by Jeff Carson
They climbed two flights of marble stairs and entered into a large light and airy room with numerous desks and people in uniform. The windows of the great room offered an unobstructed view of the lake, and were all propped ajar, letting in the pleasant breeze, which carried mouthwatering aromas Wolf couldn’t put his finger on.
Tito stopped and looked to his right. He sucked in a deep breath and pulled down his uniform jacket with both hands, as if to steel himself for what he was to do next.
Wolf followed his eyes. He was staring at a door with the words Colonnello Marino painted in black on the frosted glass. Someone inside the office was yelling, and the deep voice seemed to shake the door.
Tito finally stepped to it and knocked gingerly.
“Dai!” the voice boomed.
Tito poked his head in and then entered, opening the door to let Wolf in behind him. The man who was apparently Colonnello Marino had a phone up to his ear and was staring toward the windows behind his desk. He waved his hand at two chairs against the wall without looking, then yelled in rapid Italian, slamming his fist into his leg.
Tito sat and squirmed in his chair. His face was draining of blood, turning white as sweat beaded on his forehead and slid down his manicured hairline.
Marino finished his conversation and twisted in his chair. Tito flinched, and Marino held up a finger, still not resting his eyes on his new visitors. He pushed his finger on the plunger of the phone, then dialed a number and twisted to the window again.
Wolf watched Marino bounce his head, speak in pleasant tones, laugh heartily, hand gesture animatedly, and mumble niceties into the phone for another few minutes. He was beginning to wonder whether anyone spoke to one another without the aid of a telephone in this country. Wolf checked his watch, which showed 7 o’clock in the morning, Colorado time.
Eight minutes later Marino swiveled back to the phone again. The colonnello brought his non-phone hand to the ancient rotary, pressed the switch again, then dialed another number and held up a finger as he swiveled slowly toward the window.
“Excuse me,” Wolf said. “I’ve come a long way and would like to speak to you about my brother.”
Marino pulled the handset from his ear and glared at Wolf. After a moment his face broke into a sympathetic smile. “Ah, yes. Mr. Wolf. I am sorry about your brother. And I am sorry about my English. It is terrible.” It was terrible; Wolf was having trouble making out the words.
Marino gently hung up the phone, and then launched into a hurried monologue to Tito in Italian.
In turn, Tito translated for Wolf.
“He says he is waiting for final authorization to release your brother’s remains. It should be in the next two days. You will be allowed to transport his body at that time.”
Marino folded his hands and leaned forward on his desk with a sympathetic expression.
“Okay, thank you,” Wolf said. “I spoke with a Detective Rossi on the phone earlier in the week. As I told him, and as I’m sure you are aware, I am a sheriff’s deputy in the United States ... a police officer. I do not question the carabinieri’s resources or integrity. I hope you will understand my desire to learn all that I can during my short visit. I respectfully request permission to see my brother’s body, review the police report, and speak to the investigating officers. And, of course, I will need access to his apartment to retrieve personal items.”
Tito conveyed Wolf’s request to Marino, using far fewer words and little emotional inflection.
Nonetheless, Wolf nodded as Tito spoke, watching the colonnello’s reaction closely.
When Tito was finished, the colonnello smiled and lit a cigarette in a practiced flourish. He pulled a deep drag and spoke on his exhale. “Mr. Wolf. I understand your concern with your brother’s death,” he said in nearly unrecognizable English.
Marino placed his cigarette on the lip of his ashtray, and a smooth stream of smoke rose in front of him, undisturbed in the hot, still office.
Wolf glanced at the large window and wondered why it was shut.
“I can give you Tito for a day. He’ll go with you tomorrow to see your brother.” Marino nodded, picked up his rotary phone and dialed a number. He plucked his cigarette from the ashtray, swiveled to the window, and spoke into the receiver.
Clearly relieved, Tito stood and opened the office door, where he turned and waited for Wolf.
Wolf sat for a few seconds. Then he got up, walked to Colonnello Marino’s desk and pressed the phone switch.
Marino looked at the handset as he processed what had just happened. Realizing Wolf had disconnected the call, Marino’s gaze rose to Wolf’s face, fell to Wolf’s finger, and then rose again.
Wolf stood his ground, leaving his finger in place. “I need more than Tito for a day. I need to see my brother, I need to see the police report, my brother’s apartment, and to speak to the officers who discovered the body,” Wolf said.
Marino’s face brightened to a glistening tomato red in a matter of seconds. “You don’t tell me what to do!” He then snapped a quick order to Tito, who relayed the message in a loud voice to the room outside.
An instant later, two officers slammed into the office, each taking one of Wolf’s arms and wrenching them back. Then one of them kicked the back of his knees, landing him hard on the tile floor. A third showed up and wrapped Wolf in a chokehold, pulling him up to his feet. Wolf fought his instincts to free himself or fight back and stared at Marino.
“You want to tell us how to investigate? American cowboy?”
Wolf could hear a group gathering in the office doorway behind him, officers shuffling to get in on the action.
“Sir,” Wolf coughed, struggling to breathe. “No, sir.”
Marino motioned for the officer to release his chokehold.
