by Alex Archer
“Look, I’m still putting all this together, Doug. I don’t know if there really is a killer out there or if this cop has simply lost his marbles. I just don’t know.”
“Well, figure it out, then! This could be the episode of the year. Think of the headlines. Chasing History’s Monsters Producer and Host Uncover Real Modern-Day Monster and Bring It to Justice.”
Annja knew there was no way in creation any news editor—in print, video or online—would use such a long and clunky header, but arguing about it with Doug was a lost cause.
“Trust me, Doug, as soon as I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’m serious, Annja! We could really push the envelope on this one. Do a reenactment of the whole bath scene with virgins lying about right before the vampire chick kills them...”
“Doug?”
“Casting could come up with some innocent-looking models, I’m sure, and...”
“Doug?”
“Hmm, maybe not. Okay, I’ll settle for seductive looking—I’m sure they can manage that, at least—and then we’ll have you rise up out of the bath covered with blood and looking right into the camera as you tell the story...”
“Doug!”
Her shout finally shut down his long rambling discourse. “Jeez, you don’t have to yell. What’s the problem?”
“I’m not coming out of a bath.”
He jumped in again. “You don’t have to be naked, but how about a bikini? You know, a small one? We could just...”
Annja closed her eyes and counted to ten.
Doug must have sensed something was amiss, for his talking trailed off after a minute or two.
“Annja? Are you still there?”
Through clenched teeth, Annja said, “Let’s get something straight, Doug. I’m not wearing a bikini on television. I most definitely am not climbing out of a bathtub with blood on me, fake or otherwise. And if you think I’m going to let an important historical subject like Countess Elizabeth Báthory be portrayed as a blood-sucking vampire chick, then you’ve got another think coming!”
Her producer was silent for a moment, and then he asked, tentatively, “Báthory? She’s the vampire chick, right?”
“Argh!” Annja cried, and stabbed the end call button on her phone.
Then, just to be safe, she pulled the battery out.
She settled onto the bed and tried to get back into studying the files, but her concentration had been broken and the hectic day had finally caught up with her.
She packed up the files and took a quick shower. Tomorrow she’d finish her research, and hopefully that would help her form a plan of action.
In the meantime, though, sleep was calling.
17
“Good morning. Can you help me?”
Annja was standing in the local library, where she’d gone soon after waking up. She wanted to independently verify the information Novack had supplied to her by going through back issues of the local newspaper for any and all reports relating to the various tragedies that had been contained in the files.
The woman Annja was speaking to was in her midfifties, with a bright smile and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses with thick lenses that gave her features an owlish cast.
“I’ll certainly try,” the librarian said in excellent English. “What are you looking for?”
When Annja explained that she wanted to go through every issue of the local paper for the past five years, the librarian smiled politely and said, “That’s a lot of issues.”
“I’m sure it is,” Annja replied, “which is why I need your help.”
She could imagine what was going on inside the woman’s head—“are you nuts?” likely being the most prominent refrain—and she was thankful for the librarian’s professionalism. The woman led Annja through the stacks and down two flights of stairs to a room in the basement where the bookshelves were lined with thick binders containing print copies of all the newspaper issues for the past two years.
“Anything older than this gets shipped off to the media center, where it’s digitized and stored on the library’s network. You can access those files at any of the terminals on the second floor. If you need anything, press twenty-eight on that phone over there,” she said, pointing at a white telephone hanging on the wall in the corner, “and that will connect you to the circulation desk.”
Annja waited until the librarian had left the room, and then she checked her notes to find the date when the most recent “victim” from Novack’s files was found. Once she had that, she pulled down the binders containing the issues from that month and began to leaf through them, page by page.
It was time-consuming work, made more difficult by the fact that many of those involved were on the fringes of society and often not mentioned by name, if at all. People died every day under a variety of circumstances, and often they got no more than a line or two of commentary in the press. Annja’s job was to sort through all of these, trying to match the details of the deaths she had in the files with those listed in the newspaper. Her goal was twofold, to verify that the report was accurate—that someone had died in the manner specified—and then to see if the press reports on the victims had anything to add to Novack’s reports.
She took a break for lunch, grabbing something to eat in a small outdoor café not far from the library, and then she returned to continue her search. This time, however, she took her work back up to the main floor, tired of feeling as though she was hiding away in the basement.
She’d been back at it for almost an hour when she realized someone was standing in front of her table, waiting. Annja looked up from the newsprint she was studying to find Detective Tamás. He still had his coat on, which meant, given the warm temperatures in the room, that he’d just come in from outside. In his right hand he was carrying a slim briefcase.
“Hello, Ms. Creed,” Tamás said.
If he’d come here directly from being outside, this visit was no accident. He was looking for her.
“Good afternoon, Detective.”
