Chapter 5 - THE PIANO THAT HELD THE TRUTH
The piano had belonged to my father.
I knew it by its serial number before I knew where it stood. When Marco read the number transmitted by Federico's daughter, I remembered the gold lettering on the inside of a walnut grand and the way my father tapped the lid before playing. He wasn't a gifted musician. He was a man with large, impatient hands who always rushed the soft passages. Isabella used to say that I inherited his stubbornness but fortunately none of his timing.
After his death, the instrument disappeared into storage. My mother said it needed restoration. Enzo arranged the transport. I hadn't considered that somebody might have hidden evidence inside it, because I'd stopped thinking about the piano at all.
“Where is it now?” I asked.
Marco consulted the warehouse records. “It was donated to the Romano Foundation's fundraising auction. The event is tomorrow evening, at the Grand Miramar Hotel.”
Of course. Enzo loved ceremonies where people praised him for giving away things that didn't belong to him.
We were back at the villa, but not in my usual office. I had asked Marco to bring me to the smallest downstairs room, where the family archive was kept. It held shipping books older than I was and the smell of paper slowly giving up the fight against damp.
“My uncle can intercept anyone who approaches a piano in a hotel full of his staff,” I said. “We need another way.”
“Giulia has requested a preservation order for the auction records,” Marco said. “The court hasn't responded.”
“Then we don't go looking for evidence like burglars. We make certain the instrument remains where it is until the court can act.”
I heard Marco shift his weight, waiting for orders more like the ones I used to give. A year earlier, I would have sent men to seize the piano. It seemed efficient to put fear before paperwork. Now every such shortcut looked like another gift to Enzo: another reason a judge might disregard our testimony.
“Call the foundation's outside auditor,” I said. “He'll be listed on the auction committee. Tell him a property dispute has arisen over the donation. I own the piano personally. He cannot legally sell it before confirming title.”
“You're sure?”
“Read me the inventory from my father's estate.”
He found it. There was the instrument, serial number matching, bequeathed to me under a handwritten clause. For once, my father's obsession with documentation might help a living person instead of merely dividing assets.
At nine that night, I met Paolo Marchesi in a quiet office arranged by Giulia. He had been my father's accountant for twenty-eight years. Time had made his voice dry as paper, but he still smelled faintly of pipe tobacco.
“I should have come to you sooner,” he began.
“So should everyone, apparently. Tell me what you know.”
Paolo sat across from me and unfolded documents. I could hear his hands moving quickly, the rustle of a man who had spent his life reducing impossible situations to columns.
“Your uncle shifted the foundation's maintenance contracts after the accident. He used Bellwether to acquire the saltworks and transfer goods that were never declared. The original accounts were kept in duplicate ledgers. One was electronic; the other consisted of signed receipts.”
“Where are they?”
“Federico Neri copied the records to a small drive. I gave him a brass box. He hid it inside the old piano's action compartment during the restoration. I knew that much. I didn't know the piano would be moved into a public auction until three days ago.”
“Did he contact you voluntarily?”
“Yes. He was terrified. He said Enzo's men had seen his daughter at the clinic.”
I felt my stomach turn. “Is he alive?”
“His daughter received a call from him this morning. He's being held somewhere near the freight depot. He said he'd been told to make sure the accounts stayed buried.”
Giulia, seated by the door, interjected. “We have given that information to the prosecutor's office. They are working through the appropriate warrants and victim protection. We can't negotiate his release ourselves.”
I nodded. There were a dozen people in the city who would have helped me arrange a private recovery. It would have been familiar. It also would have risked Federico's life and ruined the case against whoever had taken him.
“Paolo,” I said, “what did the accounts show about me?”
He was quiet for too long.
“You signed the original freight contracts. The legal ones. You also approved the foundation's general operating budget. Your uncle used those authorizations as cover for additional transactions. There are decisions on your part that may be questioned.”
