Alibi: A Novel (24 page)

“Signor Howard,” she said, tentative, not trusting the smile. “You’ve just come?”

“Late, yes, I know. Mimi’s already scolded me. But I’m not the only one, I gather.”

“No,” Claudia said, looking directly at him. “How is it at the Accademia?”

Bertie ignored this, staring frankly at the necklace, not even pretending to hide his curiosity. “It’s wonderful. Wherever did you get that?” he said.

Claudia touched it. “Adam’s mother gave it to me.” She caught his raised eyebrow. “For the evening.”

“And rubies, no less. You can always tell.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful. It was so kind.”

“Well, it’s all in the family, isn’t it?” Bertie said, putting out his cigarette in an ashtray. He looked at me. “I’m glad to see everyone’s getting along so well. I’d better see what I can do about Grace. You two enjoy yourselves. I’ll get her home.” He lifted his hand in a little wave as he left.

“He thinks something’s wrong,” I said.

Claudia looked up from her plate, heaped with food. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry, he doesn’t know anything. Just that something’s wrong.”

“Oh,” she said, putting the plate on the table.

“Not hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Eat something. You can’t put down a full plate. People will notice.”

She shook her head again and I picked up the plate and forked some veal.

“Why would he think that?”

“Why not? Something
is
wrong. He just doesn’t know what.” I
was eating quickly now, almost gulping the food down, no longer nauseated, surprised to find that I was hungry.

“Did you see the way he looked at me? Someone from the back rooms. Not someone who wears necklaces.”

“He’s just jealous.”

“How can you laugh?”

“I don’t know.” I put the plate down. “I don’t know how I’m doing any of it.”

But suddenly it was easier. I felt another surge, warm and full of food, a primitive well-being, filling up with life again after hours of empty dread.

“All right, one more dance to show you off, then we’ll go.”

“Yes?” she said eagerly.

“If he’s not here by now, whatever happened must have already happened. While we were here.”

She looked at me, unsure, but followed me back to the ballroom. Bertie, near the door with my mother, was leaning over to talk quietly, presumably arranging to go. The floor had thinned out but was still lively.

“You know what he was thinking?” Claudia said, looking at Bertie. “ ‘What is she doing here? That type. Ha. Looking for a rich American.’ ”

“And you found one,” I said, smiling. That was safe now too, something I hadn’t thought about before, my mother protected. I glanced toward the door. She and Bertie were talking to Mimi, heading for the stairs. “That’s better,” I said. “You want them to see you smile.”

She looked away, then danced closer, putting her head next to mine, trembling again. “What kind of people are we? To smile now.”

“Don’t.”

“Now I’ve done everything. I thought before it was everything, but now there’s this too.”

I pulled back to face her. “Think what he was,” I said.

She didn’t say anything.

I had said one dance, but then it became two, another. My mother had disappeared, and with her any talk about Gianni. We drifted with the music. I could feel the heat of her through her dress. Maybe this is what happens after, I thought, every sense stronger than before, as if we’d taken some extra portion from the dead. Food, touch, just being alive. In Germany, after combat, the troops were ravenous. Rapes happened then. Relieved not to be dead, proving something.

Around us, the beautiful room spun by in slow circles. Claudia had put a hand behind my neck, pulling us close, so that everything smelled of her. We were no longer pretending, with one eye to the others.

When we left, the crush for coats and umbrellas had begun, so that we were lost again in the crowd. No one noticed us leave, no one looked at the time.

We avoided the boats and walked back through San Ivo, the way Gianni would have come earlier. The calles were nearly empty, just the occasional umbrella bumping into ours in the narrow passages. Claudia was quiet, leaning against me. When we reached San Polo, she stopped under an arch near the hotel.

“Here,” she said, reaching behind and unclasping the necklace. “Take it.”

“You don’t—”

“No, it’s hers. What if something happens? If I lose it.”

“If you lose it,” I said dubiously.

She held it in her hand, looking down at it. “So. No more Cinderella.”

“There’s no rush.”

