by Jeff Carson
“Yes,” Wolf answered.
“Okay, he probably did things more online than off. What’s his email address? A gmail account?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Good. Give me a few things, and I’ll do some work. I want your email address, his email address, his blog name, your Facebook account login…you do have a Facebook account, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” He squirmed. “I don’t remember how I log in, though.”
Lia smiled at his obvious discomfort.
Paulo ended up just shooing them away after he got the blog URL.
“How was your talk with Marino?” Wolf asked quietly.
She avoided eye contact. “It was fine.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Okay,” he said. They stood in silence, Lia obviously in deep thought about something.
Wolf left her to her thoughts and went to the window. Leafing through the police report, his stomach sank a few inches. It was all in Italian. Of course. There was going to be a lot of translating. And things were always lost in translation.
“Twitter! Haha!”
Wolf looked to Paulo who was holding up his arms in triumph.
Wolf shoved the papers back in the folder and joined Lia at Paulo’s desk.
“I went into your brother’s gmail account. It was simple enough, all you have to do is type the first letter of his email address and the web browser remembers his username and password. Good for us, but the bad news is someone else already did this. Looks like someone from your brother’s IP address logged into his gmail account and erased a few messages on Tuesday night at 11:37 PM.
“So, the question is, what is this guy erasing on his gmail account? So I went onto your brother’s blog, thinking there might be a hint there. I didn’t see anything of any use on his blog. It looks like he hasn’t done a blog post in a couple weeks. He has a different contact email address on his blog. He runs it through gmail as well, so I checked that email account. Nothing there either. They could have erased some stuff there. I could probably hack into his blog, but…well, let me move on.
“I checked his Facebook account through his blog. It looks like there wasn’t any activity on there. But, that could have been erased also. The login and password information was, again, stored in the browser settings.
“But, Twitter!” His eyes lit up. “It looks like he tweets a lot. A lot. Your brother was a pretty big deal online I take it. He has 72,839 followers on his account and he’s following 320 people.”
Wolf shook his head with eyebrows raised.
“Right. Well, the point is, that shows that he has a pretty popular Twitter account with a lot of clout. Basically, he has 72,000 fans listening to his every word. So anyways, I logged into his Twitter account at ‘JohnWolf12345,’ again with the browser settings. Again, someone did the same thing removing some Tweets.
“But you can’t just erase Tweets from the web. Especially if you have 72k followers! Because, when he Tweets things, 72,839 people see it. Some of those people will ‘re-tweet’ those things to their followers, or reply to his tweets. And on the night of your brother’s death, it looks like he tweeted a couple things that people re-tweeted immediately and replied to. So, whoever logged into his Twitter account undoubtedly realized they couldn’t erase all evidence of his tweets that night.”
“So, what did he tweet that night?” Wolf asked.
Paulo pointed his finger at the screen.
“I found references to two Tweets that tell a story about what he was doing that night. You can see the first tweet talking about how he is going to the pub with an Aussie friend. A few people told him to have one for them, and to have a fun time, conversing with his Tweet. Then you can see this second tweet that people are retweeting and responding to, talking about seeing Jupiter. It looks like he posted a picture from his cell phone of Jupiter, and of a telescope. He must have put the camera up to the eye-piece of the telescope.”
“Can you show me those pictures?”
A picture of his brother popped up. He was leaning up against a lime green and white telescope. He smiled big, mouth slightly open with his head tilted back, looking to be in the throes of a good laugh.
“These are the same clothes he wore the night he was killed,” Wolf said. “He was there at the observatory that night.”
There were no mud stains on the knees of his jeans. Not yet.
“It looks like there were responses to it on Friday night at around 11:30. Looks like the original tweet was at 11:17 PM.”
“He was at the observatory Friday night at 11:17.” Wolf stared at the screen and shook his head. “How about phone records? Can we get access to both John’s and Matthew Rosenwald’s phone records to see what they said that night? Or earlier in the week as well? We also need to find his car.”
Paulo sat back and looked at them. “Yes, I’ll call the phone companies to get the records next, and I’ll see if I can get a triangulation of where his phone is at. I’ll check credit card activity for both of them as well. I’ll look up the car registration too. These things could take the rest of the day into tomorrow. But I’ll get cracking on it right now.”
“Give me a call when you have more information.” Lia walked to the front of his desk and leaned both hands on it.
Paulo lit up. “Of course I will, Mi Amore!” He added a quick sentence in Italian that caused Lia to roll her eyes.
“Shall we go?” she asked Wolf.
“Sure. I think we need to go back to the observatory.”
Lia bit her lip and looked at her watch. “It’s just after 5:00 pm, what are the chances he’s still there?”
“He seems to be a late worker. I’d say pretty good.”
Chapter 24
Walking out of the main room, a voice from behind called out, “Lia, David!” Rossi put his phone to his ear, said a quick goodbye to someone, and waved them over. “What are you guys doing?”
