Eye Wit

by Hazel Dawkins

  Amy looked over at Zoran. “We’re done here, Zoran. Anything else we need to check?”

  Zoran held his hand up to Amy in a wait-a-minute gesture, then glanced through the open door to the office. He saw Jessica and Iona looking at him curiously.

  Everyone in the study heard Iona say, clear as a bell, “I’ve got to get out of here, Jessica. I’m going to Starbucks for coffee and a muffin. Can I bring anything back for you?”

  “Not for me, thanks. Go ahead, I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Iona left the office. Jessica returned to studying the open file on her desk, deliberately not looking at the cops next door in Marco’s study.

  Zoran smiled at Yoko and the two forensics specialists. He spoke in a stage whisper, knowing Jessica would overhear. “I need to check one more thing on the roof. Why don’t you head back to the precinct and let me know whose fingerprints are on the case. I believe I know whose fingerprints they are––Marco Fellini’s killer’s––but I need to be sure.”

  The phone in the office rang and they watched Jessica pick up the receiver and answer, turning away as she did so. They could not overhear what Jessica was saying.

  Zoran turned and walked back out to the hallway and staircase, pausing outside the door to confer with his colleagues. “Follow me,” he said, his voice low. “Make no noise at all. We are going to set a trap.” Then he climbed the stairs to the roof. Yoko, Kohichi and Amy followed.

  When they were on the roof, Zoran explained. “Jessica Ware will come up here shortly, if I’m not mistaken. She knows I know that she killed Marco Fellini, and she will try to eliminate me before it’s too late for her.”

  Jessica had answered the phone in the office quickly when she recognized the distinctive ring of an in-house call. She turned her back to the police in the study before speaking softly into the phone. “I was just going to call you. They know. We need to meet. Now. The Arts Club, by the Ishi exhibit.”

  Jessica hung up and looked towards the study. The room was empty. Where had they gone? She’d heard the lead detective say he was going up on the roof, but what about the others? She grabbed her purse and walked into Marco’s study. It was indeed empty. She walked into the hall. No one there either. She stood still and listened, and thought she could hear muffled conversation trickling down the stairway that led to the roof. Then heard the roof door snick closed.

  Ah, they were back on the roof. Perfect. Jessica hurried to the stairway to the main floor and trotted down the stairs. Sophia was already heading out the door. They joined up on the landing outside the front door and forced themselves to walk calmly down the steps to the sidewalk then west, gradually quickening their pace.

  Yoko said, “You know it’s Jessica, Zoran? Are you certain? How can you be sure?”

  “No time to explain,” Zoran said. “I can do that later, after she is in custody. Right now, you need to hide.” He looked around. “Yoko, get behind the stairway structure here, where Jessica will not be able see you when she opens the door. Amy and Kohichi, go over there, behind the parapet.” Zoran stepped close to the two CSI types and Yoko couldn’t hear what he said until he raised his voice again. “Squat down and listen. When you see Jessica do something or if you hear me call her name, get back here quickly, with your guns drawn. You too, Yoko.”

  Yoko said, “Where will you be, Zoran?”

  Zoran moved over to the entrance to the archery run. “I will be right here, where Jessica Ware will see me immediately.

  “Go,” he said. “Remember to get to me quickly. I will be completely exposed and she is an excellent shot with the bow. As we have learned, those arrows are exceedingly sharp, deadly weapons.” He shuddered, and rubbed his palms on his thighs, then crossed his arms over his chest, his hands tucked into his armpits.

  Yoko was amazed. This was a new side to Zoran, one she’d not seen before. He was at once direct and issuing commands rapidly yet his body language displayed uncharacteristic nervousness. Ah, she realized what it was: Zoran didn’t normally have to use himself as bait.

  “We’ve got your back, Zoran,” she said. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “You bet, buddy,” echoed Kohichi, holding up his Glock. “Remember, I’m the best shooter on the force.”

