Alibi

“There has to be something. A man who’d do that—it’s never just once.”

“And you’re sure he did?”

“There was an eyewitness.”

“And you’re sure—”

“She was the old man’s daughter.”

“Oh, she was,” Joe said, looking at me. “Then she’d know.”

“Yes, she would,” I said, staring back.

Joe sighed and put his napkin on the table. “Well, this was fun. Just like old times. You have a phone here?”

“On the paper. I’ll come to Verona if—”

“No, you don’t want to come anywhere near me. It’s not Frankfurt, remember? Anyway, I’m not as much fun as I used to be. Can I ask you something? This guy, does he know that you know?”

I looked at him, surprised that this hadn’t occurred to me, then nodded. Of course he knew. Claudia would have told me.

“Some fucking wedding,” Joe said.

I walked back, taking the wide swing over the Accademia bridge, then sat for a while in the Campo San Ivo. There was a shaft of sun in the square, and some bundled-up old people sat on benches with their faces turned to it. At the end of the campo boats swept by on the Grand Canal. Where my mother had come to be happy. So special it seemed not just outside the war but outside time. But that had been another trick of the light, like the hypnotic movement of the water. Nowhere was outside. And now everything here would be Gia

I saw her face for a second as she’d turned from the door this morning, wounded. By me, every word a kind of betrayal. What would it look like now, knowing I’d asked for his file? But what was the alternative? If he’d lie about the hospital, what else would he lie about? What was the point of finding out later, when she was already trapped, crushed by the disappointment of it? The sooner, the better. She might listen to Bertie. A calm meeting, moving her gently from point to point until she saw. It was just a question of making her see.

I got up and started back to the house. We’d both apologize. We’d tiptoe around it. She’d ask what Claudia had actually said, what she’d seen. We’d talk.

But when I got to the house, she’d already gone out. “A fitting, for the dress,” Angelina said. “She left a message.”

I went over to the table and took the paper out of the silver dish. “Don’t forget to call Gia

Claudia wasn’t at the Accademia, so I walked toward the Rialto and then, on a whim, went to the library and spent a few hours leafing through a bound volume of Il Gazzettino. The first roundup had been in December ’43, but Claudia hadn’t been taken until later—fall, after a few months hiding on the Lido. I started with July, piecing together bits of Italian until word blocks began to fall into place, the way menus become familiar. Gia

I started to close the book, letting the pages fall on one another, backward through the summer, and suddenly there he was, same face, receding hair. I stopped and flipped until I came back to the photograph. Not Gia

At four Claudia still wasn’t back at the Accademia. “She’s not here,” a secretary said in Italian, and when I looked at my watch with a teasing raised eyebrow and said, “Some lunch,” she said, “No, she is no longer employed here.”

“Since when?” I said, but she pretended not to understand and shrugged, so I went back out to Calle Pisani and stood for a minute waiting, as if someone were going to come out and explain it to me. Why would she quit? Jobs were hard to get. For a panicked second I wondered if she’d gone to Rome after all, taking off like a startled bird, still surprised at herself. An afternoon train, a note pi

I started for the vaporetto, then stopped and headed back to my mother’s to pick up some clothes. I had only a few things at Claudia’s, and I wasn’t just staying the night anymore. Angelina surprised me with a message to call Joe Sullivan. I hadn’t expected to hear back for days and I didn’t want to take the time to call now—it could take up to an hour just to get through—but since Claudia didn’t have a phone, there wasn’t much choice. The phone had one of those elaborate receivers you saw in old movies and the sound was usually scratchy, but for once the lines were free.

“You rang a bell with Rosa,” he said.

“Who?”

“Signora Soriano. Herr Kroger.”

“Ah. What kind of bell?”

“She knew the name. Now she’s ru

“Knew his name how?”

“Company he kept. Not that that means anything. Lots of bad company in Italy these last few years. Hard to avoid.”

“And he didn’t?”

“No, but it’s hard to say. You ever hear of the Villa Raspelli?”

“No.”

“It’s a kind of rest home over on Lake Garda. Some banker’s house. They made it into a recovery center for SS brass. Nice. Your man must have made a few house calls there. Rosa remembered the name.”