“I need a favor.”
“From me? Send Rosa back and then we’ll talk. You weren’t supposed to fucking steal her.”
“She’s here on her own business. A small favor.”
“What?”
“Army still have a priority line to Frankfurt? I need to call Germany.”
“So pick up a phone.”
“Come on. The civilian lines’ll take days.”
“I can’t patch you through from here.”
“No, you make the call. Get Schneider in Frankfurt-remember him?”
“And?”
“And ask him to run a check on Bauer, SS out of Verona, probably Hauptsturmfuhrer level.”
“You don’t have to call Schneider. I know Bauer. A real sweetheart.”
“But you don’t know his files. Rosa said they were destroyed.”
“Rosa said.”
“He captured her husband. So she took a personal interest.”
He was quiet for a minute. “She wasn’t supposed to do that. He’s out of our hands-Frankfurt’s problem.”
“Do they have him? Is he still alive?”
“No idea. What’s your interest, anyway?”
“The files here were destroyed, but the SS duped everything for Berlin, so maybe copies are still around.”
“Doubtful.”
“Or better yet, Bauer himself. If he’s facing trial, he’ll want to do anything to catch a break.”
“Like tell you all his secrets? Which one in particular?”
“He interrogated her husband. The husband told him who killed Paolo Maglione. So who did Bauer tell?”
“You want to explain this to me?”
“When you have more time. Just ask Schneider if he can lay his hands on the files-start with September 1944. I’m not sure when they captured him, Soriano interrogation.”
“Rosa know about this?”
“No. She doesn’t want to. He was tortured. Then they strung him up in the street.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. But before they did, I think he talked.”
“Which opens up another can of worms.”
“Right.”
“Is there going to be anything for us once you open it?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Because you’re not official anymore, you know. You want the army to do all this for some private deal?”
“Think of all I’ve done for them.”
“Fuck.”
I waited. “It’s not a big favor, Joe. I’ll tell Rosa you miss her.”
“Fucking drowning here, and I’ve got to waste time on this.”
“It’s a good deed. I promise you.”
“Yeah, the last time you checked on somebody, the guy ended up dead.”
“Maybe we can do the same for Bauer. Tell Schneider where he can reach me, okay? If he comes up with anything.”
There was a growl for an answer and a click on the line. I glanced over the desk at Claudia, still immersed in a folder.
“What makes you think he told them anything?” she said without looking up.
“If he was tortured by SS? They all did-even things they didn’t know.”
“And Bauer told Dr. Maglione?”
“That’s the way it makes sense. Gianni saves an old friend of the family-how could he not? — and then finds out the friend killed his brother. It explains the about-face. It didn’t matter to him whether or not they were partisans-that just made it easier to get someone else to do it for him. Keep his hands clean.”
“His new friends at Villa Raspelli.”
“Including Bauer, I’m betting. It had to be that way. We’re close now.”
She said nothing, then closed the folder. “I didn’t know about Signor Howard. I’m sorry.”
“Bertie? What?”
“He didn’t tell you? He has cancer.”
I looked at the blue folder in her hands. Other people’s secrets.
“No, he never said anything.”
She tossed the folder back on the pile.
I stared at it for a minute. Something real, not part of a story for Cavallini. Living in his jewel box, not wanting to be disturbed.
“Does he know?”
“He must.”
“God, what do I say?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. He would have told you, if he wanted that.”
Giggling about Giulia at the cafe but discreet about anything real-his assistants, his death.
“Do you want to do more?” Claudia said, her voice weary.
“Let’s finish.”
She took another folder. “So you can make a story.”
“We have to.”
“Do you know what I think?” she said, looking up. “When it started, I thought you wanted to prove that he was a bad man. That it made some difference to you. But now it’s-” She stopped.
“What?”
“It’s not for the police, this story. It’s for you. You want to believe it. That someone else did it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mimi gave my mother her farewell lunch party. No one called it that-Celia was going to Paris to buy clothes and had asked her along-but all of us knew, I think, that she wouldn’t be back. They would take a water taxi to the station after lunch, slightly tipsy, and in a week or two she’d call to have the rest of her things sent on and leave me to close up the house. She had run out of reasons to stay. I had counted on her usual resiliency, but instead she’d turned listless and vague. Bertie said the trip would do her good, and in fact she seemed to rally at lunch, laughing with Mimi, her voice rising with some of its old buoyancy, but there were sidelong glances too, private moments when her mind went somewhere else.
It was a large party, too large to seat everyone in the dining room, so people passed down the long buffet table and then stood in small groups or huddled around the tea tables that had been set up all over the piano nobile. I spent most of the time watching Bertie, expecting him somehow to look different, tired, thinner, but there were no signs yet that anything was wrong. His illness, like my mother’s sadness, was locked away somewhere, not for public display.
“What’s this I hear about the police arresting somebody?” he said to me.
“Moretti’s son. You must have known him.”
“No.”
“The father, I mean. He was a friend of Paolo’s.”
“Oh, that Moretti. Well, a long time ago. Childhood, practically. But they didn’t stay friends-you never saw him around.”
