by Ian Caldwell
“An arm’s length.”
“So Bracco had a good look at Father Andreou?”
“Yes.”
“You told us the killer disposed of the evidence against him. Since an exhaustive search hasn’t turned up those items, are you considering the possibility that they were removed from the crime scene?”
“That is our operating theory at this point, yes.”
“But how could Father Andreou have removed them with Bracco interviewing him only an arm’s length away?”
Falcone’s expression sours. He removes a handkerchief from his pocket and scrubs the bottom of his nose. “Andreou would have concealed them.”
The judge lifts a photo. “This was taken at Castel Gandolfo by one of your own men, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It shows Father Andreou on the night of Doctor Nogara’s murder. Do you see what he’s wearing?”
“A cassock,” Falcone says.
The judge nods. “Commander, are you familiar with what a priest wears under his cassock?”
Falcone clears his throat. “Trousers.”
“Correct. That’s why cassocks often have no pockets, just slits leading to the pants. Do you know why I mention this?”
Falcone stares grimly ahead. “No.”
“At the risk of sounding indecent,” the judge says, “it’s very uncomfortable to wear pants under a wool cassock in the summer. So some priests simply don’t.”
The judge raises a second picture, showing Simon squatting near Ugo’s body. The bottom hem of his cassock has risen, showing inches of black calf socks underneath. He isn’t wearing pants under his cassock.
“Commander,” the judge says, “do you see the concern I’m raising?”
I feel a burst of relief. There’s no place for him to have hidden anything. When Simon collected his own phone and passport from his greca in the mud, this is why he carried them in his hands all the way home. He had nowhere else to put them.
Falcone continues to stare at the judge. But this time, the judge refuses to bend. The gendarme chief will have to respond.
“The concern is moot,” Falcone says finally.
“Why?”
Falcone signals one of the gendarmes at the door, who exits the courtroom and returns with a TV on a cart. “Because,” Falcone says, “of what was captured on surveillance.”
Mignatto stands. “Objection. The defense hasn’t seen this evidence yet. It was submitted only an hour ago.”
The presiding judge nods in agreement. “Sustained,” he says. “The tribunal will recess for—”
But he freezes midsentence, staring at something behind me.
I turn. In the first row of chairs, Archbishop Nowak has risen to his feet. In his slow, quiet voice he says, “Let this be shown.”
“Your Grace,” Mignatto says humbly. “Please.”
But Nowak says, “It is important. Let this be shown.”
The gendarme officer feeds a disc into the machine. For a moment there’s no sound in the courtroom except the disc’s furious spinning. Then a video begins to play.
It’s grainy and soundless. Nothing in the image moves. But I recognize the landscape immediately.
“This was taken,” Falcone says, “by the security camera closest to the deceased’s car. Less than one hundred feet from where the body of the deceased was found.”
In the video, a car flits by on a road. A single tree branch sways rhythmically. Dark clouds scud in the distance. The storm is approaching. I watch with a surge of foreboding.
Suddenly a shape appears on the screen. Falcone presses a button on the remote. The image freezes.
Ugo. He’s alive. Walking left to right across the screen, just inside the gate. The sight of him jolts me. He seems so alone.
“Nogara is moving south,” Falcone says. “Away from the villa, toward his vehicle.” He points to a digital marker in the bottom right of the screen. “Please note.”
16:48. Twelve minutes to five o’clock.
I try to orient myself. Ugo is walking away from Simon and the Orthodox. As if planning to leave Castel Gandolfo in his car. This would’ve been shortly after the last time he and Simon spoke by phone.
Falcone unfreezes the footage. Ugo continues across the screen. If the playback is at real speed, he’s walking quickly. Then, at the instant Ugo leaves our field of view, Falcone points to the time again. Still twelve of five.
Now he fast-forwards. Tree branches wave wildly. Drifting leaves race.
“Watch,” he says as the footage returns to normal speed.
A new shape enters the frame. Much larger than Nogara. For a moment, in the fading light, it’s only a silhouette. But everyone in this room can identify him.
