Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [29]
The nun did not respond to his frankness but turned and led them into what must once have been the over-furnished sitting room of a private apartment. From the back, she appeared even smaller; Brunetti noticed she favoured her right leg when she walked. The sofas and chairs were covered with thick brown velvet and had feet carved to look like the paws of lions. A closer look revealed that many of the toes were missing, and some of the chairs had grease spots on the backrests and bald spots on the arms, with some of the patches surrounded by horizontal tears in the fabric. The baldness was repeated on the enormous Kashan that covered the floor from wall to wall.
The nun pointed to two of the easy chairs and gingerly took her place facing them on a hard wooden chair, careful not to bend her right leg. Their chairs had sagged with age and use to such a degree that their heads, when they sat down, were on a level with hers.
Brunetti leaned to his side to reach for his wallet in order to show her his warrant card, but she forestalled him by saying, ‘I don’t need to see it, Signore. I know policemen when I see them.’
Brunetti abandoned the attempt and tried to sit upright, but his position was so constricting that he got to his feet and sat on the arm of the chair. ‘I was called last night when Signora Altavilla’s body was found, and I went to her apartment. I spoke to her neighbour,’ he said, and the nun nodded, suggesting that she knew the woman and her closeness to Signora Altavilla or that she knew about the phone call.
‘The autopsy that was performed this morning …’ he began and saw the nun’s eyes contract. ‘… suggests that she died of a heart attack.’ He paused and looked in her direction.
‘Suggests?’ Madre Rosa asked.
‘There was a cut on her forehead, which the pathologist thinks must have happened when she fell. I was there last night and saw that she had fallen close to a radiator: that might explain it.’ She nodded, understanding, but not necessarily believing.
Brunetti noticed then something he had not seen since he was a boy in elementary school: she reached under her long white scapular and pulled up the string of rosary beads she wore at her side. She held them as she looked at him, then let one of them slip through her fingers, and then another. He had no idea if she was praying or merely touching them to give herself strength and comfort. Finally she said only, ‘Might explain?’
Brunetti, as he always did when people caught him in prevarication, gave an easy, relaxed smile. ‘We won’t know what happened until the physical evidence from her apartment is examined.’
‘And you won’t know it then, either, will you?’ she asked. ‘Not for sure, that is.’
Brunetti watched Vianello cross and uncross his legs, then he got to his feet, as well. He put his hands on his hips and bent backwards, and when he came forward again, he said, ‘Madre, if we could use one of these chairs for people we’re questioning, I think we’d save a great deal of our time. And have a great deal more success.’
She tried to stop herself from smiling, but she failed. Then she surprised them both by saying, in purest Veneziano, ‘Ti xe na bronsa coverta.’ Hearing her so effortlessly go from her accented Italian to perfectly pronounced dialect surprised both of the men into answering smiles. Her assessment was accurate: Vianello was much like the embers in a covered brazier. One never knew what brightness lurked there or what light might break forth from his invisible silence.
Almost as if she disapproved of the way the mood had lightened and wanted to put an end to that, she erased her smile. She glanced between them, and Brunetti saw the wariness return to her face. ‘What is it you’d like to know about Costanza?’ she asked. The raising of her guard had aged her: she stiffened her back against the muscles that had allowed her to lean forward, and her face sagged tiredly.
Vianello imitated Brunetti by sitting on the thick arm of his chair. He took his notebook from his side pocket, opened his