Read CB14 Blood From A Stone (2005) for Free Online Page A

in dampness with every breath. The approaching vaporetto slipped silently from fog so thick Brunetti could barely make out the form of the man waiting to moor it and slide back the metal gate. He stepped on board, looked up and saw its radar screen turning, and wondered what it was like out on the laguna .
    He took a seat in the cabin and opened that morning’s Gazzettino , but he learned from it considerably less than he had the night before.In possession of few facts, the writer opted for sentiment and spoke of the terrible cost the extracomunitari had to pay for their desire for a chance at bare survival and to earn enough money to send back to their families. No name was given for the dead man, nor was his nationality known, though it was assumed he was from Senegal, the country from which most of the ambulanti came. An elderly man got on at Sant’ Angelo and chose to sit next to Brunetti. He saw the newspaper and mouthed out the headline, then said, ‘Nothing but trouble once you start letting them in.’
    Brunetti ignored him.
    Brunetti’s silence spurred the man to add, ‘I’d round them up and send them back.’
    Brunetti gave a grunt and turned the page, but the old man failed to take the hint. ‘My son-in-law has a shop in Calle dei Fabbri. Pays his rent, pays his help, pays his taxes. He gives something to the city, gives work. And these people,’ he said, making a gesture that stopped just short of slapping the offending page, ‘what do they give us?’
    With another grunt, Brunetti folded his newspaper and excused himself to go and stand on deck, though they were only at Santa Maria del Giglio and he had another two stops before he got off.
    The Paganelli was a narrow hotel, slipped in, like an architectural dash separating two capital letters, between the Danieli and the Savoia & Jolanda. At the desk he said he was there to meetthe Doctors Crowley and was told they were already in the breakfast room. He followed the clerk’s gesture down a narrow corridor and entered a small room that held six or seven tables, at one of which the Crowleys sat. With them were another elderly couple and, between them, a woman whose appearance gave evidence of considerable assistance.
    When Doctor Crowley saw Brunetti, he got to his feet and waved at him; his wife looked up and smiled a greeting. The other man at the table rose and stayed standing as Brunetti approached. One of the women smiled in Brunetti’s direction; the other did not.
    The people presented to him as the Petersons were tiny, bird-like people, dressed in colours as inconspicuous as those of sparrows. She had iron grey hair that capped her head in a tight perm; he was entirely bald, his head covered with deep, sun-hardened furrows running from front to back. The woman who had not smiled, introduced as Lydia Watts, had lustrous red hair and lips the same colour. Brunetti saw her push back a vagrant curl with a hand that no surgery and no art could make look the same age as her face and hair.
    The table was covered with the aftermath of breakfast: coffee cups and teapots and fragments of buttered rolls. There were two empty bread baskets and an equally empty platter that might have held meat or cheese.
    After Brunetti shook hands with all of them, Dr Crowley pulled over a chair from aneighbouring table and offered it to Brunetti. He sat and when the doctor did too, looked around the table at the assembled Americans. ‘I’m grateful that you agreed to speak to me this morning,’ he said in English.
    Dottoressa Crowley answered, ‘It’s only right, isn’t it, to tell you what we saw, if it can help?’ There were nods of agreement from the others.
    Her husband took over from her and said, ‘We’ve been talking about it already this morning, Commissario.’ With a gesture that encompassed all of the people at the table, he added, ‘It’s probably best that we each tell you what we saw.’
    Dr Peterson cleared his throat a few times, then said,