Mrs. Nedomová cleared her throat and picked back up in her usual voice. “Well, the other reason I’m calling is so you have a chance to think about what you want to say and how you want to say it. The investigator, Lieutenant Vendyš, is an honest man but he suffers from an inferiority complex. He’s terrified of women and doesn’t have the faintest idea how to deal with them. He just searches through the handful of pigeonholes he keeps in his head, and as long as you fit neatly into one of them, he’s happy and you’ve won. You just have to be the simpleminded type, get it?”
“I get it,” said Marie. “The type that doesn’t have the brains to commit a crime.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Nedomová. “I’m glad we understand each other. Good night, then. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
“Good night,” Marie said and hung up the phone. But I wouldn’t be so sure we understand each other, she thought.
3
Lieutenant Vendyš inherited his eyes, so perfectly black you couldn’t tell the pupil from the iris, from his mother, who was born in a small town in western Slovakia. To this day, when he had nightmares, it was always the same dream. He saw a rock, in slow motion, sailing in a huge arc across the blue sky, then falling, down, down, down, into the windowpane, then a shower of broken glass and his mother’s wild, beautiful face emerging from it bit by bit, larger than life, two black thunderbolts shooting sparks, her muscular peasant arm gripping a bamboo rod, split at the end from frequent use like the pitchfork of the devil himself. He knew he had to run and hide, but his feet felt nailed to the ground as his mother’s shining eyes drew closer and closer, till they swallowed up the entire world. Just then he would wake up, and once he had come to his senses a little, he would climb out of bed in his sweat-soaked pajamas and sneak into the kitchen for a smoke, walking on tiptoes to keep from waking his wife.
The only guarantee of eternal youth is an early death. Mrs. Ilona Vendyšová, née Horváthová, passed away at age thirty-six. Her fifteen-year-old son grieved for her immensely. He had always hoped his mother would live to a ripe old age, so he could walk her around the park in the sunshine on Sundays and holidays. Even if she was wheelchair-bound, twisted with arthritis, and entirely dependent on his help—he would offer it gladly, with all his heart.
But she never gave him the pleasure. On the contrary her magical power, unexhausted by long life and undiminished by age, lingered on in the realm of those mysterious forces that incomprehensibly yet undoubtedly intrude upon the fate of the living. Long after her death, Mrs. Horváthová still influenced the life of her son, his relationships with women, and even his working methods.
The handsome Lieutenant Vendyš developed a complex system of defenses and inhibitions in relation to women, most clearly embodied in his choice of life partner. The younger Mrs. Vendyšová was a timid mouse, bland in appearance and personality, who adored her husband slavishly and never got over her amazement at the fact that he had chosen her. It was a happy marriage.
The working methods he employed, on the other hand, were relatively simple. He was extremely well aware—based on his experience on the receiving end, so to speak—of the impact of his eyes. They were an invaluable aid for a cop, and using them as his foundation he had worked out a procedure that, although primitive, proved effective in the vast majority of cases. Unlike his fellow investigators, he didn’t shine a light into the faces of people he questioned. Instead, he always made sure his own face was well lit, stared intently into the eyes of the suspect, and tapped his pencil against the table in rhythm to each precisely and pointedly worded question he asked. Sooner or later the suspect got nervous and began to panic. Vendyš could tell exactly when the tension reached its peak and change tactics on a dime: he would drop his eyes to the desk—or, depending, put on sunglasses—set aside his pencil, smile and switch to a calm, friendly tone of voice. The relief suspects typically felt in response amounted to a state of mild shock. Like the dimwitted gratitude of a cow sent to slaughter, then by some miracle spared the axe. At which point most men spilled their guts about everything they could remember, and often out of sheer diligence they would even make something up. It was the only disadvantage of this approach, albeit comparatively slight.
Vendyš investigated cases of murder, assault, and grievous bodily harm. He didn’t have any political assignments, so he could afford the luxury of taking his job seriously. He just wanted to ascertain the facts, or, as he somewhat reluctantly put it to himself, he wanted the truth to come out. The plain truth, so anyone could understand: who, when, how. And sometimes also why. The last one wasn’t strictly necessary, but it was the one he found most interesting: the endless variety of reasons why people killed other people in a country where murder rarely brought any financial gain.
