by Emma Lathen
As this was the extent of their recollection, Oblonski returned to the hangover victim. “If you were monitoring the cloakroom, you know who else left early.” He was speedily disabused. Everybody working in the front half of the main floor had been instructed to offer taxis to departing guests.
“All right. Then at least you can pinpoint the time of Jesilko’s departure.” At first even this seemed beyond the powers of his informant. The man would only say that the party had gone on for hours after Wanda departed. But by dint of wheedling and bullying, by appealing to the others, Oblonski did finally succeed in extracting an approximation.
“Now, does anybody remember when other people left?” The confusion produced by this question seemed unresolvable. They agreed that Wanda must have left near eleven o’clock, and that the party broke up between one and one-thirty. But a thin trickle of departures during the intervening hours was described in completely useless terms. Three or four anonymous men had been placed in taxis, one of whom sounded to Oblonski like Peter von Hennig.
“And there was a gray-haired couple about fifty,” someone volunteered. “From their accent I thought they were Finns, but they might have been something else.”
The main thing that Colonel Oblonski took away from the caterers was a vivid impression of the function they had serviced. Masses of faceless people had spent hours in a timeless void, constantly changing partners, ranging from room to room and even floor to floor. It was probably futile to hope for exact details from anybody. Nonetheless there had been one man trying to oversee all this frenetic activity. Without high expectations the colonel next descended on Leonhard Bach.
“I just heard the news,” the German said at once. “My God, I never thought my party would end this way. It’s awful.” Oblonski, after agreeing it was a sad end to the festivities, asked what Bach had noticed about Wanda Jesilko, who she was with, what she was doing, why she left early.
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Colonel,” Bach protested. “I was busy as hell. You know it takes work to get a party like that swinging. Between keeping an eye out for the ones who needed to be introduced around, making sure people knew about the dancing, hustling the caterers, I didn’t pay much attention to the BADA crowd. I don’t think I even saw . . . but wait a minute! I did see her. Someone wanted to meet Madame Nordstrom and I found her talking to Adam Zabriski and Wanda Jesilko.”
“And about what time would that have been?” Bach flipped his palms upward in a helpless gesture.
“God, I don’t have the slightest idea. It wasn’t anywhere near the end of the evening. But then it couldn’t have been too early because Frau Jesilko was already—” He broke off for a moment before blurting out, “I suppose you could say I should have watched out for her. But, hell, it never occurred to me that anyone would be walking home.”
Puzzled, Oblonski said, “Why should you be watching out for her?”
“Look, I’m not sure, I only saw her for a second. But it did seem as if she’d been drinking a lot.” According to the waiters, Oblonski pointed out, this was far from a unique instance.
Bach was only too happy to accept the excuse. “Besides, it was just a fleeting impression. I could be wrong.”
He was at least certain that he had not noticed Wanda leave.
“I knew I was going to be on the move all night and your people wouldn’t allow any parking in front of the building. There were limousines scheduled to take the out-of-town crowd to the airport. Besides that I had a fleet of taxis stationed a couple of streets away so one of the waiters could call a cab whenever one was needed. I didn’t have to worry about transport. A couple of people did search me out early to say goodbye. I can’t remember who offhand, but I didn’t plant myself at the door until everything was winding down.”
It was all unsatisfactory. Precise time would now never be established and, absent a miracle, the medical report would leave Wanda Jesilko’s death a toss-up. A tipsy woman staggering by the side of a river could so easily have had an accident. But Wanda’s death had not occurred in a vacuum. Only a few weeks ago Stefan Zabriski had been murdered; last night his secretary perished in the Motlawa. It was too much to believe that the two incidents were unrelated.
On the principle of attacking where a breach had already been effected, Oblonski decided to single out Eric Andersen. He found the Dane in the BADA lounge where most of the delegates, coffee cups in hand, were discussing the tragic news. “Herr Andersen, I would appreciate a few minutes of your time,” Oblonski broke in without any pretense of apology.
“Good,” Andersen replied surprisingly. “I was hoping for a chance to speak with you. Let’s go to my office.” As he led the way toward the elevator, he confined himself to conventional remarks about Frau Jesilko. Nonetheless Andersen’s entire demeanor had changed. Instead of tight control there was now open relaxation. Of course, the removal of Wanda Jesilko might also spell the end of some potential threat.
