Donna Leon - Doctored Evidence

When Brunetti had seen Scarpa in Signorina Elettra's office an hour before, the lieutenant was stiff with anger at what he insisted were a witness's lies. Sensing his rage, Signorina Elettra suggested to the lieutenant, 'Perhaps someone else could get the truth out of her.'

Brunetti was astonished by Signorina Elettra's civility to the lieutenant and by her apparent willingness to believe him. Her craft became evident only when she turned to him and said, 'Commissario, it seems the lieutenant has laid the groundwork by seeing through this woman's story. Maybe someone else could try to find out what's motivating her.' Turning back to the lieutenant and raising her hands in a gesture rich with deferential uncertainty, she added, 'If you think that might help, Lieutenant, of course.' He noticed that she was wearing a simple white cotton blouse: perhaps it was the tightly buttoned collar that made her seem so innocent.

Atavistic suspicion of Signorina Elettra flashed across Scarpa's face, but before he could speak, Brunetti interrupted, saying to Signorina Elettra, 'Don't look at me. I've got the airport to worry about, so I don't have time to be bothered with something like this.' He turned to leave.

Brunetti's reluctance prompted Scarpa into saying, 'She's just going to keep telling me the same story. I'm sure of that.'

It was a statement, not a request, and Brunetti held firm. 'I've got the airport case.' He continued towards the door.

That was enough to provoke Scarpa. 'If this woman's lying about a murder, it's more important than petty theft at the airport,' he said.

Brunetti stopped just short of the door. He turned towards Signorina Elettra, who said, with resignation, 'I think the lieutenant's right, sir.'

Brunetti, a man of sorrows and afflicted with grief, said, with perhaps too much resignation, 'All right, but I don't want to get involved. Where is she?'

Thus it was that he had spoken to Signora Gismondi, and everything she said led him to believe that he had indeed done as Signorina Elettra suggested and got the truth out of her.

Now he went downstairs to Signorina Elettra's office and found her talking on the phone. She raised a hand and held up two fingers to signal that it would take but a moment to finish the call, bent and took a few notes, then said thank you and hung up.

'How did that happen?' he asked, nodding with his chin to the point where Lieutenant Scarpa had stood.

'Know thy enemy’ she answered.

'Meaning?' he asked.

'He hates you, but he's only deeply suspicious of me, so all I had to do was offer him the chance to force you to do something you didn't want to do, and the desire to do that was enough to overcome his distrust of me.'

'You make it sound so easy’ he said, 'like something in a textbook.'

'The carrot and the stick’ she said, smiling. 'I offered him the carrot, which he thought he could turn into a stick he could use to beat you.' Then, suddenly serious, she asked, 'What did the woman say?'

'That she took the Romanian woman to the train station, bought her a ticket to Bucharest, and left her there.'

'How long before the train left?' she asked instantly.

He was pleased that she too could see the weakest link in Signora Gismondi's story. 'About an hour before the train left.'

'The newspapers said it happened over by the Palazzo del Cammello.'

'Yes.'

'There would have been more than enough time, then, wouldn't there?' 'Yes.' 'And?'

'Why bother?' he asked. "This woman, Assunta Gismondi, says she gave the Romanian woman about seven hundred Euros’ he began, and when he saw Signorina Elettra raise her eyebrows he continued, 'and I believe she did.' Cutting off her question, he said, 'She's impulsive, the Gismondi woman, and I think generous.' Indeed, he was convinced that these were two of the qualities that had brought her to the Questura this morning, those and honesty.

Signorina Elettra pushed her chair back from her desk and crossed her legs, revealing a short red skirt and a pair of shoes with heels so high they would have raised her above even the worst acqua alta.

'If you will permit me a seemingly impertinent question, Commissario’ she began, and at his nod she continued, 'is this your head or your heart speaking?'

He considered for a moment, then answered, 'Both.'

'Then’ she said, getting to her feet, a process which raised her almost to his height, 'I think I'd better go down to Scarpa's office and make a copy of the file.'

'Isn't it in there?' he asked, waving a hand towards her computer.

'No. The lieutenant prefers to type up his reports and keep them in his office.'

'Will he give them to you?'

She smiled. 'Of course not.'

Feeling not a bit foolish, he asked, 'Then how will you get it?'

She bent down and opened a drawer. From it she took a thin leather case, and when she opened it he saw a set of picks and tools frighteningly similar to the ones he sometimes used. ‘I'll steal it, Commissario. And make a copy. Then put it back where I found it. And, as the lieutenant is a suspicious man, I shall be especially careful when I replace the half-toothpick which he leaves between the seventh and eighth pages of files he thinks are important and which he fears other people will try to see.'

Her smile broadened. Tf you'd like to wait for me in your office, Commissario, I'll bring the copy up as soon as I've made it.'

He had to know. 'But where is he?' What he really wanted to ask was how she knew that Scarpa was not in his office.

'On one of the launches, on his way to Fondamenta Nuove.'

Brunetti was put in mind of the stand-off scenes he'd seen in so many of the westerns he'd watched while growing up, where the good guy and the bad guy stood face to face, each trying to stare the other down. Here, however, there was no question of good guy and bad guy; unless, of course, one were to take the narrow-minded view that breaking into a room at the Questura to make an unauthorized copy of state documents was in any way reprehensible. Brunetti's vision of the law was far too lofty to accept such a view, so he went to hold the door open for her. As she passed in front of him, she said, smiling, ‘I won't be long.'

How did she do it? he found himself asking as he walked back to his office. He wasn't curious about the means at Signorina Elettra's command, the computer and the friends at the other end of the phone, always willing to do a favour and break a rule, or a law. Nor did he particularly care about the techniques she used to learn as much as she did about the life and weaknesses of her superiors. What puzzled him was how she found the courage to oppose them so consistently and so openly and to make no attempt to disguise where her loyalties lay. She had once explained to him how it was that she had given up a career in banking and accepted what must be, in the eyes of her family and her friends, a vastly inferior job with the police. She had acted on principle in leaving the bank, and he supposed she was acting on principle now, but he had never had the courage to ask her just what those principles were.

Back at his desk, he made a list of the information he needed: the extent of Signora Battestini's estate; to what degree Avvocatessa Marieschi was involved in Signora Battestini's affairs and what those affairs were; whether the dead woman's name had ever appeared in police files; same with her husband; what the people in the neighbourhood knew of bad feelings between her and anyone else; and, unlikely after three weeks, whether anyone remembered having seen someone other than the Romanian woman entering or leaving her apartment that day and would be willing to tell the police about it. He would also need to speak to the woman's doctor.

By the time he finished making this list, Signorina Elettra was back, careful to knock on his door before coming in.