Dressed for Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

a
large bald spot, so I’d guess he wore a wig when, ah, when he worked.’
     
    ‘Was a wig found?’ Brunetti
asked.
     
    ‘No, sir, there wasn’t. And it
looks like he was killed somewhere else and carried there.’
     
    ‘Footprints?’
     
    ‘Yes. The technical team said
they found a set of them going towards the clump of grass and coming away from
it.’
     
    ‘Deeper when going?’
     
    ‘Yes, sir.’
     
    ‘So he was carried out there and
dumped under that clump of grass. Where did the footprints come from?’
     
    ‘There’s a narrow paved road that
runs along the back of the field behind the slaughterhouse. It looks like he
came from there.’
     
    ‘And on the road?’
     
    ‘Nothing, sir. It hasn’t rained
in weeks, so a car, or even a truck, could have stopped there, and there’d be
no sign of it. There’s just those footprints. A man’s. Size forty-three.’
Brunetti’s size.
     
    ‘Do you have a list of the
transvestite prostitutes?’
     
    ‘Only those who have been in
trouble, sir.’
     
    ‘What sort of trouble do they get
into?’
     
    ‘The usual. Drugs. Fights among
themselves. Occasionally, one of them will get into a fight with a client.
Usually over money. But none of them has ever been mixed up in anything
serious.’
     
    ‘What about the fights? Are they
ever violent?’
     
    ‘Nothing like this, sir. Never
anything like this.’
     
    ‘How many of them are there?’
     
    ‘We’ve got files on about thirty
of them, but I’d guess that’s just a small fraction of them. A lot of them come
down from Pordenone or in from Padova. It seems business is better for them
there, but I don’t know why.’ The first place was the nearest big city to both
American and Italian military installations: that would account for Pordenone.
But Padova? The university? If so, things had changed since Brunetti took his
law degree.
     
    ‘I’d like to take a look at those
files tonight. Can you make me copies of them?’
     
    ‘I’ve already had that done, sir,’
Gallo said, handing him a thick blue file that lay on his desk.
     
    As he took the folder from the
sergeant, Brunetti realized that, even here in Mestre, less than twenty
kilometres from home, he was likely to be treated as a foreigner, so he sought
for some common ground that would establish him as a member of a working unit,
not the commissario come in from out of town. ‘But you’re Venetian, aren’t you,
Sergeant?’ Gallo nodded and Brunetti added, ‘Castello?’ Again, Gallo nodded,
but this time with a smile, as if he knew the accent would follow him, no
matter where he went.
     
    ‘What are you doing out here in
Mestre?’ Brunetti asked.
     
    ‘You know how it is, sir,’ he
began. ‘I got tired of trying to find an apartment in Venice. My wife and I
looked for two years, but it’s impossible. No one wants to rent to a Venetian,
afraid you’ll get in and they’ll never be able to get you out. And the prices
if you want to buy - five million a square metre. Who can afford that? So we
came out here.’
     
    ‘You sound like you regret it,
Sergeant.’
     
    Gallo shrugged. It was a common
enough fate among Venetians, driven out of the city by skyrocketing rents and
prices. ‘It’s always hard to leave home, Commissario,’ he said, but it seemed
to Brunetti that his voice, when he said it, was somewhat warmer.
     
    Returning to the issue at hand,
Brunetti tapped a finger on the file. ‘Do you have anyone here they talk to,
that they trust?’
     
    ‘We used to have an officer,
Benvenuti, but he retired last year.’
     
    ‘No one else?’
     
    ‘No, sir.’ Gallo paused for a
moment, as if considering whether he could risk his next statement. ‘I’m afraid
many of the younger officers, well, I’m afraid they treat these guys as
something of a joke.’
     
    ‘Why do you say that, Sergeant
Gallo?’
     
    ‘If any of them makes a
complaint, you know, about being beat up by a client - not about not