tearful story?’ asked Brunetti in a tone more cynical than was his wont.
Breaking off another piece of toothpick, Vianello answered, ‘I was, and am, persuaded by it. It’s pretty obvious that he loved Fontana.’
‘But?’
‘People kill the people they love every day,’ Vianello said.
‘Exactly,’ Brunetti affirmed.
‘Does that mean we’re treating him as a suspect?’
‘It means we have to treat him as a suspect,’ Brunetti said. He looked at the Inspector and asked, ‘What do you think?’
‘I told you I think Penzo loved him,’ Vianello said, then paused a moment and went on in a voice that sounded almost disappointed, ‘but I don’t think he killed him.’
Brunetti was forced to agree with both propositions, but he finally gave voice to an uneasiness that had been created by their conversation with the lawyer, ‘You think that means Penzo was his lover?’
‘You heard the way he spoke,’ Vianello insisted.
‘Loving someone for forty years isn’t the same as being his lover,’ Brunetti said.
He saw Vianello’s look of rigid opposition, and before the Ispettore could speak, Brunetti added, ‘It’s not the same thing, Lorenzo.’ It came to Brunetti that he and Vianello surely loved one another, but this was not anything he could say, surely not to Vianello. Nor, he admitted, would he want Vianello to say it to him.
‘You can see them as different, if you want,’ Vianello said, sounding as if it were something he would choose not to do. ‘If it turns out that he wasn’t in Belluno that night, then what do we do?’
Brunetti could do nothing more than shrug off the possibility.
Back in his office, a wilted Brunetti stood by the window in search of any passing breeze and considered new connections and the possibilities they might create. Penzo and Fontana as loving friends: whatever that meant. Or as lovers: he did not exclude that possibility. Fontana and Judge Coltellini as adversaries over the whereabouts of legal documents. Fontana as the other side of two ‘battaglie’ of words with his fellow tenants. And then Signor Puntera, wealthy businessman and owner of the palazzo, with a finger in this and that and therefore many reasons to want accommodating friends at the Courthouse.
He gave up on any hope of solace from the heat and went down to Signorina Elettra’s office. Her door was closed. He knocked and, at a sound, entered. Into Paradise. It was cool, and it was dry, and he felt an automatic shiver, whether of cold or delight he did not know. She sat behind her computer wearing a light blue cardigan that appeared to be – could this be in August? – cashmere.
He stepped inside and quickly shut the door. ‘How did he manage it?’ he demanded. Then, unable to restrain his surprise, ‘Did you help him?’
‘Please, Commissario,’ she said in an indignant voice. ‘You know my feelings about air conditioning.’ Indeed, he did. They had had a near falling-out over the subject, he maintaining that it was necessary for some people and in some circumstances – in which he silently included his own home in the months of July and August – while she argued that it was wasteful and thus immoral.
‘What happened?’
‘Lieutenant Scarpa,’ she said with unveiled contempt, ‘has a friend who rebuilds air conditioners; he had him bring one over here this morning and install it in the Vice-Questore’s office.’ Sitting up straighter, she added, ‘I told him I had no need of one: enough cold air floods in here every time the door opens.’
At this, the door behind Signorina Elettra’s desk slammed back against the wall and, instead of cold air, Patta erupted into the room. ‘There you are. I’ve been calling your office for hours. Get in here.’ He did not shout: he did not have to. The force of his anger almost reversed the effect of the air conditioning.
The Vice-Questore turned and started back into his office, but because the door had slammed shut from the force with which he had opened it, he had to open it again.
Brunetti had time to cast a glance at Signorina Elettra, but she raised her hands in an empty gesture and shook her head. Brunetti followed Patta into his office and closed the door.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Patta demanded when he was standing behind his desk. He sat but did not wave Brunetti to a chair, which meant that things were bad and Patta was serious.
Brunetti drew closer to the desk, careful to keep his hands at his sides. ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ he asked.