Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“But maybe it was a partisan.”

She looked at me over the rim of her cup but didn’t say anything.

“You said they acted on their own sometimes. If the trials-”

She was nodding. “Yes, it was the first thing I thought, when I heard. Like Il Gazzettino,” she said, giving a wry glance at the paper.

“But now you don’t?”

“A feeling only. Why now, so late?” She took the cup in both hands, warming herself. “You see, when the Germans left, there were killings like this. A season of bad blood-avenge this one, that one. You know, this happens. A part of war. But then it stops. It’s enough. And the way he was killed-”

“What do you mean?”

“So clumsy. Like a thief. With the partisans, it was a bullet. A military action, not a crime. Oh, such a look. You think it’s the same? It’s not the same to them. These are not criminals. Soldiers. They were fighting for their country. But the war’s over. So why now? It’s only for us,” she said, waving her hand back and forth between us, “that the war doesn’t end. With our files. For the others, it’s late.” She paused. “But also too early. You know, when I said they act, they find their own proof, it’s for justice. Because I couldn’t do it with this.” She placed her hand on the folder. “But there hasn’t been any trial. They don’t have to make their own justice yet. It’s too soon.”

“Maybe someone didn’t want to wait.”

“Maybe, but there’s no talk of this. You know I have many contacts. Old colleagues,” she said, raising an eyebrow, almost conspiratorial. “No one says anything.” She sighed. “But what’s the difference now? He got his justice anyway.”

“You found the proof?”

“Proof?”

“The fire. The house.”

She looked away. “The house, no. No proof. The dates don’t work.”

“What?”

“The man who was in hospital, Moretti, he was released October fourth. That’s the date you found, yes? It’s too early. The raid, it’s not until the fifteenth. Why would they wait? And he doesn’t come to us. A week in Verona, a safe house there. I thought at first it must be-such a coincidence, Moretti in the hospital, if he had just come from Venice, but no. First to Verona. If they tracked him, why wait?”

“For someone else to come to the house,” I said faintly.

“No one else came. Couriers, people who had been before. None of them were in the house when the Germans attacked. None were picked up later. So who were they waiting for? Of course, maybe there’s something in the German records-you know, in all the confusion, some are missing. But still, why wait? It’s not characteristic. The dates don’t work.”

I stared at her, gripping the edge of the table, stepping into the outer swirl of an eddy. “You mean he might not have done it?”

“I mean we can’t prove it. For a trial. Except it’s not a question of that anymore. He’s dead.”

“But how do we know-?” I stopped, one thought tumbling over another. “What if he didn’t do it?”

“If not the house, something else. He was a collaborator, no? Isn’t that why you came to us in the first place? He was what he was.”

“But what, exactly?” I said, mostly to myself.

She looked at me, surprised.

“I mean, we should know. Now that we’ve started.”

“But he’s ended it, Signor Miller. He’s dead. The file is closed. I can’t investigate the dead. There’s no time for that.”

“But he was killed.”

“Well, now it’s a police matter.” She paused. “That’s what’s troubling you? You feel guilty?”

I looked at her.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I know what you think. We open the file, start looking, and someone hears. Aha, so it’s Maglione, he thinks. And he decides to act. On his own. Because we started this.” She put her hand across the table, not quite touching mine. “We can’t blame ourselves for this. I make files, that’s all. The files don’t kill people. Maybe it was always going to happen. Maybe this is the justice. Anyway, it’s done.” She moved her cup aside, finished.

“But if a partisan killed him, wouldn’t you want to know?”

She looked straight at me. “And what? Bring him to trial? No. My justice doesn’t go that far. And how did he know? Because we started this. Then it’s our fault too? So we all killed him? That’s what you want to think?”

“But what if we killed the wrong man?” I said, shaky, finally there, near the center of the eddy.

She stared at me for a moment, then put both hands in front of her, fingers touching, making a point. “Signor Miller, he’s dead. If he did terrible things-well, it’s good, yes? If he didn’t, he’s dead anyway. What do you want me to do? Get proof and condemn him in the ground? Or no proof-then what? Rehabilitate him? Make a good reputation for him? In Il Gazzettino he’s already a hero. What more can he want? Let it go now. Close the file.”

“But then we’ll never know if he did it.”

“It’s so important to you, this?” she said. “What do you want to prove? That he deserved to die?”

I looked away, for a second seeing again the gray skin on San Michele, pasty and inert.

“Lieutenant Sullivan said it was like this with you,” Rosa said. “Personal. In Germany, every case.”

Had it been? Is that what Joe had thought? Folder after folder. “I hate to walk away. That’s all.”

“Yes, but there are so many others. The point is to make a trial. To make it known. There’s no trial here,” she said, putting her hand on the file. “Not anymore. It doesn’t matter to me how he died. There’s no trial.” She was silent for a minute, waiting, then began to gather up her things. Case closed.

“But I have to know,” I said, the words jumping out of me, trying to hold her in her seat.

She looked up at me, startled.

“Want to know,” I said, correcting myself. “I want to know what he did. So do you.”

“It’s not personal with me, Signor Miller. I don’t have the time.”

It was at that moment, everything swirling again, that I saw Cavallini, a glimpse over Rosa’s shoulder, circling into my line of vision across the room-the mustache, then the side of his face, then his back, sitting down. I craned my neck, looking around her. Was he meeting someone? No, alone. At the Bauer. Talking to the waiter now, opening a paper. Why not at work at the Questura? Unless he was at work, keeping me in sight. The one man in Venice he could trust.

“Look,” I said, dropping my voice, as if he could actually hear it across the room, “all I’m asking you to do is keep checking the German files. There has to be something, and I don’t have access. You do that and I’ll work the rest from this end.”

“Work what?”

“I’ll finish that,” I said, pointing to the file. “The hospital, the times, how it happened.” I hesitated. “The other members of the group. Not to nail them. I promise you, if it turns out-”

“Don’t promise me anything.”

“If it was a partisan, it stops here. You won’t know. Nobody knows.”

“Except you,” she said, tilting her head slightly, as if another angle might explain things. “Then why do it?”

Why. Because there had to be a reason for the bubbles in the water. But why else? Something I could say that she could believe. Over her shoulder, the waiter was pouring Cavallini’s coffee.

“Because it wasn’t a partisan. You don’t think so and neither do I.”

“No?”

“We can’t stop now. You’ve already done the spade work-now you’re just going to give it a pass? An atrocity everybody knows about? There should be a trial.”

“Signor Miller, he’s dead,” she said, her voice weary but her eyes intrigued, assessing me. Think of something. Quickly. Cavallini would turn in his seat any second, make an elaborate show of coming over. Rosa’s help lost for good. I’d never know.