Cemetery of the Nameless

by Rick Blechta

  Pulling up a chair, I sat down next to her, took her left hand in both of mine, but said nothing. Seidelmann stepped back towards the doorway to give us some privacy.

  Eventually she said, her speech slurred and very hoarse, “Please, try not to hate me, Rocky.”

  I was pretty close to losing it, and rather than upset her further, I simply squeezed Tory’s hand. She twined her fingers into mine.

  “I just couldn’t face any more. Life really isn’t worth living, and it seemed like the best way to stop everybody’s suffering.”

  “Hush, love. There’s no need to say a thing. What you’ve had to endure is beyond my comprehension and—”

  Tory turned her head. Her eyes had a glazed and unfocused quality, but her thoughts were coherent enough. “Rocky, there’s no need to be kind! I deserve what’s happened to me. It’s a just punishment for what I’ve done. Two people are dead, and the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard is missing. That’s all my fault! I know you’ll never see it that way, but that’s the way it is for me.” She smiled wanly. “Problem is, I can’t even snuff myself without screwing up. I’m so sorry... for everything.”

  I had to snap her out of this sort of thinking, because knowing her the way I did, I felt certain she’d try this again when she got the chance, and she would keep on trying until she succeeded.

  “Tory, I want you to listen to me—really carefully. You may have stabbed von Heislinger, but he deserved it. He ruined far more lives than you can imagine.”

  Seidelmann took a sharp breath as if he was going to interrupt.

  “So if you killed the baron, that’s one thing, but you didn’t kill Thekla, regardless of what the cops say. Don’t forget, she was trying to sell me a video that she said would prove that you were not responsible for von Heislinger’s death—and that’s probably why she was killed. I think now that I may know what that is. There is another person involved in this mess, and he knows exactly what happened in both murders. Do you understand what I’m saying? You are not responsible for Thekla’s death.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Tory replied sadly. “If only I’d gotten to Thekla’s a few minutes earlier, I might have been in time to save her.”

  “You might have been in time to get murdered, too!”

  “It was so sad the way she lay there looking at me, knowing that she only had moments.”

  I just about fell off my chair. “What! I thought you found Thekla dead in that apartment!”

  “Who said she was dead?”

  “You mean she wasn’t dead?”

  “No, she was alive—just barely. I thought she had passed on until she tried to say something.”

  “Do you remember what it was?”

  “She was too far gone. It was all gibberish.”

  “Think, Tory! What did she say?”

  Tory looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Something about her fiancé. Thekla said something about her fiancé being a sissy. Then she muttered some other words I couldn’t catch at all, and the last thing she said was the word ‘broom’.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “She was gone.” Tory turned her head away again, then said finally, “I wish I were, too.”

  After that she wouldn’t talk any more. Seidelmann finally tapped me on the shoulder, motioning with his head towards the door.

  Before leaving, I leaned over and kissed Tory’s cheek, whispering in her ear, “I love you, and I need you. Please don’t forget that. We’re going to beat this thing. Just keep hanging in there for me!”

  After exiting the room, we went partway down the hall, where the two cops couldn’t overhear us. One of them pulled out a cell phone, and I had little doubt who he was calling.

  “I get the feeling this really hasn’t surprised you,” I said.

  Seidelmann shrugged.“It was not unexpected, although I thought sufficient precautions had been taken. She has thought this out and believes that what she did is for the best. It is a common enough response.”

  “You can keep her safe now, though.” It was more a question than a statement.

  “Certainly—for the moment. In the longer term, I do not hold out the same hope. Once she is out of our care, I fear it may only be a matter of time. Prisons are not set up for constant monitoring.”

  “For God’s sake! She tried to kill herself! Surely, they won’t send her to prison.”

  “I have already had contact with the person in charge of her case. It is his opinion that this is all manipulation so she will keep herself from going to prison. Who do you think will be believed?”

  ***

  My life shifted into hyperdrive. Seidelmann took me back to his office where he’d taken Tory’s violin (sans strings) for safekeeping. I hit the phones.

  Elen had already been up almost as long as I had. Seems the troubles with her husband had reached a boil when he’d seen her on TV the night before, and he’d given her until the end of the week to decide what she wanted to do. Her problems went right out the window when I told her the latest.

  “My God! I can’t believe it!”

  “Believe it. She’s in a very bad way.”

  “What can I do to help? Just name it.”

  “Meet me at Schultz’s office at ten. If he has a previous appointment, I’m throwing that person out on his ear!”

  Roderick had the same reaction as Elen. I asked Seidelmann to accompany me to Schultz’s.

  Schultz’s secretary told me that he’d been called down to the court for an urgent meeting about Tory. I was hoping that they were ready to put everything on hold.

  I phoned Ertmann’s home, and his good Frau promised she would find him for me. He called back within five minutes. It didn’t take me long to tell him about what Tory had said about Thekla’s death.