She pushed the necklace into my hand. “Listen to me. We can’t do this. I knew when he looked at me, Signor Howard. Tomorrow everybody asks questions. The ball, that’s finished now. And who do they question? How do I explain all those things? That night, everybody saw me with him. My job, all those things. Where is he? And who’s
the one to suspect? Me. The easy one. Who else? Even if they don’t find him.”

“Without a body they can’t—”

“What’s the difference? It’s still me. And then you.”

“Stop it,” I said, grabbing her. “Don’t talk like that. No one is going to suspect anything.”

Her eyes were darting. I put my hand to the side of her face, as if I could stop her thoughts by touching it.

“They’ll come for me.”

“They’re not going to come for you.”

“Yes, they will. They’ll come.” Her eyes were wide, staring at me.

“No. They can’t. They can never get you.”

“Yes.”

I put a finger to her lips. “Never. Don’t you see? You were with me.” I moved the finger slowly along her lip, then rested it on her cheek. “I’ll be your alibi.”

She started to shake her head, turning it into my hand, but I held my finger there so that her eyes couldn’t move away.

“And you’ll be mine,” I said. “We’ll be safe.”

She stared at me for a minute more, then lowered her head.

“They’ll come,” she said, barely audible.

I brushed my hand down her cheek. “No,” I said, as quiet as she had been. “No,” I said again, a murmur, then suddenly a door slammed, someone leaving the hotel, and she jumped, startled, and reached for me.

“Oh.” A muffled sound, no louder than the water dripping in the passage. She pulled me close to her, turning her face away from the light, holding on to my coat until we heard the footsteps grow fainter in the campo, heading off toward the Rialto.

“It’s no one,” I said, my mouth close to her ear, but she was holding me even tighter, her arms around me, then one hand behind my neck, bending me toward her, kissing my face in a kind of rush, tasting it.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she said, still kissing me, as if the slam of the
door had been a shot and she were running away from the evening, from whatever was going to happen. “I don’t care.” Clutching me to her. I felt her breath and then my mouth was open too, moving down to her neck, excited, both of us panting, the promise at the end of the evening, everything finally letting go, feeling the flush in my face again.

“We can’t,” I said, my face in her hair.

“Stay with me,” she said, moving her neck so I could kiss it again.

“I have to know what’s going on there tonight.”

“No, stay,” she said, kissing me. “What we would do. That’s what you said.” She pulled me closer until I knew she could feel me against her, already hard. “A party. And then you didn’t come up?” Moving now, pressing into me.

“Is that what we would do?” I said, kissing her again.

“Yes,” she said, her hands on me, holding me. “Don’t you want to?”

All evening, every sense working up to it. Spurting blood. The bundled tarp splashing into the dark water. My mother’s dressing room, warm with powder. The white skin at the back of her neck.

“The hotel clerk will say we were together,” she said.

“Claudia—”

“I know, I know. How can we do this? After. And I still want to. I want to,” she said, her breath on my face again.

“I can’t stay all night,” I said, my voice sliding away, skidding. “I have to get back. We have to be careful.”

“Yes, careful. A little while then.” She pressed her face against my coat. “Before they come.”

“Nobody’s going to come.”

My mother was still up when I got back, coiled in a chair near the space heater, a full ashtray on her lap.

“You’re a sight,” she said, raising her eyebrows, as if she could see through the rumpled jacket, the loose collar, to the rest of me, still sticky.

I stood in the doorway to the sitting room, surprised to see Inspector Cavallini on the couch. At this hour his presence was beyond the call of any duty. Was he waiting for me, the body already found, questions raised?

“I thought someone should be here,” he said, answering whatever he saw in my face. “So Signora Miller would not be alone.” Courtly to women, a man who visited Maestre. A brandy snifter was on the table near the couch.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “Any news?”

“Nothing,” my mother said. “Something terrible’s happened.”

“Signora, we don’t know that,” he said gently.

“Of course it has. What else could it be? What’s awful is not to know.”

Cavallini looked at me with an open palm of resignation. “I’ve sent a man to Dr. Maglione’s house. He will call if—”

“He comes home? He won’t. Something’s happened,” my mother said.

“No word at the hospitals? Anywhere?”

“No. So a great mystery. But, let us hope, with a simple explanation. The best thing now would be to sleep,” he said, turning to my mother.

