The Widow Killer (14 page)

Buback had never been taken into Meckerle’s confidence this way; unprepared, he stood motionless, with no idea how to react.

“But of course, Standartenführer,” he managed to squeeze out just in time.

“There’s a ball at German House today; you must know about it.”

“No…”

“It’s not a real ball; they’re forbidden till after the victory and we know and respect that. It’s more like a sixth anniversary celebration of our occupation of Prague. The Castle has exceptionally permitted us a few dances, to lift the mood of our leaders and their wives. I invited a charming German artiste to accompany me a while ago, but as you know my wife escaped Dresden alive and has joined me here. Naturally I’ll go to the ball with her, but I’d prefer not to insult or humiliate my… this sensitive woman. That’s why I’d like to invite her to my table along with you as her… let’s say her close friend.”

“But I don’t dance…” Buback offered helplessly.

“She’ll teach you fast enough. She even taught me.”

He stood, showing Buback a figure sturdy as a Greek column. Then he extended his right hand amiably.

“It’s agreed, then. Eight o’clock; wear your dress uniform. I’ll send my driver round; he knows everything.”

“It’s less than a year since my wife and child died…” Buback objected again.

“Listen, in a war like this, different standards apply. It’s high time you found someone to comfort you. But watch out!”

Meckerle released his painful grip and jokingly threatened Buback with a finger large enough to break an ordinary wrist.

“Not her. I’m the jealous type, all right?”

By afternoon Morava knew all there was to know. It wasn’t much. Any traces, if the killer had left them, had been completely obliterated by the fire and water. The little girl from the mezzanine still stuck by her water sprite; aside from the suitcase and the color she could not remember anything else. The victim’s brother-in-law, whom he visited in the hospital, was still deep in shock; between torrents of tears he told them far less about the deceased than her neighbors did. The descriptions matched: a quiet, good-hearted woman who took exemplary care of her husband until his painful death and then touchingly revered his memory. She lived modestly on his pension, probably with support from his brother. Apparently he was the only person who had visited the two of them and later the widow alone. There was a substantial chain lock on the door. The mystery was why she too, just like the baroness, had let her murderer in. Did she know him? Impossible! He must inspire trust. How? Of course! The suitcase. Was he a traveling salesman with goods in demand? Candles for air raids? Household soap? Quality rye coffee? Some other article that vanished from the shops long ago? But why wouldn’t the caretaker have remembered something as conspicuous as a large suitcase? Why hadn’t the clothing’s unusual color caught his attention, since he noticed the man’s unusual pronunciation? And the serious little girl showed no signs of having a wild imagination. The autopsy confirmed beyond a doubt that it was the same perpetrator. Why, then, were there so many different indicators? Had he deliberately changed his appearance? So, this was no primitive on the rampage; there was a mind behind it. Then his method of killing must have a deeper meaning. Is it a symbol? Of what? A message? What sort?

Even before Morava’s return from Brno, Beran had assigned two more men to him: Sebesta and Marek, experienced sleuths who were not at all offended to be working under a youth their sons’ age. They shared Beran’s good opinion of him and, in their time, had voluntarily chosen careers as “sniffing dogs,” because they enjoyed working in the field and had no desire to learn German. They quickly reconstructed the daily habits and routes of Barbora Pospichalova. On the last day of her life she had gone to the post office to deposit part of her pension; at the butcher’s she had bought sausage worth a quarter of her month’s rations, and at the grocery store she had arranged for lentils on her allotment and elderberry wine, procured for a special occasion. Her husband’s brother was coming the next day, she had told the shopkeeper with unusual animation. Just before noon she had taken her bed linens to be pressed and bought a bunch of cowslips, which they later found in a small vase at the cemetery. According to the sexton she went there every other day, sometimes more often.

No one had noticed when she returned home. Because of the fire, the exact time of her death could not be determined; she must have had several hours to let her murderer in (assuming she did not bring him back with her—and the possibility remained that she had). The origin of the fire was a further question mark. Had it been set deliberately? Then why had this crazy man taken such care with the baroness to make an altar of death and this time destroyed his work? Maybe it had not turned out the way he’d expected?

