by Jeff Carson
“And now you have to go?”
“I need to go over there to get John.”
Burton put his elbows back on the desk and buried his face in his hands for a second. “I was so sorry to hear about your brother son.” He had a look of deep sorrow. “If you need anything, keep in touch. I don’t see how my old ass could help, but if you need anything, just holler. I’ll try to keep you in good standing with the town council while you are gone, but…it would be much easier if you were here.”
“I know sir. But something isn’t right about his death. I don’t think my brother killed himself. Or if he did, I need to be the one who tells myself he did. Not a stranger halfway around the world. I can’t take anyone’s word on something this big.”
Burton stared back blinking. “Keep out of trouble.”
“I will. Thank you sir.”
Another pause hung between them.
Burton picked up his coffee mug, looked in it, and set it down. “I hear Sarah is back from rehabilitation. You seen her yet?”
“Yeah, saw her and Jack this morning.”
“Well, we’ll keep an eye on things.” Burton grunted as he got up.
“I know sir. Thanks.”
Chapter 10 — Wednesday
Wolf was jolted awake by the ping of the seatbelt sign and a loud voice in Italian over the Boeing 777’s intercom. He was in Milan. Milano. He looked out the window and saw green fields and countless red roofed buildings. Anything tall enough to be hit by an aircraft was painted in a red and white candy cane striping.
He had absolutely no clue what to expect in Italy. While in the army, he’d been stationed in Fort Lewis, Washington, never serving any missions in Europe. His experience of foreign cultures was all much further east of the Prime Meridian — China, Vietnam, Laos, The Philippines, Australia — in a much less pedestrian manner.
He’d seen the pictures on his brother’s blog, read a few of his posts about life there, but he really didn’t have a sense of what he was getting into at all. For him, the word Italy conjured up thoughts of pizza. Spaghetti, meatballs. Calzones. Food. Mario and Luigi.
The plane came to a halt at the Malpensa International Airport gate. The air was startlingly humid, feeling about seventy five degrees Fahrenheit. His mind came up blank trying to convert it to Celsius. He knew it was nine fifths plus thirty two to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, but the other way around? Screw it. It was pleasant.
Looking out the terminal window past the docked planes revealed a flat landscape with a dense hazy sky. There was no view other than a copse of green deciduous trees in any direction he could see. He knew the Alps were very close by. He’d gotten a good look at the Matterhorn before the rough dive into Milan, but the Alps hid behind a veil at the moment. His mental compass was spinning wildly — Rocky Points had the Rocky Points in the west, and Denver had the towering mountains to the west — it added to his unease.
A sea of people chattered all around him in a language he had little experience with — one semester class in high school before he changed to Spanish. Everyone was using the same voice intonations along with the same hand gestures. Grandiose was the word that came to his mind.
Passing through the customs line, the officer asked him why he was in the country.
“Vacation,” he said. No sense causing any confusion.
The customs officer said something else to him, looked at him with an expectant look, then shooed him onward. Wolf couldn’t begin making an educated guess to the topic of what was said.
Signs throughout the airport were in Italian, English underneath. He strained listening to the people around him, noting not a single person speaking English in the vicinity. He thought back on the phone calls and how difficult it was to communicate with the few people he’d spoken to.
A wave of nauseous second-guessing hit him for a split second. What was he expecting here? Sure, he was getting his brother’s body and bringing it back, but he had much larger aspirations for this trip. How the hell was this going to go down?
Pushing the doubt out of his mind, he set out to find the train.
Chapter 11
The next two hours were an exercise of faith. Never once had he been completely sure he was on the right train, or going in the right direction. The air outside was a dull gray, ground revealing no shadows. Coupled with the flat landscape and towering buildings, there was still no way to get a bearing on direction.
Two trains later, however, he was now reasonably sure he was on the right route. Twice he caught a glimpse of the word Lecco on signs, and the Alps finally came into view amid the haze ahead, indicating he was at least heading north. The train stopped often, slowly weaving its way into the green hills. A large slow moving river flitted into view on the left hand side. There were boats pulled up along the shore on each dry river bank, looking like the water line was a few feet lower than it had been in the recent past. Still, the amount of water sliding by looked to be more than a few of the largest Colorado rivers combined.
Brightly painted buildings of sorbet orange, sky blue, purple, lime yellow, and other electric shades were everywhere; next to the river, halfway up the steep inclined hills, even directly on top of the mountain peaks. Nature was choked out by thousands of years of settlement, but the foliage was rampant at the same time. It was thick, dense, wiry and thorny. Grass grew in feet, not in inches.
Vibrant shades of painted stucco gave way to a consistent powdery gray stone color as the train continued north. Each roof on the thousands of buildings of all shapes and sizes was topped with the same tangerine-hue clay tile.
Moving steadily north, the gaping river widened into smaller lakes, then narrowed into a tighter bottleneck before ultimately opening up into a gigantic lake.
Towering steep mountains, densely green with deciduous trees, calved with talk chalk-white cliffs, lined both sides.
