Foreign Deceit

Wolf grabbed the tape, “Can we go in?”

“It’s wet.” Rossi ducked under. “Good choice of shoes you brought to Italy.” He looked at Wolf’s old Danner leather work boots.

Wolf ducked under, stealing a glance towards the perimeter fence. The clothing he’d used to climb over was gone.

Rossi led the way through the soggy lawn, their feet sucking and sloshing with each step. Mud patches were visible at the roots of the lawn. Wolf bent down next to a small yellow plastic A-frame evidence indicator. It was almost impossible to discern any difference between the spot and the surrounding area, all except a tiny shard of white. Another nearby A-frame tent marked a larger piece, this time with skin and hair on it.

“The dogs were going nuts in this spot. The forensics team found a lot of skull fragments. The largest concentration is there,” Rossi said pointing at the number one plastic indicator. “That is a large concentration area of blood.”

Wolf stepped to the area and crouched down, looking intently. He imagined the A-frame indicator to be Dr. Rosenwald’s head, then imagined his body laying out. He swept his gaze in a tight spiral around the marker, working his way out.

Five feet from the evidence marker at two o’clock, a pair of indentions captured his eye. Wolf stepped over and felt the ground. There were two holes, just about the size of knees. He could see it clearly in his mind’s eye. Dr. Rosenwald had knelt down right here and received his first blow to the side of his head.

The A-frame indicator marked the pool of blood as just a few feet to the side. It looked like he’d been hit once, fell to his side, then was finished off with numerous blows to the head. There would be chunks of skull, brain matter, and blood strewn everywhere. Probably under the soles of his boots.

He stood up and shuffled to the side, feeling another slight depression under his foot. Massaging the ground with his hands, he found two more depressions a few feet from the others. Realization sent a jolt of electricity up his spine. The mud circles on his brother’s jeans now made perfect sense. His eyes closed slowly as he felt the knee depressions where his brother had taken his last conscious breath.

“Pronto?” Rossi barked into his phone, walking away towards the crime tape perimeter.

Lia looked to Wolf. “What are you doing?”

“Remember those circles on the knees of my brother’s jeans?”

“Yes?”

“There were similar circles on Rosenwald’s jeans, but less noticeable. Probably from being out in the rain. But there are still four deep indentations right here on the ground. Two for each man who knelt down.”

Lia let out a gasp and bent down to see for herself. “Ma-donna.”

“Have you spoken to anyone in the observatory yet?” Wolf stood up, turning to Rossi.

Rossi was twenty yards away with his phone to the ear, looking at Wolf with wide eyes and propping an index finger. He looked to the trees in the distance and asked some sharp questions, then hung up the phone, keeping his head bowed for a few seconds. Pocketing the cell phone, he looked to Wolf with a pursed mouth.

“What?”

“That was forensics at the station. They have the fingerprints match.”

“Let me guess. A Romanian national.”

“No David,” he said with a deep breath. “They are your brother’s fingerprints.”

Chapter 31

“What?” Wolf exhaled.

“They are your brother’s fingerprints.” Rossi folded his arms and looked to his feet.

Lia put her hand on his shoulder.

Wolf and Lia walked to Rossi, looked back at the evidence tents strewn about, then ducked underneath the crime tape.

Wolf walked slowly to the observatory gate, turning his head to look at the skid marks as he passed. He continued on through the gate and out onto the dirt road, turning back towards the lake.

Wolf reached the groove in the mud where the pipe was found and swiveled around. “This is too perfect.”

Rossi and Lia stopped and looked at him with neutral expressions. Silence hung for thirty seconds as Wolf studied the impression in the mud.

“He’s getting framed for the murder.”

Rossi blinked and looked to the ground at his feet. Lia shifted uncomfortably.

“Let me get this straight. He beats his friend to death, then drags him down here along the road, leaving the copper pipe right here, for anyone to find. Why not throw it out in the corn field at least? Or a better idea? Toss it in the lake. The same lake he’s about to dump the body at.”

Lia pointed towards the lake, “David…”

“Nah, I’m not buying it,” he said, shaking his head. “Why lug the body all the way down there? Why…why does he dump the body and then go kill himself at home?” Wolf looked up to the sky, “Here’s a good question… How did my brother get home? If he killed Rosenwald, then how did he get home? There’s no way he walked. His girlfriend said she heard the crash at 1:15 am. There’s no way he went home on foot. So how did he get home? His body was removed from this lawn, by someone else, and taken to his apartment to be strung up on a chandelier, that’s how.”

“He could have taken Rosenwald’s car,” Lia offered.

Rossi stared at Wolf.

“Okay, yeah. We need to account for his car.” Wolf turned his back and kicked a small rock into the corn stalks. He turned back to them. “We need to go talk to Vlad in the observatory. He said he was working that night. He said the reason he wasn’t at the bar with them that night was because he was at work. So, let’s ask him what he saw. If he was here, then he can tell us what happened. You don’t just miss a blow out argument between two guys that ends in a murder in the back yard, do you? It’s beyond suspicious.”

Rossi raised an eyebrow and nodded his head, looking to Lia.

“And you don’t know everything yet, Rossi,” he said pushing past him. “This guy, Ferka Vlad, is involved in cocaine and electronics smuggling with the owner of a Romanian pub in Lecco named Cezar.”

“What?” Rossi turned.

“I was here last night. I saw the truck they were packing with stolen computers and drugs. I actually looked in the back of the truck and saw at least a hundred stolen computers. I ripped open a white cardboard box and saw what looked to be cocaine. There were at least ten of those boxes. It was dark, there could have been many more.”

“When were you going to tell me this?” Rossi held out his hands.

Wolf blinked and shrugged. “There hasn’t exactly been a good time this morning for me to tell you.”

Rossi shot Lia a questioning look.

She shrugged her shoulders. “What?”

“I was shot at and chased by this guy, Cezar, last night. So to me this whole situation looks very different.” Wolf stopped and looked to them. “The way I see it is, my brother and Rosenwald had a few drinks at the Albastru Pub and headed to the observatory. I have no clue why they did, but we saw the tweets and the pictures online. They didn’t look under duress or in danger when they took those pictures. It looked like they were probably just coming here to look through the telescope.

“So things obviously went sour at some point in the night. Maybe my brother and Rosenwald saw Vlad and Cezar packing the stolen stuff, or the drugs. Whatever the exact situation, they somehow see something they shouldn’t have, and Vlad and Cezar know they can’t un-see it. So they are now a liability. Cezar deals with my brother and Rosenwald the best way he knows how.

“They are taken out back and forced to kneel down, probably by Cezar and his gun. But obviously gun shots could raise some alarm from the neighbors, so they get a pipe. Some words are said, and Cezar flies off the handle,