Day of Confession Read Online Free PDF

way.
    Along the shore, a safe distance away, the hockey players, their parents and brother and sisters, neighbors, strangers watched in silence.
    Harry started forward, but his father took him firmly by the shoulders and held him back. When he reached shore, the fire chief stopped, and the priest said the last rites over the blanket without opening it. And when he had finished, the fire chief, followed by the divers still with their air tanks and wet suits, walked on to where a white ambulance was waiting. Madeline was put inside and the doors were closed and the ambulance drove off into the darkness.
    Harry followed the red dots of taillights until they were gone. Finally he turned. Danny was there, eight years old, shivering with the cold, looking at him.
    “Madeline is dead,” Danny said, as if he were trying to understand.
    “Yes… ,” Harry whispered.
    It was Sunday, January the fifteenth, nineteen seventy-three. They were in Bath, Maine.
    PIO WAS RIGHT, Ristorante Cinese, Yu Yuan, on Via delle Quattro Fontane was a quiet place at the end of the street. At least it was quiet where he and Harry sat, at a highly lacquered back table away from the red-lanterned front door and spill of noontime customers, a pot of tea and large bottle of mineral water between them.
    “You know what Semtex is, Mr. Addison?”
    “An explosive.”
    “Cyclotrimethylene, pentaerythritol tetronitrate, and plastic. When it goes off it leaves a distinctive nitrate residue along with particles of plastique. It also tears metal into tiny pieces. It was the substance used to blow up the Assisi bus. That fact was established by technical experts early this morning and will be announced publicly this afternoon.”
    The information Pio was giving him was privileged, and Harry knew it, part of what Pio had promised. But it told him little or nothing about their case against Danny. Pio was just doing what Roscani had done, giving him only enough information to keep things going.
    “You know what blew up the bus. Do you know who did it?”
    “No.”
    “Was my brother the target?”
    “We don’t know. All we know for certain is that we now have two different investigations. The murder of a cardinal and the bombing of a tour bus.”
    An aging Oriental waiter came up, glancing at Harry and grinning and exchanging pleasantries in Italian with Pio. Pio ordered for both by rote, and the waiter clapped his hands, bowed crisply, and left. Pio looked back to Harry.
    “There are, or rather, were, five ranking Vatican prelates who serve as the pope’s closest advisers. Cardinal Parma was one. Cardinal Marsciano is another….” Pio filled his glass with mineral water, watching Harry for a reaction that never came. “Did you know your brother was Cardinal Marsciano’s private secretary?”
    “No…”
    “The position gave him direct access to the inner workings of the Holy See. Among them, the pope’s itinerary. His engagements—where, when, for how long. Who his guests would be. Where he would enter and exit what building. The security arrangements. Swiss Guards or police or both, how many—Father Daniel never mentioned things like that?”
    “I told you, we weren’t close.”
    Pio studied him. “Why?”
    Harry didn’t respond.
    “You hadn’t spoken to your brother for eight years. What was the reason?”
    “There’s no point getting into it.”
    “It’s a simple question.”
    “I told you. Some things just build up over time. It’s old business. Family things. It’s boring. Hardly about murder.”
    For a moment Pio did nothing, then picked up his glass and took a drink of mineral water. “Is this your first time in Rome, Mr. Addison?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why now?”
    “I came to bring his body home…. No other reason. The same as I said before.”
    Harry felt Pio starting to push, the way Roscani had earlier, looking for something definitive. A contradiction, a diverting of the eyes, a hesitation. Anything to suggest Harry was