Death's Door (31 page)

“Have you interviewed her?”

“As delicately as possible, yes. They are quartered on the Via del Pellegrino, in the same building as
L’Osservatore Romano
, the Vatican newspaper. The times match, and Brackett found a Swiss Guard on duty and brought him to the scene. So the report—the one you could not have read—was correct in everything but Brackett’s presence.”

“Correct in all regards, except for the man who found the body.”

“Sì,”
Cipriano said, with only the slightest of shrugs to show his professional embarrassment. “I thought Soletto would have told you. What do you think Rossi might know?”

“If not the identity of the killer, then something worth keeping him alive,” I said. I decided not to mention that Remke was looking for Rossi. If he’d survived the last week or so, it made it more likely Remke could find him. But there was no reason to advertise the fact.

“Perhaps,” Cipriano said. “What have you been doing?”

“You wouldn’t believe me, Inspector, and telling you would only make your headache worse.”

“Thank you for not burdening me with the truth,” he said. “I prefer a knowing silence.”

He picked up his lighter and handed it to Kaz, who took Brackett’s letter and lit it over the ashtray on the inspector’s desk. It flamed quickly, the words disintegrating into ash.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I
HADN’T GOTTEN
much sleep during the past thirty-six hours. None was more like it, and it had caught up to me. O’Flaherty informed us we could see Montini at nine o’clock in the morning. Kaz said he was going to walk in the gardens with Nini, to discuss the case, of course, and ask her about what she knew of Severino Rossi and the Genoa connection, since he’d come through there while Corrigan and others had been in that city as well. I thought that was a fine story, and wished him well. I grabbed some quick chow in the refectory and then hit the sack. I was bone tired, but my mind wouldn’t stop working the details. What did we know about Rossi? Or Brackett and his late-night bedroom visits? And what about Corrigan, Zlatko, even stand-up guys like John May and Hugh O’Flaherty? Why did Monsignor Bruzzone disappear for one night? For that matter, why had he not left the Vatican for months prior to that?

May and O’Flaherty were involved in the black market. Had they unknowingly brought in a deadly partner?

But the biggest puzzler was still Corrigan himself. Why had he been murdered? By all accounts he was one of the good guys. Even with his college connections to Wild Bill Donovan of the OSS and his unwitting intelligence work for Remke, he was a straight arrow who’d done good works. It made sense that, as an American at the Vatican, he’d responded to the phony Rudder the way he had, passing along tidbits of information. So why was he killed?

Money. Corrigan, Bruzzone, and O’Flaherty had all carried money to Genoa, along with forged identity papers, worth a small fortune. Worth a life. Money and papers equaled hope. There it was again. Those three carried hope with them, bearing it as a gift to Jews and other refugees in Genoa. Had they crossed paths with Severino Rossi in Genoa? Had hope passed him by, and was he seeking revenge?

My eyelids felt heavy, and I thought I was still going over the case, but suddenly I was watching Rossi walking the streets of Boston, down in the Dorchester Hill neighborhood. In threadbare clothes he shuffled along the street—it looked like Blue Hill Avenue, with its tailor shops, meat markets, and dry goods stores—his neck craning at the signs in English and Yiddish. I couldn’t quite make them out, the words evaporating as I tried to focus on each one.

The Hill was a Jewish neighborhood. Mostly Polish Jews, those who had escaped the pogroms in Russia and Poland and settled in Boston and Chelsea. I followed Rossi, turning down a side street lined with two-family houses and three-deckers. I wanted to ask him what he was looking for, but I never could quite catch up to him. He disappeared, and I turned around to find myself in South Boston, miles away.

I was with Dad, at M Street Park. We were in uniform, me in my bluecoat and Dad wearing his brown suit, hitching up his pants the way he did when his badge, cuffs, and revolver began to weigh him down. It was a cold day, the wind flapping his jacket and stinging our faces. The old brownstones behind us hid the sun, and in front of us a dead man was slumped against a tree.

I awoke with a start. I’d been dreaming, confused images of home and Rossi roiling my unconscious. I’d liked the memory of home, and I recalled the case at M Street Park. I remembered Dad didn’t speak when we first arrived. It was always that way when he brought me along to a crime scene. I was there for crowd control and to get coffee when the detectives wanted it. Plus the overtime, sure. But his real reason was to teach me.

