David Wolf 01 - Foreign Deceit

by Jeff Carson

  Lia looked at her watch and got up.

  “We have to go. Marino awaits.”

  They went out to the street and got in the Alfa Romeo.

  “I’ll need to be in on that conversation,” he said as he looked at his watch. Two o’clock. “I’m at the end of my rope.”

  Chapter 36

  Marino sat on his leather throne inside his office, shouting loudly into the phone. There was a roiling stream of cigarette smoke rising from the ashtray, adding to the choking haze in the hot and bright room. Wolf wondered once again why the window was closed as the humid stench of sweat and tobacco itched Wolf’s skin and throat.

  Marino twisted in his chair, raised an eyebrow and a finger, motioned to the two chairs against the wall, then finished his conversation. He gently lowered the phone and dropped it from his fingers in place for the last inch. Sighing, he rocked back in his chair.

  “Mr. Wolf, Officer Parente,” he said, extinguishing his cigarette. Almost. It sat smoldering. “I am sorry to hear about all of the developments of your brother’s case Mr. Wolf.”

  He tented his fingers against the bottom of his nose. “I was shocked to say the least. I,” he said, “I do not know how to, uh … what to say. I know it must be difficult to hear these things about your brother. Especially being a police officer.” He gestured to Wolf.

  Wolf shifted forward, tilting his head, and took a breath to speak.

  “But I don’t like what you did this morning, Officer Wolf.” Marino’s voice raised in volume. “You put one of my best in a bad situation. He trusted a-you.” He stood up and walked halfway around his desk, sitting one buttock on top.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, sir,” Wolf said.

  “You don’t?” Marino folded his hands on his leg and stared motionless for a few seconds.

  Wolf waited.

  Marino glanced at Lia, then back to Wolf.

  “We’ve had some interesting developments in the last couple hours. We almost had all of north Italia going on a wild turkey chase looking for this white truck of yours. A hunch from an American … consulente.”

  “That wasn’t a hunch, I saw—”

  “We found the truck,” Marino spoke loud, holding up his index finger again. “Without having to call a national search, Officer Wolf. National search orders have to come from me.” He pecked his chest with his finger. “So Officer Rossi took every action he could to keep me out of this cowboy show. I am in debt to him for that. And do you know why that is, Officer Wolf?”

  Sergeant. “No.”

  “They stopped the truck in question at the Trieste border within the last hour.” He held up a piece of paper between his thumb and index finger. “The truck was searched thoroughly, by human and by dog, just like many of the shipments that go through that border. There was nothing but the parts listed on the manifest prepared by the employee my officers harassed this morning at the Osservatorio di Merate!” His face flashed to a bright crimson, veins bulging in his temples.

  “It was the wrong truck then, or they moved it off the truck.” Wolf said. “I know what I saw, and I saw a truck loaded with cocaine and stolen electronics.”

  Marino chuckled, yanked a cigarette from the pack sitting on the desk, lit it, and dismounted in a highhanded pirouette.

  “Ah, yes! The brilliant piece of detective work you did last night. I hear you broke into the osservatorio and saw some interesting things.”

  “Yes,” Wolf said. “I did see some interesting things.”

  “Did you? Well, let me tell you a few interesting things. You were trespassing. Trespassing illegally in a foreign country. As my guest in this country,” he gestured wide with his arms, “you cannot come strutting into Italy, and doing as you please. If you would have been caught, you would be in jail right now and there would be nothing I could do to get you out.”

  “If I would have been caught I’d be dead like my brother right now. Because I was shot at. How are you turning a blind eye to this? You’ve got a pub fronting as a legitimate business, going around murdering people, smuggling stolen electronics and drugs! If you don’t care about that, then what the hell do you care about?”

  Marino snapped his head to Wolf and gave him a dangerous smile.

  “Don’t test me Officer Wolf. I am warning you.” Marino looked at the door, and back to Wolf for effect.

