The Memorist (17 page)

Vienna, Austria
Tuesday, April 29
^th
—9:20 a.m.

A
cross the street from the Riding School, the Hofburg’s complex of high baroque imperial court buildings dwarfed the nondescript fourteenth-century church where they were headed. The line was very short; only about ten people were waiting for the crypt to open its doors to the public at 10:00 a.m.

Meer and Malachai, who’d walked over together from the hotel, bypassed the queue and continued toward Jeremy, who stood with Sebastian just outside the front
door. It was strange that Sebastian kept showing up, even though her father had said he’d ask him to come.

Spotting them, her father waved. He’d arranged for a private tour before the church opened and now that they were all there, ushered them inside.

The Gothic structure’s exterior didn’t prepare Meer for the elegant interior. Light streamed down from immense brass chandeliers, illuminating the enormous hallway, naves and aisles, and a tiny monk who was slowly approaching. Jeremy introduced Brother Francis, explaining that the monk didn’t speak English.

Following the brown-robed figure, the group crossed the church and entered the Loreto Chapel, a diminutive whitewashed space. The ceilings here were arched but lower, the altar simpler and unadorned. The light-toned pews looked more inviting than the darker ones in the main sanctuary and Meer thought that if she were someone who prayed, it would be easier to reach out to God in this intimate space.

To the right of the miniature altar was a seven-foot skeleton painted on a darkened wall who appeared to be guarding two iron doors decorated with crowns and swans. Brother Francis waited beside this grillwork for the group to assemble. As Meer stepped up an invasion of cold air blew around her. Through the bars she saw two shelves lined with dozens of silver chalices and urns shimmering in the light flooding through the windows. The heart crypt.

Brother Francis fit a black key into the lock, and then had to force it to turn as if the entryway was reluctant to allow anyone through. Finally, with a sweep of his arm, he gestured for them to enter as he doled out facts about what they were seeing.

Jeremy translated: “There are fifty-four hearts here. All from the Imperial Family…”

The urns shone brightly, glints of silver refracting off their rounded bodies, mesmerizing her. Everything else in the room was unimportant; these urns were what she had come to see. Her father had just told them all how many there were but Meer started to count them again. Not sure why.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

The ninth urn appeared to shine more brightly than all the others, she thought, as she stared at it and stopped hearing anything her father was saying. She had to figure out how to get closer to it, even though she didn’t have any idea why or what she was looking for.

“Do you speak any English?” she asked the monk—although her father had told her otherwise.

“English? Not good, no,” he said in a heavy accent.

Meer nodded. She needed to be sure. “No English?”

Brother Francis shook his head.

Meer walked to her father and pointed to a plaque on the far right of the top shelf while she whispered a question, low enough not to interrupt the monk’s continued recitation. When Brother Francis finished talking, so did Meer.

Jeremy was a few seconds late in translating but somehow had managed to hear what both the monk and his daughter had said. “The first heart here belongs to King Ferdinand IV of the Romans. It was placed here on July 19th in 1654. The last heart belonged to Franz Karl of Austria, and it was placed here on the 8th of March in 1878.”

Moving as close as she could to the shelf, Meer counted once more to be sure, from right to left, stopping again at the ninth urn and straining to read the inscription carved into a small brass plaque beneath it. In German, all she could make out were the words
Marie Theresa
and the date
1696
.

The diminutive silver urn sat on ball feet. Around its rim
were three rows of hearts, the point of one fitting in the space where the two halves met on the one below. Hearts all around. The object was slightly lopsided and in some places there were faint dents.
The ninth urn
. The deck of cards she’d had time to examine from the gaming box had two nines of hearts in it.
An extra nine of hearts
. What did it mean? Did all the decks have double cards? Would she ever be able to find out?

“Do you think they got the idea to do this from the Egyptians?” Meer asked her father. Her voice sounded a false note but she hoped no one noticed. Jeremy began answering and then his voice faltered. He stopped speaking. And then he fell to the stone floor.

