Day of Confession Read online

  Harry could have left it that way, maybe should have left it that way—his casket unopened; just taken him back to California for interment. But he couldn’t. Not after all that had happened. What Danny looked like didn’t matter. He needed to see him one last time, to make one final gesture that said, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m sorry we somehow got locked into the years of bitterness and misunderstanding we did. That we never got to talk about it, or work through it, or even try to understand…. To say simply, Goodbye and I love you, and always did, no matter what.

  “Mr. Addison”—Father Bardoni had moved up and was standing beside him—“for your own good…. I have seen people as strong and determined as you crumble as they witness the unspeakable…. Accept God’s way. Know your brother would want you to remember him as he was.”

  There was a sound as the door behind them opened and a man with close-cropped gray-white hair entered. He was nearly six feet tall and handsome and carried with him an aura that was both aristocratic and at the same time kind and humane. He wore the black cassock and red sash of a cardinal of the Church. A red zucchetto was on his head, and a gold pectoral cross hung from a chain around his neck.

  “Eminence…” Father Bardoni bowed slightly.

  The man nodded, his eyes going to Harry. “I am Cardinal Marsciano, Mr. Addison. I came to offer my deepest sympathies.”

  Marsciano’s English was excellent, and he seemed to be comfortable speaking it. The same was true of his manner; his eyes, his body language, everything about him comfortable and comforting.

  “Thank you, Eminence…” Friend of power brokers and world celebrities, Harry had never once been in the presence of a cardinal, let alone a man of Marsciano’s stature within the Church. Having been brought up Catholic, no matter how nonreligious, how totally non-churchgoing he was now, Harry was humbled. It was as if he were being visited by a head of state.

  “Father Daniel was my personal secretary, and had been for many years…”

  “Yes, I know…”

  “You are waiting here now, in this room, because it is your wish to see him…”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no way of knowing, but Father Bardoni called me while you were with Signore Gasparri. He thought perhaps I would have better luck in dissuading you than he.” The slightest hint of a smile rose then left. “I have seen him, Mr. Addison. I was the one the police asked to identify the body. I have seen the horror of his death. What the proud inventions of mankind can do.”

  “It doesn’t matter….” Marsciano’s presence aside, Harry was resolute; what he had chosen to do was deep and very personal, between Danny and himself. “I hope you can understand.”

  Marsciano was silent for a long moment. Finally he spoke. “Yes, I can understand.”

  Father Bardoni hesitated, then left the room.

  “You are very much like him,” Marsciano said quietly. “That is a compliment.”

  “Thank you, Eminence.”

  Immediately a door near the altar opened and Father Bardoni came back in. He was followed immediately by Gasparri and a heavy-set man wearing a crisp white jacket who pushed a hospital gurney. On it was a small wooden coffin no bigger than a child’s. Harry felt his heart catch in his throat. Inside it was Danny, or what was left of him. Harry took a deep breath and waited. How do you prepare for something like this? How does anyone? Finally he looked to Father Bardoni.

  “Ask him to open it.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Harry saw Marsciano nod. Gasparri hesitated, and then in one motion leaned forward and removed the lid from the casket.

  For a moment Harry did nothing. Then, steeling himself, he stepped forward and looked down. As he did, he heard himself gasp. The thing was on its back. Most of the right torso was gone. Where there should have been a face there was a crushed mass of skull and matted hair, with a jagged hole where the right eye would have been. Both legs had been sheared off at the knee. He looked for the arms, but there were none. What made the whole thing even more obscene was that someone had pulled on a pair of underpants, as if to protect the viewer from the indecency of the genitals, whether they were there or not.

  “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Oh, fucking God!” Horror and disgust and loss swept over him. The color drained from his face, and he had to put out his hand to keep his balance. Somewhere he heard the rattle of Italian, and it took a moment before he realized Gasparri was talking.

  “Signore Gasparri apologizes for what your brother looks like,” Father Bardoni said. “He wants to cover him again, to take him away.”

  Harry’s eyes lifted to Gasparri. “Tell him no, not yet…”

  Fighting everything in him, Harry turned to look at the mutilated torso once more. He had to pull himself together. To think. To say silently to Danny what needed to be said. Then he saw Cardinal Marsciano gesture and Gasparri move forward with the lid. At the same time something else registered.

  “No!” he said sharply, and Gasparri froze where he was. Reaching out, Harry touched the cold chest, then ran his fingers down under the left nipple. Suddenly he felt his legs turn to rubber.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Addison?” Father Bardoni moved toward him.

  Abruptly Harry pulled away and looked up. “It’s not him. It’s not my brother.”

  14

  HARRY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK OR how to feel. That it might be someone other than Danny in the casket had never occurred to him. That after everything—the police work, the investigations by how many agencies, the recovery of the personal articles, the identification of the body by Cardinal Marsciano, the death certificate—they could have made this kind of error was unconscionable.

  Cardinal Marsciano put a hand on his sleeve. “You are weary and filled with grief, Mr. Addison. In circumstances like this our hearts and emotions do not always let us think clearly.”

