Free Dressed for Death by Donna Leon Page B

offered the photo to
Crespo.
     
    The young man took the photo,
managing to touch Brunetti’s fingers with his own as he did so. He held it in
the air between them, gave Brunetti a long smile, and then bowed his smiling
face over the photo. His hand left his neck and slid up to cover his gasping
mouth. ‘No, no,’ he said, eyes still on the photo. ‘No, no,’ he repeated and
looked up at Brunetti with eyes gone wide with horror. He thrust the picture
away from him, jammed it into Brunetti’s chest, and backed away from him, as
though Brunetti had carried pollution into the room with him. ‘They can’t do
that to me. That won’t happen to me,’ he said, backing away from Brunetti. His
voice rose with every word, teetered on the edge of hysteria, and then fell
over into it. ‘No, that won’t happen to me. Nothing will ever happen to me.’
His voice rose up into a high-pitched challenge to the world he lived in. ‘Not
to me, not to me,’ he shouted, backing further and further away from Brunetti.
He bumped into a table in the middle of the room, panicked at finding himself
blocked in his attempt to get away from the photo and the man who had shown it
to him, and lashed out at it with his arm. A vase identical to the one near
Brunetti crashed to the floor.
     
    The door to the other room
opened, and a fourth man came quickly into the room. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘What’s
going on?’
     
    He looked towards Brunetti, and
they recognized one another instantly. Giancarlo Santomauro was not only one of
the best known lawyers in Venice, often serving as legal counsel to the
Patriarch at no cost, but he was also the president and moving light of the
Lega della Moralit à , a society of lay Christians
dedicated to the ‘preservation and perpetuation of faith, home, and virtue’.
     
    Brunetti did no more than nod. If
by any chance these men didn’t know the identity of Crespo’s client, it was
better for the lawyer that it remain that way.
     
    ‘What are you doing here?’
Santomauro demanded angrily. He turned to the older of the two men, now
standing above Crespo, who had ended on a sofa, both hands over his face,
sobbing. ‘Can’t you shut him up?’ Santomauro shouted. Brunetti watched as the
older man bent over Crespo. He said something to him, then put both hands on
his shoulders and shook him till his head wove back and forth. Crespo stopped
crying, but his hands remained over his face.
     
    ‘What are you doing in this
apartment, Commissario? I’m Signor Crespo’s legal representative, and I refuse
to permit the police to continue to brutalize him.’
     
    Brunetti didn’t answer but
continued to study the pair at the sofa. The older man moved to sit beside
Crespo and put a protective arm around his shoulders, and Crespo gradually grew
quiet.
     
    ‘I asked you a question,
Commissario,’ Santomauro said.
     
    ‘I came to ask Signor Crespo if
he could help us identify the victim of a crime. I showed him a photo of the
man. You see his response. Rather strong way to respond to the death of a man
he didn’t recognize, wouldn’t you say?’
     
    The man in the sweater looked at
Brunetti but it was Santomauro who spoke. ‘If Signor Crespo has said he didn’t
recognize him, then you have your answer and can leave.’
     
    ‘Of course,’ Brunetti said, tucking
the folder under his right arm and taking a step towards the door. Glancing
back at Santomauro, voice easy and conversational, Brunetti said, ‘You forgot
to tie your shoes, Avvocato.’
     
    Santomauro looked down and saw
immediately that they were both tied neatly. He gave Brunetti a look that would
have etched glass but said nothing.
     
    Brunetti stopped in front of the
sofa and looked down at Crespo. ‘My name is Brunetti,’ he said. ‘If you
remember anything, you can call me at the Questura in Venice.’
     
    Santomauro started to speak but
cut himself short. Brunetti let himself out of the apartment.
     
    * * *