Alibi

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Questura was like Gianni’s hospital-functional, even ordinary inside. Cavallini’s office could have been anywhere, a room with a desk and a phone and pale green institutional walls. There was a large map of the lagoon along with a few photographs of Cavallini shaking hands with various officials, but it still felt scarcely inhabited, as if he had just moved in, waiting for a new paint job. Today, at least, it was crowded with people-assistants delivering telephone messages, two policemen standing near the door waiting for orders, and a tall man in a suit conferring with Cavallini, stroking his chin in thought. I saw all this in a blur, my mind still numb with dread.

“Signor Miller,” Cavallini said, smiling. “Good. My superior wants to meet you.” The tall man turned to me. “I have told him how it started with you.”

We shook hands, with a few polite words in Italian, then he rattled off something to Cavallini.

“So everyone is very pleased,” Cavallini said. “I thank you for this.” He put his hand on the beige folder, Rosa’s file. “Of course, it’s a question of police work too,” he said, directing this to the tall man, who smiled blankly, clearly not following. “The one helps the other. Una collaborazione.” At this the other man nodded, said something more in Italian, and left, dipping his head toward me, almost a bow, as he went out the door. The two waiting policemen followed him.

“You see? Very pleased. So again I thank you.”

“But who did you arrest?” I said.

“Moretti,” he said, patting the file again. “Rosa shows us where to look and we find him.”

I leaned forward, holding the desk. “But he’s dead. You mean he didn’t die?”

“Yes, he died. That’s it-a vengeance killing. The son.”

“You think Moretti’s son killed Gianni? Why?”

“But Signor Miller, it’s as you say. The connection is the house, what happened there. I didn’t know this. But once you look.”

“But Rosa never said-”

“No, but she’s not a policeman, you know,” he said with a little smile, almost smug. “Still, she suspects. And she’s right. One man in that house was in hospital. His doctor? Maglione.” He held up a light blue folder in illustration. “And Maglione is working with the SS. She makes this connection.”

“But he was released days before they-”

“So she goes to see his son. She is an old friend of the father. How long was the father in hospital, when did he leave, did the boy see him-also Carlo, like the father. And of course he wants to know why, and she tells him she suspects Maglione of betraying his father. And what happens? He becomes agitato. ‘It’s my fault,’ he tells her. ‘I killed him.’ Why? Because he went to the house, so maybe they followed him. And Rosa tells him, ‘No, you were there before, people never followed you.’ He was a courier for them, you see. Imagine using a child that way. A Communist, of course, the boy too. No, he tells her, this time he was also bringing medicine for his father, from Maglione. A trap. So now it’s his fault. And Rosa tells him it’s foolishness-he can’t blame himself for this. They already knew somehow. But she’s troubled. She hadn’t known about the medicine, you see.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Some from him, some from her. So she leaves,” he said, picking up the story. “And he’s still agitato. An unstable boy anyway, according to the neighbors.” Police work. Collecting gossip, like a noose. “The father’s dead and he’s to blame. No, somebody else. Somebody still alive. This is a boy who worked with the partisans, someone who acts. What could be more natural?”

“So he had a motive,” I said. “But that doesn’t-”

“A strong motive. Very strong. It’s as you predicted-a political crime, but also a personal one.” He walked out from behind the desk, a courtroom gesture, enjoying himself. “Of course, we’re hoping for a confession. And it’s possible. This kind of case-so much remorse. I’ve seen it before. It’s a kind of relief for them.” He glanced at me, amused. “Signor Miller, such a face. We’re police, not SS. We hope for a confession. We don’t torture, we ask questions.”

“And if he doesn’t confess?”

Cavallini shrugged. “It’s still a very strong case. He has no alibi.”

“No?” I said weakly, sitting down to hear the rest.

“No. The night of the murder, where is he? Out for a walk. In that weather. You remember that evening, the rain? And where did he walk? Around. Along the Riva, then he’s not sure where. Who walks like that in Venice? Tourists.”

“No one saw him?”

“No one. Then the cine. Except the ticket girl doesn’t remember.”

“That doesn’t necessarily-”

“No, not necessarily,” he said, looking at me. “So, you act the defense? Good. We need to think of everything. But no one sees him, that’s the point. So, his word only. Next, his profession? He works on one of the delivery boats from the Stazione Marittima. Not just to Venice, also the outer islands. So, familiar with the lagoon.” He paused. “Even in fog.” He sat on the edge of the desk. “And after the murder, what does he do? We have witnesses to this, his behavior. Drunk, in the bar he goes to. With the newspaper. He keeps reading it and drinking. ‘For once, justice,’ he says-we have a witness to this. ‘What are you talking about?’ the witness says. ‘He deserved it, he deserved it,’ the boy says, ‘a toast to justice.’ And then what? Tears. Unstable, you see. More than one saw this.”

