Eye Wit (5 page)

“I’ll tell Dan,” Yoko said, but Brian hadn’t finished.

“Seems they found a really old pistol in the basket of the hot-air balloon. Sounds like one my dad picked up off a dead soldier in the Ardennes, probably worth a fortune.” Brian paused, obviously considering what a Luger pistol worth a fortune would add to his retirement package. Yoko was about to prod him for the rest of the message when Brian said, “Anyway, Dan’s gotta get the gun from the hospital, as well as the arrow, and bring both to the morgue.” Yoko heard Brian chuckle as he continued. “Listen, Yoko, tell Dan to strap on his chastity belt before his second stop. I think Necrophilian’s got the hots for him.”

“Cut it out, Brian,” Yoko said. “You know Dan’s only got eyes for me.”

“Yeah, you laugh, sister, but it’s not Dan’s eyes I’d worry about, if I was you. I tell ya, one of these days, Necrophilian’s gonna make a play for Dan and it’s not gonna be pretty…. Oh, what do I care? I’ll be on a beach somewhere, sipping a colada and eye-ballin’ bikinis.”

“It’s nothing. Brian called. Dante Necrophil…I mean…oh, never mind. Dan, you’ve to go to the hospital, then to the morgue, right away. The surgeons extracted the arrow from the balloonist, who’s in critical condition and still in surgery, plus they found a gun in the balloon wreckage, probably an old Luger pistol from what Brian says. Anyway, Dante wants to compare the two arrows right away, so Brian’s sending a car for you.”

“His name is
Doctor
Nicosian, Yoko,” Zoran said. “He is a medical doctor.”

“I know, Zoran. I know. Be sure to remind Brian Watson,” Yoko said.

“Okay,” Dan asked. “I’ll take off. Ballistics will need to test the gun, too. These two arrow hits, what’s the connection?”

Yoko nodded thoughtfully. “If the balloonist survives, his interview may shed some light on matters. But Brian says there’s a reason Dante wants to compare the two arrows.”

8

Herr Tolliver:

Now that you have opened the sealed envelope
, please forward one copy
of this document
to the New York City Police Department and another copy to the
New York Times
.

Thank you, my friend, for agreeing to perform this one final service for me.

Hans Reiniger

Lüzern
,
SCHWEIZ

To Whom It May Concern:

I am Hans Reiniger, of Lucerne, Switzerland, and this is my confe
ssion.

If you are reading this, I am either dead or in custody for the murder of Marco Fellini of New York City. I hereby confess that I killed Marco Fellini or died trying.

If I succeeded, Marco Fellini is now dead, and his secrets will be e
xposed here. If
I failed and Fellini survived
,
his
evil
acts
will still be a matter of public record. Either way
, I will have achieved justice—for me
and for my Romani
family—and
I can rest in peace.

To make sense of my confession, you need to know my story. Where to begin?

I will start with Dr. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” whose e
xploits were thoroughly documented by prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

Why Dr. Mengele? Because he was Camp Physician for the Special Gypsy Family Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and it was Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” who led my Romani gran
dmother, Luludji Krietzman, and 2,896 other Gypsies to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, on August 2, 1944.

Those 2,897 Gypsies represent
but
a tiny fraction of total number of Roma and Sinti killed during the Third Reich’s
Porrajmos
(Devouring).
At least half
of all the Roma and Sinti who lived in lands
controlled by the Third Reich—well over a million, probably a million and a half—
were devoured. Shot by guards, worked to death in slave labor camps, starved
and beaten
by wardens and guards, sterilized and experimented upon by Nazi doctors like Josef Mengele.

Compared to the six million Jews annihilated in the Holocaust, the total number of Gypsies killed by the Nazis pales
—only 20 to 25 percent as many Gypsies died
. I understand that. But the effect
on Gypsies
was the same
as for the Jews
:
whole
families wiped out, an entire ethnic group nearly destroyed forever.

Please
understand that I am not seeking reco
mpense for my people, the Roma. That is not my goal,
because I know that will not happen; we Gypsies are still seen as “undesirables” by too many people
in too many countries
for that kind of justice to occur.

My quest for justice
is
more basic, and
the justice I seek is much
more personal.

So let me tell more about Dr. Josef Mengele and his connection to
my
Gypsy family—and Mengele’s connection to Marco Fellini, the New York
City
art dealer.

When you understand those connections, you will
understand
why Marco Fellini had to die.

9

Yoko watched, surprised, when Zoran chose to sit next to Sophia Fellini on the sofa, which was either an antique or a very expensive copy of an antique. Equally obviously, pristine. Yoko sat in one of the two elegant chairs opposite. She hoped Sophia didn’t notice Zoran running his fingertips across the fabric appreciatively, almost sensually. She caught Zoran’s eye and shifted her own eyes toward the sofa, then toward Sophia, signaling him to start—and to stop caressing the fabric.

“Mrs. Fellini,” Zoran said, “our colleague, Lieutenant Riley, had to leave because of a development on another case, so he will not be joining us. May I ask you a few questions?”

Sophia Fellini nodded her permission.

“When did you discover your husband’s body?”

“A few minutes before eight,” Sophia said without hesitation. “I had a cup of coffee with Marco at seven, we always did that at seven. After, he went up to the roof for thirty minutes of target practice. That was his routine, he never varied. He would come down again by 7:30 to have some more coffee and some toast or a pastry, and I would help him plan his day. You know, remind him if there was an auction at Sotheby’s, whatever was planned for that evening, that sort of thing. Then he’d join his two assistants at the office when they came in, around eight.”

