“I won’t deny it. But everything happened just as I said, Inspector. I, too, often think back on it and have trouble making any logical sense of it. At any rate, it often happened that before crossing the border, people would have to wait a while, sometimes even a few days, hiding out in the area while waiting for the right moment to cross. My father never took any more risks than was necessary, neither with his men’s lives nor with his clients’. And he was an honest man, in his way, though you may find that hard to believe.”
Stefania noticed that the nun was stiffening uncomfortably, and so she changed subject.
“Of course, Mother, that’s not in question here, I didn’t mean to imply anything to the contrary. But what seemed strange to me was that your father was helping to lead to safety the very man who wanted to take away his daughter. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
“My father never turned down a good deal. And anyway, with such a move, he was getting the German out of his hair forever.”
“I don’t doubt it; but, all the same, it’s a rather strange approach.”
Sister Maria remained unruffled.
“Whatever the case, I have a final question, Mother. Do you remember whether Karl Dressler, when you saw him up the mountain, was wearing his uniform?”
“Yes, he was wearing the same one as the last time I saw him at Villa Regina.”
“And what kind of buttons did that uniform have, as you remember?” Stefania asked, taking the exhibits out of her purse.
The nun looked at the buttons for a moment.
“I don’t know anything about military uniforms, and I can’t really say whether these belonged to his. But this is the kind of button they had.”
Her tone was still resentful, even a little impatient. By this point the conversation had gone on too long, even for Stefania. But she had no choice. There was one more important question that needed to be asked, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it.
“Is this—or was this, I should say—your cottage, that is, the one where you last saw Karl Dressler?”
She laid out on the table the photographs taken of the outside of the cottage from different angles.
This time the nun studied them long and hard, one by one. She moved them around and turned them various ways, tracing invisible lines on the desktop with her finger.
“I would say yes. That is, it’s quite likely.” From her tone and expression, she seemed sincerely perplexed.
“Do you have doubts about something?”
“Too many years have passed, and I’ve never been back there since that day. My memory may be deceiving me. However, if this is the front of the cottage—since you can see the lake in the distance—and this is the side, since the pinewood gave onto the torrent, then this must necessarily be the back.”
Stefania, knowing every last detail of those photos by heart, was holding her breath as she followed the nun’s train of thought.
“There’s also the fact that this”—and Sister Maria pointed to a precise point on the photograph—“looks to me like the squared stone that we took from an old, collapsed chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary—as one used to do back then, to bless the cottage and the animals. Except for the fact that in that case the mountainside shouldn’t be right behind it like this, with all these plants. . . . But . . .”
“But?” asked Stefania.
“In that spot there was a small patch of meadow, between the cottage and the side of the mountain. It had been leveled and raised a little, made into a sort of small embankment that was then dug out underneath, to create a sort of loose stone foundation to allow the walls to breathe and make a sort of . . . How can I explain it? Do you know what a nevera is, Inspector?”
15
“You must be totally out of your mind,” said Giulio, in a fit of anger quite unusual for him.
Stefania shrugged and got ready to endure her colleague’s tantrum.
“What on earth were you thinking? You practically stole exhibits from the warehouse without authorization and subjected someone to an out-and-out interrogation even though the case had already been closed. And you weren’t even on duty when you did all this. I really don’t know what to think about you and this whole affair anymore.”
“Actually, Giulio, that nun revealed things to me that I never would have managed to find out otherwise. I thought about them the whole way back, and I would like to discuss them with you, but if you’re going to put it in those terms, I just won’t bother.”
“Well, it’s too bad that you had to violate the basic rules of professional ethics to extort all this information, since you won’t be able to use one scrap of it. Any lawyer would contest it without any problem, assuming that in the meantime you weren’t already kicked out of the police force.”
“The fact remains that now I’ve got that information, and the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place. Sooner or later I’ll be in a position to reconstruct the whole picture.”
“Provided they haven’t reassigned you to direct traffic in Lipari in the meanwhile.”
“I came here to get your thoughts on an idea I had about the whole affair, but if you’re going to carry on like this, I’ll talk about it with Carboni.”
“Just the right man! And how are you going to explain to your boss your little escapade of this afternoon? Why not just go directly to Arisi?”
