by Rick Blechta
I felt as if I stood tottering at the edge of a bottomless abyss. All it would take was the tiniest breath of wind, the slightest touch of a finger and I would hurtle over the edge, disappearing forever into the blackness. Panic seized me, blind, unthinking panic.
Thekla responded quickly to my hysterical jabbing of the communication buzzer. By the time I fumbled the lock on the door open, I was more or less incoherent. Her face went white when she saw the blood streaked on the left side of my body from hair to mid thigh.
In answer to her anxious, “Mein Gott! You are hurt!” I could only point mutely to the bed. If anything, Thekla went whiter and held onto the door while she took a few slow, deep breaths through her mouth. “What have you done to him?” she finally gasped.
“I...I...I don’t...I don’t...”
Thekla grabbed me by the shoulders. “What happened?”
Still staring at the gory scene on the bed, all I could do was shake my head violently.
“Do you know how this has happened?” Thekla asked, enunciating each word slowly as if speaking to a mental incompetent. At that point, I guess she was.
My brain finally found my vocal chords. “I woke up and...he was there like this...his blood...” The room started to spin, and I felt darkness closing over my head. Thekla forced me onto a chair and pushed my head down between my knees until I felt steadier.
“Good,” she said when I finally sat up. “You must try to keep control. Stay here.” She went over and examined her late employer, looking closely at the handle of the knife. Then she came back, and grabbing my wrists, studied my hands. They both had blood all over the palms. She looked up at me. “You did not touch the knife after you awoke?”
“No. I felt something in bed with me and turned on the light. Baron...” I swallowed hard, trying to keep a grip on myself. “Baron Rudolph was there like that.”
“And you had to unlock the door to let me in. Oh, Fräulein, this looks bad, very bad indeed.”
“But I just woke up and found him there!” I protested. “I think he...he hurt me this evening. He—”
“I well know of what Baron Rudolph was capable. He was a Schwein, and he is now dead.” She looked again at the mess coating my body. “You should bathe. While you are doing that, I will think of what we must do.”
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. Turning the shower on full blast, I soaped and rinsed myself four times and still felt dirty. As I got out of the shower, my hands started shaking uncontrollably and my legs got all wobbly. I sat down on the toilet seat and put my head between my knees again. When I felt steadier, I sat up and called out, “Thekla!” No answer. Wrapping the towel around me, I went to the bathroom door. “Thekla!” When silence greeted me again, I felt renewed panic tighten my throat.
Just then, the hall door softly opened and closed. “Fräulein Morgan! Tory!” Thekla whispered.
I whipped open the bathroom door. “Where did you go? I nearly died of fright when I realized you weren’t here!”
Thekla had a bundle of clothes over her arm. “You must get away, and I will help you.”
“But you think I did it!”
“If you did or if you didn’t, I do not care. You do not deserve what has happened to you.” She handed me the clothes. “Now, here is what you will do...”
Later, still dazed, shaky and in pain, I left Thekla tied to a chair in my room and drove away from that accursed castle. She’d given me clothes, her passport and car keys, along with a bulging pocketful of Baron Rudolph’s money which she’d found in his desk, and of course, my violin. But I didn’t have what I’d come all the way from Vienna to get.
Not yet, at least.
“Oh, to be stranded on a desert island with the delectable Victoria Morgan. There’s enough raw sexuality in her playing to bring a eunuch to full, ah...boil. But what’s the person behind the playing like? That’s what I’d love to find out.”
—Steven Eliscu, Record Reviewer, Studly magazine
Chapter 9
ROCKY
During the wait for room service to arrive with our breakfast, I decided that it would be prudent to get the front desk to withhold my room number from inquirers and give them a very short list of people from whom I’d accept calls. It wouldn’t be foolproof, but it would help.
“I think you’ll find the omelet you ordered quite acceptable and of course the kitchen’s baked goods are up to the usual Viennese standard,” Roderick was telling me when the phone rang.
“Maybe we’re about to get some news from the errant redhead,” I said lightly as I went over to pick it up.
I guess you could say we got news of her, all right.
“Rocky!” Marty screeched on the phone. “Now what’s she gone and done?”
“Tory?” I asked stupidly.
“Of course, Tory! Who else would I be calling about?”
“Okay. I give up. What has Tory done?”
“You won’t be so goddamned flippant when you find out! Do you get CNN in that godforsaken hotel?” he shouted. Since I had the receiver away from my ear, Roderick heard the question and nodded his head.
“Yes, we do,” I relayed to Marty.
“Then turn it on, and when you’ve seen enough, call me right back. Your damned wife is all over the television!”
Roderick was already turning on the set. We sat down next to each other on the end of the bed and soaked in the horrible news.
“...as we get more information about this shocking and puzzling story. Recapping, two days ago, American violin virtuoso, Victoria Morgan, walked off a stage in Vienna and disappeared. It has now been discovered that she was driven to a remote castle in the south of Austria as a guest of Baron Rudolph von Heislinger, a member of the former Austrian nobility and well-known figure on the European social scene. Early this morning, von Heislinger’s body was discovered at his home in Miss Morgan’s bed. He had been brutally murdered. The violinist was nowhere to be found, and a car is apparently missing. Reports are still very sketchy at this point, but a Europe-wide search has commenced for the fugitive musician, since it now appears she has fled Austria, crossing the border into Italy, where it’s assumed she remains. Stay tuned for further developments as they arise.”
