Death's Door (20 page)

“Listen, Abe, I’m going to let your wrist go, but after you put those away. Then we talk, okay?” I watched him for some sign of resistance. He had a strong jaw, wide mouth, and dark eyes that darted between Kaz and me, assessing the situation.

“Okay, but I still want to know who you guys are and what the hell you’re up to.”

“Fair enough,” I said, easing up on my grip as Abe stashed his weapon. Bells began to toll the midnight hour from the basilica and all the other nearby churches. They were loud but soothing, the kind of sound that makes you think all is right with the world. But then, a shriek ripped through the night, followed by a louder, terrible scream.

“What the hell,” said Abe. “Over there.” He pointed to the radio tower.

“Come on,” I said. “Abe, stay with us. It’s a small place, we’ll find you if you hoof it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, taking off ahead of us, leaving the sack with Kaz. We sprinted to catch up, making our way up the hill where the stone tower stood with the tall antennae reaching into the night sky.

We could have saved our breath.

Dark shadows and moonlight played across the body as the wind flogged the branches of the evergreens overhead. Beneath them, yards from the door to the radio tower, Commissario Filberto Soletto lay on his back, mouth open in surprise, or perhaps horror. Soletto’s jacket was open, his white shirt stained red. I had the terrible feeling that I had sent him here on a mission of greed, determined to get a larger share of diamonds.

“That’s a helluva way for a bull to end up,” Abe said. “Took a shiv to the heart.”

“How do you know he’s a cop?” I asked. “He’s not in uniform.”

“Pays to case any joint you’re going to spend time in, don’t it? His name is Soletto, head cop around here. I heard he’s on the take with the Fascist police, so I made it a habit to steer clear. Can’t be too careful, there’s a war on, ya know?”

“What do we do now, Billy?” Kaz asked. Damn good question, too.

Before I could suggest hightailing it, a nearby door opened and several figures emerged. There was no light, even from inside, because of the blackout.

“La santa madre di Dio,”
a voice said, the speaker almost stumbling on the body as others from behind pushed forward. It was Monsignor Bruzzone, eyeing us uncertainly. “Who did this?”

“No idea,” I said. “Didn’t you hear the screams?” It seemed they should have made it to the body before us, given the distance we had to cross.

“No, we were in a soundproof room, doing the broadcast.” This voice came from Robert Brackett, who stepped closer and knelt beside the body.

“What broadcast?” I asked, wondering about Brackett’s mental state after what Nini had told us. He must have been in one of his good moods to be out this late.

“Vatican Radio broadcasts the names of POWs we get from the Red Cross, to let relatives know they are alive,” Bruzzone explained. “Tonight it was Americans. We always hand over the list to the ranking diplomat when it is over.”

“Monsignor, I suggest you call in the gendarmes. They’ll have a lot of questions.”

“I can only imagine,” he said as he retreated into the building.

Brackett reached out to check Soletto’s pulse, but then thought better of it. Dead was dead.

“What is this?” A sharp voice broke through the night air. Bishop Zlatko appeared on the path, carrying a briefcase.

“Commissario Soletto, unfortunately. The gendarmes have been called.”

“What happened?” Zlatko asked, glancing around the small group hovering near the body. “Is he dead?”

“Yes. Stabbed.”

Zlatko stared at the body, then looked at me, making his opinion obvious. “I said you would cause trouble. I must go inside, I have a broadcast scheduled. I will pray for his soul.” He didn’t mention my soul or anybody else’s. I guess he preferred to pray for the dead rather than the living.

“Not the most charming guy,” Brackett said. “Personality or politics.”

“Couldn’t agree more. You should go inside, too,” I said. “The less you’re involved, the better.”

“Yeah, okay. Hey, Abe, how you getting along?” Brackett gave Abe a small wave.

“Can’t complain,” Abe replied.

“You two know each other?” I asked, as Kaz told a couple of the radio technicians to move back.

“Sure,” Brackett said. “I know all the American POWs who stay here. Part of the job. Abe’s not in trouble, is he?”

“Why would he be?”

“For one thing, he’s standing over a dead body.”

