Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [84]
Brunetti forced himself to look at his hands, carefully folded in his lap, and then directly into Patta’s eyes, always the best tactic for lying. ‘He would have been shown the marks, Vice-Questore,’ he said; then, before Patta could ask about that, he continued, ‘And because they thought he was a doctor, they would have explained them to him. Well, explained what they might be.’
Patta considered this. ‘You think Rizzardi would actually do that?’ he asked, unable to disguise his dissatisfaction that the medico legale might have told someone the truth.
‘He’d think it was correct because he was speaking to a colleague,’ Brunetti said.
‘But he’s only a veterinarian,’ Patta raged, speaking the noun with contempt and apparently forgetting not only his son’s relationship with his husky but the many times he had expressed his belief that vets’ professional skill exceeded that of the doctors at the Ospedale Civile.
Brunetti nodded but chose to say nothing. Instead, he sat quietly and observed Patta’s face as the consciousness behind it measured the odds and considered the possibilities. Niccolini was an unknown player: he worked outside the province of Venice, so he could have some political weight unknown to Patta. Veterinarians worked with farmers, and farmers were close to the Lega, and the Lega was a growing political force. Beyond this, for lack of fantasy, Brunetti’s imagination could not go in pursuit of Patta’s.
Finally Patta said, sounding not at all happy about the fact, ‘I’ll have to ask a magistrate to authorize something.’ A sudden thought crossed his handsome face; did the Vice-Questore actually pause to adjust his tie? ‘Yes, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this. Tell Signorina Elettra what you want me to ask him for. And I’ll see to it.’
It had been so flawless that Brunetti had not seen the change take place. He recalled the passage – he thought it was in the Twenty-Fifth Canto – where Dante sees the thieves transformed into lizards, lizards into thieves, the moment of transformation invisible until complete. One instant one thing, the next another. So too had Patta passed from the sustainer of peace at any compromise to the relentless seeker after justice, ready to mobilize the forces of order in the pursuit of truth. Like Dante’s sinners, he fell back to earth already in the guise of his opposite, then rose and walked away with nothing more than a glance over his shoulder.
‘I’ll go and speak to her about it now, shall I, sir?’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Yes,’ Patta encouraged. ‘She’ll know which magistrate is best. One of the young ones, I think.’
Brunetti got to his feet and wished his superior good morning.
Signorina Elettra appeared neither surprised nor pleased at her superior’s change of course. ‘There’s a nice young magistrate I can ask,’ she said with the calculating smile she might use when asking the butcher for a plump young chicken. ‘He hasn’t had much experience, so he’s likely to be open to … suggestion.’ This, Brunetti thought, was probably much the way the Old Man of the Mountain spoke of his apprentice assassins as he sent them about their tasks.
‘How old is he?’ Brunetti asked.
‘He can’t be thirty,’ she said, as though that number were a word she had heard in some other language and perhaps knew the meaning of. Then, in a far more serious voice, she asked, ‘What do you want him to ask for?’
‘Access to the records of the Ospedale Civile for the time Madame Reynard was a patient there; employee records for the same period, if such things exist; authorization to speak to Morandi and Signora Sartori; tax records for both of them and all documents regarding the sale of Cuccetti’s wife’s house to Morandi; Reynard’s death certificate, and a look at the will to see how much she left him, as well as any other bequests.’ That sounded, to Brunetti, like more than enough to be getting on with.
She had been taking note of his requests, and when he finished, she looked at him and said, ‘I have some of this information already,