“The newspaper,” I said, almost to myself. “So this was after the body was found? Not before?”

Cavallini looked at me, uncomfortable for a second, weighing this, then decided to ignore it. “Yes, after it was found. Celebrating.”

“But why would he do that, draw attention that way? Why would he be happy they found the body? Wouldn’t it be better for him if they never found it?”

Cavallini sat back, a twitch of annoyance in the corner of his mouth. “Nevertheless, that is what he said. A toast to justice. Of course, really to himself. We have witnesses to this,” he said again, then paused. “It’s not always the logic that rules the head in these cases. A boy who blames himself, then who kills-you’re surprised he gives himself away?”

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“But it will. Don’t worry. We will make a case.”

I looked up at him. Held together by nothing except his will. But convincing, a solution to everything, delivered by Cavallini to a grateful force.

“You’re troubled?” he said.

I shrugged, not knowing what to say, swirling again. A case any defense lawyer could pick apart, but would he? Who was the defense? What were trials like here? It wasn’t America. Maybe a different set of priorities, with Carlo Moretti, whoever he was, satisfying all of them. Gianni’s killer.

“But why?” Cavallini said. “It was you yourself who suggested the motive. You said it would be someone exactly like him. And it is.”

“It’s just-” I stopped, my heart sinking. Someone exactly like him. You yourself suggested it.

He waited, frowning a little, surprised now at my reluctance. And why should I be?

“It’s just-you know, to prove it in court, you’ll have to prove that Gianni did betray them. An informer, all of that. It’ll have to come out.”

“Ah,” Cavallini said, “I see. But Signor Miller, it’s a case of his murder.”

“But can you prove it? About Gianni?” What I’d wanted in the first place, just to know.

“Well, as to that, we only have to prove that Moretti believed it. A doctor prescribes medicine, the boy delivers it, his father is betrayed. Because he is followed? Perhaps not. But he believes it, so he acts.” He paused. “Dr. Maglione’s reputation need not be in question. Only Moretti questioned it.”

He met my eyes, an explanation that was also a bargain. Perfect in every way. Justice done. A family’s honor held intact. A promotion for him. A kindness to Giulia, to my mother. Gianni a victim, like Paolo.

“Yes,” I said, thinking, “and what if he was wrong-if we were wrong?”

“How do you mean?”

“For the sake of argument,” I said, getting up, “what if Gianni didn’t do it? It explains the gap. He treats Moretti, he releases Moretti, nothing happens. A week-longer, ten days. He prescribes medicine. Why? If he wanted to betray Moretti, why not do it earlier? Why wait? What if the son is wrong? What if Gianni never meant the father harm?”

Cavallini got up and walked back behind the desk. “Then he killed him for nothing.” Another pause. “Signor Miller, I am confused. Do you think Dr. Maglione was innocent? After all, it was you-” He let the words drift, his eyes simply curious, the way they’d been at the water entrance, asking about the boat.

“No, no,” I said quickly. “But if we can’t prove it, then it’s very difficult to prove the motive.”

“Well, that’s for the lawyers,” he said, dismissing this. “And you forget there is still the confession. Would that satisfy you?” He smiled again, a kind of tease. “It was like this in Germany? Always the proof?”

“Not always,” I said. “But in capital cases-” I stopped. “What happens in Italy? To the boy, if he’s guilty.”

“Execution.”

I looked down, suddenly winded, the air rushing out of me. Execution how? Hanging? Shooting? An innocent boy. Worse than murder. I caught my breath, aware of Cavallini’s stare. “Then we have to be sure.”

“Don’t worry, Signor Miller. We will be. Ah, again,” he said as the telephone rang. “All morning it’s like this. Excuse me.” A complaint he’d make later to his long-faced wife. A man of importance.

I picked up Moretti’s blue hospital folder and glanced at the form while Cavallini talked. A fake name, but presumably him. Date of admission, release, address, and personal information, also presumably fake. An attached chart with what looked to be blood pressure and temperature readings. Diagnosis and report, in longhand, Gianni’s familiar signature on the bottom, the attending nurse, blood type, everything except what had happened. Iniezione antitetanica. Injection against tetanus? Well, there would be.

