Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  I didn’t sleep deeply, so it didn’t bother me when my phone vibrated against my hip. I knew it was going to be Miss Chiff with an update. She told me that the Chembassador was still hanging on, but his chances of survival were quoted at 50/50. “The Czech Fire Marshal has issued a press release,” she added, “saying that it was caused by a gas leak. I believe their crime scene investigative unit should be finished processing the site by the time you arrive and you should be able to get access. I’d like you to go in with an open mind and come to your own conclusions.”

  Four hours later we landed at Pardubice Airport. It was dark, but only a couple of hours from sunrise. On the way off the plane, we stopped in the locker room, where we collected side arms, stun guns, riot helmets, flashlights and handcuffs, affixing each piece to our HEP belts. We weren’t really expecting any trouble, but it wasn’t unusual for a bomber to come back to the scene of the crime, if this was, in fact, a bombing. Nitro had his field kit, and Sylvia passed out latex gloves which everyone stored in their pockets. “It’s a crime scene. Probably all the evidence has been collected by now, but we will want to make sure not to disturb the scene any more than we have to,” she said. It seemed like a reasonable request to me. We paraded off the plane and waved goodbye to Dinny, who had corralled the cats shortly before landing and put them in their carriers. She’d probably let them out again for company while the plane was grounded as she waited for our return. Naturally, if she left the plane for any reason, as she sometimes did, they would go back in the carriers. Dinny liked to shop local farmer’s markets for interesting food to serve on the plane while we were off investigating.

  Pardubice is about 30 miles from Kutna Hora, our destination, but it had the nearest airport that could handle the CURDS1. Dinny had told us there would be reservations for us at Hotel Domýšlivý, which is only a block away from the Chembassy. According to Badger, the name meant ‘pretentious’, so for simplicity’s sake we started calling it the Hotel Pretentious. We rented our usual oversized van and drove to the bombing site. The early morning light made everything look like it was shimmering. There was a roadblock as we approached. A guard came to the driver’s window, wearing a crisp white uniform top, equally crisp black slacks, and a hard hat that she had to keep pushing up in the front. Billings showed her his CURDS ID. From the seat behind, Badger spoke in Czech to explain who we were.

  “Ano!” the guard responded. “Tudy. Tudy.”

  “Follow her,” Badger said.

  Slowly Billings steered the van around the roadblock. We found a place to park safely across from the remains of the Chembassy. The air was pungent with the odors of smoke, ash, ozone and charred flesh. All the residual fires had been extinguished, but fire investigators, wearing heavy black gear with reflective stripes and hard white hats with visors, were still milling about. Some of them had on orange sandwich vests that said “Hasic!” on the back. Fireman. Only two walls of the ground floor were still standing. Debris from the upper two stories had tumbled into a yawning pit in the floor. And in front of it all, charred, but still standing, was a tall, brass flag pole. The flags, of both the U.S. and Czech Republic, had been destroyed. Only blackened fragments remained. I looked up at the fragments flapping quietly in the light breeze. We could no longer tell which flag was which.

  I found the man in charge easily enough. He was the one barking orders, even if I couldn’t understand them. I pointed him out to Badger. “Ask him if there is someone who speaks English because I want to send my interpreter to the morgue.”

  Badger twisted his head at my wording. “You don’t mind if I rephrase that, do you?” I didn’t get the impression he was too happy about going to see the dead bodies either, but he kept it to himself. “Besides, I’ll betcha this guy speaks English.”

  I took bets from my people often, and I always lost. It gave them a sense of superiority over me and a nice confidence boost. “You’re on. What’s the wager?”

  “Loser eats the oldest thing in the fridge when we get back to HQ.”

