Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“You believe this?”

“I don’t know what to believe. People have to do things in wartime-it’s hard to judge. So maybe yes. But the point is that if he did, then there’s a motive. Why would anyone want to kill Gianni? But if he betrayed them, or if they thought he did-”

He was nodding to himself. “Yes, there were such cases. Rosa knows this. And yet she runs away when I ask.”

“She doesn’t want it to be a partisan.”

“That’s your idea, that it was a partisan?”

We started walking again, past the jewelry stores and into the deep shadow of the arcades.

“You know, Signor Miller, everyone worked for the Germans. We don’t like to say now, but what could we do? This was an occupied country. Even the police worked for them.”

“Not like this.”

“Like this,” he repeated, waiting. “There was a suggestion-”

“That he was an informer for the SS. There was a raid, an atrocity.”

“A fire.”

“So you know about it.”

“I thought it must be that. With Rosa.”

Just then we came out of the arcades into the bright open piazza, that exhilarating first moment when the space of San Marco dazzles. Even Cavallini stopped, looking across at the campanile and the domes of the basilica.

“It seems impossible, doesn’t it, that such things could happen,” he said, “where it’s so beautiful.” I glanced at him, surprised. “Look at this,” he said, genuinely moved. And in fact the piazza was spectacular, flooded with spring light, the sun flashing off the gold mosaics, the pigeons swooping up and around in the soft air. “Imagine,” he said, “to be a Maglione in this city.” He turned to me. “I hope you’re wrong, Signor Miller. So many years, and then a disgrace like this on the name.”

“I hope I’m wrong too. For my mother’s sake.”

“Yes, forgive me,” he said. We started to walk across the piazza. “I forgot what this would mean to her. I was thinking of my wife’s family. An indulgence. Do such things happen? Who knows better than a policeman? Of course you’re right-we must know. I’m grateful to you for your help.”

“Maybe we can help each other.”

“Yes?”

“I can find out what Joe Sullivan has-well, Rosa, really. But if we want to take this any further, there are hospital records to check, and I’d need your authority for that.”

“My authority? But the Allies have all the authority you need.”

“For war crimes. But now he’s dead. They’re not interested in trying a dead man. What would be the point? So it’s a police matter. Your case.”

“My case,” he said to himself, as if he were trying out the phrase. He looked up at me, a faint grin under the mustache. “And you want to be the Dr. Watson? The partner? It’s not usual, such an offer.”

“Just an assistant. If it would help.”

“Oh, I accept, I accept. An experienced investigator? For you it’s like old times, maybe. More Germans.”

“No, no trials this time. I just want to know whether he did it.” I looked at Cavallini. “And then we’ll know why he was killed.”

Unexpectedly, he extended his hand. “I am so grateful for your help. At the Questura, do they want this? To know why? With you, it’s a family matter, they say to me. You see, you can understand that. But the others? They just want it to go away. For everything to be normal. The tourists will be here soon.”

Around us, as a kind of live illustration, the waiters were putting out more tables at Florian’s, even one day’s sun an excuse to start the season. In a few days the musicians would be back, playing waltzes, and everything would be the same. I watched for a second, uneasy, even the white-jacketed waiters carrying chairs suddenly surreal. I was supposed to be one of the people sitting down for coffee, reading an English newspaper, writing postcards. Not lying to policemen, who were grateful for my help.

“Will you come back to the Questura?”

“I can’t now,” I said. “Anyway, I’d better call Joe. Get you the file.” After I’d read it first, decided what to pass on. “So we can start.”

“Yes, thank you,” he said, but the idea seemed to darken his mood again, a reminder. “I remember the incident of the house very well. Those were the worst times, near the end. I don’t know why.”

I shrugged. “The losers are desperate and the winners aren’t accountable yet. So it’s open season. It was the same in Germany. At the War Crimes Commission, most of the cases were recent.”

“War crimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think everything in the war was a crime.”

I looked at him, surprised again. “And nothing. That’s the problem. It’s war, so it doesn’t count.”

“Well, now it’s over,” he said, taking one last look at the piazza, still filling with chairs. “Now it counts.”

Are you crazy?” Claudia said.

“Maybe. But this way we know everything they’re doing.”

“Help them. What are you going to do? Help them catch us?”

“The closer I get, the more they look somewhere else. I’m making them look somewhere else.”

“No, digging a grave. Two. Not just yours.” Pacing now, drawing smoke in tight gulps, as if she were angry at the cigarette too.

“We want them to look somewhere else. You don’t want them coming back to that party.”

“Back to me, you mean.”

“Back to either of us,” I said, looking at her. “Either of us.”

“And now they won’t-because you’re there? Maybe they ask themselves, why does he do this?”

“Look, I was a kind of cop. Something like this happens in my family, they expect me to take an interest.”

“Not your family.”

“Close to me, then. They expect me to help. Cavallini asked me. Giulia asked me.”

“Oh, Giulia. The pretty sister. Now, not a sister. So there’s a convenience.”

“Stop.”

“What do you want to do, make it up to her? ‘I’ll find out who did it.’ Ha. Not as difficult as she thinks.”

“Claudia.”

“Maybe you want to show her what he was like. ‘Here’s your father. SS.’ You think she’ll thank you for that, your little sister?”

“Are you finished?”

She turned her back to me. “You said we would leave Venice.”

“We will.”

“Oh, but not yet. Not until it’s too late.”

I put my hands on her and turned her around. “Listen. This is how it works. I show Cavallini what Gianni did. I prove it. So it’s the logical answer, the only place he looks. Not here, not at you, not at me. Some partisan, someone Gianni betrayed.”

“And when there is no partisan?”

“But they’ll think there is. Maybe dead, maybe still out there-they don’t know exactly, we never find out, but we know who it has to be. The kind of crime. So they’re satisfied-it couldn’t be anyone else. And maybe it’s just as well they can’t get him. That way nothing has to come out about Gianni. No scandal. No disgrace. All covered up. Like his brother. All they want is an answer to what happened, something plausible. They don’t want to open anything up. Nobody wants to know.”

She was silent for a minute, then moved away, carrying her cigarette to the table. “Only you,” she said, putting it out. “You want to know.”

“Don’t you? I want to be sure.”

“Sure of what? You want to use the police to prove he was guilty? Why? So that it was right for you-”

“I want to lead them somewhere else.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll lead them back to us.”

“The closer I am to them, the safer we are.”

She looked up. “Yes? Unless they use you.”

We stopped then, too tired to go any further, but the argument went on in different ways, a general prickliness that began to seep into the days.