by Emma Lathen
To speed things up Oblonski said, “You were offering her a bribe to get a peek at Vigotis’s correspondence?”
“Why shouldn’t I see it? Whatever high and mighty games he likes to play, he’s supposed to be representing Estonians, and that’s me.”
“Never mind about that. What happened?”
“At first she pretended she wasn’t interested but she was just trying to jack up the price. I was arguing with her when we heard Zabriski’s secretary calling out to someone that she’d talk to them after she finished faxing. Well, I didn’t want her to see me there so I ducked into the supply room.”
Those mobile eyebrows had snapped down but Oblonski’s voice was neutral. “Go on.”
“Instead of just dumping her papers, the Jesilko woman picked up some incoming stuff and started reading. God, I thought I’d be there all night, the time she was taking. But finally she went next door and I took the chance to beat it. That’s when I went out to my car.”
“Why did you have to slink around that way? Couldn’t you just pretend you were faxing something?”
“Be serious, Colonel. If the girl got rattled into spilling the beans, Zabriski would have raised holy hell. I figured I was doing everybody a favor by lying low.”
Adopting an air of profound skepticism, Oblonski said severely, “We will of course check this latest story you’ve come up with.”
“You do that!”
* * *
The fax operator was a dumpy girl with heavy makeup and a sharp, calculating expression. After five minutes Oblonski was inclined to agree that she had been bargaining with Hroka about price. But now she took full advantage of her initial refusal. “I told him it was out of the question,” she said righteously. “But I was still trying to get rid of him when we heard Frau Jesilko. And that made him so nervous he simply dived into the storeroom before I could do anything.”
“You didn’t feel it necessary to tell Frau Jesilko?”
The girl shook her mane of bushy hair. “Oh, no, I wasn’t going to get involved. It was a big relief to have her finally go next door. That was when Herr Hroka sneaked off.”
There had not only been witnesses in the cafeteria, there had been speculation there as well. “I wondered who he was and why he was hanging around the doorway,” testified a clerk from the mail room.
“And then we saw Marie go off with him so that explained everything,” chimed in a telephone operator.
“It did?” Oblonski asked amiably.
“Well, we all know what Marie’s like. She’ll go off with anything in pants.”
“Particularly if she thought there was something in it for her,” added the clerk slanderously. Far more interesting, however, were the observations of the auto mechanic. He was not familiar with Jaan Hroka but he recognized a photograph instantly.
“Oh, him. He was ahead of me in the corridor to the cafeteria. I wouldn’t have noticed him except that he didn’t go inside, just stood looking in. And then, once I’d gotten my meal and started to eat, the girls at the next table were talking about him.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“Yes, it turned out he was meeting that little tart from the fax station.” The elderly man sniffed. “Right inside headquarters. Disgraceful!”
John Thatcher undoubtedly had his burdens, but at least he had avoided being part and parcel of the long haul back to Gdansk. Others at BADA were not so fortunate.
“God, I’m glad that’s over,” Annamarie announced upon entering her apartment and dumping gloves and purse on the nearest surface.
Her husband emerged from the bathroom. “That bad, eh?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” she said grumpily, going on to detail the dramatics in Warsaw. “I sometimes wonder whether any of this is worth it.”
Nils Nordstrom was an easygoing man who had long since accepted his wife’s driving ambition. “You don’t mean that, and you know it. Why not just collapse while I get you a drink?”
Taking him at his word, she kicked off her shoes and yanked at the black half-moon clip that was doing service as a funerary hat. By the time her husband handed her a glass she was propped against the pillows on the sofa. With the first sip she began to recover. “You know, one of the New York bankers got himself carted off to a hospital. I wish I’d thought of that one.”
He looked down at her. “Don’t worry, you will.”
She grinned. “Well, it’s worth thinking about. Anytime one of our delegates bites the dust, he’ll get the full cathedral treatment back home. So a well-timed sprained ankle would pay for itself.”
“Busy, busy, always thinking,” he teased her. “Look, tomorrow’s Saturday and I don’t have to be back until Monday morning. What about spending the weekend in the fresh air? We could go sailing.”
“That sounds wonderful. I could use a breathing space.”
“How bad are things going to be?”
Reaching for a pillow at the end of the sofa, she stuffed it behind her head and, cradling her drink, fell into reflection. “It’s hard to tell. As far as what’s foreseeable, it’s six of one, half of a dozen of another. We’ll probably have a God-almighty brouhaha selecting a successor chief of staff. But while everybody is busy politicking I can select the panel for the Kiel inquiry and polish off the vote on the harbor project.”
“I suppose you’ll tank right over them on that one.”
“It won’t be hard. Giving thumbs-up to Tallinn will be a relief to almost everyone now. And, long term, we’ll be able to handle the canal proposal on a rational basis.”
They both knew the heart of the problem remained.
“And what about the unforeseeable?” he asked briskly.
