Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

'We were asked…'

'By whom?'

'Eros Barbu…'

'A world-famous writer is safeguarding a murderer?'

Edward Mooi said nothing.

'Luca knew and the others? My mother general?' Elena stared, incredulous.

'I… don't know…' Edward Mooi's eyes narrowed. 'What I do know is that the police are watching everything we do. That's why I asked you to go into Bellagio. If any of us went and met this priest, they would either arrest us all on the spot or wait and see where we went.'

'This priest,' Sister Elena said, 'is Father Addison's brother. Yes?'

'I think he is.'

'And you want me to bring him here…'

Edward Mooi nodded. 'By land there is another way in that I will show you…'

'What if, instead, I went to the police?'

'You don't know for certain Father Daniel is a murderer… And I have seen how you care for him…' Edward Mooi's eyes were those of a poet. Fierce, yet at the same time trusting and sincere. 'He is your charge, you will not go to the police.'

Villa Lorenzi. 6:00 a.m.

Hair disheveled, barefoot, and in a bathrobe, Edward Mooi stood in the doorway of the caretaker's cottage and simply shrugged his shoulders, letting Roscani and his army – Gruppo Cardinale special agents, heavily armed uniformed carabinieri, along with an Italian army canine unit, five Belgian Malinois dogs and their handlers – have their second run at Villa Lorenzi.

Again they searched the palace-like main house, the adjoining sixteen-bedroom guest wing, the wing opposite, which was Eros Barbu's private quarters, the basements and sub-basements. The Malinois led them everywhere, hunting the scent of clothing flown in from Rome, and taken from Father Daniel's apartment on Via Ombrellari and from Harry Addison's belongings left behind at the Hotel Hassler.

Afterward they combed the huge domed structure behind the main residence, which housed the indoor swimming pool and tennis courts and, on the second floor, the immense, gilt-ceilinged, grand ballroom. And then the eight-car garage, the servants' apartments, the twin, single-story maintenance buildings, and finally, the three-quarter-acre greenhouse.

Roscani walked through it all. Tie loosened, shirt open at the collar against the early heat. One room after another, one building after another, directing the operation, alert to the actions of the dogs, opening closet doors himself, looking for access panels, looking between walls, under floors – his personal attention given to everything. At the same time his mind kept coming back to the murders in Pescara and the man with the ice pick. Who he was, might be. And in that, he sent an urgent request to INTERPOL headquarters in Lyon, France, for a list of terrorists and killers still at large thought to be in Europe; the list to include suspected whereabouts and, where possible, a personality profile.

'Have you seen enough, Ispettore Capo?' Edward Mooi was still in his bathrobe.

Roscani looked up, suddenly aware of where he was and of both men standing at the top of a flight of stairs inside Villa Lorenzi's boathouse. Outside, the morning sun painted a bright, shimmering surface across the still of the lake, while below, in semidarkness, two of the Belgian Malinois sniffed and grumbled at the gunwales of a large motorboat moored at the dock, their handlers letting them do as they pleased, four armed carabinieri watching closely as they did. Roscani turned to watch, and so did Edward Mooi, Roscani glancing at the South African as he did.

Finally the dogs gave up, one after the other, walking lazily around the dock sniffing at nothing. One of the handlers looked up and shook his head.

'Grazie, Signore, ' Roscani said to Edward Mooi.

'Prego,' Mooi nodded, then walked out and back along the path toward the villa.

'That's all,' Roscani called to the dog handlers, and watched as they and their animals and the four carabinieri climbed the stairs, following in the direction Edward Mooi had gone, toward the house and the convoy of parked police vehicles.

Slowly Roscani started up the path after them. They had been there for more than two hours and nothing had been found. Two hours wasted. If he was wrong, he was wrong. And he needed to leave it and move on. Still-

Turning, he looked back. There was the boathouse and beyond it the lake. To his right he could see the dogs and the armed carabinieri almost to the villa. Edward Mooi was out of sight.

What had he missed?

To the left of the villa, between it and the boathouse was the stone landing with its ornate balustrade where the hydrofoil captain had said he put the fugitive priest and the others ashore.

Once again Roscani looked to the boathouse. Absently his fingers went to his mouth, and he took a pull from his phantom cigarette. Then, his eyes still on the boathouse, he dropped the imaginary cigarette, ground it out with his toe, and walked back and went inside.

From the top of the stairs he saw nothing but the motorboat moored to the dock below and the equipment needed to tend it. At the far end, the rectangular opening to the lake. The same as before.

Finally, he went down the stairs and walked along the dock beside the boat. Bow to stern. Stern to bow. Looking. For what, he didn't know. Then he climbed onboard. Studied the interior of the hull, the seats, the cockpit. The dogs had complained but found nothing. He could see nothing. A boat was a boat, and he was wasting his time. He was about to step over the side and back onto the dock, when he had one last thought. Crossing to the stern, he looked down at the twin Yamaha outboard engines. Kneeling, he reached over the side and gingerly ran his hand down the lower leg of each, touching the side panels between the power head and the water line. Both were warm.

8:00 a.m.

Elena Voso crossed the square and started down the steps toward the lake. Shops catering mainly to tourists lined either side of the walkway down. Most of them were already open. Salespeople and customers alike, cheery, smiling, seeming happy about the prospects for the day.

In front of her Elena could see the lake. Boats crisscrossed on it. Across the street at the bottom of the stairs she could see the hydrofoil landing, and she wondered if the first hydrofoil had come yet, if Luca and Marco and Pietro were already in Como or maybe at the station, waiting for the train to Milan. At the bottom of the stairs was something else too – the Hotel Du Lac – and even now she wasn't certain what she would do when she got there.

After Edward Mooi left the grotto in the motorboat, Elena had taken Salvatore and Marta to where Michael Roark, or – and now she had to think of him this way – Father Daniel, was. He had been awake and moved up on one elbow, watching as they came in. Elena had introduced Salvatore and Marta as friends, saying she had to leave for a short while and they would care for him until she got back. Even though he was beginning to regain full use of his vocal chords and could talk for short periods of time, Father Daniel had said nothing. Instead his eyes had searched hers, as if somehow he knew she had found out who he was.

'You will be all right,' she'd said finally and left him with Marta, who had mentioned that his bandages should be changed and said that she would do it herself, indicating she had some training in medical care.

And then Salvatore had led Elena into a part of the caves she had not seen before. A twisting, turning route through a series of stone corridors ending, finally, at a cage-like service elevator that took them up several hundred feet through a natural cut in the granite.

At the top they had emerged into a heavy thicket and walked down a forest path to a fire road. There Salvatore had helped her into a small farm truck, told her how to get to Bellagio and what to do once she reached it.