  Wolf took a deep breath. “I know what I did was … unorthodox, and I could have put you in a compromising position.” Wolf clenched his teeth. “I apologize. I was acting on a hunch. A hunch I should have talked to you guys about first, I admit. But I swear I saw what I saw.”

  “And I will take your observations under consideration and proceed accordingly, Officer Wolf. But just because you have a flight to catch back home doesn’t mean we can cut corners and ignore laws in this country. So, you are going to have to make a decision right now, Officer Wolf. You have to trust me, and trust officer Rossi, and trust Officer Parente, and the rest of the Carabinieri to follow up with this case. The proper way.”

  Wolf exhaled and put his elbows on his knees.

  Marino’s expression melted to sympathy, and he flopped down in the chair with a grunt. “Look at this from-a my point of view. I have hard evidence that a man used a pipe to beat another man’s head, killing him with-a, much anger. I have fingerprints, in blood, on the weapon. I have evidence that both men were taking drugs. We all know what drugs can do to men. It can bring out otherwise hidden rages in a person.

  “I have evidence that a man hung himself from his ceiling. I have evidence he died of strangulation. Putting those two pieces of evidence together tells me that I have evidence this man killed himself. There was no one else in the apartment at the time. We have a testimony from the upstairs neighbor that she did not hear anything at all. If there were men inside, she would have heard, would she not? The door to your brother’s apartment was locked from the inside, keys still in the door. All of the evidence points to no one being in the apartment that night.

  “And then,” he gestured to Wolf, “we have a brother who doesn’t want to believe the evidence that is staring him in the face.”

  Wolf didn’t move. “You guys dismissed this case from the beginning. You haven’t given it enough attention. There’s more to it. You didn’t even perform an autopsy, which probably would have told you the bruise on his head was not after death, but before death. You would have found out my brother doesn’t take drugs. There wouldn’t have been any drugs in his system.”

  A tinge of doubt crept into Wolf’s mind with the last statement – doubt that had stuck him like a barbed thorn, burrowing deeper with time – but he kept his poker face. “If you had followed up on the receipt in my brother’s pocket, you would have seen that he was at a pub the night he died. A pub owned by some shady individuals who are either current or former gang members. The kind of guys you want to look into further. Guys that I now know are smuggling drugs. It’s not a stretch to figure out where the cocaine found at John’s and at Dr. Rosenwald’s came from.

  “There wasn’t even an investigation into the night of his death. Who was he with? What exactly was he doing? Where were the people he was with? These questions didn’t come up for your investigators?”

  Marino inhaled deeply on his cigarette, and let the question hang.

  “Officer Wolf, it looked like a suicide.” He swiped his hands together and held them up, a gesture Wolf was becoming intimately familiar with.

  “Not to me.”

  Marino took another drag and swiveled in his chair. Smoke seeped from his nostrils as he sat for a few seconds, and then he stood up. “I will have my men look into it further. Officer Parente will help,” he said. “You have my word. Now, I need you to go home and let us do our job.”

  Wolf shook his head and looked to the dirty tile floor.

  Marino sat on the edge of his desk. “You will let us do our job. I do not want to have to take you into custody, Officer Wolf. But I w
ill not have you going around breaking into property and conducting an investigation by yourself. How would you like it if this happened in your town? How would you deal with it?”

  Wolf looked at Lia, who gave him a sympathetic sideways glance. He narrowed his eyes and stared back at the floor, coming to a lucid conclusion. “All right. I have your word you will look further into the pub owner and the observatory employee?” He stood up.

  Marino put his cigarette in his mouth and stood, hands out to his sides.

  “You have my word.”

  Wolf exhaled, looking to the ceiling, a resigned look on his face. “Okay. I’ll take the next day and get my brother’s things in order, then I’ll be leaving on Sunday morning.” He looked back down to Lia, who sat obediently. “Is it possible to get a ride to the airport on Sunday morning from Officer Parente? Rather than take the train again?”