“Still looking for the proof?” Cavallini said, hanging up.

“This is him? How did you know the name?”

“The boy told us,” he said, almost amused.

“What’s ferita puntura — bullet wound?”

“No, ferita da pallottola. Puntura is puncture. It’s very close.”

But not the same. Not reported. I held the folder for a few seconds, taking this in. You don’t report someone you know. And he hadn’t. Unless he had lied to Giulia.

“A bullet would have to be reported to the police, you know,” Cavallini said. “Even now. It’s the law.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Usually it’s a question of the medical license. Then, under the Germans, who knows?”

“So he would have reported it to his friends in the SS. But if he told the SS, why falsify the police report? It came to the same thing in those days, didn’t it?”

Cavallini nodded stiffly, not sure whether to be offended. “If it was a bullet,” he said.

“It had to be. How else would he know Moretti was a partisan? What does the son say?”

“This is important?”

“If he knew it was a bullet wound and knew Gianni didn’t report it, he’d think Gianni was helping.” Plant any doubt, some confused opening Moretti’s son might use. “Why would he think Gianni betrayed him?”

“He didn’t. Until you and Rosa suggested it,” Cavallini said calmly, not even raising his voice, no louder than a door closing. I felt blood draining from my face.

Cavallini sighed. “Signor Miller, how you worry. What if? What if? Why not a simple answer? A man betrays, his victim is avenged. It has happened a million times before. What do you want to prove? That the boy is innocent?”

I looked up. The inescapable other question-then who is guilty? I dropped the folder on the desk and walked over to the window. Below in the Rio San Lorenzo a freight boat passed, loaded with bottles. Maybe a boat just like young Moretti’s. Someone who knew the lagoon, even in fog.

“I just don’t understand why he didn’t report the bullet wound.”

“It’s a detail, yes.”

“I mean, it would be terrible if we were wrong.”

“Yes,” Cavallini said, “and for Moretti’s son. He murdered a man for this. Imagine, if it was a mistake.”

I turned, my stomach churning again, but there was no sense of accusation in his voice, no sense that it even mattered. Moretti’s son had murdered Gianni. The rest was details.

“Don’t worry, Signor Miller,” he said, confident. “We will learn everything, now that we have him.” He flipped open the folder on his desk, as if having it there were proof, something tangible.

“Is that him?” I said, nodding at the photo on top.

“Yes. The usual bad picture. So dark.” He shook his head. “Our police photographer. But we can’t let him go. His wife is-”

He handed me the photograph. Wild eyes and uncombed hair, the scowl of a mug shot, guilty just being there. But something more. Exactly the same eyes, the shape of the nose. I imagined the hair brushed over, the face clean and smiling-the same boy in a V-necked tennis sweater, his arm over Paolo’s shoulder. The son, then. So Moretti was someone Gianni knew. But what did it mean? Someone you knew, you wouldn’t turn over. Not in a moral question, anyway. But someone had. I started to speak, then caught the sound in my throat. Would it make it worse for Moretti, another connection for Cavallini to use against him? I looked up to see the inspector watching me.

“He’s just a kid,” I said, my voice suddenly distraught. I stared again at the picture, everyone’s solution to the crime.

“Yes. But not a child. A man.” Making a legal distinction. “You know, it’s often like this in police work. People like to help catch and then-” He made a snapping noise with his hands. “They realize there’s also the punishment. That’s more difficult for them. The cold feet, you say, yes?” he said, still genial, sticking his chin out so that for a half second he looked like Paolo’s hero in Rome. Not a joke in the end, either. He took back the picture. “He’s young, yes. But think of the crime. Think how Gianni would feel. Grateful, I think, for your help.”

Before I could answer, Cavallini’s door, only half shut, swung open and his secretary came in, arms held out, being pushed by Rosa, who was screaming in Italian. “Ah,” Rosa said, spying Cavallini, moving the secretary aside and wagging her finger theatrically.

He yelled back, but she cut him off, flinging her hands now. There must have been some physical resistance in the outer office, because her cardigan, usually wrapped tight, seemed a little disheveled, and her hair was spilling out of its tidy bun.

“Oh, you too!” she said, seeing me, switching to English. “What a pair. What a pair. How can you be part of this? Give me that.” She reached over for the beige file. Cavallini put his hand on it. “It’s property of the Allies. Not yours,” she said.

“And now evidence in a murder case.”

“ Basta. What evidence?” She turned to me. “You see how they use everything? We investigate Maglione, not some poor boy. And now they use that, because he’s Communist. Anything to discredit the Communists. Where is he? I demand to see him.”

