Day Of Confession

8

Rome . Tuesday, July 7, 7:45 a.m.

Jacov Farel was Swiss.

He was also Capo dell'Ufficio Centrale Vigilanza, the man in charge of the Vatican police, and had been for more than twenty years. He had called Harry at five minutes after seven, waking him from a deep sleep and telling him it was imperative they talk.

Harry had agreed to meet with him, and now, forty minutes later, was being driven across Rome by one of Farel's men. Crossing the Tiber, they drove beside it for a few hundred yards, then turned down the colonnaded Via della Conciliazione, with the unmistakable dome of St Peter's in the distance. Harry was certain that was where he was being taken, to the Vatican and to Farel's office somewhere deep inside it. Then abruptly the driver veered off to the right and through an arched portal in an ancient wall and into a neighborhood of narrow streets and old apartment buildings. Two blocks later he made a sharp left to stop in front of a small trattoria on Borgo Vittorio. Getting out, he opened the door for Harry and escorted him into the trattoria.

A lone man in a black suit stood at the bar as they came in. His back to them, his right hand rested beside a coffee cup. He was probably five foot eight or nine, heavy-set, and what little hair he might have had left had been shaved to the skull, leaving the top of his head shining, as if it had been polished, in the overhead light.

'Thank you for coming, Mr Addison.' Jacov Farel's English was colored by a French accent. His voice was husky, as if he'd chain-smoked for years. Slowly the hand pulled away from the coffee cup and he turned. Harry hadn't been able to see the power of the man from the back, but he could now. The shaved head, the broad face with the flattened nose, the neck as thick as a man's thigh, the burly chest tight against his white shirt. His hands, big and strong, looked as if they'd spent most of their fifty-odd years wrapped around the handle of a jackhammer. And then there were his eyes, deep-set, gray-green, unforgiving – abruptly they flashed toward the driver. Without a word, the driver took a step backward and left, the click of the door sounding behind him as it closed. Then Farel's eyes shifted to Harry.

'My responsibilities are different from those of the Italian police. They protect a city. The Vatican is its own state. A country inside Italy. Therefore I am accountable for the safety of a nation.'

Instinctively Harry glanced around. They were alone. No waiter, no barman, no customers. Just he and Farel.

'The blood of Cardinal Parma splattered my shirt and my face when he was shot. It also fell on the pope, soiling his vestments.'

'I'm here to do anything I can to help.'

Farel studied him carefully. 'I know you talked to the police. I know what you told them. I read the transcripts. I read the report Ispettore Capo Pio wrote after he met with you privately… It's what you didn't tell them that interests me.'

'What I didn't tell them?'

'Or what they didn't ask. Or what you left out when they did, purposely, or because you didn't remember or perhaps because it didn't seem important.'

Farel's presence, considerable before, now seemed to fill the entire room. Harry's hands were suddenly damp and there was sweat on his forehead. Again he looked around. Still no one. It was after eight. What time did the staff come to work? Or people come in off the street for breakfast or coffee? – Or had the trattoria been opened for Farel alone?

'You seem uncomfortable, Mr Addison…'

'Maybe it's because I'm tired of talking to the police when I've done nothing and you people keep acting like I have…

I was happy to meet with you because I believe my brother is innocent. To show you I'm willing to cooperate any way I can.'

'That's not the only reason, Mr Addison…'

'What do you mean?'

'Your clients. You have to protect them. If you had called the United States Embassy as you threatened – or arranged for an Italian lawyer to represent you in your talks with the police – you knew there was a very good chance the media would find out… Not only would our suspicions about your brother be made public, they would learn about you as well. Who you are, and what you do, and who you personally represent. People who would not want to be linked, however distantly or innocently, to the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

'Who do you think I represent that would-?'

Farel cut him off abruptly, naming half a dozen of his superstar Hollywood clients in rapid succession.

'Should I keep on, Mr Addison?'

'How did you get that information?' Harry was shocked and outraged. The identity of his firm's clients was carefully guarded. It meant Farel had not only been digging into his background but also had connections in Los Angeles capable of getting him whatever he asked for. A reach and power that in themselves were frightening.

