Day of Confession Read online

  For a moment Pio did nothing, then picked up his glass and took a drink of mineral water. “Is this your first time in Rome, Mr. Addison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why now?”

  “I came to bring his body home…. No other reason. The same as I said before.”

  Harry felt Pio starting to push, the way Roscani had earlier, looking for something definitive. A contradiction, a diverting of the eyes, a hesitation. Anything to suggest Harry was holding something back or was flat out lying.

  “Ispettore Capo!”

  The waiter came grinning, as he had before. Making room on the table for four steaming platters, setting them between the men, chattering in Italian.

  Harry waited for him to finish, and when he left, looked at Pio directly. “I’m telling you the truth. And have been all along…. Why don’t you keep your promise and tell me what you haven’t, the particulars of why you think my brother was involved in the cardinal’s murder?”

  Steam rose from the platters, and Pio gestured for Harry to help himself. Harry shook his head.

  “All right.” Pio took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and handed it to Harry. “The Madrid police found it when they went through Valera’s apartment. Look at it carefully.”

  Harry opened the paper. It was an enlarged photocopy of what looked like a page taken from a personal phone book. The names and addresses were handwritten and in Spanish, the corresponding telephone numbers to the right. Most, from the heading, seemed to be from Madrid. At the bottom of the page was a single phone number, to its left was the letter R.

  It didn’t make sense. Spanish names, Madrid phone numbers. What did it have to do with anything? Except that maybe the R at the bottom of the page referred to Rome, but the number beside it had no name at all. Then it came to him.

  “Christ,” he said under his breath and looked at it again. The telephone number beside the R was the one Danny had left on his answering machine. Abruptly he looked up. Pio was staring at him.

  “Not just his phone number, Mr. Addison. Calls,” Pio said. “In the three weeks leading up to the killing, Valera placed a dozen calls to your brother’s apartment from his cellular phone. They became more frequent toward the end, and of shorter duration, as if he were confirming instructions. As far as we’ve been able to tell, they were the only calls he made while he was here.”

  “Telephone calls do not make killers!” Harry was incredulous. Was this it? All they had?

  A newly seated couple looked in their direction. Pio waited for them to turn back, then lowered his voice.

  “You were told there is evidence of a second person in the room. And that we believe it was that second person and not Valera who killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was a Communist agitator, but there is no evidence he ever fired a gun. I remind you your brother was a decorated marksman trained by the military.”

  “That’s a fact, not a connection.”

  “I’m not finished, Mr. Addison…. The murder weapon, the Sako TRG 21, normally takes a .308 Winchester cartridge. In this case it was loaded with American-made Hornady 150-grain spire-point bullets. They are bought primarily at specialty gun shops and used for hunting…. Three were taken from Cardinal Parma’s body…. The rifle’s magazine holds ten rounds. The remaining seven were still there.”

  “So?”

  “Valera’s personal phone directory was what sent us to your brother’s apartment. He wasn’t there. Obviously he had gone to Assisi, but we didn’t know that. Because of Valera’s directory we were able to get a warrant to search…”

  Harry listened, saying nothing.

  “A standard cartridge box holds twenty rounds of ammunition…. A cartridge box containing ten Hornady 150-grain spire points was found inside a locked drawer in your brother’s apartment. With it was a second magazine for the same rifle.”

  Harry felt the wind go out of him. He wanted to respond, to say something in Danny’s defense. He couldn’t.

  “There was also a cash receipt for one million seven hundred thousand lire—just over one thousand U.S. dollars, Mr. Addison. The amount Valera paid in cash to rent the apartment. The receipt had Valera’s signature. The handwriting was the same as that on the telephone list you have there.

  “Circumstantial evidence. Yes, it is. And if your brother were alive, we could ask him about it and give him the opportunity to disprove it.” Anger and passion crept into Pio’s voice. “We could also ask him why he did what he did. And who else was involved. And if he had been trying to kill the pope…. Obviously we can’t do any of that….” Pio sat back, fingering his glass of mineral water, and Harry could see the emotion slowly fade.

  “Maybe we will find out we were wrong. But I don’t think so…. I’ve been around a long time, Mr. Addison, and this is about as close to the truth as you get. Especially when your prime suspect is dead.”

  Harry’s gaze shifted off, and the room became a blur. Until now he had been certain they were mistaken, that they had the wrong man, but this changed everything.

  “What about the bus…?” He looked back, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Whatever Communist faction was behind Parma’s murder, killing one of their own to shut him up?… The Mafia doing something else entirely?… A disgruntled bus company employee with access to, and knowledge of, explosives?… We don’t know, Mr. Addison. As I said, the bombing of the bus and the cardinal’s murder are separate investigations.”

  “When will all this be made public?”

  “Probably not while the investigation continues. After that we will, in all likelihood, defer to the Vatican.”

  Harry folded his hands in front of him and stared at the table. Emotions flooded. It was like being told you had an incurable disease. Disbelief and denial made no difference, the X rays, MRIs, and CT scans stared back from the wall just the same.