“He’s being questioned. He has a lawyer.”

“Ha. Picked by the Questura. Wonderful.”

“Let him pick another, then.”

“Don’t worry, he will. My god, what a fool you are. Always the same. The father was a hero. The boy was a hero. While you were-what? Keeping order for the Germans. And now you want to destroy him? Take everything he says and twist it-no, worse, everything I say. It was to help get Maglione. Why? Because he has to know.” She pointed her thumb at me. “So I help, and now you want to use that? Against an innocent boy? Shame. But then, when were you ever ashamed?”

“Innocent boy,” Cavallini said scornfully.

“Yes, innocent, of course innocent.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.”

“Ah. And that’s his defense. No wonder you came. How did you know he was here, by the way?”

“Oh, you think maybe someone here told me? Good, start the search. A Communist in the Questura. Yes, that must be it. You’d better look everywhere. Under the desks. Do it to your own-see how they like it.” She turned to me. “You see what they’re trying to do? You think this boy killed Maglione?”

“No, he agrees with you,” Cavallini said, mischievous. “He’s been trying to convince me the boy is innocent.”

Rosa stopped, thrown by this.

“But he hasn’t,” Cavallini said, with a small smile for me.

“Be careful what you say here,” Rosa said to me. “It’s not justice here. Politics. Nothing changes.” She looked at Cavallini. “When can I see him?”

“Make a request,” Cavallini said. “While he’s being questioned, his lawyer only.”

“One hair,” Rosa said to him. “If you touch one hair.” She turned to me. “And you-you know what Maglione was. They’re the same. And now you work with them.”

“Is that the purpose of your visit?” Cavallini said, mock-formal. “To criticize the police?”

Rosa raised her head. “No, to warn you.”

“Oh, to warn me.”

“I know you, what a coward you can be. You want to make the Communists look bad? Go ahead. But not with this boy. You know me too. You think I survived that house to let you have Moretti’s son? I warn you, I will fight you with everything.”

“Except your own evidence. That fights for me.”

“Evidence can change.”

“But not the truth,” Cavallini said, pompous, actually raising a finger, the whole conversation a series of gestures, a visible squaring off.

“Truth? You’re a fine one-”

“ Che cosa succede qui?” a policeman said. He had stopped at the door, the secretary trailing behind.

“ Niente, niente,” Cavallini said, then to Rosa, “This behavior is for the streets, not the Questura. You want to see the prisoner, make a request.”

“The prisoner? He’s formally charged?”

“He’s answering questions,” Cavallini said, not answering hers.

“So. Then wait for his lawyer. Already sent for, already sent for,” she said, anticipating him.

“Tell him to hurry,” Cavallini said, smiling again. “We are expecting a confession any minute.”

“Bah,” Rosa said, flinging her hand.

There was a noise in the outer office-more people, including the man I’d met earlier, Cavallini’s boss. When I looked at Cavallini, I caught a flicker of anxiety, a worry perhaps that he’d be blamed for the commotion.

“Come on, Rosa,” I said, taking her arm.

To my relief, she nodded and moved with me to the door, then turned one last time to face Cavallini. “Remember,” she said, “not one hair.”

Outside on the fondamenta she stopped for a second to look across the canal to San Lorenzo. I gave her a cigarette, a peace offering, surprised to find my hand shaking, still rattled.

“I didn’t know-” I started, but she cut me off with a wave.

“They’re going to charge him.”

“No, they’re not. They can’t prove anything. He didn’t do it.” Trying it out, wanting to believe it myself.

“You’re so sure?” she said, looking up at me but not waiting for an answer. “Anyway, when did they need proof, this bunch?”

As we neared the bridge, Claudia ran toward us from the calle side of the building, glancing nervously at the police guards in front. She was clutching her open coat, as if she’d left too quickly to button it.

“Thank god. You’re all right?” she said, touching my arm.

“Yes, fine. What-?”

“Cavallini called, looking for you. He said they arrested somebody.” She looked again at the Questura.

“It’s okay, calm down. They didn’t arrest me,” I said, trying to make a joke of it and signal her at the same time. “Meet Rosa.”

The introductions were offhand, not much more than an appraising glance, each of them too distracted to be interested in the other.

“But who-?”

“A boy. His father was in the house with the partisans.”

“But how can they think-?”

“He’s got a motive,” I said quickly, looking at her. “And he can’t explain himself.”

“A motive?”

