“No,” I say.
“Peter is welcome to join us. And it’s important that we discuss the voice mail message Nogara left for your brother at the nunciature. The tribunal admitted it.”
“No.”
He takes the visor away, stares at his feet. “I understand what you’re feeling, but Father, perhaps it’s best for you to take a break from the trial.”
“I’m going to do what I need to do.”
Mignatto squints. “What exactly did Archbishop Nowak say to you?”
“That my brother’s been lying to me.”
“About what?”
I don’t know. If the reason is good enough, it could be anything.
“Father Andreou, tell me.”
But at that moment, my phone rings. And I recognize the number.
“Michael?” I say, answering immediately.
“Alex, I was on an airplane. That’s why I couldn’t pick up.”
“What?”
“I’m at the airport now.”
“Which airport?”
“Timbuktu. What do you think? I’ll be downtown in an hour. If Simon’s lawyer wants to talk, he’d better be ready to talk.”
Is that him? Mignatto mouths.
I nod.
“Let me speak to him.”
I hand over the phone.
“Father Black?” Mignatto asks.
He pulls a pen from the French cuff of his cassock and flips back the evidence folder to write inside the cover. Behind him, trucks come and go from the museums. I think again of what Archbishop Nowak said. Opening night. Just twenty-four hours away.
“Will you testify?” Mignatto is saying. “How soon can you be ready?”
I stare at the folder in his hand. At the photos he was asking the clerk about. In one of them is Ugo’s phone charger. In another, the scrap of stationery scrawled with my phone number.
“We need to discuss what happened to you. Can we meet at my office tonight?”
Beside them are the evidence bags I couldn’t examine before Gianni hurried me out of the impound garage. A pack of cigarettes. The sun-faded Vatican ID Ugo probably flashed to the Swiss Guards every time he drove into the country. A key chain. Nothing big enough to match the impression under the driver’s seat of Ugo’s car.
“He can’t be present when we meet. That’s not part of the procurator’s job.”
My jaw goes slack. The fob of the key chain: it’s oval, engraved with three letters and three numbers. DSM 328.
I pull the folder out of Mignatto’s hand. He bobbles the phone and glowers at me.
DSM. Domus Sanctae Marthae. The Latin name of the Casa. The three digits are the room number. A sliver is missing from the metal fob.
This can’t be Ugo’s key. He didn’t need a hotel room. So this must belong to whoever broke into the Alfa.
“I didn’t hear that. You’re breaking up. Say again?”
I close my eyes. I’m deceiving myself. The killer wouldn’t have left behind his own key. So whose is it?