The murder of Captain Nedoma, however, was a special case, and Lieutenant Vendyš knew there was another investigation proceeding in parallel with his on a higher level, since Nedoma’s assignments may not have been that important, but they were still considered classified. Thank God that’s none of my business, Vendyš thought. I stick to my own affairs.
He had been as diligent as ever in preparing for the investigation. It certainly wasn’t his fault that his time-tested method had failed during the first questioning on Saturday afternoon. The Horizon manager wasn’t one to be easily shaken. She appeared calm and nonchalant sitting in the lieutenant’s unwelcoming office, her seven-mile legs in lizard-skin pumps (Where did she smuggle those in from, Vendyš wondered; she sure as heck didn’t get them here) elegantly crossed, smiling widely as her gray-green eyes stared straight into his. An image of a beautiful mulatto flashed through the lieutenant’s mind . . . from some island or something, where had he seen that?
He rapped the desk with his pencil once, then let it drop. It rolled off the desk onto the floor. He was about to bend down and grab it, but then, realizing it would diminish his authority in the eyes of the witness to see him fumbling around on the floor, he decided to just let it roll off into the corner and drummed his fingers on the tabletop instead. The manager maintained her easygoing smile, though with a touch of a smirk to it. Vendyš glanced at his nails and folded his hands in his lap. Who does this broad think she is? he thought. I’ll bet that dress comes from Paris, too—no way she got it here. But I’ll teach her a lesson. Next time she flies somewhere, I’ll make sure there’s a strip search waiting for her when she gets back! Thinking about it just rattled him more. He blushed a little, realizing he was on a slippery slope. The situation called for radical action. He had no choice but to abandon his usual routine. You have to adapt when it comes to exceptional circumstances. He sighed to himself and opened the folder on his desk. Maybe the strictly official approach would be more effective.
“Comrade Manager, our preliminary investigation suggests that your cinema is in quite a shambles.”
Lieutenant Vendyš shot her a glance from under his brow, but she just sat snugly perched on her chair, smiling at him as his palms broke out in sweat. He screwed up his face in concentration and forged ahead: “Let’s take it from the top. According to the testimony of eyewitnesses, during the critical period, between seven thirty and eight thirty p.m., Comrade Vránová left the Horizon and returned about half an hour later. Libuše Pařízková went out in front of the building to meet her fiancé, Petr Krátký, and was gone for about twenty minutes. Helena Nováková went out to buy aspirin from an after-hours pharmacy about five minutes’ walk away, but was gone nearly half an hour. As for you, Comrade Manager, your husband came to pick you up in his vehicle about fifteen minutes after the start of the show”—pregnant pause followed by an ineffective glint of black—“and you didn’t return to work after that.” The lieutenant shut the folder.
“Yes,” the manager said sweetly, “that’s correct.”
Vendyš waited to see if she would add anything further, but she left it at that. He fumbled around on the desk a while, out of habit
, then remembered that his pencil was on the floor in the corner.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Comrade Manager,” he said in a tone verging on rude, “that employees should remain in the workplace during working hours?”
The manager pulled a mirror out of her lizard-skin bag, ran a hand through her hair, pursed her lips, and examined herself with that unnatural look women tend to assume when they’re in front of a mirror; that casual expression that makes it clear they’re anxious to see what they look like, but at the same time they want to make sure they look as good as possible.
“As I understand it,” the manager said serenely, tucking the mirror back in her bag, “you’re investigating a murder, not the work ethic in our cinema. I know nothing about the murder and I’m responsible to the head office for conditions at our workplace. I’ve received no complaint from them. But for your information, our staff are entitled to breaks and typically choose to take them during the period you call critical. Where and how they spend them is their business, not mine. So assuming that’s all you want to know, I should be getting back to work. Your people have caused a considerable stir and I’m needed there, if you don’t mind . . .”
