The Widow Killer (7 page)

“What’s new with the deviant?” Meckerle remembered as Chief Inspector Erwin Buback stood up to take his leave.

“The most promising trail leads to Brno. I’m going there with Beran’s assistant this afternoon. Brno’s close to the front; it will be easier to assess our overall situation from there as well.”

At the very same moment as Buback was filling Meckerle in, Morava was reporting his preliminary results to Beran.

The superintendent did not interrupt with his usual treacherous questions; he followed Morava’s conclusions without taking notes, and with every page of his notebook Morava’s self-confidence grew.

“It can be asserted with almost complete confidence that the perpetrator is the very person who in 1938 committed the sadistic and still unexplained murder of a widowed seamstress, Maruska Kubilkova, in Brno. Regardless of differences in the implements used”—Morava raised his voice to drown out his nervousness, for this was the point where he felt his theory was most vulnerable—“it seems probable that the same perpetrator has attempted again what he failed at seven years ago, whether because of inexperience or because the first victim defended herself ferociously.”

Even now the superintendent made no objections and took no notes. Morava was already regretting that he had closed the connecting door for fear of exposing himself to ridicule. Jitka could have witnessed his first genuine success; she could have heard his superior appreciatively pronounce that magic phrase, “Good work, Morava!”

“I conclude,” he therefore continued at an undiminished volume, “that it would be appropriate to reopen the Kubilkova case. Its investigation was interrupted in March 1939 when the two officers assigned to it on the Brno criminal police fled to England after the establishment of the Bohemian and Moravian Protectorate. The file ends with the statement that all significant suspects produced alibis and no crime remotely like it has occurred since then in this country, from which they deduced that the murderer managed to escape abroad as well. Our recent investigation, however, forces me to raise the possibility that he was here the whole time and should be sought first among the ranks of the original suspects.”

He finished and, in a new wave of doubt, expected his suspiciously inactive boss to shoot him down with a glance or an observation that would reduce his careful argument to nonsense. Instead, Beran stood up, surprising him with an odd question.

“Would you like to go for a walk? The papers have been claiming for a week already that spring’s here.”

As he followed Beran out through the anteroom, Morava tried to signal Jitka with a shrug of his shoulders that he had no idea what was happening. The superintendent walked so fast that in spite of his height Morava could barely keep up. He let himself be led as far as Strelecky Island, in the middle of the Vltava River, without daring to break the silence. As the stone steps led them down from the bridge to the park path, he decided that his superior had merely wanted a breath of fresh air, and that there was no harm in asking a question.

“Chief Inspector Buback is waiting to hear what time we’re to leave for Brno.”

“I know,” Beran reassured him. “That’s why we’ve gone for a little stroll.”

Morava must have had a somewhat silly expression on his face. The superintendent smiled in amusement.

“You thought I wanted to show you the pussy willows blooming? Jitka can take care of that, I think.”

The assistant detective felt his burning cheeks betray him again. But Beran—uncharacteristically—clapped him on the shoulder.

“You can’t seriously think I only have eyes for corpses. My congratulations; I’m very happy for both of you. Now all you have to do is survive the war.”

“Exactly. She’s terribly afraid for her father. He’s been locked up for that illegal pig slaughter.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I’ll get to it.”

The circular path led them to the tip of the island pointing toward the Charles Bridge. In the clear air the Prague castle rose up before them, from this angle unmarred by the occupiers’ flag—not the sarcophagus of an inferior people destined for extermination, but the undying symbol of a metropolis whose glory, according to the old Czech legend, would reach the stars. Even in this distant and deserted place, Beran looked cautiously around.

“What’s your opinion of Buback?”

“He’s a capable detective… to judge by his position, at least.”

“Exactly. Kind of a big gun for a little case, don’t you think?”

Morava felt hurt, as if his own importance had just been downgraded.

“I had the impression that you were giving this matter the highest priority, sir.”

“Of course, of course,” Beran said, as if trying to soothe him. “That’s why I took the case myself. But in reality, you’re the one working on it while I continue directing daily operations. Consider that Buback runs the whole Prague office of the German criminal police; isn’t he spending a bit too much time and attention on this?”

