Midnight in Venice (9 page)

Alessandro called Pamela's cell from the car to tell her everything he'd learned. “Can you confirm a direct flight to New York today at noon?” he asked.

“I'll check online.” It was quiet for a moment, then Pamela was back. “There is. Venice to New York JFK. No other stops. 1200 hours.”

“Can you meet me at the airport?”

“I'm just about to head there. Columbo wants me to talk to Vanessa's supervisor.”

“I think Vanessa Alberti might have become mixed up in some kind of smuggling. Her husband said she was going to report it, but I have a feeling he's not being completely honest about that. We're going to have to talk to him some more, but I do think he feels guilty and is trying to tip us off in his own way. Have Columbo send someone over to keep an eye on him and tell him it's for his own protection.”

“You think something's going down today?”

“I hope not,” he replied, “because Olivia's on that flight.”

“Chattering-teeth Olivia?”

“Same one.”

“She certainly knows how to find trouble.”

Alessandro started to object, but Pamela cut him off. “Don't worry, partner. I'll fill Columbo in.”

“Would you leave out the part—”

“You don't even need to ask. I'll see you at the airport. But this better not be a ruse to get one last glimpse of those lovely violet eyes.”

 

Where the hell is he? This is cutting it too close. Once she gets on that plane with that suitcase, I'm home free.

She's looking right at me and doesn't have a clue. This better work, damn it.

 

Olivia checked the messages on her iPhone for the tenth time in less than five minutes. “Where the hell are you, Dino?” she mumbled aloud.

She called Dino, getting his voicemail. She left a message, then sent a text for good measure. Nothing.

She tried Silvio, but his phone was off. When did Silvio ever turn off his phone?

None of this would be happening if they'd just stuck to the plan Silvio had texted her the night before. But this morning she'd received a text from Dino, saying he had errands to run and that another water taxi would pick her up at 10 a.m. He assured her he'd be waiting at the airport dock at eleven with the suitcase of glass, but there was no sign of him when she arrived and no sign of him now.

Impatiently, she paced the dock at the airport with her own suitcase. The check-in counter for New York was going to close in less than thirty minutes; it was going to take at least fifteen to get to the terminal, and she still had to check her own bag and get her boarding pass.

She'd packed her gloves in her suitcase and now rubbed her hands together to warm them. A cold, damp wind blew in from the lagoon, and the lead-colored sky threatened to open up at any moment.
Go ahead and rain on me
, she silently dared the clouds.
It's not like this day can get any worse
.

It didn't help that she hadn't slept. She'd gone to bed wanting to dream of Alessandro's kisses and instead was forced to listen to her upstairs neighbors fight. They stomped around above her bedroom screaming obscenities at each other until after two, when they presumably made up, since the stomping of feet and screaming were replaced by the rhythmic thumping of the headboard and cries of
Harder! Harder!
She'd jammed the pillow over her head, but it hadn't helped much.

Just when it had felt like she'd fallen asleep, she'd woken to the sound of someone hammering on metal pipes. She looked at the clock: 7 a.m. The room was icy cold. No heat. Going downstairs in her bathrobe to investigate, she discovered repairmen at work in the boiler room off the ground-floor hall. The boiler room was ankle deep in water, and tools were strewn across the hall floor. They informed her it would be off until noon at least, and so, shivering, she dressed after an ice-cold shower.

Before putting her iPhone in her purse, she'd quickly checked her email, only to find a message from the student-loan people saying that she'd missed her last payment and her case would go to collections in one week's time.

Embarrassed, she texted Marco and told him he'd missed her payment. She hit Send before remembering Venice was two hours ahead of Iceland—it was only just after 6 a.m. there, and he was staying at a spa with his new beau. She was surprised when he replied right away with an apology and a promise to get on it immediately.

Just as she'd finished dealing with that, she got the text from Dino letting her know he'd be meeting her at the airport.

Oh yes, and to top the morning off, the milk had curdled in her coffee, and she'd been forced to pour it down the sink.

It was the first day of Carnival, and the airport swarmed with people, some already in costume. A few women were dressed in elaborate gowns, the feathers on their hats waving in the cold wind, and someone lingering near the ticket office wore the long black robe and hideous beaked mask of a plague doctor. He or she appeared to be alone—waiting for someone maybe? Olivia shuddered involuntarily, remembering the one she'd seen on her first day in Venice. It had been so creepy, and she didn't find it any less creepy now.

Suddenly a little girl dressed as a clown crashed into Olivia and fell at her feet. It was hard to say who was more startled, Olivia or the child. She helped the little clown to her feet just as the mother caught up. “Come on,” the mother said impatiently as she grabbed the child's hand. “We're going to miss our boat.”

The plague doctor had disappeared, and Olivia once again scanned the choppy waters of the lagoon, willing one of the many water taxis to be the one carrying the glass. Another taxi approached the dock, and she ran toward it, thinking she recognized the driver as Dino, only to discover it wasn't. The boat let off two businessmen and took on a couple more before pulling out again.

