Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“Execution.”

I looked down, suddenly winded, the air rushing out of me. Execution how? Hanging? Shooting? An innocent boy. Worse than murder. I caught my breath, aware of Cavallini’s stare. “Then we have to be sure.”

“Don’t worry, Signor Miller. We will be. Ah, again,” he said as the telephone rang. “All morning it’s like this. Excuse me.” A complaint he’d make later to his long-faced wife. A man of importance.

I picked up Moretti’s blue hospital folder and glanced at the form while Cavallini talked. A fake name, but presumably him. Date of admission, release, address, and personal information, also presumably fake. An attached chart with what looked to be blood pressure and temperature readings. Diagnosis and report, in longhand, Gianni’s familiar signature on the bottom, the attending nurse, blood type, everything except what had happened. Iniezione antitetanica. Injection against tetanus? Well, there would be.

“Still looking for the proof?” Cavallini said, hanging up.

“This is him? How did you know the name?”

“The boy told us,” he said, almost amused.

“What’s ferita puntura — bullet wound?”

“No, ferita da pallottola. Puntura is puncture. It’s very close.”

But not the same. Not reported. I held the folder for a few seconds, taking this in. You don’t report someone you know. And he hadn’t. Unless he had lied to Giulia.

“A bullet would have to be reported to the police, you know,” Cavallini said. “Even now. It’s the law.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Usually it’s a question of the medical license. Then, under the Germans, who knows?”

“So he would have reported it to his friends in the SS. But if he told the SS, why falsify the police report? It came to the same thing in those days, didn’t it?”

Cavallini nodded stiffly, not sure whether to be offended. “If it was a bullet,” he said.

“It had to be. How else would he know Moretti was a partisan? What does the son say?”

“This is important?”

“If he knew it was a bullet wound and knew Gianni didn’t report it, he’d think Gianni was helping.” Plant any doubt, some confused opening Moretti’s son might use. “Why would he think Gianni betrayed him?”

“He didn’t. Until you and Rosa suggested it,” Cavallini said calmly, not even raising his voice, no louder than a door closing. I felt blood draining from my face.

Cavallini sighed. “Signor Miller, how you worry. What if? What if? Why not a simple answer? A man betrays, his victim is avenged. It has happened a million times before. What do you want to prove? That the boy is innocent?”

I looked up. The inescapable other question-then who is guilty? I dropped the folder on the desk and walked over to the window. Below in the Rio San Lorenzo a freight boat passed, loaded with bottles. Maybe a boat just like young Moretti’s. Someone who knew the lagoon, even in fog.

“I just don’t understand why he didn’t report the bullet wound.”

“It’s a detail, yes.”

“I mean, it would be terrible if we were wrong.”

“Yes,” Cavallini said, “and for Moretti’s son. He murdered a man for this. Imagine, if it was a mistake.”

I turned, my stomach churning again, but there was no sense of accusation in his voice, no sense that it even mattered. Moretti’s son had murdered Gianni. The rest was details.

“Don’t worry, Signor Miller,” he said, confident. “We will learn everything, now that we have him.” He flipped open the folder on his desk, as if having it there were proof, something tangible.

“Is that him?” I said, nodding at the photo on top.

“Yes. The usual bad picture. So dark.” He shook his head. “Our police photographer. But we can’t let him go. His wife is-”

He handed me the photograph. Wild eyes and uncombed hair, the scowl of a mug shot, guilty just being there. But something more. Exactly the same eyes, the shape of the nose. I imagined the hair brushed over, the face clean and smiling-the same boy in a V-necked tennis sweater, his arm over Paolo’s shoulder. The son, then. So Moretti was someone Gianni knew. But what did it mean? Someone you knew, you wouldn’t turn over. Not in a moral question, anyway. But someone had. I started to speak, then caught the sound in my throat. Would it make it worse for Moretti, another connection for Cavallini to use against him? I looked up to see the inspector watching me.

“He’s just a kid,” I said, my voice suddenly distraught. I stared again at the picture, everyone’s solution to the crime.

“Yes. But not a child. A man.” Making a legal distinction. “You know, it’s often like this in police work. People like to help catch and then-” He made a snapping noise with his hands. “They realize there’s also the punishment. That’s more difficult for them. The cold feet, you say, yes?” he said, still genial, sticking his chin out so that for a half second he looked like Paolo’s hero in Rome. Not a joke in the end, either. He took back the picture. “He’s young, yes. But think of the crime. Think how Gianni would feel. Grateful, I think, for your help.”

Before I could answer, Cavallini’s door, only half shut, swung open and his secretary came in, arms held out, being pushed by Rosa, who was screaming in Italian. “Ah,” Rosa said, spying Cavallini, moving the secretary aside and wagging her finger theatrically.

He yelled back, but she cut him off, flinging her hands now. There must have been some physical resistance in the outer office, because her cardigan, usually wrapped tight, seemed a little disheveled, and her hair was spilling out of its tidy bun.

“Oh, you too!” she said, seeing me, switching to English. “What a pair. What a pair. How can you be part of this? Give me that.” She reached over for the beige file. Cavallini put his hand on it. “It’s property of the Allies. Not yours,” she said.

“And now evidence in a murder case.”

“ Basta. What evidence?” She turned to me. “You see how they use everything? We investigate Maglione, not some poor boy. And now they use that, because he’s Communist. Anything to discredit the Communists. Where is he? I demand to see him.”

“He’s being questioned. He has a lawyer.”

“Ha. Picked by the Questura. Wonderful.”

“Let him pick another, then.”

“Don’t worry, he will. My god, what a fool you are. Always the same. The father was a hero. The boy was a hero. While you were-what? Keeping order for the Germans. And now you want to destroy him? Take everything he says and twist it-no, worse, everything I say. It was to help get Maglione. Why? Because he has to know.” She pointed her thumb at me. “So I help, and now you want to use that? Against an innocent boy? Shame. But then, when were you ever ashamed?”

“Innocent boy,” Cavallini said scornfully.

“Yes, innocent, of course innocent.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.”

“Ah. And that’s his defense. No wonder you came. How did you know he was here, by the way?”

“Oh, you think maybe someone here told me? Good, start the search. A Communist in the Questura. Yes, that must be it. You’d better look everywhere. Under the desks. Do it to your own-see how they like it.” She turned to me. “You see what they’re trying to do? You think this boy killed Maglione?”

“No, he agrees with you,” Cavallini said, mischievous. “He’s been trying to convince me the boy is innocent.”

Rosa stopped, thrown by this.

“But he hasn’t,” Cavallini said, with a small smile for me.

“Be careful what you say here,” Rosa said to me. “It’s not justice here. Politics. Nothing changes.” She looked at Cavallini. “When can I see him?”