Aria in Ice

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  He did. She shook her head several times after Gerard explained that we were leaving but would get the clothes back to her and the other ladies. She rattled off a few sentences and Johnny smiled.

  “What did she say?”

  “‘It’s yours, little flower of the Czech Republic.’ Really. I gather this costume was hers back in the day and she’s not exactly wearing it for dances anymore and you look lovely and she wants you to keep it.”

  It was all I could do not to start crying. Her kindness had just made up for a hell of a bad start to this day. I thanked her again, then ran over and hugged her as hard as I could without breaking the brittle old bones.

  We left her standing by the electric heater warming those bones and blessing us and our children and children’s children and on and on. Kouzlo Noc was still struggling to shove off the effects of murders and curses from the ungodly but in this little village, it was obvious that saints ruled.

  Chapter 29

  The desk clerk at the hotel didn’t even blink when I waltzed through the lobby in my folk dance apparel looking like I was auditioning for a modeling gig on a cuckoo clock. A few of the hotel’s guests stared. I debated breaking into a few choruses of “My Favorite Things” for them.

  Shay and I parted by the elevator (the stairs were just too much effort today) and I was barely in the room for ten seconds before I removed the Czech folk ballet regalia. Next up was diving into a shower so hot I was nearly scalded, then collapsing, towel wrapped around me, on the comfy bed.

  I wasn’t sleepy anymore, just exhausted. I stared at the ceiling for about thirty minutes before getting dressed and roaming around the room tidying up the clothes and books and junk I’d left the day before. The hotel’s maids had replaced linens and made the bed, but wisely left my stuff where I’d tossed it. People get very testy about their personal belongings being moved. I’m not one of those folks who minds having someone clean for me, but I was rather glad the maids hadn’t gotten obsessive and put things where I’d never find them.

  I grabbed the bag I’d been carrying all over Prague, including all the times I’d been up at Kouzlo Noc. Shay had had a fit of efficiency and brought it to me at the police station. I was sure it needed cleaning out of old tissues and receipts and crumpled notes and all those items that reproduce asexually in suitcases, carry-alls and purses if one does not attack one’s luggage with a vengeance at least once a month.

  This bag had all that clutter and more. My new clock was still inside; wrapped in its original box. The pink suede organizer I thought I’d lost at Club Krev was wedged between my wallet, keys and a package of black cherry-flavored cough drops. Three bags of cheese doodles (ill-gotten gains from a vending machine somewhere in Manhattan, unopened but at least four weeks old), the Magic Flute playbill from a few nights ago, Louie’s Lingo translations, and two guidebooks filled up the rest of the space.

  The bottom of the bag produced a surprise. The book I’d borrowed—okay—snatched from the room in the north wing of Kouzlo Noc where I’d found the music stand and the modern-era flute the day Shay had arrived, was lying alone and unwanted on top of three crumpled tissues. If I remembered correctly after the insanity of the last couple of days, I’d grabbed the book because it had a title about Mozart prominently displayed on the dust jacket. I was right. I pulled it out of my bag and read the words, “Mozart—A Man Ahead of His Time.” I didn’t see a sub-title like, “How Ignatz Jezek created a Flute for the Maestro and Imbued it With Magic then Hid the Flute before He Was Murdered by Baron Smetana’s Father-in-Law in the Bathroom with the Golden Towel Rack” but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t find some interesting insights into possible hiding places and / or murder weapons.

  I got my second surprise when the dust jacket came off and I discovered a plain leather binder with no title. I opened the book. Czech. Nuts. The dust jacket title with Mozart’s name had been in English. Why didn’t the contents match? I took another look and realized that not only was this Czech but it was handwritten. I slowly began turning pages. This was not a published work. This was someone’s journal.

  “Johnny. Holy crap. I need to call him and tell him to get his denim-clad burgling butt over here to try and translate.”

  I was at the phone before it hit me that I didn’t have Johnny’s number. I wasn’t even sure where Johnny was staying. He’d never told me. For all I knew, he’d dropped Shay and me off at the hotel and gone back to Kouzlo Noc to make sure nothing else happened to Marta. Either that or headed for the National Marionette Theatre to do another command performance as Macduff.

