by Royce Prouty
“Mr. Barkeley, I took the liberty to schedule an appointment with an avocat, a lawyer, in , since it appears obvious that you will be in need of such services.”
Immediately my worries mounted. Did they have something similar to the Fifth Amendment? Would I be innocent until proven guilty? Was there attorney-client confidentiality?
We stopped at a small office complex and parked, and while Luc and the driver remained in the car, Arthur showed me through the doors of a law office. Annemarie Pope was the lawyer’s name, and she commanded the top-floor corner office in a modest space. I learned there are no private law firms in Romania, that group together to form a barou as part of a union. The offices lacked the panache of an upscale American white-shoe firm, but the guest chairs were comfortable leather and invited one for a long stay. Arthur and I were shown to her office without delay.
Annemarie Pope carried the air of money in her stride. She dressed entirely in shades of gray, from her mock turtle blouse to her thoroughly Western pantsuit and pumps. She wore no wedding ring.
Pointed, harsh, and purse-lipped, she looked ready to pounce. “So you are the ex-pat stirring these suspicions from here to Chicago.” She spoke perfect Midwest English and pointed to a chair after shaking my hand. “Please call me Anna.”
I looked at the letters framed on her walls, including a degree from the University of Michigan Law School to complement her Romanian degrees and certification. “Ms. Pope.” I sat across from her large dark-stained oak desk.
She nodded. “So you have decided to seek legal counsel prior to answering questions as a person of interest.”
“Yes. I didn’t know what happened until my brother phoned me here.”
“When was that?” she asked.
I looked down and started counting on my fingers. It all seemed like one long day since I had arrived. “I don’t know.”
“Mr. Barkeley,” she said, “you will need to account for your time since the . . . unfortunate incidents, all of it, if you wish to appear credible.”
I looked up at her. “Should I write it on a calendar?”
“However you recall it, you must secure it in your memory.”
I nodded, though I no longer trusted my memory.
“Let me tell you a few things I know of this case, Mr. Barkeley.” She looked down at her notepad. “When Mr. Ardelean engaged my services, I placed a couple phone calls back to the States, and I must tell you that things do not look good for you at this point.”
“Ms. Pope, I don’t even know when these murders happened, so I don’t know what days to account for.”
“Let me begin again,” she said. “I am not the person you need to convince of your innocence. What this initial consultation is intended to accomplish is for me to ask you certain questions, queries you are likely to face either during questioning or a trial, so that I can advise you of your options. Is that okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What day and time did you arrive at the airport in Bucharest?”
I thought it over. “The first or second time?”
“This latest trip.”
I gave her the date.
“Is that what your passport stamp will verify?”
“Yes,” I said reflexively, then remembered that the private flight had taxied to a hangar and we left with the cargo and bypassed Customs.
“May I see your passport?” She held out her hand.
“No.”
“I may not see it, or the stamp will not verify the date?”
Silence stole several seconds of airtime before I answered. “Both.”
“Are you prepared to testify how you entered the country without the approval of Customs?”
I sat mute.
“When you left Romania the first time, did you travel according to the itinerary Mr. Ardelean here provided you?”
That seemed like such a long time ago. “No.” I thought of Luc sitting outside.
“Where did you go?”
“From I traveled by train north to Baia Mare and on to Munich. I caught the same number flight home, just a couple days later.”
“Was Baia Mare your only other stop?”
“Yes.” I recalled my purchases from the merchant.
“And what was your purpose in visiting Baia Mare?”
“I was born there.” I glanced down. “Wanted to buy my brother a souvenir gift . . . and visit my mother.”
Ms. Pope squinted at me; she knew better.
“Visit my mother’s gravesite.”
“And did you do both?”
“Yes.” I’m sure she saw the sadness in my eyes, because she pushed a box of tissues my way. “I had to go to the Hall of Records to find where she is.”
“Orfan?” she asked.
“Yes. Both parents . . . in a fire.”
“So you were born here.”
I nodded. “Spent two years in the state-run orphanage before being rescued by the Catholic Church.”
“And they uprooted you to Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about your childhood.”
A lot safer than my adulthood is turning out to be, I thought, and recalled the Don’s face. “The nuns did the best job they could, considering . . . and I will always be grateful for being reared in God’s ways.”
“Did God tell you to murder those two people?”
“I did not murder those two people,” I said, “and no, God does not talk to me directly.”
“Indirectly?”
I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response.
“Are you engaged in any cultlike behaviors? Belong to any associations?”
“No. And the only association I belong to is professional.”
“What would that be?”
“Appraisals and authentication work, based in Chicago.”
“Are you well-known in your field?”
“Yes, I would say so.”
