Chapter 5 - THE WITNESS AT SAINT AGNES
Nobody moved for several seconds.
Then Luca took the cassette from Vanessa’s hand.
She let him.
That frightened Sarah more than if Vanessa had fought.
Daniel found an old player in the archive office.
The machine was gray, dusty, and missing one plastic button, but it worked.
Luca placed the cassette inside.
Marco stayed near the wall.
Anthony stood beside the table with both hands clenched.
Vanessa folded her arms.
Sarah remained close to the door.
The tape hissed.
Then a woman’s voice filled the room.
Lucia Moretti.
Luca’s mother.
“Vittorio, listen to me.”
The recording quality was poor.
A man answered.
“I am listening.”
Lucia sounded younger than Sarah expected.
Sharp.
Angry.
“Antonio is meeting Enzo tonight. He knows about the transfers.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Vanessa looked at him as if the sentence proved everything.
Then Lucia continued.
“I am telling you because I want Marco nowhere near them.”
Marco’s face changed.
Vittorio laughed on the recording.
“You think you can give me orders?”
“I think you know what your brother-in-law is capable of.”
Luca looked at Marco.
The tape crackled.
Lucia said, “Antonio still believes Marco can be reasoned with. I don’t.”
Vittorio’s voice became quieter.
“What do you want from me?”
“Keep Marco at the Bellini club tonight. Keep him drinking. Keep him talking. I don’t care how.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then when Antonio goes to the police tomorrow, I tell them you helped move the money.”
Vanessa’s face went white.
Anthony stared at the cassette player.
Lucia continued.
“I am trying to keep my husband alive.”
The tape clicked.
Silence.
Nobody spoke.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“You said my mother gave Vittorio my father’s location.”
“She did.”
“She told him to keep Marco away.”
Vanessa’s confidence disappeared.
“I didn’t know the rest was on the tape.”
Marco pushed away from the wall.
“This proves nothing about the crash.”
Anthony turned on him.
“It proves Lucia knew you were dangerous.”
Marco’s face hardened.
“Your father was the one moving stolen money.”
Anthony stepped forward.
“And you were the one threatening him.”
Luca raised one hand.
“Enough.”
His eyes stayed on Marco.
“Where did the recording come from?”
Marco said nothing.
Vanessa answered.
“My father had a copy.”
Luca looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because Lucia recorded the call.”
“No.”
Anthony pointed at the cassette.
“That is a room recording. You can hear both voices clearly. Somebody else recorded them.”
Daniel rewound a few seconds.
There was a faint bell in the background.
Then another.
Sarah tilted her head.
“Church bells.”
Everyone looked at her.
She listened again.
Three slow strikes.
A pause.
Then two.
Anthony frowned.
“Saint Agnes.”
Luca looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“My father used to meet Antonio in the parish office. The church clock rang like that.”
Marco’s expression tightened.
Luca noticed.
“So this conversation happened at Saint Agnes?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“My father was at his club.”
“Maybe Lucia was at the church.”
Daniel checked the date on the vehicle report.
“September eighteenth. Thursday.”
Sarah remembered Mrs. Carter mentioning that Lucia had volunteered at Saint Agnes for years.
Luca pulled out his phone.
The parish priest who had served then was dead.
But the church office still had an administrator named Sister Catherine Vale.
Daniel called.
A sleepy woman answered after several rings.
Luca introduced himself.
There was a pause.
Then Sister Catherine said, “I wondered when one of you would finally ask.”
The room went silent.
Luca put her on speaker.
“Ask what?”
“About the night your father died.”
Marco moved toward the door.
Daniel’s men blocked him.
Sister Catherine continued.
“Your mother came to Saint Agnes that evening. So did Enzo Marino.”
Anthony’s face changed.
“Together?”
“No. Enzo arrived first.”
“Was Antonio there?” Luca asked.
“Later.”
Luca leaned against the table.
“What happened?”
“I cannot explain this properly by telephone.”
“Then I’ll come to you.”
“It is nearly three in the morning.”
“I know.”
The woman sighed.
“Come at six. I will open the side door.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“You are going to drag a nun into this now?”
Sister Catherine heard him.
“Marco?”
He froze.
Her voice sharpened.
“You still sound exactly like a man who expects everybody else to forget.”
Nobody breathed.
Marco stepped toward the phone.
“What do you think you know?”
“I know what I saw.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What did you see, Sister?”
There was a long pause.
Then she said, “Your uncle entering the parish parking lot twenty minutes after your mother left.”
Marco’s face drained.
“And?” Luca asked.
“He was not alone.”
Vanessa looked at Marco.