  I called Shay. “Guess what?”

  She growled. “‘What’ had better be damn stinkin’ good, because otherwise I’m breaking your other ankle. I was finally getting some sleep—something that wasn’t possible last night with Lily Lowe and her stream of consciousness monologues about how wonderful she was as Little Crystal. As Ophelia. As Portia. As Titania. If she’d told me how wonderful she’d been in a one-woman show of The Tempest, I’d’ve just thrown her out of the window and accepted the twenty-generation Duskova curse on my head.”

  “Will you hush? This is important.”

  “Fine. What?”

  “I found a journal.”

  Silence.

  “And your point?”

  “Shay, this journal is handwritten in Czech and I found it in the north wing where I first heard the flute music.”

  Silence.

  “And your point?”

  “Gad, you are being pissy, aren’t you? This could be a major clue in finding out where Ignatz flute is.”

  “Yo. Abb-ess. Hold up there. This was just lying around in a room in the north wing, right?”

  “Right. I sort of filched it when I was there the day you and the rest of the wandering hordes arrived.”

  “I did not wander in with whores, thank you. Lily’s a slut, but as to charging for her services? Now, now. Be charitable.”

  “Oh, shush. Anyway, I thought it was a book about Mozart and I grabbed it before y’all came in and then I forgot about it. The dust jacket wasn’t the same.”

  She didn’t bother to ask me what the dust jacket had to do with anything. It’s nice to have a friend who understands your dumbest statements without asking for explanations. Instead she jumped back to the point she’d been trying to make.

  “Okay. Book is there. You pick up book. Let me repeat. Book is there in plain sight. No warrant needed. Now, why, if this book, journal, diary, whatever, contains vital clues as to the mystery surrounding a two-hundred year old flute—why, I repeat—is that journal just lying around waiting to be picked up by any old bum who drops in. Not that I’m calling you an old bum, of course, but you get my drift.”

  Silence while I pouted. “Shoot. You’re right. It’s too easy. Even if by some loopy stretch of the imagination it happens to be Jezek’s journal, with my luck it’ll just contain notes on how many potato pancakes he consumed the night before with his in-laws. Nuts.”

  “Now, Abby, don’t sulk. It could well bear more fruit than you or I are giving it credit for. Let’s get the bloody thing translated and see what it’s about.”

  I brightened. “Okay. Who, what, where, and when?”

  “Well, not now, you nag. I’m sleepy and the durn book has been untranslated by the American geniuses for many years, so it can wait at least a couple of hours to let me regain my lively and lovely self.”

  “Oh. Okay. Who do we want to trust with this thing, though? Or is it whom?”

  “Jozef,” was the prompt response. “He told you about Ignatz, he’s related to Ignatz, he was marvelous with the whole tragedy about Trina and marvelous helping with Marta and he’s a nice guy.”

  “He also looks like God.”

  “I beg your pardon.” I could see Shay’s eyes widening even over the phone.

  “You heard me.”

  “Go to sleep, Abby. We shall contact the bookshop Deity later today. Right now the only god I want to meet is th
e Sandman.”

  She hung up. I knew she was right but it didn’t help. I wanted to know whose journal I held in my hands and whether it had anything at all to do with Jezek. Or what had been the murder of Trina Duskova and the attempted murder of her sister Marta. Jozef was still out at Kouzlo Noc. If he’d been in Prague, I’d’ve trotted down to his bookstore and politely forced him to read the thing to me. I wondered if any of the hotel staff would accept a substantial tip for translating, but decided that wasn’t a great plan in case some startling revelations were—well—revealed.

  If I got desperate, I could rent a car and head back to the police station and ask one of my Czech folk dancing dressers to read it. The one who spoke English seemed pretty trustworthy. Or I could rent that car and drive it all the way to Kouzlo Noc. Yeah. Over what were still wintery conditions outside. Not a good plan. Either trip.

