Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“He wants to know if you’ve seen a dead body before.”

“Yes.” How many now? Stacked in piles, left in fields by the side of the road, just left, waiting for someone to cart them away. Mouths open, limbs missing. At first you stared, shocked, and then you stopped looking. Five years ago it had been possible never to have seen the dead-a grandfather maybe, lying on a bier. Now you couldn’t count how many.

“You know, for some it’s difficult.”

We paused just inside the door, stopped by the cold. The body was on a gurney, covered with a sheet. His feet were sticking out, not tagged as they were in the movies, just naked and exposed. What would he look like after a day in the water? Eyes still open, staring at me? But it was Cavallini’s eyes that would be open, watching every move. Just walk over to the table. Now.

An attendant pulled back the sheet, drawing it down, and for a terrible second I thought he would keep going, until we saw all of him, his genitals, like an unwelcome glimpse in the shower, without a towel. They had removed his clothes, so there was only skin, pasty and bloated from the water, the hair on his chest matted like bits of seaweed. Someone had closed his eyes, or maybe it was part of the general swelling, the puffy blur of a face, not peaceful, just inert. Pale lips. That gray that only the dead have, not even a color, a warning not to touch. I took a shallow breath, trying to ignore the chemical smell in the room. Gray, awful skin, pouching at the sides.

“You can identify him?” Cavallini said.

I nodded.

“You must say, for the record. This is Giancarlo Maglione?”

“Yes.”

“And you must sign a statement.”

But for a second I couldn’t move. I stared at the body, not Gianni anymore, just a body, utterly still, separate now, something left behind, like molted skin. We always forget what it means, becoming nothing. How long had it taken? A minute, two, water displacing air, and now irretrievable. How did the workers here stand it, day after day, seeing the gray bodies, the terrible reminders? All that we left. The frightened Egyptians thought we’d come back for our bodies if we kept them ready, with pots of barley and hunting scenes painted on walls.

“Signor Miller?” Cavallini said, touching my elbow.

But we never come back. This was all there was, gray skin and fluids to drain. I’d taken the rest. And then gone to a party. But hadn’t he done the same? How many times? Except he never had to see them afterward.

“Signor?” the doctor said.

“Yes,” I said, raising my head. “It’s Gianni.”

“You would sign over here?”

He was leading me away, signaling to the attendant to cover Gianni’s face. We went over to a desk, where he handed me a clipboard and a pen. A long form, as elaborate and unwieldy as lira notes.

“Now what?” I said to Cavallini as I signed.

“Now they make the autopsy. For the cause of death.”

“I thought he was hit on the head.”

“Another formality. In the case of a crime. To be precise, you know, it wasn’t this,” he said, tapping the back of his head. “The doctor says drowning. But now he has to say officially.”

“Drowning? Why would he say that?”

“The water in the lungs. If he had already been dead-”

“You mean someone put him into the lagoon alive?” I said, appalled, forgetting the bubbles now, imagining him struggling in the tarp, fighting his way out.

“They may have thought he was already dead. You know, basta.” He hit his palm with his fist, a hard smack. “Then in the lagoon. But it was the water that killed him. Of course, to the law it will make no difference. Are you all right?”

“Maybe a little air,” I said.

Outside, warmer than in the morgue, I lit a cigarette. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually squeamish. It’s different when it’s somebody you know.”

“Yes, it’s not pleasant for you, I know. Still, a great service to me.”

“Anybody could have-”

“Yes, but since it’s you, now there can be no question about an investigation.”

I looked at him, trying to make this out.

“No question of an accident,” he said, taking out a cigarette of his own.

“But it wasn’t. You said.”

“No. You saw the skull in the back? Not a fall. But how much better for everyone if it had been. So, maybe a temptation.”

“To whom?”

He shrugged. “Poor Venice. The war, finally it’s over, and they start coming back. The visitors. Not soldiers-your mother, her friends. It’s good for Venice. You look at the buildings and we-well, maybe we look at you a little. But no one comes if they’re afraid, if there is crime. A murder? Not in Venice. But now look who identifies the body-one of the visitors. Who sees it’s not an accident. So I have my investigation.”

I drew on my cigarette, my stomach sliding again.

“But surely you would have-”

“Yes, but now I can be certain. Something that involves the international community? The Questura will want to act. To solve it. Men, whatever I need. And we will solve it.”

“I hope so.”

Cavallini reached over, reassuring, and patted my arm. “We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

I nodded, feeling the weight of his hand.

“I know it’s a loss for you. But you’ll help me.”

“Me?”

“You knew his character. With a Maglione, sometimes it’s easier for foreigners than for our Venetian families.”

“But I hardly knew him. I mean, your wife must have-”

“No. A blood tie only, not a friendship. But you, your mother-” He let it drift, waiting for me to pick it up.

“Well, yes,” I said. “We’ll do anything we can. Of course.” I paused. “Do you have any idea who-”

He withdrew his hand, shaking his head. “No, it’s early for that. First we get the facts, from in there.” He jerked his head toward the morgue. “Then we look at the life. Who profits?”

“You think it’s someone who knew him? Why not a robbery?”

He smiled. “A hit on the head, grab the wallet, push him in the canal? But he still had the wallet. Also his watch. What thief leaves a watch? No, some other reason. So, who profits? You see how lucky I am to have you.”

“Me?”

“In a murder you look at everyone. Him? Him? What motive? Who profits? But with you, it’s the opposite. No profit, a great loss. After the wedding, perhaps, I would have had to suspect you too. But now you are the only man in Venice I can’t suspect.”

A trap? Another step through the looking glass? “Why not?” I said quietly.

“Why not? Who throws away a fortune? He would have been your father.”

“Yes,” I said, waiting, my voice neutral.

“Your father,” Cavallini repeated. “One of the richest men in all of Italy.”

I looked at him, then caught myself and turned to the water before he could see my face.

Gianni’s funeral service was held at the Salute, so close to Mimi’s that it seemed a grimmer version of the ball, with the same crowding at the landing stage, people being helped up the broad steps, all in black this time, with hats and veils. The waiting gondolas stretched up the Grand Canal, as in a Canaletto, filling up the canvas, all of Mimi’s guests and more, enough for a state occasion. When the funeral boats arrived, a cortege of bobbing hearses, people lingered on the church steps to stare at the coffin, draped with flowers. We had become part of a news story: a violent death, an old family, the foreigners who drank at Harry’s. Across the campo, people watched from windows.

Claudia hadn’t wanted to go.

“I can’t. You go.

I’ll stay here,” she said, gesturing at the rumpled bed.