Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

“It’s too dark. I couldn’t see anything.”

“Exactly.”

Simone, however, was not so easily convinced. “But how do you know you’ll find something?”

Jonathan slipped the receipts from his pocket and tucked them into the ID holder. “No one sends that kind of money without a way of getting it back.”

Simone shook her head. Arms crossed, shorn of her earlier bravado, she appeared smaller, older, no longer his willing accomplice. “Really, Jon, I think we should wait.”

“Get in the driver’s seat. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, take off.”

He opened the door and stepped into the rain.

“Sì?”

An unshaven man dressed in flannel pajamas stared bleary-eyed through a crack in the door. Jonathan held the policeman’s badge up so he could see it. “Signor Orsini,” he began in workmanlike Italian. “Graubünden Kantonspolizei. We need your help.”

Orsini snatched the identification from Jonathan’s hand and brought it near his face. His eyes snapped into focus. “What is it that it can’t wait until morning?” he asked, his gaze going back and forth between the ID and the man standing in front of him.

“It is morning,” said Jonathan, grabbing the ID right back. He crowded the doorway, forcing the station superintendent to step back into his home. “A murder. A fellow officer. My partner, in fact. You may have heard about it on the news.”

He waited for Orsini to comment on the photograph, but Orsini only looked peeved. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “No one called me about this.”

Jonathan barreled on, as if he couldn’t be bothered by who had or hadn’t called. “A few hours ago we discovered that bags belonging to the suspect were sent on a train originating from your station. We have the baggage receipts. We need the name of the individual who left them with you.”

“You have written authorization?” asked Orsini.

“Of course not. There wasn’t time. The murderer is headed in this direction.”

The news didn’t affect Orsini one way or the other. “Where’s Mario? Lieutenant Conti?”

“He asked that I come directly to the station.”

Orsini considered this, as he sniffed and hitched up his pajama bottoms. “Give me a minute.” The door closed.

Orsini emerged five minutes later, hair neatly combed, face washed, dressed for the day in gray trousers and a porter’s sturdy blue jacket. Jonathan followed him around the outside of the building to the ticket office.

A minute later, Orsini was seated at his desk, tapping the numbers of the baggage receipts into his computer. “Let’s see…sent to Landquart…bags picked up yesterday afternoon. Basta! Too late. Once the bags are picked up, the file is automatically deleted. I can’t help you.”

Orsini’s look of resignation infuriated Jonathan. “Is there another record of the transaction?” he demanded. “Maybe when the customer purchased the ticket? This is a murder we’re talking about. Not a stolen purse. Get me that name!” He slammed his palm against the table.

Orsini recoiled, but a moment later he was banging at the keyboard like a madman. “Tickets were paid in cash…had to fill out a receipt…hold on…” Standing, he pushed past Jonathan to a row of filing cabinets. Humming nervously, he pulled out sheaf after sheaf of bundled receipts, examining each in turn before tossing them onto the table next to him. Suddenly, he slapped his fingers against a chosen receipt. “Got him!”

Jonathan stood at his shoulder. “Who is it?”

“Blitz. Gottfried Blitz. Villa Principessa. Via della Nonna.” Orsini’s voice was plumped with victory as he studied the receipts. “So, are you happy now, Officer?”

But when he turned around, he found his office empty.

Jonathan had already left.

Marcus von Daniken paced inside the passenger terminal at Bern-Belp airport. A Sikorsky helicopter sat on the tarmac as a crew completed deicing the rotors. Word had come from the tower that the weather was clearing over the Alps and that they had a window of sixty minutes to get over the mountains to the Tessin before the next front arrived and effectively partitioned the country once again between north and south. Flying was not von Daniken’s cup of tea, but this morning there was no other choice. An eighteen-wheeler had overturned at the northern entrance to the Gotthard Tunnel and traffic was backed up twenty-five kilometers.

An announcement was made to board the helicopter. Reluctantly, he left the warm confines of the terminal, followed by Myer and Krajcek. “How long?” he asked the pilot as he climbed aboard.

“Ninety minutes…if the weather holds.” The response was accompanied by the offer of an air-sickness bag.

Von Daniken strapped himself in tightly. He looked at the white paper bag on his lap and muttered a short prayer.

The helicopter landed at an airfield on the outskirts of Ascona at 9:06. Throughout the flight, violent headwinds had buffeted the chopper like a ping-pong ball in a lottery machine. Twice the pilot had asked if von Daniken wished to turn back. Each time, von Daniken merely shook his head. Worse than his nausea was the suspicion that Blitz was at that very moment packing his bags and hightailing it across the Italian border.

The phone number listed on Lammers’s agenda had come back as belonging to one Gottfried Blitz, resident of the Villa Principessa in Ascona. A call had alerted the local police to von Daniken’s imminent arrival. Instructions were given that under no circumstances should anyone attempt to contact or arrest the suspect.

The engine moaned, then died altogether. The rotor blades slowed and bent under their weight. As von Daniken placed his foot onto solid ground, it was all he could do to keep from falling to his knees and kissing the tarmac. Come hell or high water, he was driving home in an automobile.

Lieutenant Mario Conti, chief of the Tessin police, stood at the edge of the helipad. “You will ride with me to Blitz’s house,” he said. “I believe your assistant is already there.”

Von Daniken made a beeline for the waiting automobile. The engine noise was still rife in his ears, and he wasn’t sure if he’d heard the lieutenant correctly. “My assistant? These are my men: Mr. Myer and Mr. Krajcek. No one else from my office is working this case.”

“But I received a call from Signor Orsini, the manager of the railway station, earlier this morning saying that he had been visited by an officer who had come to inquire about the bags. I assumed he was working on the same case as you.”

“Exactly what bags are you talking about?” asked von Daniken, pulling up sharply.

“The bags that were sent to Landquart,” Conti explained. “The officer informed Signor Orsini that they belonged to the suspect in the killing of the policeman yesterday.”

“I’m not investigating the killing of the policeman in Landquart. I didn’t send anyone to speak with the station manager.”

Conti shook his head, his cheeks losing their pallor. “But this policeman…he showed his identification. You’re certain you are not working together?”

Von Daniken ignored the question, driving to the heart of the matter. “What exactly did this man want?”

“The name and address of the man who had originally sent the bags.”

Von Daniken started walking toward the car. His pace quickened as it came to him. “And that man’s name was-”

“Blitz,” said the police chief, almost jogging to keep up. “The man you are looking for, of course. He lives in Ascona. Is something wrong?”

Von Daniken opened the passenger door. “How far is it to his home?”