  I put out my hand and we shook on the bet. If I wanted, I could make it easy on myself, call Knobby and have him clean out the fridge before we got back. There was no question of not losing the bet. I was pretty sure the marshal spoke English, too. I only set Badger up for the bet because he seemed to need a boost after finding out everyone already knew he was gay. I didn’t mind the bets. We never wagered money. Only pride. And I was more than happy to give up my pride. I lost a bet to Roxy once, who challenged me to spend a day in her shoes. Literally. I had to have Nitro tape my ankles for a week before they recovered. And when the twins had bet me they could eat a cup of raw noodles in under a minute I ended up wearing an ugly hat for three days. You never know. Eating raw noodles could come in handy some day and it might be a good idea to know who can do it.

  Badger spoke to the fire marshal.

  “I speak the English,” he responded in a thick, but still understandable accent reminiscent of Russian.

  “Excellent!” I said. I turned back to Badger and nodded toward Nitro, who no doubt knew what his assignment was going to be. “I want you and Nitro to go to the morgue and examine the fatalities. I don’t want any misunderstandings from the ME. Those findings are going to be vitally important. Take the van. Everyone,” I added, knowing I was going to do further dispatching, “we’ll rendezvous at the hotel later tonight. Take your time and get as much information as you can. Billings.” Understanding me completely, Billings produced the keys to the van and gave them to Badger, who was already using his phone to locate the ME’s office. I still had Billings’ attention. I pointed one finger in the air to tell him to wait a moment. “Sir, can you tell me the status of the Chembassador?”

  “The last news I have is that he’s still in critical condition. He may be able to talk. I’m not sure. I can have one of my officers take your people to him, and alert the medical staff that they are coming.”

  “That would be very helpful. Thank you.” Then to my people, I said, “Sir Haughty and Roxy.” They both nodded and latched on to the firefighter that the marshal called over.

  The marshal explained everything to the fireman. “Dominik doesn’t speak much English, but he will get them to the hospital. They should have an interpreter on staff. They serve a lot of tourists there. And most of our younger people speak English also. The older ones still speak Russian.”

  “I see. Good.” I watched as the three of them got into a somewhat dingy 5-door Citroën C1 hatchback. I think it was originally white, but after sitting all day near a burning building it looked like a volcano had sneezed on it. It pulled out and headed off, leaving me with Billings, Sylvia and the twins waiting for assignments. “Billings, Agnes and Avis, I want you to canvass the area. Talk to witnesses, talk to any firemen taking a break, but don’t talk to reporters. I know it’s difficult because of the language. You’ll have better luck with people under 30, I expect. But there’s more leeway in witness interviews than there would be at the ME’s. That’s why I sent Badger with Nitro.” All things being equal, I would have preferred to send Billings with Roxy and keep him apart from the twins in the field. With their involvement confirmed, there was the danger that they would be distracted. But I couldn’t very well deny Sir Haughty the chance to say good-bye. I had a bad feeling about Chembassador Philips.

  I didn’t have to remind any of my people to take notes. They would all be recording with their phones, and probably take some hand written notes as well in their Notepad Apps. Sylvia was waiting expectantly. “One more thing, sir. I’d like us to take a look at the building, if we could.” I saw her nod, happy with her assignment.

  “It is still a crime scene. And there are structural problems. I’m afraid I can’t authorize –“

  “Please,” I said. “We understand the risks. We’ll be happy to sign a waiver. And we will not disturb any evidence. I promise. Only look. Sylvia is my best observer.”

  He looked skeptical. “Your best observer wears an eye
patch?”

  Sylvia smiled, and turned to one side, putting her covered eye toward him. “Top to bottom or bottom’s up?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Okay, top to bottom it is.” As she spoke, I visually followed each point she made. “You have short black hair, parted on the left. I could see the front end of the part under your helmet. Your eyes are brown and you pluck the center of your forehead because you tend to have a unibrow. You shaved last night, not this morning, and you wear Stetson aftershave. That one I only know because it’s what my father used to wear and I’m more familiar with it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sure mixed in with the odors from the fire, but it’s definitely Stetson. Your watch is on your left wrist. It’s silver tone and digital. You’re wearing an aquamarine tie held down by a tie pin in the shape of a starfish. You’re wearing navy blue Dockers and the belt buckle is rectangular with a starfish engraved in it. Very nautical for someone living in a landlocked country. You have on black socks and black oxfords. The right heel is more worn than the left, causing you to tilt slightly.” She turned back to face him, with the eyebrow over the patch raised higher than the other.

