Fatal Remedies Part 23

He went back to the desk of the officer whose phone he had used and, without bothering to ask permission, called Signorina Elettra again. As soon as she heard his voice, she told him the technician was already on the way to the Castelfranco morgue to take tissue samples, then asked him to give her a fax number. He put down the phone and went to the front desk, where he had the sergeant in charge write down the number. After giving it to Signorina Elettra, he remembered he had not called Paola that morning, so he dialled his home number. When no one answered, he left a message, saying that he was delayed in Castelfranco, but would be back later in the afternoon.

He sat down after that and lowered his head into his hands. A few minutes later he heard someone say, 'Excuse me, Commissario, but these just came in for you.'

He looked up and saw a young officer standing in front of the desk he had requisitioned. In his left hand he held the distinctive curling papers of a fax, quite a few of them.

Brunetti tried to smile at him and extended his hand to take the proffered papers. He set them on the desk and smoothed them as best he could with the edge of his hand. He read through the columns, glad to discover that Signorina Elettra had put an asterisk next to any call made between any of the numbers, then put the papers into three separate piles: Palmieri, Bonaventura, Mitri.

In the ten days before Mitri's murder, there had been repeated calls back and forth between Palmieri's telefonino telefonino and the Interfar phone, one of them lasting seven minutes. The day before the crime, at nine twenty-seven at night, a call was made from Bonaventura's home phone to Mitri's. This conversation went on for two minutes. On the night of the murder, at almost the same time, a call lasting fifteen seconds had been made from Mitri's phone to Bonaventura's. After that, there had been three from the factory to Palmieri's and the Interfar phone, one of them lasting seven minutes. The day before the crime, at nine twenty-seven at night, a call was made from Bonaventura's home phone to Mitri's. This conversation went on for two minutes. On the night of the murder, at almost the same time, a call lasting fifteen seconds had been made from Mitri's phone to Bonaventura's. After that, there had been three from the factory to Palmieri's telefonino telefonino and a number between Bonaventura's and Mitri's homes. and a number between Bonaventura's and Mitri's homes.

He stacked the papers and went back down the hall. When he was let into the small room where he had last talked to Bonaventura, he found him sitting opposite a dark-haired man who had a small leather briefcase on the table beside him and a notebook in matching leather open in front of him. He turned round and Brunetti recognized Piero Candiani, a criminal lawyer from Padova. Candiani wore rimless gla.s.ses; behind them Brunetti saw a pair of dark eyes which combined in startling fashion, particularly in a lawyer, both intelligence and candour.

Candiani got to his feet and extended his hand. 'Commissario Brunetti,' he acknowledged and shook hands.

'Avvocato.' Brunetti nodded in the direction of Bonaventura, who hadn't bothered to get to his feet.

Candiani pulled out the remaining chair and waited for Brunetti to sit before resuming his own. Without preamble he said, flicking a negligent hand towards the ceiling, 'I a.s.sume our conversation is now being recorded.'

'Yes,' Brunetti acknowledged. Then, to save time, he recited the date and time, and gave their three names in a loud voice.

'I understand you've already spoken to my client,' Candiani began.

'Yes. I asked him about certain shipments of medicines which Interfar has been making to foreign countries.'

'Is this about EEC regulations?' Candiani asked.

'No.'

'Then what?'

Brunetti glanced across at Bonaventura, who now sat with his legs crossed, one arm draped over the back of his chair.

'It's about shipments to Third World countries.'

Candiani wrote something in his notebook. Without raising his head he asked, 'And what interest do the police have in these shipments?'

'It would seem that many of them contained medicines which are no longer good. That is, they've expired or, in some cases, they contain useless substances which have been camouflaged to look like real medicines.'

'I see.' Candiani turned a page. 'And what evidence do you have in support of these accusations?'

'An accomplice.'

'Accomplice?' Candiani asked with barely disguised scepticism. 'And may I ask who this accomplice is?' The second time he p.r.o.nounced the word, he gave it the heavy emphasis of doubt.

'The foreman of the factory.'

Candiani glanced across at his client, and Bonaventura shrugged his shoulders in confusion or ignorance. He pressed his lips together and, with a quick flickering of his eyes, blinked away the possibility. 'And you'd like to ask Signor Bonaventura about this?'

'Yes.'

'Is that all you want?' Candiani glanced up from his notebook.

'No. I'd also like to ask Signor Bonaventura what he knows about the murder of his brother-in-law.'

At this, Bonaventura's expression progressed to something akin to astonishment, but still he didn't speak.

'Why?' Candiani's head was bent once more over his notebook.

'Because we've begun to examine the possibility that he might somehow be implicated in Signor Mitri's death.'

'Implicated how?'

'That's exactly what I'd like Signor Bonaventura to tell me,' Brunetti replied.

Candiani looked up and across at his client. 'Would you like to answer the Commissario's questions?'

'I'm not sure I could,' Bonaventura said, 'but certainly I'm perfectly willing to give him any help I can.'

Candiani turned towards Brunetti. 'If you'd like to question my client, then, Commissario, I suggest you do it.'