“Just a moment,” Vendyš said. “Captain Nedoma investigated the murder of that boy in your cinema. All your employees met with him. Would you happen to know if any of them were in contact with him afterwards?”
“The private affairs of my personnel are no concern of mine. I don’t have the slightest idea.”
She rose from her seat.
“May I go now?” she asked impatiently.
“All right,” Vendyš conceded. “I’ll come by Monday afternoon around three to have a word with your staff. Please see to it that we have a room where we won’t be disturbed.”
“You can use my office. I’ll make arrangements.”
The lieutenant stood up and walked the manager to the door, then stood a while watching as she strutted down the hideous gray hall on her high heels.
Some people were like those flowers that grow inside bottles, he thought. They made their own environment and carried it with them, wherever they went. Nothing got through to them.
He shut the door and returned to his desk. The telephone rang. He picked it up and growled his name. A young voice on the other end said, “We’ve got the autopsy results. You’ll get a written report through official channels, of course, but there’s something I thought might interest you, so I figured I’d give you a ring. Besides his dinner and some beer, the man had a touch of barbiturate in him. Not a big enough dose to kill him, or even to do any harm. Just the right amount for a nice little nap. You interested?”
“Why not,” Vendyš said, and hung up the phone lost in thought.
“Comrade Lieutenant, sir, with your permission, I’m pleased to offer you the following full report in order as it happened.” It was early Monday morning and Sergeant Koloušek sat in Vendyš’s office, sweating eagerly. The chair beneath him was only wide enough to support a portion of his prodigious rear end. His light brown eyes were sunk into his pudgy cheeks like raisins in a cake, and his tiny upturned nose was the kind people used to refer to as “pert” on little girls. He had three fleshy chins, and dimpled, roly-poly arms with skin as smooth as an infant’s. He wore an expression of simpleminded kindness, with an overlay of helplessness that led many people to feel an instinctive sympathy toward him and go out of their way to indulge him. Dealing with him was like dealing with a huge baby who couldn’t cope in this cruel world without the help of kind people. Sergeant Koloušek produced superb results at work and was the envy of all his shrewder and better-looking colleagues.
The sight of Koloušek as he gave his report—moist lips puckered with effort, running his thick index finger over the lines in his notebook—drove Vendyš insane. Every time he looked at him, he imagined Koloušek squeezed into a flask of alcohol sealed with an enormous stopper, oblivious to his situation, forehead fervently creased, thin strands of hair undulating in the fluid, gesturing to his beat-up notepad . . .
This time, too, Koloušek had barely begun his report when Vendyš got up from his desk and went to stand at the window, with his back facing the room. Even with the utmost effort, he could either listen to Koloušek or look at him. Both at once was more than he could take.
“Right, so Marie Vránová ate dinner Friday evenin’ at the Little Bears. They all know her there, ’specially the comrade waitress that served her that night, and also the comrade waiter—he actually told me he’d been involved with her, so to speak, a while back, if you get what I mean. Anyways, so Vránová comes rushin’ in, sayin’ she’s starvin’ and in a hurry, and orders the beef in cream sauce. S’posedly she doesn’t go there that often. Doesn’t surprise me,” Koloušek added uncharacteristically. “Usher like her, after all, how much can she make, right, Comrade Lieutenant, to be goin’ out eatin’ dinners on the town? Gal like her, ordinarily, only goes to the pub when a guy’s payin’ her way, if you get what I mean.”
Vendyš detected an aggrieved tone in Koloušek’s voice, a hint of envy.
“But anyways they said she just picked at her food and left half on the plate. Which strikes me as suspicious, seein’ how hungry she said she was.”
Koloušek looked up at the lieutenant’s back and waited a moment, but getting no response, he continued. “Accordin’ to a statement from Božena Šulcová at the Black Cat snack bar, Vránová exited the Horizon and turned right on Steep Street ’bout five minutes past eight and a few minutes after quarter past she was already at the pub, so she must’ve walked by the car with Nedoma inside—the comrade captain, that is—but she couldn’t’ve stuck around long. Course how much time do you need to stick a knife in a man’s ribs, right?”