  “Very impressive, Miss . . . ?.”

  “Pendragon,” Sylvia supplied, taking his offered hand. “Sylvia Pendragon.”

  “I hope you are not offended. My apologies.”

  “No problem. May we?” She indicated the now wide open front of the building. The frame of the large double entry doors still stood with no walls around it, looking rather cartoonish.

  “Of course. I’ll have a fireman go with you. Marek!” He called a passing fireman, and spoke to him briefly in Czech. “Marek will guide you through the building. Step ONLY where he steps. Touch nothing without his permission. And do not remove your helmets for ANY reason.” We both nodded. I suspected that some of the Czech exchanged would translate into “never give permission.” We carefully followed Marek through the remains of a perimeter wall, some distance from the surviving door frame to avoid disturbing it. I allowed Sylvia to go ahead of me. Bringing up the rear would allow me to run for help if either of the other two got into trouble. At least, that was my rationalization for it. There was also the advantage of having two sets of ‘test steps’ ahead of me instead of one.

  The gaping hole was the first thing we came to. Marek gave it a wide berth. Sylvia followed his steps, but examined the hole closely as we passed. “Most of the edges are cracked upwards,” she said. “Whatever exploded is down there under a lot of debris. The force pushed up through the flooring, but some,” and she pointed to the far side and to a point we had just passed, “were broke when stuff came back down again.” She craned her neck to try to identify some of the debris while Marek waited patiently a few steps ahead, then looked straight up. “Flooring going up, flooring and ceiling coming down.”

  “Well, from down there, it’s all ceiling, right?”

  She gave me a backward glance that felt like a reprimand, then rejoined Marek. Carefully, I followed. There was a stairway that led down at the far back wall of the Chembassy. It had been blocked, though not seriously damaged, but cleared by firefighters so they could bring up the bodies. We stood at the top, looking down. “This is where the female security guard was found,” said Sylvia, pointing to a plastic tented number 1. We could still see the outline of her body as a void in the ash, and marks where the beam that had trapped her had lain. The beam was now on end against a piece of wall and marked with a tented number 2.

  We descended the stairs single file, and then headed back toward the front of the building. “Kitchen.” Marek said. He pointed to spots on the floor where we were allowed to stand, and indicated that we should look from there by pointing to his eyes, then around the room. I let Sylvia stand in the spot furthest into the room, only by a couple of steps, and she turned slowly scanning the entire area like a sensor beam. I split my time between looking at the room and watching her work. It was fascinating seeing her using the one good eye to observe more than I could see with two. She crouched down to get a lower viewpoint and scanned again. The center of the room was a huge pile of rubble, mostly from the upper floors. I could see where it had been partially excavated to remove the victims and several more spots were marked with plastic numbers. Those were helpful, actually, in that they marked areas of interest. They told us something possibly important was right there. But it was still hard to identify what we were looking at. Everything was blackened or covered in gray ash, or melted into a shapeless lump.

  Sylvia straightened. “The oven exploded,” she said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can identify the refrigerator, the remains of a work table, a door blown INTO the pantry, but nothing that looks like an oven. It was obliterated.”

  “So it was a gas leak.”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve also identified an oven knob over in the corner.” It was marked by a number 11. “If the fire had started anywhere else, the oven knobs would have melted in position. But it was thrown across the room. If it was a gas leak, it had to be ignited by a spark. It would be leaking because the pilot light was out, so the ignition source is not likely to be the oven itself. Where would the spark come from?”

  “Someone tried to light the pilot?”

  “The victims were the chef, security guards, and cleaning crew. The chef would have called building maintenance to relight the pilot, but no maintenance people were in the blast zone.”