I circled the body. His legs were stretched out on the ground. His head lolled to the left. A gunshot to the right temple had blasted bone, brains, and blood against the tree trunk. A .38 revolver lay on the ground near his right hand. The question was, suicide or murder? Dad never assumed suicide, preferring not to rule out foul play even in the most obvious situations. To me, it looked obvious at first glance. But Dad always said a detective doesn’t glance.

I didn’t touch anything but knelt near the body and looked for clues. Dad had pounded that one into my thick head. Anything is a clue. The clothes on a corpse can tell you what the guy planned to do that day. The wear on the soles of his shoes could tell you if he drove for a living or walked with a peculiar gait. I looked at his hands. No ring on the left hand. Powder burns on the right. I leaned in closer. There was a yellow nicotine stain between his first two fingers. I sniffed, hunting for the aroma of smoke. It was there, despite the wind and the smell of blood and gunpowder. I stood, studied the ground. I looked at the horizon.

“He was murdered,” I said.

“Tell me more, sonny boy,” Dad said.

“He’s a heavy smoker. But there are no matches on the ground, no last cigarette. Maybe he had his last smoke elsewhere and came here to kill himself, but that doesn’t feel right.”

“Why?”

“This is a nice park. Nice buildings on three sides. But the way he’s facing, toward East First Street, there’s a power plant and waterfront buildings. The way I figure it, a suicide would sit facing the other direction, have a cigarette, take in a view of the trees and the park, then do the deed.”

“So what happened here?”

“The killer grabbed him, brought him here. I can’t tell for sure, but I don’t see a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, which he probably was never without. Plunked him down here, facing away from the houses so no one would notice right away.”

“And then told him to shoot himself?”

“No. The killer shot him, then put his hand around the weapon and fired a second round into the ground to get those powder burns on it.”

“Good thinking, Billy. Now bring that boy over here. The lad who found the body.”

The kid was maybe twelve or thirteen. He was gangly, shivering in the cold wind.

“You touch the body?” Dad asked him.

“Wouldn’t touch a dead guy,” he said, staring at the ground.

“Don’t blame you,” Dad said. “You’re a good lad, I can tell. Some folks would have rolled him over and taken his wallet. You did the right thing.” Dad clapped him on his bony shoulder, but didn’t let go. He pulled him closer and patted him down, producing a pack of Raleighs from his jacket pocket, Sir Walter himself staring at us. “The lighter, boy.”

“It was on the ground, honest,” he stammered as he dug a Zippo out of his pants pocket. “The smokes too. I figured nobody’d want ’em anyway.”

“Were there butts on the ground?”

“Yeah, two. I cleaned ’em up so no one would take notice of the missing pack.”

“You’re too young to smoke, kid. I ought to tell your folks,” Dad said. He let the kid beg and promise never to take anything again before telling him to shove off.

“You had a good theory, Billy,” Dad said as we both looked out toward the harbor. “But Walt Hogan here, he worked across the way. Owned one of them warehouses. So he did have his last smoke here, looking out at something that was important to him.”

“Why’d he kill himself?” I asked, as we walked out of the park, past rows of narrow houses.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe money problems, maybe trouble with the law we don’t know about yet. We’ll find out. What’s important to remember, aside from not trusting whoever finds the body, is that there are more reasons for killing than you can shake a stick at. Makes little difference if it’s your own death or another’s.”

“Is hope a reason?” I asked.

Before Dad could answer, the front door of a house opened and Severino Rossi stepped out. He opened his mouth to speak, and then I awoke with a sharp gasp, only to see Kaz shutting the door in our darkened room. Somewhere along the line I’d fallen asleep again, and Rossi had found his way back into my dream.

“What time is it?”

“Almost midnight,” Kaz said. He pulled the blackout curtains tight and lit a lamp. “Did I wake you?”

“Yeah,” I said, planting my feet on the floor and untying my shoelaces. “I was dreaming about a case my dad took me on. Turned out to be a suicide. But Severino Rossi was there too. It was all mixed up. Rossi was about to say something when you came in.”

“About the suicide?”

“I don’t know. I’d just asked my father if hope was a reason for killing. Loss of hope, I meant.”

“Was it an actual case?” Kaz asked, kicking off his shoes.