Roderick and I just stared at each other, totally dumfounded as they broke for a commercial.
***
As soon as word circulated about what had taken place, the hotel was besieged by the media in a full feeding frenzy. They bombarded the switchboard with calls requesting interviews. When that didn’t work, they tried stampeding the elevators, blockading the lobby and offering to bribe anyone working there to supply quotes. Here was the hottest person on the classical music scene, a media darling, talked about, written about, and now she’d been accused of murdering a wealthy Austrian playboy. And they wanted the story. So, the hotel called in the cops to keep the media scrum and paparazzi at bay outside, while I remained a captive within.
Our phone answering machine in Montreal had suffered a nervous breakdown in the meantime. I couldn’t even get through to it. If Tory were trying to get in touch with me, she’d be in the same boat. I called Marty back.
He was almost incoherent. “Rocky! I swear to God she’s trying to kill me! What did I ever do to deserve this? I think I’m losing my—”
“Marty? Shut up! Please! Would you mind if I got a word in edgewise?”
“What’s going on?” he wailed.
I tried to keep my patience. “Look, I have no more idea than you do. All I care about is that Tory’s in a pack of trouble. I can’t get through to our line in Canada. Probably reporters phoning. That means Tory can’t get through, either. She may try to call you—”
“If she does, I’ll—”
“No, you won’t,” I said firmly. “If Tory calls, you’ve got to get her to call me, or tell you where I can reach her.”
Next, I phoned home—Tory’s parents’ home in Ohio, that is. The answering machine was on, probably to screen ca
lls. “Hello, Mother Morgan! It’s me, Rocky. If you’re there, please pick up.”
I hit the jackpot; both parents of the redheaded troublemaker answered.
“Rocky? What’s that child of mine gotten herself into now?” Tory’s dad shouted into the phone.
“There’s no need to raise your voice, Siôn,” Tory’s mom followed more softly, obviously in better control. “Rocky, what in God’s name is going on?”
“I don’t know much, yet, but here’s the little I do know.” I told them what Roderick and I had found out from the security guard and the gist of Tory’s phone message from Montreal. “Have you heard anything from her?”
“Nothing,” her dad snorted. “Just a flock of bloody reporters who started calling at five bloody a.m! Now they’re out front trampling the front garden. I told the lot if they don’t stay clear of my property, I’d set the dogs on ’em.”
“Listen, I don’t think Tory will be able to leave a message at our apartment, so she may try to call you. Tell her to stay put wherever she is, and I’ll get to her. Roderick is with me and—”
“Roddy’s there?” Tory’s mom asked.
“I most certainly am, Mrs. M,” Roderick said close to my ear.
“Roddy, dear, be sure to keep Rocky out of trouble. You know what happened the last time.”
“I’ll be doing my best, Mrs. M. Bye for now, and don’t worry about a thing.”
I got control of the conversation again. “We’re trying to find out what’s going on. I’ll call back as soon as we hear anything. Okay?”
“How could Tory have gotten mixed up in a murder?” her mom asked, completely bewildered.
Dad interrupted, “I’ll bet that miserable little man she has managing her is behind this!”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I told them both. “We don’t know anything for certain yet, and it’s no good speculating. This will probably turn out to be a horrible misunderstanding.”
As I hung up the phone, I thought bitterly to myself that I’d probably told the same lie to three people so far. Whatever had gone on was definitely going to be bad. I didn’t believe for a moment that Tory was capable of killing someone, but this dead nobleman might have been invited into her bed. Tory had certainly proven herself capable of that.
By the time room service delivered some sandwiches (I never did get around to eating that omelet), we knew from watching various TV channels that a) my dear wife was definitely the prime suspect in the murder of her host, b) she’d tied up one of the household’s servants and stolen a car, and c) she’d used the car to cross into Italy. Her whereabouts were presently unknown, but presumably she was still in Italy, since she shouldn’t have been able easily to get out of that country once the alarm was raised.
Only God himself knew what else she’d done.
***
We were shocked by the sheer number of representatives of the world’s media that took up a vigil outside our hotel within an hour of the story breaking. As I occasionally peeked out the closed curtain down at the street in front of the hotel, more and more cars and broadcast vans kept arriving until both sides of the street were lined, and traffic had been brought to a virtual standstill. The police soon arrived to restore order.
In the meantime, Marty, with his I-know-everybody connections, came through with flying colours. By midafternoon, he had arranged an audience with the US ambassador (since we were still technically Americans) and was trying to reach the Canadian one (since we were landed immigrants). What we needed was the “official gen” as Roderick put it, and with Tory being a foreign national, the quickest way to get anything from the Austrians was to go through official channels, the higher the better.
