When Shadows Come Page 17

  “You’re sure the man in the photo is the man who works here?”

  “I can’t be one hundred percent sure,” I explain. “Much of the time I am blind, or see only a blur, or at best, I have limited vision. But I think it’s him.”

  Soon a waiter greets us at the door. He’s an older man sporting a thick mustache and a large gut that makes his apron bulge out and away from his legs like a tent. Since he speaks no English, Italian-fluent Anna volunteers to be my translator. He speaks something and the journalist translates.

  “If we wish to be seated,” she says, “there is a wait of one half hour.”

  I peer at the waiter, his face deadpan and tired.

  “We don’t want to sit,” I say, waiting for Anna’s translation. “We’re looking for someone who works here.”

  She tells the waiter what I said and he responds with a question.

  “He wants to know who you are.”

  “My fiancée was abducted from this place just a few days ago,” I say.

  She translates. Afterward, the waiter’s eyes peer into my own. Unblinking.

  “How can I help you?” he asks via the reporter.

  “A man who works here helped me out. His name is Giovanni. I would like to speak with him.”

  The heavyset waiter starts shaking his head. He speaks.

  “He is very sorry,” says Anna. “But he has no Giovanni in his employ at the moment. Are you sure you weren’t mistaking him for someone else?”

  “He must work here,” I insist. “He was waiting on some tables just the other night when I returned. He found a ring that belonged to my fiancée, and he took me into the back room.” Raising up my arm, I point to the rather obscure image of a door located all the way at the rear of the caffè. I’ve never actually laid eyes upon the door before, but even in my visually impaired state, I’m sure that must be it.

  Anna reaches into her bag again and produces the paper. She unfolds it and shows the waiter the image of the man printed upon it. She then speaks something in Italian.

  “I told him this is the man we are looking for,” she says to me, waving the photo. “I told him he claims to be employed here.”

  The waiter continues to shake his head and speaks again.

  She turns to me.

  “He says he is the owner of this caffè and he can assure us that the man in the photograph does not work for him. Nor has he ever worked for him.”

  I gaze into his eyes. They are neither blinking rapidly, nor is he attempting to avert his gaze. My gut tells me he’s telling the truth.

  The caffè owner turns, makes a sweeping gesture with his thick left arm, and says something else. Anna nods and then shakes her head, disbelievingly.

  “He says to take a look around, Nick. All the waiters he employs are currently on the floor. All of them. And something else. He claims there is no back office attached to this establishment. That the back door simply leads to an alley where they keep the trash receptacle.”

  My throat goes dry. I try swallowing, but I can’t seem to work up the moisture. I step away from Anna and the caffè owner, make my way quickly across the floor, bumping into a table and then another one, a big man enjoying a meal with his family telling me to watch where I’m walking. I feel all the many sets of eyes upon me when I come to the door and open it. But there’s no office located on the other side. There is only a dark alley. Set on the narrow cobblestoned alleyway maybe six or seven feet away is a blue dumpster. It smells of rotting food. I feel lightheaded and a bit dizzy. Before I close the door, a dark brown rat pokes its head out from under the plastic dumpster cover, slithers out, drops down to the cobbles, landing on all four claws, and scurries away. I close the door and recross the floor to the front of the caffè.

  “The owner says he is sorry about your fiancée, Nick,” offers Anna. “But we are upsetting his customers. So if there is nothing else, he must get back to work and we must leave.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, as soon as we’re through the door. “Is it possible you have the wrong caffè?”

  Stepping back, I take in the long building, and the doors and windows that belong to it.

  “I suppose it’s very possible I was led through another doorway instead of this one,” I say. “I was blind, after all.”

  She nods, because it’s the only valid explanation. Unless, that is, I’m entirely crazy and delusional.

  “Nick,” Anna says, taking hold of my forearm. “Are you okay?”

  My eyes lock once more on the table where I last spoke with my fiancée. Where a strange man in an overcoat approached us and possibly . . . quite possibly . . . stole Grace.