  I began to pace around the hotel room. Crazy. I was impatient and frustrated and I didn’t even have an inkling of whether this book had been written by Ignatz Jezek, Baron Smetana, his bride Marie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or some guest of the Duskovas named Johann Schmidt.

  The phone rang. I picked it up on the first ring. “Shay? Change your mind? Want to go back to the castle?”

  “Johnny, not Shay. My mind is made up. And I’m perfectly willing to go back to the castle, but I really called to see if you’d like to go to Bertramka with me. I’m down in the lobby.”

  “Do they have good gulas and wine?”

  He howled. “Wine? Possible. Gulas? Not so much. Don’t you remember your music history, darlin’? Bertramka is the Mozart Museum.”

  “Meet you in ten minutes.”

  Chapter 30

  Late afternoon on a day that had started with a blizzard, and now the sun was out and I was almost too warm in a light jacket over my knit jersey top and jeans. I’m used to the Texas quick changes in temperature—the old joke is that if you don’t like the weather in Texas just wait five minutes—but this was bizarre for Prague. I wasn’t complaining about the difference from below-freezing-with-ice-pellets that I’d so enjoyed during this morning’s ride; I was just rather astonished by them. Aside from a few dismal dirty snow piles, most of the ground was merely slushy, and it felt like it was in the fifties now. As it should be on a fine early spring day in the Czech Republic.

  We took the metro to the museum, which gave me a little time to tell Johnny about the journal. I’d dropped it back inside my now somewhat-cleaner bag before hauling downstairs to meet him.

  “You stole it?”

  I was indignant. “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.”

  “Oh sure. And you accuse me of felonious activities?”

  “Only every now and then. And you must admit that you deserve the accusations. Sliding out of trees at unsuspecting women who are just out for a peaceful walk around castle grounds.”

  “Peaceful walk? You, my love, were so involved in your search for the source of flute music I’m surprised your nose wasn’t sniffing like a bloodhound leading the fox hunt.”

  “Well, I wasn’t so intent on my quest that I failed to notice your butt hanging out the window.”

  He chuckled. “That’s because I have such a fine derriére.”

  He did. It looked damn nice in ripped denim. Out of ripped denim too.

  He changed the topic before we started an anatomical discussion that could only lead to trouble on public transportation. “So, where is it? The manuscript that could get you five-to-ten in a Prague pokey.”

  “Would you stop that? I’m taking it back. I promise. After you take a look since that’s why I brought it.” My hand dove into the bag. Naturally the journal was down at the bottom again. “How good are your Czech reading skills? Really.”

  “Not terrific. I’ve got menus and tourist sites down to a fine art but that’s about it.”

  “What? The great Gregory Noble who will probably won a Nobel Prize along with creating a cure for cancer while simultaneously solving global warming can’t zip through a lousy book in Czech in five minutes or less? And you got hired as a tour guide?”

  “Hush. Since you obviously didn’t notice the other day the bus said Tokyo Tours. It’s a company that caters to Japanese tourists. I do speak some Japanese. Spent four months in Gamagori which sounds like a shape-shifting monster in a horror flick but is actually a coastal town with a cool amusement park. And before you ask—yes—Endless Time. It was a really stupid storyline and I’ve been trying to blot it out. So did our producers since it was never aired.”

  I groaned. “Why do I even bring up topics which can only lead to soap episodes? ” I smiled. “I do feel better that you don’t read Czech that well. It’s so durn hard to try and outdo you and I was really reaching for any hidden talents I possess to shock you.”

  He gave me one of those green-eyed, melt-my-bones stares but kept silent.

  I handed him the journal. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” He studied it for a few minutes. “Okay. I’ve admitted to not being an authority on manuscripts written in Czech, but I can tell you this much. It’s not the journal of Ignatz Jezek.”

  “You’re kidding? Durn. I’m disappointed. I guess I thought the first page would say something like ‘Hi. I’m Ignatz Jezek and this is my diary and I’m going to lead you right to where I hid the flute I wanted to give to my good buddy, Mozart. And by the way, future treasure seekers—here’s the scoop on what the flute really does—now wait for it. Here it comes.’ Something basic and concise along those lines.”

