Free Foreign Deceit by Jeff Carson Page B

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