“The way I see it, after what happened, Remo Cappelletti wanted to be rid of Karl Dressler, to get him out of his hair so he couldn’t tempt his daughter anymore. So the first thing he does is send his daughter far away from the villa, with the idea of actually banishing her to Switzerland. With the whole thing being done in a flurry and under the direction of the future daughter-in-law, who seems like the person best fit to make the girl forget her little soldier boy. In the meantime, however, things fall apart, the hospital is evacuated, and all those soldiers who have already cheated death once are faced again with the very real possibility of returning to the front lines. The wounded have no choice. The healthy patients and those on the mend have no desire to risk their necks again for a regime already headed for total defeat.”
“That’s likely.”
“So whoever can, tries to cut and run before it’s too late.”
“Which is easy to understand in such a situation, despite the ironclad unwritten laws of the German military code of honor.”
“But it’s not as simple as it seems. To run away alone, into the brush in a land crawling with resistance fighters and irregulars, is tantamount to suicide. At that point you’re better off being shot as a deserter by a firing squad of your own countrymen.”
“Quite a quandary, in effect.”
“But Remo Cappelletti doesn’t really care a great deal about how Karl Dressler ends up once he’s separated from his daughter. And this is where Uncle Heinrich comes in.”
“The classic X factor triggering a sudden turn of events.”
Stefania smiled in spite of herself.
“This uncle is a big cheese—he’s got money and connections. He knows Durand, who in all likelihood had already pulled strings to bring him to the safety of the Villa Regina field hospital. Their escape had probably been planned sometime before—perhaps ever since the man was able to walk again unaided. But the right moment for crossing the border came earlier than expected, and this is where Cappelletti comes onto the scene. He’s got men and means and even has a base camp near the border. The colonel, however, is fond of his young assistant and wants to bring him with him. He probably even pays to have the kid taken across. At that point Remo Cappelletti, who’s a businessman above all, must have thought: Kill two birds with one stone. He had a chance, in one fell swoop, to get his daughter’s sweetheart out of the picture and at the same time pocket a tidy sum.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson.”
“But something goes wrong at t
he last minute.”
“Namely?”
“First, Margherita disappears mere seconds before the arrival of the car that’s supposed to take her to Switzerland with her future sister-in-law—who, I should add, doesn’t seem the least bit surprised and in any case doesn’t wait a minute more than necessary before leaving the scene. What do you think Madame Durand’s behavior means?”
“It means she didn’t wait for her because she knew she wasn’t coming back. Or else she wasn’t sure if she’d be coming back and so, in her uncertainty, she didn’t want to take the risk of being left behind in Italy herself.”
“Exactly. Her fondness for Margherita wasn’t enough to make her want to risk compromising her own escape. And, in fact, by leaving, she abandoned her to her fate.”
“That’s only your surmise, however plausible. You have no proof to support it. The girl didn’t tear her hair out, it’s true, but not everyone is as sentimental as you are.”
“Fact number two: Dressler, the colonel, the other fugitives, and the smugglers head towards the border, but instead of moving briskly along as the urgency of the situation would dictate, they are slowed down by the colonel and Dressler. The first doesn’t see well and is no longer a young man, and the second keeps stumbling and falling, mostly due to the improperly healed injury to his right leg. In the end the group decides to leave them behind, in the famous hut, or cottage, promising to come back and get them the following day.”
“I’d like to see what you would do in that situation. Walking through the woods at night, not knowing where to step, and with a gimpy leg to boot. But they came back to get them, didn’t they?”
“Of course, but they came back only because they couldn’t allow themselves to abandon the colonel. Durand would never have forgiven them. If Dressler had been alone in that situation, things would have turned out differently.”
“That may even be so, but we’ll never know. There were a lot of people running around in our mountains on those nights, apparently. Those who wanted to escape were willing to take every sort of risk imaginable. For some it went well, for others, not so well.”
“So you, too, think there was somebody else running around in the mountains that night. And I don’t mean partisan fighters or secret service agents looking for high-ranking representatives of the Reich. I’m thinking of Margherita, for example.”
“I meant in general.”
“Well, where, in your opinion, was Margherita that night?”
“How should I know?”
“Just think for a minute. It seems like so many things happened, but if you calculate the time frame carefully, you’ll see that essentially everything took place over the course of a single night.”
“Well, you’re the expert on this affair.”
“And where do you think a girl of twenty-one could have gone, alone, that night?”
“Given the circumstances, I would rule out that she went dancing. But she might have been anywhere, since she knew the area so well.”
“That’s the point. Let’s suppose that Margherita, after leaving the villa, remained in some way in contact with Dressler, or that she later learned that he and the colonel were about to cross the border. Let us also suppose that in the meantime her father had already informed her of his intention to send her to Switzerland for an indeterminate amount of time.”
