by Alex Archer
Annja hadn't pointed out the obviousness of the coroner's presence. Then she had to admit that even if someone was dead in the room, it didn't necessarily mean it was Mario.
"I can call some of the studio's attorneys," Annja said after Bart ignored her. "They have really good attorneys."
"They're entertainment lawyers." Bart worked slowly at the computer, proving that he wasn't well versed in what he was doing.
"Defending a computer should be entertaining," Annja said. "Not to mention the fact that I'm sure they'll report to a journalist about what's going on up here."
Bart sighed. "All right. You can watch television. Put it on ESPN."
"I've already watched ESPN."
"I haven't."
"Nothing new is breaking on ESPN. Football's over, baseball is just getting started and there's not a basketball game tonight."
Bart shook his head in disgust.
"The Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel or the History Channel," Annja suggested.
"Discovery Channel. There's a special on the tsunamis that have hit India."
"Really?" That intrigued Annja. Tsunamis were an archaeologist's and treasure hunter's dream. The ocean floor shifted and often caused the sea to give up the secrets she'd been hiding for hundreds of years. After storms, shipwrecks sometimes surfaced along coastlines or in shallow waters. Some of the Calusa Indian villages had been uncovered that way.
"Yeah. I had it marked to watch. The DVR back home should be catching it for me."
Annja picked up the remote control, switched the television on and tuned in the Discovery Channel. She knew better than to bother Bart with questions while he was working. He tended to get single-minded when he was working on a problem and wouldn't answer until he was sure what the answer was. She did the same thing so she understood the mind-set.
While she watched the documentary, she worked at the problem presented by the mosaic. Mario had reminded her about the bar fight and Haltwhistle. And then there'd been that comment about omelettes.
There had been a reason Mario had pointed those things out.
****
"Who are these guys?" Bart pointed at the computer. He'd spread some of the photo images she'd taken across the screen.
Annja muted the television and stepped over to Bart. The uniformed policeman started over at once.
"It's okay, Arnie," Bart said.
The cop nodded and stepped back.
"Bart and Arnie?" Annja asked.
"Don't go there," Bart warned. "You're already in enough trouble. Stay focused on the situation we're dealing with here."
Annja pointed at two of the men, each in turn. "That's Dieter Humbrecht. That's Klaus Kaufmann."
"How do you know that?"
"I looked them up on the Internet. You'll find copies of the newspaper articles I found about them. They've got pictures, too."
"Fantastic. Now you're a detective."
"Actually, there are a lot of skill sets that are interchangeable between your job and mine. We both work with bodies and scenes, and have to have the same respect for what we find there so we can preserve it. We both have to work out theories about what happened based on the physical evidence and knowledge of the social stratification we're dealing with."
Bart shot her a look. "Focus, Annja."
"All right." Annja knew she could go off on tangents when she was forced to sit around. The television documentary had only engaged part of her mind. She always worked, either on an artifact or on her computer or a legal pad, while she watched television. "It was just that, watching you now, thinking about how the crime scene was being handled and the way it's been protected, I suddenly realized that our jobs are very similar."
"Maybe I should be an archaeologist. As least when you dig up a dead guy, you don't have to think about going and notifying his next of kin."
That comment suddenly rushed in on Annja, making her realize that Mario's family would have to be told what had happened to him. She knew they were going to be deeply hurt.
"Sorry," Bart apologized. "I had no right to say that."
"It's okay," Annja said. "You're upset. I can see that."
"This guy was a friend?"
"An acquaintance. But I liked him a lot."
Bart reached for his cup and found it was empty. Annja took it from him, rinsed it out in the sink and poured him a fresh cup. The friendship gesture seemed to ease some of the tension and awkwardness between them.
"Do you know what Mario Fellini was doing here?" Bart asked.
Annja shook her head and sat on the corner of the desk so she could still see the computer monitor. "I was in Florida until this morning."
"I know. I checked."
"And I haven't had any direct contact with Mario."
"I know that, too." Bart sipped his coffee.
"How did you know that?"
"I had your home phone and cell phone records pulled. But you had a phone call from him on your answering machine at the television studio."
"If you pull the phone records for that number, you'll see that I didn't get that message until this afternoon."
"I already did. I know that."
Annja waited for Bart to ask her about the package Mario had sent. But he didn't.
Instead, Bart pointed at the pictures on the computer screen. "Who are they?"
"They're two of the four guys who had the running gun battle in Brooklyn this morning, then showed up at Digital Paradise."
"What about the other two guys?"
"They were the two I fought with on the subway."
Bart leaned back in the chair and massaged his neck. "Who are these guys to you?"
"I've never seen them before in my life."
Bart looked at her. "Why did they come after you?"
"They were after the package that was delivered to me at Mailboxes & Stuff."
"The package that Mario Fellini sent to you."
Annja kept herself calm. Now they were going to get into it, and she knew she was going to have to tread lightly. Bart was good at his job. But Annja had survived years of inquisition by nuns at the orphanage.
"What was in the package?"