“Then they should be questioned.”
“You could face charges if prosecutors conclude you ignored obvious warnings.”
“I did ignore warnings. Isabella asked me about discrepancies the afternoon I was attacked. I told her we'd discuss them after dinner.”
The sentence sat between us. If I had listened that day, perhaps the explosion could have been prevented. Perhaps it could not. What I knew was simpler: I had allowed Enzo to turn my reluctance into authority.
Giulia folded her hands. “Cooperation won't make consequences vanish, Mr. Romano.”
“I don't expect it to.”
Outside the office, footsteps passed and receded. I thought of Isabella walking through unfamiliar cities under names she didn't choose, and of children who existed because she had continued hoping when I believed hope had ended.
“There's another thing,” Paolo said. “The black car you were driving the night of the explosion was not supposed to be yours. Enzo's driver had booked it for himself, then changed the dispatch schedule at the last moment.”
“So I wasn't necessarily the intended target?”
“Or he wanted the explosion to appear accidental to someone else. I don't know. The vehicle record matters because it places his office in control of the route.”
That was a relief of no kind. If Enzo had wanted me dead, he had betrayed his blood. If he had wanted someone else dead and accepted the possibility of killing me, he had done the same thing by another road.
The meeting ended with signed permissions for the investigators to review the archives. Giulia retained the documents. Paolo left with a police liaison. I remained sitting until I heard Isabella enter.
I recognized her shoes from the clinic, but she said nothing. The scent of orange blossom reached me. I straightened.
“Did you hear all of that?” I asked.
“Enough.”
“Then you know the piano belonged to my father.”
“I also know you're not pretending every mistake was made by someone else.”
I turned toward her. “I'm sorry I didn't listen when you tried to tell me what was wrong.”
She drew out a chair. “You didn't only fail to listen that evening. For years you asked me to call your business legitimate because you said the worst parts belonged to another generation.”
“I thought separating myself from the violence was enough.”
“You signed contracts that kept the machinery running.”
“Yes.”
“I need you to understand why I can't come home just because you're frightened for us.”
“I do.”
“Maybe you don't. You still speak about the villa as though it were a home. To me it became a place where people could tell my husband I was a traitor and he would believe them.”
Her voice cracked. She did not hide it. I wanted to apologize for each specific day, but remorse spoken too often can become a request for someone else to ease it.
“Then it isn't a home for you,” I said. “I won't ask you to return.”
The chair moved. I heard her sit closer.
“I brought something,” she said. “Not proof. Something for you.”
Paper whispered. My hand found a photograph with raised edges.
“It's the scan. Dr. Costa printed two copies. The one on the left is Baby A. The other is Baby B.”
“Can you tell them apart?”
“Barely. One seems convinced the other is stealing all the room.”
I smiled and rubbed a fingertip over the glossy surface. I couldn't see the image, but I could feel where the paper bent under her thumb.
“Would you describe them?”
She did, patiently. The small curve of a skull. A hand near a face. A foot that appeared to be pointing toward the edge of the frame. She didn't embellish what the scan could reveal. The babies were still possibilities, intricate and astonishing ones.
“I'll keep it,” I said.
“You can keep the copy.”
We sat with our hands almost touching. Neither of us tried to make a promise.
Then Giulia's telephone rang. She answered, listened, and held the speaker away from her ear.
“The prosecutor secured an order to suspend the auction,” she said. “But the foundation told the bailiff the instrument was moved an hour ago.”
“Moved where?” I asked.
“They claim they don't know.”
From somewhere in the corridor, Marco spoke to another security officer. His voice rose for the first time that evening.
“Sir, the delivery truck left the Miramar loading bay twenty minutes before the order arrived. Its tracking device has been disabled.”
May you like
I gripped the scan until Isabella gently took it from my hands.
Enzo had finally learned the evidence was in the piano. And somewhere in the city, an accountant who might identify its hiding place was waiting for help.
