Donna Leon - Doctored Evidence

'You are Graziella Simionato, aren't you?' he asked.

The sound of her name appeared to make some impression, for she nodded in assent.

'The niece of Maria Grazia Battestini?' he asked.

That summoned both her attention and her eyes back to him. 'Yes,' she muttered. When she opened her mouth to speak, he saw that her two front teeth were outsized and jutted forward over the lower teeth.

'It is my understanding that you are her heir, Signorina.'

'Her heir. Yes,' she affirmed. 'I was supposed to get everything.'

Sounding concerned and puzzled, Brunetti asked, 'Didn't you, Signorina?'

As he watched her, he was struck by the way she kept reminding him of different animals. An owl. Then a caged rodent. And at this question something feral and secretive entered her expression.

She turned those magnified eyes towards him and asked, 'What do you want?'

‘I'd like to talk about your aunt's estate, Signorina.'

'What do you want to know?'

'I'd like to know if you have any idea where her money came from.'

The instinct to hide all evidence of wealth overcame her. 'She didn't have much money,' she insisted.

'But she had bank accounts,' Brunetti said.

‘I don't know about that.'

'At the Uni Credit and at four other banks.'

‘I don't know.' Her voice was as stolid as her expression.

Brunetti shot a glance at Vianello, who raised his brows to show that he too recognized the mule-like obstinacy with which peasants have always resisted danger. Brunetti had quickly seen that sweet reason would do no more than shatter itself against the armour of her stupidity, and so he said, injecting an unpleasant severity into his voice, 'Signorina, you have two choices.'

Her eyes floated up towards his face, her attention caught by his tone.

'We can talk about the source of your aunt's wealth or we can talk about dogs.'

Her lips pulled back over her outsized teeth, and she started to speak, but Brunetti interrupted her. ‘I don't think anyone who runs a business where there is food would want to continue to employ a person accused of using poison, do you, Signorina?' He watched this register and asked, his voice entirely conversational, 'And your employer doesn't seem like the kind of person who would be very patient with an employee who had to take time off to stand trial, does she? That is,' he asked, having given her a moment to reflect upon these two questions, 'if that employee still had a lawyer to help with the trial.'

Signorina Simionato took her left hand in the fingers of her right and began to rub it, as if trying to bring it back to life. Her lenses moved to Vianello's face, then back to Brunetti's. Still caressing her hand, she started to say, ‘I don't…' but Brunetti interrupted her in a loud voice and said, 'Vianello, tell the owner we're taking her with us. And tell her why.'

Acting as if this were a command he was really expected to carry out, Vianello said, 'Yes, Commissario,' and turned towards the door that led to the shop.

He had not taken a step before she said, her voice high-pitched with terror, 'No, wait, don't do that. I'll tell you, I'll tell you.' Her speech was sloppy, as though the consonants could be produced only with the aid of large amounts of saliva.

Vianello turned back but stayed at least a metre from her, reluctant to add the threat of his size to that in Brunetti's words. Both men regarded her, saying nothing.

'It was Paolo’ she said. 'He did it. He got it for her, but I don't know how. She would never tell me that, only how proud she was of him. She said he always thought of her first’ She stopped, as if she thought this sufficient to answer their questions and counter the threat to her.

'What, exactly, did she tell you?' asked a relentless Brunetti.

'What I just told you,' she answered belligerently.

Brunetti turned away from her. 'Go out and tell her, Vianello’ he said.

Signorina Simionato looked from one to the other, seeking mercy. When she saw none, she put her head back and began to wail like an animal, howling as if wounded.

Fearful of what would happen, Brunetti took a step towards her, but stopped himself and moved back, not wanting to be seen near her when anyone came to investigate. In an instant, the owner appeared at the door and shouted, 'Graziella. Stop it. Stop it or you're gone from here today.'

Instantly, as quickly as it had begun, the noise ceased, but Signorina Simionato continued to sob. The owner looked at Brunetti and Vianello, made a disgusted noise, and left, closing the door on them.

Remorseless, Brunetti turned to the sobbing woman and said, 'You heard her, Graziella. She's not going to be very patient with you if I have to tell her about Poppi and about the poison, is she?'

Graziella pulled off her hat and wiped at her mouth and nose with it, but she seemed incapable of stopping her sobs. She took off her glasses and set them on the surface of a stove and wiped at her face, then looked at Brunetti with her naked eyes, which were crossed and virtually sightless.

He fought back pity and said, 'What else did she tell you, Graziella? About the money.'

The sobbing stopped, and she took a final wipe at her face. Blindly, she put her hand out and began to feel around for the glasses. Brunetti watched her hand come close, move away, come close; he resisted the desire to help her. Finally her hand landed on the glasses and, careful to use both hands, she replaced them.

'What did she tell you, Graziella?' Brunetti repeated. 'Where did Paolo get the money?'

'From someone at work,' she said. 'She was so proud of him. She said it was a bonus he got for being so clever. But she was nasty when she said that, like she didn't mean it and like Paolo had done something bad to get it. But I didn't care about that because she said the money was going to be mine some day. So it didn't matter how he got it. Besides, she said eveiything he did was under the protection of the Madonna, so it wasn't wrong, was it?'

Brunetti ignored her question and asked, 'Did you know where it was, in which banks?'

She hung her head, looking down at the floor between their feet, and nodded.

'Do you know how it got there?'

Silence. She kept her head lowered, and he wondered what sluggish assessment she was making of his question and how much of the truth she would decide to tell him.

She surprised him by answering his question literally. ‘I put it there’

This made no immediate sense to him but, displaying no confusion, he asked, 'How?'

'After Paolo died, I went to see her every month and she gave me the money, and I took it to the banks.' Of course, of course, he had never thought to ask or to wonder about the precise physical details of how the deposits were made, thinking that they had to be arcane transfers discoverable only by Signorina Elettra's arts.

'And the receipts?'

‘I took them back to her. Every month.'

'Where are they now?'

Silence.

Raising his voice, he repeated, 'Where are they now?'

Her voice was low, but by bending down he could make it out. 'She told me to burn them.' 'Who?' he asked, though he had a good idea. 'She did’ 'Who?'

'The lawyer,' she finally said, refusing to give Marieschi's name.

'And did you do this?' he asked, wondering if she realized that she would have thus destroyed proof that the money had ever existed.

She looked up at him, and he saw that the lenses were soaked with the tears that had fallen while her head was lowered, and her eyes were even more out of focus.

'Did you burn them, Signorina?' he asked, no softness in his voice.

'She said it was the only way I could be sure I'd get the money because the police might be suspicious if they came and found the receipts,' she said, her sense of loss audible in every word.