Day Of Confession

14

Harry didn't know what to think or how to feel. That it might be someone other than Danny in the casket had never occurred to him. That after everything – the police work, the investigations by how many agencies, the recovery of the personal articles, the identification of the body by Cardinal Marsciano, the death certificate – they could have made this kind of error was unconscionable.

Cardinal Marsciano put a hand on his sleeve. 'You are weary and filled with grief, Mr Addison. In circumstances like this our hearts and emotions do not always let us think clearly.'

'Eminence,' Harry said sharply. They were all staring at him – Marsciano, Father Bardoni, Gasparri, and the man in the starched white jacket. Yes, he was tired. Yes, he was filled with grief. But his thinking had never been clearer in his life.

'My brother had a large mole under his left nipple. It's called a third breast. I've seen it a thousand times. Medically it's known as a supernumerary nipple. As a kid Danny drove my mother crazy showing it to people. Whoever's in that casket has no mole under his left nipple. That person is not my brother. It's as simple as that.'

Cardinal Marsciano closed the door to Gasparri's office, then gestured toward a pair of gilded chairs in front of the funeral director's desk.

'I'll stand,' Harry said.

Marsciano nodded and sat down.

'How old are you, Mr Addison?'

'Thirty-six.'

'And how long has it been since you last saw your brother without his shirt or with it, for that matter? Father Daniel was not merely an employee, he was a friend. Friends talk, Mr Addison… You had not seen him for many years, had you?'

'Eminence, that person is not my brother.'

'Moles can be removed. Even from priests. People do it all the time. I should imagine you, in your business, would know that better than I.'

'Not Danny, Eminence – especially not Danny. Like most everyone else, he was insecure growing up. What made him feel better about himself was when he had things other people didn't. Or did things differently from those around him. He used to drive our mother crazy opening his shirt and showing it to people. He liked to think it was some kind of secret baronial mark, and that he was really descended from royalty. And unless he changed deeply and immeasurably since then, he would never have had the mole removed. It was a badge of honor, it kept him apart.'

'People do change, Mr Addison,' Cardinal Marsciano spoke gently and quietly. 'And Father Daniel did change a great deal in the years I knew him.'

For a long moment Harry stared, saying nothing. When he did speak, he was quieter but no less adamant. 'Isn't it possible there was a mix-up at the morgue? That maybe another family has Danny's body in a sealed casket without knowing it?… It's not unreasonable to imagine.'

'Mr Addison, the remains you saw are those I identified.' The cardinal's response was sharp, even indignant. 'Presented to me by the Italian authorities.' No longer the comforter, Marsciano had suddenly become acerbic and authoritative.

'Twenty-four people were on that bus, Mr Addison. Eight survived. Fifteen of the dead were positively identified by members of their own families. That left only one…' For the briefest moment Marsciano's manner reverted, and his humanity returned. 'I, too, had hopes that a mistake had been made. That it was someone else. That perhaps Father Daniel was still away, unaware of what had happened.

'But I was confronted by fact and evidence.' Marsciano's edge returned. 'Your brother was a frequent visitor to Assisi and more than one person who knew him saw him get on the bus. The transport company was in radio contact with the driver along the way. His only stop was at a toll station. Nowhere else. Nowhere where a passenger could have gotten off prior to the explosion. And then there were his personal belongings found among the wreckage. His glasses, which I knew only too well from the many times he left them on my desk, and his Vatican identification were in the pocket of a shredded jacket still on the remains… We cannot change the truth, Mr Addison, and mole or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, the truth is he is dead… what is left of his physical being embodied in the remains you have seen…' Marsciano paused, and Harry could see his mood shift once more and something darker come into his eyes.

'You have encountered the police and Jacov Farel. So have we all… Did your brother conspire to kill Cardinal Parma? Or perhaps even the Holy Father? Did he actually fire the shots? Was he, at heart, a Communist who despised us all? I cannot answer… What I can tell you is that for the years I knew him he was kind and decent and very good at what he did, which was controlling me.' The hint of a smile flickered, then left.

'Eminence,' Harry said, intensely. 'Did you know he'd left a message on my answering machine only hours before he was killed?'

'Yes, I was told…'

'He was scared, afraid of what would happen next… Do you have any idea why?'

For a long moment Marsciano said nothing. Finally he spoke, directly and quietly. 'Mr Addison, take your brother from Italy. Bury him in his own land and love him for the rest of your life. Think, as I do, that he was falsely accused and that one day it will be proven so.'

Father Bardoni slowed the small white Fiat behind a tour bus, then turned onto Ponte Palatino, taking Harry from Gasparri's and back across the Tiber to his hotel. Midday Rome was loud, with bright sun and filled with traffic. But Harry saw and heard only what was in his mind.

'Take your brother from Italy and bury him in his own land,' Marsciano had said again as he'd left, driven away in a dark gray Mercedes by another of Farel's black-suited men.

Marsciano had not talked of the police and Jacov Farel without purpose; his not answering Harry's query, too, had been deliberate. His charity had been in his indirectness, leaving it to Harry to fill in the rest – a cardinal had been murdered, and the priest thought to have done it was dead. So was his colleague in the murder. So, too, were sixteen others who had been on the Assisi bus. And whether Harry wanted to believe it or not, the remains of that priest, the suspected assassin, were officially and without question those of his brother.

To make certain he understood, Cardinal Marsciano had done one more thing at the last: turned and looked at Harry severely as he'd walked down the steps to his car, his glance more telling than anything he'd said or implied. There was danger here, and doors that should not be opened. And the best thing Harry could do would be to take what had been offered and leave as quickly and quietly as possible. While he still could.