Day of Confession Part 34

"Who is it?" Harry came into the hallway behind her. Elena followed.

Veronique looked up.

"Someone to see your brother," she said quietly, then went to the door and opened it.

"Who knows he's even here?"

Harry could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. One person, maybe two. A man, the step was too heavy for a woman. Who was it? The blond man? A trick, set up by the Bellagio priests. Give the killer clear operating room away from Roscani's people. Or maybe they had made a deal with the Swiss police, and it was a detective coming up to check things out. Why not?-the priests were poor, and there was still a considerable reward for their arrest. Maybe the clergymen couldn't take the money, but Veronique certainly could, easily funneling a share back to them.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Elena, nodding toward the upper floor. In an instant she had slipped past him, going up the stairs to where Danny was.

The footsteps were louder. Whoever it was had climbed almost to the top of the stairs. Harry started past Veronique to close the door and lock it.

"It's all right." Veronique stopped him.

Then, whoever it was was there, almost to the top. One man, alone, mostly in shadow. Not the blond man-someone else, taller, dressed in jeans and a light sweater. Then he stepped through the door. And Harry saw the dark curly hair, the familiar black eyes behind black-rimmed gla.s.ses.

Father Bardoni.

110.

REVEREND MOTHER CARMELA FENTI WAS sixty-three and pet.i.te. Her eyes sparkled and she was full of humor, and yet, at the same time, filled with deep concern. Sitting in her cramped, austere office on the second floor of the Hospital of St. Bernardine in Siena, she poured that concern out to Roscani, the same as she had earlier to the Siena police; telling him that early in the evening of Monday, July 6, she'd received a call from Sister Maria Cupini, Administrator of the Franciscan Hospital St. Cecelia in Pescara, telling of an Irishman with no apparent kin who had been injured in an auto accident. He had suffered a severe concussion, burns, and other serious trauma. Sister Cupini was short of staff. Could Mother Fenti help?

Yes, and she had. And that was all Mother Fenti knew until the police had come to talk with her. It was not her practice to keep in touch with her charges when they were sent to other hospitals.

ROSCANI: Do you know Sister Cupini personally?

MOTHER FENTI: No. No.

ROSCANI: Mother Fenti [Roscani paused, studying the administrator, then went on], Sister Cupini told the police in Pescara that she never made the call. She also said, and hospital records bear her out, that she knew of no such victim admitted to Hospital St. Cecelia during that time. She did concede, however, that an unnamed male patient had been admitted without her knowledge and stayed for approximately seventy-two hours, cared for by his own medical attendants. Quite conveniently, no one seems to know who admitted him or how the admission was arranged. Mother Fenti [Roscani paused, studying the administrator, then went on], Sister Cupini told the police in Pescara that she never made the call. She also said, and hospital records bear her out, that she knew of no such victim admitted to Hospital St. Cecelia during that time. She did concede, however, that an unnamed male patient had been admitted without her knowledge and stayed for approximately seventy-two hours, cared for by his own medical attendants. Quite conveniently, no one seems to know who admitted him or how the admission was arranged.

MOTHER FENTI: Ispettore Capo, I know nothing of the practices or operation of St. Cecelia's. I know only what I was told and led to believe. Ispettore Capo, I know nothing of the practices or operation of St. Cecelia's. I know only what I was told and led to believe.

ROSCANI: Let me add that the Pescara police have no record of a serious automobile accident occurring at any point during that time period.

MOTHER FENTI: I only know what I was told by a Franciscan sister and led to believe. [Mother Fenti opened a drawer and took out a worn ledger. Turning several pages, she found what she wanted and pushed the book across to Roscani.] These are my own handwritten telephone records. There [she pointed a finger at mid-page] you will see that the call came to me on July sixth at seven-ten P.M P.M. and ended at seven-sixteen. The caller's name and position is listed at the far right. Sister Maria Cupini. Administrator, Hospital St. Cecelia, Pescara. It was written in pen as you can see. Nothing has been changed.

Roscani nodded. He had already seen telephone company records doc.u.menting the same information.

MOTHER FENTI: If the woman I spoke with was not Sister Cupini, why did she say she was? If the woman I spoke with was not Sister Cupini, why did she say she was?

ROSCANI: Because someone who understood the procedure was trying to find a private nurse to care for the fugitive priest, Father Daniel Addison. A nurse who turned out to be your Sister Elena Voso.

MOTHER FENTI: If that is true, Ispettore Capo, where is she? What has happened to her?

ROSCANI: I don't know. I was hoping you did.

MOTHER FENTI: I do not.

Roscani stared for a moment and then stood and went to the door.

ROSCANI: If you don't mind, Reverend Mother, there is someone else who needs to hear what I have to say.

