Alibi

by Joseph Kanon

  “Under here. Come on, quick. We need to see if anything shows,” I said, tucking the side of the tarp down. There was a murmur from underneath. “You okay?” I loosened the edge, letting some air in. The doorbell rang again. “Not a sound. Not a sound,” I said, grabbing Claudia. “We were upstairs. It took us that long to answer.”

  She nodded and I closed the wrought-iron door. I hurried down the hall. “ Momento,” I said out loud. When I reached the door, I looked over my shoulder to see Claudia standing halfway up the stairs, patting her hair, everything in place, only her eyes startled.

  I opened the door and heard the blood in my head again.

  “So, home early,” Cavallini said. “I saw the light.”

  “Inspector,” I said dumbly, staring at his arm, wrapped in white bandages and set in a sling. “Are you all right? At the opera, the policemen-”

  “Yes, I know, poor Filomena. To worry her that way. I spoke to them. Acting like women. A scratch, and she comes for the last rites. Well, maybe wives hope for that,” he said, genial. He looked toward the stairs. “Signora Miller. Buona sera.”

  She nodded, stiff.

  “You enjoyed the opera?”

  I stepped aside to let him in. Behind him a uniformed policeman waited by the door.

  “Yes, but I had a headache,” she said, wary. “I was just going to bed.”

  “I’m sorry to come like this.”

  “But what happened? What do you mean, a scratch?” I said, trying to remember what I was supposed to know. If I’d only been to the opera.

  “A bullet, but not serious. You know, I felt today something might happen. A superstition. Remember?”

  “A bullet. You were shot?”

  He smiled. “There was an incident. I told you I expected something.”

  “Tonight? I didn’t know you meant tonight.”

  “Well, whenever we moved Moretti. We moved him tonight.”

  “But what happened?”

  “He was shot. So they defeat themselves.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “We don’t know. He’s still with them. But we’ll find him.”

  “Still with who?”

  “Communists. So of course this is what they do. Always the same methods.”

  “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “Yes,” he said, solemn. “Now he murders police.”

  “Moretti?”

  He nodded. “This time you can be sure.”

  I said nothing.

  “I thought you would be interested,” Cavallini said.

  “That’s why you came-to tell me?”

  “No, no. Why I came.” He looked around, as if for a second he’d forgotten. “To ask you.”

  I glanced toward the stairs where Claudia was still standing, her hand gripping the rail.

  “Did you know that your canal gate was open?”

  “The canal gate?” I said.

  “Yes, it’s open. Did you know?”

  Was I supposed to know? How else could it have been opened?

  “Yes, I left it open. In case we took a taxi home from the opera.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “You permit me to see?” he said, starting down the hall.

  “Yes, if you want. What’s it all about?”

  “Your boat is still there? Not stolen?”

  “I suppose so. I haven’t looked. I never thought-”

  Claudia was following us now, walking tentatively, as if she were bracing herself for each step. “Someone stole the boat?” she said.

  “Signora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Ah, this door is not locked?” He opened the door to the water entrance. “You’re very trusting, Signor Miller. The light?”

  I drew a breath and flipped on the switch, listening for a sound, any rustling of the tarp. Under the yellow overhead light, the dark clumps were only partly illuminated, still leaving shadows around the edges. I took in the smell, damp stone and musty wood, but nothing more, any boathouse, even the peroxide faded now, something that might have come in from the canal.

  “Yes,” Cavallini said, taking stock, remembering. “The gondola.”

  I walked toward the steps, trying to draw him away from the tarp. “The boat’s here. Why did you think it was stolen?”

  “We had information they would come here.”

  I wondered if Rosa could hear under the tarp. Everybody breaks.

  “Here? Why here?”

  “Your friend Rosa. This is how they are. She knew you were going to the opera?”

  “I don’t know. How would she know?”

  “No matter. That type, they would steal under your nose.”

  “They came here? They’re in the house?” Claudia said, looking frightened. “Upstairs?” Drawing him away too.

  “No, no, don’t be alarmed. They don’t want to stay in Venice. They want to leave Venice. I thought perhaps they came for the boat, but as you can see-” He waved his hand to the mooring post. “So, a change of plans. You were lucky,” he said to me.

