Siren of the Waters: A Jana Matinova Investigation, Vol. 2

by Genelin, Michael

  Jana did not need to be a psychiatrist to realize that the woman was on the edge of a personal abyss. “You must think you are very important to these people for them to come after you. How do you threaten them? Is it enough to make them want to destroy Moira Simmons?”

  “Foch couldn’t hurt them. Yet, look what they did to him. Poor, silly Foch.”

  “We don’t know yet why Foch was killed. It is different now, tonight. Why do you think this might happen to you? What evidence do we have that they are coming after Moira Simmons?”

  “I’m trying to stop them. That’s all they need to know.”

  Jana thought about Moira’s rationale. “I think there is something else. You described monsters emerging from earlier in your life. When? How early?”

  Moira reverted to her silent state. Then her right arm came up, pointing at the ceiling. “You see that spot? I will tell you a secret. I have the same spot, always there, like that spot on the plaster. Only my spot is much bigger. I cannot make it go away. I cannot lessen it, no matter how much I scrub my mind, no matter what I accomplish.”

  She sat up in bed, pulling up the sheet and blanket, gathering them around her in a crumpled heap which she wrapped as closely as she could around her body. She ended up hugging the bedclothes to her like a lost little girl. Then she told her story.

  “My mother was a working girl in a house of prostitution. They used the term ‘working girl’ instead of ‘whore.’ She worked for one of those men. His name was Walsh. First she worked in the house, then later, when she got older and couldn’t compete with the younger girls, on the street. Then Walsh found out about me. He had my mother bring me to the house to work.

  “I was thirteen, just thirteen years old. She didn’t think much of me, did she, to take me there? To make me a whore like her.” Simmons laughed, an ugly laugh that came from deep in her throat.

  “What did I know about men? About sex? Nothing. I was raped four or five times a night. They couldn’t wait to get their dicks in a young girl. For five weeks. It went on for five weeks, six days a week.

  “Then I found a knife on one of my customers. He also ran the place. Walsh used me like the clients, except he did not have to pay. He had fallen asleep. It was a bread knife that he had honed so it was very slim and very sharp. When the house closed that night, the bouncers left.” She laughed again. “Then I walked up to him, casually, and stuck it into him. Just like they stuck it to me. Not just once. Maybe ten or fifteen times. He bled far more than I had bled.”

  Her arms tightened around the blankets. “The psychiatrists in the court hearing said the number of knife wounds was typical of a rage killing. They said I was not responsible for my actions. I was not convicted of anything, not even prostitution. They wanted to help me. They placed me in a treatment facility. It wasn’t good enough. How could they help me after what I’d been through?”

  Moira was panting for air. Jana waited until she had calmed herself. Jana could not find words with which to soothe the woman, so she asked a question, hoping that the right words would eventually come to her. “Walsh. You didn’t mention Walsh as one of the people coming for you. Why?”

  “He’s dead. I killed him. He can’t come back. I’m safe from him.”

  “Where did you get the other names?” Jana asked her.

  “When I came to work here, I tried to put an end to the sex trade. I read and reread volumes of reports; I talked to the women who were sold and enslaved. The names of those men would come up. Other names, too. They are all still out there. Only Walsh got the death sentence he deserved.” The ugly laugh came again. “They know I’m after them. They want to get me first.” Her voice was becoming faint. She curled up in a fetal position, a little girl ready for sleep.

  “Please, don’t leave. I need to rest. If you go, they’ll come back. Will you stay?” she asked.

  Jana could not bring herself to refuse. “Not a problem. I’ve slept in chairs before. If those men dare to come back, I’ll beat them off.”

  Moira smiled. “Yes, you would drive them away. We’ll work together to beat them.” Her breathing became more even, slowing until she slept.

  After making sure she was asleep, Jana went to the closet and took down the spare pillow and blanket, tucking herself into the suite’s large armchair. She wondered if Trokan would think it was part of police work to stand guard against the phantoms in someone else’s mind. She rather thought he would, given the nature of these phantoms.

  Chapter 22

  In the morning, aching from being compressed into awkward postures all night by the chair, Jana pulled her clothes from the closet, took a quick look at Moira Simmons, who was still sleeping like a child, then slipped into the bathroom to sponge-bathe and put on fresh clothes, a pair of Eastern European knockoff Levis, a heavy blue cotton blouse and, after a moment’s hesitation, the jacket from her suit. The only jarring note was her clumpy police shoes.

  To hell with convention, she thought. I’ve given them my best imitation of a delegate. I am now going to be comfortable.

  She returned to the bedroom. In the short time it had taken her to wash and dress, Moira Simmons had left.

  Jana was relieved. The woman seemed half crazed, and Jana didn’t want to deal with Moira’s fearful past and neurotic present now. The woman needed professional help, and Jana was a cop, not a therapist. She decided to call Seges and deal with a more familiar source of stress: the busy morning telephone lines to Slovakia.

  Seges was irritated when she finally got him on the line. He complained about the caseload building up while she was in Strasbourg. Seges never liked doing more than what he considered his share. He liked it even less when Jana told him to call the Irish police and have them pull the files they had on the killing of a man named Walsh and the person who had killed him. She carefully spelled out Moira Simmons’s name, making sure that he correctly spelled it back to her.

