For some minutes, neither of them said anything, and then Dantone asked, ‘You know the pathologist well?’
‘Yes. We’ve worked together for a long time.’
‘Must be a lousy job,’ the Captain said, careful to keep his face and voice neutral as he spoke.
Brunetti turned to look at him as he answered. ‘He once told me he thinks it’s miraculous.’
‘What?’ Dantone’s shock was audible. ‘What he does?’
‘The body, not the autopsy,’ Brunetti said. ‘At least that’s what he told me. He said it’s perfect, the way it works and what it can do.’
Brunetti felt a debt to Rizzardi, who had come here on his free evening only because he had asked him to, and so he explained, ‘He told me once that he sees how strong we are and how perfectly designed the body is for survival: that’s what he thinks is miraculous.’
Dantone clasped his hands together and leaned forward to put them between his knees. He looked at the floor for a long time until he finally glanced sideways at Brunetti and said, ‘Oh, I see. Yes.’
After that, the men sat in silence for some time until Dantone, driven by the growing cold, got up and began to pace the room. Brunetti crossed his legs, wrapped his arms around his body, and waited. There was a knock at the door and the attendant came in.
‘Dottor Rizzardi said he’d like to talk to you.’
‘Is he finished?’ Brunetti asked in a voice he hoped would cover his reluctance to have the next conversation.
‘Yes, he’s back in his office. Do you know the way?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said with a sigh.
16
Brunetti led the way down the corridor to Rizzardi’s office, where they found the door open. He stuck his head inside and saw Rizzardi, sitting in one of the chairs against the wall, bent over, tying his shoes.
‘Ah, Guido,’ Rizzardi said, getting to his feet. The doctor noticed Dantone, came over and shook hands with Brunetti and then with the other man while they exchanged names. He stepped back and looked at both of them. ‘Was it you who pulled him out of the water?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered for both of them.
‘When?’
Brunetti looked at Dantone, who said, ‘It was about four, I think, four-thirty. Does it make a difference?’
Rizzardi shook his head, put both hands on his tie to check the knot, and said, ‘No, not really; I was simply curious. It was the only thing I wasn’t sure of.’
‘What are you sure of?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That he drowned,’ Rizzardi answered. ‘And in salt water. Some time last night.’ He went back to his desk and leaned against it, as if he didn’t want to sit in a chair and thus commit himself to staying there a long time. ‘You said he was a friend of yours?’
‘Yes, I think he was,’ Brunetti said. ‘Yes.’
‘Why only think it?’
‘I’ve known him only a short time,’ Brunetti answered. ‘A bit more than a week.’ Rizzardi grunted to acknowledge this. ‘But he knew my father,’ Brunetti added, aware of how much this had warmed him to Casati. He waited a moment and asked Rizzardi, ‘Anything else?’
Rizzardi nodded. ‘There was water in his lungs as I told you. He was alive when he went into the water.’ When neither man spoke, Rizzardi added, ‘He had a rough time in the storm, I’d say: there were marks on his arms and on the left side of his forehead that would have become bruises.’ Seeing Dantone’s confusion, he explained. ‘Blood stops circulating when a person dies, so bruising doesn’t happen.’ Rizzardi bowed his head to study his shoes, and added, ‘I don’t think the blows were very hard: just the usual things that happen on a boat in rough weather.’
‘That’s all?’ Brunetti asked.
Looking up at them again, Rizzardi said, ‘It looks like he had a rough life, too, at least when he was younger. There are scars and traces of fat in his liver: most alcoholics have them, no matter how long ago they stopped drinking. Same with cigarettes: he was once a heavy smoker, but he stopped.’
Brunetti was astonished to learn this. Who had he been, this mild, temperate man? His body had given up secrets that his tranquil life had not even hinted at. Brunetti noticed that the pathologist was gripping and releasing his hands from the edge of the table behind him, and Dantone was turning his head back and forth as he and Rizzardi talked.
Rizzardi reached back across his desk to take his jacket from where it was draped over his chair. He put it on and asked, ‘Do you have any other questions, Guido?’
‘What about the scars?’
Rizzardi must have been waiting for the question, for he said, ‘The injuries happened years ago, perhaps twenty, even more. They’re not involved in his death.’ Then, before Brunetti could ask about their cause, Rizzardi said, ‘They’re not the sort I’m used to seeing.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘They’re chemical burns. Or acid. Something that causes the skin to melt. Flame leaves different scars.’
‘The rope?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, the rope,’ Rizzardi said, running the fingers of both hands through his hair, something he did when preparing to end a conversation. ‘It was tangled around his upper calf and then again around his ankle. The rubbing damaged the tissue in both places.’
That would have happened after Casati died, Brunetti thought, as his body was pulled about by the moving water, and would have caused him no pain. There was no consolation in that thought.
‘I closed his eyes,’ Rizzardi said.
Brunetti nodded his thanks but could not speak for a moment. Finally he said, ‘I took some photos out there. I’ll send them to you.’
‘Thank you,’ the doctor answered. When neither Brunetti nor Dantone spoke, Rizzardi suggested, ‘Shall we leave, then, Signori?’ and Brunetti liked him for not mentioning the dinner he had abandoned. The doctor led them into the corridor and turned to lock the door to his office.
Brunetti, remembering his promise to Federica, said, ‘I told his daughter I’d meet her here.’
Rizzardi was startled into saying, ‘Ah, I forgot; I’m sorry, Guido. Her husband called and said she’s in no shape to come here. She collapsed after you told her. He’ll bring her in the morning.’
Brunetti felt a wave of relief and then an even stronger wave of shame at his own cowardice. ‘Did he say when they’d come?’ he asked, hoping he could make amends if he was here when they arrived.
‘Ten,’ the doctor told him.
They walked towards the main exit together, all of them aware of how the temperature increased as they moved closer to the door. By the time they got to the campo, their bodies, like those of surfacing divers, had adjusted to the new conditions. The heat wrapped itself around them, and Brunetti thought he could smell his own clothing.