Requiem for a Gypsy

by Michael Genelin

  Other than the death wound to the neck, the young man had one other remarkable injury: both knees had been surgically repaired, both of them requiring implants. The coroner noted that the area around one of the implants showed inflammation, indicating that there had been a problem with that artificial joint. Jana assumed that the knee that had shown inflammation had still been giving him pain, requiring the medications he’d been carrying. Which raised a question: why had a young man, who had at least one knee that was still impaired enough that he was taking painkillers, gone on a slog through the woods in winter? The walk would have had to aggravate his condition. Then again, he had been young, and young men do stupid things.

  Jana made a mental note to find out how the teenager had hurt his knees. Her second question was what the synergistic effect of the painkillers and the alcohol would have been on the young man. If he had dosed himself with the medication at the same time he had ingested the alcohol, the effect would have been significant, particularly given the high blood-alcohol content. How impaired had his physical coordination been? What degree of awareness of his physical surroundings would he have had? Cognitive functions? Would he have even been conscious at the time of death?

  Suddenly the failure of the toxicologist to go further with the blood analysis became critical. Jana made another mental note to ask the coroner’s office to do further analysis in the morning.

  She decided to postpone further assessment of the case until that analysis was done. She put the file aside, took a quick shower, and went to bed. Tomorrow would be a busy day. Her “unofficial” work on the Bogan investigation would begin in earnest.

  When Jana roused herself in the morning, it was dark outside, snow still falling, although it had let up slightly. She dressed very quietly to avoid waking Em, making sure, a few moments later, when she made herself tea and toast, that the glass didn’t bang against the kitchen counter or the pot against the stove. After she had finished her breakfast, she went to leave; but when she opened the front door, she immediately noticed a note pinned to the outside of it. Scrawled on the note were the words “See you soon.” She walked back to the room where Em had slept. The girl was gone.

  All through the drive to work, which was slow because of the slippery conditions, Jana could not stop thinking about Em. What an odd event to have Em appear at her house; what an odd event to have her disappear again. Jana felt an unexpected sense of loss now that the girl was gone, then chided herself for feeling that way. She had no real connection to the child. Em was not her granddaughter; her granddaughter was seven thousand miles away. Jana and Em were not linked through any birth-related bond. Jana was merely being protective of a vulnerable and threatened young person.

  No! The reason she felt a sense of loss over the girl having left, Jana told herself, was because she herself was lonely. That was not acceptable. Not at all. Jana ordered herself to stifle the emotion.

  But as she drove, thoughts of the girl popped up again. There was another reason, a more acceptable reason, for her emotional response to Em. Jana had admiration for the girl. The teenager, as beaten-up by the weather, as hungry and tired as she had been the night before, still had had the determination and discipline to wake up before Jana, leave the warmth of the house, and, in the pitch black of early morning, with the snow still coming down, go about her life. She’d even left a good-bye note.

  Yes, thought Jana, a very unusual little girl.

  Chapter 10

  Jana wasted no time when she arrived at the office. She ordered the additional toxicology analysis on the young gypsy who had been shot to death. Then she called Oto Bogan’s office to set up an appointment with him, only to be told that he was out of town and would not be returning for several weeks. Jana asked if Bogan was in Berlin. There was a long silence, and then Bogan’s secretary said she had no idea where Bogan was at the moment, an obvious lie. Jana told the secretary to have Bogan call her immediately when she next heard from him and then terminated the conversation. She was left with the conviction that Bogan would not call her. He was staying as far away from the investigation as possible, deliberately avoiding the police.

  Jana called Seges and informed him that they were going into the field, cutting off all his excuses for not going by giving him the order to “dress warm.” She hung up to avoid any further complaints. Jana didn’t like partnering with Seges, but she tried to follow the rule that you should have another officer with you in the field at all times on an investigation. It meant that there was another witness to what happened, and it provided immediate assistance in case of danger. Since all of her other officers were already overburdened with their own caseloads, Jana had to make do with Seges.

  Jana obtained the address of Bogan’s residence from the murder book, noting that there was a second address listed as an alternate residence, which was across the border, on the way to Sopron, Hungary, a relatively short distance from Bratislava. The area had recently been built up, with a number of well-off Slovaks, Austrians, and other expatriate Europeans buying land cheaply and building houses that were larger than they could have afforded if they’d tried to live in or around Bratislava.

  Seges continued to complain as they drove, until Jana couldn’t stand it any longer and told him to shut up. Seges shut up, but he pouted for the rest of the drive until they reached Bogan’s house in the hillside area rising above Bratislava near the huge Slavin World War II Memorial to the Russian dead.

  As Jana expected, it was one of the bigger houses in the area, two stories, newer than most, showing a mixture of styles, as if the architect hadn’t been able to decide what type of house he wanted to erect. Certainly, the Roman colonnade of the building front did not go with the ultramodern wings, nor did the wings go with the bluetiled, Japanese pagoda-style roof. However, the house did convey one thing: the man who had built it had money.