“Not given the victim’s significance,” Morava objected. “After all, she was—”

“That’s precisely the point: she wasn’t! I put out some feelers and discovered something interesting. The Nazis were deeply suspicious of the von Pommeren family. The general’s posthumous decoration was supposed to signal that even the old German nobility supported Hitler, but there’s a rumor circulating in Prague’s German community that the Russian partisans got him just before the Gestapo did. Von Pommeren had long been suspected of supporting the ideas that led to last year’s assassination attempt on the Fuhrer.”

“Aha.” Morava tried quickly to pick up the thread. “So they’re just feigning an interest so they can terrorize us?”

“Berlin—and State Secretary Frank here in Prague—can hardly risk inflaming the populace for no reason, given how close the front is and the way the war is going. No, Morava, the Germans’ plan is to keep the lid on us.”

“Why should they be so interested in our criminal police?”

“Because in every time and place, it’s the heart of the whole force. There’s only a handful of us, but we outlast regimes; I’m a living example. And under certain circumstances, our knowledge of the system would let us run the whole force, and not only the force.”

Morava was still in the dark.

“Under what circumstances… ?”

“Didn’t it ever occur to you, Morava, that, railway workers and firemen aside, only the Prague police could defend this castle—and all of Prague with it—from destruction? And who can block the Germans’ retreat to the west once the great flight from the Russians begins? Won’t it be crucial for the Germans, then, to sound us out up close and neutralize us in time? Buback isn’t just a detective, Morava; he’s Gestapo.”

Barbora Pospichalova actually enjoyed going to the cemetery. Death had taken a cruelly long time to claim her husband, playing with him like a well-fed cat with a mouse. Its final strike meant freedom for both him and his wife.

After taking years to choose the right man, she had married Jaroslav at thirty for love; the rapid onset of his chronic illness thereafter only strengthened her feelings for him. Therefore she was more surprised than anyone at how quickly she resigned herself to his death. She would have sworn it would be months, perhaps years, before she could lead a normal existence. And it was absurd to think—yes, she had found the very idea distasteful—that she might ever again have a lover, let alone a husband. A month after the funeral, however, she heard a new confession of love and a marriage proposal.

Her suitor was Jaroslav’s brother, who had cared for him unflaggingly by her side until he breathed his last. During that whole time Jindfich had never revealed his feelings and even now agreed to her request. This only endeared him to her more.

She had decided to mourn for half a year, and that period was just over. Tomorrow her brother-in-law was coming for dinner, and Barbora was sure he would stay the night. She suddenly realized that even here—where only a layer of clay divided her from the body she had touched so tenderly—she was looking forward to their lovemaking. “Forgive me, Jaroslav, my Jarousek, my love,” she begged in a whisper. For a moment her desires seemed hideously carnal and she weighed writing Jindfich not to come.

Then, as if swimming up from the chilly depths, she heard the voices of the first birds as they returned after winter to the treetops and transformed the cemetery into a park. In the breeze she felt a hint of spring scents and her misgivings seemed senselessly cold. Jaroslav was dead; he was changing slowly into earth, which would soon nourish the fresh greenery. Why shouldn’t new feelings grow here too from the love two people bore him, feelings that would join all three of them together?

Barbora had brought water for the bouquet of cowslips and a rag she used to wash the marble stone with its gilded name and two dates. Then, as always, she cleaned out the small blue lantern she had brought for better days: after the February bombing, Praguers had bought up all the unreliable ersatz candles for their cellars, and anyway cemeteries were subject to strict blackout laws. When she had finally finished her prayers, crossed herself, and stepped back from the grave, she bumped into a man.

It frightened her, because she was usually alone here among the dead at noon. The man hastily apologized. His Czech had an unusual accent, but what caught her attention was his odd appearance. The smart black suit, a prewar cut, clashed with a battered brown suitcase. Had he come straight from the train station to a funeral? But there were none scheduled today. Maybe he’d got the time or place wrong?

Of course she had no intention of asking; she simply assured him she was fine and didn’t analyze what else in him disturbed her. She had set off toward the exit when he asked her where he could find the grave of Bedfich Smetana. She led him to it; those with loved ones here followed an unwritten code, helping visitors to find the graves of the national heroes who a hundred years before had revived the Czech nation from a similar deadly slumber.

