Harper nodded, once, and went to make the call, carrying the list in her head like a tray she must not spill — and Marco Ferrante's name on it, where nothing she had seen had put it.
Chapter 11: The Son Who Was Blamed
They questioned Marco Ferrante in the small office behind the kitchen at Casa Loma, where the air smelled of lemon oil and old paper and the radiator ticked though it was not cold.
Harper had not expected to be there. Sylvia Grant had called that morning and said, in the tone she used for court dates and funerals, "You will be asked to listen. Not to agree. To listen." Harper had put on her cleanest shirt and come.
Marco sat at the narrow desk with his hands flat on either side of a printed roster, as if holding the page down against a wind. He was thirty-four, dark-haired, thinner than his father, his shirt open at the throat. He looked as if he had not slept.
Nico Barone stood by the window. He did not sit. Two of his men stood near the door, and their presence made the little room feel smaller than its walls.
Sylvia read aloud, without emphasis. "Events roster for the peace dinner. Compiled by Marco Ferrante. Service door key log. A copy made in March, signed out under an events code only Marco and Aldo hold. Cloakroom tokens — stock counted by Marco at the end of each month."
"It looks bad because I do the paperwork," Marco said. "That's my job. I do everyone's paperwork. If there's a key copied on my code, someone used my code. I didn't —"
"You had access," one of the men by the door said.
"I have access to everything in this building. So does my father. So does Elena in accounts. Access isn't —"
"It is a place to start," the man said.
Marco looked up then, and Harper saw the anguish plainly, not performed. His eyes were red-rimmed. "You think I would do that under my own roof? At Table Nine? My father built that dining room. I seated those people myself. I—" He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, hard. "Tell them, Harper. You were there."
The room turned to her. That was the pressure, she understood at once. Not shouting. Just expectation settling on her shoulders like a hand.
Sylvia said, quietly, "Harper. Take your time. Tell us what you remember, exactly as you remember it."
Harper breathed, and made herself go back, not to the noise after, but to the minute before. The dining room at six-forty. Table Nine half set.
"I went under the table because a fork had fallen," she said. "I saw the box taped underneath. A black box, a blinking light, wires. I didn't touch it. I got everyone away and called it in the way I was trained to. That's one part."
She folded her hands to keep them still.
"The other part is the man. Earlier, by the service corridor. I thought he was a busboy, but his uniform didn't sit right, and I'd never seen him. He was taller than Marco. Broader through the shoulders. Marco is —" she glanced at him, apologetic and exact at once, "— lean. This man was heavy in the chest, like he lifts, or used to. He had a scar through his left eyebrow. It cut the brow in two. He had a tattoo on his forearm, a harbour anchor, dark blue, when he reached for a tray. And he limped. Not a big limp. His right leg dragged a fraction, like an old injury he was used to hiding."
"People can fake a limp," the man by the door said.
"They can," Harper said. "But they can't fake being a different size. Or a scar I've seen close. Or a tattoo. I was two feet from him. He told me Table Nine needed water glasses, and I thought it was strange because Table Nine wasn't my section and wasn't seated yet."
Marco was staring at her now as if she were a rope thrown into dark water.
"Say it plainly," Nico said, from the window. It was the first time he had spoken since she arrived. His voice was low and even, and it was not a suggestion.
Harper met his eyes, then looked at Sylvia, then at the men by the door, because plainly meant for everyone.
"The man I saw was not Marco Ferrante," she said. "It was not him. I won't say it was, because it wasn't."
Silence filled the office.
The older of the two men shifted his weight. "It would be simpler if—"
"No," Nico said.
He came away from the window. He did not look angry. He looked tired in a way that made him seem older than forty-three, and more dangerous in his quiet than the others in their readiness.
"We do not bend a witness to fit a roster," he said. "Miss Lane is the only person who saw a face and told it straight when it would have been easier to say nothing. She has done it again, when it would be easier to agree with this room." He looked at Marco. "You are not cleared by affection, Marco. You are cleared by fact. The roster still needs explaining — who used your code, who had your log. Sylvia will go through it with you, line by line. You will cooperate. Is that understood?"
Marco nodded, throat working. "Yes. Yes, anything."
"And nobody leans on her," Nico said, to the room at large, though his eyes had come back to Harper. "Not for convenience. Not for speed. If her memory changes, it will be because she remembers more, not because this family pressed her."
Harper felt something loosen in her chest she had not realised she had braced. She had expected to be argued with, and had rehearsed on the bus how to hold her ground. She had not prepared to be backed, without qualification, by the man everyone in Providence was said to fear.
"Thank you for coming in," Sylvia said, closing the folder. "Marco, you will stay with me. Harper, wait outside, please."
In the corridor, Marco caught her sleeve as he passed — just a brush of fingers.
"You could have let them," he whispered. "Most people would have."
"I know what I saw," Harper said.
"I owe you," he said.
"You don't," she said, gently, and meant it. "Just tell Sylvia everything. Even the parts that look bad."
When he had gone, Nico stepped out last and shut the door behind him with care.
"You did not bend," he said.
"I can't afford to," Harper said. "If I start saying what rooms want to hear, I'm no use to anyone. Least of all myself."
He studied her, and something in his expression shifted — not warmth, exactly, but recognition, the same quality she had seen in good instructors in the pipeline when a recruit did a drill precisely right under pressure.