“Ten minutes before five o’clock,” Falcone says.
Simon is running after Ugo. In mere seconds, he’s gone.
Falcone freezes the footage. Mignatto, without even looking at the legal pad, writes a note in giant letters.
TWO MINUTES.
The total time that separates Ugo and Simon in this footage.
Falcone returns to his notes. “The following,” he says, “is from our incident report. I quote. Bracco: Father, when you found Doctor No-gara, what condition was he in? Andreou: Not moving. Bracco: Shot? Andreou: Yes. Bracco: Did you see or hear anything before you arrived? Andreou: No. Nothing.”
Falcone looks up. He points to the screen. He doesn’t say a word.
Simon lied to the police.
* * *
THE JUDGES PLAY THE footage again. Then a third time. Mignatto insists on it. He wants to hear it with sound. Without fast-forwarding. He wants to see the footage immediately before and immediately after. Maybe he thinks this will dull the judges’ shock. Anesthetize them with the repetition. But they see the truth: the defense is groping. Buying time until Mignatto recovers enough to think of something better. As I look at him, I see myself. A flailing man just trying not to drown.
Each loop of the video adds something new. Something worse. Once the sound is turned up, the gunshot becomes audible. Simon undoubtedly heard it. It’s all here. Cardinal Boia knew this video was his trump card.
“Monsignors,” Mignatto says in a trance, “may we see the film just one more time?”
The presiding judge says, “No. We’ve seen it enough.”
“But Monsignor—”
“No.”
To the judges’ surprise, Mignatto turns directly to Falcone. In a thin voice he says, “Commander, explain what you think happened after Father Andreou passed by.”
The old judge barks, “Monsignor! You will be seated!”
But the lead judge waves his colleague off.
Mignatto continues, “Are you suggesting Father Andreou followed Nogara to his car? Then broke the window to get the gun and kill him?”
Falcone sits impassive. He doesn’t answer questions from lawyers.
“Inspector,” says the lead judge, “you may respond.”
Falcone clears his throat. “Father Andreou knew Nogara owned a weapon. He knew where it was located. It is reasonable to—”
Mignatto cuts in, waving a hand in the air. “No. That’s an assumption. You assume Father Andreou knew about the weapon. But this is extremely important, Inspector. This man’s priesthood is at stake. If Father Andreou didn’t know Nogara owned a gun, then he surely couldn’t have seen a gun case underneath a car seat. And he wouldn’t have broken a window to remove what he didn’t know existed. So please be clear. You’re making an assumption.”
Without the slightest change in tone, Falcone says, “I am not. A Swiss Guard has admitted to providing advice to Nogara about the model of weapon and gun case he should buy. It was Father Andreou who solicited this advice.”
I feel bolted to my seat. I know which Swiss Guard Simon would’ve asked fo
r this advice.
Mignatto fumbles forward. “Nevertheless, the issue—the issue is the sequence of events: you’re suggesting that Father Andreou broke the window, then removed the gun, then finally shot Doctor Nogara?”
“Correct.”
Mignatto’s hand is shaking as he says, “Then, Monsignors, I insist that you play the video again. But this time, instead of watching it, please close your eyes.”
* * *
THERE IS A SOUND. Late in the footage, I hear a muted noise, different from the deep report of the gunshot. A tinselly pop. I can’t tell what it is. It could be the far-off squeal of car brakes on the public road. The rattle of something hitting one of the chain-link border fences. But with my eyes closed, what it most resembles is glass breaking.
Instantly I understand Mignatto’s point. If this is the car window being shattered, then the order of sounds is wrong. Gunshot. Then glass breaking.
Mignatto asks Falcone to stop the tape. The silence in the courtroom swells with uncertainty.
The old judge croaks, “What does this mean, Monsignor?”
All eyes are on Mignatto.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“The sound could be anything,” the judge snipes.
“Including,” Mignatto says with feeling, “evidence of Father Andreou’s innocence.”
