Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [69]
On the other hand Eaton had been right, the police were looking for Danny. And Danny was an American priest. A priest who spoke English with an American dialect would be a natural suspect. People would look at him and wonder if, despite the beard, the face wasn’t familiar. And don’t forget the reward. A hundred million lire. Some sixty thousand U.S. dollars. Who wouldn’t risk a little embarrassment by taking a chance and calling the police, even if it turned out to be the wrong person?
Moreover, what did he know about the priesthood? What if another clergyman engaged him in talk? What if someone asked him for help? Still, the decision had been made, the photos taken, with Eaton certain to give him a background along with his papers.
A priest.
Outside, Harry heard the sounds of Rome at night. Via di Montoro was a side street and a great deal quieter than the din outside his hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. But still the noise was there. Traffic. The incessant putt of motor scooters. People walking by outside.
Little by little it all became background, drifting into a distant symphony of nothingness. The shower, the clean bed, the whole of the ordeal carried Harry toward sleep, gently forcing him to accept his true exhaustion. Perhaps that was why he had chosen to stay a priest. Simply because it was easy. And because it had worked. And not at all for another reason… that he wished in some curious way to understand who Danny really was. To do as Hercules had offhandedly suggested. To, for a while at least, become his brother.
Closing his eyes, he began to drift off. As he did, he saw the Christmas card once more: the decorated tree behind the posed faces smiling from under Santa Claus hats—his mother and father, himself, Madeline, and Danny.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Addisons”
Then the vision faded, and in the dark he heard Pio’s voice. It whispered again the thing he had said in the car on the way back to Rome—“You know what I would be thinking if I were you…. Is my brother still alive? And if he is, where is he?”
MARSCIANO WAS ALONE in his library, his desktop computer dark. The books, which filled every open space floor to ceiling, seemed, in his mood, little more than decorations. The only illumination was from a halogen lamp sitting near the back of his wooden desk. On top of it, and in the lamp’s glow, was the envelope that had been delivered to him in Geneva in the package marked URGENTE. The same envelope he had brought back with him on the train. Inside it was the audio-cassette he had heard that once but never played again. Why he wanted to hear it now, he didn’t know. But he was drawn to it nonetheless.
Opening a drawer, he set a palm-sized tape player on the desk, then opened the envelope and slid the cassette into it. For a moment he hesitated, then deliberately he pressed the PLAY button. There was a dull whirring as the tape came to speed. Then he heard the voice, hushed but perfectly clear.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.”
Then came the other voice: “Amen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the other voice continued. “It has been many days since my last confession. These are my sins—”
Abruptly Marsciano’s thumb pushed the STOP button and he sat there, unable to go on, to hear any more.
A confession had been recorded without the knowledge of either the penitent or the priest. The penitent, the confessor, was himself. The priest, Father Daniel.
Filled with horror and revulsion, pushed to the darkest edges of his soul by Palestrina, he had turned to the only place he could. Father Daniel was not only an honorable co-worker and as devoted a friend as he had had in his life, he was a. priest given to God, and whatever was said would be protected by the Seal of Confession and would