Obviously taking the situation seriously, the embassy offered to send over a limo to pick us up—but that meant running the gauntlet of media, not something to be taken lightly, considering the sheer number of them. The front desk informed us when the limo arrived promptly at three.
Roderick looked at me, saying, “Right, then. Let’s get down there and make the best of this.”
The minute we showed our faces, the scrum surged forward, completely engulfing us. That’s a pretty appropriate word to describe a media swarming when you think about it. All you have to do is remove one letter...
Dozens of mics and pocket tape recorders were stuck into my face, half the wattage of the sun shone down on my head as questions bombarded me from every direction.
“Any comments about your wife being accused of murder?” “Do you think she did it, Herr Morgan?” “Have you spoken to Tory?” “Is it true you’re filing for divorce?”
It didn’t make any difference what accents they had. The questions were generally the same. They even got my name wrong, as usual. Members of the public, curious about what was going on, began to gather round as well, adding to the crush.
I looked at Roderick helplessly. “You’d better tell them something,” he said into my ear. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a reporter left to his own devices.”
It was no good trying to make a run for it, so I took a deep breath. “Ladies and gentleman,” I began, “you really can’t expect me to—”
My voice was drowned out by more shouted questions, mostly in the category of, “Do you know where Tory is?”
“At this point, I have no idea where my wife is. But I have many questions about—”
One big brute of a guy with a belligerent manner stuck his mic in farther. “But you do know where she was, don’t you?” he asked, leering. “Or else, why would you be here?”
“That’s an unfair—”
“Is she going to turn herself in?”
“Look, do you want me to actually answer something, or are you just going to continually shout questions at me?” I snapped back. The circle of reporters suddenly got quiet—way too quiet. I felt as if I were surrounded by hungry sharks who’d decided it was time to make their prey really squirm.
I took a deep breath and continued, “Um, let me say this: Mr. Whitchurch, here, and I have many questions about what has been alleged to have happened. I have no doubt that my wife will come forward in good time to clear her name. Right now, I’m not sure she can expect fairness from anyone because of the way she’s being portrayed by the police and by you in the media. This looks to be turning into a witch hunt of the worst kind.”
“But hasn’t Victoria Morgan had serious trouble with the authorities before?”
“That was all cleared up a long time—”
“Covered up, you mean,” someone shouted.
Someone else said something in loud German, causing many people to snicker. Roderick, with his knowledge of the language, looked very unhappy.
“Look!” I snarled. “Tory is a musician, not a murderer.” A lone voice from the back cut through the moment of silence following my outburst.
“Couldn’t she be both?”
***
The embassy limo whisked us to the former palace that houses the USA ’s digs on a quiet side street in the northern part of Vienna. A media convoy followed the whole way but had to keep their distance as we passed inside the gate. The press attaché, Richard Kopfensteiner, met us at the door, taking us directly into the ambassador’s office. There, on comfortable antique chairs and sofas, we met the ambassador and some mucky-muck named Johann Ertmann whom the Austrians had sent over. Judging from his unhappy demeanor, I got the feeling the US embassy had yanked hard on some strings in the Austrian government.
There was something about Ertmann that reminded me of a cop who has seen too much. His eyes looked tired and his complexion gray. He was about my height and wore an immaculate blue suit and vest which almost made dapper Roderick look shabby. His hairline had receded, and I got the feeling from the way he handled the bifocals he pulled out of his pocket that they were something new in his life.
The ambassador kicked things off in a no-nonsense manner. “Herr Ertmann, I have been informed that you will be able to bring us up to date
on your government’s investigation and answer our questions about this unfortunate incident.”
“I have been instructed to allow you to have some information that my government does not wish to become public knowledge— at least at the present time,” he corrected politely as he opened his briefcase on his lap. Like many of the people I was to meet in the next few weeks, he spoke excellent, though in this case, rather heavily-accented English. Ertmann looked at the ambassador. “Do Herr Lukesh and his friend understand what I mean?”
I bit back a sarcastic remark and answered with a simple, “Yes, we do.”
The Austrian nodded once and took out several sheets of paper from the briefcase. “This is a very delicate situation for our government, as I’m sure you understand, Madame Ambassador, but do your guests?”
“Maybe you should explain,” she answered.
Ertmann angled his body towards me. “Perhaps it is best that I start at the beginning, ja? I was called into this...situation very early. Rudolph von Heislinger was a powerful man in this country and came from an old and well-respected family. Before the Great War, which ended the rule of the Habsburgs, the von Heislingers wielded enormous power, being closely related to the Emperor’s family. When the aristocracy was abolished, Friedrich von Heislinger, the grandfather of the deceased, fared quite well, having successfully distanced himself from the government of the day and also having considerable popularity in his home state of Kärnten, that is Carpathia in your language. The family is still wealthy—and popular.”
“What you are telling us,” Roderick said, “is that the public response to this family is somewhat like that accorded to Sissi.”
“Sissi?” I asked.
“Elisabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz-Joseph,” Ertmann explained. “She was assassinated in Switzerland in the 1890s. Her sarcophagus in the Habsburg crypt is covered in fresh flowers every day by those who still revere her memory.”