Chapter 9 - The Clock Remembered What People Denied
Damian frowned.
“My grandfather lived here.”
“Why would entering the ballroom matter?”
Harold answered:
“Because Giovanni claimed he was in Boston that night.”
Lucia’s face changed.
“He gave police an alibi.”
“Yes.”
“But he was here.”
“Yes.”
Damian looked at the clock.
“How could it prove that?”
Harold pointed to the mechanism.
“The front panel had been repaired that morning.”
“Only Giovanni knew the spare winding key was inside.”
“At 2:10 a.m., someone wound the clock.”
Damian stared.
“You logged it.”
“Yes.”
“And then changed the log.”
“Yes.”
“For fifty thousand.”
Harold looked ashamed.
“I was forty-four.”
“I had debts.”
“I told myself it was only paper.”
Damian laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this family commits crimes through paperwork.”
Harold accepted that.
“Yes.”
Lucia asked:
“What did Giovanni do here that night?”
Harold looked at her.
“He removed the original ledger.”
Silence.
Damian frowned.
“But we found a ledger in the clock.”
“A copy.”
Harold nodded.
“Marco made it.”
Damian looked toward the video screen.
His father nodded.
“Yes.”
“Where is the original?”
Marco answered:
“Giovanni buried it.”
“Where?”
Conrad spoke from his chair.
“At the old family chapel.”
Everyone looked at him.
He closed his eyes.
“Under his wife’s grave.”
Damian stared.
“My grandmother.”
“Yes.”
The next morning, investigators opened the crypt.
The ledger was there.
Wrapped in oilcloth.
Names.
Payments.
Properties.
Threats.
Judges.
Police.
Businesses.
Everything.
Including four pages signed by Conrad Voss.
Three by Giovanni Moretti.
Two by Marco.
One by Isabella’s father.
And one receipt signed by Harold.
No one was clean.
Not completely.
But the truth was finally complete.
Damian looked at Harold.
“You came here to expose everyone.”
Harold nodded.
“Including myself.”
“Why now?”
The old clockmaker looked at the grandfather clock.
“Because I am seventy-seven.”
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