Death bbwwim-7

by James R Benn

  “We came to warn you,” I said. I remembered what Monsignor O’Flaherty had said about letting Brackett down easy, so I decided a white lie would do. “The Rudder network has been turned.”

  “Why tell me?” Brackett said, pouring himself another brandy.

  “Because we know you’re one of Rudder’s agents. It’s something we stumbled onto during the course of the investigation. I thought you’d want to know.”

  Brackett went for his pipe, fiddled with it for a moment, then tossed it down on the desk. “All right,” he said. “How long has it been compromised?”

  “It happened two days ago. When’s the last time you made contact?”

  “Four days ago. Whenever I have something to report, I walk along the border at nine o’clock in the morning, circling the Bernini colonnades. Enrico-that’s my contact’s code name-comes into the piazza.”

  “Enrico may not know,” I said. “Stay away from him, all right?”

  “Sure,” Brackett said. “You certain about this?”

  “It has been confirmed,” Kaz said. “You have been of great service. You are to be commended.”

  “It saved my life, I’ll tell you that,” Brackett said, a regretful sigh escaping his lips. “This place is a prison at best, a lunatic asylum at worst. It has broken some people, you know. The Peruvian minister disappeared one day, vanished. The Honduran drank himself to death-in my opinion, mainly from being cooped up with his wife.”

  “What was the last thing you reported to Enrico?” I asked.

  “The status of your investigation. He said Rudder wanted to be informed. I figured we’re all on the same side, so it wouldn’t matter. Right?”

  “Well, it’s hardly top-secret stuff. What else?”

  “Oh, Soletto and Bishop Zlatko, that sort of thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Kaz asked.

  “Listen, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong,” Brackett said, finishing off his drink and topping off the glass from a brandy bottle.

  “The letter,” Kaz prompted him.

  “Right, the letter. How did you find out? Oh, never mind. Anyway, I didn’t want to chance it that Zlatko would really blow my cover. So I gave him the letter. I said he was a valued Allied agent, that sort of thing. Only, Soletto found out.”

  “What?” Kaz and I both said at the same time. This was news.

  “Yeah,” Brackett said, slurping his brandy and smacking his lips. “He sent for me, and waved the carbon copy under my nose.”

  “You kept a copy on file?”

  “That’s what we do here. Type things in triplicate. I never thought-well, let’s just leave it at that.”

  “What did Soletto want?”

  “Information. The usual. He also hinted that by not turning me in for violating Vatican neutrality, he was helping the Allied cause. Sort of like Zlatko, who thought it was amusing when I told him. Blackmail and patriotism all rolled up in a nice, neat package. But the joke was on Soletto. Can’t say I was sorry to see him go.” Brackett raised his glass, drank, and then studied the remaining amber swirl. It required all his attention.

  “Well, you’re certainly a brave man,” I said.

  “Oh, it wasn’t so dangerous,” Brackett said. “Wait a minute, what do you mean?”

  “Now that Soletto is dead, you’re the only one who knows the letter is a fake. Sure, you had to write it to protect your cover, but it puts you in a tough spot. Zlatko could get in a lot of trouble if you rescinded it.”

  “You don’t mean Bishop Zlatko would harm me?”

  “Not harm,” Kaz said. “Murder.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Brackett said, swallowing a slug of brandy and slamming down the glass. “He’s not a bad guy, really.” He poured another, determined to talk himself into believing that one.

  We left the Governatorato, feeling a lot less sympathetic toward Brackett than when we arrived. Now we knew Zlatko had a motive for shutting up Soletto. Maybe Brackett did too, but he’d probably been halfway through a brandy bottle when Soletto took a knife to his heart.

  “An odd man,” Kaz said. “Tragic, the way he took to being sealed in here. Even in a POW camp, you at least have your comrades. He is the only American here.”

  “And not a Catholic, either,” I said. “FDR was sensitive about the anti-Catholic vote, so he made sure the diplomats posted here were Protestant. He was alone in many ways. Not surprising he leapt at the chance for excitement and a break from the bottle.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t take up other hobbies, such as murder?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem the type.”

  “You told me once that there was no type when it came to murder, that anyone could be a killer,” Kaz said. We stopped in front of a small church tucked under the shadow of Saint Peter’s grand dome. The facade was plain, a muted rusty color that needed attention. It looked like it could barely accommodate a small-scale South Boston wedding.