“Oh, Lord, Nils, how can I tell? Stefan’s murder means there are all sorts of wild cards out there. For starters, there’s whatever mess he stumbled onto. I’m not going to have that hanging around like a time bomb. Then, there’s the identity of the killer. If it’s some anonymous computer expert who found an ingenious way to transfer funds, that’s one thing. But if it’s a delegate . . . God, I seem to have been talking nonstop since I came through that door,” she said, leaning her head far back to stretch her neck muscles.
“And now you’ve got it out of your system, forget about BADA for the weekend,” he advised kindly. “Monday is a long way away.”
* * *
Unlike the Nordstroms, the Eric Andersens were not spending the weekend together. Andersen had been in the forefront of the disturbances at Lazienkowski Palace and had barely made it to the last car of the convoy returning to Gdansk. Feeling considerably battered, he was in no mood to undertake a round-trip to Copenhagen before the council’s next meeting. “She’s convened the session for nine o’clock on Monday, Clara,” he explained to his wife over the phone. “There just isn’t enough time.”
Clara lamented the important events he would miss, emphasizing in particular a joint session with the Danish branch of Greenpeace. The entire Andersen tribe was committed to ecological reform. “They’ll just have to get along without me,” he grunted.
It went without saying that the family presence would still be felt. “What a shame. Since Frieda’s out of town too I’ll have to try getting hold of Christian.”
“It might be better if you went alone. You’ve got some sense.” Andersen had learned to voice disapproval of his wife’s nephew in terms of a flattering comparison.
“There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Christian. He’s just young, Eric,” she said indulgently. “They’re impatient about everything at that age.” Among the things Christian was impatient about was the legalistic, legislative, pettifogging approach to a cleaner environment favored by his elders. At the ripe age of 22, he reveled in demonstrations, traffic pileups, daring incursions into military zones, and vivid abuse of all and sundry.
“It would help if you could shut him up for once,” his fond uncle suggested. “This is not the best time for him to be talking about throwing bombs.”
At first she did not understand. “Christian is simply voicing his convictions. I admit he tends to exaggerate, but that’s because he enjoys the excitement of direct confrontation.”
“He enjoys going to jail!”
Clara bristled in defense of her young. “He has been arrested twice for blocking entrance to a chemical facility. In other words, he was lying down in a road. There’s no need to make it sound as if he’s an apostle of mayhem and destruction.”
“I’m not talking about what he does,” Andersen growled, sensibly retreating a few paces. “I’m talking about the way he sounds. Given the canal disaster and my position at BADA, the family should not be associated with extremist factions.”
“Ah ha!” she pounced. “So you’re really talking about yourself. But you’re not responsible for what your nephew says. Why should it embarrass you at the council?”
Recent developments had altered Eric Andersen’s list of priorities. “We have a murder investigation going on here at BADA,” he reminded her.
“But what does that have to do with you, Eric?”
His voice had deepened to a basso rumble. “Nothing so far. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
Chapter 16
Sea Wolves
Colonel Oblonski, when summoned to a meeting with his superiors on Saturday afternoon, realized far too well that he had only negative findings to report. As so often in the past he would belabor the theme that clearing away underbrush is a valuable exercise. But the harassed men around the table barely gave him an opportunity to deliver two sentences.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to scratch Hroka and Frau Jesilko,” he began apologetically. “They both have alibis for the critical period.”
The news was not received in the manner he expected. “Who cares about them?” demanded a ministry of justice official. “Now we have real problems.”
Oblonski contented himself with projecting polite receptivity.
“This is what we’re talking about,” the ministry’s adviser snarled, thrusting a communiqué from the German government into Oblonski’s hands. “It will be on the news this evening. I can hear them now. Kiel Canal sabotaged by eco-terrorists!”
Blankly Oblonski read the text of a letter received by the Kiel Beobachter from a group claiming responsibility for the disaster. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “But this can’t have anything to do with Zabriski’s murder.”
“Oh, no?” barked the official. “Just wait until tomorrow. After that disgraceful riot, every newspaper in Europe will make a connection. The ecologists stage a catastrophe, then one of their heroes is murdered in revenge. Naturally that makes them go berserk at his funeral.”
The colonel was shaking his head firmly. “Zabriski was the last man in the world to be sympathetic to environmentalists. This business about his being a martyr is simply journalistic nonsense.”
“All right,” said the official, reversing smartly. “You said he found out something that made him look sick, didn’t you? He probably discovered who caused the disaster, and they killed him to shut his mouth.”
Oblonski sympathized with the passions dominating the room. The last thing the ministry wanted was a roiling stew of foreign interests, continent-wide manhunts, and TV spectaculars. From their point of view a lowly Estonian shipper as killer would have been good; a sex-driven secretary even better. “What does the German government say about this?” he asked cautiously. “It is certainly not characteristic of terrorist groups to wait a week before revealing their role in an attack. Particularly if they’ve just murdered somebody to keep it quiet.”
The official looked even more annoyed than ever. “They think this may possibly be a hoax. Apparently they know all about the group signing the letter and doubt their participation.”
Oblonski nodded. “And their police keep very close tabs on the greens who are violence-prone. Furthermore it’s not unknown for one of these groups to claim credit for a disaster whose cause has not been determined.”