'I'd like to know', Brunetti began, addressing Bonaventura directly, 'what involvement you had with Ruggiero Palmieri or, as he was known when he worked for your company, Michele de Luca.'

'The driver?'

'Yes.'

'As I told you before, Commissario, I saw him occasionally around the factory. But he was only a driver. I might have spoken to him once or twice, but nothing more than that.' Bonaventura did not inquire why Brunetti had asked.

'So you didn't have any dealings with him beyond the occasional contact you had there at work?'

'No,' Bonaventura said. 'I told you: he was a driver.'

'You never gave him any money?' Brunetti asked, hoping that Bonaventura's fingerprints would turn up on the bills in Palmieri's wallet.

'Of course not.'

'So the only time you saw him or spoke to him was when you met him in the factory?'

'That's what I just told you.' Bonaventura made no attempt to disguise his irritation.

Brunetti turned his attention to Candiani. 'I think that's all I want from your client for the moment.'

Both men were obviously surprised by this, but Candiani reacted first, got to his feet and flipped his notebook closed. 'Then may we leave?' he asked, reaching across the table and pulling the briefcase towards him.

Gucci, Brunetti noted. 'I think not.'

'I beg your pardon,' Candiani said, putting decades of courtroom astonishment into the words. 'And why not?'

'I imagine the Castelfranco police are going to have a number of charges to place against Signor Bonaventura.'

'Such as?' Candiani demanded.

'Fleeing from arrest, conspiracy to obstruct a police investigation, vehicular homicide, to name a few.'

'I wasn't driving,' Bonaventura broke in, his outrage audible in both words and tone.

Brunetti was looking at Candiani when the other man spoke, and he saw the flesh under the lawyer's eyes contract minimally, either in surprise or something harsher, he wasn't sure.

Candiani pushed the notebook into the briefcase and flipped it closed. 'I'd like to be sure that the Castelfranco police have decided this, Commissario.' Then, as if to remove any lack of faith those words might imply, he added, 'As a mere formality, of course.'

'Of course,' Brunetti repeated, also getting to his feet.

Brunetti knocked on the gla.s.s of the window to summon the officer who waited in the hall. Leaving Bonaventura inside, the two men left the interview room and went to speak to Bonino, who confirmed Brunetti's judgement that the Castelfranco police would indeed be pressing various serious charges against Bonaventura.

An officer accompanied Candiani back to the interview room to inform and say farewell to his client, leaving Brunetti with Bonino.

'Did you get it all?' Brunetti asked.

Bonino nodded. 'It's all new, the sound equipment. It'll pick up the smallest whisper, even heavy breathing. So yes, we've got it all.'

'And before I got there?'

'No. We can't turn it on until there's a police officer in the room. Lawyer-client privilege.'

'Really?' Brunetti asked, unable to mask his amazement.

'Really,' Bonino repeated. 'We lost a case last year because the defence could prove we listened to what the suspect said to his lawyer. So the Questore has ordered that there will be no exceptions. Nothing gets turned on until there's an officer in the room.'

Brunetti nodded at this, then asked, 'As soon as his lawyer's gone, can you fingerprint him?'

'For the money?'

Brunetti nodded.

'It's already done,' Bonino said with a small smile. 'Completely unofficially. He had a gla.s.s of mineral water earlier this morning and we lifted three good prints from it when he was finished.'

'And?' Brunetti asked.

'And our lab man says it's a fit, that at least two of the prints appear on some of the bills in Palmieri's wallet.'

'I'll check his bank, too,' Brunetti said. 'Those five-hundred-thousand-lire notes are still new. Most people won't even take them: too hard to change. I don't know if they keep a record of the numbers, but if they do ...'

'He's got Candiani, remember,' Bonino said.

'You know him?'

'Everyone in the Veneto knows him.'

'But we've got the phone calls to a man he denies knowing well and we've got the prints,' Brunetti insisted.

'He's still got Candiani.'

27.

And never had prophecy proven more true. The bank in Venice had a record of the numbers of the five-hundred-thousand-lire notes distributed on the day that Bonaventura withdrew fifteen million in cash from the bank, and the numbers of the notes found in Palmieri's wallet were among them. Any doubt that they were the same notes was removed by the presence of Bonaventura's fingerprints.

Candiani, speaking for Bonaventura, insisted that there was nothing at all strange in this. His client had withdrawn the money in order to pay back a personal loan his brother-in-law, Paolo Mitri, had made to him and had done so in cash, handing the money to Mitri the day after he made the withdrawal, the day he was murdered. The fragments of Palmieri's skin under Mitri's nails made it all perfectly clear: Palmieri had robbed Mitri and had prepared the note in advance in order to pull suspicion away from himself. He had killed Mitri, either by accident or by design, in the course of the robbery.

As to the phone calls, Candiani made short work of them by pointing out that the Interfar factory had a central number, so calls made from any extension would register as having come from that central number. Hence anyone, anywhere in the factory, could have made the calls to Palmieri's telefonino, telefonino, just as he could have been calling the factory to do no more than report a delay in shipment. just as he could have been calling the factory to do no more than report a delay in shipment.