“Yes, we did that for him,” Rosa said grimly. “He never even thought about Maglione until I talked to him. So now it’s our fault.”

“But he didn’t do it,” I said.

“Yes, and who’s in there?” Rosa said, jerking her thumb toward the building.

“What are you going to do?” Claudia said quietly.

“We’re going to find out who did do it,” I said to Rosa, ignoring Claudia’s stare. But who? A phantom, a better story.

“No, I’m finished with this business. Look how it is already. They don’t want anyone else. He’s perfect for them. So now the lawyers will have to save him, not the file clerk,” she said, pointing to herself.

“Help me.”

“Do what?”

“Find out what happened. None of it makes sense. Gianni faked a medical report. Why? Risked his license for Moretti, maybe saved his life. Does that sound like Gianni to you?”

“Anything’s possible.” She dropped some ashes and rubbed them with her shoe.

“Tell me about Moretti. Was he a Communist?”

“A patriot.”

“And a friend of Gianni’s brother.” She looked at me, not surprised to hear it but surprised I knew. “I saw an old picture. But he was a Communist?”

She shrugged. “Many came from good families. With them, a matter of conviction.”

“Was he involved-when Paolo was killed?”

She pulled on the cigarette, saying nothing.

“Rosa.”

“Don’t ask me this.”

“For chrissake, why not? It was during the war. What does it matter now?”

“It would matter to the son. He’s already heard enough. Let it go. It’s the past.”

“Why? It would make him a hero, wouldn’t it?”

“A hero. Do you know what that meant, in that kind of war? It’s not the army. Everything is permitted. It’s good to lie. To kill. And then it’s over and it’s the opposite.”

“Yes,” Claudia said unexpectedly. Rosa looked at her, not sure how to respond, then back at me.

“I’m not going to tell his son.”

“All right. Tell me.”

She dropped the cigarette and took a few steps toward the canal, wrapping her sweater tighter. “Paolo was a fool, but he was careful. Maybe people were careful for him. So, to get him, they had to trick him. Moretti knew him-an old friend, as you say.”

“He set him up?”

“You want to know the details? What’s the difference? He betrayed him, he helped to kill him. Paolo trusted him, so it started with him.”

“Then why would Gianni help him?”

“He didn’t know. Who was going to tell him, Moretti?”

“But-”

“That’s right. He kills his old friend and then lies to the brother to save himself. Not the way a hero acts. I told you, it was that kind of war. Anything was right.”

“Who else killed him? Who was also in the house-besides Moretti.”

“Also in the house? Just one,” she said, looking straight at me.

I held her eyes for a second, then dropped my gaze to the pavement, thinking. “So there’s no other connection. And Moretti leaves the hospital and nothing happens. Gianni helps him.”

“A wonderful man.”

“But it has to be him somehow.”

“Well, now there’s a life at stake. I have to help the lawyers. I leave the doctor to you.”

“Why fake the report?” I said, moving absentmindedly in a small circle. “Start with that.”

“You start. I have to go now.”

“Wait. What about the attending nurse? I just remembered. She signed the report too, so she must know something. Please. I need someone who can talk to her. In Italian.”

Rosa was quiet for a minute, shifting on her bad leg, physically wavering.

“I speak Italian,” Claudia said, breaking the silence.

Rosa looked at her, then nodded. “ Brava,” she said, starting to move away. “You talk for him.”

“Rosa-”

Claudia glared at me. “I’ll talk to the nurse,” she said, her words deliberate, like a hand on my arm. Let her go.

“Maybe we can get him out,” Rosa said, gesturing at the Questura. “Before they charge him.”

Without even looking at us, she headed for the corner, barely limping now, in a hurry.

“Why did you do that? She would have stayed if-”

“Yes,” Claudia said, “and then what? More detectives. You don’t want her help. Not now. The police have somebody, so why are you still looking? That’s what they’ll think, why is he doing this? And then they look at you.”

“But Rosa doesn’t-”

“You think she’s your friend, but nobody’s your friend now. The police, her, it’s the same. One slip, that’s what you told me. At least it’s over with Cavallini, this business. He doesn’t need a partner anymore.”

I nodded, reluctant. “No. I have to do it without him.”

“No, you have to stop. They have somebody. Now what reason can there be for you-”

But I was only half listening, thinking of Cavallini strutting behind his desk, chest puffed out.

“We can’t just walk away. We can’t let this boy-”

She reached up, touching my arm. “Yes, walk away, before it’s too late.”