“Dad?” Meer dropped down to her knees next to him, grabbing his wrist to take his pulse. “He needs a doctor,” she cried.

“Dringlichkeit, dringlichkeit,
” Sebastian shouted, and the monk rushed off.

Tuesday, April 29
^th
—9:38 a.m.

M
eer’s terrified expression morphed into one of deep concentration as soon as the monk ran off to get help. She couldn’t waste a second explaining what was happening to Sebastian or Malachai so while they worried over Jeremy’s supine form, she got up and rushed over to the ninth silver urn on the top shelf and without any deliberation opened it and reached inside. There was no time to inspect the mummified relics that were almost four hundred years old, no time to be concerned about desecrating the remains of this royal personage.

What was left of the human heart felt like a piece of dried fruit, shriveled and leathery, but under it, Meer’s fingers found something smooth and chilly. Tiny. She didn’t think about what it was or what she was supposed to do with it. Didn’t stop to be amazed that she’d intuited there was something waiting there for her.

Slipping the object into her jeans pocket, she returned to her father and dropped to her knees slightly to the right
of Sebastian, not sure if either he or Malachai had noticed what she’d done.

A few minutes later the paramedics rushed into the small room and set about saving her father’s life.

Tuesday, April 29
^th
—9:45 a.m.

P
arked on the street, inside the small silver-and-black car, Lucian Glass and Alex Kalfus watched the sequence of events outside the church: an ambulance pulled up, a monk rushed out to greet it and paramedics hurried inside.

Lucian ached to run inside and see for himself what was going on. Used to moving around on a case, he hated just watching but he wasn’t on home turf and this was the best he could get the Austrian authorities to agree to. As he watched, he realized he was unexpectedly and surprisingly anxious. While Kalfus stayed on the phone trying to get information about what was happening, the medics exited the church carrying someone on a stretcher. Sebastian and Malachai accompanied them.

“Can you see who they’re carrying? Jeremy or his daughter?”

“Not from here,” Kalfus said, still holding on his call.

Then the church doors opened and Meer walked out, her skin pale, her auburn hair in disarray.

Kalfus clicked his phone shut. “Jeremy Logan collapsed. Early indications suggest a heart attack.”

Sirens screaming, the ambulance took off and a policeman helped Meer into a waiting squad car that took off almost immediately, leaving Sebastian and Malachai standing on the sidewalk beside the distraught monk. The men exchanged a few words and then walked off together.

Lucian watched them stop at the taxi stand on the corner and get in line behind an elderly woman carrying a large bouquet of tulips. It only took a minute until she got in her taxi and another pulled up. The two men got in. As their cab pulled away Kalfus pulled out after it. “I’m going to guess we’ll be going to the hospital now.”

“And I’d guess you’re right. What I’d really like to know is what they were looking at in there. Can you call in someone to stay on Malachai’s tail if he does go to the hospital so we can come back here and talk to that monk?”

“Should be possible.”

“My next two questions are, who is the man halfway up the block in the blue Mercedes who’s been watching the church along with us and will he be joining the entourage to the hospital? Correction. Three questions. And if he does, who in particular is he keeping tabs on?”

“What man?”

Lucian wasn’t proud that he’d noticed the man reading a newspaper in his car and Kalfus hadn’t. In fact, he’d prefer if Kalfus had spotted him first; it would give Lucian more confidence in his new partner. “He pulled up right after we did,” Lucian explained, “just parked and then stayed in his car. He made two phone calls, checked his watch and then read his newspaper. He continued checking his watch every three minutes as if he was waiting for
someone but I’m pretty sure the only person he was waiting for was whichever one of the group inside the church he was following.”

Tuesday, April 29
^th
—9:49 a.m.

