Surviving Venice

by Anna E Bendewald

  Life in hiding was lived at a sedate pace. On mornings when Yvania was engrossed in her cooking experiments and writing letters to Juliette, Daniel took Giselle and Markus into the surrounding forest. The experience was like crossing into another time or dimension. Once they passed the first line of trees, the atmosphere became otherworldly and nature took over. Dense brambles of dormant berry bushes served as homes for woodland creatures, and the rich scents changed depending on what they were treading on or what wood was used to make the hearth smoke that was carried on the wind.

  These walks took Giselle back to her childhood, and Markus had spent much of his own boyhood playing in the woodlands of Zalishchyky in Ukraine. Daniel’s knowledge of the local area’s history was encyclopedic, and wherever they walked he was able to bring them back to a particular time when a persecuted group sought refuge or a battle was fought. He brought history into the here and now…literally the here…standing where so much life force was expended in survival or cruelly lost, bleeding or decomposing into the very rich soil that was now on their muddy boots. She had no desire to wander off the beaten path because of the risk of gas-filled UXOs from as far back as World War One.

  Late one morning, they were sitting on a big fallen tree where the sun had melted the snow, enjoying shortbread and goût du ciel washed down with berry cider, when Giselle noticed Daniel eyeing an old water pump near a clearing.

  “Do you want to add some water to the cider?” she asked as she hopped down, thermos in hand. “It’s a bit tart.”

  “No.” Daniel put a leg out, preventing her from walking past, and then clamped his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t ruin the cider.” He surprised her by the physicality of his move—restraining her.

  Markus slid off the log to stand next to her.

  “What is over there?” he asked.

  “A trap,” Daniel said in a neutral tone and then pointed in another direction. “Let’s go past that ridge and you’ll see the bridge where—”

  She shrugged his hand off, dodged his outstretched leg, and followed Markus, who was already moving cautiously in the direction of the pump. They stopped before getting to the clearing, and both she and Markus eyed the nearby branches for snares or ropes.

  “It’s not a trap like that,” Daniel said as he came to stand next to them.

  “Show us,” she said.

  Daniel looked around, picked up a big rock, and using a sort of discus spin move, he chucked it into the clearing by the pump. It sent a flurry of powdery snow into the air as it disappeared into the ground. “See? A pit.”

  They approached the edge of a square pit that had opened up, and Giselle saw a torn web of material. “How often do you restring that webbing?” she asked.

  “We patrol the pits around the abbey several times each day. They’re placed in areas free of berries or any tasty greens and they’re not in the natural animal paths to a water source, so it isn’t often that animals land in the pits.”

  “The pump is fake?” Markus asked.

  “Right, just fake.”

  She stepped over to the edge. “Impressive. So deep! The sides are smooth and hard, and the ground looks squishy with soft matter, so no broken legs.”

  Markus looked into the pit, his blue eyes missing nothing. “I see you have nuts scattered for small creatures who may fall in, but where is the ramp you place inside for the larger creatures to climb out?”

  “Ramp?” Daniel was looking at him with interest.

  “The one that goes here.” Markus walked to the far edge and pointed to a set of indentations high up in the wall.

  “Very good.” Daniel clapped his hands. “Here.” He beckoned them to follow and walked behind some trees where he revealed pieces of a wooden ramp that could be assembled and dropped down to allow anything from a fox to an elk to walk out to freedom.

  “What happens when you catch an enemy?”

  “Then we use the tranquilizer darts or a spear with a stun-tip. They sleep as we haul them out and take them to the dungeon.”

  “Makes good sense. Why are the pits still in use?” she asked.

  “We do things the old way here. Let’s call it a tradition and leave it at that,” he said enigmatically.

  “Do you have other pits you can show us?”