“I suppose you want to talk about my trip to Copenhagen,” Andersen said, as soon as they were private.
“No, we will confine ourselves to more recent events.”
“What does that mean?”
“Come now. First Stefan Zabriski and then, as my investigation intensifies, his secretary?” Oblonski asked as ominously as possible. “You don’t find this significant?”
Instead of protesting Andersen wrinkled his brow in thought. “Put that way, of course it’s suggestive,” he admitted readily. “It just hadn’t occurred to me.”
Less and less pleased with the interview, Oblonski tried to keep up the pressure. “Are you saying Frau Jesilko struck you as a woman likely to fall into a river by accident?”
“You know I did wonder about that, but I didn’t see her last night.”
“What difference does that make?”
Andersen shrugged indifferently. “Casimir Radan was just telling me that she was putting down the vodka like water. But wait a minute, are you saying she was killed?”
“It is a possibility we are not overlooking. I must therefore ask about your movements last night.”
“You mean you think I murdered her? In God’s name, why?”
“If Frau Jesilko discovered any complicity on your part in Zabriski’s death, she would have been merciless.”
Andersen remained unshaken. “Pfui!” he said calmly. “That’s a lot of bull. First, I had nothing to do with Zabriski’s murder. As for my movements, you know about them. I was at Bach’s party, just like everybody else.”
“Of course.” Oblonski’s eyebrows rose in a sinister black arch. “Moving about, changing companions, unobserved for great stretches of time?”
Andersen was shaking his head. “It wasn’t like that, at least not after the first hour. I was with the same people all night. In fact, I had a great time showing those shippers some of the facts of life.”
“And when did you leave?” Oblonski finally received a definitive answer, but it was not the one he wanted.
“I guess I was among the last to go. We didn’t realize how late it was until the place had half emptied. Then somebody said it was after one, so we took the argument back to the hotel and kept it up for another hour.”
“We?”
“Yes, a lot of them are staying in Gdansk on business.”
“And you can give me their names?”
“I sure can. So just forget about trying to pin anything on me.”
Normally Oblonski would not have credited any statement about being under constant observation. People were always fading away for a few minutes, to visit the men’s room, to make an appointment with someone in a far corner, to pick up another drink. But Andersen had not merely been a member of this group, he had been the focus of its attention. Furthermore, he had stayed late and returned to his hotel accompanied, and Wanda Jesilko had not loitered by that river for hours. Finally, even if Andersen had managed to slip away for 15 minutes, how had he reentered the building? The front door had been locked with
a bevy of attendants nearby.
None of these reservations, however, were visible on Oblonski’s face as he said flatly, “I can scarcely forget about you, Herr Andersen. Not when you persistently misrepresent your actions.”
This time Andersen took a deep breath. “That’s what I was hoping to speak with you about, Colonel.” He produced a half-shamed smile. “I am afraid that I’ve been pretty foolish.” Not the most optimistic policeman could interpret this as a weird confession about two deaths.
“You’re damn right you have,” Oblonski retorted in a spasm of annoyance. “First, you claim you didn’t know the Rasmussens. Then you refuse to explain—”
“Stop! It wasn’t quite as bad as that. Actually it is true that I don’t know them. I did, however, meet their daughter, Dagmar, when she was running around with my nephew, Christian. But I see that I’d better explain about Christian.”
“Why don’t you?”
Andersen smiled wanly. “Christian’s in the environmental movement and he’s a real hothead, always getting himself arrested at some protest. You know the type, Colonel. When I heard the Brigitte had been piloted by Dagmar Rasmussen and a boyfriend, we tried to call Christian. But he’d been missing from his lodgings for two weeks. At that point I really got worried. He could have been sucked into something crazy by the girl. So I decided to find out from the Rasmussens if he’d been aboard. When they disappeared too, all I could do was sit tight.”
“In spite of the fact that you could have been withholding vital information?” Oblonski thundered.
“That’s right,” was the unrepentant reply. “I wasn’t going to see the boy destroyed because of a single act of folly.”
Still simmering, the colonel grated, “Are you telling me it was all a false alarm?”
“My wife says I should never have taken Christian’s threats so seriously,” Andersen replied obliquely.