  “If it is her day off. You will have to arrange that with her.”

  “I’m on duty Sunday, sir,” she said.

  “Then Lia will take you to the airport in the morning. You two can arrange it. Now if you will excuse Officer Parente and myself, we need to speak about something.”

  Wolf shook Marino’s hand and opened the door.

  “Officer Wolf,” Marino called.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry. Good luck to you and your family.”

  Wolf nodded and closed the door.

  In the room outside a few officers pecked at their cream colored keyboards. The air was stagnant, hot and damp, and all windows were shut for reasons Wolf could not fathom.

  Rossi looked up from his desk and hurried over. “David, I’m so sorry. Did you hear about the truck?”

  “Hi, Rossi. Yes, I did. They must have been spooked and changed their plans.”

  Rossi shook his head. “I’m sorry. I was going to let you guys know about it, but I was just inside Marino’s office myself. I didn’t have a chance to call, then I saw you enter his office just now.”

  “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

  Lia came out of Marino’s office, almost running into Wolf.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about the truck, Valerio?” she hissed, closing the door.

  “I was just telling David, I didn’t know about it until just now, then I had to talk to Marino. Then I didn’t get a chance to talk to you when you came in here.”

  She shook her head in disgust, looking back at Marino’s office.

  “Anyway, thank you, Valerio, for everything.” Wolf held out his hand and stood tall.

  Rossi straightened and shook it. “You are welcome, Sergeant Wolf. I wish you and your family the best of luck.”

  “I would really appreciate it if you looked into this further after I leave.”

  “David, I am going to look into this personally. I’ve already spoken to Marino about it. If they are running a smuggling operation, I will get the evidence needed to bring them in. Then we can find out if they are behind your brother’s murder, once and for all.”

  Wolf fetched his brother’s computer from Paulo, said his goodbyes, and made his way to the stairs, giving one final wave to Valerio, who was dialing his desk phone. Valerio stopped and put the receiver to his chest. “Goodbye, David. Do not worry.” Rossi nodded his head with a steeled look.

  Wolf nodded. He wasn’t worried at all.

  …

  Lia glanced at Wolf for the twentieth time of the car ride. “What are you thinking?” she asked with a concerned look.

  “I’m thinking I let my brother down.” He looked at the hordes of Friday afternoon lakeshore walkers whizzing by.

  “We will … ” She let the futile sentence die, sensing his mood.

  Wolf glanced in the side mirror as they swept around a traffic circle, revealing another Caribinieri Alfa Romeo cruiser directly behind them. Wolf assumed he was now under surveillance.

  He looked at her and nodded. “I appreciate it. I really do.”

  They pulled up to the courtyard of his brother’s apartment building. He unbuckled his belt and climbed out.

  “What are you going to do for the next couple days?” She leaned over the seat, looking up at him with those vivid eyes that Wolf couldn’t remember seeing any prettier. Except maybe Sarah’s.

  “I’ll probably get some rest tonight and just pack up my brother’s things. Then, I have no clue,” he lied. “How about tomorrow night you pick me up and I take you out for a pizza?”

  She smiled wide and laughed. “There’s more to Italian cuisine than pizza! I will take you for Risotto Milanese.”

  He shrugged. “I have no clue what you just said. Sounds good to me.” He closed the door and slapped the roof.

  “I will see you at eight!” She rolled up the window and peeled away.

  Chapter 37

  The room was dark as a cave, with the only light coming from the screen of his cell phone, which was chiming incessantly on the floor next to him. He shut off the alarm he’d set, ripped off the sheets, and stood with forced enthusiasm.

  A bright flash flickered through the shutter slats from outside and the building rumbled. He walked to the bedroom balcony and opened them up, revealing a bright orange sunset sky with jet-black storm clouds stacked up against the mountains. A long ground strike of lightning flickered for a two count halfway up the mountain followed by a deafening boom that shook the windows near the point of breaking. The thunder rolled for what seemed a minute as the sound waves sloshed back and forth between the mountains of the lake valley.

