Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“Of me?”

“Making these trials. This is what you did in Germany, yes? They don’t want that here-it brings shame to people. Look at Rosa. She’s Italian and she makes this trouble for Italians. But you-I say to them, it’s not for trials, it’s personal with him. Like me. Rosa, that’s something else. But you don’t want to make trouble. Look how careful you were about Moretti. Be sure, be sure. So now maybe we can be sure. We find where he kept the boat.” He shook his head. “It’s a gift, this woman. Now we know when he was last alive and we know where to look.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance she made a mistake? Old woman, anybody in formal clothes-”

“No, no, sharp eyes, you know how they are, these women. Once she saw the picture, she knew. She identified Signorina Grassini too.”

“What?” I said involuntarily, like a twitch.

“In the funeral pictures. At Salute. That’s how I knew the eyes were sharp. She said she saw her the same night. Right here, coming from San Ivo, like Maglione. Half an hour or so later. And that’s right-it’s as you said. So I said, oh, she was going to the party too? No, no, she says, not dressed up at all. Normale. So that was accurate, because she dressed at your house, you said.”

He looked at me, the faintest hint of a question.

“That’s right. A dress of my mother’s.”

“Yes, I remember. Very beautiful. And the necklace. Well.” He raised his hand, glancing up at the building. “So, an accurate witness. Maybe watching now, who knows?”

He went on to San Ivo, and I started back along the narrow stretch of pavement where Gianni was supposed to have been attacked and bundled into a waiting boat. What would happen when Cavallini didn’t find the boat, when there were no more old women with sharp eyes? I looked to my right up the calle. But our house wasn’t visible from here-you had to make another turn, go deeper into the maze. There were no straight lines in Venice. Maybe if you lived here long enough your mind began to work that way too, seeing around corners, making leaps out of sequence, until you arrived at the right door. But Cavallini had turned left, to Mimi’s, the logical route. I looked down at the gray, sluggish water, my stomach turning. He wouldn’t stay there, though. The servants wouldn’t know anything. The boats would all be accounted for. It was personal with him. And now he had something to prove at the Questura. He’d see, finally, that it was a dead end and turn around to look somewhere else.

I got back just as Celia’s bags were being put into the taxi. My mother was standing at the water entrance with Bertie, and when she turned and hugged him for a second, I thought I saw him wince, pressed too hard maybe, where he felt sensitive. I wondered if he’d told her yet. But the embrace had been quick, fleeting, two friends at the station, not someone who thought it might be the last. Then he said something and she laughed and they were back in their own time again, cocktails and patter songs, before the war.

“Just in the nick,” my mother said, seeing me. “I thought I’d miss you.” She kissed my cheek. “Don’t get into any trouble.”

“Don’t buy any clothes,” I said back.

“All right,” she said, smiling, “a little trouble. Celia says I haven’t given Paris a chance. Not really. She says I left too soon.”

“So you might stay for a while.”

“Well, we’ll see. It’s odd here for me. And the trial. They’ll want to take my picture, and why? I have no position, really. I’m just someone he knew,” she said, her voice drifting a little.

“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of the house.”

“You know all the papers are in my desk? I don’t know why I’m talking like this. We’ve got the house through spring, and I’ll probably be back in a week. It’s just-well, what’s here now?” She touched Bertie on the arm. “Except me pals,” she said in stage cockney.

“You’ll miss your train,” Bertie said, giving her another peck. “Have fun. Just don’t try to keep up with Celia. And no cinq a septs, please. It’s unseemly at our age.”

“Yours, you mean,” she said, laughing. Then she looked around, swiveling her head to take in the line of palazzos across the canal. “It is so beautiful, isn’t it?” Then she was hugging people and getting into the launch with Celia, waving to friends and settling in beside the stacks of luggage, leaning out the side of the boat for a last look as they headed up the canal.

I turned to Bertie, whose eyes, surprisingly, were moist.

“And you’ll be next, I suppose,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“That’s right,” he said airily, turning back to the house. “Otherwise engaged.” He started walking again. “You stick, I’ll give you that. Where is she, by the way? I thought she’d be here playing daughter.”

“Couldn’t. She’s working.”

“Working? Where?”

“In a shop.”

“A shop,” he said. “Adam. Really.”

She’d left the shop early, however, called back to the hotel. When I got there, she was already packing, moving things from the wardrobe to the bed, stopping in between to look out the window, her movements anxious and darting. A cigarette was burning in an ashtray on the end table, half forgotten in the rush.

“What’s going on?”

“The police were here. Back again, about that night. You think Cavallini’s a fool? Maybe not such a fool.”

“But I just saw him. It couldn’t have been him.”

“Another one, then. What’s the difference? They know something.” She went to the window and peeked out. “Why come again? The same questions. What time did I leave? They know.”

I walked over to her, taking her by the shoulders. “Calm down. It’s not that. They don’t know.”

“How do you know? Are you inside their heads now?”

“Just listen. They turned up someone who saw Gianni that night. That’s what I came to tell you. An old woman. She also saw you.”

“Saw me?”

“On your way to the house. At exactly the time you said. They’re just checking with the hotel to verify her story. Nobody suspects you of anything. They just want to make sure it all fits.”

Her shoulders, tense under my hands, softened a little.

“Yes?”

“Yes. Calm down.”

She went over to the night table and picked up the cigarette. “She saw him? Where?”

“Where she saw you. San Ivo. Out her window. She’s an invalid, watches the street.”

“Then they know where he was going.”

“It’s also the way to Mimi’s. Depends which way you turn.”

“Oh, so he turns one way and I turn another? You believe that?”

“They believe that.”

“And when it occurs to them that he could have gone the other way, like I did?” She started walking to the wardrobe, then turned back, her pacing like visible thought.

“It won’t. He went to Mimi’s. You came to me. That’s all there is to it.”

“No, not all. They’re looking again. They’re looking at me. Who hated him. Who follows him to your house-yes, that’s all the woman proves, that I was there too. Who better?”

“But you were with me.”

“Yes, doing what? How long before they see it?” Another move to the window, still anxious.

“Listen to me,” I said quietly, lowering my voice. “I’ve been over everything-the hall, the canal gate, the boat. Every inch. Everything’s been scrubbed. There’s nothing there, no evidence at all. Nobody saw him. Nobody can prove he was there except us.”

“So maybe there’s another invalid.”

“Nobody except us. All we have to do is keep our heads.”

“Oh, and I’m losing mine, is that it?” She went over to the wardrobe, turning her back to me. “It’s me they’re asking questions about, not you.”