Death in a Strange Country Read Free Page A

young man and
studied, for the briefest of instants, the façade of the basilica and allowed
himself to be calmed by its symmetry. ‘When can you tell me something exact,
Ettore?’
     
    Rizzardi gave a quick
look at his watch. ‘If your boys can take him out to the cemetery now, I can
get to him later this morning. Give me a call after lunch, and I’ll be able to
tell you exactly. But I don’t think there’s any doubt, Guido.’ The doctor
hesitated, not liking to have to tell Brunetti how to do his job. ‘Aren’t you
going to check his pockets?’
     
    Though he had done it
many times in his career, Brunetti hated this first invasion of the privacy of
the dead, this first awful imposition of the power of the State on the peace of
the departed. He disliked having to go through their diaries and drawers, to
page through their letters, finger their clothing.
     
    But since the body had
already been moved from where it had been found, there was no reason to leave
it untouched until the photographer could record where it lay in the precise
posture of death. He squatted beside the young man and reached a hand into his
trouser pocket. At the bottom he found a few coins and placed them beside the
body. In the other there was a plain metal ring with four keys attached.
Unasked, Rizzardi bent down to help shift the body to its side so that Brunetti
could reach into the back pockets. One held a sodden yellow rectangle, clearly
a train ticket, and the other a paper napkin, equally sodden. He nodded to
Rizzardi, and they lowered the body back to the ground.
     
    He picked up one of the
coins and held it out to the doctor.
     
    ‘What is it?’ asked
Rizzardi.
     
    ‘American. Twenty-five
cents.’ It seemed a strange thing to find in the pocket of a dead man in
Venice.
     
    ‘Ah, that could be it,’
the doctor said. ‘An American.’
     
    ‘What?’
     
    ‘Why he’s in such good
shape,’ Rizzardi answered, entirely unconscious of the bitter incongruity of
the tense. ‘That might explain it. They’re always so fit, so healthy.’
Together, they looked at the body, at the narrow waist that showed under the
still-open shirt.
     
    ‘If he is,’ Rizzardi
said, ‘the teeth will tell me.’
     
    ‘Why?’
     
    ‘Because of the dental
work. They use different techniques, better materials. If he’s had any dental
work done, I’ll be able to tell you this afternoon if he’s American.’
     
    Had Brunetti been a
different man, he might have asked Rizzardi to take a look now, but he saw no
need to hurry, nor did he want to disturb that young face again. ‘Thanks, Ettore.
I’ll send a photographer out to take some pictures. Do you think you can get
his eyes closed?’
     
    ‘Of course. I’ll have him
looking as much like himself as I can. But you’ll want his eyes open for the
pictures, won’t you?’
     
    Just by a breath,
Brunetti stopped himself from saying he never wanted those eyes open again and,
instead, answered, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’
     
    ‘And send someone to take
the fingerprints, Guido’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘All right. Then call me
about three.’ They shook hands briefly, and Doctor Rizzardi picked up his bag.
Without saying goodbye, he walked across the open space towards the monumental
open portal of the hospital, two hours early for work.
     
    More officers had arrived
while they were examining the body, and now there must have been eight of them,
formed in an outward-facing arc about three metres from the body. ‘Sergeant
Vianello,’ Brunetti called, and one of them stepped back from the line and came
to join him beside the body.
     
    ‘Get two of your men to take
him to the launch, then take him out to the cemetery.’
     
    While this was being
done, Brunetti returned to his examination of the front of the basilica,
letting his eyes flow up and around its soaring spires. His eyes shifted across
the campo to the statue of Colleoni, perhaps a witness to the crime.
     
    Vianello came up