Day of Confession

  Finally the dogs gave up, one after the other, walking lazily around the dock sniffing at nothing. One of the handlers looked up and shook his head.

  “Grazie, Signore, “Roscani said to Edward Mooi.

  “Prego,” Mooi nodded, then walked out and back along the path toward the villa.

  “That’s all,” Roscani called to the dog handlers, and watched as they and their animals and the four carabinieri climbed the stairs, following in the direction Edward Mooi had gone, toward the house and the convoy of parked police vehicles.

  Slowly Roscani started up the path after them. They had been there for more than two hours and nothing had been found. Two hours wasted. If he was wrong, he was wrong. And he needed to leave it and move on. Still—

  Turning, he looked back. There was the boathouse and beyond it the lake. To his right he could see the dogs and the armed carabinieri almost to the villa. Edward Mooi was out of sight.

  What had he missed?

  To the left of the villa, between it and the boathouse was the stone landing with its ornate balustrade where the hydrofoil captain had said he put the fugitive priest and the others ashore.

  Once again Roscani looked to the boathouse. Absently his fingers went to his mouth, and he took a pull from his phantom cigarette. Then, his eyes still on the boathouse, he dropped the imaginary cigarette, ground it out with his toe, and walked back and went inside.

  From the top of the stairs he saw nothing but the motorboat moored to the dock below and the equipment needed to tend it. At the far end, the rectangular opening to the lake. The same as before.

  Finally, he went down the stairs and walked along the dock beside the boat. Bow to stern. Stern to bow. Looking. For what, he didn’t know. Then he climbed onboard. Studied the interior of the hull, the seats, the cockpit. The dogs had complained but found nothing. He could see nothing. A boat was a boat, and he was wasting his time. He was about to step over the side and back onto the dock, when he had one last thought. Crossing to the stern, he looked down at the twin Yamaha outboard engines. Kneeling, he reached over the side and gingerly ran his hand down the lower leg of each, touching the side panels between the power head and the water where the exhaust line ran.

  Both were warm.

  74

  8:00 A.M.

  ELENA VOSO CROSSED THE SQUARE AND started down the steps toward the lake. Shops catering mainly to tourists lined either side of the walkway down. Most of them were already open. Salespeople and customers alike, cheery, smiling, seeming happy about the prospects for the day.

  In front of her Elena could see the lake. Boats crisscrossed on it. Across the street at the bottom of the stairs she could see the hydrofoil landing, and she wondered if the first hydrofoil had come yet, if Luca and Marco and Pietro were already in Como or maybe at the station, waiting for the train to Milan. At the bottom of the stairs was something else too—the Hotel Du Lac—and even now she wasn’t certain what she would do when she got there.

  After Edward Mooi left the grotto in the motorboat, Elena had taken Salvatore and Marta to where Michael Roark, or—and now she had to think of him this way—Father Daniel, was. He had been awake and moved up on one elbow, watching as they came in. Elena had introduced Salvatore and Marta as friends, saying she had to leave for a short while and they would care for him until she got back. Even though he was beginning to regain full use of his vocal chords and could talk for short periods of time, Father Daniel had said nothing. Instead his eyes had searched hers, as if somehow he knew she had found out who he was.

  “You will be all right,” she’d said finally and left him with Marta, who had mentioned that his bandages should be changed and said that she would do it herself, indicating she had some training in medical care.

  And then Salvatore had led Elena into a part of the caves she had not seen before. A twisting, turning route through a series of stone corridors ending, finally, at a cage-like service elevator that took them up several hundred feet through a natural cut in the granite.

  At the top they had emerged into a heavy thicket and walked down a forest path to a fire road. There Salvatore had helped her into a small farm truck, told her how to get to Bellagio and what to do once she reached it.

  Well, now she had reached it and was almost to the bottom of the steps across from the Hotel Du Lac when she saw them—police. They were right in front of her—an ambulance and three police cars and a crowd of onlookers directly across the street near the boat landing at the edge of the lake. To her left was the little park with the public telephone she had been instructed to use to call Father Daniel’s brother at the hotel.

  “Someone drowned,” she heard a woman say, and then other people pushed past her, coming down the steps, rushing to see what had happened.

  Elena watched for a moment, then glanced toward the telephones. Father Daniel was in her care, Edward Mooi had said. Maybe so, but reason told her that when she got the chance she should go directly to the police. Whether her mother general knew what was going on made no difference. Nor was it her business what Father Daniel had done or had not done. That was what the law was for. He was wanted for murder and so was his brother. There were the police. All she had to do was go.

  And she did, moving away from the phones, crossing the street toward them. As she reached the far curb, a loud noise went up from the crowd at the water’s edge. More people hurried past, anxious to see what was going on.

  “Look!” someone said, and Elena saw police divers in the water near the boat landing lift a body from the lake. Policemen onshore hefted it from them and put it down on the landing. Another rushed to throw a blanket over it.

  That breathless moment in time, that uncounted second, when the public glimpses the suddenly dead and becomes instantly silent, froze Elena Voso where she stood. The body fished from the lake was that of a man.

  Luca Fanari.