  “There’s a whole network, all like this one. See one, you’ve seen them all. The important thing is to know how to avoid them. They’re all marked by these water pump decoys. The pumps look real, and if someone is on the run they’d be on the lookout for fresh water. They take out their flask, approach the pump, and down they go. When we find them, we put ‘em to sleep and drop them down the oubliette behind the cider house.

  “Behind the abbey?” she asked. “Is that safe?”

  “Sure, it’s behind the crumbling stone wall.”

  “An oubliette?” Markus sounded uncertain.

  “You know, a concealed mouth to a slide that drops a person down into a jail.”

  “Ah! The intruder trap. I have seen those in castles my father and I worked on back home.”

  “Every castle made around the middle ages has one, though current owners may not be aware of them,” Daniel said.

  By late afternoon, Giselle had completed another solar panel and it was fully dark when she went in search of Yvania in the kitchens on the far side of the property. Coming into the deserted kitchens through a side door, she’d just found her and was about to offer a greeting when Yvania spun around with her finger to her lips signaling Giselle to be quiet. Yvania then picked up an exceedingly long knife, and the look on her face was total concentration.

  Had she detected a hit man’s presence? Giselle’s heart began to pound as the old woman slipped out of her clogs and, gripping the saber, snuck down the access to the pantry near the back door. Giselle grabbed a rolling pin the size of a bat and followed close behind on tiptoe. Then Giselle could hear what Yvania had heard: raspy breathing and muttering.

  Over the top of Yvania’s shoulder, she saw a big man pulling his pants down while holding a bare-assed youth’s legs apart with his knees. The child’s entire head was wedged between big sacks of flour. The instant the man’s pants dropped, Yvania moved forward like a fencer, stuck the tip of her knife between the man’s butt cheeks and growled, “Stiy! Stop!” A trickle of blood ran down the pale white of the man’s inner thigh, and Yvania lifted her blade a fraction causing the man to rise onto his toes, his hands raised over his head in surrender.

  Yvania commanded, “Let the boy up.” She used the same calm, deadly tone that Giselle had heard Markus use when he was on top of her stalker.

  The child wriggled free, gasping for air and dragging his pants up. It was the dishwashing boy.

  The man’s head was bowed over the flour sacks as he begged in another language and then babbled, “Please, my Russian isn’t good. Please!”

  Giselle reached for the boy’s hand, but he shrank away behind some shelves to fasten his pants. Yvania spit on the assailant’s back and said, “I am not Russian, you pig! The Russians did to my village what you were just doing!” With a neat step, she advanced, hooked her foot in the crotch of his lowered pants, and jerked his feet out from under him. He screamed as he fell and the tip of her knife sliced the thin skin of his tailbone. Then in the blink of an eye, she cut an X into the back of his left hand.

  “Now you bear the mark of rapist. Courts never make justice for men like you. But if you ever do this again, I will come for you. I will cut an X into your chest and take out your heart.”

  Giselle had a hard time understanding the words. Yvania’s pronunciation was challenging on a good day, but when provoked, her words were only approximated sounds.

  “Puh-lease…” the man moaned.

  It sounded like the man was begging for the police. Maybe he was more afraid of the little old lady with the long butcher’s blade than facing charges.

  “Get out! Never come back here!” Yvania yelled.

  He dragged his pants up and ra
n out the back door as monks and the cook came running. “What happened?”

  “Who was that man?”

  “I’ve never seen him before,” the boy said. “He just delivered the beet sugar from town.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  Luigi joined the morning commuters moving beneath festive Christmas displays when his phone rang from inside his coat pocket. By the time he got it to his ear, the call had gone to voice mail. It was the judicial clerk asking him to drop everything and come to the courthouse. He did an about-face and hurried to the courthouse where he waited at the back of the courtroom until a fifteen-minute break was called. The clerk beckoned Luigi to approach and slid a file onto the desk.

  “That the request?”

  “Uh-huh. Crap job. Missing information, typos. Somebody without legal training wrote it.”

  “Were you able to delay it?”

