Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [13]
“You were told there is evidence of a second person in the room. And that we believe it was that second person and not Valera who killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was a Communist agitator, but there is no evidence he ever fired a gun. I remind you your brother was a decorated marksman trained by the military.”
“That’s a fact, not a connection.”
“I’m not finished, Mr. Addison…. The murder weapon, the Sako TRG 21, normally takes a .308 Winchester cartridge. In this case it was loaded with American-made Hornady 150-grain spire-point bullets. They are bought primarily at specialty gun shops and used for hunting…. Three were taken from Cardinal Parma’s body…. The rifle’s magazine holds ten rounds. The remaining seven were still there.”
“So?”
“Valera’s personal phone directory was what sent us to your brother’s apartment. He wasn’t there. Obviously he had gone to Assisi, but we didn’t know that. Because of Valera’s directory we were able to get a warrant to search…”
Harry listened, saying nothing.
“A standard cartridge box holds twenty rounds of ammunition…. A cartridge box containing ten Hornady 150-grain spire points was found inside a locked drawer in your brother’s apartment. With it was a second magazine for the same rifle.”
Harry felt the wind go out of him. He wanted to respond, to say something in Danny’s defense. He couldn’t.
“There was also a cash receipt for one million seven hundred thousand lire—just over one thousand U.S. dollars, Mr. Addison. The amount Valera paid in cash to rent the apartment. The receipt had Valera’s signature. The handwriting was the same as that on the telephone list you have there.
“Circumstantial evidence. Yes, it is. And if your brother were alive, we could ask him about it and give him the opportunity to disprove it.” Anger and passion crept into Pio’s voice. “We could also ask him why he did what he did. And who else was involved. And if he had been trying to kill the pope…. Obviously we can’t do any of that….” Pio sat back, fingering his glass of mineral water, and Harry could see the emotion slowly fade.
“Maybe we will find out we were wrong. But I don’t think so…. I’ve been around a long time, Mr. Addison, and this is about as close to the truth as you get. Especially when your prime suspect is dead.”
Harry’s gaze shifted off, and the room became a blur. Until now he had been certain they were mistaken, that they had the wrong man, but this changed everything.
“What about the bus…?” He looked back, his voice barely a whisper.
“Whatever Communist faction was behind Parma’s murder, killing one of their own to shut him up?… The Mafia doing something else entirely?… A disgruntled bus company employee with access to, and knowledge of, explosives?… We don’t know, Mr. Addison. As I said, the bombing of the bus and the cardinal’s murder are separate investigations.”
“When will all this be made public?”
“Probably not while the investigation continues. After that we will, in all likelihood, defer to the Vatican.”
Harry folded his hands in front of him and stared at the table. Emotions flooded. It was like being told you had an incurable disease. Disbelief and denial made no difference, the X rays, MRIs, and CT scans stared back from the wall just the same.
Yet, for all of that—for all the evidence the police had presented, one solid piece stacked upon the another, they still had no absolute proof, as Pio had admitted. Moreover, no matter what he had told them about the substance of Danny’s phone message, only he had heard Danny’s voice. The fear and the anguish and the desperation. It was not the voice of a murderer crying out for mercy to the last bastion he knew, but of someone trapped in a terrible circumstance he could not escape.
For some reason, and he didn’t know why, Harry felt closer to Danny now than he had since they were boys. Maybe it was because his brother had finally reached out to him. And maybe that was more important to Harry than he knew, because the realization of it had come not as