Wolf sucked in a breath. Though the chokehold on Wolf had been hesitant and weak by the officer behind him, Wolf made a show of how mentally and physically destroyed he was.
“Colonnello Marino,” Wolf said, realizing he needed to shift tactics fast, “please help me. My mother and I need some answers about my brother’s death. We need to know what really happened. I’m not saying your department conducted the investigation poorly. I am saying there is no way you could have known my brother like I did, and I know he didn’t kill himself. I am only asking for some help from you and your department, and for permission to go over the case evidence.”
Marino seemed to contemplate his words for a few seconds, and then he looked to the rest of the now crowded room with a grin. “Non capito niente!”
The room exploded in laughter.
A female voice interjected over the noise, speaking rapidly in Italian directly behind Wolf. He turned to find a young woman, a startlingly good-looking young woman, explaining something in reasonable tones, gesturing to Wolf as if he were a prisoner on display—a prisoner she looked to be arguing in defense of.
When she’d finished, Marino squashed his cigarette and lit another, looking Wolf up and down. The room was silent, as if awaiting an emperor’s decree.
Marino put his cigarette into the ashtray and stood directly in front of Wolf. “Okay.”
Marino looked at the other officers and waved them out of the room. He barked a long order at the woman, who had now pushed her way to standing attention next to Wolf. Her flowery scent counteracted Marino’s blend of body odor and stale smoke.
She listened intently without making a sound or moving, and finally answered in a curt affirmative when the colonnello was through.
Marino turned to Wolf. “I will give you until Friday, the end of the week. We cannot spare much, uh … help, so I will give you Officer Parente. She will assist you. Then, you must leave here after this week. Take your brother home. Comfort your mother,” he said with a sympathetic look.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your help.”
“Vai, vai.” Marino swept them out of the room with a flail of his arms.
Wolf picked up his backpack and watched the dark
-haired officer disappear through the door. He left the office and looked around, not seeing her amid the crowd.
Tito stood near and saw Wolf’s confused look, then pointed down a hallway behind him.
Wolf saw a slender backside receding briskly with the gentle sway of a dancer. A tight brown-haired ponytail bobbed back and forth between firm shoulders.
He nodded to Tito and walked after her. Before he could catch up, she turned an abrupt right and was out of sight again. He followed fast and almost slammed into her as she picked up her hat and coat from her desk, which was right around the corner.
She huffed at Wolf’s chest, which was now blocking her path, pushed past him, and retraced her steps down the hallway.
Wolf stood still, unsure what to do.
“You coming?” she said over her shoulder.
“Yep.” He strode after her.
Wolf followed her down the steps, watching her take them one at a time with athletic grace, swerving between people at full speed, all the while pulling a few loose coffee-colored strands of hair behind her ear.
Outside, they walked to a replica of Tito’s car, though parked in a different spot and much dirtier. She waved for him to get in, so he did, brushing aside a crumpled up napkin off the seat.
It was warm inside and smelled of perfume.
She got in and stared out of the windshield. Her eyes were aquamarine with long eyelashes. She bit her lower lip, revealing a perfect set of upper teeth. She seemed to be weighing a serious problem.
“Hey, I don’t know what you said in there, but thanks,” he offered.
“Yep.” She fired up the engine and gunned the Alfa Romeo out of the parking lot, directly in front of a fast-moving truck.
Wolf fished for his seatbelt and put it on. “I’m David, by the way.”
She kept her eyes forward. “Lia.”
Wolf sighed in resignation as she ignored him, picked up her cell phone, and dialed.
Chapter 13
Lia hung up after a short conversation and dropped the phone in front of the stick shift.
“I have to admit, I’m glad your call was short. Tito was on the phone the entire way here from the train station,” he said. “I never did get a chance to even—”
“Tito’s an idiot,” she said.
“Yeah …” He looked at her expressionless stare out through the windshield. “Anyway, thanks.” Wolf turned to the window and studied the long procession of pedestrians walking along the lakeshore.
Just then, she downshifted and accelerated into a traffic circle, threading in between two cars, then shot out the other side. A second later, she swerved into oncoming traffic, looked to her left at a convex mirror that was mounted on a stone wall, jammed the brakes and cranked the wheel in a sharp button-hook right turn.
It took Wolf only a moment to realize he was riding shotgun with a gifted Formula One driver. He loosened his white-knuckle grip on the door. “Could you take me to my brother’s apartment?”
“Yes. We have to meet a colleague, and then we’ll go to the apartment.”
“Okay, thanks. I wasn’t sure. I really haven’t been able to communicate with people that well so far. It’s nice to know what’s going on.” Wolf sat in silence for a minute. “Your English is very good, hardly any accent.”
“Thanks,” she said with a lazy blink of her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
…
They parked in a cobblestone alley shadowed by ancient-looking buildings that were attached to one another, delineated with different shades of paint. Getting out, Wolf heard the thrum of people somewhere in the distance, and as they walked up a road and through an archway, Wolf saw why. They entered into a crowded football field-sized piazza. Water shot out of the ground a few feet away and small children screeched in delight as they splashed in it. Cafes with four or five rows of outdoor seating lined the entire length of the open amphitheater-like space, and old ornate-looking residential buildings were stacked five or six floors high on top of the eating establishments.