“We were all in the garden and heard a scream. We ran up here and found Soletto like this. Did anyone leave the studio before you?”

“I don’t think so,” Brackett said as he opened the door. “But I wasn’t keeping track of everyone. Who do you think did it?”

“No idea,” I said.

“Well, good luck.”

I was going to need it. As the door shut behind him, I heard the pounding of boots as gendarmes flooded across the gardens and up the hill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

D
AD ALWAYS SAID
to choose the smallest interrogation room there was. Put yourself and your partner between the suspect and the door, and you’re halfway home. For all the fancy statues, paintings, and polished marbled floors around here, the Vatican’s interrogation room could have been one of my old man’s Boston favorites. Small, plain, and cold. One cop across from me, seated behind a stout wooden table. Another in a chair by the door. Me, in the corner, on an old wooden chair that creaked every time I moved. I had to admire the setup. Still, we’d been at it a solid hour, and they showed no signs of believing a damn thing I said.

“We know you are an Allied agent,” the guy behind the desk said. For the thirtieth time. He was tall, about my age with short brown hair and a thin slit of a mouth I was thinking about punching. At some other time.

“Everybody knows that,” I said.

“You admit this?”

“What? That everybody knows I’m an agent, or that I am?”

“That you are an Allied agent.”

“I’m a US Army lieutenant. Sent here to investigate a murder. I was chosen because I was a detective back home before the war,” I said, repeating myself with a sigh.

“You were sent to investigate a murder that was already solved? Or were you sent to commit murder?”

“I haven’t murdered anyone. And do you really think Commissario Soletto solved Monsignor Corrigan’s murder?”

“You were upset with him, yes? About his handling of the investigation? You argued with him in his office, in front of a witness, yes?”

“Yes.” It was better to give a short, decisive answer than to argue. It gave him less to work with.

“And then tonight, you arrange to meet him at the radio station and stab him. Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t arrange to meet him. Or stab him.”

“So you claim,” he said, throwing a glance at his partner. His big, silent partner whose eyes bored into me. He was older, thicker at the waist, with a good coat of gray up top.

“What’s the Italian word for incompetent?” I snuck in the question as he paused. Interrogators don’t like their rhythm being disrupted, and especially don’t want to answer questions. A shoe on the other foot thing. But he spoke excellent English, his only accent hinting at a Brit as his language teacher. Maybe he wanted to show off.

“Incompetente,”
he said. “Now tell me why three of you were needed to kill one man. Or were the other two unwilling dupes?”

“Is the Vatican City Gendarmerie Corps so
incompetente
that none of you can find a murder weapon? Soletto couldn’t, and a dozen or so of you couldn’t tonight. If I killed Soletto, what did I do with the knife? There were witnesses within seconds of our arrival.”

“Ah, within seconds of when you
said
you arrived. You could have been waiting to ambush the
commissario
. You stabbed him, hid the knife, then returned with your accomplices.”

“So the knife would be within a hundred yards or so? Not in the radio tower, since it was filled with people. Outside, in the gardens. How long did it take you to find it? Or is everyone who wears that fancy dress outfit
incompetente?
”

His mouth twisted in an angry grimace as he tried to reply. “Why did you kill the
commissario?
”

“What’s my motive?” I spread my arms in wonderment. “You’re
more pissed off at me than I was at Soletto. Are you ready to murder
me?
”

The big guy interrupted, asking a question in Italian. Thin mouth answered and they laughed. I figured the big guy for his boss, and that he spoke English, but not enough to know what “pissed off” meant.

“Incazzato,”
big guy said. “Yes, you are making us
incazzato
, yes?”

“I am.”

“I think maybe you are police in America, as you say.”

“Yes.”

“And that you did not kill the
commissario
.”

“Yes.” We were on a roll, no reason to interrupt the guy.

“The little priest, Dalakis. He is with you.”

“Yes. He’s really British Army.”

“And the American
sergente?
”

“We ran into him in the gardens. We were all together when we heard the screaming, and ran to the tower.” No mention had been made of the salmon and condensed milk, and I thought it best not to bring it up, out of solidarity with cops of any nation. Made me kind of homesick.