  Yet, for all of that—for all the evidence the police had presented, one solid piece stacked upon the another, they still had no absolute proof, as Pio had admitted. Moreover, no matter what he had told them about the substance of Danny’s phone message, only he had heard Danny’s voice. The fear and the anguish and the desperation. It was not the voice of a murderer crying out for mercy to the last bastion he knew, but of someone trapped in a terrible circumstance he could not escape.

  For some reason, and he didn’t know why, Harry felt closer to Danny now than he had since they were boys. Maybe it was because his brother had finally reached out to him. And maybe that was more important to Harry than he knew, because the realization of it had come not as a thought but as a rush of deep emotion, moving him to the point where he thought he might have to get up and leave the table. But he hadn’t, because in the next moment another realization had come: he wasn’t about to have Danny condemned to history as the man who had killed the cardinal vicar of Rome until the last stone had been turned and the proof was absolute and beyond any doubt whatsoever.

  “Mr. Addison, it will be another day at least, perhaps more, before the identification procedures are complete and your brother’s body can be released to you…. Will you be staying at the Hassler the entire time you are in Rome?”

  “Yes…”

  Pio took a card from his wallet and handed it to him. “I would appreciate it if you kept me informed of your movements. If you leave the city. If you go anywhere where it would be difficult for us to reach you.”

  Harry took the card and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then his eyes came back to Pio.

  “You won’t have any trouble finding me.”

  7

  Euro Night Train, Geneva to Rome.Tuesday, July 7, 1:20 A.M.

  CARDINAL NICOLA MARSCIANO SAT IN THE dark, listening to the methodic click of the wheels as the train picked up speed, pushing southeast out of Milan toward Florence and then Rome. Outside, a faint moon touched the Italian countryside, bathing it in just enough light for him to know it was there. For a moment he thought of the Roman legions that had passed under the same mo
on centuries before. They were ghosts now, as one day he would be, his life, like theirs, scarcely a blip on the graph of time.

  Train 311 had left Geneva at eight-twenty-five the night before, had crossed the Swiss-Italian border just after midnight, and would not arrive in Rome until eight the next morning. A long way around, considering it was only a two-hour flight between the same cities, but Marsciano had wanted time to think and to be alone without intrusion.

  As a servant of God he normally wore the vestments of his office, but today he traveled in a business suit to avoid attracting attention. To that same end his private compartment in the first-class sleeping car had been reserved under the name N. Marsciano. Honest, yet simple anonymity. The compartment itself was small, but it provided what he needed: a place to sleep, if he ever could; and, more important, a moving station to receive a call on his cellular phone without fear it would somehow be intercepted.

  Alone in the darkness, he tried not to think of Father Daniel—the accusations of the police, the evidence they had discovered, the bombed bus. Those things were past, and he dared not dwell on them, even though he knew at some point he would have to confront them again personally. They would have everything to do with his future, the future of the Church, and whether either could survive.

  He glanced at his watch, its digital numbers a transparent green in the dark.

  1:27

  The Motorola cell phone on the small table beside him remained silent. Marsciano’s fingers drummed on the narrow arm of his chair, then pushed through his gray-white hair. Finally he leaned forward and poured what was left of the bottle of Sassicaia into his glass. Very dry, very full-bodied, the stately red wine was expensive and little known outside Italy. Little known because the Italians themselves kept it a secret. Italy was filled with secrets. And the older one got, the more there seemed to be and the more dangerous they became. Especially if one were in a position of power and influence, as he was at age sixty.

  1:33

  Still the phone remained silent. And now he began to worry that something had gone wrong. But he couldn’t let himself think that way until he knew for sure.

  As he took a sip of the wine, Marsciano’s gaze shifted from the phone to the briefcase lying flat on the bed beside it. Inside, tucked away in an envelope beneath his papers and personal belongings, was a nightmare. An audiocassette that had been delivered to him in Geneva Sunday afternoon during lunch. It had come in a package marked URGENTE and had been delivered by messenger with no return address or indication of who had sent it. Once he had listened to it, however, he knew instantly where it had come from and why.

  As president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, Cardinal Marsciano was a man in whose hands rested the ultimate financial decisions for the investment of the Vatican’s hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. And as such, he was one of the very few who knew exactly how much those assets were worth and where they were invested. It was a position of solemn responsibility and by its very nature open to those things men in high station are always heir to—the corruption of mind and spirit. Men who fell to such temptations usually suffered from greed or arrogance or both. Marsciano was afflicted by neither. His suffering came from a cruel intermingling of profound loyalty to the Church, grievously misplaced trust, and human love; made worse, if that were possible, by his own high position within the Vatican.

  The tape recording—in light of the murder of Cardinal Parma and the timing of its delivery—only pushed him farther into darkness. More than simply threaten his own personal safety, by its very existence it raised other, more far-reaching questions: What else was known? Whom could he trust?

  The only sound was that of the wheels passing over the rails as the train drew ever closer to Rome. Where was the call? What had happened? Something had to have gone wrong. He was certain now.

  Abruptly the phone rang.

  Marsciano was startled and for a moment did nothing. It rang again. Recovering, he picked up.

