A Venetian Reckoning Part 6

She glanced across at him, looking for approval, and he smiled at her, though this wasn't much more than what she had told them at lunch.

'I already knew this, so I figured I better go talk to someone at the school where she is now. That's why I had to take the afternoon off, so I'd be sure to find her.' He nodded. 'This girl told me that Francesca had a boyfriend. No, Papa, a real one. They're lovers and all'

'Did she say who the boyfriend was?'

'No, she said Francesca wouldn't ever tell her his name, but she said he was older, in his twenties. Francesca said she wanted to run away with him, but he wouldn't do it, not till she was older.'

'Did the girl say why Francesca wanted to run away?'

'Well, not in so many words, but she had the feeling it was her mother, that she and Francesca fought a lot, and that was why Francesca wanted to run away' 'What about her father?'

'Oh, Francesca liked him a lot, said he was very good to her, only she never saw him much because he was always so busy.'

'Francesca has a brother, hasn't she?'

'Yes, Claudio, but he's away in school in Switzerland That's why I talked to the teacher. She used to teach in the middle school where he went, before he went to Switzerland, and I thought I could get her to tell me something about him.'

'And did you?'

'Oh, sure. I told her I was Francesca's best friend and how worried Francesca was that Claudio was going to be upset about their fathers death, being in Switzerland and all. I said I knew him, too; I even let her believe I had a crush on him.' She paused here and shook her head 'Yuck, everybody, but everybody, says Claudio is a real creep, but she believed me.'

'What did you ask her?'

'I said Francesca wanted to know if the teacher could suggest how she should behave with Claudia' When she saw Brunetti's surprise, Chiara added, 'Yes, I know it's stupid, and no one would ever ask that, but you know how teachers are, always wanting to tell you what to do with your life and how you should behave.' 'Did the teacher believe you?' 'Of course,' Chiara responded seriously. Half joking, Brunetti said, 'You must be a good liar.' 'I am. Very good Mamma's always believed it's something we should learn to do well.' She didn't bother to look at Brunetti when she said this and continued, "The teacher said that Francesca should bear in mind - that was her expression, "bear in mind", - that Claudio had always been fonder of his father than his mother, so this time would be very difficult for him.' She twisted up her face in disgust 'Big deal, huh? I went halfway across the city to get that And it took her a half-hour to tell me.'

'What did the other people tell you?'

'Luciana - I had to go all the way down to Castello to see her - she told me that Francesca really hates her mother, said that she was always pushing her father around, telling him what to do. She doesn't like her uncle much, either, says he thinks he's the boss of the family'

'Pushing him around in what way?'

'She didn't know. But that's what Francesca told her, that her father always did what her mother said.' Before Brunetti could make a joke of this, Chiara added, it's not like with you and Mamma. She always tells you what to do, but you just agree with her and then do what you want to, anyway' She glanced up at the clock on the wall and asked, 'Where do you think Mamma is? It's almost seven. What'll we do for dinner?' The second question, clearly, was the one with which Chiara was most concerned.

'Probably kept at the university, telling some student what to do with his life.' Before Chiara could decide whether to laugh or not Brunetti suggested, 'If that's all the detecting you have to report to me, why don't we start getting dinner ready? That way. Mamma can come home and find dinner ready for a change.'

'But how much is it worth?' Chiara wheedled.

Brunetti considered this for a moment. 'I'd guess about thirty thousand,' he finally answered. Since it was to come out of his pocket, that's all it would be, though the information she'd given him about Signora Trevisan's pushing her husband around, should it prove true and should it apply to his professional life, might be worth inestimably more than that.

11.

