Free CB14 Blood From A Stone (2005) by Donna Leon Page A

long conversations with the pleasant commissario from Venice.
    It had taken only one meeting with Sandrini for Brunetti to persuade the lawyer that it might be wiser, given the rather Victorian ideas of some members of the Mafia as to the sanctity of the marriage vows, to give the occasional piece of information to the pleasant commissario from Venice. To date, Brunetti had maintained his promise never to ask Sandrini to compromise his professional relationship with his clients, but he knew the promise was a false one and that he would grind information out of Sandrini mercilessly should it serve his own purposes.
    Brunetti placed the files into his out tray and, strangely cheered by the consideration of his own perfidy, went home for lunch.

8
    If he had thought to leave uncertainty and unease behind him at the Questura, he was much mistaken, for he found both within the walls of his home. Here they manifested themselves in the aura of moral outrage which both Paola and Chiara carried about with them, much in the fashion of Dante’s usurers, passing through eternity with their money bags hung round their necks. He assumed that both his wife and his daughter believed themselves in the right. When, after all, had a person involved in an argument believed themselves to be in the wrong?
    He found his family at table. He kissed Paola’s cheek and ruffled Chiara’s hair, but she pulled her head quickly aside, as if unwilling tobe touched by a hand that had rested on her opponent’s shoulder. Pretending not to have noticed, he took his place and asked Raffi how school was. His son, in a manifestation of male solidarity in the face of female moodiness, said things were fine, then began a long explanation of the arcana of a computer program he was using in his chemistry class. Brunetti, far more interested in his linguine with scampi than in anything to do with computers, smiled and asked what he did his best to make sound like relevant questions.
    Conversation chugged along through a plate of sole fried with artichoke bottoms and a rucola salad. Chiara pushed her food around on her plate, leaving much of it uneaten, an unmistakable sign that this situation was affecting her deeply.
    Upon learning that there was no dessert, she and Raffi evaporated; Brunetti set his empty glass down and said, ‘I have the feeling I ought to have one of those blue helmets the UN peacekeepers wear when there’s danger they might be caught in crossfire.’
    Paola poured them both a bit more wine, the Loredan Gasparini his father-in-law had sent him as a birthday present, one he would like to be able to drink in happier circumstances. ‘She’ll get over it,’ Paola said and set the bottle on the table with an authoritative clunk.
    ‘I have no doubt of that,’ Brunetti answered calmly. ‘I just don’t want to have to eat my lunch in this atmosphere until that happens.’
    ‘Oh, come on, Guido. It’s not that bad,’ Paola said in a voice that suggested she would be quite happy, if given sufficient provocation, to divert her irritation towards him. ‘She’ll realize what she’s done in a few days.’
    ‘And then?’ he asked. ‘Apologize?’
    ‘For starters,’ Paola said.
    ‘And then what?’
    ‘Think about what she said and what that says about her as a person.’
    ‘It’s been a day,’ he said. ‘And she’s not over it.’
    Paola allowed a long time to pass before she asked, ‘What does that mean?’
    He tried to find a way of saying what he wanted to say without angering her. ‘That I think you’ve offended her,’ he finally offered.
    ‘Her?’ Paola said with false incredulity. ‘How?’
    He poured some more wine into his glass but left it on the table. ‘By assaulting her without giving her a chance to explain.’
    Her look was long and level. ‘“Assaulting?”’ she repeated. ‘Does that mean there’s some explanation or justification for ideas like hers, that the death of a man can be dismissed with a