  “Eminence,” Harry said sharply. They were all staring at him—Marsciano, Father Bardoni, Gasparri, and the man in the starched white jacket. Yes, he was tired. Yes, he was filled with grief. But his thinking had never been clearer in his life.

  “My brother had a large mole under his left nipple. It’s called a third breast. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Medically it’s known as a supernumerary nipple. Whoever’s in that casket has no mole under his left nipple. That person is not my brother. It’s as simple as that.”

  CARDINAL MARSCIANO closed the door to Gasparri’s office, then gestured toward a pair of gilded chairs in front of the funeral director’s desk.

  “I’ll stand,” Harry said.

  Marsciano nodded and sat down.

  “How old are you, Mr. Addison?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “And how long has it been since you last saw your brother without his shirt or with it, for that matter? Father Daniel was not merely an employee, he was a friend. Friends talk, Mr. Addison…. You had not seen him for many years, had you?”

  “Eminence, that person is not my brother.”

  “Moles can be removed. Even from priests. People do it all the time. I should imagine you, in your business, would know that better than I.”

  “Not Danny, Eminence—especially not Danny. Like most everyone else, he was insecure growing up. What made him feel better about himself was when he had things other people didn’t. Or did things differently from those around him. He used to drive our mother crazy opening his shirt and showing his mole to people. He liked to think it was some kind of secret baronial mark, and that he was really descended from royalty. And unless he changed deeply and immeasurably since then, he would never have had it removed. It was a badge of honor, it kept him apart.”

  “People do change, Mr. Addison,” Cardinal Marsciano spoke gently and quietly. “And Father Daniel did change a great deal in the years I knew him.”

  For a long moment Harry stared, saying nothing. When he did speak, he was quieter but no less adamant. “Isn’t it possible ther
e was a mix-up at the morgue? That maybe another family has Danny’s body in a sealed casket without knowing it?… It’s not unreasonable to imagine.”

  “Mr. Addison, the remains you saw are those I identified.” The cardinal’s response was sharp, even indignant. “Presented to me by the Italian authorities.” No longer the comforter, Marsciano had suddenly become acerbic and authoritative.

  “Twenty-four people were on that bus, Mr. Addison. Eight survived. Fifteen of the dead were positively identified by members of their own families. That left only one….” For the briefest moment Marsciano’s manner reverted and his humanity returned. “I, too, had hopes that a mistake had been made. That it was someone else. That perhaps Father Daniel was still away, unaware of what had happened.

  “But I was confronted by fact and evidence.” Marsciano’s edge returned. “Your brother was a frequent visitor to Assisi and more than one person who knew him saw him get on the bus. The transport company was in radio contact with the driver along the way. His only stop was at a toll station. Nowhere else. Nowhere where a passenger could have gotten off prior to the explosion. And then there were his personal belongings found among the wreckage. His reading glasses, which I knew only too well from the many times he left them on my desk, and his Vatican identification were in the pocket of a shredded jacket still on the remains…. We cannot change the truth, Mr. Addison, and mole or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, the truth is he is dead.” Marsciano paused, and Harry could see his mood shift once more and something darker come into his eyes.

  “You have encountered the police and Jacov Farel. So have we all…. Did your brother conspire to kill Cardinal Parma? Or perhaps even the Holy Father? Did he actually fire the shots? Was he, at heart, a Communist who despised us all? I cannot answer…. What I can tell you is that for the years I knew him he was kind and decent and very good at what he did, which was controlling me.” The hint of a smile flickered, then left.

  “Eminence,” Harry said, intensely. “Did you know he’d left a message on my answering machine only hours before he was killed?”

  “Yes, I was told…”

  “He was scared, afraid of what would happen next…. Do you have any idea why?”

  For a long moment Marsciano said nothing. Finally he spoke, directly and quietly. “Mr. Addison, take your brother from Italy. Bury him in his own land and love him for the rest of your life. Think, as I do, that he was falsely accused and that one day it will be proven so.”

  * * *

  FATHER BARDONI SLOWED the small white Fiat behind a tour bus, then turned onto Ponte Palatino, taking Harry from Gasparri’s and back across the Tiber to his hotel. Midday Rome was loud, with bright sun and filled with traffic. But Harry saw and heard only what was in his mind.

  “Take your brother from Italy and bury him in his own land,” Marsciano had said again as he’d left, driven away in a dark gray Mercedes by another of Farel’s black-suited men.

  Marsciano had not talked of the police and Jacov Farel without purpose; his not answering Harry’s query, too, had been deliberate. His charity had been in his indirectness, leaving it to Harry to fill in the rest—a cardinal had been murdered, and the priest thought to have done it was dead. So was his colleague in the murder. So, too, were fifteen others who had been on the Assisi bus. And whether Harry wanted to believe it or not, the remains of that priest, the suspected assassin, were officially and without question those of his brother.