Lake Como, he recognized from his Googling. The lake was one of the deepest in Europe, and looking at the steep mountains that dove straight into it, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
The train was now in a the city of Lecco, where his brother had been living for the last five months. Wolf recalled his study of Google Maps on the internet from the other night. Lecco sat on the geographical lower right tip of the lake, which was in the shape of an enormous upside down “Y”. They were on the southeast tip, and the northern most end was nowhere near in site.
“Dahveed Vowlf?” The Caribinieri officer pulled his cell phone slightly away from his ear. He was no older than twenty five, dressed in a dark blue, sharp looking uniform with white leather belt and shoulder harness for his Baretta, a sharp billed military style hat in his left hand, cell phone in the right.
“Yes.”
“I am Tito, come with me.” He turned, resuming his phone conversation.
Wolf thought back on the phone conversation he’d had with Tito and resisted the urge to drop kick him.
Stepping out of the station, Tito’s hair glistened in the sun — hat still tucked under his arm. His sideburns were shaven to a precise point halfway down the sides of his face, a pencil thin goatee was etched on the skin around his mouth. It looked like it took him well over an hour to get ready in the morning.
Wolf felt his own hair, a greasy mat, painful to the touch, and surmised he wasn’t in a place to be making any sort of judgments on appearances.
Tito talked on the phone, walking painfully slow, finally coming to his Alfa Romeo Caribinieri cruiser. It was sleek looking, with three cylindrical lights on top. Wolf sat down and appraised the car with an internal thumbs up.
He gave Tito’s driving, however, an emphatic thumbs-down as he drove half brained; cell phone still in his right hand, shifting gears cross-over with his left, narrowly missing pedestrians and other cars through tight streets and roundabouts as he shifted.
Ten minutes later, they thankfully came to a stop, pulling into a parking lot along the lake shore to the rear of an old looking gray building; how old, Wolf
couldn’t tell.
A strong damp breeze came off the lake, and the air wasn’t as hazy as just a few miles down towards Milan had been. There was a train of criss-crossing sails in the distance moving at high speed — kite surfers and sailboarders.
They walked the short distance to the back of the building and entered into what seemed to be hell, or a waiting room for it. A cram of people poured out of a steamy room that wafted the spicy odor of human sweat immediately to the right. The room’s collective impatience and despair was a palpable force.
The art work on filthy dirt-yellow walls outside of the room was a collection of askew black and white pictures of various buildings in rubble, as if after an earthquake, or an intense aerial shelling. Directly in front of them in the distance was another entrance with a metal detector. A young Caribinieri officer armed with his own Baretta was at the entrance was interrogating an Asian couple with a baby, while people streamed in behind them setting off the alarm. No one of authority seemed to care about the blinking light and incessant beeping, so Wolf guessed he shouldn’t either.
Directly above them was an immensely vaulted ceiling, and a stone stairway to the left that spiraled upwards to each level above. Wolf hoped to God they were going up, and to his relief Tito was already halfway up the first flight, wrapping up his phone conversation.
Upstairs was open, light, and had a beautiful view of the lake. The windows were all propped ajar letting in the pleasant breeze which carried nondescript mouthwatering aromas Wolf couldn’t put his finger on. Caribinieri uniformed officers bustled about.
Tito stopped and looked to his right with a big inhale while he pulled down his uniform top with both hands. Colonnello Marino said the door label. A booming voice shook the frosted glass from within. Tito stepped to it and knocked gingerly three times.
“Dai!” The door shook on its hinges.
Tito poked his head in hesitantly, and then entered, opening the door to let Wolf in behind him. Colonnello Marino had a phone up to his ear and looked towards the windows to their right. He waved his hand towards two chairs against the wall to their immediate left without looking.
Colonnello Marino yelled loudly in rapid Italian, slamming his fist into his leg. Tito squirmed in his chair and his face drained white. Sweat beaded and ran down his perfectly manicured hairline.
Marino finished his conversation and twisted in his chair violently. Tito flinched, and Marino held up a finger to them, still not resting his eyes on his new visitors, pushed his finger on the plunger, then dialed a phone number and twisted to the window again.
Wolf watched Marino bounce his head, speak in pleasant tones, laugh heartily, hand gesture animatedly, mumble niceties — Wolf began wondering just what the hell was happening. He waited patiently.
Marino swiveled back to the phone again and Wolf noted on his watch the seven minutes that had already passed. 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 towards the window.
“Excuse me, sir,” Wolf said. “I’ve come a long way and would like to speak about my brother. My brother John Wolf?”
Colonnello Marino pulled the handset from his face and swiveled his chair, shooting a hot glare that bore deep into Wolf’s eyes. He pause for a breath and then his face melted into sympathy in a split instant. “Ah, yes. Mr. Wolf. I am-a sorry about your brother. And I am-a sorry about-a-my English-a. It is terrible.” He gently hung up the phone, then launched into a fast paced pleasant sounding paragraph, speaking directly to Tito.
Tito turned halfway to Wolf, taking on the role of interpreter.
“He says that he is waiting for the final release papers for releasing your brother’s body. It should be at some time een the next two days when everything is finished and signed, so you can take him home.”