'Your brother's guilt or innocence aside, there is a certain practicality to things… That's why you're talking to me, Mr Addison, alone and of your own free will and will continue to do so until I am done with you… You have to protect your own success.' His left hand found its way up to caress his skull just over his left ear. 'It's a nice day. Why don't we go for a walk…?'

The morning sun was beginning to light the top floors of the buildings around them as they came out and Farel turned them left, onto Via Ombrellari – a narrow cobblestone street without sidewalks, the apartment buildings interrupted here and there by a bar or restaurant or pharmacy. A priest walked by across from them. Farther down, two men noisily loaded empty wine and mineral water bottles into a van outside a restaurant.

'It was a Mr Byron Willis, a partner in your law firm, who informed you of your brother's death.'

'Yes…'

So Farel knew that, too. He was doing the same thing Roscani and Pio had done, trying to intimidate him and get him off guard, let him know that no matter what anyone said, he was still a suspect. That Harry knew he was innocent made little difference. Law school years had made him more aware than most of the long history of jails, prisons, and even gallows that had been peopled with the guiltless, men and women charged with crimes far less grievous than the one being investigated here. It was unnerving, if not frightening. And Harry knew it showed, and he didn't like it. Moreover, Farel's digging into his professional world gave everything a calculated spin. One that gave the Vatican policeman added power, because it let him into Harry's inside life and proved to him he had nowhere to go.

Harry's concern about publicity had been one of the first things he'd addressed yesterday, as soon as he'd left Pio and checked into his hotel, calling Byron Willis at his home in Bel Air. By discussion's end they'd enumerated, almost word for word, the reasons Farel had just given for Harry's keeping a low profile. They'd agreed that, tragic as it was, Danny was dead, and since whatever involvement he'd had or not had in the murder of Cardinal Parma was being kept quiet, it was best for all of them to let it stay that way. The risk that Harry's clients might be revealed and his situation exploited was something neither they, nor he, nor the company needed, especially now, when the media seemed to rule everything.

'Did this Mr Willis know Father Daniel had contacted you?'

'Yes… I told him when he called to notify me of what had happened…'

'You told him what your brother said.'

'Some of it… Most of it… Whatever I said, it's in the transcripts of what I told the police yesterday.' Harry felt the anger begin to rise. 'What difference does it make?'

'How long have you known Mr Willis?'

'Ten, eleven years. He helped me get into the business. Why?'

'You are close to him.'

'Yes, I guess…'

'As close to him as to anyone?'

'I guess so.'

'Meaning you might tell him things you would tell no one else.'

'What are you getting at?'

Farel's gray-green eyes found Harry's and held there. Finally his gaze moved off and they continued to walk. Slowly, deliberately. Harry had no idea where they were going or why. He wondered if Farel did, if it was simply his manner of interrogation.

Behind them, a blue Ford turned the corner, drove slowly for a half block, then pulled over and stopped. No one got out. Harry glanced at Farel. If he was aware of the car, he didn't acknowledge.

'You never spoke with your brother directly.'

'No.'

Farther down, the men loading bottles finished, and their van pulled from the curb. Parked beyond it was a dark gray Fiat. Two men sat in the front seat. Harry glanced back. The other car was still there. The block was short. If the men in the cars belonged to Farel, it meant they had essentially sealed off the street.

'And the message he left on your answering machine… you erased.'

'I wouldn't have done it if I had known how things were going to turn out.'

Abruptly Farel stopped. They were nearly to the gray Fiat, and Harry could see the men in the front seat watching them. The one at the wheel was young and leaned forward in his seat almost eagerly, as if he hoped something would happen.

'You act like you don't know where we are, Mr Addison.' Farel smiled slowly, then swept his hand at the yellow stained and paint-peeled four-story building in front of them.

'Should I?'

'Number one-twenty-seven Via Ombrellari – you don't know?'

Harry looked down the street. The blue Ford was still there. Then his eyes came back to Farel.

'No, I don't.'

'It's your brother's apartment building.'