  “One person who has barely been interviewed about this matter is the Grosstante of Fräulein Grillzer,” he said. “You asked about her once. It seems to me now that it would be good to talk with her. I should warn you, though, that she does not speak English and she has a great mistrust of the police.” He told me where I could find her and how best to approach the crusty old bird. “Please keep me informed as to what is going on. Perhaps it is best to leave messages at my home. Good luck, my friend.”

  “I need plenty of that,” I answered sourly.

  “I am aware of it. ’Wiedersehen!”

  It was becoming obvious that the thing we needed more than anything right now was time.

  We didn’t get it.

  Growling like a junk yard dog, the portly lawyer arrived back at his office around ten-thirty. That had given me time to speak to everyone else and outline the situation. Elen and Roderick looked as stunned as I felt. That Tory had almost succeeding in strangling herself using her violin strings was beyond anyone’s comprehension. I just hoped that we could keep it out of the media. I didn’t want to think what that news would do to her folks.

  “Müller!” Schultz said, flopping down at his desk. He followed this one word with a long string of German—definitely obscenities. “My friends, I am disgusted. They will be moving Fräulein Morgan back to the Straflandesgericht Wien, the prison, within two days at the latest, possibly as soon as this evening. They feel that her attempt on her life last night was simply an attempt to stall the trial!”

  The gun to our heads had unexpectedly been cocked.

  It took me only a few minutes to tell Schultz the events of the previous day, as well as what Tory had said to me about Thekla’s death.

  The fat lawyer rubbed his hands together. “Schultz is never better than when they have his back against the wall! We suddenly have much to work with. I now agree that if we find the murderer of this Thekla, we stand the best chance of helping Fräulein Morgan. If nothing else, that is one less murder for which she would be responsible. Also, it will throw a much different light on the case of the prosecution. Along with the information you have been gathering about how Baron von Heislinger manipulated his victims,
we are building a stronger case for justifiable homicide.”

  “Consider though that part of Fräulein Morgan’s growing psychological difficulties stem from this manuscript being missing,” Seidelmann added. “For right or for wrong, she has taken responsibility for it. We may not be able to concentrate on discovering the location of this music, but I feel it would be for the best to make as much of an attempt as is possible—under the circumstances. It would possibly make for an improvement in her most profound depression.”

  I said, “Ertmann has suggested that I speak with Thekla Grillzer’s great aunt. It’s her apartment where Thekla was murdered, and she may well know who this fiancé is whom the poor girl was babbling about. He may have copies of the manuscript and videos. We obviously need to find out what Thekla was doing from the time she arrived in Vienna until she was murdered.”

  “These are very good suggestions,” Schultz said, even though he looked sour at the mention of my consulting Ertmann again. “I will immediately dispatch one of my best investigators to interview this woman.”

  “No. Ertmann says that she has a great dislike of ‘the authorities’. We might get more out of her if Roderick and I went.”

  The pianist smiled. “By all means, old man. I’m at your disposal.”

  Elen, being the experienced researcher of the group, was going to handle going over all the material that Ertmann had given me on von Heislinger’s victims and write the details up in a useable format. Schultz would organize his people to follow Montenegro, Terradella and Schatzader. Seidelmann had enough on his plate trying to rally Tory’s spirits—now that I’d officially named him her physician.

  ***

  The visit to Thekla’s Grosstante was like stepping back in time to the old empire. To her, it was still very much alive.

  When Roderick phoned to set up an appointment, it became clear very quickly that she was far more upset with Tory’s involvement in von Heislinger’s death than in the fact that her own flesh and blood had died in the ensuing mess. Roderick, forced to improvise, since she would not have agreed to meet with anyone related to “that monster”, improvised brilliantly on what Ertmann had told us about her, and said he was writing an article for Modern Royalty magazine on the way the aristocratic families of Europe have been mistreated by our present governments and misrepresented by the world media’s biased coverage. Since she was (peripherally) involved in the events surrounding the murder of the scion of one of Austria’s leading aristocratic families, he hoped she would be able to shed some light on what had happened. I got elected to pose as the trusty photographer and Schultz loaned me an impressive camera. With any luck, she wouldn’t recognize either of us from the media coverage.

  When Roderick and I got to the apartment where the old woman was staying with a friend while her own apartment remained sealed by the police, she complained bitterly about the temporary loss of her normal quarters.

  Hilda Braubach, in her late sixties, reminded me outwardly of my own grandmother. Dressed in black, she clutched a small silver crucifix in her hands throughout our conversation. The interview was conducted in very rapid German, and Roderick handled it like a pro. However, it was frustrating for me to sit and wonder how it was all going.

  “Thekla was a good girl, a good girl,” she had insisted at the beginning of the conversation, after which she proceeded to tear her grandniece’s character apart.

  Thekla had arrived unannounced on the Braubach doorstep two days after von Heislinger’s murder. She’d told an unbelievable story about how she had been entrusted with something so important that to tell anyone about it could mean her death. The old woman had roundly chewed her out for leaving such a prestigious job.

  “Do you think that I would have kept it long with the baron dead?” Thekla had answered. “I was only there because he liked to pinch my bottom!”

  Frau Braubach had reluctantly allowed Thekla to stay as long as she was willing to work. I guess Thekla had little choice but to agree.