Tamás pointed at the chair on the other side of the table from her. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“It’s a public building.”
Tamás hesitated, and Annja regretted her remark. There was no need for rudeness.
“I’m sorry, Detective, it’s been a long day. Yes, of course, join me.”
Tamás took off his coat, draping it over the back of the chair, and then sat, placing his briefcase on the table next to him, within easy reach. He glanced at the pile of ledgers holding the newspaper’s back issues.
“I don’t think you’re going to find much information on the countess in the local paper,” he said, smiling.
Annja smiled back at him as she said, “No, you’re probably right. But the paper does have some fascinating things to say about several recent murder cases.”
Tamás cocked his head to one side, seemingly uncertain how to take her comment. “I’m sorry. Did you say murder cases? Why on earth are you interested in something like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied, her gaze never leaving his own. “Maybe because several of them are quite similar to the Vass killing. Was Csilla Polgár traveling with all of them?”
Tamás scowled at her and opened his mouth to say something sharp, but then understanding flooded his features and he sat back in his chair, rebuke unspoken. He watched her closely and then, with a faint smile on his face, said, “You’ve been talking to Novack, haven’t you?”
Annja kept her face impassive. “Who?”
“Havel Novack?”
Play dumb.
“I don’t know who that is.”
Tamás laughed. “Right. And you just happened to come across information on the Cynthia Bardecki case on your own?”
Annja glanced down and saw she’d written Bardecki’s name on the pad of paper in front of her at some point earlier that morning.
Watch it, she told herself. He was not only smart, he was observant, too. He’d read
that upside down with just a glance.
She shifted position, sliding her arm casually over the top of her pad as she said, “I’m afraid you have me at a loss, again, Detective. Who?”
“I suppose the names Lenka Burget, Kate Cérna, Liv Frank and Adriana Moravec mean nothing to you, as well?”
Annja stared at him. Novack had given her a file last night for each and every one of the names Tamás had just mentioned. There were quite a few others, of course, and Annja suspected that Tamás could have named them all had he chosen to do so.
What was going on here? she wondered. Novack had said only a few people knew about his theory; was Tamás in on the cover-up? Was that why he had come here?
Tamás must have sensed her anxiety because he said, “You are perfectly within your rights to access public information in any way you see fit. Please understand that I’m not trying to interfere with your research.”
She sensed a “but” coming...
“But before you continue and get yourself involved even deeper in what is already a mess, I’d ask that you read this.”
He reached into his briefcase, pulled out a thick file folder and pushed it across the table toward her.
Annja glanced at it but made no move to touch it.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Havel Novack’s personnel file. He reported to me for several years before he retired.”
“Isn’t that confidential?”
“Normally, yes. But I’m bending the rules in this situation.” His smile was both ironic and a bit sad. “You seem to think I’m doing everything I can to railroad Miss Polgár, but I assure you that I’m just following the evidence as I see it. I think you’d do the same in my case, which is why I brought you the file. You might want to have a look at it before wasting any more of your time. I trust that you’ll return it when you’re finished?”
Annja stared at the file for a moment, not touching it, and then she nodded, not sure what to say. He sounded so believable, and yet...
“Good day to you, then, Ms. Creed.”
Tamás got up, retrieved his jacket and case, nodded to her once and then left.
Annja waited until he was out of sight before reaching for the file. It felt as though it weighed ten pounds as she dragged it across the tabletop.
Just my imagination, she told herself.
Inside was a written testament to Havel Novack’s life on the force. Evaluations. Commendations. Records of the cases he’d worked and the collars he’d made. Firearms qualifications. Public service projects. You name it, it was in there. Annja read through the file with fascination, learning that Novack was a dedicated officer who took his job seriously and worked hard to live up to his role as a figure of truth and justice.
Everything supported her own conclusions about the man and his behavior until she got about three-quarters of the way through the file.
That was when things started to go downhill.
According to the documentation, Novack had suffered through a long and bitter divorce, like so many police officers before him. Following the divorce, he’d started drinking, a little here and there, until the pressure got to be too much, it seemed, and he began to do it more regularly.
Annja read on with increasing dismay, through reports of botched arrests and compromised investigations. Novack’s downward spiral was all documented there in black-and-white.
Then came the final straw.
Novack had begun poking into cases that were not his own. He had been reprimanded twice for interfering in the work of other officers and had been placed on two weeks’ leave to try to sort himself out. According to the paperwork, Novack had come back from his time off with the paranoid idea that a serial killer was loose in Nové Mesto and the surrounding communities. The killer was had supposedly targeting young women and draining the blood from their bodies in the manner of the Blood Countess.
The more Annja read, the more dismayed she became.
Novack had finally confronted the divisional captain, demanding that someone pay attention to the killings he’d uncovered and threatening to go to the press if they did not. At that point Novack was declared unfit for duty and retired on a medical pension.