  That was true, Yoko knew that Kohichi always wowed the precinct with his prowess on the shooting range. A month ago he’d won the NYPD city-wide trophy for marksmanship for the second consecutive year. Now me, I’m not too bad a shot but I don’t want to kill anyone. As for Amy, she’s definitely not in Kohichi’s league, not even second tier. Yoko pulled her shoulder bag snug to her body, checking to make sure that the top zipper was open so she had fast access to the small handgun in the bag. At that moment, she wished she wore a shoulder holster like Dan’s, which was under his left arm for easy access to his Glock. But she’d never worn a shoulder holster. As for Zoran, he was reluctant to carry, although he had to, as a detective and sworn member of the police force. Of all of NYPD’s detectives, Zoran was the most averse to guns.

  “You’re pulling my leg,” Yoko had said when Dan explained how Zoran carried his gun.

  “Honest, I’m deadly serious, that’s how he carries.”

  “Really? In a zip-lock bag in his jacket pocket?”

  “Scout’s honor. Zoran is so damn smart, the brass are willing to cut him some slack but not about carrying a gun. An unarmed detective would set a terrible precedent. So Zoran offered a compromise and by god, he’s carrying and both sides are okay with it, if not particularly happy.”

  Yoko shook her head at the memory. Still, she thought, if there isn’t time for Zoran to unzip the baggie or me to grab my gun out of my purse, we can sure yell our heads off and distract Jessica long enough to disarm her. Or Kohichi can shoot her dead in her tracks.

  She watched in surprise as Amy and Kohichi trotted over to the parapet at the edge of the brownstone’s roof, then stepped up on the 18-inch tall parapet and jumped onto the roof of the next-door building. It was about a foot lower than the roof of the Fellini brownstone’s roof and like many in the area, flat. So that’s what Zoran had been explaining. The forensics team squatted down out of sight to wait. Their location was at a right angle to Zoran, who stood in the entrance to the archery run. They would have a clear view of Zoran as well as the doorway of the stairway structure. The shooting distance, if it came to that, would be about ten yards, an easy shot for Kohichi. Yoko would be closer still when she emerged from behind the stairway structure. She’d be directly behind Jessica, only five yards away. Okay, she thought. This will work.

  They waited. And they waited. Yoko sneaked a peek at Zoran. He stood stone still in the entrance to the archery run. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Zoran motionless for so long. Must go against everything in his nature. She waggled her hand at him, gave him a thumbs-up sign.

  Zoran gave a little wave back, and took a deep breath. “She should have been here by now,” he whispered. “I was certain she would be here by now.”

  Yoko’s cell phone buzzed in her right pants pocket. She fumbled for it, trying to get it open and stop the ringing. Now was not the time for Jessica to be alerted to the fact that anyone other than Zoran was on the roof. The telephone message she received was brief. She snapped her phone shut quickly.

  “That was Vinnie, at the precinct.” She didn’t bother to lower her voice. “A patrolman on the street radioed in. He’d been keeping an eye on this building and just now he saw Jessica Ware and Sophia Fellini on the street outside the house, halfway to the Arts Club, almost at a run. He said it looked like Jessica was dragging Sophia along, trying to get her to speed up.”

  Zoran’s shoulders slumped. “I miscalculated. I ought to have seen this. It could just as easily have been Sophia Fellini as Jessica Ware. I have made a terrible mistake. Now why would the two of them go to the National Arts Club?”

  His hand went to his forehead. His eyes closed, then snapped wide open. “Of course. The Ishi
exhibit.”

  “Let’s go, guys,” Yoko said, opening the door to the stairway.

  Zoran joined her, and Yoko motioned to Kohichi and Amy to get a move on. “Come on guys. We’ve got to get to the Arts Club.”

  “We’re stuck!” Amy said. “This bloody tar!” She and Kohichi finally pulled one foot, then the other from the sticky surface of the adjoining roof.

  “Go ahead to the arts place, we’ll catch up with you,” Kohichi said.

  Zoran said, “It is the National Arts Club, at Gramercy Park. Why can no one remember that?”

  Yoko speed-dialed Dan’s phone as she and Zoran ran quickly down the stairs through the now-empty Fellini brownstone.

  “Dan! Where are you?” Yoko had reached the landing outside the Fellini brownstone. She looked down the street in the direction of the National Arts Club. Sophia and Jessica were nowhere to be seen.

  “About halfway back from the one-three. Why? What’s up?”

