Donna Leon - Blood from a Stone (Commissario Brunetti 14)

The police arrived with a speed that astonished the Italian bystanders as much as it scandalized the Americans. To Venetians, half an hour did not seem a long time for the police to organize a boat and a squad of technicians and officers and reach Campo Santo Stefano, but by that time most of the Americans had drifted away in exasperation, telling one another that they would meet back at the hotel. No one bothered to keep an eye on the crime scene, so by the time the police finally did arrive, most of the bags had disappeared from the sheets, even from the one on which the body lay. Some of those who stole the dead mans bags left red footprints on his sheet; one set disappeared towards Rialto in a bloody trail.

The first officer on the scene, Alvise, approached the small crowd that still stood near the dead man and ordered them to move back. He walked over to the mans body and stood, looking down at him as if confused as to what to do now that he could see the victim. Finally, a lab technician asked him to move aside while he set up a wooden stanchion, and then another, and then another until they ringed the sheet. From one of the boxes the technicians had brought to the scene he took a roll of red and white striped tape and ran it through slots in the tops of the wooden stanchions until a clear demarcation had been created between the body and the rest of the world.

Alvise went over to a man who was standing by the steps of the church and demanded, Who are you?

Riccardo Lombardi, the man answered. He was tall, about fifty, well-dressed, the sort of person who sat behind a desk and gave orders, or so thought Alvise.

What are you doing here?

Surprised at the policemans tone, the man answered, I was walking by, and I saw this crowd, so I stopped.

Did you see who did it?

Did what?

It occurred to Alvise only then that he had no idea what had been done, only that the Questura had received a call, saying that a black man was dead in Campo Santo Stefano. Can you show me some identification? Alvise demanded.

The man took out his wallet and extracted his carta didentit. Silently, he handed it to Alvise, who glanced at it before handing it back. Did you see anything? he asked in the same voice.

I told you, officer. I was walking by, and I saw these people standing around here, so I stopped to look. Nothing more.

All right. You can go, Alvise said in a tone that suggested the man really had no choice. Alvise turned away from him and went back to the crime team, where the photographers were already packing up their equipment.

Find anything? he asked one of the technicians.

Santini, who was on his knees, running his gloved hands over the paving stones in search of shell casings, looked up at Alvise and said, A dead man, before returning to his search.

Not deterred by the answer, Alvise pulled out a notebook from the inside pocket of his uniform parka. He flipped it open, took out a pen, and wrote Campo Santo Stefano. He studied what he had written, glanced at his watch, added 20.58, capped the pen, and returned both notebook and pen to his pocket.

From his right, he heard a familiar voice ask, Whats going on, Alvise?

Alvise raised a languid hand in something that resembled a salute and said, Im not sure, Commissario. We had a call, saying there was a dead man here, so we came over.

His superior, Commissario Guido Brunetti, said, I can see that, Alvise. What happened to cause the man to be dead?

I dont know, sir. Were waiting for the doctor to get here.

Whos coming? Brunetti asked.

Whos coming where, sir? Alvise asked, utterly at a loss.

Which doctor is coming? Do you know?

I dont know, sir. I was in such a hurry to get the team here that I told them at the Questura to call and have one of the doctors sent.

Brunettis question was answered by the arrival of Dottor Ettore Rizzardi, medico legale of the city of Venice.

Ciao, Guido, Rizzardi said, shifting his bag to his left hand and offering his right. What have we got?

A dead man, Brunetti said. I got the call at home, saying someone had been killed here, but nothing more than that. I just got here myself.

Better have a look, then, Rizzardi said, turning towards the taped-off area. You speak to anyone? he asked Brunetti.

No. Nothing. Talking to Alvise never counted.

Rizzardi bent and slipped under the tape, placing one hand on the pavement to do so, then held the tape up to make it easier for Brunetti to join him. The doctor turned to one of the technicians. Youve taken pictures?

S, Dottore, the man answered. From every side.

All right, then, Rizzardi said, setting down his bag. He turned away, took out two pairs of thin plastic gloves and gave one pair to Brunetti. As they slipped them on, the doctor asked, Give me a hand?

They knelt on either side of the dead man. All that was visible was the right side of his face and his hands. Brunetti was struck by the very blackness of the mans skin, then bemused by his own surprise: what other colour did he expect an African to be? Unlike the black Americans Brunetti had seen, with their shading from cocoa to copper, this man was the colour of ebony buffed to a high gloss.

Together, they reached under the body and turned the man on to his back. The intense cold had caused the blood to congeal. Their knees anchored the sheet, so when they moved him, his jacket stuck to the cloth and pulled away from both his body and the pavement with a sharp sucking sound. Hearing it, Rizzardi let the mans shoulder fall back on to the ground; Brunetti lowered his side, saying nothing.

Points of blood-stiffened cloth stood up on the mans chest, looking like the whorls a pastry chefs fantasy might create on a birthday cake.

Sorry, Rizzardi said, either to Brunetti or the dead man. Still kneeling, he bent over and used a gloved finger to touch each of the holes in his parka. Five of them, he said. Looks like they really wanted to kill him.

Brunetti saw that the dead mans eyes were open; so too was his mouth, frozen in the panic that must have filled him at the first shot. He was a handsome young man, his teeth gleaming in striking contrast to that burnished skin. Brunetti slipped one hand into the right-hand pocket of the mans parka, then the left. He found some small change and a used handkerchief. The inside pocket contained a pair of keys and a few Euro bills in small denominations. There was a ricevuta fiscale from a bar with a San Marco address, probably one of the bars in the campo. Nothing else.

Whod want to kill a vu cumpr? Rizzardi asked, getting to his feet. As if the poor devils dont have enough as it is. He studied the man on the ground. I cant tell, looking at him like this, where they got him, but three of the holes are grouped pretty near the heart. One would have been enough to kill him. Stuffing his gloves into his pocket, Rizzardi asked, Professional, you think?

Looks like it to me, Brunetti answered, aware that this made the death even more confusing. He had never had to trouble himself with the vu cumpr because few of them were ever involved in serious crime, and those few cases had always fallen to other commissarios. Like most of the police, indeed, like most residents, Brunetti had always assumed that the men from Senegal were under the control of organized crime, the reason most often offered to explain their politeness in dealing with the public: so long as their manner did not call attention to them, few people would trouble to ask how they so successfully managed to remain invisible to and undisturbed by the authorities. Brunetti had come over the years no longer to notice them nor to remember when they had displaced the original French-speaking Algerian and Moroccan