“It was terrible. I’ve never seen a dead person before. Even if there’s an open casket at a funeral, I don’t go look. I can’t bear to. Marco was lying in the archery run…so much blood.”

“Yes. I saw the blood in the archery run,” Zoran said. “The arrow in your husband’s back completely severed his renal veins and arteries, according to the report from the Medical Examiner. He probably bled out and died quickly…. If that is any comfort.”

Yoko realized Zoran was being deliberately blunt, a strategy aimed at gauging Sophia Fellini’s reaction. Yoko bit her tongue and decided not to say anything, to await the widow’s reaction. None came. Yoko looked at Sophia Fellini, checking to see if the pupils of the widow’s eyes were dilated. Unusual, Yoko thought. Not dilated. No sign of emotion? Is she on meds, perhaps a tranquilizer? Yoko knew that the eyes give clear indications how your brain is working—unless you’re skilled at lying. Poets wax eloquent about the eyes being the window to your soul but the retina, the covering of the back of the eye, is the same tissue as the brain, literally an extension of it, and that’s how specialists like behavioral optometrists learn a great deal about someone’s behavior and perception.

“No, I…I called from the office, it’s on the floor above. It was closer to the roof, and I wanted to see Iona and Jessica, tell them about…about Marco. I called 9-1-1 from the office.”

Yoko consulted her notes. “That would be Iona Duncan and Jessica Ware, his assistants? We’ll be talking to them too, of course.”

“No, no. I don’t think so. Maybe they did after I returned here to wait for the ambulance, I don’t know. I assume they waited in the office.”

Yoko wondered if Zoran was thinking what she was thinking, that Sophia Fellini made a point of seeing Marco’s assistants before she called 9-1-1 for some reason other than just wanting to tell them that Marko Fellini was dead. Did Sophia suspect that one of them—or both—were involved in her husband’s death? Was she looking for blood on their hands? Or was she trying to establish an alibi for herself?

Zoran didn’t disappoint. “Tell me about your husband’s assistants. Iona and Jessica. What was their relationship with your husband?”

“Their relationship? Why, they worked for him, of course. And of course, he had affairs with both of them.”

10

A brief history of my family: In 1939, Grandmother Luludji was 13 years old, working the street markets and fairs with her family in Ha
mburg, Germany. Her father, Besnik Komorov, highly skilled in metal working, had no trouble selling his filigreed copper ornaments. Luludji’s mother, Floritsa or “Little Flower,” a seer of future events since she was old enough to talk, told fortunes for German shoppers and tourists patronizing Hamburg’s many markets and fairs (but not for other Roma; Roma never tell fortunes for one another). For the last two years, her mother also had foreseen her own death, as do many Roma.

“Death b
y angry hands, my darling, soon,” Floritsa told Luludji many times. “You must concentrate, my sweet Luludjiyo. Soon you will replace me.”

In June of 1939, a Prussian soldier, Lieutenant Von RosenSomething, strode the stree
t, resplendent in his uniform. T
he Prussian’s precise identity has been lost in the oral history of my Gypsy family—perhaps V
on Rosenstien? Von Rosenkrantz?
The Lieutenant was accompanied by his bride-to-be, a local burgher’s daughter. On a whim he stopped by Floritsa Komorov’s tent for a reading on his upcoming marriage. He list
ened but a few moments before
becoming enraged with Floritsa’s carefully worded forecast of “tumult and longing.”

“You filthy sow!” he bellowed. “How dare you!” He drew his sword.

Floritsa’s payment for her seeing the Lieutenant’s future was the loss of her head. The Prussian burst from the tent, the seer’s head impaled on his sword.

“
See what happens,
Schweinen!
” he said to the Gypsy merchants lining the street. “This will be your future in the Third Reich!”

The Lieutenant was neither arrested nor charged for Floritsa K
omorov’s murder. But his would-be wife
, appalled at witnessing her fiancé’s violent nature,
refused to see him again.

Luludji, cringing at the back of the tent, followed the Lieutenant out of the tent and glared at his back. “Your beastly family shall be cursed forever,” she muttered. Then she held her hand to her lips and reached up to the hand-lettered sign above the tent, placing her fingertips on her mother’s name, Magie Seher
Floritsa
Sees All. “Goodbye, Mama. I shall not forget.”

She returned to the tent and a moment later emerged with a piece of paper that she
taped
over her mother’s name. The sign now read: Magie Seher
Lulu
Sees All.

“Magic Seer
Flower” would be replaced by “
Magic Seer
Little Flower.”

Over the next eleven months, Magie Seher Lulu’s fame grew. Her v
isions were precise, never couched in maybes, but certainties. She foretold the gender of babies, predicted deaths
,
and foresaw fires about to consume homes and businesses—all with a clarity no other Gypsy
fortune teller
in Hamburg could match. She foreswore the Tarot cards her mother had used, instead preferring her mother’s crystal ball, now mounted on an elaborate
ly
worked copper base made by Besnik Komorov, her father. When practicing her craft, she would drape the ball with an old scarf from her mother, bow her head and mumble a prayer to the Virgin Mary. “
Mother, l
et me see the truth.” She would open her eyes, remove the scarf from the ball and look at it until a scene swirled and formed. Then she would speak. Her visitors learned to pay attention.