  “Let’s go back to the police,” I say.

  She takes hold of my hand, squeezes it.

  “Let’s go now,” she agrees.

  Chapter 53

  It takes us nearly an hour to get to the Venice police station. We walk over cobbles, through narrow alleys, over stone bridges, ride water taxis, all in a desperate search for a truth surrounded by beauty, history, and water.

  Always the water.

  Anna remains physically close to me the entire time, pressing up against me while we ride the crowded water bus, holding my hand with her warm, soft hand. I’ve only just met her, but when I look into her brown eyes I see more than a journalist who is trying to find the truth behind Grace’s story. I see a woman who genuinely cares about its outcome as much as I do, or perhaps I see something more. Maybe what I’m seeing and feeling is a woman who might be falling for me. Stranger things have happened, and this is Venice, after all.

  But I feel her hand in my hand, and all I can think about is Grace . . . finding Grace.

  Inside the old police building, we are escorted to a waiting area by a uniformed officer and politely offered coffee. Anna and I decline. A few minutes later, Detective Carbone enters the room. He’s smoking a cigarette.

  “I see your sight has returned once more,” he says in his warm, if not gentle voice. “You must be delighted.”

  “Positively chipper,” I say. “Truth is, I’m fighting the blindness every step of the way. No peripherals whatsoever. It’s like I’m surrounded by a fog bank. Unless you’re right in front of me, I have a great chance of missing you. How are you coming with the investigation?”

  He smokes, listens, exhales blue smoke.

  Switching his gaze from me to Anna, he says, “And we have not had the pleasure of meeting.”

  She holds out her hand. Tells him her name. Her occupation. Who she works for.

  He smokes.

  “I am familiar with your work,” he says. “I read your small report on the web about the Captain’s unfortunate circumstance. I understand you spoke with one of my officers on the phone.”

  “They did not tell me much, Detective,” Anna points out, her voice taking on a formal tone, her British accent more pronounced. “Only that you believe it’s possible Grace left of her own accord.” She looks up at me with her deep brown eyes. “Captain Angel begs to differ.”

  More smoking.

  “Captain Angel,” he says through a haze of secondhand smoke, “we have yet to find the true reason behind your fiancée’s disappearance.”

  “But you know what happened,” I say. “There was a man. He’s been following us. He went after her in Piazza San Marco. He abducted her. What you don’t know is that she pulled off her engagement ring and left it behind for me to find.”

  His brows rise. “Where is that ring?”

  I dig it out of my pocket, hold it up to his face with my index finger and thumb, the square-cut diamond shimmering in the overhead light.

  “May I?” he asks, holding out his free hand.

  I set the ring in the palm of his hand.

  “I would have it tested for prints if I didn’t think it a waste of time. Such objects are difficult to work with.”

  “Funny you should say that, Detective,” Anna interjects. “We already did have it tested for prints. Or I did, anyway.”
<
br />   My sight might be severely impaired, but that doesn’t stop me from noticing Detective Carbone’s face take on a red patina behind the salt-and-pepper beard.

  “That might be construed as obstruction,” he says.

  “Obstruction of what exactly?” the journalist presses. “Sounds like your investigation is going nowhere. And, as it turns out, the ring proved a valuable resource for prints.”

  Nodding, the neatly dressed detective smokes the last of his cigarette. When he’s done, he simply drops the spent butt to the tile floor and stamps it out with the tip of his shoe.

  “I could demand to withhold this ring,” he says to my face. “Instead, I will leave it up to you, Captain.”

  My return gaze says it all. I open up my right hand and he places the ring back on my palm. I shove the ring into my pants pocket.

  “So then, what were the results of your print analysis?” he asks.

  “There’s a third set of prints on the ring besides Grace’s and the Captain’s,” Anna says. “They belong to a man named Heath Lowrance. An American. A professional soldier turned Interpol war-crimes agent. He’s befriended Captain Angel while under the guise of a waiter named Giovanni who works in the caffè where Grace went missing. He’s been pretending to assist the captain while he goes in and out of blindness.”