They explained the situation to Rossi as quickly as possible. He stopped them numerous times, asking them to expand on points, and go over others again before egging them on for more details. After a few minutes, he looked to Wolf with folded arms and a furrowed brow. “Okay, so what are you going to do at the observatory?”
Wolf was taken aback by the question, “Well, we’re going to get the real story from this son of a bitch, Vlad. He’s obviously hiding something from us about Friday night.”
“What did you and Marino just talk about, Lia?”
“Uh, he was wondering about what was happening.” She glanced at Wolf, then the desk.
“And?” Rossi asked.
“He said…he said that David’s brother would be released tomorrow, and he wanted him out of the picture.” She was pointing at Wolf.
Wolf stood still, not reacting.
“David,” Rossi glanced to Marino’s closed door, “we have to be careful about your next moves. Your brother is released tomorrow, that means you can get the belt with the belongings, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Wolf said. “When will the body be released?”
“Marino said first thing in the morning,” Lia said. “Then he wants to talk to you after that, to try and persuade you to go home…cooperatively.”
“I’ll go home cooperatively when I find out who killed my brother. And it’s looking like Vlad had a hand in this whole thing.”
“David, let me finish.” Rossi put his hand on Wolf’s shoulder and stepped closer. “Marino has pressure from higher ranking officials to make this situation go away. They don’t like that a police force from another country is coming in and helping with a closed investigation. I know that is not what is happening,” he said quickly, “I’m just telling you what Marino must be thinking about right now behind that closed door. It’s important that we do this right. Right now you have the testimony from a worker at an observatory that he didn’t see your brother the night of his death. That’s it. He could be telling the truth, he
could have been locked in his office the entire night, never seeing a single soul outside of his office. However, if you had the belt, and we could show that it was Vlad’s somehow, then we actually have a piece of evidence. Or we need to find Matthew, which Paulo is working on right now, like you said. But right now, you are just risking some sort of ugly international incident if you go over there right now.”
Wolf took a deep inhale and pushed it out loudly. “So what do you propose I do instead?”
“Eat,” he said with zero hesitation.
“What?”
Rossi touched both of them on the arm, “You and Lia come to my house, this second, and have an excellent meal with my family. We will talk this out, on full stomachs!”
Wolf stared at Rossi’s motionless bug eyes and broke a smile. He looked to Lia, who seemed all on board with the idea, then nodded his head. “All right. That sounds good, I guess.”
“Oh-kay!” Rossi pulled his coat off his desk chair. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before Marino’s office opens.” He marched between them and down the hallway as fast as he could.
Chapter 25
Two miles into the tunnel, Wolf’s back pressed into the seat letting him know they were gaining altitude at a good rate. He leaned discretely, keeping a white-knuckle grip on the Jesus-bar, to grab a glimpse of Lia’s dashboard gauges.
No more than five car lengths behind Rossi, she was doing one hundred sixty kilometers per hour, a straight one hundred miles per hour. Wolf thanked Rossi for the nice round number, then held his breath and as they blew past another train of cars as if they were standing still.
They slowed to breathable speed as a series of flashing signs indicated a sharp turn, which turned out to be the end of the tunnel. The view was stunning, looking down on Lecco from what was at least a thousand feet up the steep Alpine mountain. They continued onward and upward for another few minutes.
Wolf craned his head to see the distant valley floor through the trees as they weaved through small traffic circles and switchback streets. “This seems to be far from town, and a really nice area.”
“Yes, they moved here a few years ago, when Valerio’s father died. He and his family were left an inheritance, and they didn’t hesitate to move to this nicer area. You’ll see his house. It’s quite beautiful.”
Wolf couldn’t help but think for a moment about his own father’s death, and how it had caused quite the opposite effect on his own family.
They pulled up to a bush lined property and waited. Gate lights flashed while it slowly swung inwards.
A dog pranced with wagging tail in front of Rossi’s Alfa Romeo, and Wolf sucked in a breath as Rossi pulled in, pushing it aside with the bumper of his car.
Stepping out of the car, Wolf noticed the air was crisp and clean, smelled of pinesap, and was a noticeable cooler temperature. As they rounded the side of the house to the entrance they looked straight down on the city below. Lecco sprawled like a model city on a gleaming Lake Como. It was so steep it looked like he could run and jump, and land smack in the middle of the lake below.
The yard of the house was perfectly manicured, surprisingly flat for how steep the surrounding area looked. The stucco concrete house was one story in front, with a walk out bottom level to a stone patio, where two boys were playing soccer below.
“Ciao ragazzi!” Rossi bent over the railing, then yanked the door to the side entrance.
“Ciao!”
“Ciao, Daddy!”
Inside, a male Italian singer was belting out high vibrato notes from a loud speaker system. Perfectly cooked Italian food smells saturated the moist air inside. A slightly disheveled looking woman wiped her hands and kissed Valerio quickly, then gave a loud welcome to Lia as they kissed each other’s cheeks.
“Ciao, sono Maria.” She extended a hand to Wolf.
“Ciao,” he said. “I’m David.”