  75

  HARRY WATCHED THE POLICE AND THE CROWD across the street a moment longer, then turned from his hotel room window to look back at the television. Adrianna in her L. L. Bean field jacket and baseball cap stood in a pouring rain outside the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization. A major story was coming, piecemeal, from mainland China. Unofficial reports from the city of Hefei in eastern China indicated that a major incident had taken place concerning the area’s public water supply—thousands of people were rumored to have been poisoned and more than six thousand were already dead. Both Xinhua, the New China News Agency, and the Chinese Central Broadcasting Bureau dismissed the reports as unfounded.

  Abruptly Harry hit the MUTE button and Adrianna was silenced. What the hell was she doing in Geneva reporting on an “unfounded” incident?

  Unsettled, he glanced back out the window. Then at the bedside clock.

  8:20 A.M.

  No calls. Nothing. What had happened to Edward Mooi? Had he not reread the fax? And now Adrianna was in Geneva when she should have been in Bellagio. Crazily, he felt abandoned. Left in a tiny hotel room while the world went on.

  He turned back to the window. As he did, a police car pulled up directly across the street. The doors opened, and three men in plainclothes got out and headed for the boat landing. Harry’s heart stopped. The man walking first, leading the others, was Roscani.

  “Jesus.” Instinctively he twisted back from the window. At almost the same instant there was a knock at the door. Every nerve stiffened. The knock came again.

  Quickly he went to the bed, opened the suitcase, and took out the sheet of paper with Edward Mooi’s telephone number. Ripping it in pieces he went into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

  The knock came once more. Softer this time. Not the authoritative strike of the police. Eaton—of course. Harry relaxed, then walked to the door and opened it.

  A young nun stood there.

  “Father Roe?”

  Harry hesitated. “Yes…”

  “I am nursing sister Elena Voso…” Her English was accented with It
alian but clear nonetheless.

  Harry stared, unsure.

  “I would like to come in.”

  He looked past her to the hallway. He saw no one.

  “All right…”

  Harry stepped back as she came in, then watched her turn and close the door behind her.

  “You phoned Edward Mooi,” Elena said, carefully.

  Harry nodded.

  “I’ve come to take you to your brother…”

  Harry stared. “I don’t understand…”

  “It’s all right….” She could feel his caution, see his uncertainty. “I’m not with the police…”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If you are not sure… follow me out. I will be waiting on the steps leading up to the village. Your brother is ill…. Please… Mr. Addison.”

  76

  HARRY TOOK HER DOWN A BACK STAIRWAY. At the ground floor, he opened the door to a rear hallway.

  USCITA. Exit, the sign read. An arrow pointed off. Harry hesitated—he wanted to go out a rear or side door, anything but through the front and out onto the street where Roscani was. But there was only one sign, and he followed it, moving them off in the direction the arrow pointed. A minute later they pushed through a door and into the hotel lobby with the front door directly in front of them.

  “Damn it,” Harry breathed. People were at the front desk, checking in or out. Past them, a rotund man was in animated conversation with the concierge. Harry looked back. If there was another exit he had no idea how to find it. Just then the elevator doors opened, and two couples and a porter pushing a luggage cart came toward them. If they were going out, this was the time.

  Taking Elena’s arm, Harry timed his move to keep in step with the porter. As they reached the door he motioned for the man to go ahead. The porter nodded and pushed the luggage cart through. Harry and Elena came out just behind. The sunlight hit, and Harry turned them abruptly left along the sidewalk, walking with other pedestrians.

  “Buon giorno.” A man tipped his hat. A young couple smiled at them. They kept on.

  “Go up the steps to the left,” Elena said calmly.

  Then Harry saw Roscani coming up the walk from the water, the same way Harry had come last night. He was walking quickly, the other two plainclothes policemen at his heels. Harry moved closer to Elena, keeping her between himself and the police.

  They were almost to the corner now, and Harry could see the steps Elena was talking about. Suddenly Roscani looked up. Directly at him. In the same instant, Elena began talking in Italian. He had no idea what she was saying. But she gestured ahead, using her hands, talking as if what they were doing and where they were going was hugely important. At the steps, she turned him abruptly left and up, still talking, sounding now as if she were scolding him, then, as quickly, smiling at an elderly man coming down the steps toward them.

  Then they were in a mix of people on the stairs. Winding their way through them, passing shops and restaurants. It was only when they had reached the top that Harry looked back. Nothing. No police. No Roscani. Just shoppers. Civilians.

  “Those men coming up from the landing were police,” Elena said.

  “I know.” Harry looked at her as they moved on, wondering who she was, and why she was doing this.

  77

  9:10 A.M.

  GRINDING GEARS, HARRY TURNED A CORNER, then, gritting his teeth, shifted again and accelerated down a narrow street. The farm truck was old and cranky, its clutch and manual shift worn and difficult. Crunching the gear box once more, he turned past a park, and then they were out of the city.

  “Tell me about my brother.” He took his eyes from the road and looked at Elena, calculating, to see if she really knew.

  “His legs are broken, and he has been burned over parts of his head and upper body. He suffered a very serious concussion. But he is better now, and is beginning to take solid food and can talk a little. His memory comes and goes, which is normal. He’s weak but is healing. I think he will be all right.”

