Requiem for a Gypsy

by Michael Genelin

  Jana walked to the exit, turning to take a last look at the soundstage. A stray frivolous thought went through her mind: the case involving the Bogans was now unquestionably more interesting than any movie that had ever been filmed on this soundstage.

  Jana exited the building, the watchman trailing after her, leaving the lights on in case she wanted to come back inside. Jana walked to the side of the building that the door from the catwalk led to. A metal staircase ran up to the door. Jana climbed it. It was locked from the outside as well. She examined the lock for any marks that would indicate it had ever been forced open. There were none.

  She went back down the stairs, the watchman staring at her from below. Near him, attached to the building at ground level, was a large fuse-and-switch box for the high-intensity lights used in the soundstage. There was no lock on it. Jana opened both of its doors. There was a board inside containing the electrical gauges, switches, and fuses that one would expect in this type of container. There were no guns.

  Jana started to close the fuse box, but then noticed an oddity about the gauges: they weren’t reflecting even the slightest movement. The needles on the dials were absolutely still. Not even a flicker. The watchman had left the lights on inside: that should have been registering on the gauges. If the gauges were not connected, the board was not functioning.

  Jana examined the board and then pushed on it. It gave slightly. She pushed harder, and the whole panel shifted. Jana gripped its upper edge and pulled as hard as she could. The panel suddenly gave way and fell to the ground.

  It was a false front.

  Tucked neatly inside were two rifles.

  Chapter 6

  Jana drove to the attorney general’s office on Kapunska. The SID unit investigating the Bogan shooting had been moved over to offices there near the prosecutors, so they could work together on developing a thorough investigation leading to a successful prosecution. Unfortunately, no perpetrators had been charged as yet. Worse, as far as Jana knew, there were not even any suspects.

  She walked into the building carrying the rifles wrapped in heavy brown paper slung over her shoulder in carriers, flashed her credentials at the guards, then turned toward the east wing of the building and went up the stairs to the floor that housed the special investigations group. The secretary immediately recognized Jana when she entered the office, and a worried expression washed over her face. Her expression got even more worried when she noticed the rifles that Jana was carrying.

  “Commander,” the woman greeted her. She immediately called the inner office and announced, “The commander is here,” without indicating which commander it was, assuming the call’s recipient would know. The inner door opened, and Investigator Jakus came out.

  “Good afternoon, Commander,” he said, his voice naturally raspy.

  “Hello, Jakus.”

  Jana had never been fond of Jakus, who had worked with her for a while. He’d transferred out of her division a year ago. The man had a web of influential relatives who were always pushing the administration to give him better jobs and to promote him. That was probably the reason he had been placed in charge of the police investigation of the Bogan shooting. He was a decent investigator, although uninspired in his approach to cases, taking them from one precise step to the next, never making the evidence-based leaps of imagination that so often propelled difficult cases to successful conclusions.

  Jakus looked nervous, unsure of what he should make of her visit. Or of the guns she was carrying.

  “I’d invite you inside, Commander, but I’ve got strict orders to maintain confidentiality in the investigation, and I have all kinds of exhibits exposed on the boards, so …” He brightened slightly. “If you’d like to talk, we can talk out here. What was it you wanted?” He eyed the rifles but was too insecure to ask about them.

  “An update on the case, Jakus.”

  “Since you’re a witness, Commander, I’ve been instructed to keep you away from the investigation. Your testimony might be distorted by seeing the other evidence we’ve found.”

  Jana stared at him, not liking what she had just heard. “Have you found something? A piece of evidence that has led you to the shooters? Perhaps a motive? Or, even more startling, you’ve found that Bogan’s wife arranged the whole thing to exploit the movie-studio setting and leave behind her a legacy of one of the most dramatic events ever to have taken place in Slovakia?”

  Jakus stared at her, his mouth slightly open, wondering how he should respond.

  “I went to the soundstage where the shootings took place,” Jana told him. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the shell casing she’d discovered. “I found this on the balcony where our shooters fired. It was in one of the support braces. Do you want me to mark the location on the scene schematic you’ve done?”

  She tossed the shell to Jakus. He looked at it for a moment, agonizing over what to do, then finally nodded. “I suppose it would be better if you indicated the exact position of the casing on the chart.” He opened the door of his office wide enough for her to go inside.

  The office had two desks and a long side table. There were corkboards on three of the four walls and a movable chalkboard in front of the other wall. The chalkboard had the names of the guests at Bogan’s party written on it. They were arranged alphabetically, and most of them were crossed out. Two of the corkboards were covered with photographs of the crime scene; the deceased woman, both in life and from various angles in death; the colonel lying on the floor with the EMT response team working on him; victims of the stampede following the shooting; even several of Jana, her arm around a shaken and crying Bogan as he tried to come to terms with the events.

  The last corkboard held a massive graphic of the entire floor of the soundstage, along with an auxiliary inset of the catwalk running around it. There were all kinds of notations on the graphic, indicating the positions of the bodies, including both Bogans, the colonel, and Jana; the celebration cake; the places where the victims of the human stampede had fallen; the possible locations of the shooters; and the possible trajectories of the shots.