  It jolted him into action. He put on his pants, socks, and shoes and ran up the stairs to Cristina’s.

  He knocked and Cristina cracked the door, showing her milk chocolate eyes. She smiled pleasantly and opened the door. The apartment was filled with the sounds of modern electric jazz and an aroma that made his mouth water.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m doing well, how are you?” Wolf mused that he was telling the truth. The few hours of a nap had energized his mental and physical state.

  “One second, come in!” she said shuffling to the stereo. She wore a pair of black tights without shoes, a long gray sweater and black leather belt that cinched to show her slender waist. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled up in a quick ponytail, which draped over her face as she bent to turn down the volume.

  “Please,” she beckoned again. “Come in.”

  He realized he was just staring dumbly. She looked a lot better than he’d remembered, and she didn’t seem to be trying too hard. Maybe it was her chipper mood and spring in her step. Or the perfect body, face, hair and eyes.

  “Who was that?” He pointed to the stereo and shut the door behind him.

  “Oh, it’s a group from New York. Incognito.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I know them.”

  She looked skeptical. “Really? You? Country boy from the Colorado mountains?”

  He smiled. “I swear. I like them actually. I’ve got some of their stuff, but I’ve never heard this CD.”

  “It’s their newest. It’s great,” she said. She turned it a little louder. “I would think you listened to country music.”

  “I do,” he shrugged.

  She laughed, walking to the kitchen. “So what’s happening?” She lifted a pan lid revealing a simmering tomato sauce.

  “I was hoping you could give me a ride somewhere tonight.”

  “Right now? I’m about to eat. Are you hungry? I have plenty of food. Besides, it’s about to pour!”

  He looked out the window at the black skies, then at the spread of bread, cheeses, meats, and olives, and was suddenly not in such a hurry. “Yes, I am hungry now that I think of it. Thank you.”

  …

  They ate pasta and listened to jazz while the rain outside drummed the dining room window with torrential sideways sheets.

  They mostly swapped stories about John, laughing a lot, and he felt energized after the conversations, meal, and the nap from before. “Cristina.” He looked at her with a seri
ous expression.

  “Yes? What’s going on?”

  “I need to know about these guys who own this pub. The Albastru Pub that John was always going to.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know the guys from home? From before you came here?”

  “No, I don’t. Why? Because we are both Romanian?”

  Wolf wiped his mouth and looked out the window. The rain was letting up gradually. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. How about this guy, Ferka Vlad, from the observatory? Did you know him from before?”

  “I’ve met him before, that one time I went to the pub. But it was just the one time. There really are a lot of people from Romania in Italy. But I don’t know many. I know that they are often looked at as criminals here, though. There is a lot of crime in northern Italy. There is more money in northern Italy than the south, so there’s a lot of theft and people’s houses getting robbed. The finger is often pointed at the Romanian.” She shook her head. “There are bad Italians just like there are bad Romanians. But I do know that those guys at The Albastru Pub look bad. I would bet a lot of money they are criminals.”

  “So would I.” Wolf looked out the window. There was nothing in her voice or mannerisms that said she was lying.

  “Why? What’s going on? What have you found out?”

  “I’m pretty sure that the owner of that pub and this guy, Vlad, killed my brother. But they’ve covered all their bases, and I can’t prove it. They’re smart. Or one of them is smart.” He set down his fork. “Or, they’re getting lucky.”

  He looked around the kitchen, then got up and walked over to the knife set on the counter. He pulled four smaller knives on the bottom row, then checked the larger blades on the top. “You know my brother doesn’t have a single knife in his apartment other than four butter knives? Didn’t he ever cook?”

  She laughed, then stopped, watching him put all but two blades back. He picked them up in one hand and brought them back to the table.