Death in a Strange Country (27 page)

‘Is this possible, Guido?’

He shook his head. No, an
overdose was impossible, but she was dead; the paper gave proof of that.

‘What will you do?’

He looked off towards the
bell tower of San Polo, the closest church. He had no idea. Patta would see
this as an unrelated event or, if related, either an unfortunate accident or,
at worst, a suicide. Since only Brunetti knew she had destroyed the postcard
from Cairo, and only he had seen her reaction to the body of her lover, there
was nothing to link the two of them together as anything other than colleagues,
and that surely was no reason for suicide. Drugs and alcohol, and a woman
living alone; that was enough to tell how the Press would treat this one -
unless, unless the same sort of call that Brunetti was sure had been made to
Patta were to be made to editors’ offices. In that case, the story would die a
quick death, as many stories did. As Doctor Peters had.

‘I don’t know,’ he said,
finally answering Paola’s question. ‘Patta’s warned me off, told me not to go
back to Vicenza.’

‘But certainly this
changes things.’

‘Not for Patta. It’s an
overdose. The Carabinieri and the American military police will handle it. They’ll
do an autopsy, then they’ll send her body back to America.’

‘Just like the other one,’
Paola said, giving voice to his thoughts. ‘Why kill them both?’
     
             

Brunetti shook his head. ‘I
have no idea.’ But he knew. She had been silenced. Her casual remark
 that
she wasn’t interested in
drugs had not been a lie: the idea of an overdose was ludicrous. She’d been
killed because of whatever she knew about
 
Foster, because of whatever it was
that had sent
her careening across the room, away from her lover’s body.
Killed by drugs. He wondered if that
was meant to be a message to him
but dismissed
the idea as vainglorious. Whoever had killed her
hadn’t
had enough time to arrange an accident,
 
and a second murder would have been
too
obvious, a suicide unexplained and therefore suspicious. So an
accidental overdose was the perfect solution: she did it to herself, nowhere
else to look, another dead end. And Brunetti didn’t even know if it was she who
had called to say,
‘Basta’.

Paola came closer to him
and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Guido. Sorry for her.’

‘She couldn’t have been
thirty yet,’ he said. ‘All those years in school, all that work.’ It seemed to
him that her death would have been less unfair if she had had time for more
fun. ‘I hope her family doesn’t believe it.’

Paola spoke his thoughts.
‘If the police and the Army tell you something, you’re likely to believe it.
And I’m sure it looked very real, very convincing.’

‘Poor people,’ he said.

‘Could you...’ she broke
off, remembering that Patta had told him to stay clear of this.

‘If I can. It’s bad
enough that she’s dead. They don’t need to believe this.’

‘That she was murdered
isn’t going to be any better,’ Paola said.

‘At least she didn’t do that.’

Both of them stayed there
in the late autumn sunshine, thinking about parents and being a parent, and
what parents want and need to know about their children. He had no idea which
would be better, worse. At least, if you knew that your child had been
murdered, your life would have the grim hope of someday being able to kill the
person who had done it, but that hardly seemed any sort of consolation.

‘I should have called
her.’

‘Guido,’ she said, voice
growing firm. ‘Don’t start that. Because all it means is that you should have
been a mind-reader. And you’re not. So don’t even start thinking that.’ He was
surprised by the real anger in her voice.

He wrapped an arm around
her waist and pulled her closer to him. They remained like that, without
speaking, until the bells of San Marco boomed out ten o’clock.

‘What are you going to
do? Will you go to Vicenza?’

‘No, not yet. I’m going
to wait.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Whatever they knew, they
knew because of where they worked. It’s the link they had. There have got to be
other people who know or suspect or have access to what they learned. So I’m
going to wait.’

‘Guido, now you’re asking
other people to be mind-readers. How are they going to know to come to you?’

‘I’ll go out there, but
not for a week, and then I’ll make myself conspicuous. Speak to that major, to
the sergeant who worked with them, to other doctors. It’s a small world there.
People will talk to one another; they’ll know something.’ And to hell with Patta.

‘Let’s forget Burano, all
right, Guido?’

He nodded then got to his
feet. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk. I’ll be back for lunch,’ He squeezed her
arm. ‘I just need to walk.’ He glanced out over the rooftops of the city. How
strange; the glory of the day was undiminished. Sparrows swooped and played tag
with one another almost within his grasp, chirping for the joy of flight. And off
in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of
San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening
benediction.