  Pinned to the upper right-hand corner of the board was a smaller schematic of the locations where the shell casings ejected from the rifles that had targeted the Bogans had been found. Jana took her time looking over the items in the room, then walked to the corkboard containing the shell-casing schematic and quickly x-ed the location where she had found the casing, initialing it.

  “Two guns, right?” she asked, turning to Jakus.

  He hesitated, staring at the rifles she was carrying, then nodded.

  “Professional assassins.” She slowly walked around the office, looking at the items posted on the other boards. “Lots of work to do here.”

  “Yes.”

  She stopped, and looked directly at Jakus.

  “You have nothing, right?”

  He managed a reluctant head bob to indicate that Jana was correct in her assessment.

  “Sorry to hear that. If I can be of any help, feel free to call on me.” She started out of the office, and then momentarily turned back. “The prosecutor who has been assigned to the case: what office is she in?”

  “Prosecutor Truchanova is two doors down,” he managed after a pause.

  “Thank you. Nothing for you to worry over. I simply want to talk to her.” Jana half turned as if to leave again, then stopped. Jakus was staring at the wrapped rifles. Time to ease the man’s misery, Jana thought, even if just a little. “Yes, the rifles, Jakus. I’ll leave them with the prosecutor after I’m through.”

  Jana stepped out of the inner office, nodded at the secretary as she passed, went down the corridor to the prosecutor’s office, and entered. The door to the inner office was open, the woman’s secretary inside, poised to take dictation, waiting for the prosecutor to get off the phone. The prosecutor glanced up to see Jana walking into her office.

  “She’s just come in,” Truchanova nodded as she spoke into the phone. “Yes, I’ll ta
ke possession of the guns.” She hung up, waved the secretary out of the office, and motioned at one of the chairs to indicate that Jana should sit. She watched as Jana set the guns gently down on the floor, and then waited for her to get comfortable. Truchanova was older than Jana, evidently reaching that age when women start using a little too much makeup to conceal the aging process and often dress slightly too youthfully for their unwanted maturity. However, that didn’t affect her competence. Truchanova was still very ambitious and bright enough to do her job well.

  “Thank you for the visit, Commander Matinova. That was Jakus on the line. A little excited. You’ve found the guns in the Bogan killing?”

  “More than likely. Ballistics will have to confirm it.” Jana flicked a plastic bag she had attached to one of the rifle carriers. “I also found two pairs of surgical gloves in the same hidey-hole as the rifles. Thin plastic so the shooters could still feel the trigger and get off accurate shots without leaving prints on the weapons. Leaving the gloves may have been a mistake: there could be prints inside the glove fingers, although they’re probably smeared from the finger movement. Even so, we might get enough of a print to match it.”

  “I’ll see to it.” Truchanova eyed Jana, wondering why she had chosen to turn the guns over to her rather than just giving them to Jakus. “You have more?”

  “I want something in return for my good deed.” Jana’s voice was quiet, but assured. “I need access to the ongoing investigation.”

  “You’ve been barred from the probe because you’re already a major witness on the case. It’s not good to have a major witness investigating a case.”

  “Every police officer on every case becomes, at some point, a material witness. That doesn’t stop them from going forward with the investigation.”

  Truchanova winced at the truth of the observation. To justify her position, she tried a slightly different approach.

  “We’re doing it because of the high-profile aspects of the case. We keep you free of any suggestion that you’re compromised in any way by exposure to any evidence we subsequently find. This way, there can’t be any subsequent charges that you’ve distorted the rest of the investigation. Or the prosecution.”

  Jana waved this argument away. “Madam Truchanova, let’s face it: you need another pair of eyes on the case. The way the investigation has been proceeding isn’t working. There isn’t criticism coming your way yet; but soon, we both know, there will be. No results, no case; no glory, no job. I simply want to save the rest of your professional life. My first effort toward that end is my gift of the rifles.”

  The two women stared at each other, Jana smiling at Truchanova, trying to give her additional assurance. “I’m not looking to be in front of the cameras. I take a bad picture.” She waited for the other woman to say something, then went on when the prosecutor remained silent. “My promise is that I’ll take no overt part in the investigation. I’ll pass on everything to you; then you go forward as any prosecutor would in constructing a case. If I discover evidence, you get it, along with the right to do with it what you feel is strategically necessary. I’ll stay out of the picture. No one has to know, until I testify, of my new involvement.” Jana tapped the guns with a finger. “My second contribution to this agreement: the guns will be clean, but there are two bullets left in the clip on one of them. I’ve left them there. Shooters sometimes forget when they’re loading guns that the bullets also take prints.”

  Truchanova’s face had taken on a slightly avid look. She liked the evidence she’d been given. “Where were the guns?”

  “In an outside fake electrical box, down the stairs that led from the catwalk where the shooters were to the ground on the side of the building. They fled, stashing the guns so they wouldn’t be seen with them. The box was obviously set up to hide the weapons, so they knew the layout well before they did their killing.”

