Alibi

by Joseph Kanon

  I looked at the ambulances moored on the quay. What kind of doctor had he been? There must have been a time, cramming for exams, when it had been about saving people, being on the side of the angels. Do no harm. And a few years later he could condemn someone with a nod. What had happened in between? But doctors in Germany had taken the same oath and then nodded and nodded, killing everybody. Maybe nothing had happened, just opportunity. A matter of degree. Think of him young, on the Lido, betraying my father. Or saying he did. I stared at the water. He was off there somewhere to the right. And here at the hospital, everywhere I looked. You could walk all day and never put him behind you.

  Cavallini was waiting on a chair in the downstairs hall when I got back.

  “Signor Miller, you’re out so early.”

  I stopped, hesitating. How long would every question sound like an accusation?

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Yes, it’s understandable,” he said, getting up. “Your mother, she’s very tired, I think.” Raising his eyes toward the stairs, indicating that they’d already spoken.

  “There’s news?”

  “I thought I would come myself. A courtesy. The telephone, it’s-”

  “What’s happened?”

  “A body has been found.”

  “What?” How? The rope slipping out of its knots, rocked by the tide? What if the tarp were still there, a match for the one in the water entrance? Why hadn’t I got rid of it? But then someone would have noticed.

  “You’re surprised?”

  “A body. You mean he’s dead?”

  “Yes.” He raised his eyes again. “I’ve told your mother. So at least now she knows.”

  “I’d better go up.”

  “No, she’s resting. The girl-Angelina? — is with her. Maybe now she can sleep. I was waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me?” I said, feeling a tingling along my skin.

  “Yes. I thought-I don’t like to ask your mother, but it’s a formality. We can’t reach the daughter, you see. Another early bird, perhaps. There’s no question, I think-the same description, in evening clothes-but it’s necessary for the formality.”

  “What is?”

  “To identify the body. It should be family, but you are almost a son. And it’s not good to wait. The condition of the body-he has been in the water. You don’t mind?”

  “All right,” I said, not knowing how to refuse. “You know him. Couldn’t you just-?”

  “No, no, I am police. It must be someone else. You understand, for the formalities. And now the crime report.”

  “Crime report.”

  “Yes, he was killed.”

  “How do you mean?” I said, maneuvering through this, someone who didn’t know.

  Inspector Cavallini made a smashing gesture with his hand. “A blow to the head. So they tell me. I haven’t seen the body yet. We’ll go together, to San Michele. I’ll call the Questura for a boat. Would you open the canal gate?”

  “The canal gate,” I repeated vaguely, looking toward the damp room, the steps where I’d dragged him. “Yes,” I said, catching myself, “all right. Just let me run upstairs for a second, see if she’s all right.” To get away, even for a minute. “You can phone in there.” I pointed to the room where I’d waited the other night.

  “Thank you. And for this help. I’m sorry to ask you.”

  “He was killed?” I said again, because I should be dumbfounded.

  “Yes.”

  “You mean, not by accident.”

  “No, by murder.”

  I stared at him, no longer acting, the word itself like a jolt, what it had really been.

  “You’re sure? It couldn’t be a fall?”

  “No. Not according to San Michele. Of course, I will look myself.”

  “But who-I mean, where-?”

  Inspector Cavallini shrugged. “We only know where he was found.”

  “In the water, you said.”

  “Yes, the lagoon. A fisherman, only this morning. The body was caught on a channel marker. Otherwise-” He opened his hands.

  “So he could have been put in anywhere.” Far from here.

  “Not anywhere. You know, there are channels in the lagoon, like rivers. The tides follow a path. You can see on the charts. This was the major channel from San Marco, behind San Giorgio, out to the Lido. Usually that would mean this side of Venice. But it’s more likely that a boat took him, so the murder itself could have been anywhere.”

  “A boat?” I said, my head spinning with charts and currents-this much already known, before the body had even been identified. And then they’d find out the rest.

  “Yes, because of the distance from San Marco. It’s unlikely it would float that far in a day. Well, but this is all early, a speculation. First we must see the body. To make sure.”

  My mother was sleeping, Angelica indicated with a finger to her lips, worn out by the waiting and now able to go into full retreat. I washed my face and held on to the sides of the basin until my hands were still, looking in the mirror to see what Cavallini would see. Maybe that’s what he wanted-to watch my expression when I saw the corpse, some sly police trick. The smallest thing could give you away. But this was being jumpy. Why should he suspect anything? We’d been photographed together.

  When I got back downstairs, he was already at the canal entrance, walking by the tarp, looking up at the gondola. I felt a small tremor in my hands again, then steadied myself.

  “You don’t use the gondola?” he said.

  “No.” I opened the gate, my back to him. On the canal, the rowboat was bobbing idly at its mooring post.

  “Ah, you’re an oarsman,” he said, spotting it.

  “Well, not in this weather,” I said quickly. “I haven’t been out yet. Maybe in the spring.” Why say that? What if somebody had seen? Any contradiction would be suspicious. Two things to explain.

  “It’s very fine, this one,” Cavallini said, pointing to the gondola. “Old.”