  Most important for Jana were the cases that she had left behind. Their investigations had to continue on the right path, so they discussed the most urgent. A procurator was demanding additional investigation; she told Seges to do it. He had interviewed the niece of the man who’d killed his son. The niece had observed the son hit the father on at least two occasions, so maybe this was not such a cut-and-dried murder after all. Jana told him to put the niece on the witness list, and she would interview her when she got back to Bratislava. A new case had come in: A customer had apparently gone berserk in a bar and killed two people, both the owner and the bartender. Jana told Seges to check the killer’s background to determine if there was any intimation that he was employed in the business “protection” rackets so endemic in Slovakia.

  Seges saved the most interesting item until last. The wine store owned by the “pimp” had burned to the ground. There were no immediate signs of arson, but the fire inspectors were combing the wreckage. They were searching for the bald thug. The address the man gave them had been vacated; no one there had seen him for months. Apparently he had some hidden bolt-hole which he’d crawled into.

  The book with the codes, Jana reminded Seges. He told her that an expert in Slovakia had been recommended and they were going to give it to him. He was currently out of the country. Jana told Seges to make a copy for the Slovak expert and also to give it to the FBI’s agent in their Prague office. To tell them it was important, and that if the Americans needed to know how important, one of their embassy officers from Paris would talk to them. She gave Seges Jeremy’s name, smiling. She would have to remember to tell Jeremy that he might receive a surprise phone call from the FBI in Prague.

  Jana was about to terminate her discussion with Seges when he remembered that she’d had a call from Ukraine, from Mikhail Gruschov. Gruschov had additional information, and she was to phone him between three and four that afternoon, his time. It was about a man who was a witness to one of the murders that had been committed in Slovakia.

  “Which one?” asked Jana.

  “He didn�
�t say,” replied Seges. “I didn’t ask, because he wanted you, not me.” Fine, Jana thought. For a change, Seges had surprised her: He was attending to business, and remembering to keep her appropriately apprised of events. On the other hand, there were other cases, and Jana couldn’t stifle the thought that he had probably botched one or two of them and simply wasn’t mentioning it. She finally thrust this worry out of her mind.

  That left the matter of the tall Russian police officer with the large head, Levitin. She told Seges to inform Trokan that she had met the Russian cop. He seemed all right, but she wanted Trokan to obtain his dossier. The man was holding something back, and she didn’t want any future shocks when whatever it was ultimately came out.

  Seges added a last comment. He’d had heard that one of her cats was sick and he was sorry the poor little thing was in pain. Jana was glad to end the call.

  As she hung up, Jana noticed a note on hotel stationery which had been left on the chair she had slept in. Moira Simmons thanked her for her assistance last night, and informed her that the meeting previously scheduled for that day would be moved forward. It would start at 10:30.

  Jana reflected on the note. Simple and precise. Perhaps even cold. Jana put it down to the break in Moira Simmons’s defenses. After last night, Moira had gone back to the formality that had previously characterized her. Jana guessed she had to, to keep her demons at bay.

  Chapter 23

  The room was half empty when the meeting began. Whether it was the murder of Foch, or the presence of the extra police officers in the lobby, or the taped and roped-off stairway and the guard outside their conference room, or just a fear of being the next victim, a number of the participants had stayed away. It could also have been because two French investigators were going to ask questions at the session. There is always a certain nervousness about responding to the whims of police officers. This was France, the home of love, and a number of delegates might not have wanted to answer the traditional question: “And where were you that night, the night when Foch was killed?” Tutungian, the turn-coat gangster who was scheduled to speak, was conspicuous by his absence. Even his nameplate was gone.

  Moira Simmons introduced the two police officers, then glumly sat back in her seat as they took over her meeting. They asked the other traditional question first: “Does anyone have any information which might reflect on the reasons for the death of Mr. Foch?” Not even Moira, with her belief that men were after her because of her work, made any comment.

  More general questions followed, all of them predictable: Had they seen Foch the previous morning? Had any of them seen him the night before? At dinner? Every question the cops posed was met by indifferent silence. In fact, all anyone would say was they had not seen Foch since he had left the meeting on the day before his murder.

  The police informed everyone that they might interview them individually in the future, thanked them for their cooperation, and then asked to see Jana and Levitin outside the meeting room.

  The French cops were lean and muscular men with receding hairlines. They were tense with the angry impatience that all police have with anyone perceived as interfering with their work, particularly police from another jurisdiction. They both voiced that anger in no uncertain terms.

  The police guarding Foch’s body had described two people, a man and a woman, who had come upon the sealed-off area where the body was found, pretended they were the investigators, and demanded that everyone step outside while they examined the body. The description of the two, a man and a woman, fit Jana and Levitin, particularly Levitin, who would be very difficult to forget. Did they realize that the impersonation of a police officer was a criminal offense?