  “But we should look upstairs. If they’re hiding,” Claudia said, trying to move us through the door.

  “Would that make you feel easier, signora? One of my men can search, if you like.”

  “You think it’s foolish.”

  “I think it’s careful,” he said politely. “And you,” he said to me, “lock the gate.” He turned from the water, stopping again to look up at the gondola on its supports.

  “You mean they might still come?” I said.

  “No, it’s late. I thought if the boat were missing, it would be a clue. They won’t come here now. They need to leave Venice. And who helps them? Foreigners? No. Old comrades. You know Moretti worked on the boats. We know where to look. But still, lock the gate.”

  “Yes,” I said, stepping past him to pull it shut, making a loud clang with the latch. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. Any noise echoed here. You could hear the boat rocking against its mooring. Why not breathing, the faintest movement?

  “A beautiful thing,” Cavallini said, still looking up at the gondola. “To find an old one in this condition.”

  “The marchesa never takes it out,” I said, but I wasn’t looking at it. Claudia had glanced, just once, toward the pile and now was signaling me, eyes large and panicky, forcing me to look there too. At first it just seemed a thin shadow on the gray stones, but then I saw that it was moving, growing longer, coming toward us. Dark blood, seeping out from under the tarp to follow gravity to the stairs, impossible to miss if Cavallini turned his head.

  Claudia stared at me, and for an instant I stopped breathing, because we both saw that in another minute it would be too late. If we stepped back now, we could stay free, still unsuspecting visitors in someone else’s fight. Moretti might die anyway. But if we hid them, we became them, the same in Cavallini’s eyes.

  The blood, viscous, moved a little, just a trickle, almost at my shoe now. There would be no story that would distance us and make sense. We’d have to go through with all the rest, save them. When all we had to do to save ourselves was to let it happen. Claudia could do it alone, look down at the blood in horror until Cavallini noticed, but she was waiting for me. We’d do this together too. The same room. Just a trickle this time, not a red splotch on a white dress shirt, but the same pulsing in the head, jumping off the end. They couldn’t stay. He’d die. There was only the impossible trip across the lagoon. And nowhere to go after, no alibi. Unless we stepped back now, pointed to the blood, surprised, and stayed safe. I breathed out.

  I moved between Claudia and the pile and put my hand on Cavallini’s shoulder. “Can we ask your men to search?” I said. “I really think Claudia would feel better.”

  He looked down from the gondola, but at Claudia, not me, missing the blood. I moved us toward the door. Don’t turn now. A trickle. Would anyone see it if he wasn’t looking? But nobody missed blood. The eye went to it, an instinct.

  “Of
course,” Cavallini was saying.

  Claudia glanced at me for a second, dismayed, then slipped into her part. “And the closets? I know it’s foolish,” she said, leaving for the hall.

  “Not at all,” Cavallini said as I turned out the lights and closed the inside door behind me.

  He used two of his men, who made a halfhearted show of poking in closets and looking behind shower curtains. I followed with Cavallini, but in my mind I saw the trickle growing thicker, a red stream running over the stone floor, down the mossy steps, spreading out into the canal, a giant stain. In the middle of the search, Angelina came home and had to be calmed down, so we went through her room too. The men covered every inch of Ca’ Venti, all of it innocent, nothing to connect us except the blood spreading on the floor downstairs. The one place they didn’t search, because Cavallini had already been there.

  At the door he offered to leave one of his men. “If it would make you feel safer.”

  A guard outside, listening. “Do you think we need it?”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his eyebrows. “No. To be frank with you, I need every man tonight. You know how it is. But if the signora-”

  “She’ll be all right. I’ll lock the doors, both of them. She just needs rest. If we can get Angelina to bed. I’ve never seen her so jumpy. You’d think she’d robbed a bank.”

  “Her brother,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Well, not banks, the black market. During the war. Of course, not now. But she thinks we still want him. I’ll tell you something,” he said, almost winking. “We never did. It was the only way then. I bought from him myself.” He looked at me. “We have our own ways here.”

  A message? A reminder? Or maybe nothing at all. I heard a creak, someone moving, and felt my scalp itch, every sound in the house now a finger pointing at me. A single groan would do it, while he was still in the house.