That afternoon they assembled, crossed out, rewrote, and rerefined both texts, for public and selective distribution. For the latter Morava more or less copied out of his notebook his first, raw impressions from the embankment.

At five in the afternoon he gave his report to Buback first. The co-operativeness that had replaced the German’s earlier primness on their trip seemed to have evaporated; he was practically sleepwalking. Finally Buback said he agreed with the suggestion in principle, but they would go over it together in detail the next day; now he had to leave.

As Morava walked past Jifka to Beran, he managed to surprise her in the anteroom while she was on the telephone. He bent toward her and blew gently on her hair from behind, but when she quickly swiveled toward him he saw alarm on her face instead of a smile. She covered the mouthpiece.

“Jan, stop it,” she whispered forcefully.

She was apparently dictating some statistical data to the presidium about office supplies—quite absurd as the apocalypse approached!— and in the meanwhile Beran returned. He read through each version carefully twice and gave them his blessing. Buback’s delay meant their publication and distribution would have to wait a day, which disappointed him.

“Let’s hope the murderer isn’t conceited to boot,” Beran remarked gloomily. “If he’s trying to send the world a message, we may be torturing him with this silence. He might strike again immediately to get the word out.”

“Then why did he burn the last one to cinders?”

“The fire definitely started near the stove; he might not have closed it all the way.”

“So what else can we do?”

Beran fixed him with questioning eyes.

“You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”

“Yes… Czech Brethren…”

“Then you can definitely do more than I can as an agnostic: pray. Sadly enough, Morava, the toughest hours in this job are dealing with maniacs like this one. He has to continue in this game until he makes the fatal mistake that betrays him. All we can do is wait; wait and not despair.”

He went with Beran to pick up the mail from Jitka, and so Morava only found out what had scared his beloved so badly as they came out late that evening onto Bartolomejska Street.

“Buback came to see me.”

“Will he help your father?”

“He didn’t say…”

“So what did he want?”

“He invited me…”

Morava halted, confused.

“What?”

Shadows moved across the darkening Narodni Avenue. The trams and cars acridly belching wood gas had narrow cats-eyes scraped from their blued-out headlights. They stood face to face and could barely see each other.

“He invited me to dinner,” she finished.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“He said he’d pick me up if I liked.”

“And you said… ?”

“I said yes…”

He knew it was the only possible answer, and he also knew it was good; after all, he himself had arranged this opportunity for her. For Jitka? Now he was not so sure; maybe it was for Buback? His heart rose into his throat and so, for the first time, he knew what it was like to be horribly jealous.

“Was that wrong?” she asked timidly.

“No.” He brushed it off bravely. “Buback is a German, Gestapo even, and I barely know him, but I don’t think he’s an extortionist or a rapist. When he told me that a bomb had killed his wife and daughter, there was no hatred in it, just grief. That surprised me. I’d say he’ll help your father.”

They still stood on the corner of the narrow street, although they were both going the same way.

“I’m still afraid…”

Morava was too, but as the man it was his job to provide solace.

He clasped his palms behind her back, pressed her close, and tried to talk himself into believing it.

“War or no war, German or not, even evil has to stop somewhere; that’s why God made people like you, Jitka, whom no one would ever dare harm.”

Like evil itself howling with rage at how little he appreciated its omnipotence, sirens suddenly began to wail across the city. The closest, right above their heads, deafened them. The tram shadows stopped, and human ones hurried forward. Holding hands, the two young Czechs set off at a slow pace back to the air-raid shelter in the police complex, as alone as lovers on an evening stroll.

The air-raid siren nipped Buback’s problem in the bud. Before they even got to dance, he offered Marleen Baumann his arm and instead of leading her to the floor took her down to the cellar. Everyone politely made way for Meckerle and his spouse; they sailed to the steps as if in an air bubble while the other two moved elbow to elbow in a pack toward the mouth of the funnel. Fortunately the ominous hum of bomber squadrons did not materialize, and the crowd’s nervousness did not grow into panic. He could just imagine the ladies’ hysterics; most of them had never felt the daily breath of war.

