The Death of Faith Read Online Free PDF Page B

attractive can risk showing off, he realized. ‘After lunch will do nicely, Signorina.’ He left the list with the names and dates of death on her desk and went back up to his office.
     
    When he sat at his desk, he looked at the names of the two men he’d written down: Dr Fabio Messini, and Father Pio Cavaletti. Neither of them was familiar to him, but in a city as socially incestuous as Venice, that was meaningless to a person in pursuit of information.
     
    He called down to the office where the uniformed police had their desks. ‘Vianello, could you come up here for a moment? And bring Miotti along with you, would you?’ While he waited for the two policemen to arrive, Brunetti drew a row of checks under the names, and it was not until Vianello and Miotti appeared at his door that he realized they were crosses. He set his pen down and motioned the two policemen to the chairs in front of his desk.
     
    As Vianello sat, his unbuttoned uniform jacket swung open, and Brunetti noticed that he looked thinner than he had during the winter.
     
    ‘You on a diet, Vianello?’ he asked.
     
    ‘No, sir,’ the Sergeant replied, surprised that Brunetti had noticed. ‘Exercise.’
     
    ‘What?’ Brunetti, to whom the idea of exercise bordered on the obscene, made no attempt to disguise his shock.
     
    ‘Exercise,’ Vianello repeated. ‘I go over to the palestra after work and spend a half hour or so.’
     
    ‘Doing what?’ Brunetti asked.
     
    ‘Exercising, sir.’
     
    ‘How often?’
     
    ‘As often as I can,’ Vianello answered, sounding suddenly evasive.
     
    ‘How often is that?’
     
    ‘Oh, three or four times a week.’
     
    Miotti sat silent, his head turning back and forth as he followed this strange conversation. Is this how crime was fought?
     
    ‘And what do you do when you’re there?’
     
    ‘I exercise, sir,’ coming down on the verb with impressive force.
     
    Interested now, however perversely so, Brunetti leaned forward, elbows on his desk, chin cupped in one hand. ‘But how? Running in place? Swinging from ropes?’
     
    ‘No, sir,’ Vianello answered, not smiling. ‘With machines.’
     
    ‘What kind of machines?’
     
    ‘Exercise machines.’
     
    Brunetti turned his eyes to Miotti who, because he was young, might understand some of this. But Miotti, whose youth took care of his body for him, looked away from Brunetti and back to Vianello.
     
    ‘Well,’ Brunetti concluded, when it was evident that Vianello was going to be no more forthcoming, ‘you look very good.’
     
    ‘Thank you, sir. You might want to think about giving it a try yourself.’
     
    Tucking in his stomach and sitting up straighter in his chair, Brunetti turned his attention back to business. ‘Miotti,’ he began, ‘your brother is a priest, isn’t he?’
     
    ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, evidently surprised that his superior would know.
     
    ‘What kind?’
     
    ‘A Dominican, sir.’
     
    ‘Is he here in Venice?’
     
    ‘No, sir. He was here for four years, but then they sent him to Novara, three years ago, to teach in a boys’ school.’
     
    ‘Are you in touch with him?’
     
    ‘Yes, sir. I speak to him every week, and I see him three or four times a year.’
     
    ‘Good. The next time you talk to him, I’d like you to ask him something.’
     
    ‘What about, sir?’ Miotti asked, taking a notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket and pleasing Brunetti by not asking why.
     
    ‘I’d like you to ask him if he knows anything about Padre Pio Cavaletti. He’s a member of the Order of the Sacred Cross here in the city.’ Brunetti saw Vianello’s raised eyebrows, but the Sergeant remained silent, listening.
     
    ‘Is there anything specific you’d like me to ask him, sir?’
     
    ‘No, anything at all that he can think of or remember.’
     
    Miotti started to speak, hesitated, then asked, ‘Can you tell me anything more about him, sir? That I can tell my brother?’
     
    ‘He’s