I looked at her, surprised. “You don’t mean that,” I said quietly. “You can’t.”

She turned her head, letting her hand drop.

“Claudia, what happened with Gianni, that was one thing. But this-they’ll hang him.”

“But they can’t prove he did it. We know they can’t prove it.”

“They may not have to. They might convict him anyway. They’ll try. They won’t want to admit they made a mistake. Not now. They just solved the case.”

She looked down at her foot, moving it, something to do while she took this in. “So now we have what we wanted,” she said finally, her voice distant. “A perfect alibi.” She looked at me. “Better than the party. Even better than that. Now someone else did it.” She walked away, toward the canal. “Until you show them he didn’t.”

“Claudia, he could die.”

I stopped, caught by the sound of some policemen coming out of the door behind us, their shoes clumping on the pavement, voices loud. Claudia didn’t turn, just kept staring down at the canal water, as if not moving would make her invisible. When we heard them cross the bridge to San Lorenzo, she spoke without raising her head. “So it gets worse,” she said. “Another one, unless we help him. And then what? Then who did it? And now you want me to help you. What, catch myself?”

“We’ll find them someone else.”

“Someone else,” she repeated.

“Who could have done it. Another possibility. Just so long as it’s not him. We need to make a story. Something so close to what really happened that they can believe it. Just make a little change. The way Gianni did, remember?” Walking along the fondamenta, making the truce.

“Ah. Now like Gianni,” she said, her voice tight.

I looked at her, then let it go. “But we have to know what really happened.”

She turned from the water. “We already know what really happened.”

“I mean at the safe house. It’s in Cavallini’s head now. It’s too late to use anything else. He thinks Moretti has a motive. But who else would?”

“And the nurse is going to tell you?”

“A piece, anyway. If I can talk to her.”

At the hospital, Claudia didn’t even bother to translate. On my own I might have managed some kind of conversation, helped by gestures, but Claudia and the duty nurse spoke in a rush that swept me aside, unable to pick up even the occasional word. It was easier just to lean against the glass front of the nurses’ station and watch them speak. I thought of Moretti, lying upstairs with his puncture wound. The nurse would have had to know. Now this one was writing something down, motioning with one hand, giving directions.

“The one we want just retired,” Claudia said in the high gothic hall. “A great friend of Maglione’s. He was that kind of man? With the nurses?”

“I don’t know. I never thought so.” But then, so much else had been wrong.

“And who sleeps with retired nurses? Young nurses, yes. So maybe it’s just this one’s idea.” She nodded back toward the nurses’ station. “She thinks they were lovers because he helped her find a place to live-what else could it be? After all those years together, devoted to him, what does she get? Two rooms in Castello. Put away somewhere so he can marry his American. Typical, the man does as he likes, while the woman-” She stopped, shaking her head. “And maybe, she thinks, the nurse didn’t like it. Who would have a better reason?”

“To kill him?”

“She reads magazines.”

We had left the hospital and were walking across the campo past the equestrian statue.

“And who dumped him in the lagoon?”

“She’s not that far. Still with the romance. They worked together for years, and not a hint. Only now, when she’s old and he helps her. And this one believes that.”

“Were there rumors-other nurses?”

“Of course not. He was a saint,” Claudia said, her mouth turned down. “A saint.”

“A savior of men.”

“Yes,” she said, still grim. “Except my father.”

We followed the directions through several back calles of hanging wash to a house whose plaster front had peeled off in patches, leaving irregular pockets of dark brick, like Dalmation spots. Anna della Croce was on the second floor, up a staircase that smelled of cat and listed to one side. When we rang the bell, we could hear a series of locks being turned, as if the room had been barricaded against the rest of the sagging house. Then the creak of the door, a pair of eyes peering into the stairwell. It was only after Claudia mentioned Gianni’s name that the door swung open. For a second no one said anything, adjusting to the light. Then Claudia’s eyes widened, and her whole body went rigid with surprise.

“ Voi,” she said softly.

The woman looked at her, wary again. “ Che cosa volete?”

“What is it?” I said to Claudia.

“It’s the same nurse, the one with my father. Look, she has no idea. No memory at all. I’m someone new to her. She watched them take me away, but she never saw me before. It meant nothing.”

“You’re scaring her. Speak Italian.”

The woman had drawn closer to the door, stepping slightly behind it, as if it were a shield.

“Imagine. Nothing to her,” Claudia said, her voice almost dreamy.

“Claudia,” I said, touching her shoulder. “Ask her about Gianni.”