* *
* *

16

On Monday morning, he went into his office at the
regular time and stood looking at the façade of the church of San Lorenzo for
more than an hour. During that entire time, he saw no sign of motion or
activity, neither on the scaffolding nor on the roof, which was stacked with
neat rows of terracotta tiles. Twice he heard people come into his office, but
when they didn’t speak to him, he didn’t bother to turn around, and they left,
presumably after having placed things on his desk.

At ten-thirty, his phone
rang, and he turned away from the window to answer it.

‘Good morning, Commissario.
This is Maggiore Ambrogiani.’

‘Good morning, Maggiore.
I’m glad you called. In fact, I was going to call you this afternoon.’

‘They did it this morning.’
Ambrogiani said with no prelude.

‘And?’ Brunetti asked,
knowing what he meant.

‘It was an overdose of
heroin, enough to kill someone twice her size.’

‘Who did the autopsy?’

‘Doctor Franceso Urbani.
One of ours.’

‘Where?’

‘Here at the hospital in
Vicenza.

‘Were any of the
Americans present?’

‘They sent one of their
doctors. Sent him down from Germany. A colonel, this doctor.’

‘Did he assist or only
observe?’

‘He merely observed the
autopsy.’

‘Who’s Urbani?’

‘Our pathologist.’

‘Reliable?’

‘Very.’

Aware of the potential
ambiguity of the last question, Brunetti rephrased it. ‘Believable?’

‘Yes.’

‘So that means it was
really an overdose?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it does.’

‘What else did he find?’

‘Urbani?’

‘Yes.’

‘There were no signs of
violence in the apartment. There were no sign of prior drug use, but there was
a bruise on her upper right arm and one on her left wrist. It was suggested to
Doctor Urbani that these bruises were consistent with a fall.’

‘Who made that
suggestion?’

The length of the pause
before Ambrogiani answered was probably meant as a reproach to Brunetti’s even
having to ask. ‘The American doctor. The colonel.’

‘And what was Doctor
Urbani’s opinion?’

‘That the marks are not
inconsistent with a fall.’

‘Any other needle marks?’

‘No, none.’

‘So she overdosed the
first time she did it?’

‘Strange coincidence, isn’t
it?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Did you know her?’

‘No, I didn’t. But one of
my men works with an American policeman whose son was her patient. He said she
was very good with the little boy. He broke his arm last year and got bad
treatment at the beginning. Doctors and nurses rushed, too busy to tell him
what they were doing; you know the story, so he was afraid of doctors, afraid
they’d hurt him again. She was very kind with him, spent a lot of time. It
seems she always made sure to schedule a double appointment for the boy, so she
wouldn’t have to rush him.’

‘That doesn’t mean she
didn’t use drugs, Maggiore,’ Brunetti said, trying to make it sound like he
believed it.

‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’
Ambrogiani agreed.

‘What else did the report
say?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t
seen a copy of it.’

‘Then how do you know
what you’ve told me?’

‘I called Urbani.’

‘Why?’

‘Dottor Brunetti. An
American soldier was murdered in Venice. Less than a week later, his commanding
officer dies under mysterious circumstances. I’d be a fool if I didn’t suspect
some sort of connection between the two events.’

‘When will you have a
copy of the autopsy report?’

‘Probably this afternoon.
Would you like me to call you?’

‘Yes. I’d appreciate
that, Maggiore.’

‘Is there anything you think
I should know?’ Ambrogiani asked.

Ambrogiani was there, in
daily contact with the Americans. Anything Brunetti told him was sure to become
a fair trade. ‘They were lovers, and she was very frightened when she saw his
body.’

‘Saw his body?’

‘Yes. She was sent to
identify his body.’

Ambrogiani’s silence
suggested that he, too, saw this as a particularly subtle touch. ‘Did you speak
to her after it?’ he finally asked.

‘Yes and no. I came back
to the city on the boat with her, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It
seemed to me at the time that she was afraid of something. She had the same
reaction when I saw her out there.’

‘Was that when you came
out here?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘Yes. Friday.’

‘Do you have any idea
what she was afraid of?’
 
                     
                     
   

‘No. None. She might have
tried to call me here on Friday night. There was a phone message here at the
Questura, from a woman who didn’t speak Italian. The operator who took the call
doesn’t speak English and all he could understand was that she said,
‘Basta.’

‘Do you think it was she?’

‘It could have been. I’ve
no idea. But the message makes no sense.’ Brunetti thought of Patta’s order and
asked, ‘What’s going to happen out there?’

‘Their military police
are going to try to find out where she got the heroin. There were other signs
of drugs found with her, the ends of marijuana cigarettes, some hashish. And
the autopsy showed that she had been drinking.’