Donna Leon - Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

Spirits buoyed by this resolve, he went to the Questura, where he read his way through the newspaper accounts of Malfatti’s arrest, all of which mentioned Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta as their chief source of information. The Vice-Questore was variously quoted as having ‘overseen the arrest’ and having ‘obtained Malfatti’s confession’. The papers placed the blame for the Banca di Verona scandal at the feet of its most recent director, Ravanello, and left no doubt in the readers’ minds that he had been responsible for the murder of his predecessor before becoming himself the victim of his vicious accomplice, Malfatti. Santomauro was named only in the Corriere della Sera , which quoted him as expressing shock and sorrow at the abuse which had been made of the lofty goals and high principles of the organization he felt himself so honoured to serve.

Brunetti called Paola and, even though he knew the answer would be no, asked if she had read the papers. When she asked what was in them, he told her only that the case was finished and that he would tell her about it when he got there Friday night. As he knew she would, she asked him to tell her more, but he said it could wait. When she allowed the subject to drop, he felt a flash of anger at her lack of perseverance; hadn’t this case almost cost him his life?

Brunetti spent the rest of the morning preparing a five-page statement in which he set forth his belief that Malfatti was telling the truth in his confession, and he went on to present his own exhaustively detailed and closely reasoned account of everything that had happened from the time Mascari’s body was found until the time Malfatti was arrested. After lunch, he read it through twice and was forced to see how all of it rested on no more than his own suspicions: there was not a shred of physical evidence linking Santomauro to any of the crimes, nor was it likely that anyone else would believe that a man like Santomauro, who looked down upon the world from the empyrean moral heights of the Lega, could be involved in anything as base as greed or lust or violence. But still he typed it out on the Olivetti standard typewriter that stood on a small table in a corner of his room. Looking at the finished pages, the whited-out corrections, he wondered if he should put in a requisition slip for a computer for his office. He found himself caught up in this, planning where it could go, wondering if he could get his own printer or if everything he typed would have to be printed out down in the secretaries’ office, a thought he didn’t like.

He was still considering this when Vianello tapped at his door and came in, followed by a short, deeply tanned man in a wrinkled cotton suit. ‘Commissario,’ the sergeant began in the formal tones he adopted when addressing Brunetti in front of civilians. ‘I’d like to present Luciano Gravi.’

Brunetti approached Gravi and extended his hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Signor Gravi. In what way may I be of help to you?’ He led the man over to his desk and pointed to a chair in front of it. Gravi looked around the office and then took the chair. Vianello sat in the chair beside him, paused a moment to see if Gravi would speak and, when he did not, began to explain.

‘Commissario, Signor Gravi is the owner of a shoe store in Chioggia.’

Brunetti looked at the man with renewed interest. A shoe store.

Vianello turned to Gravi and waved a hand, inviting him to speak. ‘I just got back from vacation,’ Gravi began, speaking to Vianello but then, when Vianello turned to face Brunetti, turning his attention towards him. ‘I was down in Puglia for two weeks. There’s no sense in keeping the store open during Ferragosto. No one wants to shop for shoes, anyway. It’s too hot. So we close up every year for three weeks, and my wife and I go on vacation.’

‘And you just got back?’

‘Well, I got back two days ago, but I didn’t go to the store until yesterday. That’s when I found the postcard.’

‘Postcard, Signor Gravi?’ Brunetti asked.

‘From the girl who works in my shop. She’s on vacation in Norway, with her fiancé. He works for you, I think. Giorgio Miotti.’ Brunetti nodded; he knew Miotti. ‘Well, they’re in Norway, as I said, and she wrote to tell me that the police were curious about a pair of red shoes.’ He turned back to Vianello. ‘I have no idea what they must have been talking about for them to think of that, but she wrote on the bottom of the card that Giorgio said you were looking for someone who might have bought a pair of women’s shoes, red satin, in a large size.’

Brunetti found that he was holding his breath and forced himself to relax and breathe it out. ‘And did you sell those shoes, Signor Gravi?’

‘Yes, I sold a pair of them, about a month ago. To a man.’ He paused here, waiting for the policemen to remark on how strange it was that a man would buy those shoes.

‘A man?’ Brunetti asked obligingly.

‘Yes, he said he wanted them for Carnevale. But Carnevale isn’t until next year. I thought it strange at the time, but I wanted to sell the shoes because the satin was torn away from the heel on one of them. The left one, I think. Anyway, they were on sale, and he bought them. Fifty-nine thousand lire, reduced from a hundred twenty. Really a bargain.’

‘I’m sure it was, Signor Gravi,’ Brunetti agreed. ‘Do you think you’d recognize the shoes if you saw them again?’

‘I think so. I wrote the sale price on the sole of one of them. It might be there.’

Turning to Vianello, Brunetti said, ‘Sergeant, could you go and get those shoes back from the lab for me? I’d like Signor Gravi to take a look at them.’

Vianello nodded and left the room. While he was gone, Gravi talked about his vacation, describing how clean the water in the Adriatic was, so long as you went far enough south. Brunetti listened, smiling when he thought it required, keeping himself from asking Gravi to describe the man who bought the shoes until Gravi had identified them.

A few minutes later, Vianello was back, carrying the shoes in their clear plastic evidence bag. He handed the bag to Gravi, who made no attempt to open it. He moved the shoes around inside the bag, turning first one and then the other upside-down and peering at the sole. He held them closer, smiled, and held the bag out to Brunetti. ‘See, there it is. The sale price. I wrote it in pencil so whoever bought it could erase it if they wanted to. But you can still see it, right there.’ He pointed to faint pencil markings on the sole.

At last Brunetti permitted himself the question. ‘Could you describe the man who bought these shoes, Signor Gravi?’

Gravi paused for only a moment and then asked, voice respectful in the face of authority, ‘Commissario, could you tell me why you’re interested in this man?’

‘We believe he can provide us with important information about an on-going investigation,’ Brunetti answered, telling him nothing.

‘Yes, I see,’ Gravi answered. Like all Italians, he was accustomed not to understand what he was told by the authorities. ‘Younger than you, I’d say, but not all that much. Dark hair. No moustache.’ Perhaps it was hearing himself say it that made Gravi realize how vague his description was. ‘I’d say he looked pretty much like anyone else, a man in a suit. Not very tall and not short, either.’

‘Would you be willing to look at some photos, Signor Gravi?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Perhaps that would help you recognize the man?’

Gravi smiled broadly, relieved to find it all so much like television. ‘Of course.’

Brunetti nodded to Vianello, who went downstairs and was quickly back with two folders of police photos, among which, Brunetti knew, was Malfatti’s.

Gravi accepted the first folder from Vianello and laid it on top of Brunetti’s desk. One by one, he leafed through the photos, placing them face down on a separate pile after he looked at them. As Vianello and Brunetti watched, he placed Malfatti’s picture face down with the others and continued until he reached the bottom of the pile. He looked up. ‘He’s not here, not even someone who looks vaguely like him.’