The woman beside him seemed made of sterner stuff. When he called for her at the relatively modern apartment house in Prague’s New Town, where Meckerle’s driver took him before picking up his boss, her appearance surprised him. She was not much shorter than he—the pants of her close-fitting suit showed her long legs to good advantage—but she seemed dainty, not only in body. Her face as well was unusually long and thin, accentuated by blond hair combed straight back over her ears, contrary to the current fashion, and caught at the nape in a short ponytail. He was intrigued by her reaction when he said he was honored to accompany her in the place of Colonel Meckerle. Without raising an eyebrow, she answered, “That’s both gallant and prudent on his part. Dancing with me seems to exhaust him.”

The driver apparently knew her well, so they limited themselves to pleasantries. He knew no more about her when he presented her to the Meckerles; but he did catch himself admiring how easily and naturally she behaved when being introduced to her lover. So what, he thought, trying to quash an absurd feeling of sympathy; she’s just playing a role.

The giant’s wife, whom Buback was also seeing for the first time (she was huge and square like a dish cupboard), seemed like a real shrew, probably the only person on this earth who knew how to keep Meckerle in line. From that perspective he understood his superior’s choice of a mistress; she could hardly have presented a greater contrast. As the companion of an important colleague—which was how Meckerle introduced Buback—Marleen Baumann aroused no suspicions, and Meckerle’s spouse accepted her with relative affability.

While real champagne was being poured for some of the more important tables, the giantess continued her laments about the loss of their Dresden villa and her complaints about the drabness of life in Prague. None of them could get a word in edgewise. Mrs. Meckerle seemed to forget completely about the other woman’s existence until after the state secretary’s short yet interminable speech toasting the Fuhrer as creator of the Protectorate, when the first notes of a waltz sounded. Rising from her seat before her husband could ask for the dance, she turned to Marleen.

“Shall we take the boys out for a spin, then?”

The next second, with no warning, the sirens announced an air raid. The horrifying memory of February fourteenth and the sudden bomb explosions was still fresh. Even this group, with numerous experienced soldiers, was not immune to it as the crush of the crowd inched toward an illusion of safety. A proverbial deathly quiet reigned, broken only by the shuffling of soles. The bodily warmth of this mass in a heated building led to a greenhouse effect. Sweat stood out on the men’s foreheads; powder trickled down the women’s cheeks.

Buback at first led his date to clear a path for her. After a while he felt the throng push her sharply against his back, and managed by turning around to get her in front of him. She realized that he was trying to make room for her to breathe, and gratefully turned her head back toward him.

“Thanks…”

A better reward was the pleasantly bitter scent of her hair, and he buried his head in it.

The bombs had not yet begun to fall, and they maneuvered fairly quickly into the narrowest part of the flow to the head of the stairs, which led them down to an extensive complex of shelters. The spacious cellars of German House were furnished with relatively comfortable benches, and it turned out—when after the shock of heat there came a gust of cool air—that the climate was pleasant down there as well. Following the militia’s orders, they pressed onward, passing a cellar alcove restricted to VIPs; towering above the others in a gray haze was Meckerle, talking to State Secretary Frank. Buback was suddenly glad that his boss had not noticed them.

He and Marleen Baumann ended up among unfamiliar couples in a cozy corner, where there was only seating for two. There she thanked him again.

“You were both polite and skilled. What a shame we didn’t get to dance; you must be good on the ballroom floor.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said directly. “I’m sure I would have disappointed you.”

“You don’t dance?” she asked, surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

For the second time in twenty-four hours he repeated the fact that he had suppressed for months in the vain hope that what went unsaid might not be true.

“I lost my family in an air raid last year.”

And then he added quite superfluously: “I don’t feel ready for dancing yet.” He gazed into her gray eyes and saw there the same sympathy that had so surprised him yesterday in the young Czech.