“What would your associates say about you and your work?”
I thought a moment. “That I never make mistakes.”
“Do you own any vampire books?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds. I have—”
“Any books on the occult?”
I nodded.
“Please state yes or no.”
“Yes.” I could tell where this was going, and it was not purgatory. Someplace lower.
“Are you familiar with Vlad the Third?”
“Yes. He was a fifteenth-century Wallachian prince and warlord.”
“What was he known for?”
“Vlad the Impaler,” I said. “Stuck his victims on poles and threw others onto spears.”
“Just like the two murder victims.”
I shrugged my shoulders as if I didn’t know.
“Mr. Barkeley, what do you do for a living?”
“I own a warehouse full of rare and first edition books that I sell online to collectors. I also provide authentication services when someone needs verification regarding a book, a letter, or a manuscript.”
“I see,” she said. “And tell me, what did the authorities find when they raided your warehouse looking for you in connection with these crimes?”
The thought infuriated me. “Books, I imagine.”
“Including many books on vampires and the occult?”
I thought of the inventory, including a hundred or so first editions on all things vampire, since they are always in demand.
“Mr. Barkeley?”
“Everything in inventory is for sale; it is not my private collection. Yes, there are several vampire books, because that genre’s fans are fanatical and collect first editions.”
“Is that how you came to meet the deceased?”
>
“Mara? Yes. She purchased several first editions.”
“When was the last time you saw Ms. Sadoveanu?”
“I went to see her the day before my Philadelphia trip.”
“What did you discuss?”
I couldn’t think of anything that I wished to divulge, and shrugged my shoulders.
“Was anyone with her?”
I refused to react. “No. She lives alone.”
“And from there?”
I decided that if no one had seen me at Doug Carli’s office, then I would not offer that I had been there. “The next day I worked at the Rosenbach Museum, and the following night flew to Bucharest.”
“What flight?”
“It was a private chartered flight.”
“What time did it leave?”
“I don’t know; it was nighttime.”
“I mean, was it just after sundown, or closer to midnight?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Was there anyone with you on the flight?”
“Security guards.”
“Guarding the manuscript or guarding you?”
I laughed. The question sounded funny in a morbid way.
“I was not being funny, Mr. Barkeley.”
“I know, Ms. Pope. It just seems odd . . . I was transporting extremely valuable cargo and arrived late the next day in Bucharest to present it to the buyer.”
“And who is the buyer?”
Arthur interrupted, “I am acting as the agent on behalf of the family, madam. And Mr. Barkeley is a guest at the family residence in Bran.”
She nodded.
“Without telling me who, Mr. Barkeley, do you know who the buyer is?”
“Ah, no.”
“Where were you on the night of May fifteenth?”
I thought a moment. That was the night of the battle in the cemetery. The real answer would get me a spell in some mental institution. “I don’t recall.”
“Then why might your fingerprints be on the tomb of Loreena Braithwaite in the cemetery just outside Baia Sprie?”
I looked down and away. It was all too preposterous to contemplate, much less explain.
“Okay,” she said, “here is how I see things.” The attorney glanced again at her paper, looked at me, and sighed. “I don’t know you, have never met you. What I am about to say is not personal, but a professional legal recommendation from my years of working in the criminal justice system, both here and in the States.”
This did not sound like it was going to go well.
She reminded me that my brother had not phoned me, since he did not know where I was staying. She must have received that information from Arthur.
“You absolutely must know your time line, Joseph, and not in some memorized way.”
“I’ll work on it.”
She went on to say that the lack of an inbound passport stamp would suggest to a court my dealing in black-market traffic, regardless of whether the manuscript story was legit. My reasons for deviating from the original itinerary as a guest of Mr. Ardelean were understandable since it was my first time back, but demonstrated poor judgment. Next she called me on failing to divulge my side trip to and Dumitra the first time, obviously revealed by Arthur.
She warned me to be careful of my word choice. For example, she quoted me: “‘I did not murder those two people.’” Judges listen for what you don’t say as much as what you do say and how you parse things. I should have said that I never killed anyone, that I did see Mara the day before I flew to Philadelphia, and left with the promise of souvenirs. I was to avoid references to God.
As for my saying that “I never make mistakes,” she reminded me that the criminal mind invests great effort attempting to pull off the perfect crime, and modesty would suit me better. As for the questions about my books, I was to refer to them as part of my unsold inventory. And when speaking of the occult, she suggested I use the word them to create separation.
She continued, “You showed emotional volatility when I asked you about the raid on your warehouse.”
“Well, the thought of some jerks breaking down my doors and stealing my life’s work sort of pisses me off.”