  “How do you know for certain this man is a fake?”

  “We just stopped at his caffè. He’s not employed there.”

  The detective works up a grin. “You are doing some excellent detective work for a man who has limited use of his eyes. I applaud you. It’s possible you are becoming as adept at managing the dark world around you as a person born with blindness. That is, as long as you’re careful not to blindly walk into one of the canals.”

  “Detective Carbone,” Anna goes on, “why do you suppose an investigator from Interpol would be attaching himself to Captain Angel? And why would it happen concurrent with the disappearance of his fiancée?”

  “That seems to be the major question, doesn’t it, Ms. Laiti?”

  Her left hand takes hold of my forearm. Squeezes it gently. Without her having to say it, I sense the purpose of the squeeze. It tells me the police are hiding something. Maybe she’s sensed this all along, and maybe that’s why she’s invested herself in both the story and me.

  Detective Carbone lights another cigarette.

  “Captain Angel,” he says, exhaling his initial drag of smoke, “might I have a word with you alone?”

  I look over my shoulder at Anna.

  She nods.

  “I’ll be outside the door,” she says, slipping out, closing the door behind her.

  I shove my right hand into my trouser pocket, feel Grace’s engagement ring.

  “What’s happening here, Detective?” I say.

  “Captain Angel,” he says, “it’s time you stopped looking for Grace.”

  Chapter 54

  “I don’t understand,” I say after a stunned beat. “Why would I even consider such an option?”

  The detective’s face has become sullen and drained of blood. He appears oddly comfortable with this new visage, as if his more common happier demeanor were nothing more than a mask designed to hide the lies. Or hide the truth. And I must admit, it makes him appear far more believable to me. More trustworthy, perhaps.

  He smokes, exhales, nervously flicks the growing tube of gray ash onto the floor.

  “Your fiancée did not leave you of her own accord,” he says. “You must forgive me for having to lie about it. But those have been my orders. I did not want to speak freely in front of the journalist.”

  The floor feels like it’s shifting right out from under my feet. “The overcoat man.”

  He nods. “A few days ago when you first reported Grace missing, we had no leads to go on. You two had been reported as arguing in a caffè on the late afternoon before her disappearance. You were just returning from an extremely traumatic war experience. With no tangible leads and no witnesses coming forward to corroborate your story of abduction, we could only assume you might have had something to do with her sudden vanishing.”

  I recall my conversation with the American man this morning. He claimed to be a witness and to have personally spoken with Carbone. It’s exactly what I tell him now.

  “That man did come forward. But not until nearly forty-eight hours after the fact. And by then it was too late. I thanked him for his time and told him that if he should continue with interfering in a police matter he would be detained. The US Embassy told him the very same thing.”

  “I would never do anything to harm Grace.”

  “Of this I am now certain. But let me assure you, Captain, it’s not all that unusual for a seemingly happy relationship to go violently wrong even in Venice. I’ve been in the position of investigating murders of passion before. Yours would not have been a unique situation had it turned out to be the case.”

  “Is that why Interpol is watching me?”

  He shakes his head. Smokes. “Not exactly.”

  “Why, then?”

  Behind me, a door opens. A door in a place where there seemed to be no door, but instead a wood-paneled wall. A secret door in a room that is no doubt equipped with audio/visual surveillance equipment, just like any other police interrogation room.

  “I’ll prefer that Agent Heath Lowrance answer that question himself, Captain.”

  Chapter 55

  Agent Lowrance is the same man whom I’ve known as Giovanni for the past couple of days. Tall, thin, smooth shaven, round faced, thick black hair, brown eyes, a friendly smile, and young for his years. Only he is not an Italian caffè waiter. He is under the employ of Interpol. And he has been assigned to me.