"I don't know." That was so close to the truth that Annja didn't mind saying it.
"And you don't know why Mario Fellini sent it to you?"
"No. How did you know Mario Fellini contacted me? You had to have a reason to pull my phone records and get a court order for my computer."
"Doug Morrell called and asked me to run a background check on the guy. Morrell said the guy had been trying to contact you for the last couple of days."
Annja was so shocked she didn't know what to say.
"Don't give Morrell grief about it," Bart said. "He was just looking after your best interests."
"I'll look after my own best interests, thank you very much." Annja blew out a sigh of disgust. "I wasn't aware that you and Doug knew each other."
"Not socially, no. But we've looked into a few things for him."
"Like what?"
"Primarily threats against you or Kristie Chatham."
"I didn't know there were any threats."
"None of them have amounted to anything. But I got to know Morrell."
"Terrific."
"He's a good guy, Annja. Cut him some slack." Bart frowned at her. "Do you have the package?"
"No." That was the truth, too. "Did you ask Doug why he didn't pass the message along?"
"He didn't know you weren't getting the messages until he got another phone call from Fellini this morning. Morrell was under the assumption you checked your messages at the studio."
"I don't."
"The last phone call Mario Fellini made was from this hotel," Bart said. "He called Morrell and asked him to get a message to you. Morrell said he told you about it this afternoon when you called him."
"He should have told me sooner."
"You're a public figure, Annja. You're going to have a lot of people trying to get in
touch with you who will do nothing but waste your time while you're trying to get on with your life and your career. Morrell knows that. He was just doing his job and shielding you from what he thought was another one of those people."
"Mario was a friend."
"Friend or acquaintance?"
Annja let out her breath. "I feel like I screwed up, Bart," she said quietly. "I wasn't here when Mario needed me."
Bart looked at her and his eyes softened. He looked like the Bart she shared lunches and dinners with, the one she had attended banquets with – ones that couldn't be avoided because they related to his work or hers – so they'd have someone there to talk to. Those had been good times.
"You didn't screw up, Annja," Bart told her. "Whatever brought Mario here, whatever trouble he was in, was because of something he was involved with. Even if you had been there for him, you might not have been able to help him out with this. These guys you were up against today, they sound like professionals. You were lucky you got away unhurt."
"I know."
"You're out of it now. We'll take care of this. I just need you to do one other thing, then we should be able to cut you loose."
Before Annja could ask what that one thing was, a uniformed policeman knocked on the door and called Bart's name. When Bart swiveled toward him, the policeman went on, "Coroner said he's clear. You can take a look at the body, then he's going to take it downtown."
Bart stood and looked at Annja. "Are you ready to do this?"
"What?" Annja was shocked. "Do you want me to identify the body?"
"Fellini doesn't have any family in New York. I thought maybe it would be better if I made sure he was who I thought he was before I notified them."
Annja took a deep breath, then nodded. She was as ready as she was going to be.
Chapter 12
The men moved too soon to close the jaws of the trap that had been laid for Erene Skujans. Their anticipation betrayed them. Or perhaps it was because she was a woman and they didn't expect her to put up much of a fight. Erene didn't know. But they had come fully equipped to kill her.
They had automatic machine pistols. Bullets chipped the stone balusters supporting the marble handrail. The posts were wide, in the shape of chess pieces. Erene guessed that even if his men succeeded in killing her, Schluter was going to be angry about the damage. She knew from the work Mario had done that the Schluter family fortune wasn't what it had once been.
Flinging herself up the steps instead of down, Erene fired her crossbow through the balusters. The bolt caught a man in the forehead and snapped his head back. He dropped to his knees and then to his face, snapping the bolt's shaft.
Staying low, Erene raced up the steps. Broken pieces of the tiled wall behind her crumbled. She took a bolt from her quiver and held it in her teeth as she put her foot in the stirrup at the front of the crossbow and yanked the string back. She fitted the bolt into the groove as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
Throwing herself prone behind the crossbow, Erene aimed at the man's chest as he ran up the steps. She squeezed the trigger and felt the slight recoil against her shoulder as bullets cut the air above her head. They'd only missed her by inches.
Her own shot hadn't pierced the man's heart as she'd intended, but it had slammed through his neck. The crossbow was so powerful that the bolt had passed completely through. The man halted and held up a hand to the bright blood pouring from his neck. Until that moment, he didn't know how badly he'd been hit.
Taking advantage of the dying man's astonishment, Erene pushed herself up and raced forward. She threw herself at the dying man and seized his machine pistol, then rode him like a sled to the bottom of the stairs.
Machine-gun bullets tracked the wall and splintered the balustrade. At the bottom of the stairs, Erene levered her arm up and opened fire on the man who'd stepped out of hiding. The bullets thumped him in the chest and drove him backward.
Remaining on the floor, Erene checked to see if there were any other men. Nothing moved.
Rolling to her feet, Erene ejected the spent magazine and inserted the spare she'd grabbed from the dead men. She was angry.
