Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

The information Pio was giving him was privileged, and Harry knew it, part of what Pio had promised. But it told him little or nothing about their case against Danny. Pio was just doing what Roscani had done, giving him only enough information to keep things going.

'You know what blew up the bus. Do you know who did it?'

'No.'

'Was my brother the target?'

'We don't know. All we know for certain is that we now have two different investigations. The murder of a cardinal and the bombing of a tour bus.'

An aging Oriental waiter came up, glancing at Harry and grinning and exchanging pleasantries in Italian with Pio. Pio ordered for both by rote, and the waiter clapped his hands, bowed crisply, and left. Pio looked back to Harry.

'There are, or rather, were, five ranking Vatican prelates who serve as the pope's closest advisers. Cardinal Parma was one. Cardinal Marsciano is another…' Pio filled his glass with mineral water, watching Harry for a reaction that never came. 'Did you know your brother was Cardinal Marsciano's private secretary?'

'No…'

'The position gave him direct access to the inner workings of the Holy See. Among them, the pope's itinerary. His engagements – where, when, for how long. Who his guests would be. Where he would enter and exit what building. The security arrangements. Swiss Guards or police or both, how many – Father Daniel never mentioned things like that?'

'I told you, we weren't close.'

Pio studied him. 'Why?'

Harry didn't respond.

'You hadn't spoken to your brother for eight years. What was the reason?'

'There's no point getting into it.'

'It's a simple question.'

'I told you. Some things just build up over time. It's old business. Family things. It's boring. Hardly about murder.'

For a moment Pio did nothing, then picked up his glass and took a drink of mineral water. 'Is this your first time in Rome, Mr Addison?'

'Yes.'

'Why now?'

'I came to bring his body home… No other reason. The same as I said before.'

Harry felt Pio starting to push, the way Roscani had earlier, looking for something definitive. A contradiction, a diverting of the eyes, a hesitation. Anything to suggest Harry was holding something back or was flat out lying.

'Ispettore Capo!'

The waiter came grinning, as he had before. Making room on the table for four steaming platters, setting them between the men, chattering in Italian.

Harry waited for him to finish, and when he left, looked at Pio directly. 'I'm telling you the truth. And have been all along… Why don't you keep your promise and tell me what you haven't, the particulars of why you think my brother was involved in the cardinal's murder?'

Steam rose from the platters, and Pio gestured for Harry to help himself. Harry shook his head.

'All right.' Pio took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and handed it to Harry. 'The Madrid police found it when they went through Valera 's apartment. Look at it carefully.'

Harry opened the paper. It was an enlarged photocopy of what looked like a page taken from a personal phone book. The names and addresses were handwritten and in Spanish, the corresponding telephone numbers to the right. Most, from the heading, seemed to be from Madrid. At the bottom of the page was a single phone number, to its left was the letter R.

It didn't make sense. Spanish names, Madrid phone numbers. What did it have to do with anything? Except that maybe the R at the bottom of the page referred to Rome, but the number beside it had no name at all. Then it came to him.

'Christ,' he said under his breath and looked at it again. The telephone number beside the R was the one Danny had left on his answering machine. Abruptly he looked up. Pio was staring at him.

'Not just his phone number, Mr Addison. Calls,' Pio said. 'In the three weeks leading up to the killing, Valera placed a dozen calls to your brother's apartment from his cellular phone. They became more frequent toward the end, and of shorter duration, as if he were confirming instructions. As far as we've been able to tell, they were the only calls he made while he was here.'

'Telephone calls do not make killers!' Harry was incredulous. Was this it? All they had?

A newly seated couple looked in their direction. Pio waited for them to turn back, then lowered his voice.

'You were told there is evidence of a second person in the room. And that we believe it was that second person and not Valera who killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was a Communist agitator, but there is no evidence he ever fired a gun. I remind you your brother was a decorated marksman trained by the military.'

'That's a fact, not a connection.'

'I'm not finished, Mr Addison… The murder weapon, the Sako TRG 21, normally takes a.308 Winchester cartridge. In this case it was loaded with American-made Hornady 150-grain spire-point bullets. They are bought primarily at specialty gun shops and used for hunting… Three were taken from Cardinal Parma's body… The rifle's magazine holds ten rounds. The remaining seven were still there.'

'So?'

' Valera 's personal phone directory was what sent us to your brother's apartment. He wasn't there. Obviously he had gone to Assisi, but we didn't know that. Because of Valera 's directory we were able to get a warrant to search…'

Harry listened, saying nothing.

'A standard cartridge box holds twenty rounds of ammunition… A cartridge box containing ten Hornady 150-grain spire points was found inside a locked drawer in your brother's apartment. With it was a second magazine for the same rifle.'

Harry felt the wind go out of him. He wanted to respond, to say something in Danny's defense. He couldn't.

'There was also a cash receipt for one million seven hundred thousand lire – just over one thousand U.S. dollars, Mr Addison. The amount Valera paid in cash to rent the apartment. The receipt had Valera 's signature. The handwriting was the same as that on the telephone list you have there.

'Circumstantial evidence. Yes, it is. And if your brother were alive, we could ask him about it and give him the opportunity to disprove it.' Anger and passion crept into Pio's voice. 'We could also ask him why he did what he did. And who else was involved. And if he had been trying to kill the pope… Obviously we can't do any of that…' Pio sat back, fingering his glass of mineral water, and Harry could see the emotion slowly fade.

'Maybe we will find out we were wrong. But I don't think so… I've been around a long time, Mr Addison, and this is about as close to the truth as you get. Especially when your prime suspect is dead.'

Harry's gaze shifted off, and the room became a blur. Until now he had been certain they were mistaken, that they had the wrong man, but this changed everything.

'What about the bus…?' He looked back, his voice barely a whisper.

'Whatever Communist faction was behind Parma 's murder, killing one of their own to shut him up?… The Mafia doing something else entirely?… A disgruntled bus company employee with access to, and knowledge of, explosives?… We don't know, Mr Addison. As I said, the bombing of the bus and the cardinal's murder are separate investigations.'

'When will all this be made public?'

'Probably not while the investigation continues. After that we will, in all likelihood, defer to the Vatican.'

Harry folded his hands in front of him and stared at the table. Emotions flooded. It was like being told you had an incurable disease. Disbelief and denial made no difference, the X rays, MRIs, and CT scans stared back from the wall just the same.

Yet, for all of that – for all the evidence the police had presented, one solid piece stacked upon another, they still had no absolute proof, as Pio had admitted. Moreover, no matter what he had told them about the substance of Danny's phone message, only he had heard Danny's voice. The fear and the anguish and the desperation. It was not the voice of a murderer crying out for mercy to the last bastion he knew, but of someone trapped in a terrible circumstance he could not escape.