  They went up to the front door. Jana knocked, then rang the bell. She waited and, when there was no response, knocked and rang again.

  “No one home,” Seges brightly surmised, happy that their visit was going to be a short one.

  “Nobody has answered,” Jana corrected him. “We’ll go around to the back.” She started toward the side of the house, Seges lagging behind. “Are you still determined to get an answer to our first knock every time we try to get inside a house?”

  “If we go around to the back, we should have a warrant,” Seges counseled, his tone sanctimonious.

  “I know the rules, Seges. Unfortunately, no one reports having heard from Mr. Bogan since shortly after the attempt on his life. He has not been going to work, and his secretary told me that she had no idea where he was. As a police officer, I must therefore conclude that he may require assistance. Perhaps he’s even lying wounded or dead inside his house.” She smiled at Seges, watching him unsuccessfully try to come up with another excuse.

  Jana trudged through the snow, Seges reluctantly following her. The backyard was spacious, laid out in a formal fashion; two wrought-iron, glass-topped tables with matching wrought-iron chairs sat in the garden looking incongruous beneath their covering snow, as if they were waiting for tea-party celebrants who had long ago abandoned them. The rear door to the house was wide open.

  “Someone’s forced the door,” Seges volunteered.

  “I can see, Seges.”

  Jana walked to the door, Seges slipping his gun out of its holster and following behind her. The snow had drifted into the house, and there were no footprints visible to indicate that anyone had gone in or out since the snow had fallen. Jana walked through the door, then listened. Not a sound. She didn’t have to search the house to know that it was vacant. The house was telling her that no one was inside.

  “Take the downstairs, Seges.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Ghosts.”

  Jana walked deeper into the house, noting the occasional knocked-over chair, bureau drawers that had been rummaged through and left open, a broken vase on the floo
r. Someone had searched the house looking for something specific. It was not a petty burglary: too many items that could have been sold at a local pawnshop were in plain sight, left behind because they weren’t what the thief had been looking for. Jana went upstairs and looked through the bedrooms, minor signs of dislocation visible in all the rooms. Within a few moments, she reached the master bedroom suite. Unlike the rest of the house, which had been gone through thoroughly but not trashed, the bedroom was an absolute mess, mattress slashed open, chaise longue cut apart, chairs mutilated. The door of the walk-in closet was open, clothes haphazardly dumped on the floor. An oil painting had been taken off the wall, the safe behind it open. Jana checked the safe. There was expensive jewelry and cash left in it.

  Jana examined the door of the safe. It was not a cheaply made safe, but it had been opened without the use of force. Whoever had done it either had had the combination or was a consummate professional, able to open safes with relative ease. Jana opted to believe he was a professional. But why leave the jewelry and the money? The thief or thieves must have been looking for something so important to them, with such a driving imperative behind their search, that the valuables inside the safe had no interest to them. And the condition of the rest of the room, the almost uncontrolled slashing and ripping of the furniture, the clothes dumped on the floor, suggested to Jana that the men who had come looking for that thing had gone away without finding what they wanted. Whatever it was, it was still out there for someone to find.

  She hurried back downstairs and collected Seges, who was startled at being rushed out of the house. The two of them climbed back into their vehicle, and Jana instructed Seges to drive to Hungary and to the second house that had been listed in the murder book. On the way, she called their own forensics people, directing them to the Bratislava house. Then she telephoned the Hungarian police. The captain she talked to was very cooperative when she told him she needed help on a murder case, and he agreed to meet her at the second house. Jana urged Seges to drive faster, hoping that whoever had searched the first house was not aware of the second one.

  Her hope was in vain.

  When they got to the second house, the Hungarian police were already inside, and upset. Jana quickly explained, in case the Hungarians misread the circumstances, that she and Seges had not been the ones to rape the location. As soon as Jana walked into the house, she could understand why the Hungarians were distressed. The place had been completely trashed. The Hungarian forensics people were scurrying through the chaos trying to lift fingerprints, or hoping to find any signature item that the burglars had left behind. Jana doubted they would find anything.

  She didn’t stay long. There was no reason to. The conclusion was obvious: the ransacking of the houses was related to the shootings on the soundstage. Building on that belief, Jana had to suppose that the people who had done the soundstage shootings, and the people who had done the house burglaries, were still looking for Bogan, and for some object that Bogan was in possession of. And they wanted them both very badly.

  For Bogan’s sake, Jana hoped she could find him before they did.

  Chapter 11

  The drive back to Bratislava was fairly quick. When they arrived at the police building, Jana directed a reluctant Seges to return to the Bogan home in Bratislava to oversee the Slovak forensics crew, then took the elevator up to her floor. As soon as she walked into the offices occupied by her division, she realized that things were a trifle askew. Grzner, a generally glum and caustic man who took work very seriously, was cheerfully hanging strings of mistletoe over his desk. Other desks already had strings of it hanging over them. Jonas, another one of her detectives, was hanging small blinking Christmas lights along the wall. Several secretaries were putting paper figures of Father Frost and other imaginary Christmas creatures along the edges of the desks, with another one of her secretaries taping candy canes along the edge of one of their large standing corkboards normally used for pinning up exhibits.