On the way, she could not help asking where he was from, and was shaken by his story. He had lost his wife and home in the recent bombing of Zlin in east Moravia and had set off for Prague, to his divorced sister’s. Before she got home from work, he told Barbora, he wanted to lift his spirits by visiting some historic sights he’d longed to see since his school days.

As she bade him farewell at Slavin, a piercing wind blew up and he remarked that winter was far from over. She realized what had disturbed her about him, and asked why he didn’t have a coat. It had been in his house, he explained simply, and she reddened with shame that it hadn’t occurred to her. Her wardrobe was still full of Jaroslav’s outerwear, which would have made slim Jindfich look like a scarecrow, and anyway, she’d feel better without them…

“I don’t live far,” she said in a wave of sympathy, “and I still have lots of my husband’s things. You can take something for yourself.”

“God bless you, thank you kindly,” he said in his old-fashioned Moravian way—now she could place the accent! He picked up the bulging suitcase and strode after her.

Assistant Detective Morava had met with Chief Inspector Buback several times already, but never for so long and in such close quarters. First he offered Buback the front seat, then tried at least to leave him alone in the back, but the German more or less ordered Morava to sit next to him; otherwise they’d have to shout at each other, he said. With Beran’s instructions fresh in his mind, he expected the Gestapo agent to press him for information about the police, and was surprised: Buback merely wanted to hear the facts about the four suspects who had been investigated and cleared of the murder in Brno. With the help of Morava’s notebook this task was easily and quickly behind them.

Josef Jurajda, born 5 March 1905 in Olomouc, Moravia (the Brno office had promised to track down his address) was by trade a room painter with the firm Valnoha and Son, which had branches all over the region. Prosecuted several times for sexual deviance, he climaxed without having sexual relations with women. He had tied two prostitutes up with a clothesline, silenced them with a gag, and masturbated in front of them while jabbing them in the chest with pins. His alibi for the fateful moment seemed airtight: he had been working for his firm in Kosice, two hundred miles to the east, and the train connections between times when his coworkers had seen him would have allowed him a scant twenty minutes for a complex crime in Brno. Given the low volume of traffic on Slovakian roads, the investigators decided he would not have had time to hitchhike to Brno and back.

Alfons Hunyady was born 16 December 1915 in what was then the north bank of the Hungarian city Komarom. An illiterate Gypsy, he lived off earnings as a day laborer and more often as a petty thief. Among other crimes, he was convicted of rape in 1931 as a juvenile and in 1935 sent to prison for the same offense. In both cases he had tied his victims with wire and cut their breasts to lessen their resistance. Only a miracle stopped the second woman from bleeding to death. Hunyady’s alibi for the October night when someone tortured Maruska Kubilkova to death was curious. He spent it in jail in the town of Ivancice near Brno; a notorious and therefore oft-imprisoned local criminal would lend out the master key for a small payment. Although other witnesses corroborated the fact, the director of the police station denied the charge vehemently, calling it slander, and for public interest reasons neither the judge nor the prosecutor wanted to risk a perjury trial involving a government official. Alfons Hunyady was tracked until 1941 as the political situation allowed; then the file ended with an ominous note of his disappearance from the personnel register.

The third suspect was therefore of exceptional interest.

Jakub Malatinsky, born 6 April 1905 in Mikulov in south Moravia, was the son of a vintner who worked his way up to cellar master in the fabled Valtice vintners’ school. His career ended overnight in 1926 when he stabbed his young wife, whom he suspected—probably correctly—of infidelity. What was more, he cut off both the dead woman’s breasts, which in court he explained as insane jealousy that another man had been allowed to touch them. The prosecutor asked for life, but after an evidently outstanding defense counsel’s fiery closing argument, the court was persuaded that the defendant had acted in a moment of passion and capped the sentence at fifteen years. In spring 1937 he was released for good behavior and sincere repentance and was hired as a custodian for the court building. He was the only one resident in Brno on the day of the murder, albeit as an appendectomy patient. At the time of the crime he was already ambulatory and sharing a room with a demented patient, but even so it was highly improbable that he could have obtained clothing, latched onto the young widow— where there was no evidence that he even knew her—brutally murdered her, and returned to his hospital bed by midnight, when the duty nurse spoke with him. The year before last, he had decided to return to his home county, where his good commendations helped him regain the post of cellar master.