  “Impersonation of a police officer?” Jana and Levitin were both offended. Of course, they were police officers in other countries, but they had never mentioned it to anyone there. “We never said we were police of any kind,” Jana admonished. “I, for one, would never do such a thing.” Levitin chimed in with his own denial: “A Russian knows his place in the world. This is France, not my country.”

  Both Jana and Levitin said that they had done nothing to disturb the scene; the reason they had appeared was merely to pay their respects to Foch.

  The two Frenchmen were not happy with the answers but were even more unhappy with the possibility of having to take foreign “envoys” into custody, “envoys” who were in Strasbourg to attend a Europe-wide conference. Whether they believed it or not, after hearing that the two had merely prayed over the body, the two French officers took the path of least resistance. They issued a warning to obey all French laws in the future, and then left.

  “I didn’t know that police in Russia prayed,” Jana observed to the Russian cop.

  “When was the last time you prayed?” Levitin shot back.

  Jana took the question seriously, surprised at her own response. “I pray for the dead; for the victims. I pray by doing my work well, so they know they are remembered. It’s magical thinking. I like to believe I have eased their pain.”

  Levitin shrugged. “I commend you, Commander Matinova. Unfortunately, they still stay dead.”

  “Not while we work for them.”

  “Even more commendable. I will give this point to the Slovak, because of my regard for her empathy. Unfortunately, I am not sure if this is a good characteristic for a police officer.”

  “You might try it sometime.”

  “I promise to think about it.”

  They walked back into the conference room.

  Chapter 24

  One evening after Dano’s departure, Jana realized that she had not taken a vacation in a year and a half. Conducting case investigations, making personnel evaluations of subordinates up for promotion, instructing at the academy, compiling departmental reviews—whatever the task, she’d felt compelled to accept and complete it. Everything consumed time, and maybe that’s what she wanted. Yes, she wanted time to pass without quite noticing its passage. Filling up her hours brought less anxiety, fewer concerns about her mother’s illness, less apprehension about dealing with an absentee father for Katka, and Jana’s submerged but still very present fear about what was happening, or was going to happen, to Dano.

  She had not seen her husband since he had left the house with instructions to her that they could not see each other. For Katka, waking in the morning to find her father gone had not immediately brought about the catastrophe that Jana anticipated. Jana and her mother pretended that Dano had found a job in Brno and had been forced to leave without saying good-bye to Katka. He had left a short note, telling Katka to be good, to listen to Jana and her grandmother in all things, and to remember that he loved her and always would.

  “He will be back when he has earned the necessary money. It is not forever.” Jana wondered if she were lying to herself as well. “He promised to come home.”

  Jana’s mother had wanted to tear up Dano’s note before Katka saw it, an “I told you so” look in her eyes when Katka had became upset upon reading the last lines. “Let his leaving be a desertion, as abrupt as possible,” she had advised Jana. “It will speed the emotional break; sever the ties between father and daughter. It’s best.”

  Jana had refused. “What comes will come naturally. We don’t need to help it along. We are not going to be criminals, stealing her love from him.”

  “Who said anything about stealing?” her mother persisted. “We’re not taking it for ourselves. It’s to help her. When you have an animal that may come prowling around again, you make sure that the food he needs is not available any more. Then it won’t come back.”

  “I don’t like that kind of thinking!” Jana became angry at her mother, her voice taking on a flinty tone. “We are all trying to survive, including Dano. You can’t change the fact that Dano is, and always will be, her father.”

  Jana’s mother pursed her lips and blew, creating a vibration that sounded similar to a human passing gas. Jana’s level of anger rose accordingly. She was afraid she wou
ld lose control of her own temper with the next escalation of the argument, so she left the kitchen. She and her mother did not talk for several days after that, and for weeks afterward communicated only in the briefest of sentences.

  Katka continued to bring up her father’s absence, most frequently in the first several months after he had gone, and in later months with less intensity, and then only on those events, like school holidays, when Dano would ordinarily have taken her to the park or to a café for a dessert treat. Once in a while, in the evening, Katka would still come over to Jana with the plaintive “When is Daddy coming back?” or “Why doesn’t he write?” or “Doesn’t he like us any more?” Even that began to lessen as she accepted that Dano was in that unknown void, “out there.”

  With her mother becoming progressively more ill, suffering from congestive heart failure, her life force ebbing more each week, Jana finally decided it was time for a vacation. She walked into Trokan’s office to get his permission.

  “Vacation granted,” he announced without a moment’s hesitation. He asked her to sit and talk for a while. Jana was not in the mood and tried to avoid a discussion by edging toward the door. “If I’m going on vacation, I need to get as much casework done as possible.”

  “I didn’t say you could leave,” Trokan barked, very much her superior. “Sit!” he commanded.

  Jana sat, uncomfortable, aware instinctively that Trokan was going to bring up Dano.

  “Where are you planning to go?” he wanted to know, making conversation as he watched her, looking for something.

  “The Tatras.” Her answers were going to be as short as possible so she could get out of his office. “The mountains are peaceful.”

  “Lovely place, the Tatras. I would go, except my wife doesn’t like walking up hills.”

  “What does she like?”

  Trokan grimaced. “Nothing. I have concluded that my wife likes nothing and no one, particularly me.”