The following day, the Gazzettino Gazzettino carried a front page article about the suicide of Rino Favero, one of the most successful accountants in the Veneto Region. Favero, it was reported, had chosen to drive his Rover into the two-car garage beneath his house, close the door of the garage, and leave the engine running, himself quietly stretched across the front seat. It was further stated that Favero's name was about to be revealed in the expanding scandal that was currently playing itself out in the corridors of the Ministry of Health. Though, by now, all of Italy was familiar with the accusation that the former Minister of Health had accepted immense bribes from various pharmaceutical companies and in return had allowed them to raise the prices of the medicines they manufactured, it was not common knowledge that Favero had been the accountant who handled the private finances of the president of the largest of these firms. Those who did know a.s.sumed that he had decided to imitate so many of the men named in this ever-spreading web of corruption; had chosen to preserve his honour by removing himself from accusation, guilt, and possible punishment. Few carried a front page article about the suicide of Rino Favero, one of the most successful accountants in the Veneto Region. Favero, it was reported, had chosen to drive his Rover into the two-car garage beneath his house, close the door of the garage, and leave the engine running, himself quietly stretched across the front seat. It was further stated that Favero's name was about to be revealed in the expanding scandal that was currently playing itself out in the corridors of the Ministry of Health. Though, by now, all of Italy was familiar with the accusation that the former Minister of Health had accepted immense bribes from various pharmaceutical companies and in return had allowed them to raise the prices of the medicines they manufactured, it was not common knowledge that Favero had been the accountant who handled the private finances of the president of the largest of these firms. Those who did know a.s.sumed that he had decided to imitate so many of the men named in this ever-spreading web of corruption; had chosen to preserve his honour by removing himself from accusation, guilt, and possible punishment. Few seemed to question the proposition that honour was preserved in this manner.

The Padua police did not concern themselves with such speculation as to motive, for the autopsy performed on Favero's body revealed that, at the time of his death, his blood contained a sufficient quant.i.ty of barbiturate to make driving, let alone driving into his garage and closing the door, impossible. It was possible that he had taken the pills after pulling into the garage. Why, then, was no bottle or package found in the car, and why were no barbiturates of any sort found in the house? Subsequent microscopic examination of Favero's pockets revealed that none of them contained the least trace of barbiturate. None of this information, however, was given to the press, and so Favero's death remained, at least in the popular consciousness, a suicide.

Three days after Favero's death, which would make it five days after Trevisan's murder, Brunetti arrived at his office to hear the phone ringing.

'Brunetti,' he answered, holding the phone with one hand and unb.u.t.toning his raincoat with the other.

'Commissario Brunetti, this is Capitano della Corte of the Padua police.' Brunetti recognized the name, vaguely, and with the sense that whatever he had heard about della Corte in the past had been to the man's favour.

'Good morning, captain, what can I do for you?'

'You can tell me if Rino Favero's name has come up in your investigation of the murder you had on the train.'

'Favero? The man who committed suicide?'

'Suicide?' della Corte asked. 'With four milligrams of Roipnal in his blood?'

Brunetti was immediately alert 'What's the connection with Trevisan?' he asked.

'We don't know. But we ran a trace on all the numbers we found in his address book. That is, on all the numbers that were listed without names. Trevisan's was one of them.'

'Have you got the records yet?' Neither of them had to clarify that Brunetti meant the record of all of the calls made from Favero's phone.

'There's no record that he called either Trevisan's office or his home, at least not from his own phones.'

'Then why would he have the number?' Brunetti asked.

"That's exactly what we were wondering.' Della Corte's tone was dry.

'How many other numbers were listed without names?'

'Eight. One is the phone in a bar in Mestre. One is a public phone in Padua railway station. And the rest don't exist'

'What do you mean, they don't exist?'

'That they don't exist as possible numbers anywhere in the Veneto.'

'Are you checking it for other cities, other provinces?'

'We did that. Either they've got too many digits or they don't correspond to any numbers in this country.' 'Foreign?'

They've got to be.'

'No indication of country code?'

'Two look like they're in Eastern Europe, and two could be in either Ecuador or Thailand, and don't ask me how the guys who told me know this. They're still working on the others,' della Corte answered. 'And he never called any of those numbers from either of his phones, either the foreign ones or the ones here in the Veneto.'

'But he had them,' Brunetti said. 'Yes, he had them.'

'He could easily call from a public phone,' Brunetti suggested.

'I know, I know.'

'What about other international calls? Any country he called often?'

'He called a lot of countries often.'

'International clients?' Brunetti asked.

'Some of the calls were to clients, yes. But a lot of them don't correspond to anyone he worked for.'

'What countries?' Brunetti asked.