Falcone grunts dismissively. “The evidence is clear.”
Yet he stands corrected.
“No,” Archbishop Nowak says softly. “It is not.”
Mignatto checks his watch and says, “Monsignors, I request a recess.”
“Why?” the presiding judge asks.
“Because it’s getting late, and our next witness may be unable to testify since the exhibit begins shortly.”
There is a logic here that I don’t understand but that the tribunal does. The judges nod their assent.
“Fifteen minutes,” their leader says.
Mignatto gets up from the table and begins to walk to the door, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “We need to talk,” I whisper urgently, “about Ugo’s letter.”
He is ashen. I can feel his arm shaking.
“No,” he says. “Everything else will have to wait.”
* * *
I FOLLOW HIM INTO the hallway and find Uncle Lucio there. Instead of asking about the proceedings, Lucio begins to guide Mignatto away.
“Uncle,” I say, sensing my opportunity, “I need to know what Simon did with the photo enlargement he took down from the exhibit. You were there when he—”
Lucio cuts me off. “I don’t know anything about that, Alexander. Now leave us.”
He takes Mignatto away toward an empty office. The last thing I hear before they close the door is the monsignor’s voice pleading, “Eminence, I’ve given them something to think about. One more day. Please. You have to reconsider.”
I turn and run. I have fifteen minutes. I need to find Leo.
When I get to the barracks and call him down, he emerges from the alleylike courtyard wearing jeans and a T-shirt for his favorite soccer team, Grasshopper Club Zürich. He’s holding playing cards.
I try to control myself. To keep my voice low. “Why didn’t you tell me Simon came to you about Nogara’s gun?”
He throws his hands on his head.
“Tell me everything,” I say. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Alex, it wasn’t me. It was Roger. You know I wouldn’t—”
I raise my voice. “Ten minutes! Tell me about the gun.”
He rubs at his forearm. “Follow me,” he says.
We enter the cool shadows of the courtyard. Sitting around a picnic table are the other men in the card game, some half-dressed in their rainbow uniforms, their multicolored ribbons stripped off like overalls.
To one of them, Leo says, “Roger, a minute.”
The man he’s speaking to is a giant with a skull like a pipe stem. His huge hands conceal the playing cards entirely.
“Busy,” he says.
I step forward. “Roger, I’m Father Andreou.”
The man turns. Immediately his cards go facedown on the table. He stands up. Respect for the priesthood is ingrained in these men. “Father,” he says, “how can I help you?”
The words are Italian, but the accent is German.
“He needs to see your travel case,” Leo says.
Just for a second, the other men at the table glance up.
Roger looks searchingly at Leo, not liking this request.
“Rog, just do it,” Leo says.
The behemoth grunts and pulls his straps over his shoulders.
We follow him toward the turret of the Vatican Bank, to a sliver of land the Swiss use as temporary parking on nights when they want to drive into Rome. The car here, a steel-colored Ford Escort designed for a smaller race of men, is Roger’s. He kneels down on the cobblestones and reaches into the driver-side foot well. I hear clicking, then a silky zipping noise. Roger rises again to his full height. Without a word, he turns and hands the case to Leo.
It’s a black rubber clamshell, rectangular with rounded edges, barely big enough to hold three packs of playing cards side by side. When Leo passes it to me, I’m surprised by its heft. Beneath the layer of rubber is a solid metal frame. Inside is something very dense.
“Simon came to me,” Leo begins hesitantly. “He said Nogara had illegally bought a gun in Turkey because he’d been threatened.”
“How could you not mention this to me?”
“Hear me out. It was a shotgun. Simon begged me to get it out of his hands, so I told Nogara what he really wanted was a nice subcompact, this peashooter Beretta I knew wouldn’t blow his leg off by accident. We got it registered. I swear to you, we took the maximum time with every step, trying to keep it out of his hands as long as possible. Then Simon asked me for a safe way to carry it, a gun case Nogara would have a hard time opening when he was drunk. Those were his words. That’s when I handed him over to Roger.”
