He twisted the handle and entered fast.
Before he finished shutting the door, he knew he was in big trouble.
Chapter 39
Nothing inside the office moved but the swirling digital lines on the computer screen.
Vlad sprawled motionless, directly face down. His head was back slightly, face balanced on his nose and gaping jaw which was mashed into the terrazzo floor.
What bothered Wolf was not Vlad’s obviously lifeless body, as much as what was wrapped around his neck — a shiny black leather belt. A shiny black belt of a design he might have remembered seeing in his brother’s closet earlier in the week.
His mind raced.
He looked at the computer screen. The lines had disappeared, blanking out to a black sleep-mode screen. He snapped his head to Vlad and bent down, feeling his cheek with the back of his hand. The body was still warm.
Wolf stood up with a jolt and turned towards the door. He pulled the door open with his sweatshirt pocket covered hand and scrubbed clean the exterior knob. Suddenly, a faint two tone siren became audible somewhere in the distance. Turning to the exterior window, his breath quickened when the flicker of red and blue flashed through the closed blinds, and the siren become louder.
Wolf sprinted down the hall, past the Asian scientist who was now taking a long swill of soda in his office doorway.
“Hey!” He stepped back, spilling his drink on himself as Wolf blew past him.
Wolf ran hard through the telescope room and out the door. He stopped outside with a skid and lunged back to the handle, wiping both inside and outside knob quickly with his sweatshirt before turning and sprinting as fast as he could out the gate.
Running down the dirt road to the left, red and blue pulses dimly lit the corn rows in front of him, coming from behind. He dove straight left into the corn rows, stopping his movement as fast he could. Looking up, he steadied two cornstalks in place.
The siren was now muted, but the brightening strobe of red and blue told him the vehicle was getting closer by the second.
Wolf inched to the edge of the corn and stole a glance. It was a Caribinieri Alfa Romeo Gazelle slowing at the observatory’s back gate, then whipping hard into the property. He waited for the next car, which never came. He held his breath and listened. A faint familiar clack of the observatory door told him the officer had probably entered the building.
None of it made any sense. The body wasn’t even cold yet, not even discovered by his fellow employees milling about. Wolf instinctually twisted to look behind him. Nothing but corn.
He poked his head out and looked to the building, seeing flashing blue and red against the corn rows lining the road. Faint radio noises came from the vehicle inside the property.
He ran down the road to the scooter. Pausing, he looked and listened again, then pushed it up the dirt road, away from the observatory grounds. Reaching the small rise, he jumped on, coasting towards the lake — towards the narrow trail they’d navigated earlier in the day. Towards the crime scene.
He jammed the brakes hard, skidding to a stop. Whether or not the crime scene would be manned was a toss-up. If he were the one giving orders at a crime scene in Colorado, he would have a couple men down there. Probably not at the trail head below, but more near the actual crime scene. He knew there was a farm road to the left and to the right at the bottom of the small hill ahead, right where the narrow trail began. He coasted forward.
The narrow path at the bottom had yellow tape across the entrance, but no officer in site. He fired up the scooter and gave it a small rev that echoed in the still night, sounding like a handful of pebbles in a tin can. He chose the road to the left, towards the road he took here. It was also towards the road the Caribinieri screamed in on, but most importantly, it was back in the direction of Lecco.
Time wasn’t on his side anymore, and there was a lot to do.
Chapter 40
Wolf got off the hissing scooter and eyed the Albastru Pub across the piazza. It was lively, chalk full of patrons, merry laughter gushing from the pub doorway as they came and went.
Walking past the front window, he could see a thickly muscled bartender working behind the counter in a blur of activity. A young waitress weaved in and out of standing customers. Her face sparkled with facial piercings.
A group of young men wearing soccer jerseys charged out with cigarettes in their mouths, beers in hand.
He slowed his pace, stalling to get a longer look inside, digging in his pocket and pulling out a cigarette from the pack he borrowed from Cristina. “Excuse me, do you have a light?” He flicked his thumb.
Two of the bigger guys turned toughly, eyeing him up and down. “Yes, I have one!” Another guy stepped forward with a friendly smile and extended lighter. “Where are you from?”
Just then Wolf saw Cezar’s tall head bobbing above behind the bar, above the other patrons. Wolf took the lighter and turned his back to the window to light.
“Tijuana.” Wolf tossed it back without looking and walked away.
He took a left and walked down the street, the pub noise fading in the distance.
Thirty yards down he took the first left, then the next, into a dark rain soaked alley. He made his way toward where he pictured the rear of the pub. Through a slot canyon of thousand-year-old connected buildings with dark doorways.
Ahead was a blind curve with a bright glow beyond it. He tossed the cigarette in a puddle and walked.
Two men stood in a brightly lit garage doorway sucking on cigarettes.
He ducked into a sunken doorway on the right and looked.
The two men were wiry, much like Cezar, as if they didn’t eat much, or had the metabolism of ferrets. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, neither being over six feet tall, nor bulky, but they were undoubtedly raised on the streets of a country he had no knowledge of. Whether from Italy or Romania, he didn’t know the skills these guys brought to the table. They were heavily tattooed, and his gut told him they weren’t just a couple of dishwashers out for a smoke break.
The shorter of the two guys was telling an animated story while the other one stood still, chuckling silently, looking self consciously at his own cigarette. Neither looked to have guns or knives tucked in their waist.
They finished their cigarettes and stayed there, like they were going to wait for something, then ducked inside.
Wolf put another smoke in his mouth, walked out of the doorway and directly towards the bright garage.
As he got closer, he heard the sound of at least two men talking. Definitely Romanian, not Italian.
Wolf walked to the door and looked inside, bathed in bright light. The interior of the garage was large enough for one American SUV, or two Italian cars. Boxes were stacked along the walls of either side. It was obviously used as a loading dock for restaurant supplies to be offloaded from a truck and into the establishment through the door in the back left.
The two men were hard at work pulling full boxes from a haphazard area in the middle of the garage, taping them shut, and stacking them along the walls. The boxes were brown, of the same dimension he’d seen in the back of Cezar’s truck the night before. And just like the night before, they were filled to the brim with what looked to be stolen electronics.
One of the guys did a double take when he saw Wolf, who was now standing just in the garage doorway with a cigarette in his mouth, digging in his pocket with a frustrated look.
They both stood with wide eyes and began walking to Wolf, chests out, heads leaned way back and to the side.