  “Thank you for coming,” Claudia said. “With your arm-”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, moving the sling, a demonstration.

  “Still,” I said. “A bullet wound, that’s never just a scratch.”

  “No.” He lifted his head. “Did you hear something?”

  A gasp of pain, unmistakable, maybe Moretti clutching his stomach. I felt my hand move, a tic. Say anything.

  “The house. It makes noises,” I said casually, trying to sound unconcerned.

  Cavallini listened for another minute, then reached for the doorknob. “These old houses,” he said, turning it. “With me, pipes. All night.” He shook his head. “Venice.” Not bothering to say more, as if we could hear the city sinking around us.

  When the door closed, I leaned against it, breathing, listening for footsteps. Claudia didn’t move either, frozen for a minute by relief. I put a finger to my lips, stepping closer to her so that we couldn’t be heard.

  “Go get Angelina settled,” I said. “Tell her I’ll lock up. Keep a light on in the bedroom so it looks like we’re still up.” I switched off the hall lights, something Cavallini’s men would see from the calle, and walked with Claudia in the dark toward the stairs, turning on a small night-light on the hall table. “Check the canal from upstairs-see if any boats are waiting. I’ll get them ready. We can’t wait too long.”

  She stopped, placing her hand on the banister. “If we do this, the rest was all for nothing. We can’t explain this.” She clutched my arm. “We can still-there’s nothing to connect us. Let them steal the boat.”

  “And just turn away.”

  “It’s our lives.”

  “Theirs too.” I took her shoulders, steadying her. “All we have to do is get him to the Lido. Then we’re done with it. We’re finally done with it.”

  She looked down, then turned to the stairs. “We’re never done with it.” She paused. “What do I tell Angelina?”

  “Tell her Cavallini’s watching the house. That’ll keep her in bed.” She started up the stairs. “Not too long, okay? Just keep one light on, so they think we’re here.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We waited another twenty minutes, cleaning the water entrance and listening for any signs of activity on the canal. A water taxi passed, cutting through to the Giudecca channel, but otherwise it was quiet, a backwater. I swung the boat around from the mooring pole. The canal itself was dark, the moon covered by convenient clouds. Moretti was still conscious, able to crawl into the boat without our having to lift him, but he was gasping, obviously in pain. He lay down in the front, Rosa next to him. Claudia threw in the wad of bloody towels. “We can’t keep these in the house. Here, get under this,” she said, spreading the tarp over them, imagining it could hide them if we were stopped. Behind us, the pile of paving stones was bare.

  I pulled the gate just to the point before it would click shut, so that it looked closed from the water. We glided away from the house, hugging the edge of the canal. If the police were anywhere, they’d be in the Giudecca channel, but if they’d given up, it was still our best route out, so I decided to check. I pushed against the building wall, letting us float quietly toward the end of the canal. The daytime traffic was gone. It might be worth a chance, a quick dash to San Giorgio, then behind the island, the way we’d gone with Gianni. We had almost passed under the Zattere bridge into the open water when I saw it, an idling boat with a blue light. Waiting to see if anyone came out. I grabbed a mooring pole and held the boat back until it began to pivot, twisting around in the other direction. With the police boat patrolling, we’d have to keep the motor off. We could make our way back down the Fornace by pushing against the side, but farther on some boats were moored and we’d have to swing out, using the oars on both sides, Indians in a canoe.

  “Police,” I said to Claudia. “We’ll have to use the Grand Canal.”

  She said nothing, just stared at Ca’ Venti as we passed. No turning back. Ahead a gondola was approaching-no passengers, just someone heading home.

  “Come here,” I said to Claudia, pulling her to me and kissing her, the only thing we’d be doing at this hour on a quiet canal. She put her hand on the back of my neck, then rested her forehead on mine, both our faces hidden.

  “Adam,” she whispered, shaking.

  “Ssh. It’s going to be all right.”

  I heard the faint splash of the gondolier’s pole. In the front of the boat, Rosa peeked out from under the tarp. “He’s gone,” she said, but I stayed with Claudia for another minute, locked together, my head filled with her. It was going to be all right.