  “Certamente. The judge hates this kind of thing. I told him it was missing crucial information. He struck it from his docket, and I stamped it “Rejected: Incomplete.” I’ll bury it till their lawyer comes looking for it then hand it over and give them a lecture about the importance of paralegals.”

  “How long do you think that’ll be?” Luigi asked while silently praying the ambulance-chasing lawyer was already onto their next scandal and would forget this case for a while.

  “No idea. But the courtrooms will all go dark in the next couple of days—adjourned for Christmas.”

  “You’re buying me important time. I can’t tell you why right now.”

  “I trust you.”

  Luigi headed back to police headquarters feeling bleak. He didn’t know how he was going to save a girl from her own parents, and he’d gotten all the way back to the station before realizing he’d been gritting his teeth because of a headache. This one was coming from the bridge of his nose, across the back of his eyes, and radiating through his jaw. He fished two aspirin tablets out of the little tin in his pocket and swallowed them dry. Instead of his usual disappointing pilgrimage to the vending machine in a vain search for Pocket Coffee, he headed straight for the homicide department. Once at his desk, he had just unlocked the drawer to make notes in his Benedetta file when he saw a DHL courier package sitting in his inbox.

  “Hey!” he called to the room at large. “Who brought this up from the mail room? Who signed for it?”

  “Me,” called Bruno, a detective on loan from the drug enforcement division. “It came from France. It’s been sitting in the mail room for weeks.”

  Luigi pulled the sealed tab, tipped the padded plastic pouch, and felt a little flutter of excitement as a phone slid into his hand.

  “I didn’t know it was your birthday, Lampani,” Lydia said as she walked past with her own phone pressed to her ear and her hand over the mouthpiece. “What d’ya get?”

  He palmed the phone and put his hand into his pocket. “A Christmas present for my wife.”

  Her eyes went to the courier label, but he opened his desk drawer and swept it in before she could read it. “What is it?”

  “You’re not very curious, are you?” He gave her a look that said, Keep moving.

  She moved off, picking up the thread of what she was saying into her phone. When she was gone, he looked around to make sure no one was watching him, then he opened the drawer and retrieved a note from the pouch.

  Ciao Detective Lampani,

  After my wife and I subdued Bernardo, we had access to his phone. I sent everything I could find on it to myself at my phone number. Here’s my phone and charger. My passcode is 36020. Giselle asked me to send it to you for your investigation. We hope it helps you nail Salvio Scortini.

  Sincerely,

  Henri Malreaux

  P.S. If you need to reach me or my wife, Fauve, we run Chez Nuage Bleu Hôtel in Aiglemont, France

  He could kiss this Henri! French police had Bernardo and his phone, and they weren’t parting with either anytime soon. Luigi had a whole new respect for Giselle Verona. She was smart and fast thinking in addition to being an artistic power player with phenomenal good looks. Apparently, her friends were no slouches either. Fauve and Henri had figured out the man in their hotel was up to no good and subdued him.

  French police had forbidden Italian police from questioning any of their material witnesses in the case, but this was an express invitation in writing from a material witness. Luigi looked up the number for the hotel in Aiglemont and dialed it. A man with a smoky Gauliose accent straight out of Central Casting answered. “Chez Nuage Bleu. Comment puis-je vous aider?” It was all strung together in a slur.

  “Henri Malreaux?”

  “Oui.”

  “It’s detective Lampani in Venice—”

  Before he could finish, the Frenchman let out a string of happy sounds, something like, “Oh! Boh! La! Eh! Fauve! Viens!” Then back into the phone he said, “Ciao! Has my phone been any help?” To someone else, he said, “It’s Lampani!”

  “It got waylaid, I’m just getting it now. Quick thinking on your part. And judging from what your police over there tell me, your wife’s quite daring with a hypodermic syringe.”

  “You heard right,” a woman’s voice answered. He pictured Fauve, the wife, pressing her ear to the phone, too.

