A Sea of Troubles

Resto, he realized, had earned his trust only by having earned Signorina Elettra's. This reflection brought him back to Pellestrina, the now-identified young man, and thoughts of Signorina Elettra. He dwelt upon those for a quarter of an hour and then called the Finanza again.

'Resto,' a light voice answered.

'Maresciallo,' Brunetti began, 'this is Commissario Guido Brunetti, at the Questura. I'm calling to ask you for some information.'

'Are you Elettra's boss?' the man asked, surprising Brunetti not by the question but by the casual use of her first name.

'Yes.'

'Good. Then ask anything.' Brunetti waited, though he waited in vain, for the usual encomia to Signorina Elettra's many virtues.

'I'm curious about a case you handled two years ago. A fishing boat was sequestered from a fisherman on Burano, Vittorio Spadini.' He waited for Resto to comment, but the other man was silent, and so Brunetti went on. 'I'd like to know whatever you can tell me about the case, or about him.'

'Is this about the murders?' Resto asked, surprising him with the question.

'Why do you ask?'

Resto gave a small laugh. 'There've been three deaths on Pellestrina in the last ten days, two of them fishermen, and now the police call and ask me about a fisherman. I'd have to be a Carabiniere not to wonder about the connection.'

It was said as a joke, but it was not a joke.

'He's said to have been involved with one of the victims,' Brunetti offered by way of explanation.

'Have you questioned him?'

"There's no sign of him. A neighbour says he's not around.'

Resto paused, then said, 'Wait a minute while I get the file.' He was gone for a short time, then came back, picked up the phone, and said, "The file's down in the archive. I'll call you back,' and hung up.

So Resto also wanted to be sure who he was talking to, Brunetti realized, suspecting that the Maresciallo had the file in his hand but thought it wisest to call the Questura and ask for Brunetti.

When the phone rang a moment later, he answered with his name and, as nothing was to be gained by provoking the man, resisted the temptation to ask Resto if he were sure now with whom he was dealing.

Brunetti heard pages being turned, and then Resto said, 'We started the investigation in June, two years ago. We put a flag up at his bank and put a tap on his phone and his accountant's phone and fax. We kept track of how much he sold at the fish market, then checked to see how much of that he declared.'

'What else?' Brunetti prodded.

'And we ran the usual checks on him.'

'Which are?' Brunetti asked.

'I'd rather not say,' Resto answered. 'But we eventually realized he was selling clams and fish for a value of almost a billion lire a year and declaring an income of less than a hundred million.'

'And?' Brunetti asked into the next silence. 'And we kept an eye on him for a few months. And then we landed him.' 'Like a fish?'

'Exactly. Like a fish. But he turned into a clam once we had him. Nothing. No money, no idea where he's got it. If he's got it.'

'How long do you think he was earning this much?'

'No way of knowing. Could have been five years. Or more.'

'And you've no idea where he's got it hidden?'

'He could have spent it.'

Brunetti, who had seen the state of Spadini's house, doubted that, but he didn't offer this information. He considered what he'd heard, then asked, 'What put you on to him?'

'One-one-seven.'

'Excuse me?' Brunetti said.

'The number, the one for anonymous denuncie.'

Brunetti had heard, for years, about this number, 117, set up to allow citizens to make anonymous accusations of tax evasion. Though he had heard the story, he had never quite believed in it and had persisted in thinking of 117 as yet another urban myth. But here was a maresciallo of the very Finanza itself, telling him it was true: the number existed and it had been used to launch the investigation of Vittorio Spadini, one that led to the loss of his boat.

'What sort of record is kept of these calls?'

'I'm afraid I can't discuss that with you, Commissario,' Resto said, neither regret nor reluctance audible in his voice.

‘I see,' Brunetti answered. 'Were criminal charges pressed against him at the time?'

'No. It was judged better to fine him.'

'How much was the fine?'

'Five hundred million lire,' Resto said. 'At the end, that is. It was higher at the beginning, but then it was reduced.'

'Why?'

'We examined his assets, and all he had was the boat and two small bank accounts.'

'Yet you knew he was making half a billion a year?'

'We had reason to believe that, yes. But it was decided that, in the absence of equity on his part, we would settle for the lesser sum.'

'Which represented?'

'His boat, and the money in both of those accounts.'

'And his house?'

'The house is his wife's. She brought it to the marriage, and so we had no right to it.'

'Have you any idea where the money's gone?'

'None. But there are rumours that he gambles.'

'Unluckily, it would seem,' Brunetti observed. 'Everyone who gambles gambles unluckily.' Brunetti gave this the laugh it deserved, then asked, 'And since then?'

'I've no idea,' Resto answered. 'He's not been reported to us since then, so there's nothing else I can tell you about him.'

Brunetti asked, 'Did you meet him?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

Without hesitation, Resto said, 'And he's a very unpleasant man. Not because of what he did. Everyone cheats. We expect that. But there was a kind of frenzy in his resistance to us I've rarely seen before. I don't think it had anything to do with the money he lost, though I could be wrong.'

'If not the money, then what?'

'Losing. Or being defeated,' Resto suggested. 'I've never seen a man so angry at having been caught, though it was impossible we wouldn't catch him, he'd been so stupid.' It sounded as though it was Spadini's carelessness he disapproved of, not his dishonesty.

'Would you say he's violent?' Brunetti asked.

'Does that mean do I think he's capable of those murders?'

'Yes.'

‘I don't know. I suppose many people are, though they don't realize it until they get into the right situation. Or the wrong one,' Resto added quickly. 'Maybe. Maybe not.' When Brunetti said nothing, Resto said, 'I'm sorry not to be able to answer that for you, but I just don't know.'

'That's all right,' Brunetti said. 'Thank you for what you could tell me.'

'Let me know what happens, will you?' Resto said, surprising Brunetti with his request.

'Of course. Why?'

'Oh, just curious,' Resto said, disguising something, though Brunetti couldn't tell what. With a mutual exchange of pleasantries, the two men took their leave of each other.

21

Brunetti found his family seated around the table when he came in, almost-empty dishes of lasagne before them. Chiara got up and kissed him, Raffi said, 'Qiao, Papa' before returning to his pasta, and Paola smiled in his direction. She went to the stove, bent and opened the oven, pulled from it a plate with a large rectangle of lasagne in the centre, and set it at his place.