Sighing, Olivia glanced at her phone yet again and was about to try Dino one final time when at last he pulled up.

“Sorry I'm late. Engine troubles,” he said, hoisting a large black suitcase onto the dock.

Olivia looked at the suitcase in despair. “This isn't the one Luigi had yesterday. It's too big for carry-on!”

“Don't worry. Just check it. Luigi packed it well, and it's clearly marked as fragile. It'll be fine. Now hurry, so you don't miss your plane!”

Olivia thought he could have offered to help, but there was no time to argue. Pulling both suitcases behind her, she ran awkwardly toward the terminal, hoping Luigi had done an especially good job packing the glass.

But she didn't have time to worry about that. She was just going to make it, as long as airport security didn't check her luggage for bombs again. Then she almost laughed, remembering how she and Alessandro had joked about that just last night.

 

Alessandro should've had time to spare, but with Carnival starting, traffic was heavy. He glanced at his watch, calculating how long he had before the counter for the New York flight closed.

He'd told Pamela he didn't expect anything to be going down on this flight, but in the course of the drive, he couldn't help but feel a rising, grim excitement. What if it was this flight?

He kept going over Eduard's words.
I didn't want her to return to work after Tazia was born, but with the financial crisis . . .
Alessandro was certain there was something Eduard wasn't telling him. Eduard had been evasive in his answers, as if wondering how much to say. Was Eduard hoping to tell Alessandro just enough to catch his wife's killer without implicating her in any wrongdoing? Or himself? Alessandro imagined them talking into the night, wondering if a little blackmail was the solution to their financial problems . . .

He called Columbo on his cell and told him to be ready to hold up the noon flight to New York. After hanging up, he remembered joking with Olivia about calling in a bomb threat.

He cursed when he found the emergency lane in front of the terminal blocked with traffic—he was going to have to call Security on that one—and parked his car illegally. He threw the identification card he used in these circumstances onto the dash and hoped someone looked before towing it away.

He called Pamela on her cell and found she was already in the terminal. “How did you manage to get here so fast?” he asked. “Never mind. Just meet me at the check-in counter for New York.”

Jostling and angering everyone, he ran through the crowd, almost colliding with Pamela in front of the New York counter. The clerk was just putting the baggage tag on the last customer's suitcase when a man wearing an airport uniform picked up the bag and started walking away with it. It was just as Eduard had described!

“You talk to the clerk and that woman checking in,” Alessandro said to Pamela. “I'll go after the guy with the bag.”

He caught up with the man just as he put his hand on a door labeled Employees Only. Alessandro pulled out his badge. “Stop right there,” he said firmly. “Guardia di Finanza.”

The man stopped dead, turning to Alessandro with an angry look on his face. Alessandro saw that he was young with short sandy hair and a tan he couldn't get in Venice in February.

“Where are you going with that suitcase, Benito?” Alessandro asked, reading his name tag.

“To the plane, of course,” Benito said.

“Why isn't it on the conveyor belt with the rest of the luggage?”

“Because it's late?”

Alessandro matched Benito's sarcasm. “Why are you asking me?” With every passing moment, Alessandro became more confident he was on to something.

Benito didn't answer, and so Alessandro continued. “Do you know what's in that bag?”

Benito shook his head, beads of sweat forming on his tanned forehead, and shifted the suitcase to his other hand.

“Perhaps we should get your boss over here to have a look.”

Benito looked around wildly before diving in front of a motorized baggage cart. Alessandro's cellphone rang, but he ignored it as he plunged after Benito, leaping over suitcases and dodging passengers.

Finally catching up with him, Alessandro grabbed him by the jacket.

“Gotcha!” he said.

Benito reacted by throwing the suitcase hard, knocking a middle-aged woman to her knees.

“I'm going to sue! I'm going to sue!” she screamed.

The commotion alerted airport security. One guard attempted to calm the woman while a couple of others tried to corral the curious onlookers. One of the guards recognized Alessandro. “Another set of wind-up teeth, Rossi?”

His cell rang again just then. Columbo. Alessandro quickly filled him in.

“Search the bags as soon as the others get there,” Columbo said.

Alessandro was about to slip his phone into his pocket when he saw a text from Pamela.
Be prepared for a shock.

The warning came right in time. He looked up. Pamela held a woman by the arm—
Olivia
!

 

“What the hell is going on here?” The words escaped before he had a chance to think.

“You tell me,” Olivia said. Alessandro could tell she was close to tears, and though it was warm in the terminal, she clutched her coat around her.

“Is this your suitcase?” he said, echoing the same question he'd asked only five weeks earlier. He sounded so official, but he couldn't help it. The last time he saw her, he was kissing her in the rain. He had a nightmarish sense of déjà vu, only this time he knew he wouldn't find a plastic toy.