Colonnello Marino folded his hands and leaned forward on his desk with a sympathetic expression.
“Okay, thank you,” Wolf said. “As I explained to the man I spoke to on the phone, Detective Rossi, I am a police officer in the United States. I would like to see my brother’s body, the police report, my brother’s apartment, and speak to the officers who found my brother.”
Tito turned to Colonello Marino and interpreted for Wolf, using far less words than he had. Wolf furrowed his brow and looked to Tito.
The Colonnello reached and lit a cigarette in a practiced flourish, taking a deep inhale. He spoke his exhale, “Meester Wolf. I-a-understand your-a concern weet your broder’s det,” he placed the cigarette in the ash tray and folded his hands. Smoke streamed from the desk top in front of his face. “I can geev-a you-a Tito tomorrow to go see your broder,” he said picking up the phone and dialing a phone number. He plucked his cigarette, swiveled to the window, and began a jovial conversation into the receiver.
Tito exhaled in relief, stood and opened the office door.
Wolf sat still for a few seconds, then stood, leaving his backpack on the ground, and walked to Colonnello Marino’s desk. He reached out and pushed down the phone switch.
Colonnello Marino looked genuinely puzzled at the handset for a second and then slowly looked to Wolf holding his finger on the switch. His face contorted into a deep hate filled rage.
“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 found my brother,” Wolf said.
Marino’s face brightened to a glistening tomato-red in a matter of seconds. “Yyyyyyyyyou-a don’t-a tell-a ME what-a-to do!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, and then he snapped a quick order to Tito who relayed something out into the main room.
An instant later, two officers slammed into the office, each snapping an arm back and kicking the back of his knees, landing him hard on the tile floor. A third showed up and wrapped him in a choke hold, pulling him up to his feet.
“You-a-want-a to tell-a…us how-a to investigate? American Cowboy?” Marino said loudly. 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 breath. “No sir.”
Marino motioned for the officer to release his choke hold.
Wolf sucked in a breath, making a show of how mentally and physically destroyed he was at that moment, though the chokehold had been hesitant by the officer behind him, or just weak. “Colonnello Marino, please help me. My mother and I are in desperate need for some answers about his death. I’m not saying you have conducted a poor investigation, I am saying there is no way you could have known my brother like I do, and I know for a fact that he didn’t kill himself. I have some irrefutable evidence that he has not. I just ask for some help from your department, and to please allow me to go over the evidence found at the scene.”
Marino looked down his nose with a puzzled look at Wolf. He seemed to contemplate his words for a few seconds, then looked to the rest of the now crowded room with an amused look. “Non capito niente!”
The officers in the room began chuckling and looking quickly to one another, mood quickly turning to a jovial atmosphere. This crazy American makes no sense!
A female voice interjected loudly, speaking rapidly in Italian directly behind Wolf. He turned to find a stunningly beautiful young woman speaking in reasonable tones, gesturing to Wolf and speaking to Marino in a pleading tone. She looked to be arguing in Wolf’s defense.
When she finished, Marino lit a cigarette and looked at Wolf up and down. The room was dead silent, awaiting the emperor’s decree. A distant car horn honked from somewhere in the streets below. An officer coughed lightly behind him.
Marino put his cigarette into the ash tray and stood directly in front of him, index finger tapping hard on his chest.
“Do not make-a me hangry, do you understand?”
“Uh…yes sir,” Wolf assumed he meant to say angry.
Marino looked at the other offic
ers and began waving them out of the room. He barked a long order at the beautiful young woman who pushed her way to a standing at attention position next to Wolf. She was listening intently with a stone face. She finally answered in a curt affirmative.
“I weel geev you until Friday, de end-a of da-week,” Marino turned to Wolf. “We have very important work to do and cannot spare officers, so I weel geev you officer Parente. She weel show you what you-a need. Den, ayou must leave here after-a dis week. Take your broder home to your moder,” he said with a sudden sympathetic look on his face.
“Thank you sir. I appreciate your help.”
“Vai, vai,” Marino swept his arms forward, sweeping them out of the room.
Wolf picked up his backpack and left, the beautiful officer already lost amid the crowd. Tito saw his confused look and pointed to the hallway, where he saw a slender backside storming away with the gentle sway of a dancer, straight shoulder-length brown hair in a tight ponytail whipping side to side.
He nodded to Tito and walked after her.
She turned an abrupt right and was out of site. He followed fast and almost slammed into her picking up her hat and coat of her desk. She huffed and pushed past him back down the hallway.
“You coming?” She turned her head halfway down the hall.
“Yep.” He strode after her.
Wolf surmised she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Her coffee colored hair was pulled back tight against the back of her skull, hanging down just to her shoulders. She tucked a dangling strand behind her ear and bit her lower lip revealing a perfect set of teeth, while her tormented aqua marine eyes darted back and forth out the front windshield.
“Hey, I don’t know what you said in there, but thanks.”
“Yep.” She gunned the Alfa Romeo out of the parking lot directly in front of a fast moving, large truck.
He fished for his seat belt and put it on, “I’m David by the way.”