Through a Glass Darkly (30 page)

‘The dawn of justice in our fair city,' Pelusso said in a portentous voice.

Brunetti made a rude noise and replaced the phone. He dialled Signorina Elettra's number and, when she answered, asked, ‘Your friend Giorgio still work at Telecom?'

‘Yes, he does,' she said but then added, ‘Of course, it's no longer necessary for me to consult him.'

‘Don't tease me today, please, Signorina,' Brunetti said, heard how that sounded, and quickly added, ‘by suggesting that you've suddenly taken to using the official channels to obtain information.'

If she heard the gear shift in his voice, she
chose to ignore it and said, ‘No, Commissario. It's that I've found a more direct way to access their information.'

So much for using official channels, Brunetti thought. The gypsy children were not the only recidivists in the city. ‘You've got Tassini's home number. I'd like you to get numbers for Fasano and De Cal: home, office,
telefonini
. And I'd like you to check for calls between any two of them,' he said, wondering why he had not thought to do this before. Though never saying so directly, Fasano had certainly made it sound as if he knew little more about Tassini than that he was working off the books and had a handicapped daughter, nothing more than what everyone at the factory would know.

‘Of course,' she said.

‘How long will it take?' he asked, hoping he might have the information the following morning.

‘Oh, I'll bring it up in fifteen minutes or so, Commissario,' she answered.

‘Much faster than Giorgio,' Brunetti said in open admiration.

‘Yes, that's true. I'm afraid his heart wasn't in it,' she said and was gone.

It took closer to twenty minutes, but when she came in she was smiling. ‘De Cal and Fasano seem to be quite good friends,' she began, putting some papers on his desk. ‘But I won't spoil it for you, Commissario. I'll leave you to read through the lists,' she said, adding more
paper. He looked at the numbers and times on the first sheet, and when he glanced up, she had gone.

Indeed, De Cal and Fasano had spoken to one another with some frequency during the last three months: there were at least twelve calls, most of them made by Fasano. He looked at Tassini's number: during the years of his employment by De Cal, he had called the factory seven times. No call had been made to him either from De Cal's office or from his home.

With Fasano, however, the case was rather different. Tassini had been working there only two months when he died, yet the records from his home phone showed that he had called Fasano's
telefonino
six times, and the factory twice. Fasano, for his part, had called Tassini at home once ten days before he died and once on the day before. In addition, at 11.34 of the night Tassini died, Fasano's
telefonino
showed a call to the De Cal factory.

Brunetti pulled out the Yellow Pages and looked under
Idraulici
, then dialled the number for Adil-San. When the young woman with the pleasant smile answered, Brunetti gave his name and asked if he could speak to her father.

After a bit of music and a few clicks, Brunetti heard Repeta say, ‘Good afternoon, Commissario. How can I help you now?'

‘One quick question, Signor Repeta,' Brunetti said, seeing no reason to waste time in a formal exchange of pleasantries. ‘When I was over at
your office, I didn't ask enough about the procedure when you empty the tanks.'

‘What is it you'd like to know, Commissario?'

‘When you do it, how do you empty the tanks?'

‘I'm not sure I understand your question,' Repeta said.

‘Do you empty them completely?' Brunetti explained: ‘So that you can see inside them, that is.'

‘I'd have to look at their bill,' Repeta said, then quickly explained: ‘I don't know what system we use with each of the clients, but if I look at the bill, the costs are detailed, so I'll know exactly what we did.' He paused a moment and then asked, ‘Would you like me to call you back?'

‘No, that's all right,' Brunetti said. ‘Now that I've got you on the line, I'd rather wait.'

‘All right. It should take only a few minutes.'

Brunetti heard a clack as Repeta set the receiver down, then footsteps, then a rough noise that could have been a door or drawer opening. And then silence. Brunetti gazed out of his window at the sky, studying the clouds and thinking about the weather. He tried to force his mind into a straight line, thinking of nothing but the clear sky and the coming and going of clouds.