  “What’s going on?” Jana asked.

  “Your niece said you wanted us to make the place more cheerful,” one of the secretaries responded. “She said you wanted us to put up the Christmas decorations early.”

  “My niece?”

  “She’s in your office.”

  “It’s not time for Christmas lights,” Jana informed Jonas.

  “She said you thought it would be nice if our witnesses were cheered up when they came into the offices.”

  “My niece again?”

  “Yes.”

  Jana stared at Grzner hanging the mistletoe. The overweight and brutish Grzner looked absurd, Jana noticing for the first time that he was wearing a Christmas tie with a big American Santa Claus painted on it. “Grzner, you’re not the type of man who wants to be wearing a tie like that.”

  “Your niece said—”

  “I’ve already heard. She’s in my office?”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Jana walked into her office, already having a good idea whom she would find. Em was sitting behind her desk, reading the murder book on the Bogan shootings.

  “Good afternoon, Em.”

  “Afternoon,” Em replied, not looking up from the book.

  “Em, you’re in my chair.”

  “Sorry.” The girl got up, holding on to the murder book, still reading as she slowly walked around the desk to sit in a chair against the wall. Jana took off her coat, hung it up, then walked over to Em and took the murder book out of her hands.

  “I haven’t finished,” Em protested.

  “It’s confidential, not meant to be read by anyone who’s not in some branch of law enforcement. You’re not, so you’re out.” Jana sat behind her desk, slapping the book down. “And you are not my niece.”

  “Your officers are very nice. When they found out that we were related, we had a long conversation, and they agreed to make the place more cheerful. It’s really ugly in here. Just because you mix with dead people is no reason to be dead yourselves.”

  “How did you know where I worked, Em?”

  “You had papers. Letters addressed to you. There was stationery from here in your place.” Em shifted in the chair, making herself more comfortable. “Wooden chairs are hard to sit on.” She held out her hands, palms forward, showing them to Jana. “Scrubbed now. You said I was dirty. I needed a place to clean up. I went back to your house.” Em frowned. “You leave your front door unlocked when you’re out of the house. You shouldn’t do that, you know. It’s not safe.”

  “If a thief wants to get in, he’s going to get in. It’s very easy to open a locked door.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Did you expect that you would have to break in when you went back to my house?”

  “You told me to take a bath and put on the other clothes. I was only doing what you said. The door being open made it easy.” She slipped off the chair and did a quick pirouette, showing the clothes she was wearing. “You see, I put on the clothing you said to put on.” Satisfied that she had made her point, Em settled back into the chair.

  Jana stared at Em, realizing that she was seeing the girl in her daughter’s clothes. They were a perfect fit. For the first time, Jana realized that Em even looked slightly like her granddaughter. Or was it her daughter at that age? Or maybe, she told herself, all children of a certain age resembled each other.

  “Did you eat?” The question came out of Jana’s mouth before she had even thought about it. She mentally kicked herself, telling her conscience to stop acting like she was responsible for Em. The girl was not related to her. Jana had no responsibility for her well-being.

  “I ate soup. And there was halusky, which I warmed up, and udeniny. So there was enough.”

  “Good. Now I think we have to get you someplace where you’ll be warm and can sleep out of the snow.”

  “You mean like a home for children?”

  “We have places that keep children warm and safe and fed.”

  “I’ve been there b
efore. Once, in Belarus.”

  “I thought you came from Moldova.”

  “There too. Ugly places. They’re not for me.”

  “We have to find a place for you to stay.”

  “I called my father. He’s coming for me in three days. So I’m fine.”

  “You told me that your father had left you. And your mother too, for that matter.”

  “They did. I went to see a friend of my father’s when I left you this morning. Jacob, a Jew who used to be my father’s boss. A nice man. He’s in the electrical supply and repair business. He works for a French company out of Prague. I knew he was in town, so I got up early to make sure I’d catch him before he left Bratislava for the day. He said my father has been working with him again. My dad’s due back in town, and Jacob’s agreed to take me in.”

  The story that Em had related was amazingly glib, told in what sounded like all innocence. Jana found it somewhat astounding that the girl could lie through her teeth so well.

  “I’ve just heard a little girl tell me a cock-and-bull story,” Jana said.

  “Of course,” Em admitted with a cheery smile on her face, showing no embarrassment at being called on the lie. “My father doesn’t work in electrical supplies. He’s a criminal. So I can’t tell you what he really does, or where he’s going to meet me, because you’re a police officer, and you might try to arrest him, and that wouldn’t be good.”

  “Your father is a criminal? How do you know he’s a criminal?”

  “I heard them arguing. The woman who’s been acting as my mother called him a criminal. He admitted it. He’s okay to me, but he is a criminal.”