Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [46]
He read a few more articles and then, interest in the paper exhausted, got up, shaved and showered, and went into the kitchen, where he found Paola with La Repubblica spread on the table in front of her, chin propped in her palms.
Hearing him come in, she said, ‘I was never able to read Pravda, but I wonder if all other newspapers are simply variations on it.’
‘Probably,’ he said, going over to the sink to refill the coffee pot.
‘When I was studying in England,’ she went on, ‘I got accustomed to newspapers that had a part for news and a separate part for editorials.’ She saw she had his attention, so she picked up the paper from the bottom and flapped the pages, as if she were trying to shake crumbs off a tablecloth. ‘There’s no difference here. It’s all editorializing.’
‘The other one’s no better,’ he said. ‘And remember, La Repubblica has a good reputation.’
She shrugged this away and said, her disappointment real, ‘I’d expect better from it.’
‘That’s foolish,’ Brunetti said and put the coffee pot on the stove.
‘I know it is, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping.’ Then, folding the paper closed, she said, ‘The pan’s in the sink,’ leaving it to him to heat the milk for his coffee.
‘You find out anything about that woman’s death?’ she asked as the coffee began to plunk against the top of the pot.
‘Rizzardi says the physical cause was a heart attack,’ he said, knowing Paola would jump on his prevarication.
‘And La Repubblica has a good reputation,’ she said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked, though he suspected he knew.
‘In logic, the error is called the Appeal to Authority,’ she confused him by saying. ‘You tell me Rizzardi says it was a heart attack with the same voice you say it’s a good newspaper. You’re citing authorities, but you don’t believe them.’ She waited for him to comment, but when he did not, she added, ‘Something’s bothering you; my guess is it’s this woman’s death, and that means you probably don’t believe Rizzardi, or, more likely, he’s being more Jesuitical than usual, and you know it.’ She smiled at him and held out her cup for more coffee. ‘That’s what it’s supposed to mean.’
‘I see,’ he said, pouring more coffee for her, and then for himself. He added milk and spooned in some sugar, then came to sit opposite her. When he saw that he had her attention, he said, ‘There were what look like bruises on her throat and shoulders.’ He reached his hands towards her to show her what he meant.
‘Squeezing someone’s shoulder doesn’t cause them to have a heart attack,’ she said calmly, as if this were an entirely normal conversation to have over coffee and the morning paper.
‘It does if that person has a history of heart fibrillation and is taking propafenone.’
‘Which is what?’ Paola asked.
‘A medicine against it.’ He allowed her a few moments and then added, ‘So, if a person were taking that for heart trouble, being grabbed and roughed around might cause them to go into fibrillation, and that’s what Rizzardi thinks might have caused her death. But the vertebrae were injured.’ He realized he was slanting the argument, and so he said, ‘She fell and hit her head, as well. Against a radiator. That could have done it.’
‘Could have?’
He gave her a level glance and took a few sips of coffee. ‘The chicken or the egg,’ he could not stop himself from saying, then added reluctantly, ‘The fibrillation. The other is only a possibility, a speculation.’
‘Yours or his?’ she asked.
‘Both.’
Paola sipped at her cup in turn, then swirled the coffee around a few times and drank the last of it. ‘What does Patta say?’
Brunetti had the grace to smile. ‘Nothing new there. He wants it settled, and I’m sure he’s happy as a lark with the obvious explanation: heart attack. And that’s the end of that.’
‘But it’s not for you?’ she asked.
This time it was Brunetti who toyed with his