  To make certain he understood, Cardinal Marsciano had done one more thing: turned and looked at Harry severely as he’d walked down the steps to his car, his glance more telling than anything he’d said or implied. There was danger here, and doors that should not be opened. And the best thing Harry could do would be to take what had been offered and leave as quickly and quietly as possible. While he still could.

  15

  Ispettore Capo, Gianni Pio

  Questura di Roma

  sezione omicidi

  HARRY SAT IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, TURNING Pio’s card over in his hand. Father Bardoni had dropped him off just before noon, saying he would pick him up at six-thirty the following morning to take him to the airport. Danny’s casket would already be there, checked in. All Harry would have to do would be board the plane.

  The trouble was, even in the shadow of Marsciano’s warning, Harry couldn’t. He could not take a body home and bury it for all time as Danny’s when he knew in his heart it was not. Nor could he take it home and, by burying it, make it easy for the investigators to officially close the book on the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome; an act that, for all intents, would brand Danny forever as his killer. And this, after his meeting with Marsciano, was something Harry was more certain than ever was not true.

  The problem was what to do about it, and how to do it quickly.

  It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon in Rome, three-thirty in the morning in Los Angeles. Whom could he call for help there right now who would be able to do anything other than be sympathetic? Even if Byron Willis or someone in the office could arrange for a prominent Italian attorney to represent him in Rome, it wouldn’t happen in the next few hours.

  And even if it did, then what? They would meet. Harry would explain what had happened. And he would be back to square one. This wasn’t simply about a misidentified corpse, it was about an investigation of murder on the highest levels. In no time, they would all be under an intense media spotlight, and he, his firm, his clients would make world news. No, he had to find another way. Come from the inside, ask the help of someone who already knew what was going on.

  Again Harry looked at Pio’s card. Why not the Italian homicide investigator? They had developed a relationship of sorts, and Pio had encouraged further communication. He had to trust someone, and he wanted to believe he could trust Pio.

  12:35

  Someone in Pio’s office who spoke English said the ispettore capo was out but took Harry’s name and number, saying he would call back. That was all. That he would call back. No idea when.

  12:55

  What to do if Pio didn’t call? Harry didn’t know. The best he could do was put his faith in the policeman and his professionalism and hope he would call back sometime before six-thirty tomorrow morning.

  1:20

  Harry had taken a shower and was shaving when the phone rang. Immediately he picked the receiver from the mount over the sink, smearing it with Ralph Lauren gel.

  “Mr. Addison—“

  It was Jacov Farel.

  “Something new has come up concerning your brother. I thought it might interest you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’d rather you saw for yourself, Mr. Addison. My driver will pick you up and take you to a site near the scene of the bus explosion. I will meet you there. Will ten minutes give you enough time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  THE DRIVER’S NAME was Lestingi or Lestini. Harry didn’t quite get the pronunciation, nor did he ask again, because the man apparently spoke no English. Dressed in aviator sunglasses, off-white polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes, Harry simply got into the rear seat of a maroon Opel and sat back as they drove off, staring at the blur of Rome as they wound through it.

  The idea of another encounter with Farel was disturbing enough, but projecting what he might have found at the site of the explosion troubled Harry even more. Obviously, whatever it was would not be something in Danny’s favor.

  Up front, Lestingi or Lestini, in the trademark black suit of Farel’s soldiers, slowed for a toll plaza, took a ticket, and accelerated out onto the Autostrada. Immediately the city fell away. Ahead were only vineyards and farms and open land.

  As the Opel pushed north, with only the hum of its tires and the whine of its engine for sound, as they passed signs for the towns of Feronia, Fiano, and Civitella San Paolo, Harry thought about Pio and wished it had been he who had called him and not Farel. Pio and Roscani were tough policemen, but at least there was some
thing human about them. Farel—with his presence and bulk and raspy voice and the way his glassy stare cut through you—seemed more like some kind of beast, ruthless and without conscience.

  Maybe it was because he had to be. Maybe it was because, as he said, he was accountable for the safety of a nation—and of a pope. And maybe, over time, that kind of strain and responsibility unknowingly turned you into something that, at heart, you were not.

  16

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER FAREL’S DRIVER SWUNG off the Autostrada, paid the toll, and they moved off once more, turning onto a country highway, passing a gas station and a large building housing farm equipment. Then there was nothing but the road and cornfields on either side of it. They drove on, a mile, then two, then three. The bus had blown up on the Autostrada, and they were rapidly moving away from it.

  “Where are we going?” Harry asked suddenly.

  The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror and shook his head. “Non capisco inglese.”

  In the last minutes they had passed no other traffic. Harry looked over his shoulder, then out through the windshield. The corn was lush, higher than the car. Dirt farm roads cut off left and right, but they kept on. Five miles now. Harry’s uneasiness grew. Then he felt the car begin to slow. He watched the speedometer drop, 80 kilometers, 60, 40, 20. Abruptly the driver swung right, turning off the highway and starting down a long, rutted lane. Instinctively, Harry glanced at the door locks to see if they were down, if the driver controlled them electronically from up front.