Running to the foyer, Erene crept up to the door with the machine pistol in both hands. She peeked around it and saw the ruby taillights of the luxury car and two others streaming through the front gates.
Erene cursed. Schluter had guessed she would be coming. He'd been prepared. And she had no idea where he was going or what had happened to Mario. She felt more frightened and less in control than she had at any time since she was a young girl and had walked out of her grandmother's village.
The man on the floor groaned. Erene ran back inside the room. Covering him with the pistol, she walked over to him and kicked away his machine pistol. She leaned down and tore the man's shirt open, revealing the Kevlar vest that had saved his life. A handful of mushroomed bullets slapped against the floor.
She checked the unconscious man for other weapons and found three knives and a small semiautomatic pistol at the small of his back. She threw them out of his reach, then rolled him onto his stomach while he was still stunned. Cutting the drawstrings from the ornate curtains, she bound his hands behind him, then bound his feet, as well.
When she was satisfied with the job she'd done, she rolled him onto his back again. While she waited for him to recover, she picked up his cell phone and checked through his address book.
She found Schluter's cell phone number and pressed the speed-dial function. The phone rang twice and Schluter answered.
"Is she dead?" he asked in German.
"No," Erene replied in the same language. "She isn't dead. She's alive and she's pissed."
Schluter chuckled. "It appears you're more resourceful than I'd guessed. The man I had look into your background wasn't as thorough as he should have been. That is going to get him killed."
"It's going to get you killed, too," Erene said in a harsh voice. "If I decide to kill you, you'll be dead. Soon."
"I think we both intended that for each other tonight," Schluter said. "But we're both alive, aren't we?"
Erene didn't say anything for a moment. She gazed at the man lying on the floor. He was conscious, and his eyes were wide with fright.
"You should think about leaving Mario alone," she said. "If you walk away, I won't have a reason to kill you."
Schluter laughed. "Some of the people I've talked to in Riga – the poor, ignorant people you seem to have so much influence over – seem to think you have some kind of powers. That you're something special."
Witch. Erene heard the accusation in the back of her mind again.
"You've got three dead men in this castle who know I can be lethal, Herr Schluter."
"Perhaps. And perhaps you merely got lucky."
"Luck had nothing to do with it."
"I'd heard that you were a killer," Schluter said. "I also heard that you were often for sale. Perhaps if you hadn't fallen in love with Mario Fellini we could have been associates."
"I don't think so."
"It's a pity you don't have those powers that so many think you do. Otherwise, you'd know it's already too late to plead for your precious Mario's life. He's been dead hours now."
No! Erene wanted to shout her denial, but her voice locked in her throat.
The phone clicked dead in her ear.
She tried calling the number again but was immediately moved to Schluter's voice mail. Furious, hurting, wishing she knew the truth about what Schluter had intimated, she threw the phone at the painting of the Teutonic knight. The phone shattered into pieces and tore the painting.
Taking a deep breath, getting her emotions under control, used to the fact that she had to do such a thing, Erene stared at the man she'd tied up.
"Look," the man said, "you don't have to kill me."
"It's not a matter of having to," Erene said. "It's a matter of wanting to."
The man tried to remain calm. "You don't have to want to."
&nb
sp; Erene smiled at him, knowing it was the most terrifying thing she could do under the circumstances. "But I do."
The man didn't say anything.
"Do you know who I am?" Erene opened the bottom of the quiver of bolts she carried. A pouch the size of her fist dropped out.
"Erene Skujans," the man said.
"That's right. Do you know what I am?" Erene took a small plastic vial from the pouch. She hadn't forgotten any of her grandmother's teachings even as she'd made her way through Europe learning the other skills she'd needed to survive.
"No."
"Many people around here know me as a witch," Erene said.
"I don't believe in witches," the man replied.
"That's too bad. Because you're about to." Erene spilled a greenish powder onto her palm and blew it into the man's face.
The man tried to hold his breath, but it was too late. He'd already inhaled some of the powder.
Calmly, Erene waited for it to take effect. The man's eyes turned glassy and sweat beaded on his forehead.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Wilhelm."
"Good. Now you're going to answer my questions."
"Yes," the man said dully.
Quickly, Erene asked him questions about Wolfram Schluter. She didn't get any information she didn't already know.
Then she asked the question she'd been afraid to ask. "Where is Mario Fellini?"
"He's dead. Dieter killed him in New York."
Anguish tore at Erene's heart. The pain was so acute she didn't think she was going to survive it for a moment. Then she hated herself because she knew she would. She had lived through everything that had happened to her, and there were some bad things.
Since she'd left her grandmother's village, she'd taken her life into her own hands. Most of that time, she'd risked her life to achieve a certain style of living. That risk had made the achievement sweeter. But there had been no one to share her triumphs.
Mario had been the closest she'd come to it, and she hadn't told him everything. That was why he'd left. Because he'd begun to suspect it.
Or maybe Schluter told him, Erene thought. The possibility made her hate Schluter even more, and it allowed her to forgive her own mistakes.