T
he monk remained on the street, watching the procession of ambulance and police cars disappear. He hardly noticed the man in the ordinary gray suit, until he came right up to him. “Excuse me, Brother,” he said in German as he held out a badge and identification card.

The monk glanced down at the silver shield that identified the man as a member of the state police, and nodded.

“I’d like to discuss what just happened here.”

“I’ve already talked to the police,” Brother Francis said in a bewildered tone, confused by how many officials were involved in the small emergency.

“Yes, I know that, and I’m sorry but I’m from the Department of Antiquities and I also need to make a report since this is a national site.”

With resignation the monk repeated what he’d seen. “A man had what seemed to be a heart attack in the chapel.”

“What were they doing in the church before it opened?”

“Like everyone else, they came to visit with God and to see the crypt.”

“I’d like to look around the crypt if you don’t mind.”

“It was a medical emergency. There was no altercation, no accident, nothing to do with the chapel.”

“I’m sure it was. Now, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble could you show me where this happened? And please keep the tourists out until I’m finished. I’ll be gone in a few minutes.”

Reluctantly, but not sure he had any choice, the monk led the policeman through the main church across the nave, into the Loreto Chapel, over to the disconcerting skeleton barring the way to the entrance, and then into the inner chamber.

Like many natives of Vienna, including members of the state police who he was impersonating, Paul Pertzler didn’t know as much as he should about the tourist destinations in his native city and didn’t know why this chapel was important.

“Could you explain what I’m looking at? And as you do, please point out anything out of place or missing. Take your time, Brother.”

“This vault belonged to the Imperial Family. These are their remains.” Pausing, the monk walked up to one of the shelves, focused on a specific urn, reached out, moved it slightly to the left and back a half an inch.

“Their ashes are in those urns?”

“No, their hearts.”

“Hearts?” Pertzler repeated, staring at the small silver urns. “How long have they been putting their hearts here?”

“Since the early seventeenth century.”

“And when was the last heart buried here? Is it even buried? What do you call it?”

“The last heart was
placed
here in 1878.”

“How many are there?”

“Fifty-four hearts.”

Pertzler made a note. Then he remembered something. “Is Beethoven’s heart here?”

The monk looked startled but answered confidently. “No. Only members of the Imperial Family.”

“But something about my question struck you. What is it?”

“It’s funny you would ask about Beethoven. One of the members of Mr. Logan’s party asked about him too.”

“Who? Which member of the party? What did he ask?”

“The man from America asked if there was a record of Beethoven having anything to do with this church.”

“And is there?”

“Yes,” the monk said proudly. “The connection comes through one of Beethoven’s closest friends—his student and his principal benefactor, the Archduke Rudolf, youngest son of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Leopold II. He gave Beethoven rooms in the royal palace to rehearse and perform. What not many remember is that the Archduke was also a priest, and as this church is part of the Hofburg, it was one of the places of worship where he held mass. Because of that connection, Beethoven, who spent a lot of time at the palace, performed sections of his ‘Missa Solemnis’ here two years before he’d completed it. When he did finally finish the piece in 1823 he dedicated it to Rudolf and inscribed the manuscript with the words, ‘From my heart—to your heart.’”

“Yet more hearts.”

“Many hearts,” repeated the monk, smiling a little.

“Now back to this room and the urns. Are you sure you don’t notice anything missing or out of place?”

“Nothing missing. Nothing out of place, no.”

“Why did you move that one when we came in?” He pointed.

“It was off its mark by an inch.”

“Is it possible a member of the Logan party touched it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Could you check? Could you look inside?”

The monk frowned. “The mummified hearts are considered holy.”

“I understand. But I’d like you to look inside.”

The monk hesitated.

“It’s necessary, Brother.”

Crossing himself first, the monk walked back up to the shelf and lifted the lid of the ninth chalice and peered inside.

Pertzler came up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the dark brown mass: a rotted heart nesting in its silver casket. What were Logan and his daughter doing here in the Heart Vault? What was he missing?