Foreign Deceit

of his death?”

“I did. I heard a crash and went downstairs and knocked on his door. But it was dark underneath his door, and it was locked. I just started to think I probably heard something else, outside, or from across the hall, or something. I just went back upstairs and went to sleep.” Her eyes were wide, staring, unblinking.

“When was that?”

“It was 1:15 in the morning. I remember looking at the clock when I heard the crash.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” he whispered.

She nodded her head, staring at her hands.

“So you talked to the Caribinieri the next day?”

“Ummm…no. I talked to them on Sunday. When he didn’t call me, or respond to my texts, or answer his door all day Saturday, I started getting worried.”

“Oh, yeah, okay. Sunday.” He rubbed his temples. His mind was struggling to keep details straight. His body demanded sleep. “Let’s see, so, what did you tell the Caribinieri?”

She looked to the ceiling. “Not that much. One guy was just asking if I saw or heard anything the night of his death. I just told him about what I heard, and how I came down and knocked. I told them how he didn’t answer my calls, or my knocking, and how he stood me up for our date, and that’s why I was concerned. Then…well, that was pretty much it. A couple of officers were just waiting outside my door. They said they had a special counselor coming for me to talk. I didn’t want to wait around to speak to some government worker who doesn’t know me, or didn’t know John. I just walked out.”

“Yeah, I understand. I don’t blame you,” he said. “Did they ask about drugs?”

She looked confused. “No, not at all. I didn’t know about the drugs until just now.”

A warm blanket of exhaustion wrapped around Wolf again. He’d had enough. His body needed rest. There was no use fighting it any more.

“Are you going to be around in the next couple days?”

“I have to work during the daytimes, but I am usually home at night.”

“All right. I may need some help with some things this weekend. We’ll see.” He went back to his brother’s apartment thinking about the Friday deadline for Lia’s help.

Chapter 15

Wolf picked up his backpack and went into his brother’s room. He put his bag down and exhaled, staring at the bed. “I’m sure these sheets are dirty as shit,” he said out loud to John. Pulling the comforter back, he confirmed his suspicion.

There was a set of sheets on the shelf in the bathroom closet. They smelled nice and washed, but there were no pillow cases.

Looking in John’s bedroom closet bore no fruit. He stood, shaking his head, marveling at the anal retentive organization. The assortment of clothing was meticulously separated into dark and light segments, coats in a separate segment still. John’s six pairs of shoes were lain out in a straight line along the closet wall floor. A cheap hanging plastic rack housed his belts and ties on the very right side.

Clean tee-shirts over the pillows seemed a good substitute, so he pulled two out of his pack.

Pulling it on, he stopped with a jolt and went back in the closet. He pulled the clothes over hard to get an un-obstructed view of the belt and tie rack.

There were four belts, a missing space, and then four ties. A perfect spot to put the belt John was wearing the night he died. So where did the belt he hung himself with hang?

Chapter 16 — Thursday

Wolf had been up for four hours when Lia picked him up at 8 am. He met her outside the gate.

She shot a couple appraising glances as they walked. “You look better this morning.”

He had shaved, showered, shampooed the grease mat that was his thick dark brown hair, and put on some fresh clothes. He felt better. Wolf looked at her and smiled. “Thanks.”

He’d always been confident in his good looks. The saying, or whatever it was, tall, dark, and handsome applied to him. He was six-foot-three, taller than most men he came into contact with, had spiky dark brown hair, a complexion that tanned if the lightbulbs were too bright, dark walnut eyes, thick eyebrows, and a mole on his upper right cheek that women in his life had often referred to as a “beauty mark”…not that he considered himself a heart throb, but he wasn’t an idiot either.

He stole a glance at Lia, who was walking fast, chin up, chest out, slender athletic body, a tight pony tail of shoulder-length straight brown hair swaying underneath her Caribinieri cap.

“You look nice this morning too.” He examined her with raised eyebrows, meaning to sound nonchalant, unable to do so with such a truthful statement. He caught a whiff of her lavender scent and cleared his throat, snapping to his senses. “Hey, so, I talked to John’s girlfriend last night, she was home.”

“And?”

“She had the name of the guy he was with the night before. I’d like to go talk to him, his name is Matthew and he works at the Merate Observatory. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes, I do. In fact I’ve been there a few times. For high school…I was in Liceo Scientifico.”

“What does that mean?”

“In Italy, you choose your vocation very early in life, and go to school for it. Or, you choose the…how would you call it…the track…”

“The major? Like in college?”

“Well,” she said. “it’s much earlier. It starts in high school. But, I guess it is kind of like a major for college. Anyway, I was Scientifico. We studied natural sciences and I went there a couple times for astronomy.”

“Great. But we have to go back to the morgue first.”

She gave him a puzzled look as they climbed in the Alfa Romeo cruiser. “Why?”

“I have to see the belt he hung himself with again.”

He explained what he saw in the closet the night before.

“Okay,” Lia said. “Definitely sounds interesting. Do you want to get a coffee before we go over?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about coffee since I woke up, six hours ago.”

They pulled up to a bustling “Bar” as it was called on the sign. A herd of people were standing up against a ten foot long elbow-height counter, packed three people deep, barking fast orders to the baristas. Lia expertly wove her way to the front of the crowd immediately and got eye contact from one of the men behind the bar.

“What do you want?” she yelled back at Wolf.

“Just a…I’ll get what you are having.”

She whipped her head to the barista. “Due caffe’ e due brioche marmallatta.”

A few seconds later a familiar thimble of coffee was presented to him with a jam-filled croissant. He took a large bite of the croissant and a small sip of the coffee.

“Bouna?” She nodded her head to Wolf.

“Uh, si.”

He felt the glares of people waiting, impatiently, for the counter top real estate they occupied at the moment. He shoved the rest of the croissant in his mouth and downed the coffee with two hearty sips. She followed his actions, slapped down her cup, went to the unoccupied cash register, laid down some coins and threaded her way out the door. He followed her out, wondering what the hell just happened.

“Good lord. Felt like my first time all over again,” he mumbled to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind.”