'Austria, the Netherlands, and the Dominican Republic,' della Corte began, then added, 'Wait and I'll get the list.' The phone clunked down, Brunetti heard the rustle of papers, and then della Cortes voice returned. 'And Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.'

'How often did he call?'

'Some of them twice a week.'

'The same number or numbers?'

'Often, but not always.'

'You trace them?'

The Austrian number is listed as a travel agency in Vienna.'

'And the others?'

'Commissario, I don't know how familiar you are with Eastern Europe, but they don't even have phone books, let alone an operator who can tell you who a number belongs to.'

'The police?'

Delia Corte let out a snort of contempt. 'Have you called the numbers?' Brunetti asked. 'Yes. No one answers.' 'None of them?' 'None of them.'

'What about the phone in the railway station and the bar?' Brunetti asked.

As an answer, he got another of those snorts, but then della Corte explained. 'I was lucky to get permission to trace the numbers.' Delia Corte paused a long time, and Brunetti waited for the request he knew was coming. 'I thought that, as you're so much closer, you might be able to get someone to keep an eye on the phone in the bar.'

'Where is it?' Brunetti asked, taking a pen from his desk but being very careful not to promise anything.

'Does that mean you'll send someone?' ' 'I'll try,' Brunetti answered, the best he could do. *Where is it?'

'All I have is a name and address. I don't know Mestre well enough to know where it is.' As far as Brunetti was concerned, Mestre was not a city worth knowing well enough to know where anything was.

'It's called Bar Pinetta. Via f.a.gare, number 16. You know where it is?' della Corte asked.

'Via f.a.gare's somewhere around the railway station, I think. But I've never heard of the bar.' Having agreed, sort of, to help with this, Brunetti thought he could ask for some information in return. 'Have you got any idea how they might be connected?'

'You know about the pharmaceuticals?' della Corte asked.

'Who doesn't?' Brunetti asked by way of answer. 'You think they might both be mixed up in that?'

Instead of answering directly, della Corte said, it's a possibility. But we want to start by checking all of his clients. He worked for a lot of people in the Veheto.'

'The right kind of people?'

'The very best kind of people. In the last couple of years, he'd begun to call himself a "consultant" instead of just an accountant.'

'Was he good?'

'He's said to have been the best.'

'Good enough to figure out the tax form then,' Brunetti suggested, hoping with the joke to create more fellow feeling with della Corte. All Italians, he knew, were united in their loathing of the tax office, but this year, with a tax form that numbered thirty-two pages and which the Minister of Finance had confessed himself unable to understand or complete, that loathing had reached new intensity.

Della Corte's muttered obscenity, though it certainly made clear his feelings about the tax office, did not speak over much of fellow feeling. 'Yes, it seems he was good enough even for that. I tell you, his list of clients would make most accountants sick with envy.'

'Did it include Medi-tech?' Brunetti asked, naming the largest of the companies embroiled in the current price-fixing scandal.

'No. It looks like he didn't have anything to do with their work for the Ministry. And his work for the Minister appears to have been entirely private, that is, on his personal income.'

'He wasn't involved in the scandal?' Brunetti asked, finding this even more interesting.

'Not that we can see.'

'Any other possible motive for.. .' Brunetti paused for a moment, then found the right word, 'For his death?'

Delia Corte paused a moment before answering. 'We haven't turned up anything. He was married, thirty-seven years, apparently happily. Four children, all of them university graduates, and none of them, from what we can see, any cause of trouble.'

'Murder, then?'

'Most probably.'

'You going to give it to the press?'

'No, not until we have something else to tell them or unless one of them finds out about the coroner's report,' answered della Corte, making it sound like he would be able to prevent that from happening for some time.

'And when they find out?' Brunetti was leery of the press and its many violences upon the truth.

'I'll worry about that when it happens,' della Corte said brusquely. 'Will you let me know if you find out anything about that bar?'

'Certainly. Can I call you at the Questura?'

Delia Corte gave him the direct number to his office. 'And, Brunetti, if you find anything, don't give the information to anyone else who might answer my phone, all right?'

'Of course,' Brunetti agreed, though he found the request strange.

'And I'll call you if Trevisan's name comes up again. See if you can find out any way they might have been connected. A phone number isn't all that much.'