The footsteps returned, and then Repeta said, ‘From what I see on the invoice, all we do is pick up the barrels of sludge. That means they clean out the tanks themselves.'

‘Is this normal?' Brunetti asked.

‘Do you mean do the other
vetrerie
do it this way?'

‘Yes.'

‘Some do. Some don't. I'd guess about two-thirds of them opt to have us clean out the tanks.'

‘Another last question,' Brunetti said, and before Repeta could agree to answer it, he asked, ‘Do you service De Cal's factory?'

‘That old bastard?' Repeta asked without humour.

‘Yes.'

‘We did until about three years ago.'

‘What happened?'

‘He didn't pay for two pick-ups, and then when I called him, he said I'd have to wait to be paid.'

‘And so?'

‘And so we stopped going there.'

‘Did you try to get your money?' Brunetti asked.

‘And do what, bring charges against him and spend ten years in the courts?' Repeta asked, still without any sign of humour.

‘Do you know who makes the pick-ups now?' Brunetti asked.

Repeta hesitated, but then said ‘No', and hung up.

THE EXPECTED SUMMONS
came at eleven the next morning, by which time Brunetti had read the article –which did not carry Pelusso's byline – three times. An organization in the city administration, it stated, alerted to a case of illegal dumping at a glass factory on Murano, was about to open an investigation. There followed a catalogue of the various inquiries already being conducted by the Magistrato alle Acque, thus leaving no doubt in any reader's mind – though without saying so – that this was the office involved. Because the cases cited all involved the dumping of toxic materials, the reader again was led to believe that the same was true this time. The final paragraph stated that the police, already conducting an
investigation into a suspicious death, were also involved.

‘The Vice-Questore would like to see you,' Signorina Elettra said when she called his office. Nothing more, a sure sign of trouble at hand.

‘I'll be right down,' he said, deciding to take with him the folder into which he had put all of the information he had accumulated since first being sucked into the wake of Giorgio Tassini.

Patta's door was open when he got there, so Brunetti could do no more than smile at Signorina Elettra, who surprised him by holding up her right hand, fingers lifted in a wide V.
Vittoria?
Brunetti wondered. More likely
vittima
. Equally possible,
vendetta
.

‘Shut the door, Brunetti,' Patta said in greeting.

He did as he was told and went and sat, unasked, in the chair in front of Patta's desk. How like being back at school this always was, Brunetti reflected.

‘This article,' Patta said, tapping a well-manicured forefinger on the first page of the second section of the
Gazzettino
. ‘Is it yours?'

What could Patta do to him? Expel him? Send him home to get a note from his parents? His father was dead, and his mother was an empty shell, her mind filled with the tiny filaments of Alzheimer's. No one to write a note for Guido.

‘If you mean in the sense that I'm responsible for it,' Brunetti said, suddenly tired, ‘yes.'

Patta was obviously taken aback by Brunetti's response. He drew the newspaper
towards him and, forgetting to put on the reading glasses he kept on his desk for effect, read through it again. ‘Fasano, I assume?' he asked.

‘He seems to be involved,' Brunetti said.

‘In what?' Patta asked with real curiosity.

It took Brunetti almost half an hour to explain, starting with his trip to Mestre to speak on Marco Ribetti's behalf – he left Patta to conclude that they were old friends – and finishing with the phone records and a drawing of the sedimentation tanks in Fasano's factory.

‘You think Fasano killed him?' Patta asked when Brunetti finished.

Becoming evasive, Brunetti answered, ‘I think a case could be made from what I've just told you that he did.'

Patta sighed. ‘That's not what I asked you, Brunetti: do you think he killed him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why not the other one, what's his name?' he asked, looking down at the papers and shifting them around until he found it. ‘De Cal?'

‘He had no contact with Tassini,' Brunetti said, ‘other than as his employer, and he barely knew who he was.'

‘What else?' Patta asked.

‘What would it cost him to be convicted of environmental pollution? A fine? A few thousand Euros? Besides, he's a sick man; no judge is going to send him to jail. He has nothing to lose.'

‘Not like Fasano, eh?' Patta asked with what sounded to Brunetti like satisfaction.

