Alibi

Everything now was sound—the motors of the police boats shifting gears, idling while they looked around; footsteps ru

I heard the boats shift gears, separating. But which way would we have gone? The northern outlet, toward Murano, or the longer Arsenale basin? The directions were opposite—a wrong guess meant we’d get away. Then one motor got fainter, moving toward the lagoon, and the other seemed almost on top of us, someone yelling one more thing to the guard before it passed by the stern of our ship and then to the next basin. Finally, Rosa’s reverse play, the police off in all directions except the one I intended to use, back to where I had started.

We waited another minute to make sure the police had really gone, then edged our way out from behind the warship. For a moment I thought of just drifting with the oars, slipping past the guard in silence, the way we’d gone down the Fornace. But we were ru

The guard may have seen the boat, but none of us looked back, just headed straight down the canal to the open water. We had a real chance now. To catch up, the police would have to go all around the tail end of Venice, skirting San Elena, minutes behind. We passed under the bridge and shot across the water toward the cha

“Is he okay?” I said to Rosa. “It gets choppier out here.”

She didn’t say anything, just held him, a cushion.

“Where is the car? The casino?” The big parking lot at the vaporetto landing stage, where it would be easy to be overlooked in the crowd.

“No, at the end. The Excelsior.”

“The Excelsior?”

“It’s not open yet. No one will be at the dock. It’s easy to find.” All worked out, the next link.

“Not in the dark. We’ll have to go to the casino and then follow the lights down.”

“No, go straight across. That was the idea. No one will see us.”

“You can’t cross the lagoon in the dark. That’s why they mark the cha

“It’s a shallow boat.”

But the lagoon could be even shallower. That was what had always protected Venice—not water but mud. Sometimes only a few feet under the surface, sometimes less, rising in little underwater islands.

“We can’t go at this speed. If we hit something, we could wreck the boat.”

“If they come for us, they’ll look in the cha

I nodded. “All right. But it’ll take more time. Can he wait?”

He was lying still under the tarp, maybe passed out.

“Yes,” she said. “Now.” I looked at her face, suddenly soft. “He’s dead.”

“Oh,” Claudia said, a whimper.

“Are you sure?”

Rosa pulled back the tarp, as if seeing him, his perfectly calm face, would be evidence. “In the Arsenale. I didn’t want to say then.”

We were still moving slowly in a direct line to the far lights of the Lido. I looked around, checking for boats, then back at his face, streaked with blood where he had wiped it, sweating, a kind of camouflage effect in the dark. A boy who’d delivered medicine.

“Better cover him up,” I said, not wanting to look anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Rosa said quietly, and for an odd second I thought she was talking to me, but her face was turned to his, words to a comrade.

Claudia moved forward and helped her with the tarp, folding it around him. “Let’s go back,” she said. “They won’t expect that. We can hide you, get you away somehow tomorrow. It was the wound that was the problem—we couldn’t hide him. He would have died.”

“He did,” Rosa said, but Claudia wasn’t really listening, busy with the tarp, absorbed now in a new plan.

“Do you think they saw our faces?” she said to me. “In that light? The boat could be anyone’s. We could go back. Nobody would know.”

“I can’t stay in Venice,” Rosa said. “They know it was me. Even if they didn’t see,” she said, spreading her hand to take in the boat, “they know it was me. They’ll hunt for me.”

“Not at Ca’ Venti,” Claudia said. “They already did.”

“And what do we do with him?” Rosa said quietly.

“Is there some rope?” Claudia said. “It’s better if it’s tied. The tarp will come loose, even if we roll it.” She was folding it under him, talking to herself. “How can we weight it? Not that it matters. You use those big stones and it’ll come up anyway. Nothing keeps it down. It’s the tides, isn’t that what they said? The tides loosened the tarp.” She turned to me. “We’ll have to explain why this one is missing. There’s nothing over those stones now. Someone might notice.”

I looked up to find Rosa watching her, studying her face.

“You want to put him in the lagoon? This boy?”

“He’s dead, yes?” Claudia said.

Rosa looked out to the dark, then shook her head. “Not to the fishes. I’ll take him.”

“In the car? With a body? Where?”

“He’s Carlo’s son,” she said simply. “I can’t just throw him over the side.”

“Two can do it,” Claudia said, not hearing her. “The boat won’t tip.”

“An expert,” Rosa said, dismissive, then turned to me. “They’ll find the car. Then it’s someone else.”

“They can trace it?”

She shrugged. “You will never get me out of Venice. Not now. This is the best way. Get me there, then it’s my risk.”

“And when they ask how you got there?” Claudia said.

“When they ask?” Rosa said. “They won’t ask me anything. If they can ask, I’ll be dead.”

She said it casually, sure of things. A car punctured with bullet holes, the only way it would be stopped. But it could happen the other way too. An undetected dash to Jesolo, then the whole Veneto to disappear in. Taking the body to friends.

“You’re not turning around,” Claudia said.

“After we drop them,” I said. “We can’t keep her in Venice.” The train station would be swarming with police, the highway bridge guarded. Not even a tarp to hide under.

“Who’s that?” Claudia said, swiveling around. A distant engine, a light shining in front, coming slowly.

“Not police,” Rosa said. “Fishermen, maybe. They go out at night.”

“Have they seen us?”

“Not yet. Soon,” Rosa said. “Pull to the left.”

I turned the boat slightly, on an angle now to the cha