  “Get to the Arts Club right away. Sophia Fellini and Jessica Ware will be at the Ishi archery exhibit. Unless they’ve already been there and gone. It looks certain that one or both of them killed Marco Fellini. Zoran and I will be there in a few minutes.”

  “‘Kay,” Dan said. “Be careful. Don’t take any chances. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  26

  In some ways, Brigitta was fortunate, I suppose. She didn’t have long to suffer before dying. There was no wasting away, no weight loss. Three of the five days she was in the hospital, she was able to eat normal hospital meals. Three times a day, I ate with her, ordering from the same menu. The food wasn’t bad. It was too bland to be good, still, it wasn’t bad and it smelled and looked and often tasted like real food.

  “I’d kill for a piroshky,” she said at lunch on the third day, staring down at the compartmented plates on our luncheon trays: mashed potatoes, a slice of turkey breast, green beans—all drizzled with a gravy that was a little too shiny. She picked up a dinner roll, soaked up some gravy and took a bite. “Even a mystery-meat burrito from Taco Bellisimo.”

  “Wait here,” I said. As if she was going anywhere. “I’ll be right back.”

  I dashed from the room and took the stairs to Lüzerner Kantonsspital’s lobby and ran out to the street. In less than five minutes, I was back in Brigitta’s room with two steaming hot white Wienerli wrapped in soft rolls, smothered with sauerkraut, laced with brown mustard.

  “Best I could do on short notice,” I said, folding back the wrapping on one and handing it to her. “It’s not a real Coney dog, but close enough.”

  We took huge bites, managing to catch most of the spilled sauerkraut in the wrapping paper.

  When we were finished, I set the trays of hospital food on a laundry cart outside the room, where I also retrieved the other treats I had scored for my beloved. I removed the lid from her cup of Starbucks Cafe Au Lait—Venti-size, of course. Then my own.

  “Hans, my angel! But where?”

  “The van was just outside the door,” I said. “I threw fifteen Franks at them and they were happy to make them extra hot.”

  She sipped. “It’s perfect. Heaven in a cup.”

  “Fair traded and organic too, don’t forget.”

  “Ah yes. Fairness. Always important. Glad it’s organic. I hate inorganic coffee.”

  “And here’s something else,” I said, handing her the day’s International Herald Tribune. “Something to read with our shade-grown, fair-traded, entirely organic coffee, steeped with unfiltered water from Alpine streams by baristas who have full health insurance coverage and whistle while they work.”

  “Perfect, my dear. All the comforts of home, plus a bed that’s perfect for reading,” she said, unfolding the paper and handing me the first section, keeping the second for herself.

  “Now…let’s see what’s happening in New York.”

  For the next several minutes we lost ourselves in the affairs of the United States and the rest of the world, as filtered by reporters on the payroll of the New York Times.

  “Hans! Look at this.” Brigitta handed me the second section of the International Herald Tribune, pointing to an article on page 6.

  I read the headline: “Fellini Deals in Eclectic Tastes,” and scanned the first paragraph before focusing on the color photo of Marco Fellini seated in a red leather wing-backed chair in front of a fireplace, gazing at treasures on his mantelpiece and the wall above. The photo did not have a caption.

  “Do you see what I see?” Brigitta said. “There, on the left.”

  I held the paper closer. “A crystal ball. God, it looks like….”

  “Grandma Luludji’s!” Brigitta said. “Look at the base it’s sitting on. Isn’t that copper, and isn’t it just like your Mama and Papa described?”

  “Sure looks like it,” I said. “Could it be? Does the article…?” I scanned quickly and found the reference.

  I read the paragraph aloud.

  “Besides the personal treasures one would expect to find in a premier art dealer’s home—the Louis XVI loveseat; the early Picasso over the fireplace; the hunting bows and arrows made by Ishi, the last of the Yahi tribe—are oddities like a massive amber geode Fellini found near Deming, New Mexico; a cabled request from Pope Pius XII to Angelo Rotta, the papal nuncio in Budapest, encouraging the Hungarian government to be moderate in its plans for treatment of Jews; and a four-inch crystal ball that Fellini believes is Roma in origin. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by Gypsy culture,’ Fellini said. ‘When this ball was offered to me, I couldn’t resist. Just look at the carving on the base. Isn’t it exquisite?’”