  Near the Grand Canal it was lighter and, more important, noisier. A vaporetto was heading across the water, its noise loud enough to cover the sound of our own engine. I waited until it was closer, then started ours. No trouble this time. The cord caught and the engine roared, loud enough to bounce off the walls of the buildings. Or maybe just loud to us, listening for it. An ordinary motorboat, usually an insect buzz in Venice’s water traffic. I nosed us out to the broad canal.

  The police boat was off to the right, a bookend to the other, with the same blue light. It was standing guard near the center of the canal, with sight lines not just to us but to the traghetto stand across, anything streaming down to San Marco. The terrace lights were on at the Gritti. I idled the boat for a minute, churning the water but not going anywhere. They’d blocked the Fornace, just in case. If they spotted us here, they could radio to the other end and trap us in between. Over by the Gritti, a pack of tourist gondolas went by with lanterns. What you saw at this hour at the hotel end of the Grand Canal. Taxis at the Europa, the Monaco. A few private boats going to Harry’s. But not a single motorboat with a young couple and a bulky tarp. Farther down, the lights of Salute reflected on the water, then there was only a brief shadow before San Marco lit up everything. Nowhere to hide.

  The vaporetto was getting closer, lumbering toward Salute on our side of the canal, as slow and bulky as a land bus. Big enough. I lifted my head as if I’d been shaken awake, then looked in both directions. San Marco was
impossible; easier to double back to the Giudecca. But not on the Fornace. The trick would be to catch the vaporetto at the right moment. Even at this speed there wouldn’t be any leeway.

  I watched it get nearer, its bulk coming between us and the rest of the canal, and then, as it reached the Fornace, I put the boat in gear and shot out to run along its starboard side, invisible to the police while I chugged along in its shadow. We began to rock a little in the wake. A few people on deck noticed us, one waving us away with his hand, warning us. In another minute the vaporetto would head for the Salute landing station, squeezing me, but not before we passed the Rio della Salute, still blocked from view, and I swung away and headed down the side canal.

  The Salute rio ran parallel to the Fornace but farther down, almost at the customs house. If I entered the Giudecca there, away from the waiting police boat, I might be able to run along the dark side of the Dogana and reach the bacino at its tip, pulling toward San Marco into the Grand Canal boat’s patrolling area but too far away to be seen. If I could outrun the Giudecca boat. This canal was narrower than the Fornace and even quieter. Only a few people lived at this end of Dorsoduro, wedged in between the great church and the customs house. We were out of it in minutes, turning left to hug the tip of land, almost afraid to look back. We had no lights to see, and our motor was far enough away to be indistinct-no reason to notice us at all. Just keep going. In seconds we’d be out of range.

  “They’re coming,” Rosa said, facing backward.

  Maybe just to look, a routine check. But the minute I speeded up they’d know, without even having to pull back the tarp.

  Claudia turned around, spotting the light too. “Go behind San Giorgio,” she said. “Like before.”

  “We can’t. We’ll never lose them there.”

  “At least it’s dark there, remember? Nobody saw us.”

  “Nobody was chasing us,” I said. “Okay, hold on, it’s going to bump. Rosa, hang on to him.” Rosa, who had been watching us, just nodded.

  We passed the tip of the customs house with its golden ball and I swerved slightly to the left, streaking across the basin toward the doges’ palace, then along the curve of the Riva. The one place in Venice I’d wanted to avoid, open and bright, center stage. But also busy with traffic, boats to the islands and Danieli taxis and ferries leaving for the Adriatic. I realized that, unexpectedly, the boats here became trees in a forest, something to dodge around, slip behind. We passed San Zaccaria, passed the Rio dei Greci, the way to the Questura, heading finally toward the darker end of Venice, the empty public gardens and the lagoon beyond. In the lagoon, still covered by clouds, we could make it. We hit the wake from another boat, lifting up, then smashing down with a thud, water spraying over everything. Moretti cried out. Our speed now was drawing attention, too fast for the harbor. If I could pull away into the city again, thread us somehow through the back of Castello, we might lose the police, but the canals were a maze here, watery blind alleys. The police hadn’t outrun us yet. Just a few more seconds and we’d be in the dark.