“Commissario Soletto, unfortunately. The gendarmes have been called.”
“What happened?” Zlatko asked, glancing around the small group hovering near the body. “Is he dead?”
“Yes. Stabbed.”
Zlatko stared at the body, then looked at me, making his opinion obvious. “I said you would cause trouble. I must go inside, I have a broadcast scheduled. I will pray for his soul.” He didn’t mention my soul or anybody else’s. I guess he preferred to pray for the dead rather than the living.
“Not the most charming guy,” Brackett said. “Personality or politics.”
“Couldn’t agree more. You should go inside, too,” I said. “The less you’re involved, the better.”
“Yeah, okay. Hey, Abe, how you getting along?” Brackett gave Abe a small wave.
“Can’t complain,” Abe replied.
“You two know each other?” I asked, as Kaz told a couple of the radio technicians to move back.
“Sure,” Brackett said. “I know all the American POWs who stay here. Part of the job. Abe’s not in trouble, is he?”
“Why would he be?”
“For one thing, he’s standing over a dead body.”
“We were all in the garden and heard a scream. We ran up here and found Soletto like this. Did anyone leave the studio before you?”
“I don’t think so,” Brackett said as he opened the door. “But I wasn’t keeping track of everyone. Who do you think did it?”
“No idea,” I said.
“Well, good luck.”
I was going to need it. As the door shut behind him, I heard the pounding of boots as gendarmes flooded across the gardens and up the hill.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dad always said to choose the smallest interrogation room there was. Put yourself and your partner between the suspect and the door, and you’re halfway home. For all the fancy statues, paintings, and polished marbled floors around here, the Vatican’s interrogation room could have been one of my old man’s Boston favorites. Small, plain, and cold. One cop across from me, seated behind a stout wooden table. Another in a chair by the door. Me, in the corner, on an old wooden chair that creaked every time I moved. I had to admire the setup. Still, we’d been at it a solid hour, and they showed no signs of believing a damn thing I said.
“We know you are an Allied agent,” the guy behind the desk said. For the thirtieth time. He was tall, about my age with short brown hair and a thin slit of a mouth I was thinking about punching. At some other time.
“Everybody knows that,” I said.
“You admit this?”
“What? That everybody knows I’m an agent, or that I am?”
“That you are an Allied agent.”
“I’m a US Army lieutenant. Sent here to investigate a murder. I was chosen because I was a detective back home before the war,” I said, repeating myself with a sigh.
“You were sent to investigate a murder that was already solved? Or were you sent to commit murder?”
“I haven’t murdered anyone. And do you really think Commissario Soletto solved Monsignor Corrigan’s murder?”
“You were upset with him, yes? About his handling of the investigation? You argued with him in his office, in front of a witness, yes?”
“Yes.” It was better to give a short, decisive answer than to argue. It gave him less to work with.
“And then tonight, you arrange to meet him at the radio station and stab him. Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t arrange to meet him. Or stab him.”
“So you claim,” he said, throwing a glance at his partner. His big, silent partner whose eyes bored into me. He was older, thicker at the waist, with a good coat of gray up top.
“What’s the Italian word for incompetent?” I snuck in the question as he paused. Interrogators don’t like their rhythm being disrupted, and especially don’t want to answer questions. A shoe on the other foot thing. But he spoke excellent English, his only accent hinting at a Brit as his language teacher. Maybe he wanted to show off.
“Incompetente,” he said. “Now tell me why three of you were needed to kill one man. Or were the other two unwilling dupes?”
“Is the Vatican City Gendarmerie Corps so incompetente that none of you can find a murder weapon? Soletto couldn’t, and a dozen or so of you couldn’t tonight. If I killed Soletto, what did I do with the knife? There were witnesses within seconds of our arrival.”
“Ah, within seconds of when you said you arrived. You could have been waiting to ambush the commissario. You stabbed him, hid the knife, then returned with your accomplices.”
“So the knife would be within a hundred yards or so? Not in the radio tower, since it was filled with people. Outside, in the gardens. How long did it take you to find it? Or is everyone who wears that fancy dress outfit incompetente? ”
His mouth twisted in an angry grimace as he tried to reply. “Why did you kill the commissario? ”
“What’s my motive?” I spread my arms in wonderment. “You’re more pissed off at me than I was at Soletto. Are you ready to murder me? ”
The big guy interrupted, asking a question in Italian. Thin mouth answered and they laughed. I figured the big guy for his boss, and that he spoke English, but not enough to know what “pissed off” meant.
“Incazzato,” big guy said. “Yes, you are making us incazzato, yes?”
“I am.”
“I think maybe you are police in America, as you say.”
“Yes.”
“And that you did not kill the commissario.”
“Yes.” We were on a roll, no reason to interrupt the guy.
“The little priest, Dalakis. He is with you.”
“Yes. He’s really British Army.”
“And the American sergente? ”
“We ran into him in the gardens. We were all together when we heard the screaming, and ran to the tower.” No mention had been made of the salmon and condensed milk, and I thought it best not to bring it up, out of solidarity with cops of any nation. Made me kind of homesick.
“Hmmm,” was all big guy said. He nodded to thin lips, who went back to his questioning.
“Who arranged for you to see Commissario Soletto?”
“Robert Brackett, the American deputy charge d’affaires. Or he asked the Pontifical Commission, in any case. They assigned Bishop Zlatko to be present at the meeting.”
“Do you know why?”
“I guess to act as a buffer between us. But Zlatko didn’t seem too glad to see me.”
“No, the good bishop has made that known,” thin lips said, with enough emphasis to tell me Zlatko might not be his best pal.
“What did Bishop Zlatko say at the meeting with the commissario? ”
“He translated, until Soletto got angry enough to use his English.”
“You make him incazzato too, eh?” big guy said, laughing.
“It’s a gift,” I said. “The only thing Zlatko actually said to me was to ask about the diamonds.” I watched their eyes for a reaction.
“What diamonds?”
“Listen, I don’t want to offend the memory of your boss,” I said. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the memory of a Fascist informer, but I wanted them to ask me, to demand I tell them my theory. That might open their minds to the possibility.
“Please, speak freely,” thin lips said.
“One policeman to the other,” big guy said, giving me an encouraging nod.
“Severino Rossi was a jeweler by trade. He left Vichy France when things got too hot for Jews there. He made his way to Genoa, then on to Rome. All we know about him here is that he was found asleep in the columns, near where Corrigan was murdered. He was covered with an overcoat drenched in blood, but he wasn’t wearing it. When I searched Corrigan’s room, I found a single diamond. My theory is that the killer stole the diamonds from Rossi, who must have converted everything he owned into diamonds, to pay for bribes, papers, food, whatever he needed.”
“Why did Monsignor Corrigan leave a diamond in his room?” Thin lips was writing in his notebook as he asked the question. A good sign.