Alibi: A Novel (48 page)

“Was your father safe there?”

Claudia looked away, then went back to the floor, scrubbing it clean, doing something.

“Why the Lido?” I said.

“There’s a car there. They won’t know about it.”

“The next link?”

“We can get to Jesolo. There’s a doctor I know.”

“If he’s still alive,” I said, watching Moretti, who was breathing heavily, in a series of grunts.

“You can’t involve us in this,” Claudia said. “What can we say? They’ll think we were part of it, attacking police. There, it’s gone. What do we do with the towel?” She held it out to me.

Rosa looked up at me. “We can’t take him to the hospital. You know that. There is an obligation here.”

I glanced around the room, thinking. The police were on the water, not searching the calles. Could he walk? Mimi’s wasn’t far, a few deserted blocks away. But how could we take him there? Anywhere?

“Were you followed here?” I said.

Rosa shook her head. “No.”

“So only the pickup boat knows you’re still here.”

“Yes.”

“The police’ll be on the lagoon.”

“Maybe not so many,” she said, bargaining. “They can’t stay out
all night. They have to think we went to Maestre. No one will think of the Lido, it’s the wrong way. That was the plan.”

“Yes, and look how well it’s worked,” Claudia said.

“He’s here, isn’t he? If we can get to the Lido, we can get him away.” She turned to me. “They’re not looking for your boat.”

I took in the canal steps, the boat tied to its mooring pole, barely moving in the calm water. If they were keeping watch nearby, they’d be in the Giudecca channel, not the other end. Nobody in his right mind would head for the Grand Canal, all lights and vaporetti and tourist gondolas. The way to Maestre, the mainland, was up the channel to Piazzale Roma and the bridge. That would be the way to escape, not out toward the lagoon and the open sea. Rosa was right—they wouldn’t think of the Lido. The trick would be getting past Venice itself, the curve of bright lights around the basin, without even a shadow to hide behind. A long trip in any case, too long for someone with a stomach wound, groaning between channel markers. And now they’d be hours late.

“What if he didn’t wait, the driver?”

“There’s no one. Just the car.”

“And you’re going to drive?”

“I can drive a car.”

“But not a boat,” I said to myself, then looked at her. “It’s not going to work, Rosa. You have to give him up.”

“He’s not guilty,” Claudia said. “If there’s a trial—”

“It’s too late for that,” Rosa said. “A policeman was killed.”

“How do you know? You didn’t know if Cavallini was shot.”

“I didn’t shoot Cavallini,” she said calmly.

In the silence that followed you could hear the creaking of moored boats in the canal.

“Anybody see you?” I said quietly.

Rosa shrugged. “It was dark. Maybe. Maybe they saw
him
,” she said, looking down at Moretti. “You understand? They don’t need a trial for Maglione anymore. Now they have this.”

I said nothing, my eyes darting around the room again—the
hanging gondola, the paving stones, nothing changed, feeling as trapped and anxious as that night. Only the water. The calle entrance was impossible—someone would see, and where would we carry him? Gianni had been dead, something you could slip over the side. Moretti would have to be taken all the way, loaded into the car. If he survived the trip. And if he didn’t? I saw us pitching him into the water, a macabre repetition, everything happening all over again.

“You have to get him out of here,” Claudia said, maybe seeing it too, shivering as if she were back in the boat. “It’s not fair, to be blamed for this.”

“Go, then,” Rosa said. “Somewhere after the opera. If they come, you won’t be here. I’ll say you never knew. I came to steal the boat. They’d believe that, stealing the boat.”

“You wouldn’t even get the motor started,” I said.

“I’ll row, then. What do you want me to do? Sit? Let him bleed to death?”

Nobody said anything, waiting for someone else to move. Moretti, on the floor, fumbled in his jacket and pulled out a gun, aiming at me.

“Take us,” he said.

“Stop,” Rosa said. “They’re friends.”

But Moretti’s eyes were blunt, beyond niceties. I stared at the gun, feeling dislocated. A gun, where we used to give parties. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.

“Give it to me,” Rosa said, holding out her hand. Then, fondly, “
Imbecile
.”

He lowered the gun, not giving it to Rosa but putting it back in his pocket.

“Where did he get a gun?” I asked.

“The guard who shot him, it’s the one he used. So we took it after.”

