When the body was turned over to the coroner, the patrol officer, who knew her son, had already put a tentative identification tag on her which included the son’s telephone number. The coroner called the son. Jana and Seges were waiting for him when he entered the coroner’s waiting room.
After briefly introducing everyone, the coroner led them all to the autopsy area. Apologetically, he explained that they would ordinarily have put her into one of the body storage drawers, but she was so bloated that she might jam the drawer’s mechanism. Instead, his assistants had merely laid her out on a table, after stripping away her clothes and covering her with a rubberized sheet.
The coroner asked the son if he was ready. The son, a maintenance man who worked for the city government, finally understood what the coroner was asking and nodded. When the sheet was removed from her face, the man merely nodded again without changing expression. After the rubberized sheet was replaced over the face of the woman, the son gave the coroner the needed preliminary information: full name, address, Ukrainian nationality. She had married his father in Bratislava a year after he was born.
The man shifted from one foot to the other, momentarily stumped about his mother’s age, finally figuring out that she would have been 63 next month. He supplied the coroner with his mother’s maiden name. As Jana and Seges walked the man back into the hall, the coroner called after them, telling the son when the remains of his mother would be available for any funeral services that might be planned.
The man continued to talk in a monotone to the two police officers. “Yes, she traveled to Ukraine, to Kiev, several times a year.” There was no emotion in his voice, no sorrow, no love for the woman in the morgue. He was already beaten by life to the degree that nothing really mattered except survival. “No, I don’t know the friends she visited there. My mother and I did not talk much any more. She owned an apartment that she rented out and lived on the proceeds.”
He looked back at the door of the room where his mother’s body was lying, a sudden look of comprehension, then release, upon his face. She was dead. He was free; a burden had been lifted from him. “She had a terrible temper. Always hitting, screaming. I tried to stay away.” And, no, he had no idea who the tenants were who were renting his mother’s apartment.
They let him go, promising to get in touch with him if they heard anything about who had killed her. Just before he walked out, he asked them when he could claim his mother’s apartment. His face changed with the pleasant light of awareness, the promise of deliverance, of compensation for his years of tolerating the woman on the slab. “It’s mine now. The furniture, her bank account, everything. Right?” They told him to get a lawyer and walked back into the examining room.
The coroner had removed the sheet from the body, quickly going over the salient points. “One hand gone. Torn off. She was weighted at the wrists, the body’s bloating created a strong pull, the wire cut into her wrist, chemicals in the river didn’t help, and the hand was severed from the wrist.”
“The wrist was not cut off?” Seges wanted to be sure.
“It was torn off. Jagged. No knife, no saw, no question.” He turned the head to one side, pointing to a hole behind the ear. “A small bullet in the back of the head. She was almost certainly dead before she was tossed into the Danube. I will know absolutely when I examine the lungs, but it’s a reasonable assumption, I think.” He pulled the sheet back over the head.
“The man who was brought in from the car wreck. Have you finished that autopsy?” The doctor walked to a body drawer, Jana following him, Seges a step behind her. “I want fingerprints.”
“No fingerprints. Burned off in the car fire.”
“In the car fire, or before?”
“Can’t tell. Many broken bones, chest caved in. His face went through the window. Also fire-damaged.”
He pulled the sheet away where the man’s face would have been. There was not much left. “The women are in a little better shape.” He scratched at his bald head. “What’s to know about the bodies? Nothing that couldn’t be caused by the accident. I will send you fingerprints of the females after the technician takes them. Also a complete set of photos of the bodies.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Jana nodded. “Very professional.”
“We are all professionals here. Even the dead are professionals at being dead.” He chuckled at his little joke. Jana wondered how often he told it. “None of them have ever tried to pretend to be anything other than what they are: carcasses.”
Chapter 9
Trokan didn’t like it. And after he told the minister what the investigation seemed to be suggesting, the minister liked it even less. They now had one definite murder of the woman pulled from the Danube, and seven possible murders from the car holocaust, all requiring investigation, and all on their plates. Knowing the Slovak penchant for blaming everything on corrupt officials bribed to cover things up, and with the EU and the UN looking over their shoulders, they had no alternative but to listen with open minds to Jana’s request.
Identification had been made of the remaining dead prostitutes. Aside from the Slovak, there were four from Ukraine, and one from Moldova with a last known address in Ukraine. From what they knew of the driver, he was either from Ukraine or Albania; the woman who had been shot behind the ear and tossed into the Danube was originally from Ukraine. Too many coincidences, Jana argued with the minister and Trokan. She had to go to Ukraine.
The minister was very definite in his response. “Too expensive. We have mutual legal assistance treaties with them. Use the telephone. Use the fax. Use e-mail. Have their officers investigate.” Jana sat without moving, looking at him. “So?” he finally asked.
“The militia in Ukraine is up to their balls in criminality themselves. The ones who are not corrupt are notoriously slow in doing anything about their own cases, much less another country’s.” Unblinking, she continued to stare at the minister. “Only through personal, face-to-face contacts, which I have established over the years—”
“Nonsense!” the minister got out.