  “All my working life I have had the privilege of being on the staff at the great Schönbrunn Palace. It was no problem for me to secure a place for that ungrateful girl.”

  “What do you do there?” Roderick asked politely.

  “I am one of the women who cleans the imperial rooms. If Kaiser Franz Josef himself were to return, we cleaners would be proud of what he would see. It is not an easy task!”

  “I should say not!” Roderick agreed. “And did you get your grand-niece a position helping with the cleaning?”

  “I did, but that wretched girl hardly did a lick of work! I caught her making idle chatter and flirting with the guards. Then, when my back was turned, she took off with one, and I did not see her for over an hour.”

  “I understand that she was engaged to be married.”

  “Where did you hear that foolish thing? The poor girl was most plain, and her manner would put off any decent sort of suitor!”

  “That evening when we returned to my apartment, I told Thekla what I thought of her coarse behaviour. She laughed, then announced that she had to go out and might not be coming back that night, but that she would see me at work in the morning. The guard she had gone off with has rooms on the Pacassistock, and it is my guess that she went with him. He is infamous for his licentious manner. The youth these days have no shame!”

  “What is the Pacassistock?” Roderick asked.

  “That is the floor which was added after the first construction of the Schönbrunn. The architect Pacassi was a particular favourite of the Empress Maria-Theresa. It was he who added the Pacassistock in between the second and top floors. They are now apartments and offices.”

  “You mean people still live in the palace?”

  “But of course! The apartments are held mostly by people with a connection to the government. Old habits die hard, you see.” She continued with her story. “The next morning, Thekla indeed showed up but immediately told me that she had an interview for a new job and left. I did not see her the rest of that day, but she came back to my apartment in the evening, entreating me to take her back in. She shed many tears about all her troubles, and my heart is soft, I guess; I said that she could stay. That very evening Thekla gave me tickets to the Volkstheater and money for something sweet afterwards. She said it was a thank you for all my help. I know now why she was so generous. You can imagine what I found when I returned home!”

  “Indeed, we can, Frau Braubach,” Roderick told her sympathetically. “So horrible for you.”

  “It was. And now I cannot even live in my own apartment!”

  “Since your grandniece worked for the baron for more than two years, she must have told you many things about him. There are rumours probably started by the socialist media that he was not a good man.”

  “I would know nothing of these things! Austria needs more leaders like Baron Rudolph! He took care of his people. He was a model of what used to be good and noble about our great country.”

  “Thekla told you nothing at all? Never mentioned something she took away with her from Schloss Heislinger?”

  “She mentioned nothing to me except her ‘great secret’. It could not have been much, since she arrived with only a small backpack as well as her suitcase.” The old woman shook her head as old women will. “I always knew that girl would come to a bad end. It is all the fault of her father. I told my niece she was a fool to marry the man, but she would not listen.” Frau Braubach got slowly to her feet.

  “You will have to excuse me for a moment.”

  As soon as she left the room, Roderick gave me a sketchy rundown of what had been said.

  I said, “We need the name of that guard.”

  “That’s a bit of a sticky wicket. We’re already pushing our luck. We’re supposed to be here researching the royalty angle, after all. If she gets the wind up, she’ll toss us for sure.”

  “Just see what you can do!”

  Frau Braubach shuffled back into the room. “Forgive an old woman her
vanity, but I took the liberty of putting on some lipstick so that your colleague may take his photos. It is almost time for my nap. I have been very exhausted since this...problem began.”

  “Oh, yes, certainly,” Roderick replied and told me to get busy.

  While I did that, he asked her, “I am intrigued about what it would be like to be a guard in a grand palace like the Schönbrunn with its many treasures. You mentioned a guard a little earlier who also lives in the palace. He might make an interesting sidebar to my article. Do you think you could supply me with his name?”

  She frowned. “The man is a fool!”

  “We don’t have to use what he tells us,” Roderick told her with a shrug, “but he might have some interesting insights like you do, though.”

  “Ask for Heinz Hauser, then, but you will be wasting your time!”

  With the best professional manner I could manage (having been around a ton of Tory’s photo shoots), I faked about a roll’s worth of shots (the camera was empty) while Roderick and the old woman talked about Vienna in the glory days of the Habsburgs.

  “One day a month,” she told Roderick proudly, “I take flowers to put on the coffin of Kaiserin Elisabeth. There are many of us who still honour the past.”

  As I took the last shot, Roderick nodded to her and said, “I would like to thank you, Frau Braubach, for letting us bother you with our questions.”

  “I have never had to talk about anything more than I have had to talk about the death of that silly girl! First the authorities, then the reporters, then that very rude foreigner.”

  “Rude foreigner? I have heard that one of my competitors is researching the same topic. Do you remember his name?”

  “I am an old woman, and I do not remember everything. He had a name like some country. There was an Italian with him, as well. Very rude, both of them, but that is to be expected with foreigners!”

  “Was his name Montenegro?”

  “Yes, that is it. I did not like him. He told me that he is making some sort of movie.”

  “Was there anyone else? Mine is a very cutthroat occupation.”