Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [11]
With a nod to Brunetti, the two men left the apartment; Vianello closed the door behind them. No one in the room said anything as they listened to the men’s descent. When all sound ended, they took it to mean the dead woman had been taken from the house, but still no one moved. Marillo finally broke the spell by turning away, herding his technicians into the bedroom and back to work.
Vianello went into the smaller guest room, and Brunetti joined him. The bed was neatly made, the white sheet pulled back over a simple grey woollen blanket. They saw no sign of disturbance in the room. It was military – or monastic – in its simplicity. Even the signs that the technicians had checked the room for prints seemed sparse.
Brunetti walked across the room and pushed open the door to the bathroom. Whoever had made the bed must also have ordered things on the shelves here: there were miniature sample bottles of shampoo and a small paper-wrapped bar of soap, the sort one found in hotel rooms; a comb in a plastic wrapper; a similarly wrapped toothbrush. Fresh towels and a washcloth hung on a rack beside the enclosed shower.
A man’s voice called Brunetti’s name. He and Vianello followed the sound into the larger bedroom, where Marillo was standing beside one of the windows. ‘We’re finished here, Commissario,’ he said. As he spoke, one of his men collapsed his tripod, hefted it on to his shoulder, and slipped past Vianello and Brunetti into the corridor.
‘You find anything?’ Brunetti asked, looking around at powder-covered surfaces in the room, almost as if he wanted Marillo to follow his glance and find, just there, whatever it was that would make his search worthwhile and important.
The residue on so many surfaces reminded Brunetti of how hard he found it to believe that any reliable physical evidence could be drawn from the overlying mess of finger and palm prints that covered every surface in every room he had ever searched. Some of the powder had dropped into the bottom drawer, which was open. Faint traces of it could be seen on the silk scarves and sweaters that lay intermingled there.
‘You know I don’t like to talk about that sort of thing, sir,’ Marillo finally answered, speaking with noticeable reluctance. ‘Before I write the report, that is.’
‘I know that, Marillo,’ Brunetti said. ‘And I think it’s the best policy. But I wondered if you could give us some sort of idea about how thorough Vianello and I should be when we …’ he began, then waved his hand around the room, as if asking the handles of the drawers to speak to Marillo about what was to be revealed inside.
The remaining technician, still on his knees beside the bed, looked up from the light he was shining into the space underneath, first at Brunetti and then at his superior. Aware of his glance, Marillo shook his head and turned to walk away.
‘Come on, Stefano,’ the technician said, making no attempt to disguise his exasperation. ‘They’re on our side. And it’ll save them time.’ Brunetti wondered if the technician was simply using a cliché, or if it were now necessary for one policeman to vouch for the integrity of others.
Marillo stiffened, either at being spoken to like this by one of his men in front of his superior or at the thought of having to venture an opinion rather than simply report on what was observed and recorded. ‘All we do is dust the place and take the photos, Dottore. People like you and Vianello have to figure out what the results mean.’ This might have been construed as opposition or obstructionism; in Marillo,