“—which I have established over the years, will we get quick, relevant information.” She not so subtly added, “Strasbourg is going to want to know a little more than that we have positively identified six dead bodies. One of their secretaries could have done that with a few well-placed phone calls.”
The minister slumped in his seat, caving in. He couldn’t afford to take another beating in the press, considering the current shaky state of the coalition government.
The minister authorized the expenditures, and blamed Trokan, in front of Jana, for not being able to control his subordinates. When they finally left the office, Trokan was so angry with the minister that he was grinding his teeth. Trokan’s mood became even worse when Jana indicated that she had brought her bag to the office in anticipation of being given permission to go to Ukraine. She was leaving at once to catch her plane.
“Leave! Leave!” he growled at her. “But you better come back with something.” He thought about it. “Anything!”
The building had a rotating elevator with open cubicle platforms that never stopped descending, one cubicle quickly dropping after the other. Trokan jumped on one of the moving platforms, yelling that he was going to have to leap from the top of Michalska Tower if she returned from Ukraine without something solid. He then kicked at one of the walls. Her last sight of him was his descending head mouthing something that could only be a promise of more violence, this time directed at her.
She was not troubled. Trokan recognized the necessity for her to go to Ukraine. He would eventually forgive her for the minister’s behavior.
To get to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, you must fly either Aeroflot or one of its affiliated airlines. Singly or combined, they have one of the worst safety records of any airline, and they appear not to encourage their passengers to think that they are trying to improve that record.
Jana tried to take her mind off the flight by going over the fact
s of the case. Unfortunately, she was constantly distracted by a low level of panic generated by the rough air pockets the plane went through, and by the way the flight attendants constantly took smoking breaks with the passengers on a non-smoking flight. Someone had a cat, which kept yowling from fright in its carrying case. As well, Jana’s seat belt was missing, the windows were scratched to opaqueness, the upholstery was torn, and, finally, there was the dive-bomber approach by the pilots to the Kiev airport as the striking climax to a very interesting flight. The only thing she had to be happy about was that Mikhail Gruschov met her when she walked down the steps to the concrete passenger disembarkation area.
“Janka,” he thundered from his 190-centimeter height, his militia uniform adding to his authority and bulk. Everyone exiting the plane gave him a wide berth. Mikhail’s generally grim police face was for once modified by a huge grin. “I love you, Janka.”
Mikhail was the only person she knew who still used her nickname. He grabbed her in a bear hug, almost smothering her against his chest. “Janka, I am so glad we could see each other again.”
Jana took a deep breath when he finally let her come up for air. “Me too, Mikhail.” He looked like he was going to hug her again, so she thrust the box of candy she had brought from Bratislava into his hands. “For Adriana. Milk chocolate with nuts.”
“She will love them,” he bellowed. It was the one characteristic of Mikhail that Jana always had problems with: He refused to speak below a roar.
Mikhail swept Jana through customs ahead of everyone else and without an examination, then to a car waiting for them at the front entrance to the terminal. “We rented the apartment downstairs for your stay. The woman, reliable, I’ve known her for years, has a nice place. Clean. A big bed. Better to sleep there than on our couch.”
“A hotel room would have done.”
“Not in Kiev!” His roar was only slightly muted in the car. “Better to rent an apartment than fight the bedbugs, thieves, and smell of alcohol and disinfectant in those places. You would need a gas mask to survive.”
“I am a born survivor,” she advised him.
“So am I,” he allowed. “Except it is always better to survive in the most pleasant circumstances one can obtain.” He switched gears, becoming more professional. “You know, the stuff you are asking for is not going to be easy to come by. It’s not my department. I supervise traffic cops. Everybody here guards their own farm. If you control information, you control your job. So they hold it close to their chests. However, there is a guy I know who owes me small favors. His wife got drunk and drove her car into a storefront. I helped him quash any problems.”
“You are becoming corrupt, Mikhail.”
“A little corruption in the right places never hurts. It allows me to do my job. I help him; he helps me. One hand washes the other. How does it hurt to aid a comrade’s wife? Besides, he divorced her.”
“For a younger woman?”
“Young but ugly. She’s already drinking.” His laughter was an even louder roar, the sound’s impact causing the driver of the car to swerve. “Watch your driving!” he yelled at his chauffeur. “You could get us all killed.”
Jana looked at Mikhail with disapproval. Mikhail’s face adopted a faked, comically sheepish look. “The driver, he needs to keep his eyes on the road. What if someone threw a bomb at the car? Would he flinch from the noise?”
“Not after having to listen to you, Mikhail.”
“That’s good to hear. Now we can continue on with confidence.” He took her hand in his huge paw, the two of them old pals, sitting in comfortable silence the rest of the way to police headquarters.
Chapter 10
The nightclub was drab, to say the least. Grimy was probably a better description. Nothing indicated that it was a place where a fun time was going to be enjoyed by all. The putative decorators had hung multicolored streamers from the ceiling in a feeble attempt to disguise reality. Unfortunately, the ambient light made the streamers look like a demented spider’s web, with a huge tarantula waiting in a corner to scuttle across the strands and drop on an unsuspecting customer to devour him.