Brunetti was uncertain whether Patta referred to the fact that Fasano had a lot to lose or that he was a healthy man. ‘He does have everything to lose. He's President of the glassmakers on Murano, but I've been told that's just a stepping-stone,' Brunetti said.

Patta nodded. ‘And where do you think he intends to go?'

‘Who knows? First higher in the city, as mayor, and then Europe, as a deputy. It's the path they usually take. Or perhaps he'll do both, and continue to run the factory, as well.' Brunetti turned his thoughts away from the shoals of politicians who managed to hold two, three, even four full-time jobs. ‘He's hitched himself to the environmental movement, but he's still a businessman interested in making a profit. What better combination for our times?' Brunetti asked, thinking it was unusual for him to speak so openly to Patta, of all people.

Patta looked at the papers again. ‘You mentioned samples. Sent to Bocchese. Have you got his results yet?'

‘I called when I got in, but the tests weren't finished,' Brunetti said.

Patta took his phone and asked Signorina Elettra to connect him with the laboratory. Almost at once Patta said, ‘Good morning, Bocchese. Yes, it's me. I'm calling for Commissario Brunetti, about those samples he sent you.'

Patta looked over at Brunetti, his face as smooth as he tried to make his voice. After a
moment, he said, ‘Excuse me? Yes, he is.' Patta's eyes took on a stunned look, as though perhaps Bocchese had told him the samples contained plague or botulism. ‘Yes,' he repeated, ‘he is. One moment.' He held the phone across his desk, saying, ‘He wants to talk to you.'

‘Good morning, Bocchese,' Brunetti said.

‘Is it all right if I tell him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Pass me back, then,' Bocchese said.

Expressionless, Brunetti handed the phone back to Patta.

Patta put it to his ear again, and said, ‘Well?' making his voice brusque and authoritative. Brunetti could hear Bocchese's voice, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. Patta pulled a sheet of paper towards him and started to write. ‘Say that again, please,' he said.

As Brunetti watched, the letters started to appear upside down: ‘Manganese, arsenic, cadmium, potassium, lead.' More followed below, all sounding harmful, if not lethal.

Patta set the pen down and listened for some time. ‘Above the limits?' Bocchese answered this at some length, and then Patta said, ‘Thank you, Bocchese,' and hung up. He turned the paper so that Brunetti could more easily read it. ‘Quite a cocktail,' he said.

‘What was Bocchese's answer when you asked if they were above the limits?' Brunetti asked.

‘He said he'd have to go out there to take a larger sample, but that, if this is an indication, then the place is dangerous.'

Brunetti knew that was a relative term. Dangerous to whom, to what sort of creature, and after how long an exposure? But he had no desire to jeopardize his truce with Patta, so he said only, ‘He'll need a judge to authorize him to go out and take samples.'

‘I know that,' Patta snapped.

Brunetti said nothing.

Patta reached over and tapped the newspaper again. ‘Then this is all lies? There's no investigation?'

‘No.'

He watched Patta weigh this information. Brunetti's answer had destroyed Patta's hopes of following in the wake of some other investigation, leaving the Vice-Questore no choice but to be a shark and not a scavenger. He looked at Brunetti, placed his open palm on the papers Brunetti had shown him, and asked, ‘You think you've got enough to link him to this dumping?'

The dumping, Brunetti knew, could have served as a motive for Fasano to eliminate Tassini. Prove that it had been going on and that Tassini knew about it, and there was a chance that they would find some other link between Fasano and Tassini, perhaps some physical evidence – perhaps someone who remembered seeing Fasano near the factory on the night Tassini died? Brunetti no sooner considered this possibility than he asked himself what could be considered strange about an owner's presence near his own factory? He decided to answer the
question as asked. ‘Yes. If he's not personally responsible, his factory is. Someone used that pipe, and perhaps three other pipes, to get rid of the sediment from the
molatura
.'

‘Just like in the good old days,' Patta said with no indication that he spoke ironically, then asked, ‘How much would this save him?'