  I looked down at his foot, almost touching the tarp. “It came with the house,” I said. “Of course, the lucky thing about Venice is that you don’t really need a boat. You can walk anywhere.”

  He nodded, distracted, lifting up the edge of the tarp, used to looking over a room. “Yes, so many boats at Ca’ Maglione, and yet he chooses to walk.”

  “Maybe they were put up for the winter too,” I said, raising my eyes to the gondola.

  “No, no, all in use.” So he’d already checked. “Many boats,” he said, taking pride in it, a tour guide praising a landmark. “I’ve seen them. My wife, you see, was a cousin of his wife.”

  “Oh,” I said, not knowing what to say, what connection he felt this gave him. The endless genealogy of Venice. He was running his hand over the paving stones.

  “Yes, a very old family.”

  “Everyone in Venice seems to come from an old family,” I said, still looking at the stones. Where was the police boat?

  “Well, not all. My family, you know, were simple people. Still, Venetians, educated. But not Magliones.”

  And then he had been counting the boats in Gianni’s garage, an in-law invited for tea. I saw him for a second as he must have been-young, the curious eyes over the mustache, smiling at the long-faced girl, moving up.

  “You’re making some repairs?” he said, letting the tarp fall back.

  “The owner. We lease the house.”

  “You see those stairs?” He pointed to the water’s edge. I turned my head slowly, almost expecting to see a streak of blood. “How the sides are weak? You should make the repairs soon. In Venice-”

  “I’ll tell the owner.”

  “Yes, of course, the owner,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. “Excuse me, I forgot you would be leaving.” I looked at him blankly. “After the wedding.”

  The police launch had a motor so loud that we would have had to shout over it, so we made the trip without talking, backtracking up the Rio dei Greci to the Questura, then out pas
t Santa Giustina to the open lagoon. San Michele, the cemetery island, was the first thing you could see from this side, just across the water from the hospital-hadn’t Gianni joked about that? — the low brick mausoleums lined with dark cypresses. We were met at the dock by some of Cavallini’s men, who steered us away from the graveyard paths to the morgue. I pushed my feet one after the other, as if we were wading. There seemed to be no sounds, not even birds, a funeral quiet.

  Inside, it could have been any hospital building, white plaster and tile, except for the smell, so heavy and cloying that not even disinfectant took it away. We were led down a corridor by a man in a white coat with a clipboard. He stopped at a heavy double door and said something in Italian to Cavallini.

  “He wants to know if you’ve seen a dead body before.”

  “Yes.” How many now? Stacked in piles, left in fields by the side of the road, just left, waiting for someone to cart them away. Mouths open, limbs missing. At first you stared, shocked, and then you stopped looking. Five years ago it had been possible never to have seen the dead-a grandfather maybe, lying on a bier. Now you couldn’t count how many.

  “You know, for some it’s difficult.”

  We paused just inside the door, stopped by the cold. The body was on a gurney, covered with a sheet. His feet were sticking out, not tagged as they were in the movies, just naked and exposed. What would he look like after a day in the water? Eyes still open, staring at me? But it was Cavallini’s eyes that would be open, watching every move. Just walk over to the table. Now.

  An attendant pulled back the sheet, drawing it down, and for a terrible second I thought he would keep going, until we saw all of him, his genitals, like an unwelcome glimpse in the shower, without a towel. They had removed his clothes, so there was only skin, pasty and bloated from the water, the hair on his chest matted like bits of seaweed. Someone had closed his eyes, or maybe it was part of the general swelling, the puffy blur of a face, not peaceful, just inert. Pale lips. That gray that only the dead have, not even a color, a warning not to touch. I took a shallow breath, trying to ignore the chemical smell in the room. Gray, awful skin, pouching at the sides.

  “You can identify him?” Cavallini said.

  I nodded.

  “You must say, for the record. This is Giancarlo Maglione?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you must sign a statement.”

  But for a second I couldn’t move. I stared at the body, not Gianni anymore, just a body, utterly still, separate now, something left behind, like molted skin. We always forget what it means, becoming nothing. How long had it taken? A minute, two, water displacing air, and now irretrievable. How did the workers here stand it, day after day, seeing the gray bodies, the terrible reminders? All that we left. The frightened Egyptians thought we’d come back for our bodies if we kept them ready, with pots of barley and hunting scenes painted on walls.

  “Signor Miller?” Cavallini said, touching my elbow.

  But we never come back. This was all there was, gray skin and fluids to drain. I’d taken the rest. And then gone to a party. But hadn’t he done the same? How many times? Except he never had to see them afterward.

  “Signor?” the doctor said.

  “Yes,” I said, raising my head. “It’s Gianni.”

  “You would sign over here?”

  He was leading me away, signaling to the attendant to cover Gianni’s face. We went over to a desk, where he handed me a clipboard and a pen. A long form, as elaborate and unwieldy as lira notes.

  “Now what?” I said to Cavallini as I signed.

  “Now they make the autopsy. For the cause of death.”

  “I thought he was hit on the head.”