There were the usual complement of B-girls sitting at a small bar, half asleep because there were no available single men for them to fasten onto. The few customers in the place appeared bored, dressed in clothes that looked like they were from a vintage thrift shop that sold third-hand apparel. None of the customers were listening to the performers, too busy with each other or with drinking to care.
Jana watched the performers pretending to be the life of a party that only existed in their own minds. A man who was too old for the job sang a duet with a young blonde who had her eyes lined with kohl and her lips darkly painted to make them look ripe and sexy. The four-piece group backing the duet wore huge T-Shirts on which “Vadym’s Place” was painted in fluorescent Cyrillic.
It was Vadym they were waiting for.
“He is a clod,” Mikhail’s wife hissed. “An hour eating this terrible food, drinking this awful wine.” Adriana, normally very cheerful, had been happy when Mikhail suggested she accompany them to the club, but the place had an aura that made her uneasy and anxious. Vadym’s lateness was not helping. So she complained. “If he does not come in the next ten minutes, I want to go home.”
Mikhail rolled his eyes, shifting his bulk, trying to get comfortable in the cramped booth. “He will be here. He’s always late. He’s that kind of person.”
“Late!” She spit it out. “That means he’s a bad police officer.”
“My sweet, there are good police officers who are always late.” The look on her face indicated that Mikhail’s attempt to appease her had failed. He kept trying. “He is very proud of this place.”
“What kind of police officer owns a nightclub? There are whores at the bar. They must work for him.”
“Prostitution is not illegal in this wonderful country of ours. They are independent. They pay a small rental fee for the chairs. It’s good for business.”
Adriana took out her compact and began to fix her makeup, turning to Jana. “Do you remember when you two met in that school in Budapest? How we all had fun at night? Those places we went to, they were cheerful. Not like this filthy cave.” She turned back to Mikhail. “I promise you, Mikhail, I will leave here if he does not come in five minutes.”
“Vadym will come.”
“The International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest. Good people; a good learning experience.” Jana smiled at Adriana. “And, yes, good fun. Young police officers can still have fun.”
“Budapest was a wonderful city.” Mikhail smiled, remembering. “A good place for a friendship to start.”
“I was jealous,” Adriana sniffed. Her eyes roved over to Mikhail, who looked embarrassed.
Jana shrugged. “We have always just been friends, Adriana.”
“Just friends,” echoed Mikhail.
“Good.” Adriana, satisfied, slipped her hand into one of Mikhail’s big paws. “I knew it. I just wanted to hear it.” She went back to her least favorite person of the moment. “You were in the police academy in Kiev with Vadym. You told me the instructors did not like him, Mikhail.”
“What do instructors know about who will really make a good police officer? They guess.”
“They liked you.”
Mikhail looked embarrassed again. “Vadym was always a little pompous. He would try to correct the instructors to show them how much he knew. They didn’t care for that.”
“And they didn’t like his showing up late,” Adriana added.
“That too,” Mikhail agreed.
The orchestra took its break. “Thanks to God, they are finally stopping,” Adriana muttered under her breath so she would not wound any of the performers by her criticism. Then she turned back to Mikhail, pointedly giving him his etiquette lesson for the evening. “When he arrives, if he comes at all, you will have to tell Vadym the performers were wonderful. We are not hypocrites, it’s a lie in a g
ood cause. I don’t want any of them to lose their job because of an irritated woman’s complaint.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Mikhail agreed.
A small man, erect, looking a little like a pouter pigeon, came through the double set of winter drapes at the door, looking the place over as if he were the emperor of all he surveyed. A waiter rushed over to him, grabbing the man’s briefcase when it was tossed to him, barely managing, as the pouter pigeon shrugged off his coat, to snatch the heavy leather garment before it hit the floor.
The man walked straight to their table.
Vadym looked even more overstuffed up close. In love with himself, yes. Pompous, filled with self-importance, a preposterous little porker, yes. But, aside from the vanity he projected, his eyes showed a sly intelligence as well as impatience to get to the point. Odd, thought Jana, for a man who was perpetually late.
“I am Vadym,” he announced, then nodded at Adriana, as if regretting the energy spent on having to acknowledge her, then, with more cordiality, at Mikhail, managing to get Mikhail’s name out in greeting. He stared at Jana, patronizing and attentive at the same time. “You are the police officer from Slovakia? I am Vadym Grisko. You may call me Vadym.”
Jana stared back at him for a moment. Italian tie, expensive shoes. Too costly for a police officer who did not have an outside income. Probably graft. This nightclub itself, a part of it. She hoped he had not sold out their case already. “You may call me Jana, or Matinova, or Commander. Whatever you feel comfortable with.”
Grisko caught the irony in her voice. He stared for a second too long, wondering whether to take offense. Finally he sat, laying his briefcase on the table. Without preamble, he pulled out a number of photographs and a stack of reports that had been stapled together under a cardboard cover that bore the name “Makine, Ivan.” In capital letters, at the center of the page, was the name “KOBA.”
Siren of the Waters: A Jana Matinova Investigation Page 5