Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

Then, on Sunday morning, he'd contacted the State Department, requesting the U.S. Embassy in Rome arrange a meeting between himself and the people investigating the bombing of the bus. Danny had been frightened and distraught; maybe what he had said might help shed some light on what had happened and who had been responsible. Afterward, and for the first time in as long as Harry could remember, he had gone to church. And prayed and wept.

Beneath him, Harry heard the sound of the landing gear being lowered. Looking out, he saw the runway come up and the Italian countryside fly past. Open fields, drainage ditches, more open fields. Then there was a bump and they were down. Slowing, turning, taxiing back toward the long, low sunlit buildings of Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci.

The uniformed woman behind the glass at Passport Control asked him to wait and picked up the telephone. Harry saw himself reflected in the glass as he waited. He was still in his dark blue Armani suit and white shirt, the way he was described in the Variety article. There was another suit and shirt in his suitcase, along with a light sweater, workout gear, polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes. The same bag he had packed for New York.

The woman hung up and looked at him. A moment later two policemen with Uzi submachine guns slung over their shoulders walked up to her. One stepped into the booth and looked at his passport, then glanced at Harry and motioned him through.

'Would you come with us, please.'

'Of course.'

As they walked off, Harry saw the first policeman ease the Uzi around, his right hand sliding to its grip. Immediately two more uniformed police moved in to walk with them as they crossed the terminal. Passengers moved aside quickly, then turned, looking back over their shoulders when they were safely out of the way.

At the far side of the terminal they stopped at a security door. One of the policemen punched a code into a chrome keypad. A buzzer sounded, and the man opened the door. Then they went up a flight of stairs and turned down a corridor. A moment later they stopped at another door. The first policeman knocked, and they entered a windowless room where two men in suits waited. Harry's passport was handed to one of them, and the uniforms left, closing the door behind them.

'You are Harry Addison-'

'Yes.'

'The brother of the Vatican priest Father Daniel Addison.'

Harry nodded. 'Thank you for meeting me…'

The man who held his passport was probably forty-five, tall and tanned, and very fit. He wore a blue suit, over a lighter blue shirt with a carefully knotted maroon tie. His English was accented but understandable. The other man was a little older and almost as tall but with a slighter build and salt-and-pepper hair. His shirt was checkered. His suit, a light brown, the same as his tie.

'I am Ispettore Capo Otello Roscani, Polizia di Stato. This is Ispettore Capo Pio.'

'How do you do…'

'Why have you come to Italy, Mr Addison?'

Harry was puzzled. They knew why he was there or they wouldn't have met him as they had. '-To bring my brother's body home… And to talk with you people.'

'When had you planned to come to Rome?'

'I hadn't planned to come at all…'

'Answer the question, please.'

'Saturday night.'

'Not before?'

'Before? No, of course not.'

'You made the reservations yourself?' Pio spoke for the first time. His English had almost no accent at all, as if he were either American himself or had spent a lot of time in the U.S.

'Yes.'

'On Saturday.'

'Saturday night. I told you that.' Harry looked from one to the other. 'I don't understand your questions. You knew I was coming. I asked the U.S. Embassy to arrange for me to talk to you.'

Roscani slid Harry's passport into his pocket. 'We are going to ask you to accompany us into Rome, Mr Addison.'

'Why? – We can talk right here. There's not that much to tell.'

Suddenly Harry could feel sweat on his palms. They were leaving something out. What was it?

'Perhaps you should let us decide, Mr Addison.'

Again, Harry looked from one to the other. 'What's going on? What is it you're not telling me?'

'We simply wish to talk further, Mr Addison.'

'About what?'

'The assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

They put Harry's luggage in the trunk and then rode in silence for forty-five minutes, not a word or a glance between them, Pio at the wheel of the gray Alfa Romeo, Roscani in the back with Harry, taking the Autostrada in from the airport toward the ancient city, passing through the suburbs of Magliana and Portuense and then along the Tiber and across it, passing the Colosseum, and moving into Rome's heart.

The Questura, police headquarters, was an archaic five-story brownstone-and granite building on Via di San Vitale, a narrow cobblestone street off Via Genova, which was off Via Nazionale in the central city. Its main entrance was through an arched portal guarded by armed uniformed police and surveillance cameras. And that was the way they came in, with the uniforms saluting as Pio wheeled the Alfa under the portal and into the interior courtyard.

Pio got out first, leading them into the building and past a large glassed-in booth where two more uniformed officers watched not only the door but also a bank of video monitors. Then there was a walk down a brightly lit corridor to take an elevator up.

Harry looked at the men and then at the floor as the elevator rose. The ride in from the airport had been a blur, made worse by the silence of the policemen. But it had given him time to try and get some perspective on what was happening, why they were doing this.

He knew the cardinal vicar of Rome had been murdered eight days earlier by an assassin firing from an apartment window – a crime analogous in the U.S. to killing the President or other hugely celebrated person – but his knowledge was no more than that, limited to what he'd seen on TV or scanned in the newspaper, the same as several million others. That Danny had been killed in the bombing of a bus shortly afterward was an obvious, even logical, line to follow. Especially considering the tenor of his call to Harry. He'd been a Vatican priest, and the murdered cardinal a major figure within the Church. And the police were trying to see if there was some connection between whoever killed the cardinal and those responsible for bombing the bus. And maybe in some way there was. But what did they think he knew?

Obviously it was a bad time and the police were reeling anyway because so public and outrageous a crime had happened in their city, and on their watch and on television. It meant every detail of their investigation would be under the closest scrutiny of the media and therefore even more emotionally charged than it already would have been. The best thing, Harry decided, was to try to put his own feelings aside and simply answer their questions as best he could.

He knew nothing more than what he'd wanted to tell them in the first place, which was something they would soon find out.

'When did you become a member of the Communist Party, Mr Addison?' Roscani leaned forward, a notepad at his sleeve.

'Communist Party?'

'Yes.'

'I am most certainly not a member of the Communist Party.'

'How long had your brother been a member?'

'I wasn't aware that he was.'

'You are denying he was a Communist.'

'I'm not denying anything. But as a priest he would have been excommunicated…'

Harry was incredulous. Where did this come from? He wanted to stand up and ask them where they got their ideas and what the hell they were talking about. But he didn't. He just sat there in a chair in the middle of a large office, trying to keep his composure and go along with them.