I tried to imagine the scene in the yards, the guard slumping forward, Rosa helping the boy across the tracks, a confusion of shots, the boat racing away from the pier. Or that moment, earlier, when she’d fired at the guard. Not the first. How many had there been? Paolo and all the others. I wondered if it got easier, or if each time was like Gianni, with blood pounding in your head.

“What happened to the other guard?”

“He was ours,” she said simply.

And now the others would kill him. No end to it, the war that kept going, the only thing real to her. But not to me, nothing to do with me.

It must have been utterly still, because the doorbell, when it rang, was louder even than Moretti’s scream.

Claudia jumped. “Oh,
dio
,” she said, frantic, looking at the bloody towel in her hand.

Rosa sat up, rigid, clutching Moretti.

“Somebody heard,” Claudia said, a gasp.

“Angelina,” I said, “that’s all.”

“She rings? With a key?” She held out the towel in front of her as if it were alive, about to bite her.

I stood, for a moment almost dizzy, my head turning left, right, anywhere. “All right,” I said finally, pretending calm. “Get over there, behind the stones.” I stepped over to help Rosa drag Moretti behind the pile. “Get under the tarp. It’s probably Angelina. I’ll come back when she goes up. Just stay there.”

“What do I do with this?” Claudia held out the towel, panicking.

“Under here. Come on, quick. We need to see if anything shows,” I said, tucking the side of the tarp down. There was a murmur from underneath. “You okay?” I loosened the edge, letting some air in. The doorbell rang again. “Not a sound. Not a
sound
,” I said, grabbing Claudia. “We were upstairs. It took us that long to answer.”

She nodded and I closed the wrought-iron door. I hurried down the hall. “
Momento
,” I said out loud. When I reached the door, I looked over my shoulder to see Claudia standing halfway up the stairs, patting her hair, everything in place, only her eyes startled.

I opened the door and heard the blood in my head again.

“So, home early,” Cavallini said. “I saw the light.”

“Inspector,” I said dumbly, staring at his arm, wrapped in white bandages and set in a sling. “Are you all right? At the opera, the policemen—”

“Yes, I know, poor Filomena. To worry her that way. I spoke to them. Acting like women. A scratch, and she comes for the last rites.
Well, maybe wives hope for that,” he said, genial. He looked toward the stairs. “Signora Miller.
Buona sera
.”

She nodded, stiff.

“You enjoyed the opera?”

I stepped aside to let him in. Behind him a uniformed policeman waited by the door.

“Yes, but I had a headache,” she said, wary. “I was just going to bed.”

“I’m sorry to come like this.”

“But what happened? What do you mean, a scratch?” I said, trying to remember what I was supposed to know. If I’d only been to the opera.

“A bullet, but not serious. You know, I felt today something might happen. A superstition. Remember?”

“A bullet. You were shot?”

He smiled. “There was an incident. I told you I expected something.”

“Tonight? I didn’t know you meant tonight.”

“Well, whenever we moved Moretti. We moved him tonight.”

“But what happened?”

“He was shot. So they defeat themselves.”

“He’s dead?”

“We don’t know. He’s still with them. But we’ll find him.”

“Still with who?”

“Communists. So of course this is what they do. Always the same methods.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Yes,” he said, solemn. “Now he murders police.”

“Moretti?”

He nodded. “This time you can be sure.”

I said nothing.

“I thought you would be interested,” Cavallini said.

“That’s why you came—to tell me?”

“No, no. Why I came.” He looked around, as if for a second he’d forgotten. “To ask you.”

I glanced toward the stairs where Claudia was still standing, her hand gripping the rail.

“Did you know that your canal gate was open?”

“The canal gate?” I said.

“Yes, it’s open. Did you know?”

Was I supposed to know? How else could it have been opened?

“Yes, I left it open. In case we took a taxi home from the opera.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“You permit me to see?” he said, starting down the hall.

“Yes, if you want. What’s it all about?”

“Your boat is still there? Not stolen?”

“I suppose so. I haven’t looked. I never thought—”

Claudia was following us now, walking tentatively, as if she were bracing herself for each step. “Someone stole the boat?” she said.

“Signora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Ah, this door is not locked?” He opened the door to the water entrance. “You’re very trusting, Signor Miller. The light?”

