David Wolf series Box Set

by Jeff Carson

  Dr. Chang was three doors down the hall in his office, cradling a teacup with both hands, looking intently at his computer screen.

  “Dr. Chang?” Wolf knocked on the open door.

  “Yes?” Dr. Chang looked up through steamy glasses.

  “You work with Matthew Rosenwald, correct?”

  “Yes.” He put down his cup and turned to them.

  “Have you seen him or heard from him in the last few days?” Lia asked.

  “No, I have not.”

  “Is that usual?” Wolf asked. “Not to hear from him for days?”

  Chang furrowed his brow and stood, crossing his arms. He wore a white lab coat unbuttoned and draped over his blue T-shirt and tight jeans. He wore large Buddy Holly-style glasses that looked way too big for his face, and had tall spiky hair. “No, it is not usual. We usually keep in touch, and he missed some important milestones for our work earlier this week, in fact.”

  “And what is that work exactly?” Wolf asked.

  “We were, uh …” he hesitated.

  Wolf didn’t blink. “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to explain it, other than in a way that won’t make sense to you, I’m sure.”

  “Try me.”

  “We  ...  we were shaping X-ray beams via deformable mirrors. We have been analytically computing the required mirror profile for a series of telescopes.”

  Wolf looked blankly at Dr. Chang. “Do you have a relationship with Dr. Rosenwald outside the work place?”

  “No. Not at all, actually,” he said pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, as if realizing it for the first time.

  “Were you with him at the bar this weekend getting beers? Or did you see him this weekend?”

  “No. Like I said, I didn’t ever socialize with Dr. Rosenwald outside of work.” He looked to Lia and Dr. Wembly. “What’s this all about?”

  “Never mind. Thanks for your time, Dr. Chang. If you hear from him, can you please call this number?” Wolf looked to Lia, and she gave him a phone number.

  They said goodbye to Dr. Wembly and left mid-morning with Dr. Rosenwald’s address in hand.

  Chapter 21

  “What was that all about with Dr. Chang?” She revved the RPMs to pass two trucks. “Why were you pressing him about his work?”

  “I wanted to ask him that question before asking him about Dr. Rosenwald  ...  to see his reactions. He wasn’t hiding anything. Not like Dr. Vlad was. That guy was a comical liar. I’m surprised he didn’t start dry-heaving right in front of us.”

  “Yeah. He was acting strange.” She eyed him. “And, where did you get that receipt?”

  “I picked it up at the morgue.”

  She turned to him with a wide-eyed glare. “You took that when you pretended to almost pass out!”

  “I wasn’t pretending. I almost passed out.”

  …

  M. Rosenwald and a number were written on a call box that hung outside the wrought-iron gate. Lia pushed the button and waited.

  “No answer.” Wolf smacked a mosquito on his neck.

  The apartment building was a short drive north of the observatory, along the same wide river that dumped out of Lake Como—which meant it was brutally muggy. Thick foliage covered every nook and cranny of the surrounding area, all the way to the water. The building seemed to pop up from underneath the greenery. It was large, containing thirty or more apartments.

  “I don’t think he is home,” Lia said.

  Wolf bent forward. “Is there a building-manager button?” He waged war on two more mosquitoes hovering around his ears.

  “I don’t see one.” She shrugged.

  “Okay, you do the talking.” Wolf pushed five buttons in quick succession.

  She put her hands on her slender hips and gave Wolf a dirty look.

  “Pronto?”

  “Pronto?” Two people answered almost simultaneously.

  “Buon giorno. Siamo i carabinieri. Lasciateci entrare?”

  The gate buzzed and clicked open, then buzzed again.

  “Okay, now let’s go get a closer look.” Wolf pushed through the gate.

  “Is this how they do it in Colorado?”

  “Nope. We don’t have fences like this where I come from.”

  They walked through the courtyard, up a series of steps outside, and pulled open a large door into the apartment building. The air was steamy inside, and smelled of simmering tomato sauce and searing meat. Wolf swallowed so he wouldn’t drool.

  They climbed the stairs to Dr. Rosenwald’s floor and ran into a concerned-looking old woman poking her head out the door.

  She and Lia had a brief conversation.

  “What did she say?”

  “She hasn’t seen him.”

  They continued down the hall and stopped at Rosenwald’s apartment. Wolf knocked four times against the thick wood door. The sound echoed through the marble-encased hallway they were standing in. There was no response from inside, no sounds at all.

  “Would you object to me picking this lock?” Wolf raised an eyebrow.

  “I  ...  could you do that?”

  “I could. They don’t teach that here in your military?”

  “I don’t remember learning that skill, no.” She smirked. “Well, in Italy, we do not need a warrant for drugs to search a person’s property. Since your brother had drugs in his system on the night of his death, and he was with this person on the night of his death  ...  then I don’t see any problem with us entering this apartment on suspicion of drugs.”

  “Okay, good. I’m going to need some things. I need something that’s long and thin and made of metal, and I haven’t seen a lock like this in my life. I say let’s go to the old lady’s apartment and see what we can get there.” He turned to walk down the hallway.

  Lia reached down and turned the doorknob. With a soft click the door creaked open to the inside.

