“What do I do with this?” Claudia held out the towel, panicking.

“Under here. Come on, quick. We need to see if anything shows,” I said, tucking the side of the tarp down. There was a murmur from underneath. “You okay?” I loosened the edge, letting some air in. The doorbell rang again. “Not a sound. Not a sound,” I said, grabbing Claudia. “We were upstairs. It took us that long to answer.”

She nodded and I closed the wrought-iron door. I hurried down the hall. “Momento,” I said out loud. When I reached the door, I looked over my shoulder to see Claudia standing halfway up the stairs, patting her hair, everything in place, only her eyes startled.

I opened the door and heard the blood in my head again.

“So, home early,” Cavallini said. “I saw the light.”

“Inspector,” I said dumbly, staring at his arm, wrapped in white bandages and set in a sling. “Are you all right? At the opera, the policemen—”

“Yes, I know, poor Filomena. To worry her that way. I spoke to them. Acting like women. A scratch, and she comes for the last rites. Well, maybe wives hope for that,” he said, genial. He looked toward the stairs. “Signora Miller. Buona sera.”

She nodded, stiff.

“You enjoyed the opera?”

I stepped aside to let him in. Behind him a uniformed policeman waited by the door.

“Yes, but I had a headache,” she said, wary. “I was just going to bed.”

“I’m sorry to come like this.”

“But what happened? What do you mean, a scratch?” I said, trying to remember what I was supposed to know. If I’d only been to the opera.

“A bullet, but not serious. You know, I felt today something might happen. A superstition. Remember?”

“A bullet. You were shot?”

He smiled. “There was an incident. I told you I expected something.”

“Tonight? I didn’t know you meant tonight.”

“Well, whenever we moved Moretti. We moved him tonight.”

“But what happened?”

“He was shot. So they defeat themselves.”

“He’s dead?”

“We don’t know. He’s still with them. But we’ll find him.”

“Still with who?”

“Communists. So of course this is what they do. Always the same methods.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Yes,” he said, solemn. “Now he murders police.”

“Moretti?”

He nodded. “This time you can be sure.”

I said nothing.

“I thought you would be interested,” Cavallini said.

“That’s why you came—to tell me?”

“No, no. Why I came.” He looked around, as if for a second he’d forgotten. “To ask you.”

I glanced toward the stairs where Claudia was still standing, her hand gripping the rail.

“Did you know that your canal gate was open?”

“The canal gate?” I said.

“Yes, it’s open. Did you know?”

Was I supposed to know? How else could it have been opened?

“Yes, I left it open. In case we took a taxi home from the opera.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“You permit me to see?” he said, starting down the hall.

“Yes, if you want. What’s it all about?”

“Your boat is still there? Not stolen?”

“I suppose so. I haven’t looked. I never thought—”

Claudia was following us now, walking tentatively, as if she were bracing herself for each step. “Someone stole the boat?” she said.

“Signora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Ah, this door is not locked?” He opened the door to the water entrance. “You’re very trusting, Signor Miller. The light?”

I drew a breath and flipped on the switch, listening for a sound, any rustling of the tarp. Under the yellow overhead light, the dark clumps were only partly illuminated, still leaving shadows around the edges. I took in the smell, damp stone and musty wood, but nothing more, any boathouse, even the peroxide faded now, something that might have come in from the canal.

“Yes,” Cavallini said, taking stock, remembering. “The gondola.”

I walked toward the steps, trying to draw him away from the tarp. “The boat’s here. Why did you think it was stolen?”

“We had information they would come here.”

I wondered if Rosa could hear under the tarp. Everybody breaks.

“Here? Why here?”

“Your friend Rosa. This is how they are. She knew you were going to the opera?”

“I don’t know. How would she know?”

“No matter. That type, they would steal under your nose.”

“They came here? They’re in the house?” Claudia said, looking frightened. “Upstairs?” Drawing him away too.

“No, no, don’t be alarmed. They don’t want to stay in Venice. They want to leave Venice. I thought perhaps they came for the boat, but as you can see—” He waved his hand to the mooring post. “So, a change of plans. You were lucky,” he said to me.

“But we should look upstairs. If they’re hiding,” Claudia said, trying to move us through the door.

“Would that make you feel easier, signora? One of my men can search, if you like.”

“You think it’s foolish.”

“I think it’s careful,” he said politely. “And you,” he said to me, “lock the gate.” He turned from the water, stopping again to look up at the gondola on its supports.

“You mean they might still come?” I said.

“No, it’s late. I thought if the boat were missing, it would be a clue. They won’t come here now. They need to leave Venice. And who helps them? Foreigners? No. Old comrades. You know Moretti worked on the boats. We know where to look. But still, lock the gate.”

“Yes,” I said, stepping past him to pull it shut, making a loud clang with the latch. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. Any noise echoed here. You could hear the boat rocking against its mooring. Why not breathing, the faintest movement?

“A beautiful thing,” Cavallini said, still looking up at the gondola. “To find an old one in this condition.”

“The marchesa never takes it out,” I said, but I wasn’t looking at it. Claudia had glanced, just once, toward the pile and now was signaling me, eyes large and panicky, forcing me to look there too. At first it just seemed a thin shadow on the gray stones, but then I saw that it was moving, growing longer, coming toward us. Dark blood, seeping out from under the tarp to follow gravity to the stairs, impossible to miss if Cavallini turned his head.

Claudia stared at me, and for an instant I stopped breathing, because we both saw that in another minute it would be too late. If we stepped back now, we could stay free, still unsuspecting visitors in someone else’s fight. Moretti might die anyway. But if we hid them, we became them, the same in Cavallini’s eyes.

The blood, viscous, moved a little, just a trickle, almost at my shoe now. There would be no story that would distance us and make sense. We’d have to go through with all the rest, save them. When all we had to do to save ourselves was to let it happen. Claudia could do it alone, look down at the blood in horror until Cavallini noticed, but she was waiting for me. We’d do this together too. The same room. Just a trickle this time, not a red splotch on a white dress shirt, but the same pulsing in the head, jumping off the end. They couldn’t stay. He’d die. There was only the impossible trip across the lagoon. And nowhere to go after, no alibi. Unless we stepped back now, pointed to the blood, surprised, and stayed safe. I breathed out.

I moved between Claudia and the pile and put my hand on Cavallini’s shoulder. “Can we ask your men to search?” I said. “I really think Claudia would feel better.”

He looked down from the gondola, but at Claudia, not me, missing the blood. I moved us toward the door. Don’t turn now. A trickle. Would anyone see it if he wasn’t looking? But nobody missed blood. The eye went to it, an instinct.

“Of course,” Cavallini was saying.

Claudia glanced at me for a second, dismayed, then slipped into her part. “And the closets? I know it’s foolish,” she said, leaving for the hall.

“Not at all,” Cavallini said as I turned out the lights and closed the inside door behind me.