Roscani opened the door and nodded to someone outside. A moment later a carabiniere carabiniere appeared. With him was a proud, gray-haired man about Mother Fenti's age. He wore a brown suit and white s.h.i.+rt and tie. And though he was trying hard to look strong and impa.s.sive, it was clear he was shaken, if not afraid. appeared. With him was a proud, gray-haired man about Mother Fenti's age. He wore a brown suit and white s.h.i.+rt and tie. And though he was trying hard to look strong and impa.s.sive, it was clear he was shaken, if not afraid.

ROSCANI: Mother Fenti, this is Domenico Voso, Sister Elena's father.

MOTHER FENTI: We know each other, Ispettore Capo. Buon pomeriggio, Signore Buon pomeriggio, Signore.

Domenico Voso nodded and sat down in a chair brought forward by the carabiniere carabiniere.

ROSCANI: Reverend Mother, we have told Signore Voso what we believe has happened to his daughter. That she is somewhere now caring for Father Daniel, but that we believe she is a victim rather than an accomplice. Nonetheless, I want you both to know she is in a very dangerous circ.u.mstance. Someone is trying to kill the priest and will most likely kill anyone found with him. And this person is not only capable but extremely vicious.

Roscani looked to Domenico Voso, and as he did, his entire mood and body language changed: he became the father he was, knowing how he would feel if one of his own children were out there, the prey of Thomas Kind.

ROSCANI: We don't know where your daughter is, Signore Voso, but the killer very well might. If you know where she is, I beg of you to please tell me. For her sake...

DOMENICO VOSO: I don't know where she is. I wish with the heart of all my family that I did. [His eyes flashed to Mother Fenti, pleading.]

MOTHER FENTI: Nor do I, Domenico. I have already said so to the ispettore capo ispettore capo. [She looked to Roscani.] If I hear, if either of us hears, you will be the first to know. [Now she stood.] I thank you for coming.

MOTHER FENTI KNEW where Elena Voso was. Domenico Voso did not. That was how Roscani felt as he sat at a desk in a back room of carabinieri carabinieri headquarters in Siena twenty minutes later. She knew. And she denied it. Never mind that a father's heart was torn out. headquarters in Siena twenty minutes later. She knew. And she denied it. Never mind that a father's heart was torn out.

Amiable and sparkly-eyed as she was, at heart she was a tough and very savvy old bird, strong enough to let Elena Voso be killed to protect whomever she was answering to. And she was answering to someone, because as prominent a figure as she was, by no means was she powerful enough to be doing this on her own. A mother general in Siena did not flaunt her authority in both the faces of the Catholic Church and the nation of Italy.

And even though he was certain the anonymous patient admitted to the hospital in Pescara had to have been Father Daniel, he knew Sister Cupini would stand by her claim of not knowing about it because it was the story Mother Fenti had invented for her. Clearly it was Mother Fenti who was running things here. And she would not give in. What he had to do, and quickly, was find a way around her.

Sitting back, Roscani took a sip of cold coffee. As he did, a way, or, rather, a conceivable way, came to him.

111.

EuroCity Train #55. 4:20 P.M P.M.

JULIA LOUISE PHELPS SMILED LIGHTLY AT the man in the first-cla.s.s seat across from her, then turned to the window and watched the rural land ease to cityscape. In a matter of a few miles, open land became apartment buildings, warehouses, factories. In fifteen minutes Julia Phelps, or rather Thomas Kind, would be in Rome. Then, a taxi from the station to the Majestic Hotel on Via Veneto. And then, a few minutes later, another. Taken across the Tiber to the Amalia, the former pensione pensione on Via Germanico-which was small, homey, and discreet. And comfortably close to the Vatican. on Via Germanico-which was small, homey, and discreet. And comfortably close to the Vatican.

Only one part of the trip from Bellagio to Rome had been troublesome-the killing of the young designer he'd met on the hydrofoil and coaxed into giving him a ride to Milan when he'd learned the man had a car in Como and was driving there. What should have been a short, simple late-night automobile trip suddenly turned onerous when the young man began making jokes about the seeming impotence of the police and their inability to catch the fugitives. He'd looked at Thomas Kind too seriously, studying his large hat, his clothing, his overdone makeup that covered the scratches on his face, then half playfully suggesting that one of the fugitives could be dressed just like him, pretending to be a woman. A killer who could slip away unnoticed, right under the noses of the police.

In times past, this was something Thomas Kind probably would have let go. But not in the mental state he was in now. That the designer could be a dangerous witness had been almost irrelevant; the thing that had jumped out foremost was the uncontrollable urge for killing that the suggestion of danger had aroused in him. And the intensely erotic gratification that went with it.

This sensation, which had once been vague and all but unnoticeable, had grown markedly in the last weeks; beginning with the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome and increasing in pa.s.sion and fervor with his acts in Pescara and Bellagio and then inside the grotto. How many had it been?-seven killed, within hours? One on top of the other on top of the other.