  Truchanova mulled over the windfall she had just been given, looking for a way to be grateful without seeming indebted. She came out with a weak “Thank you for finding the guns.”

  “Are we agreed on the terms of our bargain?”

  The prosecutor sat, not moving for another minute as she thought her position over, then nodded reluctantly. “Agreed.”

  “Good.” Jana stood, placing the weapons on the woman’s desk. “I’ll need a copy of the murder book.”

  The prosecutor reached into a lower drawer of her desk, and with both hands, pulled out a binder thick with reports. The name Bogan was inked on the outside cover in black letters. Truchanova handed it to Jana.

  “Everything is there.”

  “Thank you, Madam Prosecutor.”

  “I hope our silent cooperation will be a fruitful one, Commander Matinova.”

  “So do I, Madam Prosecutor.” She hefted the murder book in her hands. “Very heavy. Have you noticed that all murder books become weightier in proportion to the media’s interest in the case?”

  “Always.”

  “I trust you’ll give me the results of the fingerprint evaluation and the tracking on the ownership of the guns.”

  “I will.”

  “Good-bye, Madam Prosecutor.”

  Jana walked out of the room. Truchanova waited until she heard the outer door close, then closed her own office door. She went back to her desk and dialed the number for Jakus.

  “I have the rifles. They will need to be fingerprinted; manufacture, sale, and ownership tracked. Also the interior of the gloves the shooters wore. And bullets in one of the clips. I’ve agreed that Matinova can, without official authorization, silently assist us in the investigation.” She listened for a moment, her lips pursing in irritation. “Don’t be an idiot, Jakus. The Rostov Report was not included in the murder book, and I didn’t give it to her.” She listened for another few seconds, getting even more irritated. “I will remind you that these are guns that you failed to find. Now, get in here and pick them up.”

  She slammed the phone down in its cradle. “Fool!”

  Chapter 7

  Jana decided to take a walk through Old Town. She could relax in the old city center. The leisurely pace of the pedestrian milieu where few cars were allowed, and the disheveled grace of the old buildings, encouraged the rambler to enjoy the calm of seeming to inhabit another century. Today, although there was a nip in the air, the sunlight added to the peacefulness of the walk as Jana traced a wide arc through Kapitulska, then angled past creaky old St. Martin’s Cathedral toward Panska, eventually reaching the mall-like Hviezdoslavovo Namestie. Jana’s objective came in sight: the Verne, a small café decorated with illustrations of Jules Verne stories.

  It was a good day for Jana to visit the Verne. The café, furnished with antiques and decorated with a pastiche of objects related to Verne’s books, lent itself to casually eating palacinky or simply zoning out over a paperback. Jana took a seat in an easy chair near a small wall mural depicting Captain Nemo in diving gear staring at an octopus. She plunked the murder book down on a side table next to the chair and pulled the table closer so she could read easily.

  Before she began, Jana looked around at the other occupants of the café: a few college students; a waitress leaning over a handsome young man, trying to make a favorable impression; and, close by, a pair of Polish tourists attempting to figure out a map. Jana understood enough of the Polish to gather that they were flying back to Kraków in the early evening and trying to decide over a cup of coffee what to do with the last few hours of their vacation.

  The waitress eventually gave up on the handsome young man and came over. Jana ordered a hot chocolate, then settled in to read the murder book cover to cover. It took her two hours and two hot chocolates to get through it. As she had expected, there was very little of real note. But, as always, there were little pieces that were interesting— not only from what was contained in the reports, but from what was missing.

  The interviewing of the guests at the party had to have been a nightmare. There had also been an evidently painstaki
ng series of follow-up interviews based on the guest list. Almost none of the interviews had produced even the smallest bit of new information on the shootings. It was as if the guests at the party had been blind to anything beyond their immediate fear when the shooting began. There was one outstanding exception: a Mr. and Mrs. Jozel had arrived late, reaching the outside of the building just as the other guests began streaming out of the doors, escaping from the shooting inside. The pair was walking past the alley at the side of the building, moving toward the entrance, when two men bolted out from the alley, one of them colliding with Mr. Jozel, knocking him to the ground. The man had screamed at Mr. Jozel in a rage, even though the collision had been the man’s fault. Mrs. Jozel had seen the man from a distance of no more than two feet and had remembered his face in a very detailed way.

  Odd how human nature betrays us, Jana thought. A man, while committing a dreadful criminal act, a situation in which he could not have wanted to call attention to himself, makes a foolish mistake while fleeing, then compounds the mistake by inviting even more attention. His description was now contained in an investigation report, a result anyone committing a murder would want to avoid. Stupid. But, then again, committing a murder is an intrinsically stupid act.

  Jana read the description of the man: medium height, barrel-chested, hair covered with a watch cap, thick-featured with a large, full mouth. Mrs. Jozel had noted one other salient feature that would be enormously helpful in identifying the man: he had a very recognizable face because of a large chestnut birthmark on his right cheek. The man was marked. The murder book indicated that a query had been put out to Europol to try to locate him. There was no response logged in. The witnessing couple had not focused on the other man and could not describe him. Jana folded down the corner of the page so she could come back to it.