She walked between the graves to his memorial plaque, knelt down, and ran her fingers along the embossed letters. BRANDOLINI. Odd. They felt warm to the touch. But they were shaded by the tree, weren’t they?
Mary looked up. A tall, full tree sheltered the memorial, bathing it in cool shade. So why would the letters be warm? She felt them again to double-check. Warm. Maybe this type of plaque retained the day’s heat? To test her theory, she turned around and touched the plaque of the grave next to Amadeo’s, Giuseppe Marchese’s. The letters were cold to the touch. Mary ran her fingers back and forth over the name. Cold, definitely cold, in the same shade. Then she touched Amadeo’s name again. Warm.
Alive.
Mary edged away, rising. Then she heard a voice behind her, like a whisper.
“Yes?” Mary said, turning, thinking the groundskeeper had come back. But no one was there. Nothing stood behind her except the polished back of a granite tombstone, and beyond it, another monument, under the same massive shade tree.
Huh? What’s going on? She listened again, cocking her head, but the only sound was the rhythmic spray of the sprinklers. That must have been it. A spray sounds like a whisper, doesn’t it? Mary listened again, harder, her heart beginning to thump.
No, she heard, with a softness of a Bitterroot breeze, its inflection clearly Italian. No.
She waited, trying to decide whether she was crazy, jet-lagged, or just Premenstrual Mary. Or whether she had simply heard a voice. Because her third secret was one she joked about, but had never truly admitted until now: I believe in ghosts. It was impossible not to, wasn’t it, for a good Catholic? Growing up, she had blessed herself to the Holy Ghost, studied the miracles and the lives of the saints, and had swallowed whole the stigmata thing. So it wasn’t completely inconceivable that a ghost was speaking to her now, was it? Amadeo’s ghost.
No, he said again, and Mary waited, trembling. Listening. Watching the shadows flit across the letters on his memorial plaque. AMADEO, beloved of God.
And then it was gone.
Leaving Mary standing there. She didn’t feel afraid. She didn’t want to run or scream.
All she wanted was to know the truth.
Seventeen
Mary went back to the Doubletree Inn and stopped at the brownish counter at the front desk, where the ponytailed clerk was on the phone. On the left sat a metal rack of fold-up Osprey schedules and Bitterroot Valley brochures, but Mary wasn’t interested in the sights. She waited for the clerk, who hung up and looked over expectantly, her ponytail swinging in its white scrunchy. Mary asked, “Did a fax come for me? Room 217.”
“You with the U?”
“The University? No, I’m just by myself.” If you don’t count the ghost.
“Be right back.” The clerk disappeared behind a door and returned a minute later with a manila envelope, which she handed across the counter. “Here we go.”
“My death certificate!” Mary said, excited, and didn’t bother to explain when the clerk recoiled. She had applied at the recorder’s office for Amadeo’s death certificate this morning, on her way to the fort. She thanked the clerk and went upstairs but couldn’t wait to get to her room to open the envelope. She slid it from the envelope and hit the hall.
At the top, the fax read DEATH CERTIFICATE, and it was divided into two parts. At the top half, each entry was neatly handwritten: Decedent’s Name: Amadeo Brandolini. Alias: None. Age: 38. Date of Birth: August 30, 1903. Date of Death: July 17, 1942. Marital Status: Widowed. Occupation: Unknown. Armed Forces: Not Applicable. Residence: Fort Missoula Detention Facility. Race: Caucasian. Nationality: Italian.
At the bottom half of the certificate was a section filled out in almost illegible handwriting, evidently by a coroner whose exact name she couldn’t decipher. Cause of Death: accidental asphyxiation. Time of Death: 7:18 P.M. Place of Death: Missoula City Hospital .
Mary read it again and again, but she didn’t get it. What was accidental asphyxiation? And the time and place of death didn’t jibe with what Mr. Milton had told her. Amadeo was supposed to have hung himself in the field at lunchtime and had been dead all afternoon. But that wasn’t true, according to the death certificate.
Mary slid the certificate back in the envelope, hurried up the stairs and down the hall to her room, and perched on the edge of the bed to call Missoula information for Mr. Milton’s number at home. When she heard his soft voice on the line, she said, “Mr. Milton, it’s Mary, sorry to bother you.”
“It’s no bother, dear. I did enjoy our lunch together.”
“Me, too. I’m calling because I got a copy of Amadeo’s death certificate and it says that he died by accidental asphyxiation, which sounds impossible to me. And it also says that he died around seven o’clock at night. Does any of that make sense to you?” Mary paused, and the line went silent. “Mr. Milton?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I guess, well, I only told you part of the truth.”
Mary felt a jolt of surprise. “Okay, what is it?”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you, and it didn’t matter. I told you what happened, pretty much.”
“Please tell me everything. Like they say, the whole truth and nothing but.”
“The accidental part, well, I don’t know for sure. I guess it says accidental so they didn’t make your client look bad. You know, a suicide and all. It was kinda embarrassing to him.”
Not to mention to the camp. Or maybe the FBI wanted it covered up. In any event, that must have been how Amadeo was buried in the Catholic cemetery. He wasn’t listed as a suicide. “But what about the time difference? You said he died around noon.”
Mr. Milton paused. “Well, uh, this Brandolini, your client, he didn’t die right away. As I recall it, he was unconscious when Sam picked ’em up, but he didn’t die until later, in the hospital.”
It jibed with the certificate. “Why is that? Do you remember?”
“Oh, I remember. You know, my memory is very good.”
Mary remembered he had told her that, even if he didn’t. “So what happened?”
Mr. Milton paused again. “You really have to know? It’s kinda upsetting, the gory details.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, the rope he hung himself with? It didn’t hold.”
“What do you mean, it didn’t hold?”
“It broke. It wasn’t strong enough to hold him.”
Mary swallowed her distaste. “But he was only a hundred and fifty-five pounds.” She remembered from Amadeo’s alien registration card. “What kind of rope was it? Just string or something?”
“No, it was strong enough rope, that wasn’t the problem. Problem was, he made the rope by tyin’ two ropes together. They weren’t long enough, either one of ’em. They musta been ropes they used to tie the tools together, like I said. The rope broke where he tied it.”
No. Mary heard someone whisper. Okay, officially, there are no sprinklers or wind in my hotel room.
“Mary, you all right?”
“Sure, fine.”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you, but you can see how come I didn’t want to mention it. And don’t think on it, too much. Your client, he didn’t suffer.”
Yes, he did. “Is there anything else you remember?”
“No, dear. That’s all. I’m sorry about your client.”
“Thanks so much,” Mary said and hung up.
She sat on the edge of the bed a minute. The hotel room had been cleaned, and housekeeping had opened the curtains on either side of her sliding glass doors. Outside her window, the sun was glimmering on the ripples of the Clark Fork, which was doing its gurgling and rushing thing. A little boy in a striped shirt and rubber overalls was fishing in the river, which came as high as his knees, and his father stood behind him, holding on to him by a strap of his overalls. The father wore a green vest with a wooden net hanging from his collar in the back. Mary watched them idly. She had never gone fishing, but she felt like she was fishing now. Casting a line into waters she didn’t know, seeing what would bite. Amadeo had evidently joined her, as a guide. Thank God one of them could fish.