“It was. Guy was a warehouse owner named Walter Hogan. Dad found out later that he’d gambled away the company payroll. Then he borrowed from a shyster, and lost all that on the horses. He was going to get the broken-leg treatment, lose his business, and betray the people who worked for him.”

“It sounds like hope had passed Mr. Hogan by long before he pulled the trigger,” Kaz said.

“I don’t think so. He probably had hope up until the last race, which could have won him everything back. That’s the thing about hope. The thought of it bucks you up for one more try.”

“Like Colonel Remke,” Kaz said.

“And maybe our killer. If only you’d stayed out later, Rossi might have told me. How was your walk with Nini?”

“It was raining, Billy. We went to her room after supper.”

“Kaz, are you blushing?”

“No, not at all. It is warm in here.”

“These rooms haven’t been warm since August. Imagine, a baron and a princess. They could make a movie about you two.”

“Who would play me, do you think?” Kaz asked, kicking off his shoes.

“Jimmy Cagney,” I said, knowing that would please Kaz. He was really more of a Leslie Howard type, but he’d been shot down last year over the Bay of Biscay, so I didn’t mention him. “Did Nini know anything about Genoa? Or were you too preoccupied to ask?”

“Duty comes first,” Kaz said, hanging up his cassock. “She did say that Monsignor Montini channeled a good deal of money to Cardinal Boetto in Genoa. Boetto works with a Jewish relief agency, the
Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei
. The cardinal, along with a group of priests, nuns, and lay people, help them with funds, forged documents, and smuggling routes into Switzerland.”

“And Corrigan, Bruzzone, and O’Flaherty were the go-betweens?”

“Yes, until a few months ago. The Gestapo raided the cardinal’s offices but found nothing. They left him alone, but are hunting several of his aides, who have gone into hiding. Nini said our three monsignors had all left Genoa moments ahead of a roundup.”

“Which is basically what Bruzzone told us,” I said. “That’s why he didn’t leave the Vatican for so long.”

“Nini thought that he was overcautious,” Kaz said. “Corrigan went into Rome often and was not picked up. O’Flaherty only stopped recently, since his activities here have attracted so much attention. Even so, he continues to go over the wall at night, in disguise.”

“Maybe Bruzzone simply lost his nerve. Hard to blame the guy.”

“We should ask him more about that,” Kaz said, turning off the light. “But now I have to sleep. I am exhausted.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

Kaz threw a shoe at me, missing by a mile.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

W
E HAD AN
escort of six Swiss Guards the next morning, surrounding Monsignor O’Flaherty, who had a firm grip on the briefcase that held the documents from Remke. Monsignor Bruzzone was along as well. O’Flaherty had told us over an early breakfast that he’d shown the documents to Montini the night before, and that we were sure to get a favorable hearing.

We crossed Saint Peter’s Square, the sky a dense gray that matched both the damp paving stones and the uniforms of our escort. Passing between a pair of guards at the Bernini colonnades, we entered the Cortile di San Damaso, a small courtyard within the Apostolic Palace, where Swiss Guard stood at attention at the entrance to the Pope’s personal quarters. We went the other way, entering the Medieval Palace under an archway just as heavy raindrops began to splatter the ground.

O’Flaherty led us into a room that was a riot of color compared to the dreary day outside. It was huge, probably forty by sixty feet. The floor was white marble with the papal crest inlaid in gold. The walls were papered in yellow and white, topped off by ornate moldings with angels tucked into the corners. Couches and chairs were arranged around three sides, all done up with some florid chintz of yellow flowers and vines. It looked like a vision of what a classy whorehouse back home might aspire to, except for Bishop Zlatko, who stood sour-faced, looking everywhere but in our direction.

We sat, facing an empty table. The door opened and a thin man in his forties strode in and sat alone at the center. His hair was thinning, and his eyes were hooded by heavy brows, his forehead wrinkled in worry.

“I think it will be easiest if we all confer in English,” he said, speaking slowly but precisely. “I am Monsignor Giovanni Montini, Minister of Ordinary Affairs for the Secretariat of State. I have asked the good Bishop Krunoslav Zlatko to attend to us. Bishop, I understand you had lodged a complaint about our visitors, but it is now withdrawn. Is that correct?” Montini nodded in our direction, but his eyes were on Zlatko.