When Shadows Come

by Vincent Zandri

  “On occasion. When I least expect it, my vision returns to me.”

  “I’ve heard of this kind of thing before. Not an uncommon malady for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or perhaps traumatic brain injury. But I must assume you already know that.”

  “I’m aware of the complications prolonged combat presents.”

  “Tell me, Captain, have you ever felt like killing yourself? Killing someone else?”

  At this point, I want to reach across the desk, grab him by the necktie, and scream at him to leave this place and go find Grace. But I know I would get nowhere, other than a jail cell or, worse, a hospital bed in the Venice nuthouse.

  “No,” I answer. “No on both counts.”

  The sound of a door opening interrupts us. I listen to the sound of footsteps. Boot heels on the stone floor, followed by the scent of woman. A pleasing fragrance. She says something to the detective in Italian and immediately leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

  I hear the detective quickly shuffle through the paperwork she’s apparently dropped onto his desk. When he’s finished reading, he stamps out his cigarette and exhales the last of the smoke. The noise of the squeaky springs on his swivel chair fills the room when he leans back. Maybe he’s resting the back of his head in his hands.

  “Your story checks out, Captain Angel. You are a soldier and a writer. Are you published in Italy?”

  “I’m not published anywhere yet,” I tell him. “The war sort of stalled my career.”

  “War tends to kill more than just people.”

  Click . . . Climbing the hill to the village, my troops behind me, the motor-oil-like smell of detonated explosive fills my senses along with black smoke from the fires . . . I hear the moans and groans of the wounded . . . I smell the dead . . . As I pass by a dead cow with green-bellied flies buzzing around its open wounds, a little boy emerges from around the corner of a stone building that is still standing. There’s something in his hands . . .

  I take a moment to breathe, to stop the room from spinning. Then, “What about Grace? It’s possible so many people were gathered in the square no one actually noticed her being taken away. But does that mean you won’t search for her? Can’t we at least check out some CCTV video somewhere? There’s got to be dozens of security cameras in the square.”

  “Yes, we will search for her, Captain. We will check out the CCTV. We will scour the entire city with a fine-toothed comb before we are done. But first, allow me to ask you a few more questions.”

  I nod, exhale.

  “How well did you and your fiancée, Grace Blunt, get along?”

  “Very well.”

  “Very well,” he repeats. He’s questioning my answer.

  “Okay, the past year since Grace and I announced our engagement has been difficult. There were the normal stresses and strains of being apart, being out of communication sometimes days at a time, and even then, communicating mostly by e-mail and texts.” But what I’m not telling him is how Grace and her ex-husband, Andrew, rekindled their friendship while I was away. How the friendship turned into something else one night. How Grace called me the day after, left a message for me in a fit of tears and remorse. How for weeks after that, I wouldn’t talk with her. Wouldn’t talk on the sat-phone. Wouldn’t Skype. Wouldn’t text or e-mail. About how I thought very often of leaving her and never returning to the US after the war.

  “And now you are suffering from a . . . malady.”

  “Yes, a malady, as you call it. But it’s going to go away one day soon. And I will be good as new and Grace and I will be married.”

  “I understand,” he says. “But first she must come back to you and you must make the decision not to go to any more wars. That is, the decision is yours to make.”

  My insides drop. I want to call the detective a son of a bitch and walk out the door. But I am at his mercy and he knows it.

  “Yes,” I say, holding back my rage . . . my fury. “Grace must come back or be found by you good people.”

  He picks up a piece of paper. Probably the paper the female officer brought in for him.

  “We have witnesses who say they saw you both in a caffè yesterday not far from here. And that you were arguing.”

  I recall the engagement ring dropping to the cobbles. I recall spilling my drink. I recall our heated words and picturing Grace and Andrew together in bed and all the people who were staring at us. People who watched us argue, but who then went blind to Grace’s being kidnapped from our table this afternoon.

  “Yes, we argued,” I say. “I assume you argue on occasion with your wife?”

  The detective issues a subtle laugh. Like he’s grinning about something humorous that happened years ago.

  “Yes, we did argue quite often. She was an American from Los Angeles. Which is why we divorced. Happily.”

  “So that explains your excellent English,” I say. “I’ve been married before, too.”

  “Your first wife,” he says to the sound of more paper rustling. “Her name was Karen?” Pausing to, I imagine, glance down at the notes set on the desktop. “She committed suicide in July of 2001?”

  Me, feeling the not-so-strange tightness in my chest at the mention of Karen. At the mention of her death and how she died.

  “Tell me,” he says. “Soldiers . . . combat soldiers . . . are under a great deal of stress and strain both on and off the battlefield. Did you and Karen argue a lot, just like you and Grace?”

  He’s testing me now, pushing my buttons. He’s testing my stability. Trying to gauge my sense of guilt and remorse. Reading my face and my reactions.

  “Stress,” I say. “You should know all about that, Detective, shouldn’t you?”

  “I am the one asking the questions. I am not the one looking for my wife. In fact, I am still running away from her.”

  “Sure, Karen and I argued like all married couples. But I had nothing to do with her death, if that’s what you’re getting at. That’s why in the end, it was determined a suicide.”