  Danny was alive! Harry felt the breath go out of him. A rush of emotion followed, as the reality of it hit home. Suddenly he looked at the road in front of them. Cars were slowing, coming to a stop.

  “Carabinieri, “Elena said.

  Harry’s hand went to the shift lever. Immediately there was a loud wrench of grinding gears as he downshifted, coming to a halt inches behind a white Lancia stopped in a clog of vehicles pulled up at the police checkpoint.

  Two uniformed carabinieri armed with Uzis checked each car as it came abreast and stopped. Two others stood to the side watching.

  Now the car ahead of them was waved through, and Harry ground the truck into gear. It bucked raggedly forward, bouncing to a stop only after one of the carabinieri had jumped out of the way, yelling for Harry to halt.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  The carabinieri came up, one on either side.

  Harry glanced at Elena. “Talk to them. Say anything.”

  “Buon giorno. “The carabinieri glared at Harry.

  “Buon giorno.” Harry smiled and Elena began. Speaking rapid-fire Italian. Gesturing between herself and Harry and the truck, talking to both policemen at once. In a matter of seconds it was over. The carabinieri stood smartly back, saluted, and waved them through. And with a grinding of gears and a sharp backfire, Harry steered past them, leaving all four police turning away in a cloud of blue smoke.

  Harry watched the mirror, then looked to Elena.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That the truck was borrowed and that we were on our way to a funeral and were late…. I hope it’s not so…”

  “So do I.”

  Harry looked back to the highway as it began to rise toward the distant cliffs, then instinctively glanced in the mirror. There was nothing but the checkpoint and vehicles being waved through one by one.

  Slowly Harry took his eyes from the mirror and looked to Elena. She was staring at the road ahead, quiet, even introspective. Suddenly she turned and looked at him, as if she knew what he was thinking and was about to ask.

  “Your brother’s care was assigned to me by my convent.”

  “You mean you knew who he was?…”

  “No.”

  “Did the people at your convent?”

  “I—don’t know…”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  Harry looked back to the road. She certainly knew who Danny was now. And she knew who Harry was, and still she had put herself in all kinds of potential trouble tap-dancing them through the police.

  “You mind if I ask what seems like a silly question?… Why are you doing this?”

  “That is something I have been asking myself, Mr. Addison….” She glanced down the road and then back to Harry, her brown eyes suddenly intense and penetrating.

  “You should know that when I came to Bellagio I was going to go to the police. To tell them about you and about your brother. And I almost did—except… the body they pulled from the lake in front of your hotel was that of a man who helped bring your brother to where he is…. Only hours ago he learned his wife had been murdered, and he left immediately to go back to his home….” Elena paused, as if the memory of what she had seen was too heinous to talk about. Then Harry saw her gather strength, and she went on.

  “They said he drowned. I don’t know if that’s true…. There were two other men with him…. I don’t know where they are or what happened to them…. In result, I—made up my mind…”

  “About what?…”

  Elena hesitated. “… About my own future, Mr. Addison…. God gave me a job to do caring for your brother…. No matter what else has happened, it is something He has yet to dismiss me from…. The decision was really quite simple….” Elena’s eyes held on Harry, then she looked back down the road. “Those trees ahead—just past them is a dirt road to the right. Please take it.”

  78

  10:15 A.M.

/>   EDWARD MOOI STOOD NAKED, TOWEL IN HAND. Dripping from the bath.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  He had not heard the door open or had any idea how the blond man in jeans and light jacket had found his way to the second-floor apartment. Or how he had gotten past the Gruppo Cardinale police still outside and into the building. Or even onto the grounds of Villa Lorenzi, for that matter.

  “I want you to take me to the priest,” the blond man said quietly.

  “Get out of here, now! Or I will call security!” Edward Mooi pulled the towel around him angrily.

  “I don’t think so.” The blond man took something from his jacket pocket and set it on the white porcelain sink next to the poet.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?” Mooi looked at what had been set on the sink. Whatever it was was wrapped in what looked like a dark green restaurant napkin.

  “Open it.”

  Edward Mooi stared at him, then slowly picked up the napkin and unwrapped it.

  “Oh, Lord!”

  Heinously blue. Bloodied. Grossly swollen with bits of the green napkin fiber clinging to it—a neatly severed human tongue. Half gagging, Mooi threw it into the sink and backed away, terrified.

  “Who are you?”

  “The ambulance driver didn’t want to talk about the priest. Instead he wanted to fight.” The blond man’s eyes were on his. “You are not a fighter. The television says you are a poet. That makes you an intelligent man. Which is why I know you will do as I ask and take me to the priest.”

  Edward Mooi stared. This was who they had been hiding Father Daniel from.

  “There are too many police. We will never get past them—“

  “We will see what we can do, Edward Mooi.”

  ROSCANI LOOKED AT THE OBJECT—or objects—intertwined in a single water-sodden mass of blood, flesh, and clothing pulled from the lake, discovered by the elderly owner of the villa on whose manicured grounds they now stood, while the tech-team people took photographs, made notes, interviewed the man who had come upon it.