  “Someone smoking?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Chembassies are smoke-free, Helena. You know that. We can check employee records, though, and see if any of the victims were closet smokers.”

  I noticed an intact section of the building, a large square room in the corner of the basement kitchen. “What’s that?” I asked Marek.

  “Freezer,” he grunted. “Not safe.” He pointed up, and I saw loose beams and exposed wiring hanging right above the area in front of it. “Also, lock melted.”

  “I see.” Examining that area would have to come later, after the area was secure and the crews could force the door open.

  Marek led us back up the stairs. “So why would the oven explode?” I mused. “Faulty wiring?”

  “Possible. We’ll also have to check maintenance records. Find out how old the building was and what kind of upkeep was being done.” We stopped again to look at the hole in the first floor. “Gas leak explosions can be quite large.” She considered the damage in light of what we’d seen downstairs. “In fact, I think a gas leak would have leveled the building completely.” She looked directly at me. “I don’t think there’s enough damage here to call it a gas leak.”

  “Sylvia, the building is decimated. How much more could it do?”

  “Plenty. When a gas leak ignites, it carries the fire in all directions. Up AND down. The air ignites, not parts of the building. And it would go into the exposed pipes, until there’s enough debris to block the gas in the pipes from the flames. I saw the gas pipe behind where the stove used to be. It was broken apart at the joint, but the end was open. The gas feed to the building would have been turned off at the junction by the firefighters, but not until several minutes after. The pipe should have sustained more damage. Should have at least some debris built up there. I could be wrong. There is always the ‘stranger things have happened’ rule. But it doesn’t look like a gas leak to me.” She didn’t have to follow through with what it meant. It wasn’t simple arson, either. Like she mentioned, a fire starting anywhere else would not have caused the oven to explode. It was clearly a bomb. And an impressive one.

  But how did they get the bomb into the Chembassy oven? And who would do such a thing? Was the target the Chembassador, the building, the chef, or someone else entirely?

  Marek had stepped away, not wanting to eavesdrop on our conversation. Quite likely he didn’t understand English well enough to understand what we were talking about anyway. “Marek,” I called, “is there an office? Can we check computer records?” I made
a square with my fingers in the air, then mimed typing.

  “Investigators take,” he said. “Much damage.”

  We would probably have to wait until their experts could decipher what was on the hard drive to check either personnel or maintenance records. That’s one thing we weren’t likely to be able to do on our own. Badger was good, but he didn’t have the forensic equipment needed for such extensive data recovery. Plus, the computer was in their custody.

  Sylvia and I exited the building, thanked the fire marshal and Marek for their help, and walked the block to the Hotel Pretentious.

  Chapter Five

  It was still early, and the hotel’s usual check-in time was three hours away. But because the building was close, we went there anyway, just to notify the clerk that our entire party was in the city and would be checking in separately. I asked if by any chance the crime scene investigative center was nearby. It wasn’t. Zuzka, the clerk, was a soft-spoken woman in her mid-fifties, with black and gray hair that she had braided down her back. When she turned to get a notepad from behind her, we could see that the braid went down to her knees. You could probably jump rope with her hair if it was loose. Using a phone book, she found the address of the center, wrote it on the pad, and tore off the top sheet. Handing it to me, she offered to call a cab. I thanked her and said, “Yes, please.”

  A mere five minutes later, Sylvia and I climbed into the back seat of a maroon Skoda Auto. I handed the driver the paper Zuzka had given us and we buckled in. He looked thin and almost insubstantial behind the wheel, even though it was a small car. He flipped the meter on and drove. The ride took about fifteen minutes and I paid with my CURDS VISA. “Welcome to Kutna Hora, Americans,” he said, and I got the impression that it was literally all the English he knew. He gave me back the paper and pointed to it. He had written the phone number of his cab service below the address. He made the universal ‘call me’ sign, gave us a smile, and drove away to find another fare.