He looked up at Vendyš again. Boy, that Vendyš is one strange bug, he thought. Here I am doing my best, giving the guy an airtight report, and he just stands there like a statue. Talking to somebody’s back, what kinda teamwork is that? Koloušek sighed to himself and bent his head over his notes. His chunky index finger set out again on its zigzag journey down the page.
“She re-entered the Horizon from the other side, via Perštýn. Got that confirmed from Petr Krátký, who happened to be on his way to a date with Libuše Pařízková when he ran into Vránová on the corner and walked her back to work. Comrade Šulcová saw ’em too. I tell you, that broad don’t miss a thing. She’s got eyes everywhere,” Sergeant Koloušek said admiringly. He paused again and cast an accusing glance at Vendyš’s back.
“So ’bout five minutes later, Pařízková comes runnin’ out. She strolls down the street with Krátký a while, then they cross over and head to the Praha cafeteria. They say that’s their spot for potato pancakes, seein’ as Šulcová doesn’t serve ’em, but if you ask me the real reason is they know Šulcová’s got her antenna up and they like to stay outta range. Anyways, Pařízková gets back to the cinema ’bout twenty minutes later. But in the meantime Nováková steps out to the pharmacy on the corner, buys a tube of aspirin, and then for the next fifteen minutes or so, I’m in the dark.”
Vendyš finally turned around. “What do you mean, in the dark?”
Koloušek squirmed. He lowered his eyes and ran a hand through the peach fuzz on his scalp. “What she says, Comrade Lieutenant, is she went out for a walk to clear her head. They gave her a glass of water at the drugstore so she could take the aspirin right away. But nobody saw her after that. I mean, I wasn’t able to verify that anybody saw her. Course fifteen minutes, that’d do the trick. Two left turns from the pharmacy, catch up with the comrade captain, take care of business, and go right back the same way. Šulcová wouldn’t’ve spotted her, ’less she went back in the cinema. The vehicle was out of Šulcová’s range, so she’s got nothin’ for us.”
“Of course that assumes Nováková knew that Comrade Captain Nedoma was there. And that she had a motive. In any case, it could have been her. Nobody e
lse left the cinema?” Vendyš asked.
“Well, Šulcová says Kouřimská stopped in a little before eight and bought some smokes, but she says she didn’t go out. Then there’s that fella Šípek. Šulcová says she noticed him mopin’ around outside, and he admits he was waitin’ for Nováková. That was around ten, though. He’s keen on Nováková, but Šulcová says—”
“Hell’s bells, is that the only information we’ve got? Just what Šulcová says?”
Koloušek wriggled in his seat again.
“Oh, I got lots of information, Comrade Lieutenant. But Šulcová’s reliable. She’s the kinda witness I wish I had more of. I’d stake my life on what she says. ’Course I can’t rule out that Šípek went by earlier, left, and came back. But there’s no proof for it so far, at least if what Šulcová—”
“Dammit!” Vendyš shouted, but then regained his composure. “Forgive me, Comrade. Please, go on,” he said, turning back to the window.
Koloušek sniffed and pouted. “Look, Comrade Lieutenant, I undertook an extensive investigation and I got a slew of credible eyewitness testimony. Thanks to the cashier, for instance, I tracked down the addresses of several audience members from that evening. Most of ’em regular customers that live in the area. Pensioners and so forth who got nothing better to do than go to the movies. Sometimes they go see the same one three times.”
Koloušek got the impression the back was growing impatient and quickly went on. “I spoke to some of ’em. An old couple, the Soukups, Vilém and Amálie, were practically the first ones to enter the theater. Right when they opened the doors, at seven thirty. They had cheap seats in the second row and they said nobody went out the emergency exits on either side of the screen. There’s bright lights over the door on the outside, so if anyone opened ’em during the show, it would’ve lit up the whole house. But they both swear nobody went out that way, even before the show. I also questioned six other individuals, and they all said the same thing: emergency exits were shut the whole time.”
Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street Page 10