Told of the phone call made to his number from Mitri's apartment on the night of the murder, Bonaventura remembered that Mitri had called that evening to invite him and his wife to dinner the following week. When it was pointed out that the call had lasted only fifteen seconds, Bonaventura recalled that Mitri had cut it short, saying someone had just rung the doorbell. He expressed horror at the realization that it must have been Mitri's killer.

Each man had had time to construct a story to explain their flight from the Interfar factory. Sandi said he'd taken Bonaventura's sudden warning that the police were there as a command to flee and that Bonaventura had run ahead of him to the truck. Bonaventura, for his part, insisted that Sandi had pointed the pistol at him and thus forced him into the truck. The third man said he'd seen nothing.

In the matter of the shipments of drugs, Candiani proved far less able to turn away the suspicions of the forces of justice. Sandi repeated and expanded his testimony and provided the names and addresses of the night-time crew that was brought in to fill and pack the false medicines. Because they were paid in cash, there were no bank records of their salaries, but Sandi produced time sheets with their names and signatures. He also gave the police an extensive list of past shipments: dates, contents, and destinations.

The Ministry of Health stepped in at this point. The Interfar factory was closed, the premises sealed, while inspectors opened and examined boxes, bottles and tubes. All the medicines in the central part of the factory were determined to be exactly what their labels stated them to be, but an entire section of the warehouse contained shipping crates filled with packages of substances which proved, upon examination, to have no medicinal value whatsoever. Three crates were filled with plastic bottles labelled as cough medicine. Upon examination, they were discovered to be made up of a mixture of sugar water and antifreeze, a combination which would prove harmful, perhaps lethal, to anyone who took it.

Other crates contained hundreds of boxes of medicines long past their expiry date; still others packages of gauze and sutures whose wrappings crumbled at a touch, so long had they been sitting unused in warehouses somewhere. Sandi provided the bills of lading and invoices which were to accompany these crates to their final destinations in lands racked by famine, war and pestilence, as well as a list of the prices to be paid for them by the international aid agencies so willing to distribute them to the suffering poor.

Removed from involvement in the case by a direct order from Patta, himself obeying one from the Minister of Health, Brunetti followed the investigation in the newspapers. Bonaventura admitted to some involvement in the sale of false medicines, though he insisted that the original plan and instigation had been Mitri's. When he'd bought Interfar, he'd hired much of his staff from the factory Mitri had been forced to sell: they had brought the rot and corruption with them, and Bonaventura had found himself helpless to stop them. When he had protested to Mitri, his brother-in-law had threatened to call in his personal loan and withdraw his wife's money from the factory, actions which would surely have led Bonaventura to financial ruin. Victim of his own weakness, then, and helpless in the face of Mitri's superior financial strength, Bonaventura had had no choice but to continue with the production and sale of these false medicines. To have protested would have caused bankruptcy and disgrace.

From all that he read, Brunetti inferred that, should Bonaventura's case ever reach trial, he would be subjected to a fine, not a particularly heavy one, for the labels of the Ministry of Health had never actually been changed or tampered with. Brunetti had no idea what law was broken by the sale of expired medicines, especially if that sale took place in some other country. The law was clearer on the falsification of medicines, but again the issue grew complicated by the fact that the medicines were not sold or distributed in Italy. All of this, however, he dismissed as worthless speculation. Bonaventura's crime was murder, not tampering with packages: the murder of Mitri and the murder of anyone who died as a result of the medicines he sold.

In this belief Brunetti stood alone. The papers were now fully convinced that Palmieri had killed Mitri, though nowhere was a retraction made of the original theory that his killer was a fanatic inflamed and encouraged to murder by Paola's action. The presiding magistrate decided not to press criminal charges against Paola, so the case was filed in the archives of the State.

A few days after Bonaventura was sent home, where he was to remain under house arrest, Brunetti sat in the living-room of his home, engrossed in Arrian's account of the campaigns of Alexander, when the phone rang. He lifted his head, listening to see if Paola would pick it up in her study. When it stopped after the third ring, he went back to his book and to Alexander's evident desire that his friends prostrate themselves before him as though he were a G.o.d. The charm of the book quickly tugged Brunetti back to that far-away place, that distant time.

'It's for you,' Paola said from behind him. 'A woman.'

'Hm?' Brunetti asked, looking up from the pages, but not yet fully there either in the room or in the present.

'A woman,' Paola repeated, standing by the door.

'Who?' Brunetti asked, slipping a used boat ticket into his book and setting it beside him on the sofa.

He was just pushing himself to his feet when Paola said, 'I've no idea. I don't listen to your calls.'

He froze, bent over like an old man with a bad back. 'Madre di Dio,' 'Madre di Dio,' Brunetti exclaimed. He stood and stared across at Paola, who remained at the door, giving him a strange look. Brunetti exclaimed. He stood and stared across at Paola, who remained at the door, giving him a strange look.

'What is it, Guido? Did you hurt your back?'