“It's Rocco's glass for the show in New York,” she said finally.

Alessandro was stunned. But he had to take charge. He took a deep breath and vowed not to look at Olivia. The head of airport security arrived and Alessandro asked him for a private interview room. Benito defiantly demanded his lawyer, but Pamela told him he wasn't under arrest yet.

Alessandro broke his vow and looked at Olivia. She stared back at him almost as if she didn't see him. Her teeth were chattering, and he wondered if the plastic chattering teeth at Christmas had been some sort of grotesque premonition.

He forced himself to think rationally about the matter at hand. Maybe it was only attempted theft of luggage by Benito, and Olivia was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Again.

But how many coincidences did it take before it was no longer coincidence?

The head of Security said the room was ready, and Alessandro instructed one of his colleagues to bring the suitcase and Pamela to bring Olivia. He didn't trust himself anywhere near her.

When they reached the room, Alessandro donned a pair of gloves and opened the suitcase, revealing what appeared to be nothing but bubble wrap.

“It's Rocco's glass jewelry for the New York show,” Olivia repeated weakly.

He looked from Olivia to Pamela—Rocco, Katarina's brother, his own brother-in-law. How many coincidences did it take?

He piled each bubble-wrapped package on the table. The first contained a pendant that looked so much like a drop of water he almost expected it to run through his fingers and puddle at his feet.

He opened a couple more before turning his attention to the suitcase itself. Searching it thoroughly, he found a seam that had been restitched. It was well done—he was sure anyone else would have missed it. He asked for a knife, and the head of airport security handed him a Swiss army knife. He doubted airport security was allowed to carry a knife at work, but that could wait.

He slit the seam and found what he'd been looking for: a false wall, and behind it, lined up neatly, bags of white powder.

Drugs.

He pulled out a bag and set it on the table. Everyone stared at it.

“It's not mine! It's not mine!” Benito protested. “I didn't know the suitcase had heroin in it! I was just taking it to the plane! It was late. Why don't you arrest her?” he said, pointing to Olivia. “It's her suitcase.”

“How do you know it's heroin?” Pamela asked, still holding Olivia's arm.

“Well, it's not sugar or laundry detergent, is it?” he said sarcastically. “Nobody hides those in a suitcase lining.”

The head of security asked Alessandro if he could give the plane clearance to take off. Alessandro didn't have a clue and looked to Pamela for help, but she seemed distracted. What was going on with her? Olivia, still staring at the white powder on the table, looked as if she was going to cry any moment.

Alessandro called Columbo, who agreed to talk to Security about letting the plane leave. That it would be leaving without Olivia was a given.

“You bring her in,” Columbo said. “I'll have some of the other guys bring in the drugs and Benito. Send Pamela to Murano to talk to Rocco.”

All of a sudden, he was alone in the room with Olivia. Her violet eyes reflected back his confusion.

“Do you know anything about this?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing. Are you going to arrest me?”

“No. But I'm probably supposed to. Can you at least tell me who packed the suitcase?”

“I don't know. I went out to Rocco's yesterday. We chose the pieces, then Luigi came and started packing them in a small red carry-on. Dino was supposed to pick me up this morning at my apartment and bring me and the suitcase to the airport. But he texted me to say he had errands to run and that he'd meet me here with it at eleven. He was late, and I thought I was going to miss the plane. When he finally showed up, he gave me that big black one instead, and I had to check it.”

What had Pamela said about trouble finding this girl? How unlucky could one person be?

Alessandro took Olivia by the arm. “Somehow I didn't envision our next date going this way.” He'd meant to lighten the situation, but he just sounded tired and negative. She probably thought he was being sarcastic. He just needed to collect his thoughts. Then maybe he could reassure her that he believed her. Because he
did
believe her, didn't he?

Once outside, he led her toward his car, thinking they looked like boyfriend and girlfriend, not cop and suspect.

No
, he thought firmly,
she isn't a suspect
. She was a witness at most. She'd been set up to carry the drugs to New York. Once they were in the car, he would start over and tell her he believed her.

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he, he didn't notice until too late that they'd walked straight into a large pack of teenaged Carnival-goers openly passing around bottles of wine. Alessandro assumed they were meeting friends. Thank God they were airport security's problem and not his.

Suddenly, one of the girls in the group stumbled and fell a few feet away from him. Her friends seemed oblivious to her plight and kept pressing forward. She struggled into a sitting position, only to be knocked down again.

Alessandro realized with horror that the girl was in danger of being trampled. Without thinking, he let go of Olivia and rushed to the girl's aid. Pushing himself between her and the crowd, he helped her to her feet. She was frightened and a little shaky, but when he asked if she was hurt, she shook her head and, thanking him for his help, hurried after her friends.

Suddenly realizing what he had done, Alessandro spun around, panic seizing him as he quickly scanned the faces around him.

But it was too late.

Olivia was gone.

He'd lost her.