  How could it happen? I wondered. After all these years, how did our family’s most cherished treasure wind up on an art dealer’s mantelpiece, in plain view?

  “Hans. You must contact this Marco Fellini. If this is Grand-Mama Luludji’s crystal ball, you must get it back for your family—for our family. Promise me, Hans. Do it for your Mama, your Papa. It will mean the world to them.”

  I nodded.

  “And do it for me, Hans.”

  “I will, my love. I promise.”

  The next morning, her fourth day in the hospital, the doctors needed to put Brigitta on more oxygen, much more oxygen. The nasal cannula they had been using wasn’t supplying enough to keep her oxygenated after so many pulmonary emboli had formed during the night. She hated the mask, hated the narcotics now flowing through the catheter in the back of her left hand. My murmured assurances that she would feel better soon were greeted with grimaces. Finally, at eight p.m., she swatted the mask off her face. “I won’t have this thing, Hans, get rid of it!”

  I found the doctor at the far end of the hall, showed him the mask and explained the situation. He sighed, then leveled with me.

  “I’m so sorry, Hans. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for her now. I was planning to start her on chemo today, but with the emboli she is too weak and the chemicals would only make her weaker. Her scan this morning showed tumors in her liver and pancreas, even her brain—as well as the emboli. It’s too late now. All we can do is to try keep her comfortable. I’m so sorry Hans, so terribly sorry. Brigittat never had a chance.”

  “What about the mask?” I said, tears streaming . “Can I…?”

  He hesitated only a split second. “You’re right, there is no point. And I will have the nurse increase her morphine to keep her comfortable.” He grasped my arm as I turned to leave. “Hans, you will want to gather everyone who needs to see her before she passes. It will not be long.”

  He patted my shoulder then walked to the nurses’ station. I dug the phone from my pants’ pocket, dialed Mama and Papa, and gasped out the news. Then splashed ice-cold water on my face from a fountain in the hallway and dried myself with an already sodden handkerchief. Then returned to Brigitta’s room and removed her oxygen mask and threw it into the waste basket with a flourish.

  “Thank you, Hans,” she said.

  Mama and Papa were just able to catc
h the 9:06 p.m. departure from Château-d’Oex, the first possible SSB train, which arrived in Lucerne right at 1:10 a.m., on time, as always. A cab whisked them from the terminal to the hospital in four minutes, just in time for final hugs, kisses, grief-choked goodbyes. Brigitta could no longer speak because of the morphine in her system, but she acknowledged each of us by trying to smile as tears seeped from her eyes.

  My Brigitta passed at 1:20 a.m., and Mama, Papa, and I fell apart in each others’ arms.

  The staff at Lüzerner Kantonsspital, no strangers to death, knew what to do. They left us alone, except for one brief intrusion by a somber male nurse who entered the room to turn off the oxygen supply line and remove the catheter from my beloved’s left arm. He turned to the three of us, bowed his head briefly and left without saying a word.

  When I eventually recovered the ability to speak I showed Mama and Papa the article in the previous day’s International Herald Tribune.

  Mama pointed to the picture. “That is my mother’s crystal ball. Look, there—at the base. It's just as it was described to me, so many times."

  “Yes,” echoed Papa. “It is Luludji’s, I am sure of it.”

  Mama scowled. “Why does that man have it?”

  Then I told Mama and Papa of my promise to restore GrandMama Luludji’s crystal ball to our family, of my sacred vow to my Brigitta—and her last words to me before Mama and Papa arrived.

  “The ball, Hans. Get the ball for me.”

  27

  Jessica Ware and Sophia Fellini stood in front of a large glass exhibit case in the large gallery at the National Arts Club––the gateway exhibit for the collection of American westward expansion artworks covering the walls of the well-lit room. The eight-foot tall, three-foot wide, two-foot deep case contained two of Ishi’s bows and a half-dozen arrows—all loaned by Marco Fellini for the show, as indicated on the three-inch by five-inch card affixed at eye level to the right of the display’s front door: “From the Collection of Marco Fellini.”