There was no mention of a knee injury, which was the reason Novack had given her for his being drummed off the force.
Annja finished reading the file, closed the folder and sat back in her chair, wondering what the heck she was going to do next.
Had all this been for nothing?
She tried to consider the situation dispassionately, just as she did when evaluating an artifact or a dig site. What did she really know? Not think or believe or suspect, but know.
Marta Vass was dead, killed by person or persons unknown. Her body had been drained of blood before being dumped on that ridgeline. Csilla Polgár had been arrested for the crime. Both Annja and Havel Novack believed Csilla to be innocent. Novack also believed a serial killer was preying on vulnerable members of the local community.
Those were all facts.
Now Annja believed that Csilla was innocent, but she couldn’t say for sure. Not 100 percent. After all, what did she really know about the woman anyway?
Very little.
Maybe Tamás was right; maybe Polgár and Vass were traveling together and got into an argument that ended in tragedy. She didn’t think it was true, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. Fact was, she really didn’t know.
All she had to go on was her gut feeling.
And her gut told her that Csilla hadn’t done it.
But that was where her problem arose. Her gut was also telling her that the information Novack had supplied her with was on the up-and-up—that women were being targeted by a smart killer who had managed, either with the police’s help or without it, to keep his or her activities under the radar.
And yet Novack’s personnel file was pretty damning. Both to Novack and his theory. The former officer had made no mention of his drinking problem when they’d met last night. In fact, if Tamás was to be believed, Novack had not only left out that little detail but had actively lied about the reason he’d been drummed off the force. Given all the documentation Tamás had provided on the man’s mental state, it was getting harder to believe that Novack’s entire narrative wasn’t just some fantastical story. After all, what real proof did he have?
That wasn’t fair, she said to herself. What proof did she have that her sword could appear and disappear at will?
She almost brushed off the question as ridiculous—her subconscious could be a real pain at times—but then she realized it wasn’t so ridiculous after all.
Annja was going to have to make a choice.
18
Annja needed time to relax and get her thoughts in order, so she had a leisurely dinner in a nice little Italian place a few blocks from her hotel. She even had a piece of tiramisu and a cup of hot chocolate for dessert.
In the end, she decided to give Novack a chance to explain himself. She owed him that much. If he’d had a drinking problem but was clean now—which he’d appeared to be when she’d seen him the past two times—then perhaps he was simply too embarrassed to bring it up. He’d readily admitted that he’d been all but drummed off the force, so she couldn’t fault him too badly for not wanting to talk about the details. Especially if he’d been hoping to convince her of a rather outlandish story to begin with.
If he came clean and admitted the lie, she’d continue working with him on the investigation. Her gut was still telling her something was wrong here.
If she walked away and it turned out he was correct, she’d have condemned Csilla to imprisonment for a crime she didn’t commit, and the killer might go on to destroy the lives of others.
That was something for which she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.
But she needed to know she could trust him to uphold his end of the partnership and that he wouldn’t crack under pressure.
Pleased that she’d made a decision, Annja fi
nished off her hot chocolate with one last gulp, paid the check and headed back to her hotel. She said hello to the doorman as she passed inside. After waiting for the elevator with a pair of elderly men who smelled of cigarettes and mouthwash, she rode up with them in silence. They got off on the floor below hers.
As Annja came down the hall toward her room, she noticed that her door was slightly ajar. No more than an inch, but even an inch was problematic, because she was certain that she’d not only pulled it firmly shut but locked it behind her when she’d left.
She stopped a few feet away from the door and listened.
She didn’t hear anything.
Annja glanced up and down the hall, checking to be sure that it was empty. Confident that she wouldn’t be observed, she reached into the otherwhere for her sword.
Feeling more confident now that she had a weapon in hand, Annja stepped to the side of the hallway and slowly advanced until she stood just outside her room with her back to the wall.
She listened again, but aside from the drone of a voice somewhere on the floor above, she didn’t hear anyone moving about inside her room.
Still, it paid to be careful.
She reached out with the tip of her sword and nudged the door open the rest of the way.
Armed assailants didn’t come charging out of the room, nor did a hail of withering gunfire chew the door into smithereens.
You’ve been watching too many movies, Creed.
Annja gave it a moment, and then peeked around the corner quickly before pulling her head back.
Her room was in shambles. Drawers were hanging out of the dresser, clothes were everywhere and it looked like someone had torn apart the mattress.
The files.
She wanted to rush in, to see if they were still there, but prudence reared its head and she took her time, slowly moving around the doorway and into the room just in case someone was still inside. She found the bedroom and the bath empty. A quick check of the closest confirmed no one was hiding in there, either.
Satisfied that she was alone, Annja released the sword back into the otherwhere and stared at the destruction around her.
