Day of Confession Read Online Free PDF Page B

holding something back or was flat out lying.
    “Ispettore Capo!”
    The waiter came grinning, as he had before. Making room on the table for four steaming platters, setting them between the men, chattering in Italian.
    Harry waited for him to finish, and when he left, looked at Pio directly. “I’m telling you the truth. And have been all along…. Why don’t you keep your promise and tell me what you haven’t, the particulars of why you think my brother was involved in the cardinal’s murder?”
    Steam rose from the platters, and Pio gestured for Harry to help himself. Harry shook his head.
    “All right.” Pio took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and handed it to Harry. “The Madrid police found it when they went through Valera’s apartment. Look at it carefully.”
    Harry opened the paper. It was an enlarged photocopy of what looked like a page taken from a personal phone book. The names and addresses were handwritten and in Spanish, the corresponding telephone numbers to the right. Most, from the heading, seemed to be from Madrid. At the bottom of the page was a single phone number, to its left was the letter R .
    It didn’t make sense. Spanish names, Madrid phone numbers. What did it have to do with anything? Except that maybe the R at the bottom of the page referred to Rome, but the number beside it had no name at all. Then it came to him.
    “Christ,” he said under his breath and looked at it again. The telephone number beside the R was the one Danny had left on his answering machine. Abruptly he looked up. Pio was staring at him.
    “Not just his phone number, Mr. Addison. Calls,” Pio said. “In the three weeks leading up to the killing, Valera placed a dozen calls to your brother’s apartment from his cellular phone. They became more frequent toward the end, and of shorter duration, as if he were confirming instructions. As far as we’ve been able to tell, they were the only calls he made while he was here.”
    “Telephone calls do not make killers!” Harry was incredulous. Was this it? All they had?
    A newly seated couple looked in their direction. Pio waited for them to turn back, then lowered his voice.
    “You were told there is evidence of a second person in the room. And that we believe it was that second person and not Valera who killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was a Communist agitator, but there is no evidence he ever fired a gun. I remind you your brother was a decorated marksman trained by the military.”
    “That’s a fact, not a connection.”
    “I’m not finished, Mr. Addison…. The murder weapon, the Sako TRG 21, normally takes a .308 Winchester cartridge. In this case it was loaded with American-made Hornady 150-grain spire-point bullets. They are bought primarily at specialty gun shops and used for hunting…. Three were taken from Cardinal Parma’s body…. The rifle’s magazine holds ten rounds. The remaining seven were still there.”
    “So?”
    “Valera’s personal phone directory was what sent us to your brother’s apartment. He wasn’t there. Obviously he had gone to Assisi, but we didn’t know that. Because of Valera’s directory we were able to get a warrant to search…”
    Harry listened, saying nothing.
    “A standard cartridge box holds twenty rounds of ammunition…. A cartridge box containing ten Hornady 150-grain spire points was found inside a locked drawer in your brother’s apartment. With it was a second magazine for the same rifle.”
    Harry felt the wind go out of him. He wanted to respond, to say something in Danny’s defense. He couldn’t.
    “There was also a cash receipt for one million seven hundred thousand lire—just over one thousand U.S. dollars, Mr. Addison. The amount Valera paid in cash to rent the apartment. The receipt had Valera’s signature. The handwriting was the same as that on the telephone list you have there.
    “Circumstantial evidence. Yes, it is. And if your brother were alive, we could ask him about it and give