I drew a breath and flipped on the switch, listening for a sound, any rustling of the tarp. Under the yellow overhead light, the dark clumps were only partly illuminated, still leaving shadows around the edges. I took in the smell, damp stone and musty wood, but nothing more, any boathouse, even the peroxide faded now, something that might have come in from the canal.

“Yes,” Cavallini said, taking stock, remembering. “The gondola.”

I walked toward the steps, trying to draw him away from the tarp. “The boat’s here. Why did you think it was stolen?”

“We had information they would come here.”

I wondered if Rosa could hear under the tarp. Everybody breaks.

“Here? Why here?”

“Your friend Rosa. This is how they are. She knew you were going to the opera?”

“I don’t know. How would she know?”

“No matter. That type, they would steal under your nose.”

“They came here? They’re in the house?” Claudia said, looking frightened. “Upstairs?” Drawing him away too.

“No, no, don’t be alarmed. They don’t want to stay in Venice. They want to leave Venice. I thought perhaps they came for the boat, but as you can see—” He waved his hand to the mooring post. “So, a change of plans. You were lucky,” he said to me.

“But we should look upstairs. If they’re hiding,” Claudia said, trying to move us through the door.

“Would that make you feel easier, signora? One of my men can search, if you like.”

“You think it’s foolish.”

“I think it’s careful,” he said politely. “And you,” he said to me, “lock the gate.” He turned from the water, stopping again to look up at the gondola on its supports.

“You mean they might still come?” I said.

“No, it’s late. I thought if the boat were missing, it would be a clue. They won’t come here now. They need to leave Venice. And who helps them? Foreigners? No. Old comrades. You know Moretti worked on the boats. We know where to look. But still, lock the gate.”

“Yes,” I said, stepping past him to pull it shut, making a loud clang with the latch. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. Any noise echoed here. You could hear the boat rocking against its mooring. Why not breathing, the faintest movement?

“A beautiful thing,” Cavallini said, still looking up at the gondola. “To find an old one in this condition.”

“The marchesa never takes it out,” I said, but I wasn’t looking at it. Claudia had glanced, just once, toward the pile and now was signaling me, eyes large and panicky, forcing me to look there too. At first it just seemed a thin shadow on the gray stones, but then I saw that it was moving, growing longer, coming toward us. Dark blood, seeping out from under the tarp to follow gravity to the stairs, impossible to miss if Cavallini turned his head.

Claudia stared at me, and for an instant I stopped breathing, because we both saw that in another minute it would be too late. If we
stepped back now, we could stay free, still unsuspecting visitors in someone else’s fight. Moretti might die anyway. But if we hid them, we became them, the same in Cavallini’s eyes.

The blood, viscous, moved a little, just a trickle, almost at my shoe now. There would be no story that would distance us and make sense. We’d have to go through with all the rest, save them. When all we had to do to save ourselves was to let it happen. Claudia could do it alone, look down at the blood in horror until Cavallini noticed, but she was waiting for me. We’d do this together too. The same room. Just a trickle this time, not a red splotch on a white dress shirt, but the same pulsing in the head, jumping off the end. They couldn’t stay. He’d die. There was only the impossible trip across the lagoon. And nowhere to go after, no alibi. Unless we stepped back now, pointed to the blood, surprised, and stayed safe. I breathed out.

I moved between Claudia and the pile and put my hand on Cavallini’s shoulder. “Can we ask your men to search?” I said. “I really think Claudia would feel better.”

He looked down from the gondola, but at Claudia, not me, missing the blood. I moved us toward the door. Don’t turn now. A trickle. Would anyone see it if he wasn’t looking? But nobody missed blood. The eye went to it, an instinct.

“Of course,” Cavallini was saying.

Claudia glanced at me for a second, dismayed, then slipped into her part. “And the closets? I know it’s foolish,” she said, leaving for the hall.

“Not at all,” Cavallini said as I turned out the lights and closed the inside door behind me.

He used two of his men, who made a halfhearted show of poking in closets and looking behind shower curtains. I followed with Cavallini, but in my mind I saw the trickle growing thicker, a red stream running over the stone floor, down the mossy steps, spreading out into the canal, a giant stain. In the middle of the search, Angelina came home and had to be calmed down, so we went through her room too. The men covered every inch of Ca’ Venti, all of it innocent,
nothing to connect us except the blood spreading on the floor downstairs. The one place they didn’t search, because Cavallini had already been there.