And now, here on this train entering Rome, he was desperately hungering for more. His emotions, his entire being, suddenly and intractably pulled toward the man in the first-cla.s.s seat across from him. The man was smiling, flirting, but doing absolutely nothing nothing that was in any way threatening. that was in any way threatening.

My G.o.d, he had to stop it!

Abruptly he looked away and back out the train's window. He was ill. Terribly, mentally ill. Maybe even insane. But he was Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind. Who the h.e.l.l could he talk to? Where on G.o.d's earth could he go for help where they wouldn't catch him and throw him into prison? Or, worse, see his weakness and shun him for the rest of his life.

"Roma Termini"-the metallic voice crackled over the speaker system. The train slowed as it came into the station, and people stood to collect their luggage from the overhead racks. Julia Louise Phelps didn't have the chance to take hers down; the man she had smiled at did it for her.

"Thank you," Thomas Kind said in an American accent and sounding singularly feminine.

"Prego, "the man replied.

And then the train stopped, and they departed. One more smile between them. Each going his own way.

112.

Lugano, Switzerland. Same time.

HARRY KNOCKED ON THE BEDROOM DOOR, then opened it, and he and Elena went in. Danny was alone, sitting on the edge of the bed intently watching the small television that sat on an antique table nearby.

"Where is Father Bardoni?" Harry asked. It had been more than two hours since the priest had gone upstairs to talk with Danny. Finally Harry had had enough of waiting. He would talk to Father Bardoni himself.

"He's gone," Danny said, still preoccupied with the television.

"Where?"

"Back to Rome."

"He came all the way from Rome and then left. Just like that?"

Danny said nothing. Just continued to watch the TV. The pictures on it were being broadcast live from China. It was night now in Hefei, and there was an eerie silence. Media reporters were saying nothing, only watching. As were the armed soldiers in goggles, masks, and protective clothing who kept them behind barricades. In the distance two separate but distinct red-orange glows were clearly visible against the black sky. Words were not needed. Closer shots, unimaginable. With rescue workers overwhelmed, ma.s.s burning of corpses had been ordered to prevent the spread of disease. In the lower right-hand corner of the screen was a muted graphic.

Last official death toll: 77,606 "My G.o.d... ," Danny breathed. This was the first he knew about what had happened in China. He'd come on it by accident after Father Bardoni had left and he'd switched on the TV, looking for news about the police search for Harry and himself.

"Danny-?" Harry was behind him, prodding him.

Suddenly, Danny picked the remote from the edge of the bed and pointed it at the TV.

CLICK.

The screen went dark.

Danny looked to Harry, and then to Elena. "Would you leave us, please, Sister," he said quietly in Italian.

"Of course, Father..." Elena glanced briefly at Harry and then left.

As the latch clicked into place, Danny looked to his brother.

"Cardinal Marsciano is ill. I have to go back to Rome.... I need your help."

"Rome?" Harry was incredulous.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I just told you."

"No, all you said was that Cardinal Marsciano was ill, you didn't tell me anything." Harry glared at his brother. Instantly they were back to the conversation they'd had earlier when Danny shut down completely.

"I said before that I can't talk about it..."

"Okay, you can't. Let's try something else.... How did Father Bardoni know you were here?"

"Sister Elena's mother general..."

"All right. Go on."

"Go on about what?" Danny asked flatly. "I have have to get to Rome, that's all.... I can't walk. Can't even go to the bathroom without help..." to get to Rome, that's all.... I can't walk. Can't even go to the bathroom without help..."

"Then why didn't you go with Father Bardoni?"

"He had to get back. He was taking a plane from Milan.... I could hardly be seen in an airport, could I, Harry?"

Harry ran a hand across his mouth. Danny was not only lucid, he was determined.

"Danny, our pictures are all over television. In every newspaper. How far into Italy do you think we'd get?"

"We got here, we can get there."

Harry studied his brother, trying to find the answer he wasn't getting. "A little while ago you warned me to leave here before I got killed. Now you're asking me to jump right back into the furnace. What changed it?"

"A little while ago I didn't know the situation."

"What is is the situation?" the situation?"

Danny said nothing.

Harry kept on. "Inside the Vatican. What the h.e.l.l is all this about?"

Still Danny said nothing.

"Marsciano wanted me and everybody else to believe you were dead." Harry kept pus.h.i.+ng. "He was protecting you.... He said, 'They will kill you both. Your brother for what he knows. You, because they will believe he has told you.' Now you can add Elena to that.... If you want me to put my life and yours and hers on the line, then you can f.u.c.king well tell me the rest."

"I can't..." Danny's voice was barely a whisper.

"Give me a reason." Harry was hard, even brutal, determined to get an answer.

"I-" Danny hesitated.