  “Another formality. In the case of a crime. To be precise, you know, it wasn’t this,” he said, tapping the back of his head. “The doctor says drowning. But now he has to say officially.”

  “Drowning? Why would he say that?”

  “The water in the lungs. If he had already been dead-”

  “You mean someone put him into the lagoon alive?” I said, appalled, forgetting the bubbles now, imagining him struggling in the tarp, fighting his way out.

  “They may have thought he was already dead. You know, basta.” He hit his palm with his fist, a hard smack. “Then in the lagoon. But it was the water that killed him. Of course, to the law it will make no difference. Are you all right?”

  “Maybe a little air,” I said.

  Outside, warmer than in the morgue, I lit a cigarette. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually squeamish. It’s different when it’s somebody you know.”

  “Yes, it’s not pleasant for you, I know. Still, a great service to me.”

  “Anybody could have-”

  “Yes, but since it’s you, now there can be no question about an investigation.”

  I looked at him, trying to make this out.

  “No question of an accident,” he said, taking out a cigarette of his own.

  “But it wasn’t. You said.”

  “No. You saw the skull in the back? Not a fall. But how much better for everyone if it had been. So, maybe a temptation.”

  “To whom?”

  He shrugged. “Poor Venice. The war, finally it’s over, and they start coming back. The visitors. Not soldiers-your mother, her friends. It’s good for Venice. You look at the buildings and we-well, maybe we look at you a little. But no one comes if they’re afraid, if there is crime. A murder? Not in Venice. But now look who identifies the body-one of the visitors. Who sees it’s not an accident. So I have my investigation.”

  I drew on my cigarette, my stomach sliding again.

  “But surely you would have-”

  “Yes, but now I can be certain. Something that involves the international community? The Questura will want to act. To solve it. Men, whatever I need. And we will solve it.”

  “I hope so.”

  Cavallini reached over, reassuring, and patted my arm. “We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

  I nodded, feeling the weight of his hand.

  “I know it’s a loss for you. But you’ll help me.”

  “Me?”

  “You knew his character. With a Maglione, sometimes it’s easier for foreigners than for our Venetian families.”

  “But I hardly knew him. I mean, your wife must have-”

  “No. A blood tie only, not a friendship. But you, your mother-” He let it drift, waiting for me to pick it up.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “We’ll do anything we can. Of course.” I paused. “Do you have any idea who-”

  He withdrew his hand, shaking his head. “No, it’s early for that. First we get the facts, from in there.” He jerked his head toward the morgue. “Then we look at the life. Who profits?”

  “You think it’s someone who knew him? Why not a robbery?”

  He smiled. “A hit on the head, grab the wallet, push him in the canal? But he still had the wallet. Also his watch. What thief leaves a watch? No, some other reason. So, who profits? You see how lucky I am to have you.”

  “Me?”

  “In a murder you look at everyone. Him? Him? What motive? Who profits? But with you, it’s the opposite. No profit, a great loss. After the wedding, perhaps, I would have had to suspect you too. But now you are the only man in Venice I can’t suspect.”

  A trap? Another step through the looking glass? “Why not?” I said quietly.

  “Why not? Who throws away a fortune? He would have been your father.”

  “Yes,” I said, waiting, my voice neutral.

  “Your father,” Cavallini repeated. “One of the richest men in all of Italy.”

  I looked at him, then caught myself and turned to the water before he could see my face.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gianni’s funeral service was held at the Salute, so close to Mimi’s that it seemed a grimmer version of the ball, with the same crowding at the landing stage, people being helped up the broad steps, all in black this time, with hats and veil
s. The waiting gondolas stretched up the Grand Canal, as in a Canaletto, filling up the canvas, all of Mimi’s guests and more, enough for a state occasion. When the funeral boats arrived, a cortege of bobbing hearses, people lingered on the church steps to stare at the coffin, draped with flowers. We had become part of a news story: a violent death, an old family, the foreigners who drank at Harry’s. Across the campo, people watched from windows.

  Claudia hadn’t wanted to go.

  “I can’t. You go.

  I’ll stay here,” she said, gesturing at the rumpled bed.

  We were always together now, a kind of hiding, making love in her room, wanting each other even more because no one else was part of the secret, a new intimacy. Sometimes we went out for walks and talked about it, the only ones who knew, but mostly we stayed in, sex another way of talking, something else we could say only to each other. When she held me afterward, her fingers would move over my shoulder, making sure I was still there, and I would put my arm around her as if I were folding her up in a cape, making the world go away, both of us safe.

  “No. We want them to see us.”

  “How can I sit there? What will people think?”

  “That you’re part of the family. Cavallini already thinks it. He thinks we’re Gianni’s family. Almost, anyway.”

  “Ha.”

  “He asked if his wife could call on my mother. Like something out of-”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently, “very Venetian. The old manners. And you trust that?”

  “You’re going for her sake. He’ll expect it. He’d notice if you didn’t.”

  “My god. His family. Am I going crazy?”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “Just this, then we’ll go away.”

  “Leave Venice?” She reached up, grabbing my arm. “You think they know something?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because we’re the only ones who can give us away now-if we slip, say something. So the sooner we leave-”