Wolf’s mouth watered at the sights and aromas of crisp pizzas, forks heaped with pasta, and handfuls of French fries. He realized his stomach was empty, and he would need to be sitting down at one of these restaurants soon.
Lia stopped and Wolf stopped alongside her, watching her eyes. She had spotted a male carabinieri officer across the piazza.
The two met eyes and nodded, and Lia walked swiftly toward the man.
Just then, a cacophony of noise stirred the piazza. Four kids on motorbikes came through, gunning their tinny engines. The bikes were all similar, two-stroke dirt bikes with street tires. The 50 cc engines were un-muffled and loud, and the boys were having a good time causing unrest with each flick of their throttles, bringing each and every conversation to a halt, and drawing the resenting glares of everyone within earshot.
After a few seconds, three of them killed the motors and leaned their bikes up against a side-alley wall, while another circled back and revved hard in front of a group of people, scaring them into a frenzy of stumbles and shrieks. Wolf’s stomach sank when he realized it was a group of young disabled people.
Lia slowed down and Wolf came up alongside her. She was watching the officer in the distance march with determination toward the four riders, who were now taking off their helmets and laughing. The fourth kid still sat on his bike, leaning against the wall with the engine shut off, peeling off his helmet.
He didn’t see it coming.
The officer walked up and slapped his bare head, a smack that was clearly audible over the noise of the piazza. Then he ripped the kid off the bike and pushed him up against the wall. He type-writered the boy in the chest and gave him a vigorous speech that, by the looks of the kid’s white expression, was one of the scariest things he’d ever heard in his life. Releasing the boy, he said something to the others, and they all pushed their bikes up the alley and out of sight. Done with that, the carabinieri officer straightened his pants, turned, and walked toward Wolf and Lia.
“That’s good police work right there,” Wolf said.
“Detective Valerio Rossi.” He shook Wolf’s hand. “We spoke on the phone. I’m sorry for your loss, Officer Wolf.” His English seemed better now that they were face to face.
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you for all your help so far.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah,” Wolf lied.
“His apartment is right here. Just off the piazza. Let’s go.”
Wolf followed Rossi and Lia, all the while watching them have a conversation in Italian. Lia seemed to be confiding something to him, and Rossi was shaking his head in disbelief, consoling her with a fatherly, or brotherly, pat on the back.
Wolf turned his attention from the two officers’ relationship dynamic to the prospect of going to see where his brother had died. He felt more than a twinge of regret that he hadn’t kept in better touch with John, hadn’t made an effort to visit him more. Maybe they would have had a good time drinking a few beers in this piazza together.
Wolf followed the two officers off the piazza and up a narrow road. It was hemmed-in by old buildings that towered above, some probably dating back five hundred years. Maybe even a thousand, for all he knew.
Rossi and Lia walked to a large open courtyard and stopped. Security fencing surrounded the property—iron spikes filed to thin deadly points topping each tall iron bar. Rossi pushed the intercom button and spoke to the onsite property manager, who buzzed them in.
A short man walked out of a door and into the courtyard to meet them. He was portly, and finishing a mouthful of food as he approached them. He wiped his hands on his denim pants and held out a hand to Wolf.
“Buon giorno.” He had a sullen expression.
“Hello, do you speak English?”
“Uhhh, no.”
“Okay.” Wolf glanced at Lia and Rossi. “Thank you for meeting us.”
Lia stepped in and began translating.
&n
bsp; “You were the one who found my brother?”
The man answered, and Lia translated.
“He and the girl, Cristina, who lives above your brother found him. The property manager, here, called the carabinieri,” Lia said.
Wolf nodded. “Okay. Let’s just head up.”
Chapter 14
The manager took a set of keys out of his pocket and inserted the top key into the door of apartment twenty-two. He turned it four or five complete revolutions to the left, then put a smaller key in and turned it five more times before the door popped open a crack.
The manager stepped back and let the door creak open. They all looked to Wolf, who stepped forward and entered the dim apartment.
Wolf noticed the pungent smell of lemon disinfectant. Rossi walked around Wolf and went to the small balcony off the main room, sliding open floor-to-ceiling shutter doors. Bright sunlight poured in, revealing a spacious room with high ceilings.
There was a dark wood table and four chairs, a recliner seat, television stand, small flat-screen television, two-person couch, and a couple of folding chairs along the wall. No coffee table or end tables. Black-and-white photographs hung on the walls. Frameless. They looked to be John’s work, perhaps blown up at a local supermarket, or photo shop, or whatever they had here that did that kind of stuff.
“Apparently your brother went out Friday night with a friend, came home, and the girl living above heard a noise. She said she was concerned after not seeing him all day Saturday, or Saturday night. They were supposed to have a date on Saturday night. She became concerned midday Sunday and told the manager.
“The manager came with keys and opened the door, which apparently was difficult because the keys were in the top lock from the inside. He somehow pushed them out and got it unlocked, then they found the body ... sorry, your brother.”
“Did you talk to the person he was out with that night? What was his name?”
