Donna Leon - Doctored Evidence

Pucetti's confusion was so strong as almost to be audible as well as visible, but he did as he was told, slipping past the attic door, careful not to touch it, and went downstairs.

Brunetti stood, studying the scene and considering the consequences of the discovery of his fingerprints on so many of the papers, boxes and documents that lay in front of him. He could, if he chose, explain their presence by maintaining that he had used this time to examine the evidence. He could, just as easily, say that he had come up to the attic and examined the contents of some of the boxes during a previous, unauthorized, visit to the apartment.

Brunetti took a step towards the boxes. In the gloom, he set his right foot on the glass ball containing the Nativity scene, slipped, and lost his footing. He landed on his other knee, landed on something that crumbled under his weight, pushing sharp fragments through the cloth of his trousers and into his skin. Stunned by the fall and the sudden pain, it took him a moment to raise himself to his feet. He looked first at his knee, where the first faint traces of blood were beginning to seep through the cloth, and then to the floor, to see what he had fallen on.

It was a third Madonna. His knee had caught her in the stomach, crushing all life out of her but sparing her head and legs. She looked up at him with a calm smile and all-forgiving eyes. Instinctively, he bent to help her, at least to put the top and bottom parts somewhere safe. He went down on his good knee, wincing at the pain this motion caused the other, and reached with both hands to pick up the fragments. Amidst the pieces of crushed plaster was a flattened roll of paper. Puzzled, Brunetti looked at the bottom of the Madonna's feet and saw that there was a small oval opening closed with a cork, just like the bottom of a salt shaker. The paper had been rolled up into a tight cylinder and stuffed inside her.

He dropped the head and legs into the pocket of his jacket and stepped out into the hallway. He moved to the window at the end and, grasping the top left corner of the paper with the tips of his fingers, used the back of the fingernails of his right to unroll it, hoping to leave no fingerprints. But the paper kept rolling up, preventing him from seeing what was written on it.

He heard Pucetti on the stairs below him, calling out, They're on the way, sir’ When Brunetti saw him appear at the head of the steps, he called the young officer over. Kneeling again, he spread the paper open with the tips of the fingers of both hands and told Pucetti to put the very edge of his foot sideways on the top. When it was anchored to the ground, Brunetti used the tips of his little fingers to scroll it open again, anchoring the open sheet with his forefingers once it was done.

The single sheet of paper bore the letterhead of the Department of Economics at the University of Padova and was dated twelve years previously. It was addressed to the Department of Personnel of the School Board of the City of Venice and stated, after a polite greeting, that, 'Unfortunately, there is no mention in the records of our department of a student named Mauro Rossi as having been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics; nor, in fact, do we have any record of a student of that name and with that birth date ever having enrolled in this faculty’ The signature was illegible, although there was no mistaking the seal of the university.

Brunetti stared down at it, refusing to believe what it told him. He tried to recall the documents on the wall of Rossi's office, among them the large, framed parchment which proclaimed him as a Doctor of Philosophy – Brunetti had not bothered to read the name of the faculty granting the degree.

The letter was addressed to the Director of the Personnel Department, but certainly directors did not open their own mail: that's what clerks and assistants were for. They opened, read, and made official note of the letters which certified that the claims made in a curriculum vitae were true. They filed the letters of recommendation, the marks gained on competitive exams, made note of all the pieces of the paper puzzle that, when put together, gave a picture of someone worthy of professional rank and promotion in the civil service.

Or, he imagined, they might at times verify, perhaps according to some random system, some of the claims made on the hundreds, thousands of applications made for each civil service job. And upon discovering a false claim, they could make this deceit public and disqualify the person making it, perhaps banish them absolutely from the civil service system.

Or they could, instead, use the information for their own purpose, their own gain.

He had a momentary vision of the Battestini family gathered around their table or perhaps in front of the television. Papa Bear showed Mamma Bear what he and Baby Bear had brought home from work that day.

He shook away this vision, picked the letter up by a corner, and got to his feet.

'What's that, sir?' Pucetti asked, pointing to the letter.

‘It's the reason Signora Battestini was killed,' Brunetti answered and went down the steps to wait for the crime team, still holding the letter by one corner.

Downstairs, he spoke to the Dutch couple, this time in English, and asked them if anyone had tried to get into the building since they had moved in. They said that the only person who had disturbed them was Signora Battestini's son, who had asked them to let him in two days ago, saying he had forgotten his keys – at least that is what they thought he said, they added with embarrassed smiles – and had to go upstairs to check on the windows in the attic. No, they had not asked for identification: who else would want to go up into the attic? He had been up there for about twenty minutes when they left to go to their Italian lesson, but he had not been there when they got back, or at least they had not heard him come down the stairs. No, they had not gone up to the attic to check: they were renting only this apartment, and they did not think it correct to go into other parts of the building.

It took Brunetti a moment to realize that they were serious, but then he remembered that they were Dutch and believed them.

'Could you describe her son to me?' Brunetti asked.

'Tall,' the husband said.

'And handsome,' the wife added.

The husband gave her a sharp look but said nothing.

'How old was he, would you say?' he asked the wife.

'Oh, in his forties,' she said, 'and tall. He looked very athletic,' she concluded, then shot at her husband a look Brunetti could not decipher.

'I see,' Brunetti said, then switched topics and asked, 'To whom do you pay your rent?'

'Signora Maries…' the wife began, but the husband cut her off by saying, 'We're staying here because it belongs to a friend, so we don't pay anything, just the utilities.'

Brunetti let that lie register and asked, 'Ah, so Graziella Simionato is a friend of yours?'

Both their faces remained blank at the mention of the name. The husband recovered first and said, 'A friend of a friend, that is.'

‘I see,' Brunetti answered, toyed with telling them that he didn't care whether anyone paid taxes on their rent or not, but decided it was unimportant and let it go. 'Would you recognize her son if you saw him again?'

He watched the struggle on both their faces, as their instinctive Northern European honesty and respect for law struggled with everything they had ever been told about the ways of these devious Latins. 'Yes’ both of them said at the same time, an answer which cheered Brunetti.

He thanked them, said he would contact them if the identification became necessary, and then went downstairs and outside. A police launch stood at the side of the canal, Bocchese and two technicians humping their heavy equipment on to the riva.