“Nize-a to meet you,” she laughed. “I am terrible Eenglish.” She pointed to herself with a red faced smile.
“Not as bad as my Italian.”
Rossi’s home office had dark green ceramic tiles on the floor, and color photos of vineyards adorning the bright yellow stucco walls. Rossi turned on the tall floor lamp and ripped open the shades, revealing the view below. The sky outside was now a dark orange, high white-stoned peaks gleaned, and the city below speckled with lights. Rossi plopped down at the dark wood desk, fired up Skype, and showed Wolf how to use it.
Rossi opened the door, letting in the loud music from the rest of the house, “Take your time. We’ll be having apperitivo.”
Wolf picked up the headset and took a seat. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom, it’s me.”
“Oh thank God. What’s going on over there?”
“Well, I’m just taking care of everything. Getting John on a plane home.”
She paused. “So?”
“Well, I really haven’t got any news yet, Mom. I just wanted to check on how you were doing. Is everything okay?”
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes, I’ve seen him.”
A rustling sound filled the headset. “How did he look?”
“He looked good. What…how’s it going? Has Nate checked on you?”
“Yes, he was here last night. He made me dinner.” She sniffed. “Then I will probably go to dinner over there tonight.”
“Oh, good.”
And so it went. Hey, I don’t think John killed himself, and I’m going to find the son of a bitch that murdered him. Wolf didn’t say those words. They were well implied. The Wolf family was always more interested in results and actions, not talk.
They squirmed their way through a few more minutes of long silences and said their goodbyes. He would check in later. He would let her know what was going on.
He called Jack and left a message, disappointed, but thankful he wasn’t answering his “emergency cellphone” in class.
He dialed another number. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Wolf.”
“Hey,” Nate said. “I was wondering what this random phone number was. I hoped it was you. How’s it going over there? You find anything out?”
“Well, maybe. It’s taking some time. There’s definitely something going on that doesn’t look right.”
“Jesus, really? What’s happening?”
“Ah, I can’t talk about it now. I think we’ll find out some more stuff tomorrow though. Anyways, I talked to my mom. She says you made her dinner last night. Thanks for that.”
“Of course, man.”
“I just wanted to know if you’ve been keeping an eye on Jack? Have you seen him?”
“Yeah, he’s been here every day this week with Brian. He seems good. He keeps asking about you. Have you talked to him?”
“No, not since I left. I finally got a chance to use Skype just now. Tell him I’ll be home Sunday, and I’ll see him then, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem,” he said. “I’ve been checking on things. I took him home yesterday, even though he had his bike. I insisted I drive him home. I went in and said hey to Sarah. She looked okay. Didn’t look strung out or anything. Nobody was at the house except for her. Apparently her parents were out and about doing something. Otherwise I’ve driven by the house four times. Nothing seems to be happening. But —” He stopped.
“But what?”
“Well, I saw her with a guy in town walking around yesterday. They weren’t with Jack, he was over here. But anyways, the guy looked, like, normal looking. Not like a junky. Had all his teeth and respectfully dressed and shit.”
“Yeah, I know. I talked to him before I left.”
“Yeah? Well so did I,” Nate said. “I introduced myself.”
Wolf smiled. “Introduced yourself?”
“Well, yeah. I kind of pulled him aside and talked to him a bit.”
Wolf put his head in his hands and laughed silently.
“What?”
“Nothing. What did you say to him?”
“I just told him to keep his hands off Jack, or I’d kill him.”
Wolf smiled wide, thinking of Nate’s tough-man face.
“What?”
“Nothing, man. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.” He sounded proud. “You coming back Sunday? There’s a lot of talk around town. Apparently Dickhead is trying to make it sound like you jumped him the other day. I talked to Rachette yesterday.”
Wolf wiped his hands down his face, pulse quickening. “All right man, well, thanks. I’ve gotta make some more calls.”
“All right. I’ve got everything covered with your family here. Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Just get the guy.”
“Thanks. I’m workin’ on it.”
“Rocky Points Sheriff’s Department.” The connection was garbled, but it didn’t sound like Burton.
Wolf wondered if he dialed the wrong number. He thought he dialed the Sheriff’s direct line. He looked at the screen and saw he dialed correctly.
“Sheriff Burton please.”
There was a long drawn out pause. “Who’s calling?” Who’s callink. The call reception went back to fine. It was Connell, sounding like he had a nose plugged with gauze.
Wolf gritted his teeth. “It’s me. Where’s Burton? What are you doing answering his personal line?”
“Just covering for him for a bit, we’re a bit short handed with officers skipping town and whatnot.”
Wolf paused for five seconds. “You telling people I jumped you, Derek?”
“I’m just telling people what happened, Sergeant Wolf,” he said. “Doesn’t look too good what you did to me, then skipping town right before the Sheriff appointment. Not too good for you at least.”
Wolf sat silent.
Connell gave a quiet chuckle, “Damn good timing for brother John, though. I tell you what,” he said. “Aaaaaaanyways, have fun over there. I hope you enjoy your vacation.”