“You’re missing the point, Oblonski!” growled the adviser. “What matters is that there’s going to be a media carnival. For God’s sake, they’re already here in Poland.” Far too tactful to remind anyone that the media were in place because a pageant had been staged for them by the same all-wise authorities now deploring their presence, Oblonski returned to his own concerns. “The thrust of my investigation cannot be greatly influenced by this development. Even if there is some connection between terrorists and Zabriski, that would simply go to motivation. The physical parameters of the murder remain. He was killed at BADA, with a BADA weapon, by someone who knew his movements and probably his intentions. The crime remains BADA-centered.”
The ministry’s adviser was still seeking a reasonable substitute for the humbler suspects that Oblonski had cleared. “Some little runt of a clerk there,” he suggested. “All you have to do is find an environmental enthusiast.”
This was no time to explain that the little runts had left for the day long before Zabriski’s murder had been committed. Instead Oblonski prepared his listeners for the shoals ahead as diplomatically as possible. “It is true that there are dedicated ecologists at BADA,” he intoned somberly. “Unfortunately some of them occupy very important positions.”
* * *
True to Bonn’s forecast, the news was delivered to the waiting world that night, and by Sunday Wanda Jesilko had planned her tactics. “You’ll want the books too,” she said as she carried a tea tray into Stefan Zabriski’s sitting room.
She had set aside the day to help Adam Zabriski. He was dividing his father’s belongings into those to be retained, those to be sold, and those to be thrown away. Adam was in a trance, lost in reverie as he absent-mindedly stroked the ancient leather case of his father’s much cherished violin. Shaking his shoulders to rouse himself, he moved forward, glancing around the unadorned walls. “It’s pretty bare, isn’t it?”
“Stefan never noticed pictures or flowers,” she said tolerantly.
“I’m surprised you didn’t live together.”
Spooning sugar into their cups, she used his remark to further her ends. “At first it was because of Katya,” she said, referring to her daughter. “And then, by the time she went off, Stefan had really begun to change.”
“I haven’t seen much of him since I got elected to the legislature,” he admitted. Wanda and Adam had not only known each other for years, they were practically coconspirators. Stefan Zabriski’s wife had spent her existence smoothing his passage through life. When she died Zabriski expected his son to fill the void. Adam had been only too happy to step aside for Wanda Jesilko.
“Coming to Gdansk was not good for Stefan,” she continued deliberately.
In the act of choosing a pastry from the plate, Adam paused. “But Father said he loved his work here,” he objected.
“That was the trouble. For the first time, Stefan had a say in what was going to be done. As a result, he became hypnotized by what he thought he could do at BADA. He was growing more and more autocratic.”
“Come now, he wasn’t that bad.”
“Not before, no.” She shrugged. “In Warsaw he never questioned that the government was all-powerful. After all, who could? Here it wasn’t like that at all.”
“Well, naturally.”
Wanda ignored the interruption. “In case you received the wrong impression from the funeral, the council members usually aren’t here. They just fly in for business and then go home. Stefan didn’t take them seriously. What’s more, he didn’t bother to hide his attitude.”
“That is a mistake for anyone in his position,” Adam pontificated.
“Stefan made a lot of mistakes,” she said evenly.
Adam thought he knew what was coming. “Are you telling me that Father was wrong when he claimed there was some kind of fraud?”
“Just the opposite.”
Raising his cup, Adam examined her over its rim. Wanda was notoriously lavish with words and ge
stures. Never before had he seen her so constrained. “Go on,” he said uneasily.
For a moment she did not reply. Instead she poured more tea for both of them and halved a pastry for herself. “The police are returning Stefan’s files to the office tomorrow morning. They haven’t found anything. But I plan to go through them myself in case there’s something they missed.”
Disturbed by her manner, he said, “What’s troubling you?”
Still she hesitated, then she chose an oblique approach. “Stefan was a very honorable man.”
“Of course, of course.” From Adam’s point of view, Warsaw had more than satisfied the need to eulogize his father.
“I’m trying to phrase something difficult,” she said, sensing his impatience. “Stefan had convinced himself he knew what was best for BADA. He was absolutely sincere in his belief.”
A sudden cold prickle skating down his spine warned Adam, too late, what she was about to suggest. “And therefore Father might have done something improper?” he finished for her incredulously. “That’s absurd.”
“It wouldn’t have seemed improper to him. It would have been a shortcut to a desirable BADA goal.”
“I can’t imagine how you picked up such a lunatic idea,” he snapped.
She answered him literally. “Partly because of the way Stefan looked the night he was killed. He seemed absolutely overwhelmed. And he usually enjoyed ferreting out irregularities. You should have seen him when he found out about the toxic dumping.”
“So it was not like him to be so depressed. Maybe he was coming down with an illness.”
Serenely disregarding his bleat, she went on. “A lot of people thought Stefan was pro-German, but that wasn’t it. He was simply determined to push through a Kiel Canal project. When the disaster didn’t produce the backing he expected, he was so bitter that I wondered what he had been up to.”