“Next time, try to look hurt instead, just like you should work on your response when asked if you know who the buyer is.”
“I don’t know the buyer,” I said.
“Visually, that was not what you conveyed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“As for your fingerprints on Miss Braithwaite’s tomb, I suggest you recall the facts along with your mode of transportation and where you stayed, as well as your motive for being there.”
I nodded. That pretty much covered all her questions and my responses. I was impressed that she had recalled all of our exchanges without the aid of notes. It gave me confidence in her judgment, even if I didn’t like her bedside manner.
“Allow me to summarize,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath. “This does not look good.”
“I know.”
“I believe that if you give a seasoned detective answers to the same questions I posed, even if you worked on your responses, you would immediately turn from a person of interest to the prime suspect.”
I looked down again.
“During questioning they would say you were not being detained, but they would start delaying your release until they could secure a warrant for your arrest.”
“Is that here or there?”
“Either,” she said. “In high-profile cases like this, a law enforcement official could be sent from the States. Extradition papers would be drafted, and they would delay you until they felt secure charging you.”
“Anna . . . my two friends were murdered. I didn’t do it, you know that, Arthur knows that. How can I be charged with murder when—”
“Mr. Barkeley,” she cut in. “You were the last person to visit both of them before they were brutally murdered in similar ritual fashion. Your accounting for time and activities since those events has holes in it. A good prosecutor could adequately paint you as an antisocial loner with a troubled childhood, the classic sociopathic killer profile. Frankly, if you were not in the custody of one of our country’s leading citizens”—she nodded toward Arthur—“you’d be fighting extradition right now.”
I never thought I would ever ask this in my life, but I did: “What are my options?”
She rubbed her forehead and looked again at Arthur. “You could fight extradition.”
“You mean refuse to go home?” The very thought inspired a wave of panic.
“This country, along with others in the EU, will not extradite its citizens to any country where a conviction could bring the death penalty.”
All I heard was death penalty. She said several more things after that, and I asked her to repeat them.
“Repeat what I said from what point?”
“‘Death penalty.’”
“There has not been a death penalty in Wisconsin since the first half of the nineteenth century, but there is one on the books in Illinois. It’s been suspended under executive order by the last few governors, but it is not abolished.”
“So I most likely would not face extradition.”
“Unless there is a plea deal with a promise not to seek the death penalty,” she said. “Do you understand this?”
“Yes. Joliet.”
“Stateville, that’s right. Certainly your name and profile would be instant national news even before you arrived back in the States. Your business would be gone and your name forever linked to cult killings even if you’re found not guilty.”
I sat shaking my head.
“You would get a nickname. Considering where you were born, it would be something with Transylvania or Impaler in it.” She waited a moment before adding the obvious. “And your brother
would be targeted.”
This I already knew, but the reality hit harder when someone else said it. “Ms. Pope, you said its citizens . . .”
“You were born here, Mr. Barkeley; you are of Romanian blood.”
“I am an American citizen.”
“Yes, but while becoming an American citizen you were a minor, and as such never renounced any other citizenships. You have not renounced any as an adult, have you?”
“No. I never thought about citizenship.”
“Romanian law recognizes that since you were born on this soil to at least one Romanian citizen parent, you are by birthright a Romanian. In the case of someone who leaves as a minor, all you have to do is sign an official document that states you intend to resume your citizenship and you are thus recognized.”
“Does the document include renunciation of my American citizenship?”
She paused before answering. “Yes. It would have to in order to avoid extradition.”
I felt a net drawing around me, held by Dalca and Arthur Ardelean, who sat there without expression. Danger might be described as when you’re caught behind the eight ball. But real danger is when you’re caught behind the eight ball and didn’t even realize you were at the billiards table.
“I’d like to think about it.”
“Mr. Barkeley,” she said, leaning toward me, “if the are out in the lobby, you are extradited.”
If so, I could escape the inevitable confrontation with Dalca.
Arthur spoke up. “Avocat Pope, would it be possible to have your client sign such a document in anticipation of filing?”
She nodded.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We have the forms in this office,” she said. “You could sign the renunciation forms, and I would hold them in anticipation of your call to file them. You will have to carry a copy of them with your U.S. passport.”
“But you won’t file until I call?”
“That’s correct. I will do that . . . for Mr. Ardelean, of course.”
It took the better part of an hour for me to read the forms, interpret, and clarify before concluding our meeting and putting my signature on the documents. Romania was my home for the foreseeable future. My world shrank to the size of Oregon.
“Please notify Mr. Ardelean of your whereabouts at all times, and know that only the neighboring countries have complete reciprocal agreements with Romania regarding citizenship laws.”