  “In the end,” he says, like my choice of words means something more than it does. “Did you know that oftentimes, when a person disappears, her significant other is responsible for making it happen? Soldiers, especially those suffering from acute psychological repression from the prolonged effects of combat, can be especially volatile.”

  I lower my head, peer down into my lap. I don’t want him to see the expression on my face, my need to jump out of this chair, wrestle him to the floor, dig my thumbnails into his eyeballs.

  “You are some years older than Grace,” he observes. “Eight years, if my math is correct. She could be attracted to someone younger. Someone not affected by the war or wars. Someone more stable. Someone she was married to before, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” I swallow. “Grace was married once before. What’s your point, Detective?”

  “My point, Captain Angel, is that Grace may very well have simply walked away from something she no longer wanted in her life. Something she was afraid of. It’s possible she is frightened of committing herself to only one man for the rest of her life. This is an entirely human response to the prospect of marriage.”

  He must by now recognize the expression of stone-cold anger radiating from me. It must be painted on my face.

  “Walked off,” I say. “Walked off without a change of clothes. Without luggage? With the clothes on her back and no warning? What about the stranger?”

  “With all due respect, Captain, do you have any idea how many men walk away from their wives while vacationing in Venice? How many wives walk away from their husbands, never to return? Honeymooners, Captain Angel. Couples who are supposed to be in love.”

  He’s right, of course. I’m not oblivious to spoiled love or love gone suddenly wrong. I’m not completely out of touch with a man or a woman experiencing a one-hundred-eighty-degree change of emotion. Sometimes walking away from something just seems easier than attempting to climb an impossibly steep an
d slippery slope. Sometimes driving your car into the river is easier than living. Sometimes you shoot and ask questions later. Maybe dealing with my blindness this past week has been too much for her. Maybe she’s still hopelessly in love with Andrew. Or maybe the man in the overcoat has taken her and is hurting her right now.

  “Detective Carbone, I know what you are trying to tell me, and despite some arguments, I assure you, Grace and I are very much in love and very solid. So maybe it’s time we stopped talking and you go out and find her. For God’s sake.”

  “Very much in love and very solid,” he says, lighting another cigarette. “Well then, you are sure about the strange man you saw yesterday and today?”

  “Sure I am.”

  “Have you seen him at any other time while in Venice?”

  I pretend to think for a moment. But there’s nothing to think about.

  “I can’t recall. But we definitely spotted him yesterday and today.”

  “But you yourself did not actually see him with your own eyes.”

  “Grace got a very good look at him. I managed to catch a glimpse of him when my eyesight returned for a brief time. He wasn’t hiding from us.”

  “No other strangers have come your way, then?”

  “No,” I repeat. But then I catch myself. “Wait. Phone calls. We’ve received some phone calls at the apartment we’re renting. When we answered the phone, the person on the other end simply said, ‘I see.’ In English. To be honest, I thought it was some kind of prank or joke because of my condition. My . . . malady.”

  He’s writing something down. I hear the scribbling again.

  “How often has this man called?”

  “A couple times. Maybe three.”

  He writes that down. “What is your number?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t use that phone. I use my mobile. But we can find the number easily enough and trace the calls.”

  “Yes, landlines are becoming extinct. Like the old paperback books and vinyl records.”

  “You think there could be a connection between the phone calls and Grace’s disappearance?”

  “Perhaps. But we will have to trace the calls first and find their origin. We can do that now when we escort you back to your apartment.”

  Finally, some progress. Some action. Not a full-frontal assault. But at least it isn’t a retreat.

  “One more thing, Captain. Does Grace have any family? Sisters, brothers, parents?”

  “An older sister and a younger brother. Parents are dead. She doesn’t communicate with her siblings as far as I know. Or maybe they do know something. How the hell should I know at this point?”

  “Hold off on notifying them for now, assuming you were thinking of it. We wouldn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily. The same goes for Grace’s ex-husband, again, assuming you are thinking of it.”

  The detective stands.

  I stand.

  He comes around and takes my arm. As he leads me toward the door of his office, he asks what the prognosis is for the permanent return of my eyesight.

  “Fifty-fifty.”

  He issues another one of those light laughs like something’s real funny.

  “If I were a betting man, Captain Angel,” he says, “I would enjoy those odds. I would be optimistic.”

  As he opens the office door, I consider asking him what the odds are of finding Grace. Instead I yank my arm from his hand and keep my mouth shut. Chances are, I’m not going to like the answer.

  Chapter 14

  I’m escorted back to my apartment above the bookshop in a wooden police boat that might pass for a sleek Gar Wood motorboat back in upstate New York’s lake country. Or so my memory tells me. They are permanent floating fixtures on the ripples of the Grand Canal.

  The two uniformed cops doing the escorting don’t speak a word to me other than what’s necessary. Things like “Watch your step,” and “Watch your head.” But I sense their suspicions, their distaste for me . . . the unstable soldier. The wounded vet with no visible wounds. A bad captain is fully capable of losing his squad either through bad decisions or bad orders he can’t possibly carry out. But only a sad son of a bitch is capable of losing his fiancée in broad daylight. A blind, sad son of bitch anyway.