“Sleep,” she said. Her face was pale but not splotched with tears, just in retreat, her eyes distant, the way they had been after my father died, days of it, not crying, away by herself. “I don’t see what we’re waiting for. Why can’t you trace his movements? He left the house, we know that. For Mimi’s. Unless he forgot and came here.”

“No, I was here. Until we went to Mimi’s.”

“But darling, I called. There was no one here.”

Inspector Cavallini looked up from his brandy.

“Oh, that was you?” I said quickly. “Somebody called, but I didn’t answer.”

“Darling, you
might
have picked up. It rang and rang. I mean, even in the shower—”

“I was busy,” I said, my voice a little clipped, nervous.

But Inspector Cavallini took it for embarrassment, his eyes amused over the glass.

“Busy?” my mother said.

“Signorina Grassini was here as well, perhaps?” Cavallini said.

“Yes.”

“Well, I still don’t—oh, darling.” She stopped, flustered. “Really.”

“Getting ready for the ball,” Cavallini said, having fun with it.

“Yes. Anyway, he didn’t come here.”

“Well, he must have gone somewhere,” my mother said. “Somebody must have seen him. You have to ask.”

“Signora, at three in the morning who should I ask?” Cavallini said. “You understand, my hands are tied in this. What is there to investigate? We tell everyone to listen for the accidents, a sickness, but that’s all we can do. It is not a crime to miss a party. Even such a party.”

“What do I do?” my mother said. “Officially. Do I fill out a form?”

“Not tonight,” Cavallini said, putting his empty brandy glass on the table. “Tomorrow I will make more inquiries. So we see. And you, signora, please, some rest. If I need you to help me.”

“Help? How?”

“You are his fiancée, yes? So who knows him better?”

“Yes,” my mother said vaguely.

“Till tomorrow, then,” he said, taking my mother’s hand. “Make yourself easy.”

“Thank you. I’ve kept you so late.”

He made a small “it’s nothing” gesture.

“I’ll see you out,” I said, leading him to the stairs.

“You have some pills for her? To sleep? Tomorrow will not be pleasant.”

“What do you mean?” I said. We were walking down the stairs, then through the hallway where Gianni and I had fought. Without thinking, I glanced up at one of the sconces, as if it might be dripping blood, but everything was in shadow, kept dim by night-lights.

“She’s right. A man like that—why would he run away? He wouldn’t. So why is he missing?” He left it open, a question that answered itself.

“Let’s hope not,” I said, opening the door for him, reaching up to the old handle, then quickly dropping my hand, moving the raw knuckles behind me.

“Yes, we can hope. Meanwhile, some sleep, I think. You too.” He turned in the doorway. “The maid? She doesn’t answer the phone?”

My hand went farther back, as if it were moving on its own.

“Yes. Oh, you mean tonight. They all went to Mimi’s to help.”

“So you were alone in the house.”

“Well, not alone.”

“I meant you and Signorina Grassini.”

“Yes, why?”

“I’m sorry to ask before, in front of your mother. I know how it is. An opportunity, yes? How do you say, the mice play when the cat’s away?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, amused, then patted my arm. “To be such an age.”

I leaned against the door after I’d locked it, looking down the hall, my forehead sweaty. One slip was all it took. I needed to go through everything tomorrow with Claudia. Exact times. When she had left her hotel, how long it had taken to get here. The rest was safe, playing while the cat was away.

“You don’t have to wait up,” my mother said.

“He’s right, you know. There’s nothing we can do tonight. You should get some sleep.”

“I know. I just want to sit for a bit.” She was picking at her gown, the black velvet skirt now flecked with ash. “I’m frightened.”

“I know.”

“He could be hurt. Dead.”

“Yes.”

She looked up. “Well, that’s a change anyway. Cavallini—the
man’s impossible. Every time I say something, he just tut-tuts and pours another brandy.”

“I said could be.”

“And now I’m supposed to help. How? I don’t know where Gianni goes, what he does. It’s funny, isn’t it? You know somebody, and then something like this happens and you don’t. I mean, I know him, who he is, but the details—” Her voice trailed off.

I reached into my pocket, pulling out the necklace, and handed it to her.

“Here. Before it gets lost.”