“Okay, let’s suppose that. What then?”
“The evacuation of the villa then forcibly speeds up the course of events. As of that moment, here’s what happens: the group of escapees heads for the border. The car with the driver sent from Switzerland comes to pick up Miss Durand. The ever efficient Maria has already established the meeting point after trying to save what could be saved inside the villa. Margherita and Germaine, in the meantime, have had a chance to meet and talk.”
“I don’t think there were many other ways to pass the time in that place.”
“Therefore Mademoiselle Durand knew that Margherita wouldn’t be coming with her to Switzerland. She knew that she would be leaving the villa that same evening and she even knew why. In spite of this, she said nothing, at least not to Maria, and then left very quickly herself. Why, in your opinion?”
“That’s what the nun told you, but there’s no guarantee that it’s true or even partly true. Just to take one example: Miss Durand would have had a chance to talk to some other people as well at that time. Let’s take Giovanni, Cappelletti’s son, for instance. Wasn’t he her fiancé? It would have been normal for them to talk about things concerning the rest of the family. And he, in turn, could have talked about it with his father, perhaps when they were in the mountains together. There can be a lot of variables in a case like this. You can’t afford to rule out any possibility. And you absolutely must not fall into the trap of giving greater weight to those that support your initial hypothesis.”
“Okay, but just listen to the rest. So the young guy—Dressler, that is—was waiting for someone. Maybe this someone was late in coming, and Dressler had no choice but to put on that whole song and dance to delay for as long as possible his flight across the border.”
“Risking his own life and that of the colonel, who among other things had vouched for him and even paid for him? That’s a laughable hypothesis, in my opinion.”
“You mustn’t think only of money. There are other things that people are willing to risk their lives for.”
“Their own lives, however—not other people’s. The colonel had no reason whatsoever to want to delay their escape. On the other side of the fence he had his family waiting for him, plus freedom, and no more war.”
“But the young man was waiting for Margherita, who was his life!”
“And what makes you so sure about that?”
“It’s just a hypothesis, but what else, when you come right down to it, could have been worth such a risk?”
“You’re not going to tell me now that you think it possible that Dressler created all that hullaballoo just so he could say good-bye one last time to his beloved! Who, among other things, if she’d turned up in the area, risked getting slapped around by her father, if I’ve understood the situation correctly.”
“But why not? Every person gives importance to whatever he or she believes in. And for Margherita, Karl at that moment was everything. And vice versa.”
Stefania sat down and stared out the window, looking discouraged.
“Come on, don’t be upset. Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“An ice cream?”
“I don’t like ice cream.”
“Caviar and champagne?”
“Go to hell, Giulio!”
“Only after you, my dear.”
“So, are you ready, Mommy? You said we’d be leaving in the afternoon and it’s already four o’clock. When are you coming home?”
“I’m leaving the office now. But are you ready yourself?”
Stefania, in fact, was still putting her desk in order and hoping that Camilla hadn’t yet finished getting her things ready. She also wanted to send one last e-mail to Montalti.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve already packed four bags and a backpack. I put them in the stall next to the bike and the skateboard. That way, when you get here we only need to load them into the car.”
“Bike, skateboard, four bags, and a backpack? Where on earth are we going to put all this stuff?”
“In the car. In back, naturally. The bike and skateboard underneath, and the bags on top, otherwise they’ll get crushed. What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem,” Stefania replied. Camilla had an infallible sense of logic for the things that interested her. “I’ll be home soon,” said Stefania.
“Soon, right. Seeing how when you usually say ‘I’ll be home right away’ . . .”
The long May 1 weekend had come at t
he right moment. Stefania was happy that Camilla could spend some time by the lake with her grandmother. It would free her up to go back and forth to Como without having to race the clock every minute of the day. The fact that she would have a little time to herself was an encouraging thought. She might even have the time to see someone, and it wouldn’t be just anyone.
She wrote quickly to Montalti.
Dear Mr. Montalti,
Thank you for your e-mail and interest. I have no significant new information for you and, to be honest, I should tell you that the prosecutor’s office has decided to shelve the investigation. But I’m not ready to throw in the towel. Villa Regina is still called Villa Regina. It’s probably changed a little since the last time you saw it, but it is still magnificent. Should you decide to come to Italy, I would like to meet you.
Shadows on the Lake Page 21