  “Si.” His voice was hushed, apprehensive. Nodding almost imperceptibly, he listened. “Grazie,” he whispered finally and hung up.

  8

  Rome. Tuesday, July 7, 7:45 A.M.

  JACOV FAREL WAS SWISS.

  He was also Capo dell’Ufficio Centrale Vigilanza, the man in charge of the Vatican police, and had been for more than twenty years. He had called Harry at five minutes after seven, waking him from a deep sleep and telling him it was imperative they talk.

  Harry had agreed to meet with him, and now, forty minutes later, was being driven across Rome by one of Farel’s men. Crossing the Tiber, they drove beside it for a few hundred yards, then turned down the colonnaded Via della Conciliazione, with the unmistakable dome of St. Peter’s in the distance. Harry was certain that was where he was being taken, to the Vatican and to Farel’s office somewhere deep inside it. Then abruptly the driver veered off to the right and through an arched portal in an ancient wall and into a neighborhood of narrow streets and old apartment buildings. Two blocks later he made a sharp left to stop in front of a small trattoria on Borgo Vittorio. Getting out, he opened the door for Harry and escorted him into the trattoria.

  A lone man in a black suit stood at the bar as they came in. His back to them, his right hand rested beside a coffee cup. He was probably five foot eight or nine, heavy-set, and what little hair he might have had left had been shaved to the skull, leaving the top of his head shining in the overhead light.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Addison.” Jacov Farel’s English was colored by a French accent. His voice was husky, as if he’d chain-smoked for years. Slowly the hand pulled away from the coffee cup and he turned. Harry hadn’t been able to see the power of the man from the back, but he could now. The shaved head, the broad face with the flattened nose, the neck as thick as a man’s thigh, the burly chest tight against his white shirt. His hands, big and strong, looked as if they’d spent most of their fifty-odd years wrapped around the handle of a jackhammer. And then there were his eyes, deep-set, gray-green, unforgiving—abruptly they flashed toward the driver. Without a word, the man took a step backward and left, the click of the door sounding behind him as it closed. Then Farel’s eyes shifted to Harry.

  “My responsibilities are different from those of the Italian police. They protect a city. The Vatican is its own state. A country inside Italy. Therefore I am accountable for the safety of a nation.”

  Instinctively Harry glanced around. They were alone. No waiter, no barman, no customers. Just he and Farel.

  “The blood of Cardinal Parma splattered my shirt and my face when he was shot. It also fell on the pope, soiling his vestments.”

  “I’m here to do anything I can to help,” Harry said, quietly.

  Farel studied him. “I know you talked to the police. I know what you told them. I read the transcripts. I read the report Ispettore Capo Pio wrote after he met with you privately…. It’s what you didn’t tell them that interests me.”

  “What I didn’t tell them?”

  “Or what they didn’t ask. Or what you left out when they did, purposely, or because you didn’t remember or perhaps because it didn’t seem important.”

  Farel’s presence, considerable before, now seemed to fill the entire room. Harry’s hands felt suddenly damp and there was sweat on his forehead. Again he looked around. Still no one. It was after eight. What time did the staff come to work? Or people come in off the street for breakfast or coffee?— Or had the trattoria been opened for Farel alone?

  “You seem uncomfortable, Mr. Addison…”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m tired of talking to the police when I’ve done nothing and you people keep acting like I have…. I was happy to meet with you because I believe my brother is innocent. And to show you I’m willing to cooperate any way I can.”

  “That’s not the only reason, Mr. Addison…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your clients. You have to protect them. If you had called the
United States Embassy as you threatened—or arranged for an Italian lawyer to represent you in your talks with the police—you knew there was a very good chance the media would find out…. Not only would our suspicions about your brother be made public, they would learn about you as well. Who you are, and what you do, and who you personally represent. People who would not want to be linked, however distantly or innocently, to the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome.”

  “Who do you think I represent that—?”

  Abruptly, Farel cut him off, naming half a dozen of his superstar Hollywood clients in rapid succession.

  “Should I keep on, Mr. Addison?”

  “How did you get that information?” Harry was shocked and outraged. The identity of his firm’s clients was carefully guarded. It meant Farel had not only been digging into his background but also had connections in Los Angeles capable of getting him whatever he asked for. A reach and power that was frightening.

  “Your brother’s guilt or innocence aside, there is a certain practicality to things…. That’s why you’re talking to me, Mr. Addison, alone and of your own free will and will continue to do so until I am done with you…. You have to protect your own success.” His left hand found its way up to caress his skull just over his left ear. “It’s a nice day. Why don’t we go for a walk…?”

  THE MORNING SUN was beginning to light the top floors of the buildings around them as they came out and Farel turned them left, onto Via Ombrellari—a narrow cobblestone street without sidewalks, the apartment buildings interrupted here and there by a bar or restaurant or pharmacy. A priest walked by across from them. Farther down, two men noisily loaded empty wine and mineral water bottles into a van outside a restaurant.

  “It was a Mr. Byron Willis, a partner in your law firm, who informed you of your brother’s death.”