: even the shade under the umbrellas of the bars that lined the street was empty as people waited for the sun to move westward and put at least one side of the street in the shade.
The outside door was open so he ran up the steps to her office. In front of the door there was a puddle of slimy yellow liquid that could have been vomit. Stepping over it, he pounded on the door with his fist and shouted, 'Signora, it's me. Brunetti.' He tried the handle and found the door open. He stepped inside, shouting out again, 'I'm here, Signora. Brunetti.' He registered a faint, sour smell, and saw more signs of the yellow liquid, this time splashed on the wall to the left of the secretary's desk and puddled on the floor below.
He thought he heard some faint noise from behind the door of her office. Not even thinking of his pistol, which was in a locked drawer in his desk, Brunetti crossed the room and opened the door to Marieschi's office.
The lawyer sat at her desk, her left hand cupped over her mouth as if to stifle a cry of panic at the sight of the opening door. He thought she recognized him, if only because the terror in her eyes diminished, but her hand remained firmly clasped over her mouth.
Brunetti said nothing but cast his eyes around the room. And saw the dog, lying on the floor a bit to the left of the desk. The entire area around her was splashed with the same stinking yellow mess. Poppi's jaws were open, her tongue extended beyond the limits of the possible. Jaws and tongue were covered with a thick whitish froth; in death one liquid eye looked up at her mistress as if in accusation or appeal.
The sudden chill that came over Brunetti was caused as much by the knowledge of what he had to do as by the air conditioning in the room. Decades ago, when he had been told always to strike a witness at the moment of greatest weakness, it had been easy to write it down as a rule; it was the practice that was difficult.
He drew closer to her desk, paused a moment, then extended a hand to the silent woman. ‘I think you'd better come with me, Signora,' he said, moving no closer and keeping his voice calm.
Hand still pressed to her mouth, she shook the idea away.
'There's nothing you can do for her now,' he said, making no attempt to disguise the sorrow he felt at the ending of such beauty. 'Come out into the other room now. I think it would be better.'
Keeping her eyes away from the body of the dog, she said, 'I don't want to leave her alone’
'It's all right, Signora’ he assured her, having no idea at all what he meant by that. He made a small summoning gesture with the fingers of his hand, and said, 'Come on. It's all right.'
She took her hand from her mouth and placed it squarely on her desk, put the other beside it and pushed herself to her feet like a woman twice her age. Not looking at the dead dog, she came around to the other side of the desk, towards Brunetti. When she reached him, he took her arm and led her from the room, careful to close the door behind them.
He pulled the secretary's chair from her desk and, placing it so that it faced away from the splashed liquid, helped the lawyer into it. He took one of the other chairs and placed it about a metre from hers, facing her, and sat down.
'Can you tell me about it, Signora?' She said nothing. 'Tell me what happened.'
Signora Marieschi started to cry. She did so softly, the only sign being her tightened lips and the tears spilling from her eyes. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was surprisingly calm, as if she were speaking about things that had happened somewhere else or to other people. 'She was only two. Still a puppy, really. She loved everyone.'
It's in the breed, I think’ Brunetti agreed, 'to love everyone’
'And she trusted everyone, so anyone could have given it to her’
'Do you mean poisoned her?' Brunetti asked.
She nodded. Before he could ask how this could happen, she said, 'There's a garden out in the back, and I leave her there all day, even when I go to lunch. Everyone knows that.'
'Everyone in the neighbourhood or all of your clients?' he asked.
She ignored the question and said, 'When I got back, I went to get her to bring her up here. But I could tell when I saw her. There was… there was vomit all over the grass, and she couldn't walk. I had to carry her up here’ She looked around the office, saw the stain on the wall but appeared not to notice those on her skirt nor the one on her left shoe, and said, ‘I put her down in here, and then she was sick again. So I took her inside and tried to call the vet, but he wasn't there. But then she got sick again. And then she was dead.' Neither of them spoke until Signora Marieschi said, 'So I called you. But you weren't there, either.' She said it so that he would sense the same futile reproach she felt towards the vet.
Ignoring her tone, Brunetti said, leaning slightly towards her, 'The officer who gave me the message said you said someone killed her, Signora. Can you tell me who you think did it?'
She clasped her hands together and, leaning forward, pushed them between her knees. He saw only the top of her head and her shoulders.
Both of them remained like that for a long time.
When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Brunetti had to lean even closer to her to hear what she said. 'Her
