Day Of Confession

13

Wednesday, July 8, 10:00 a.m.

Their footsteps were silent as they came down the stairs. Harry Addison, Father Bardoni, and the director of the funeral home, Signore Gasparri. At the bottom Gasparri turned them left and down a long, mustard-colored corridor with pastoral paintings of the Italian countryside decorating the walls.

Deliberately, Harry touched his jacket pocket, feeling the envelope Gasparri had given him when he'd come in. In it were Da

Harry had made the burial decision earlier that morning. Da

'Mr Addison, I beg you' – Father Bardoni's voice was gentle and filled with compassion – 'for your own sake. Let past memories be the lasting ones.'

'I wish I could, Father, but I can't…'

The thing about opening the casket and seeing him had come only in the last minutes, on the short drive from the hotel to the funeral home. It was the last thing on earth Harry wanted to do, but he knew that if he didn't do it, he'd regret it for the rest of his life. Especially later on, when he got older and could look back.

Ahead of them, Gasparri stopped and opened a door, ushering them into a small, softly lit room where several rows of straight-backed chairs faced a simple wooden altar. Gasparri said something in Italian, and then left.

'He's asked us to wait here…' Father Bardoni's eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses reached out with the same feeling as before, and Harry knew he was going to ask him again to change his mind.

'I know you mean well, Father. But please don't…' Harry stared at him for a moment to make sure he understood, then turned away to look at the room.

Like the rest of the building, it was old and worn with time. Its plaster walls, cracked and uneven, had been patched and patched again and were the same earthen yellow as the hallway outside. In contrast to the dark wood of the altar and the chairs facing it, the terra-cotta floor seemed almost white, its color faded by years, if not centuries, of people coming to sit and stare and then leave, only to be replaced by others who had come for the same reason. The private viewing of the dead.

Harry moved to one of the chairs and sat down. The grisly process of identifying and then examining the bodies of those killed on the Assisi bus for explosive residue had been managed quickly and pragmatically by a larger-than-usual staff at the request of an Italian government still shaken by the murder of Cardinal Parma. The task completed, the remains had been sent from the morgue – the Istituto di Medicina Legale at the City University of Rome – to various funeral homes nearby, there to be placed in sealed caskets for return to their families for burial. And despite the investigation surrounding him, Da

Harry could have left it that way, maybe should have left it that way – his casket unopened; just taken him back to California for interment. But he couldn't. Not after all that had happened. What Da

'Mr Addison' – Father Bardoni had moved up and was standing beside him – 'for your own good… I have seen people as strong and determined as you crumble as they witness the unspeakable… Accept God's way. Know your brother would want you to remember him as he was.'

There was a sound as the door behind them opened and a man with close-cropped gray-white hair entered. He was nearly six feet tall and handsome and carried with him an aura that was both aristocratic and at the same time kind and humane. He wore the black cassock and red sash of a cardinal of the Church. A red zucchetto was on his head, and a gold pectoral cross hung from a chain around his neck.

'Eminence…' Father Bardoni bowed slightly.

The man nodded, his eyes going to Harry. 'I am Cardinal Marsciano, Mr Addison. I came to offer my deepest sympathies.'

Marsciano's English was excellent, and he seemed to be comfortable speaking it. The same was true of his ma

'Thank you, Eminence…' Friend of power brokers and world celebrities, Harry had never once been in the presence of a cardinal, let alone a man of Marsciano's stature within the Church. Having been brought up Catholic, no matter how nonreligious, how totally non-churchgoing he was now, Harry was humbled. It was as if he were being visited by a head of state.

'Father Daniel was my personal secretary, and had been for many years…'

'I know…'

'You are waiting here now, in this room, because it is your wish to see him…'

'Yes.'

'You had no way of knowing, but Father Bardoni called me while you were with Signore Gasparri. He thought perhaps I would have better luck in dissuading you than he.' The slightest hint of a smile rose then left. 'I have seen him, Mr Addison. I was the one the police asked to identify the body. I have seen the horror of his death. What the proud inventions of mankind can do.'

'It doesn't matter…' Marsciano's presence aside, Harry was resolute; what he had chosen to do was deep and very personal, between Da

Marsciano was silent for a long moment. Finally he spoke. 'Yes, I can understand.'

Father Bardoni hesitated, then left the room.

'You are very much like him,' Marsciano said quietly. 'That is a compliment.'

'Thank you, Eminence.'

Immediately a door near the altar opened and Father Bardoni entered, followed immediately by Gasparri and a heavy-set man wearing a crisp white jacket who pushed a hospital gurney. On it was a small wooden coffin no bigger than a child's. Harry felt his heart catch in his throat. Inside it was Da

'Ask him to open it.'

'Are you certain?'

'Yes.'

Harry saw Marsciano nod. Gasparri hesitated, and then in one motion leaned forward and removed the lid from the casket.

For a moment Harry did nothing. Then, steeling himself, he stepped forward and looked down. As he did, he heard himself gasp. The thing was on its back. Most of the right torso was gone. Where there should have been a face there was a crushed mass of skull and matted hair, with a jagged hole where the right eye would have been. Both legs had been sheared off at the knee. He looked for the arms, but there were none. What made the whole thing even more obscene was that someone had pulled on a pair of underpants, as if to protect the viewer from the indecency of the genitals, whether they were there or not.