  She swept her hand at the door. “They don’t teach that skill in the American military?”

  “Huh. No I don’t remember learning that.” He stepped in.

  The apartment was dimly lit. A corridor hallway inside the entrance was lined with a body-length mirror and a framed painting that looked to be Australian aboriginal art.

  Two doors were closed on the right-hand side and a brightly lit bigger room was at the end of the narrow hallway.

  “Hello?” Wolf called into the apartment.

  Lia flipped a switch and the hall flooded with yellow light. She shut the door, suffocating any outside noise.

  He smelled her sweet breath as she turned toward him, and then the lavender scent of her hair. The apartment was completely silent save the gentle rustle of her clothing.

  Wolf was aware that he’d passed beyond the act of looking to staring at Lia, so he sprang into action. “I’ll check in here.” He turned and opened the nearest door, revealing Rosenwald’s bedroom. A queen-sized bed was unmade with two shirts strewn across it. A wicker dirty-clothes basket was full to the brim, giving the room a musty body-odor smell. The screenless window was open a crack, and Wolf felt another tiny sting and slapped his forearm.

  Distant thunder rumbled outside, shaking the building deeply. Light dimmed by the second.

  “Pretty nice place!” Lia said from somewhere else in the apartment. He left the room and followed her voice down the hall and into a large living room with vaulted ceilings. There were two massive windows set in an exposed brick wall that looked out onto the river, filling the room with subdued natural light.

  The opposite wall was painted Italian-flag green. From it hung a medium-sized flat-screen television. Australian landscape photography and paintings adorned the rest of the wall space. It was thoughtfully and tastefully designed, with attention to detail. There was a leather couch, dark wood end tables, and a kitchenette with a table where Lia was digging in a backpack.

  “Notice the coffee table over there?” She nodded her head toward it.

  Wol
f looked and saw a small pile of euro coins, a few pieces of paper, and a tiny white bag. It looked like a bag of cocaine. He picked it up and studied it closely, then opened it. It looked and smelled like it at least.

  “So, Matthew here is also using cocaine,” she said.

  “I don’t think my brother was using cocaine.”

  “Sorry.” She gave him a sideways glance. “So ... how do you explain the coroner’s report?”

  “It said there was residue on his nose. There weren’t any blood tests done.”

  “True.”

  He closed and pocketed the tiny bag and they began a thorough search of the apartment. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for a single male from Australia living his life as a gamma-ray astronomer in a foreign country. Other than the bag of coke, that is.

  Receipts were piled on the kitchen counter against the tile backsplash, all of them looking like they were for gas or groceries.

  “There’s no phone. That reminds me, can we look at phone records for my brother and this guy? There may be some clues there. We should have the cell-phone company ping his phone as well to see where it’s at, if there’s any charge left in it. Did it go straight to voice mail when you called it earlier?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Okay, that says something. He’s not charging his cell. Maybe he knows someone could trace his phone if he charged it. Maybe he took out the battery. Maybe he’s running. I don’t see his car keys anywhere. What about his passport?”

  Lia twisted and raised her hands. “Let’s look for it.”

  They split up, Wolf returning to his bedroom and Lia staying in the living room and kitchen. Wolf got up close with the contents of every drawer and nook in the room and came up empty.

  “Nothing,” Lia said when Wolf returned.

  “Nothing in there, either. So he has his passport on him. Can we trace his movement with it?”

  “Probably not. At least, it’s not easy. Schengen rules allow free travel between most European countries. Most countries don’t even have electronic passport control of any kind. There will be a guard, and he will look at the passport, and done.” She swiped her hands together as if wiping off crumbs. “We can check, of course, but we shouldn’t expect anything. Credit cards and the cell phone are a better bet.”

  “You have a person in the carabinieri that does all this stuff?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “There is a guy who does all this stuff. He is the technical genius of the office.”

  Nearby thunder rumbled for a long time outside, and a deluge of raindrops began hitting the roof and windows.

  “We’ll have him check on Dr. Rosenwald’s car as well,” she said. “He can get the registration.”

  “I wonder if he could hack into my brother’s computer at the same time.”

  “If it can be done, he will be able to do it.”

  “I’d also like to take a thorough look at the police report, or whatever you call it here,” he said. “All after we go to the Albastru Pub.”

  “Is that all?” She looked at him facetiously.

  “No.”

  A white flash of lightning lit the interior of the apartment, followed by a deafening boom that rolled into the distance.

  “Whoa. We’d better get to the car.” They walked down the hall and out of the apartment. “So what else do you have planned for us, Mr. Wolf?”

  “Food.” Wolf said. “Food.”

  Chapter 22

  Lia cut a chunk off her margherita pizza and stuffed it in her mouth. “So, what’s it like in Colorado?”

  “It’s a beautiful place. There aren’t nearly as many people as here, at least where I come from in the mountains. Some days you’ll see more animals than other people. I love it.”

  They sat inside a crowded pizzeria along the river while it poured with rain outside. They ordered pizza, water, and Cokes, a meal Wolf liked anywhere in the world, but he was looking forward to tasting the authentic thing. Wolf dug into the savory pizza and he wasn’t disappointed.