Sister Catherine continued.
“Vittorio Bellini was with him.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
Luca’s voice became very quiet.
“What happened next?”
“They went into the old school basement.”
“Why?”
“That is what I did not understand until the next morning.”
Luca waited.
“When the police came to tell Lucia about Antonio’s crash, Enzo was already in the church kitchen.”
Anthony stopped breathing.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t with Antonio?”
“No.”
Anthony looked at Marco.
All those years he had believed Enzo was somewhere near the crash.
Sister Catherine said, “Enzo was crying. He kept saying he should have gone with Antonio.”
Luca’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Where was my father going?”
“To meet someone at the old rail yard.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco suddenly spoke.
“This is nonsense. Catherine was a secretary. She heard gossip.”
Sister Catherine’s voice went cold.
“No, Marco. I found what you dropped.”
The room changed.
Luca stared at the phone.
“What did he drop?”
“A matchbook.”
Marco laughed.
“A matchbook?”
“From the Bellini Social Club.”
Vanessa looked confused.
Sister Catherine continued.
“Inside it, somebody had written a license plate number.”
Daniel immediately opened a database.
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
Marco’s face finally cracked.
“You kept a matchbook for fourteen years?”
“I kept it because Enzo told me to.”
Anthony looked at the speaker.
“My father knew?”
“He saw it the next morning.”
Sister Catherine paused.
“He said the plate belonged to the mechanic who had worked on Antonio’s car.”
Luca’s eyes closed.
Daniel typed faster.
“What was the plate?”
Sister Catherine read it.
Daniel entered the number.
A vehicle record appeared.
Owner at the time:
Frank Delaney.
Occupation:
Mechanic.
Luca stared.
“Can we find him?”
Daniel searched.
“Maybe.”
Another record appeared.
Frank Delaney had moved to Wisconsin eleven years earlier.
No death record.
No recent criminal history.
A current address in Kenosha.
Anthony whispered, “He might still be alive.”
Marco shook his head.
“This is ridiculous. You’re building a murder theory from a church matchbook.”
Luca looked at him.
“No.”
He glanced toward the vehicle report.
“The canceled repair.”
Then the payment.
“The Bellini money.”
Then the cassette.
“My mother’s warning.”
Then the matchbook.
“I’m building a timeline.”
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Luca, whatever my father did fourteen years ago has nothing to do with us.”
Sarah saw Anthony’s expression twist.
He almost laughed.
Luca did not.
“You used it to control Anthony.”
Vanessa said nothing.
“You forged my trust amendment.”
Silence.
“You tried to get the key.”
Still silence.
“And when Sarah heard too much, you grabbed her by the throat.”
“I grabbed her collar.”
Sarah flinched.
Luca noticed.
His voice became colder.
“You do not get to reduce what you did because the truth sounds ugly.”
Vanessa looked away.
The archive clock clicked toward four.
Luca turned to Daniel.
“Send someone to Kenosha.”
“I’ll go.”
“No. Stay with Marco.”
Marco scoffed.
“You cannot detain me.”
Luca looked at him.
“I’m not.”
He opened the archive door.
“You are free to leave.”
Marco hesitated.
That surprised everyone.
Luca continued.
“But if you do, Daniel sends every document we found tonight to federal investigators before you reach the elevator.”
Marco’s face tightened.
Anthony almost smiled.
Then Sister Catherine spoke again through the phone.
“There is one more thing.”
Luca picked it up.
“What?”
“Enzo left an envelope with me.”
Anthony went still.
“For who?”
Sister Catherine paused.
“For the man Luca someday chooses as his best man.”
Anthony’s face emptied.
Luca looked at him.
The room went silent again.
Sister Catherine’s voice softened.
“Enzo said if that man was Anthony, then his son had stayed close enough to the Morettis to deserve the truth.”
Anthony sat down.
For the first time, he looked less like Luca’s betrayer than Enzo Marino’s son.
“What truth?”
Sister Catherine answered.
“Your father believed the Bellinis would eventually use you to reach Luca. He did not know how. He only knew Vittorio had said the next generation would finish what theirs started.”
Anthony looked at Vanessa.
She said nothing.
Sister Catherine continued.
“The envelope is sealed. I never opened it.”
Luca checked the time.
“We’ll be there at six.”
Then the old woman said, “Luca?”
“Yes?”
“Bring Anthony.”
“I will.”
“And bring the young woman Vanessa hurt.”
Sarah stiffened.
“Why?”
“Because Enzo wrote one instruction across the back.”
May you like
Sister Catherine read it slowly.
“Do not let powerful people decide which witness is important.”