She looked at me, coming back, then smiled wryly. “Yes, that’s right. Something she’d remember. Scusi,” she said, turning to the woman, reassuring her with a spurt of Italian that I couldn’t follow but that got us through the door.

We went into a tidy small room filled with porcelain figurines, Claudia still talking. We had gotten the address from the hospital, she was so nice to see us, it had been a tragedy about Gianni, and then I lost the thread again. I was given a straight-backed chair with upraised arms and a velvet-covered seat, formal, the kind that’s kept for visiting priests.

The nurse sat primly on the edge of the daybed, a severe-looking woman in her sixties who still seemed to be wearing a starched uniform, her eyes sharp and suspicious, even now on the lookout for sloppily made bed corners. I could see that she would never have spoken to me, but Claudia, another woman, had somehow put her at ease. Tea was made, an excuse for small talk to find out why we had come, whether we could be trusted. This time Claudia did translate, first paraphrasing their conversation, then finally with nearly simultaneous answers so that it felt as if we were all really talking.

“She’s worried about her pension. But I told her it’s to solve the murder, so that’s different.”

“Because he was a saint.”

She nodded. “The best man she ever knew. Would this hurt his reputation? And I said no, now everyone would admire him for this.”

“So it was a bullet wound?”

“Yes. She helped him remove it, just the two of them. He said he would take the responsibility-he didn’t want her to get in any trouble. Always thinking of others, you see. But of course she wanted to help him. So they took out the bullet and cleaned the wound and then she dressed it so no one else would know, not even the other nurses. Then they made out the report.”

“Had he done anything like this before?”

“No. But he knew the man. A family friend. And Dr. Maglione told her, ‘I can’t refuse him. I have to help. But no one has to know.’ ”

“He came into the hospital with a bullet wound and no one else knew?”

This involved a longer answer, filled with what sounded like medical details.

“You couldn’t tell. The wound was shallow. Not much blood. But of course the bullet had to be taken out. Maglione saw him right away-and after, all people knew was a bandage. Except for Anna,” she said, nodding to the nurse.

“Why would Moretti take the risk?” I said to myself. “If it wasn’t serious. Going to a hospital.”

“The bullet still has to come out. You need a doctor. And this one he knows. She says they were friends-Maglione liked to talk to him.”

“About what?”

A shrug. “She assumes old times. They hadn’t seen each other in years.”

“No, they wouldn’t have.”

“But the risk.” The nurse was shaking her head at the memory of it. “She was worried the whole time. But with him it was always the patient. When he found out Moretti had left, he said it was too soon. It needed more time.”

“But he discharged him.”

“No, he left. In the night. Like a thief in the night.” Hunching her shoulders, stealthy. “Because he was so grateful. The Germans came one day and he saw that it was a risk for Maglione. How long before someone found out? So he left in the night. He didn’t wait.”

“But the medical report-”

“They had to say discharged. What else? Escape? Then everything would come out. So he was ‘discharged,’ and she signed it, and that was the end. Until now.”

I went over to the window, a view across the calle to another window, shuttered. “So Gianni couldn’t have had him followed,” I said. Wrong about this too. Moretti had gone without Gianni’s even knowing. Then the report had been faked to protect him, all witnessed by a sharp-eyed nurse.

“There’s no doubt about this, any of it?”

“You don’t want me to ask her that. She’d be offended.”

“The Germans who were there-soldiers or SS?”

“SS. They were looking for Jews.”

“And did they find any?”

Claudia looked at me, but translated. The nurse nodded, lowering her head.

“There was nothing they could do. The Germans knew. Grini, maybe, the informer. That was his specialty, hospitals and mental homes.”

“But he wasn’t there that day.”

“No, but they knew. Dr. Maglione was helpless. He used to say, ‘The Germans are like wild animals. You have to be careful with them. If you frighten them, they’ll bite. You can’t get too close.’ ”

For a minute no one said anything, the only sound in the room a teacup clinking on its saucer.

“Anything else?” Claudia said.

I shook my head. “I thought there’d be something. Something she’d seen.”

“Oh, and she’d tell you? She sees what she wants to see.”

She started again in Italian, calm, almost in a monotone, so the nurse’s reaction seemed all the more abrupt, a shocked expression, head jerked back.

“What?” I said.

“I told her someone said Gianni helped the SS. That he pointed out Jews.”

“Claudia.”

“She was there, wasn’t she? See what she says.”

A flood of words, angry. I waited, watching Claudia.

“Whoever said that, it must be his imagination. The doctor would never do that.”

