The thin-faced woman changed target and began to hurl her obscenities at Brunetti, ending in a loud boast that she would call the police and have him arrested. After this, she stopped shouting, sure that she now had the upper hand. Even the two dogs relaxed into this new legal certainty and began to growl, though they remained safely behind the woman’s legs.
The still-thuggish Vianello chose this moment to walk into the room, his warrant card shoved in the woman’s direction. ‘I’m the police, Signora, and according to the law of 3 March 2009, you have the obligation to carry muzzles with you if you take these dogs into a public place.’ He looked around the room, assessing it and her presence in it with the dogs. ‘This is a public place.’
The old woman with the dog in her arms said, ‘Officer’, but Vianello silenced her with a look.
‘Well?’ he demanded in his roughest voice. ‘Do you know what the fine is?’
Brunetti was sure Vianello didn’t, so he doubted that the woman did.
One of the large dogs suddenly began to whine; she yanked violently at its leash, silencing it instantly. ‘I know. But I thought that in here, inside…’ She waved vaguely at the walls with the hand that did not hold the leashes. Her voice trailed away. She bent down and patted the head of the first dog, then the other. Their long tails thumped against the wall.
Seeing how automatic her gesture was and the dogs’ easy, affectionate response to it must have disarmed Vianello, for he said, ‘All right for this time, but be careful in the future.’
‘Thank you, officer,’ she said. The dogs came out from behind her, wiggling towards Vianello until she pulled them back.
‘What about what she said to us?’ the old woman demanded.
‘Why don’t you sit down, ladies, while we finish talking to the doctor?’ Brunetti suggested and went back into the doctor’s office.
The advantage had been lost: that was obvious to Brunetti as soon as he saw the fat man. He stood by the open window of his office, taking a deep pull from the cigarette he held in his nicotine-stained hand. He looked at the returning men with eyes in which all trace of fear had been replaced by strong dislike. Brunetti suspected it originated not from embarrassment at the fear he had displayed as from what he had discovered them to be.
He continued to draw on the cigarette, saying nothing, until it was a stub that came close to burning his fingers. He shifted it to the very tips of his fingers, took one last long pull, then tossed it out the window. He closed the window but remained standing in front of it.
‘What do you want?’ he asked in the same high voice.
‘We’re here to talk to you about your successor, Dr Andrea Nava,’ Brunetti said.
‘I can’t help you, then, Signori,’ Meucci said, sounding uninterested.
‘Why is that, Doctor?’ Brunetti inquired.
It looked as though Meucci had to fight back a smile as he answered, ‘Because I never met him.’
Brunetti, in turn, fought back his surprise at this and asked, ‘You didn’t have to explain anything to him: who the people at the macello were, how things worked, where his office was, supplies, timetables?’
‘No. The Director and his staff saw to all of that, I imagine.’ Meucci reached into the left pocket of his jacket and pulled out a battered box of Gitanes and a plastic lighter. Flicking it alive, he lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and turned to open the window behind him. Cool air swept in, spreading the smoke around the room.
‘Did you have to leave him written instructions?’ Brunetti asked.
‘He wasn’t my responsibility,’ Meucci said. For a moment, Brunetti imagined that the other man could not know Nava was dead and so casually say such a thing. But then he realized that Meucci must know – who in Venice could not, especially someone who had formerly held the man’s job?
‘I see,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Could you tell me what your duties were?’
‘Why do you want to know that?’ Meucci asked, not bothering to hide his irritation.
‘So as to understand what it was Dottor Nava did,’ Brunetti answered blandly.
‘Didn’t they tell you that out there?’
‘Out where?’ Brunetti inquired mildly and glanced aside at Vianello, as if to suggest he remember Meucci’s question.
Meucci tried to disguise his surprise by turning to throw his half-finished cigarette out the window. ‘At the slaughterhouse,’ he forced himself to answer when he turned back to Brunetti.
‘When we were there, do you mean?’ Brunetti asked pleasantly.
‘Weren’t you?’ was the only thing the doctor could think to ask.
‘Surely you know that already, Dottore,’ Brunetti said with a small smile and pulled his notebook from his pocket. He opened it and made a note, then looked at the doctor, who already had another lighted cigarette in his hand.
‘What can you tell me about Dottor Nava?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I told you I never met him,’ Meucci said, anger held in check, but just barely.
‘That’s not what I’m asking, Dottore,’ Brunetti said, gave another tiny smile, and made another note.
Brunetti’s prod seemed to work, for Meucci said, ‘After I left the macello, I had nothing further to do with it.’
‘Or with anyone working there?’ Brunetti asked with mild curiosity.
Meucci hesitated only a moment before he said, ‘No.’
Brunetti made another note.
This time, Meucci slammed the windows closed after tossing away his cigarette. Turning back to Brunetti he asked, ‘Do you have permission to be here, asking me these questions?’
‘Permission, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked, raising his eyebrows.
‘An order from a magistrate.’
Surprise took possession of Brunetti’s face. ‘Why, no, Dottore, I don’t.’ Then, with a relaxed smile, he added, ‘It never occurred to me to get one. In fact, I thought of the Doctor as a colleague of yours, so I thought you would be able to tell me more about him. But now that you’ve made it clear that there was never any contact between you, I’ll leave you to get to your patients.’ Because he had never relaxed enough to sit down, Brunetti could not emphasize his departure by getting to his feet. Instead, he put the cap on his pen and returned notebook and pen to his pocket, thanked the doctor for his time, and left the office.
In the waiting room, the large dogs stood up when the two men came in; the third one slept heavily on. Brunetti took his notebook from his pocket and waved it in the air as they walked in front of the dogs, but they did no more than wag their tails at them. The two women ignored them.
24
‘MAYBE HE’S SUCH a bad liar because animals can’t tell the difference,’ Vianello suggested as they started back towards the Questura. To make it absolutely clear, he added, ‘If you can lie to them or not, that is.’
They walked for some time before Brunetti said, ‘Chiara’s always telling me they have other senses and can read our moods. They even use dogs to detect cancer, I think.’
‘Sounds strange to me.’
‘The more I live, the more most things sound strange to me,’ Brunetti observed.
‘What did you think of him?’ the Inspector asked with a flick of his head back towards Meucci’s office.
‘There’s no question he was lying, but I’m not sure what he was lying about.’
‘He lies a lot,’ Vianello said.
This caused Brunetti to stop. ‘You didn’t tell me you knew him.’
Vianello looked surprised that Brunetti would take him so seriously. ‘No,’ he said, starting to walk again, ‘I meant that I know his type. He lies to himself, I’m sure, about smoking, probably tells himself he doesn’t smoke much at all.’
‘And the stains on his fingers?’
‘Gitanes,’ Vianello answered. ‘They’re famous for being strong, so only a few of them would be enough to cause it.’