Donna Leon - Doctored Evidence

'Can you tell me about it, Signora?' She said nothing. 'Tell me what happened.'

Signora Marieschi started to cry. She did so softly, the only sign being her tightened lips and the tears spilling from her eyes. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was surprisingly calm, as if she were speaking about things that had happened somewhere else or to other people. 'She was only two. Still a puppy, really. She loved everyone.'

It's in the breed, I think’ Brunetti agreed, 'to love everyone’

'And she trusted everyone, so anyone could have given it to her’

'Do you mean poisoned her?' Brunetti asked.

She nodded. Before he could ask how this could happen, she said, "There's a garden out in the back, and I leave her there all day, even when I go to lunch. Everyone knows that.'

'Everyone in the neighbourhood or all of your clients?' he asked.

She ignored the question and said, 'When I got back, I went to get her to bring her up here. But I could tell when I saw her. There was… there was vomit all over the grass, and she couldn't walk. I had to carry her up here’ She looked around the office, saw the stain on the wall but appeared not to notice those on her skirt nor the one on her left shoe, and said, ‘I put her down in here, and then she was sick again. So I took her inside and tried to call the vet, but he wasn't there. But then she got sick again. And then she was dead.' Neither of them spoke until Signora Marieschi said, 'So I called you. But you weren't there, either.' She said it so that he would sense the same futile reproach she felt towards the vet.

Ignoring her tone, Brunetti said, leaning slightly towards her, 'The officer who gave me the message said you said someone killed her, Signora. Can you tell me who you think did it?'

She clasped her hands together and, leaning forward, pushed them between her knees. He saw only the top of her head and her shoulders.

Both of them remained like that for a long time.

When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Brunetti had to lean even closer to her to hear what she said. 'Her niece,' she said, and then again, 'Graziella.'

Brunetti removed some of the sympathy from his voice and asked, 'Why would she do mat?'

Her shrug was so strong that Brunetti felt pushed away by it. He waited for further clarification, and when it was not formcoming, he asked, 'Was it about anything concerning the estate, Signora?' unwilling to let her know that he was aware of the bank accounts.

'Perhaps,' the lawyer answered, and his practised ear detected the first traces of equivocation, as though the shock of the dog's death was beginning to wear off.

'What is it she thinks you did, Signora?' he asked.

He was prepared for her to shrug this off, but he was not prepared for her to look him in the face and lie. 'I don't know,' she said.

This, he realized, was the crucial point. If he allowed the lie to pass, then there would be no more truth from her, no matter how long he questioned her or how many times he questioned her again. Casually then, as though he were a trusted old friend asked in to sit at the fireside and talk of familiar things, he said, 'We'd have very little trouble proving that you moved her money out of the country, Awocatessa, and even if we failed to get a conviction because you do have the power of attorney, your reputation as a lawyer would be compromised.' Then, as if it had just occurred to him, as a friend, to warn her of further consequences, he added, 'And I suspect the Finanza would also want to talk to you about the money.'

Her astonishment was total. All her lawyerly skills fell from her and she blurted out, 'How did you know about that?'

'It's sufficient that we do know,' he said, all compassion absent from his voice. She registered the change in his tone and sat up straight, even moved her chair a bit away from his. As he studied her, he saw her harden in much the same way he had.

‘I think we had better talk about this honestly.' He watched her begin to object and cut her off. ‘I don't care in the least about the money or what you did with it: all I want to know is where it came from.' Again, he saw her getting ready to speak, and he knew she would lie to him unless he managed to frighten her sufficiently. 'If I'm not satisfied with what you tell me about the money, I will file an official report about the bank accounts, the power of attorney, and the dates and destinations of the transfers.'

'How did you find out?' she asked in a voice he had not heard her use before.

'As I said before, that's irrelevant. My only interest is in finding out where the money came from.'

'She killed my dog’ she said with sudden savagery.

Brunetti lost his patience and answered, 'Then you better hope she didn't kill her aunt, too, because if she did, you're probably next on her list.'

Her eyes widened as this hit home. She shook her head once, twice, three times, as though she wanted to eradicate the possibility. 'No, she couldn't have’ she said. 'Never.'

'Why?'

‘I know her. She wouldn't do it.' There was no questioning the certainty with which she spoke.

'And Poppi? Didn't she kill her?' He had no idea if this was the truth, but it sufficed that she believed it.

'She hates dogs, hates animals.'

'How well do you know her?'

'Well enough to know that.'

'That's different from knowing she wouldn't kill her aunt.'

Provoked by his scepticism, she said, 'If she did kill her, she would have taken the money before. Or the day after.'

Realizing that she must then have known about the niece's power of attorney, perhaps even prepared it herself, he asked, 'But you worked more quickly?'

If she was insulted, she gave no sign of it and answered only, 'Yes.'

"Then you might be the one who killed her’ he suggested, thinking it unlikely but curious as to how she would react to the suggestion.

‘I wouldn't kill anyone for so little’ she said; he found himself unable to comment.

Instead, he returned to the bank accounts. 'Where did the money come from?' She gave no sign that she was willing to answer, so he went on, 'You were her lawyer, and she trusted you with a power of attorney, so you know something.' When she still resisted, he said, 'Whoever killed her was someone she trusted enough to let into her apartment. Perhaps they knew about the money, or perhaps this was the person who had been giving her the money all those years.' He watched her mind run ahead of his words and saw it register certain possibilities. Without naming the worst of them, he said, 'It might be in your best interests that we find this person, Avvocatessa.'

Her voice tight, she asked, 'Could that be who killed her?' When he didn't answer, she added, 'Poppi?'

He nodded, though he thought that the person capable of such savagery against Signora Battestini was not someone who would bother to send a warning by killing someone's dog.

All resistance disappeared as she shrank back from the awareness of her own mortality. ‘I don't know who it was’ she said. 'Really, I never knew. She never told me.'

Brunetti waited almost a full minute for her to continue, but when she remained silent, he asked, 'What did she tell you?'

'Nothing. Just that the money was deposited every month.'

'Did she say what she wanted the money for or what she wanted done with it?'

She shook her head. 'No, never, just that it was there.' She thought about this for some time, then could not hide her own bewilderment when she said, ‘I don't think it was important to her, spending it or being able to spend it. She just liked having it, knowing it was there.' She looked up and around the room, as if seeking some explanation for behaviour as strange as this. Then she looked back at Brunetti and said, 'She didn't tell me about it until three years ago, when she started to talk about making a will.'