“She might not have seen it,” I said quickly.

“She saw everything else.”

“It’s not the same,” I said. “He wouldn’t want her to see that.”

“I saw it.”

The nurse, still angry, was looking from one of us to the other, listening to the volley in a foreign language.

“She’d never admit it now anyway. Ask her when this was, when the Germans came.”

Claudia said something in Italian.

“October fourth.”

When Claudia and her father were taken, when Moretti was being protected, just as everyone had said. Exact, an excellent witness. The story everyone agreed on, except for the nod. I looked at Claudia, the other witness.

I moved in the chair, stuck. Why would the nurse lie? The fake report had become a badge of honor, her war story, helping Gianni do the right thing. So we had to assume he had.

She said something in Italian, her eyes on me.

“She wants to know how you knew about the bullet wound.”

“Tell her Gianni told me.”

“Ah,” the nurse said.

“I told her you’re the American woman’s son,” Claudia said, explaining. The nurse was taking me in now, somebody in Gianni’s world, not just a foreign voice. “She wants to know if she can talk about this now. It’s no longer a secret?”

“Not anymore. Better tell her the police might ask. No surprises.”

They both got up as they spoke, the meeting over.

“She wants to know who did it.”

I shrugged. “The police think young Moretti.”

The nurse turned to me, speaking Italian, forgetting for a second to go through Claudia.

“She says, why would they think that? Dr. Maglione saved his father’s life.”

“Tell her we don’t think he did it either. That’s why we came,” I said, one more blurred half-lie.

I looked around at the shelves of knickknacks. The rooms he had helped her find. Not enough to buy anyone’s silence, even assuming there was silence to buy. And why would there be? She still thought he was a hero, and she’d been there.

“Are you finished?” Claudia said.

I nodded, feeling deflated. Finished with no next place to go, and still no way to connect Gianni to the house.

We said good-bye, a thousand thanks, most of it by rote, my mind elsewhere. Then Claudia spoke in Italian, and the nurse stopped, taken aback.

“I said to her, ‘Do you know you look familiar to me?’ ” Claudia said.

“What are you doing? Leave it.”

Claudia’s eyes flashed. “I want her to remember. I remember-why shouldn’t she?”

The nurse studied her for another minute, then shook her head. “She says maybe from the hospital. So many people come and go, it’s hard to keep track.” She looked down, her lips in a forced half smile. “So many people come and go. And I’d know her face anywhere.”

We started for the door, the nurse still talking.

“She says it’s like that in the hospital,” Claudia said, airy now, the nurse prattling. “So many people. After a while you don’t notice.” She looked at me. “So that’s all it meant for her.”

“Maybe she wasn’t there,” I said. “Right then, I mean.”

“No, she was in the ward. Or do you think it’s my imagination too?”

Could it have been? A question so faint it was almost unnoticeable, like a hairline crack in porcelain.

“Do you? Yes, it must be. The doctor would never do that,” she said, playing the nurse again.

She turned to her and said something in Italian, without translating, but it must have been asking whether she was sure, baiting her, because the nurse squinted at Claudia’s face again, then shook her head.

“Claudia. We didn’t come here for that.”

“No, to make sure he did something else. It’s not enough, what he did. But maybe he didn’t even do that. She didn’t see it. So how do you know?” Asking something else, her voice angry, all of it still alive to her, not yet just a white splotch of skin. Real, more accurate than memory.

“Because you said so,” I said calmly.

She turned away, embarrassed, so that my eyes went to the nurse at the door, watching us closely, maybe the way she’d watched things in the ward, not really understanding what they meant. People coming and going.

“By the way,” I said, “ask her if she was there when the son came for the medicine.”

“What medicine?” the nurse said.

“That he sent to Moretti.”

“Why would he send medicine to Moretti? There was no infection.”

I looked at Claudia, my head suddenly light.

“For pain maybe?”

She brushed this away with her hand. “Then? In the war? Who had such medicine? There wasn’t even enough for the ones who were suffering. Moretti hadn’t had any in the hospital-only at first, to take out the bullet. After that, no, he didn’t need any.”

“But Dr. Maglione sent him some,” Claudia said to her. “The boy said so.”

“No, it’s impossible. He didn’t need medicine.”

“He didn’t need medicine?” I said, wanting to be sure.

“No, I told you. Anyway, how could Dr. Maglione do this? The man left in the night. Dr. Maglione didn’t know where he was.”

“No,” I said, following the thought right to the house, “but his son did.”