  They walk me up the flights of stairs to the studio. I open the door for them and they enter. Since I don’t require the overhead lamp at present, I don’t bother turning it on. But one of the cops hits the wall-mounted switch. I sense the light as soon as it’s triggered. But not much else.

  “Where is the phone, Captain Angel?” one of them asks.

  “Help yourself,” I say, pointing to the wall beside the apartment door.

  The handset is plucked off the wall, some numbers punched in. That’s followed by a pause until the cop starts barking something in rapid-fire Italian. My guess is he’s speaking with the operator. The phone is hung up with a heavy plastic slap. The cop approaches me.

  “We have a trace being conducted on the last number to have called this line,” he informs me. “The detective will contact you with the information when he receives it. In the meantime, is there anything we can get for you? Food? Water? Wine?”

  “A dog for the eyes?” barks the second cop in his heavy accent. “A stick for the walking?”

  The two officers laugh like this is one hell of a party.

  “Please, do me a favor. When you look around the apartment, does anything look disturbed?”

  They take a minute to glance around.

  “Nothing seems out of place,” says the first cop, whose English is better than the second cop’s. “But then, this isn’t our place to begin with.”

  “Beside the bed you’ll find our luggage. Does it look like it’s been opened?”

  “There is one suitcase and one backpack. They both seem to be undisturbed.”

  If Grace came back here on her own to retrieve something . . . anything, she wouldn’t have bothered to close the suitcase on the way out . . . But what about her painting? Would she have taken her painting?

  “Behind me,” I say. “Do you see a painting set up on an easel?”

  “Yes,” says the first cop.

  “Can you do me a favor and look at it?”

  “Look at it?”

  “Please,” I say. “What’s painted on it?”

  The second cop stifles a laugh. But I hear shoes shuffling until they’re standing in front of the oil painting.

  “It is a woman with long dark hair, and green eyes. Her belly is pregnant.”

  The wallop to my chest feels like taking a bullet.

  You see our future, Grace said. Did she want me to feel her painting because that’s the future she wants for us? Or am I entirely wrong? Is she pregnant with Andrew’s child, and this was her way of telling me?

  Grace, have you left me to run back to Andrew’s arms? Have you been lying to me all along?

  “Now,” says the first cop, “if there is nothing else you would like from us, Captain, we will be leaving you.”

  “My fiancée,” I say. “You can find her and bring her back.”

  “We will find her,” he says, no longer laughing. “If she wants to be found.”

  With that, the two officers leave, closing the door behind them.

  I make my way to the bed, drop down to my knees, feel for Grace’s suitcase. The cops were right. The simple carry-on bag is zipped closed. I pick it up, set it on the bed, unzip it. I feel my way through the contents, but what good is the act when I can’t see a damn thing? Closing the bag, I set it back on the floor.

  Returning to the living area, I run my hands over the harvest table, feeling for anything that might belong to Grace. All I feel are our computers. Turning, I go to her easel, but I’m so panicked I’ve forgotten to count my steps. I collide with the edge of the canvas and it tumbles to the floor.

  “Christ!” I shout, kicking the table that holds her paints, just the way she left them earlier.

  Weaving unsteadily to the couch,
I sit down. The heavy silence weighs on my shoulders. I feel numb and suddenly beyond exhausted. Pulling my phone from my coat pocket, I feel along the screen, attempt to press “Redial.” But I can’t see what I’m doing and I press the wrong buttons. I should have had the cops try Grace from my phone while I had the chance. But then, shouldn’t Grace be calling me if she’s lost?

  Not if she’s being held against her will or worse, already dead.

  I shove the phone back into my coat pocket, feeling the weight of her absence like a hole in my heart.

  I lie down on my side, close my eyes.

  Darkness prevails.

  Chapter 15

  My men break down doors, gather the people hiding inside the stone buildings who haven’t been hit by the bombing run or are not engulfed by fire. The soldiers drag them out, make them assemble near the well in the center of the village. Some of the troops search the untouched buildings for contraband. Weapons, explosive devices, and unspent rounds hidden inside the walls and under the floorboards. When they find them, they will toss in a live grenade and blow the structure sky-high.

  Suddenly, a small boy emerges from around the corner of a surviving building. It looks like he’s carrying something. But after a second or two, I can see that he’s not carrying anything so much as something is strapped to his chest.

  The fine hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

  Without hesitation, I shoulder my M4, take aim with both eyes open . . .

  Chapter 16

  When I wake I find myself not on the couch, but standing on the opposite end of the apartment at the kitchenette, in the process of stacking dishes on the counter. I can see. I have no idea why I am doing this or if it means anything at all. Just like this morning when I woke on the roof.

  I repeat, I can see, over. . .

  I turn away from the stacks of boxes, cans, dishes, cups, wineglasses, drinking glasses, knives, and forks, and peer outside the open French doors. Beyond the painting situated on the easel is the dark night of Venice. I glance at the back of the canvas, and listen to the pleasant sounds of the ever-active city of water until the realization hits me like a cement block.