  “Sorry. The first page doesn’t even say, ‘Yo. My name is John Duskova and I killed Ignatz for his flute but I was too stupid to find out where the bloody thing was before I conked Ignatz over the head with the dragon poker in the parlor. Oop! My bad. Now I’m cursed and sharing space with Eduard Duskova, murderer extraordinaire of the Sixteen-Hundreds and I wish he’d bathe more often.’ ”

  “We’re having far too much fun with this.”

  “Better than weeping and wailing, Ms. Fouchet.”

  “True. Plus, I have no great stake in even finding the flute although I have this nagging suspicion that I’m supposed to help Ignatz Jezek find peace not on this earth. Why else would he be serenading me?”

  “Uh… he likes your looks? Which is easy since you’re a cutie. He’s hot for you and would like to take you out but can’t cross the great divide between worlds so he’s going to entertain you or drive you insane wondering about him?”

  “Hmm. It’s a concept.”

  We smiled at one another. Johnny tapped the book, which he’d closed moments before. “Well, I’m jealous. Since I also like your looks and would be more than happy to help you cross any divides that keep you from me.”

  We were still on the metro. It was populated by small children, little old ladies, and mamas with strollers. Not the time for serious romance.”

  I grinned at Johnny. “Save that thought for a starlit night, would you? Preferably not at Kouzlo Noc.”

  He grinned too, then gave me a chaste kiss on my cheek. “It’s a promise. Okay, back to business. Sadly, I’m positive this is not Ignatz’ journal. For one thing, on page three there are references to political events happening that seem pretty obvious the writer is referring to the beginning of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and unless Ignatz was adept at spirit writing, I doubt he was forecasting the future. Now, don’t get morose. No, there aren’t any startling revelations on the few pages I’ve managed to decipher, and admittedly I zipped through this in a hurry, but….”

  “Yes?” I tensed.

  “You’ll be very pleased to hear there are references to Jezek on the last page.”

  I held my breath. “Really? Anything pertinent to the investigation? Or just ‘There was another was murder at my castle this morning and now I have to go buy flour, butter, and cheese for the next batch of dumplings.’”

  “No clue. My skills aren’t up to this. There are words I simply can’t translate and let’s face it—t
his was not printed out on a laser jet color copier. It’s handwritten and the penmanship is so bad that your favorite nun, Sister Mary Manuscript would have had this bad boy in the principal’s office after school on a daily basis writing, ‘I will learn to loop my O’s and cross my T’s’ fifty times.’ Anyway, I can’t decipher this enough to tell just what the guy is saying. But I can tell you it seems to have been written by a member of the Duskova family. Perhaps omeone who did discover a few things about his family’s often sordid past? And yes, there is that intriguing reference to Ignatz right at the end.” He inhaled. “Oh my God. It’s more than intriguing. Abby, this could explain some of the past day’s events.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trina. And Marta.”

  “Okay. You can’t name drop and then clam up. Give.”

  “Unless my Czech is really flat-out wrong, this guy mentions both Ignatz and the boathouse at the edge of the Duskova property in the same sentence.”

  “And Trina was found in the moat about three feet away from the boathouse, wasn’t she? At least that’s what Jozef said last night.”

  Johnny nodded. “He’s right. So, that begs a question.”

  I chimed in before he had a chance to beg. “What was Trina doing that close to the boathouse on a snowy day and did what she was doing relate to Ignatz Jezek and his flute and did someone else figure that out and if so, did that someone follow her, hit her and shove her into the moat?”

  “That’s about it. Tangled way of stating it—no offense, love—but that’s exactly what I surmised.”

  “What about Marta? Theories?”

  He sat back on the bench of the metro train. “Let’s pretend that Trina had finished reading this journal. Looking for clues about Ignatz? Picked it up in a fit of housecleaning and browsed through it one evening in front of the fire. Anyway, she reads about the boathouse. Decides to investigate to see if something is hidden there. Now, why she didn’t just go out immediately after reading this instead of leaving the book then waiting a houseful of suspicous people were hanging around to trek down there, I have no idea, but let’s say that that’s exactly what she did.”