  “Fauve, is that you?”

  “I’m here,” she answered. “We thought we’d hear from you sooner.”

  “Well, the police in Paris asked me to stay out of their case, and specifically told me to leave their star witnesses—namely you two—to them.”

  “Who we talk to is none of their business. We won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “Great. And since you sent me this phone, I say the less we admit to your authorities the better. I haven’t gone through what’s on it yet, but I was hoping you could tell me if the hit man, Bernardo, said anything.”

  “Not a thing. Nothing of use.”

  “All right, then can you put me in touch with Giselle?”

  “Sorry, she’s in hiding,” Fauve said.

  “I know she’s in hiding.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s important.”

  “No can do.”

  “She’s still in danger,” he pleaded.

  “We know.”

  “Oh really? How?” He could hear them struggling to shut each other up on the other end of the phone. Dammit! They’re holding back! Not wanting to alienate them, he softened his tone and said, “I believe she’ll want to speak to me. Will you please give me her number?”

  “We’ll give your number to her if she calls,” Henri said helpfully.

  “You two wouldn’t happen to be the ones hiding her, would you?”

  “No.”

  “My French police contact says she’s got a tight group of friends…”

  “Oui, we all grew up together.”

  “Do her other friends have her?”

  “No. Her mother-in-law found her a place.”

  “Juliette’s head is in the sand!” he raised his voice and then glanced around the office self-consciously, but no one seemed to notice his outburst.

  “We don’t judge family, what can we say to that? Look, we want to help you. So does Giselle.”

  “Who’s watching Giselle’s home?”

  “Château.”

  “Château?”

  “Oui. Selma and her mother, Veronique, watch the property.”

  “Can I call Selma?”

  “Got a pen?”

  “I do.” He wrote the number down, and after the couple wished him Joyeaux Noel he hung up and called Selma. She didn’t answer, so he left a message asking her to call him. He’d bet Fauve was already on the phone with Selma warning her of his interest.

  When Selma called, they had an interesting exchange.

  “How can I help?” she asked with the same accent as Fauve and Henri.

  “What do you know of Salvio Scortini’s interest in Giselle?”

  “Interest? Other than he was here spying on her at the
end of summer?”

  “What? Salvio went to France?”

  “Boh, oais! Or he had a hit man out here.”

  “Fuck me!” He completely lost his cool and dropped the pen he was using to take notes. He leaned over and felt around under his desk for it.

  “I’m in a relationship.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “But you do sound cute.”

  “I’m happily married.”

  “What movie star do you look like?”

  “Mmm…De Niro.”

  “Taxi Driver, God Father Two, or The Intern?”

  “God Father Two.”

  “Oh la!”

  “Selma, I need Giselle’s number.”

  “I can’t give it to you.”

  “Then give her mine and ask her to call me.”

  “Will do.”

  He was getting little bits and pieces of truth from everybody, but at some point he’d have all the pieces. He pinched the bridge of his nose trying to squeeze the life out of his headache.

  He powered up Henri’s phone, keyed in the passcode, and started scrolling through screenshots, text messages, and files emailed from Bernardo’s number. They’d all been sent in rapid succession beginning just after five o’clock the night the French hit men died, which must’ve been the window of time before the police arrived at Chez Nuage Bleu to take Bernardo—and his phone—into custody.

  Luigi sat back in his chair, riveted by what he was reading, and didn’t even look up when Lydia dropped a panino on his desk. He was too busy reading texts between Bernardo Vitti, and Felix Montand and Miguel Turrion, the two hit men found dead on Giselle’s property in Gernelle a short drive from Henri and Fauve’s hotel.

  The texts laid out their plan to kill Giselle and a Russian male, probably Markus Shevchenko, who Luigi knew was actually Ukrainian. The plan was to shoot Markus, but bizarrely, they had specific instructions to drown Giselle in a lake on her property. There was even a screenshot of a map showing the route to access the private lake.