  “Yeah, but it depends on the state they’re in. I’m sure Brackett could be pushed to murder, but it would have to be over something he cares about. The only thing that’s going to get him excited is a break from monotony or an unopened case of brandy. So right now, he’s not the type, he’s too morose and self-involved. Just like this little church could never be a basilica, Brackett may dance around the edges of spying and a bit of danger, but it’s not his world. He’s simply not a dangerous man.”

  “Still,” Kaz said, “it is a pretty church. Ninth century, if I recall. Back when a man would kill at the slightest provocation.”

  “Yeah, well maybe Corrigan insulted his alma mater. Let’s pay Inspector Cipriano a visit.”

  The Gendarmerie Office was only a few steps away, and we found Cipriano in his office, holding a telephone and nodding. He occasionally opened his mouth as if to speak, but that was as far as it went. He gestured vaguely at chairs in front of his desk, then held the telephone away from his mouth as he struck a match and lit a cigarette. Fortunately, I’d never risen high enough in the ranks at the Boston PD to endure a call like that, but I’d seen plenty. Someone high up was shoveling a mountain of trouble down Cipriano’s way.

  “Please, do not ask if I have found the missing rochet,” Cipriano said, hanging up the telephone with more emphasis than was necessary. “I have done nothing but listen to clergymen complain about being questioned.”

  “No luck at all?” I asked.

  “ Sfortuna. But I did find this,” he said, tossing a sheet of paper across his desk. The carbon copy of Brackett’s letter to Zlatko.

  “We know about it,” Kaz said. “Brackett felt pressured by Bishop Zlatko.”

  “The good bishop is practiced at pressure,” Cipriano said. “It was he who complained the loudest about my search. Keep the letter. Better yet, burn it. Signore Brackett does not deserve to get in trouble with his government because of a man like Zlatko.”

  “That’s decent of you, Inspector.”

  “Any chance to act decently these days should be grasped with vigore,” Cipriano said. “I was a Rome policeman before I joined the Vatican force. I left behind the hard choices that my colleagues had to make during the past years: serve the Fascists or suffer the consequences. I sat out the war, much like Signore Brackett, within these walls, tending to small matters. So I am glad to do one decent thing for him.”

  “Nothing new on the knife?”

  “All I have are more questions and a headache,” Cipriano said, rubbing his temples with his fingers. “For instance, I found something odd in the commissario ’s report about Severino Rossi, the refugee charged with Monsignor Corrigan’s murder.”

  “What?”

  “Correspondence with Regina Coeli, requesting that the prisoner not be turned over to the Tedeschi for transport. You know what transport means for Jews, yes?”

  “Death camps,” Kaz said. “But why is that surprising? It is a case of murder. Wouldn’t Soletto and the Rome police want the suspect kept here?”

  “T
he only police left serving in Rome are the worst of the Fascists,” Cipriano said. “Commissario Soletto himself said they would do us a favor by putting a bullet in Rossi’s head. They would be glad to oblige, too. Especially Pietro Koch and his gang. But the odd thing is that this request was made the day after the murder.”

  “As if Soletto had thought things over and changed his mind,” I said.

  “Yes, esattamente,” Cipriano said. “Why would he do that? He was not sympathetic to Jews. Or anyone.”

  “Because Rossi had some value to him,” I said.

  “Rossi knew who the real killer was?” Kaz suggested.

  “He did not name anyone,” Cipriano said.

  “You saw him yourself, that night?”

  “Yes. It was early morning by the time I arrived. They were just taking him away. He seemed disoriented, perhaps in shock. One often sees this after a violent crime.”

  “Did he say anything to the Swiss Guard who found him? He must have shaken Rossi awake, right?”

  “He was not coherent. And it was not a Swiss Guard who found him,” Cipriano said.

  “That’s what was in the report,” I said.

  “Ah, the official report, from this office,” Cipriano said. “The one kept under lock and key.” He was enjoying himself.

  “Well, we know how much good keys do around here,” I said. “Who found him, then?”

  “Your American friend, Robert Brackett. His name was kept out of the written report.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Signore Brackett was returning from the bedroom of a lady. A married lady, at that. Her husband, one of the South American diplomats housed here, was elsewhere, likely sharing a different bedroom with another man’s wife. These diplomats, they have nothing to do all day, so they find much to do in darkness.”

  “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.”

  “Si,” 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.