“Hmmm,” was all big guy said. He nodded to thin lips, who went back to his questioning.

“Who arranged for you to see Commissario Soletto?”

“Robert Brackett, the American deputy chargé d’affaires. Or he asked the Pontifical Commission, in any case. They assigned Bishop Zlatko to be present at the meeting.”

“Do you know why?”

“I guess to act as a buffer between us. But Zlatko didn’t seem too glad to see me.”

“No, the good bishop has made that known,” thin lips said, with enough emphasis to tell me Zlatko might not be his best pal.

“What did Bishop Zlatko say at the meeting with the
commissario?
”

“He translated, until Soletto got angry enough to use his English.”

“You make him
incazzato
too, eh?” big guy said, laughing.

“It’s a gift,” I said. “The only thing Zlatko actually said to me was to ask about the diamonds.” I watched their eyes for a reaction.

“What diamonds?”

“Listen, I don’t want to offend the memory of your boss,” I said. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the memory of a Fascist informer, but I wanted them to ask me, to demand I tell them my theory. That might open their minds to the possibility.

“Please, speak freely,” thin lips said.

“One policeman to the other,” big guy said, giving me an encouraging nod.

“Severino Rossi was a jeweler by trade. He left Vichy France when things got too hot for Jews there. He made his way to Genoa, then on to Rome. All we know about him here is that he was found asleep in the columns, near where Corrigan was murdered. He was covered with an overcoat drenched in blood, but he wasn’t wearing it. When I searched Corrigan’s room, I found a single diamond. My theory is that the killer stole the diamonds from Rossi, who must have converted everything he owned into diamonds, to pay for bribes, papers, food, whatever he needed.”

“Why did Monsignor Corrigan leave a diamond in his room?” Thin lips was writing in his notebook as he asked the question. A good sign.

“I don’t think he did. I think the killer planted it there, to draw suspicion away from himself and create confusion. I’d bet that the killer paid Soletto in diamonds to finger Rossi as the murderer and get rid of him quickly.”

“The blood,” big guy said. He was right with me.

“Yes, the blood. After the struggle, the killer dragged Corrigan up the steps, into your jurisdiction. And he learned something too.”

“What?” He said it with a lift of the brow that told me he’d already figured that one out.

“He made a mess of things stabbing Corrigan. But he finally found the spot. Up through the rib cage, into the heart. Just like the single thrust that killed Soletto, between the third and fourth ribs.”

“Commissario Soletto searched the monsignor’s room himself,” thin lips said. “But he did so without assistance.” He raised an eyebrow in the direction of his boss, who shrugged that most elegant of Italian shrugs, the one that says,
Perhaps, yes, but we will never know, and sadly that is the way of the world
.

“I told Soletto that I had found more diamonds,” I said.

They looked stunned. Thin lips looked to big guy, who rubbed his chin. “But that was not true,” he said.

“Right. I wanted Soletto to think the killer had held out on him.”

Some quick Italian went back and forth between them.

“It appears, then, that you are responsible, at least indirectly, for the
commissario’s
murder,” thin lips said, writing in his notebook. “You caused him to press the killer for more diamonds, if we are to believe your theory.”

“No. Greed caused him to do that. And fear probably caused Corrigan’s killer to take another life.”

“Fear of being blackmailed?”

“Maybe. Or fear of someone who would always know what he did.”

“Colpa,”
said big guy. “Guilt.”

“Yes. Very Catholic,
colpa
.”

“Andiamo,”
he said to thin lips, who closed his notebook and left the room. “Some things are best said to few people, eh? You think a priest is the killer?”

“I think it is a man with much to lose. There are others here, but refugees have already lost almost everything. My money is on someone who still has position and power. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

“Yes, many have taken sanctuary here. Also diplomats. Brackett. He is a little strange, yes?”

“I’ve heard that. But not strange enough to kill. I don’t think he’s the type.”

“I agree. He is
—malinconico?
”

“Melancholy. And at times the opposite. I think he has been here too long.”

“Like the Germans, yes?” He dug out a pack of cigarettes from inside his uniform jacket and offered me one. I declined, but I was glad we were on friendlier terms now.