  “Have you been there your whole life?”

  “Most of it. I was in the military for a number of years right out of high school, then I returned. Otherwise, yeah. Born and raised.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Really? Where did you serve?”

  “I was stationed in Washington.”

  “Where did you go?”

  He laughed at her intense interest. “Middle East. Pacific Rim, mostly Asia and Australia.”

  “Oh, wow. That must have been amazing.” She shook her head and sipped her Coke. “Did you see any action?”

  “Nah, not much,” he lied. “I saw some in the Middle East, but otherwise, it was more a nice tour of the world.”

  She stared at nothing for a beat, then shook her head. “What is your position on the police force there?”

  “I’m a  ...  deputy sergeant, in the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Is that a bad subject or something?” she asked, studying Wolf’s face.

  “Well, it’s an interesting time for my career at the moment. There’s a possibility I’ll be appointed to sheriff on Monday.”

  She paused. “Really? Monday? Wow, congratulations.”

  “Yeah, no congratulations yet.” They sat in silence as he swilled another small glass of water. “That’s if a few things go right.”

  “What do you mean? Do you not have the job already?”

  “No, I don’t. I have to be appointed by a council of the top political officials in our county. I have to have the majority vote of all the members.”

  “And …?”

  “Well, I hurt a guy pretty bad before I left, and his father happens to be on said council.”

  “Uh oh.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “And you are a bit worried?”

  “Well, yeah. They could be persuaded to vote for another person as sheriff instead. Because of what I did.”

  “Oh, okay. So, is there another candidate for the job?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The guy I hurt pretty bad before I left.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Ah, I get it,” she said. “He may try to convince the others to vote for his son, especially since you just beat the crap out of him. Also, of course, there is the matter of your brother here, which you want to make sure is taken care of before you go home.”

  They both resumed eating.

  She paused. “So, you think that the council member would have voted for you before you hurt his son? Wouldn’t he have pushed the council to vote for his own son anyway? I’m confused.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, it’s confusing as all hell. But, no, he wouldn’t have, I don’t think. He probably would have voted for me over his own son. In fact, that’s probably the reason his son and I got into it the other day.”

  She nodded her head as if all was crystal clear, and then she finished her last bite and wiped her mouth. “All right. So let’s figure this whole mess out soon so you can take your brother home and go win your job.”

  He liked this girl more and more.

  Chapter 23

  Lia parked the Alfa Romeo right in front of the Albastru Pub, which sat in a piazza in the heart of Lecco that looked otherwise restricted to vehicle traffic.

  The pub had a large dark wooden sign with hand-carved lettering above the front door, and a blue, yellow, and red square flag hanging from a pole above it. A single deciduous tree grew thickly from a small square of brick in front.

  “Romanian.” Lia pointed at the flag as they got out, answering Wolf’s forthcoming question.

  They entered the pub, and Wolf noted the nautical-looking clock on the wall that said 2:10 p.m. It looked like the bottom-rung customers were there at the moment—a few older men slumping over a yellow beer or a brown opaque liquor in their glasses. Punk-rock music Wolf didn’t recognize buzzed out of the large wall-mounted speakers. Two muted televisions showed the same soccer highlights.

  No one was behind the dark wooded bar, nor was there any indicator bell on the d
oor or anything to telegraph their entrance.

  Lia took off her hat and brushed the stray strands of her dark hair from her forehead. “Buon giorno!” she called toward the rear of the bar.

  A thin face with buggy cobalt eyes peeked from around the corner at a surprisingly tall height.

  Almost imperceptibly, the man’s eyes widened, then a stringy arm appeared, holding up a finger. “Buon giorno! Un momento, per favore.” The second half of the sentence retreated away from them behind the wall. There was a fast clipped conversation just audible over the music somewhere in the back, a door closing, and then the man returned.

  The bartender was tall. What Wolf thought to be a man standing on a step stool and peeking around a corner was in fact a man that stood well above Wolf’s own six-foot-three frame. His head was shaved on the sides all the way to the skin, with a spiked hairdo on top that shone with copious amounts of gel, making the man look even taller than the already circus-height he was. His ears protruded from the side of his head like two open car doors. He had a large nose, and a tight small mouth with spittle built up on the corners. A gold necklace jostled around his neck, well displayed on his bared chest above his mostly unbuttoned white silk shirt.

  He hurried over and extended a huge hand across the bar to Wolf. “Ciao, sono Cezar.”

  Wolf shook his hand, eying a pattern of five dots in between the man’s right forefinger and thumb, like a five on a dice. He’d seen the tattoo countless times around the world. Always on bad people. It seemed that each culture, or country, or region, had different meanings for the universal mark. Some men in the Far East would get the tattoo in prison; some would get it to signify that they’d killed another man. Wolf assumed Cezar’s mark represented something similar, and didn’t represent his prowess for dice games.

  “Do you speak English?” Wolf asked.

  “Yes, I speak English. Why?” The faint sound of a car engine fired up toward the back of the building, revved, and gradually faded.

  “Because I don’t speak Italian. My name’s Wolf.”

  “Wolf! What is that, German?”