He gives the clamshell back to his partner. “Rog, show him how it works.”
“Leo . . .” I say, wondering how he could’ve sat beside me in the Casa, listening to everything I said about Ugo’s death, without mentioning this. How he could’ve kept this to himself even if Simon told him to keep it quiet.
But his eyes are begging me to wait. Begging me not to ask in front of his fellow soldier.
Grudgingly Roger points to numbered cylinders built into the front of the case. “Combination lock,” he says.
Then he turns the clamshell around and points to a reinforced steel tube running along the back. “For the chain,” he adds.
“What chain?”
He points down toward the foot well. There, beneath the splitting upholstery of his seat cushion, are the metal sleds that hold the seat to the car frame. Wrapped around them is a sleek black cable thinner than a bicycle chain. It has its own lock, opened by a key.
“The cable ties the case to the seat,” Leo says.
Roger demonstrates by chaining it back in place.
“The key removes the chain,” Leo says. “But the only way to open the case is with the combination. And if you’re not opening it regularly, it’s easy to forget the combo. Especially after you’ve had a few drinks.”
I study the dimensions. “You’re sure a 6.35-millimeter gun would fit in here?”
Roger snorts.
“Our service piece,” Leo says, “is a nine millimeter. Which fits snug in that model. I happen to know it’s the same case Simon bought for Nogara.”
I lower my voice. “So let’s say a stranger didn’t have the combination. How could he pry this open?”
Roger smiles. “Try it, Father.”
I make a halfhearted attempt to pry it open with my fingers, knowing this is what he wants to see. The
n I draw my Casa key from my cassock. I force the edge of the metal fob into the narrow channel between the clamshell’s lips. It fits perfectly, but the case doesn’t budge. When I press the metal sharply downward, the fob begins to whiten and bend. It would break exactly like the piece I found under Ugo’s seat.
“Without the combination,” Roger says, “it’s impossible.”
So this is another oddity about Ugo’s death. Ugo was killed by a weapon that—according to the chipped metal on the floor—was never successfully removed from its case.
Leo signals to Roger that his help is no longer needed. The giant locks up his car and lumbers off.
“Listen,” Leo whispers, “I’m sorry. I told myself—I was sure—it wasn’t this gun that killed him. Alex, you’ve got to understand. That caliber is almost the weakest there is. That’s the whole reason I recommended it. And someone would need a crowbar to open Roger’s model of gun case without the combo. Nobody could’ve done that. I still don’t believe it.”
I recognize his tone of voice. He isn’t telling. He’s confessing.
“Simon and I were trying to save his life,” he says, “by getting him that gun.”
I can’t stomach this right now. “Did Simon know the combination?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He hesitates, then repeats, “Alex, I’m sorry.”
But time is running out. The court’s recess ends in three minutes.
“You should’ve told me,” I say. “But what happened to Ugo wasn’t your fault.”
I GET BACK TO the courtroom just as the gendarmes begin to close the doors. At the defense table, Mignatto hasn’t unpacked his briefcase. There’s no legal pad or pen between us. He stares blankly at the photo of John Paul on the wall.
The witness table is empty. The TV cart is gone. Inspector Falcone must be needed elsewhere; security for the exhibit will be tight. When I ask Mignatto if we’re finished for the day, he continues peering at John Paul and says, “We’ll know soon enough.”
The doors open to admit Archbishop Nowak. For a second I wonder if he’s our final witness. But instead he takes his usual seat.
I wonder why he’s here. Why, with Simon under arrest in John Paul’s own apartments, he bothers to come at all, hanging on the words of witnesses who don’t know what happened any better than he does. Simon must still be refusing to talk. John Paul could’ve stopped this trial with a word—could’ve prevented it from ever beginning—but in two hours the Orthodox will be standing in the museums, waiting to see what Ugo discovered, and the Holy Father needs answers. If that’s our timetable, then this final witness is our last chance.