  He holds out his hand. I’m not sure if I should take it. I’m a soldier. I realize how futile it would be for me to fight these men. Combat should only come about as a last resort. But that doesn’t mean I have to make it easy for them.

  I stare down at the hand in my hand.

  The click sounds in my brain. The hand. Its touch is familiar. It brings me back to a place where I’m standing on the precipice and looking out onto a great, dark unknown. A land full of shadow memories.

  Deep night. Winter . . . Climbing a hill all alone . . . A dog chained at the collar, barking, growling . . . Use my knife to neutralize the animal, then enter a village that is fast asleep . . . I cut the sentry’s neck, too, and when he drops, I pull the grenade from my belt, release the pin, wait three seconds, drop it through the open window of the target house . . .

  He takes back his hand.

  “Your eyes are being kind to you now,” he says with his usual smile, but this time, without the Italian accent.

  “You really interested in the condition of my eyes?” I say through gritted teeth. “Are you truly interested in Grace’s welfare? Or are we getting in the way of Interpol’s agenda, and yours?”

  His smile dissolves. “My orders involve international security, Captain, which includes the well-being of your significant other. And yes, I do care about your eyesight, believe it or not.”

  Exhaling, I say, “I suspect the periods of blindness are becoming less and less frequent. The doctors told me that would happen. Sooner than later.”

  “I’m happy for you. And the doctors are right. You will recover.”

  “Why are you assigned to me?” I say, after a beat. “And what does it have to do with Grace’s disappearance?”

  “Captain, the village you ordered an airstrike on in northern Afghanistan . . . I am of the understanding that the difficulty there didn’t end with the airstrike. That something else happened up on that hill. And that the event is perhaps the source of your emotional troubles . . . your temporary blindness.”

  In my head, I see the village, parts of it still burning and smoking in the moments following the strike. Wounded men and women crying, confused animals running around. A small boy with something strapped to his chest. A black vest filled with explosives. A suicide ves
t.

  “Yes,” I say, while wondering if Lowrance has followed me all the way from Frankfurt or even from New York’s JFK International Airport. “There was some difficulty.”

  I see the boy as he came around the corner of the stone building, the bomb strapped to his chest. I never hesitated to plant a bead on him with my M4. I shouted, “Don’t do it. Don’t you do it!” Didn’t matter if the boy understood English or not. When he continued approaching us, I aimed for the head and fired. Did it without hesitation. Did it because I was trained to kill without remorse.

  “We believe the stranger you spoke of on the day of Grace’s disappearance is a man who comes from that same village. He’s somehow traced your movements and, in retaliation for what happened in the war, has kidnapped your fiancée and is now holding her hostage. You should have stayed in New York as originally ordered.”

  I feel the breath knocked out of me, the floor under my feet shifting. Behind my eyes I feel a kind of pressure building. I can see, but I sense the onset of blindness once more. If it’s possible to hold it back, I will. But something is happening to me. Has been happening for days now. Weeks. A dam is breaking in my head.

  “Captain Angel,” Detective Carbone breaks in, while pointing to one of the wood chairs set in a far corner. “Would you like to sit down?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll remain standing, even if I am a bit dizzy. Is Grace still in Venice?” I ask Lowrance. “Or has this man smuggled her out of the country?”

  “Thus far we have no reason to believe he’s taken her anywhere. But that would most likely be the plan. That is, if she’s still alive at all.”

  Grace, floating in the Grand Canal, her lovely hair swimming in waves like the talons on a jellyfish. Like Karen’s hair when she died. I try to drown both images as quickly as possible.

  “How can you be sure this . . . man took her?”

  “We’d like to show you how we know,” Lowrance says.

  The door behind me opens again, and this time, David Graham of the US Embassy appears. For a brief moment, his face is hidden by the bright ceiling-mounted track lighting in the large room outside the office. But I know it’s him by his clothing, his tall slim build, and his graceful demeanor. His presence is accompanied by yet another wave of déjà vu–like recollection.