From the darkness just beyond the reach of a lamppost, she stared at the grimy, deteriorating façade of one of the city’s police stations. The stink here was especially strong, and the irony attached to that observation did not escape her. The Italian government and all associated authorities were so rife with corruption that people had long ago accepted the fact as immutable. Payoffs to the right officials in sufficient amounts could achieve almost any desired result. And yet in Geena’s experience, day-to-day business in Venice proceeded in the same fashion as that of other cities. The police kept the peace and tried to protect the public to the best of their ability. Of course, it would have been much simpler if the Venice police never did their jobs at all.
Going in, she thought, unsure if Nico could hear her, or even where he might be now. They had parted ways nearly two hours ago, and she could no longer sense his touch at all. Either he had traveled far from her, or he was purposefully keeping himself hidden. Or Volpe was. It was probably a smart decision, but that did nothing to take the sting out of it.
She crossed the dingy stone bridge that led to an alley that ran between the police station and a small hotel that seemed to have frozen in time during the 1950s. Small boats moored at the canal door of the police station and, as she passed, two uniformed officers came out onto the landing and dropped down into one of them, grim-faced and tired-looking.
Geena took a deep breath and went in through the alley door, which for civilians would be the main door, she supposed. The foyer had old benches with cracked leather seats and a thick barrier of glass or plastic—bulletproof, no doubt, and perhaps explosive-resistant as well—separating her from the two officers who sat on the other side, both of them with phones clutched against their ears, snapping off instructions.
Deeper inside the building she could see cubicle dividers and desks, but other than the two men in the front she saw only a handful of people. A woman peered at a computer screen, madly typing away at the keyboard, and two men in suits talked quietly in the back, worried expressions on their faces.
“Excuse me,” Geena said in Italian.
The two cops on their phones ignored her, barking in rapid-fire Italian, reporting the location of various officers and detectives and, in some cases, ordering their deployment to other locations.
Geena took a breath and waited patiently. For perhaps the hundredth time since waking on the floor of that abandoned taverna, she took mental stock of her condition. When she had left there she had rushed back to her apartment, taking a water taxi, too impatient to wait for the bus across the canal. In a taxi there was only the driver to see her bloodstained shirt and smell the lingering odor of sickness on her.
She had showered quickly but thoroughly, and afterward she had stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. The slash on her palm had healed, yes, but so had the wound from where Volpe had stabbed her shoulder. It ached in a hollow, distant fashion, the way her left knee sometimes did in the winter, but there was no longer a wound there, nor any mark at all. Even the small scar on her chin—earned at the age of two from a fall on brick steps—had vanished. The magic that Volpe had worked to purge them of the contagion had apparently done much more.
“Excuse me,” Geena said again, her tone sharper.
This time both cops glanced up at her, though more in irritation than assistance. One of them actually turned away from her to continue his conversation. Geena had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put on a clean white crenellated top and black Capri pants, trying to look presentable, but though she spoke Italian, all they saw when they looked at her was an American. No matter how fluent she might be, they heard it in her voice, saw it in her face.
“I’m not a tourist,” she muttered, almost to herself.
The officer still facing her arched an eyebrow in apparent amusement. He had gray hair and thick, wiry eyebrows and a ruddy face flushed from a lifetime of alcoholic indulgence, but when he hung up the phone and looked at her, he had a certain charm.
“How can I help you, Signorina?”
“I wanted to clear up a misunderstanding,” she said. “A crazy thing happened. One of my colleagues has been accused of assaulting me—well, stabbing me, actually—and I would like to speak with someone about giving a statement.”
The officer’s eyes had widened when she mentioned stabbing, and now he gazed at her dubiously. One of those thick eyebrows arched upward, but the phone rang before he could speak and he held up a finger to indicate she should wait while he answered it.
He gave curt replies to the phone inquiries, something about a press conference in the morning, and when he hung up, the phone rang again almost immediately. This time he ignored it, muttering something to the younger, black-haired officer, whose only reply was an arrogant glance.
“You don’t look like you’ve been stabbed,” said the officer. He stood up to get a better look at her and she could read his name tag: Pendolari.
“That’s what I’m trying to say. I wasn’t.”
“But someone filed a police report saying you were?” Officer Pendolari asked. “Why would anyone do that?”
Geena hoped her sheepish smile was convincing. “My colleague and I are … involved. We had an altercation in front of some co-workers. They’re not very pleased with him and I’m sure they think they are helping me by trying to get him in trouble—”
“They could get in trouble for filing a false police report,” Officer Pendolari said, wiry brows knitting.
“Oh no. I wouldn’t want that. I just … I’d like the whole thing to go away.”
The phone kept ringing. Past the cubicles in back she could see two men in suits, detectives or ranking officers, perhaps, leaning over the woman who had sat back from her computer to show them something. They must have had a lead on a case, for one started shouting orders immediately and the other snatched up the phone from the woman’s desk.
“Listen, what’s your name?”
“Geena Hodge.”
Pendolari spread his arms wide to indicate the nearly empty police station and the hectic pace of the night.
“When I have a chance, Geena, I’ll see what I can find and I’ll make a note that you came in. Someone may want to talk to you, but do not be surprised if you never hear a word about it. You must know that the Mayor’s been murdered—”
“Of course. I’d heard—”
“Between that and the disaster in Dorsoduro, well, you can imagine what it’s like for us right now. If no one is pressing charges against this man, I suspect it will go away, just as you hope.”
The dark-haired officer slammed down his phone at last and picked up the other, his displeasure evident.
Pendolari smiled apologetically. “And now …”
Geena nodded, gesturing toward the phones. “Yes, yes, of course. And thank you.”
She hurried back out into the night, wondering if the Venice police would have bothered to follow up on her stabbing even if she hadn’t just gone in and lied to them. The Mayor’s murder and that building collapse would be getting worldwide media coverage and the higher-ups would be worried about their jobs and the image of the department. If she could persuade Tonio not to press charges against Nico, maybe it really would just go away, and there would be one less thing for them to worry about if they ever got their lives back.