“I suppose he claims he’s innocent.”
Now Andersen was positively cheerful. “Oh, it’s better than that. His roommate is getting married so Christian and some others spent the last two weeks getting the new cottage ready, in front of a lot of witnesses. The Rasmussens were going to Jutland for the wedding.”
“So everything ends happily,” Oblonski snarled. No policeman likes to lose his prime suspect. But if Andersen’s story checked out, it made more sense to treat him as a possible source of information than to cling to a hopeless cause. Grudgingly the colonel began the process by sharing a recent report. The Danish authorities found it hard to cast any of the Rasmussens as buccaneering terrorists. The parents were conservative to a fault and the daughter was unofficially described as a birdbrain.
“Trust Christian to pick one,” said Eric Andersen. It is not only the young who can be tiresome. Politicians can outscore them any day. Adam Zabriski, back at his Warsaw office, absorbed the announcement of Wanda’s death in silence. Patiently waiting on the other end of the line, Oblonski anticipated the usual clichés about a sad loss.
Adam, however, decided on a different approach. “Surely there is no need to cause unnecessary distress by making the facts public, Colonel.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Now that it is too late, I blame myself,” Zabriski continued ponderously. “But I did not realize how unbalanced Wanda was, and, as my presence seemed to irritate her, I did not follow when she stormed off.”
Adam was irritating the colonel too, but Oblonski had no desire to cut short their exchange.
“We have not yet ruled out accident,” he said, trailing his bait enticingly.
There was another calculating pause before Adam decided to hedge his bets. “Under the circumstances it would appear only considerate to stick to that explanation.”
“But you yourself feel that Frau Jesilko committed suicide?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I would be most interested to learn why.”
Adam had been marshaling his arguments. “You must understand, Colonel, that my father was Frau Jesilko’s entire life. To have him brutally killed was a horror from which she was incapable of recovering.”
“That she was grief-stricken at first is undeniable,” Oblonski conceded, “but she seemed to be returning to normal.”
“Only on the surface,” Adam said firmly. “Poor Wanda had no reason for going on.”
“So you think she had not been behaving characteristically?”
“It was certainly not characteristic to throw herself into misguided activity,” Adam rejoined tartly.
At sea, Oblonski pretended to weigh this statement. “I don’t know whether I’d describe it that way.”
“What can you call it when she rifles my father’s files for no good reason and goes out of her way to insult the BADA delegates? I tell you the poor woman was spinning completely out of control.”
“And I expect all that vodka didn’t help,” Oblonski suggested.
Adam was not rejecting any helpful material. That too,” he said at once. “She could barely hold a glass. I suppose you heard how she was spilling vodka all over the place. I thought Mr. Thatcher was going to be drenched.”
The notes that Colonel Oblonski had been jotting now received an addition. Question John Thatcher, he wrote clearly. “I didn’t realize the American had been there.”
“It was very embarrassing. Even Madame Nordstrom realized that Wanda needed a good long vacation.”
Automatically Oblonski added Annamarie to the list that could provide him with a more objective view. “Our talk has been most informative,” he concluded on a formal note. “I must thank you for your candor.”
“Not at all. I hope I have been of some help.” More than you realize, Oblonski thought to himself.
Chapter 23
Taking Bearings
“Suicide? Absolutely absurd.” Annamarie Nordstrom’s response was delivered with even more than her customary decisiveness.
“It does happen, you know,” Colonel Oblonski pointed out. “Why not with Wanda Jesilko?”
“Wanda was a practicing Catholic who attended Mass every Sunday.”
“Even so, she had just lost the man she had been with for years.”
Annamarie shook her head. “You didn’t know them, Colonel. Stefan was not the great love of Wanda’s life.”
“You can’t deny that she was upset when he was killed.”
“Of course she was upset. All I’m saying is that she was not unhinged. I do hope that you’re not being deflected by this suicide suggestion.”
“I’m not being deflected,” he assured her. “We are making inquiries about people’s movements last night.”
She produced a wry smile. “And now you want mine?” Annamarie’s account was a model of ideal testimony, including a list of everyone she had spoken to prior to her meeting with Wanda Jesilko and Adam Zabriski.
“Very well. After you left Wanda Jesilko, what did you do?”
“I spoke with Herr Pfleugel for about fifteen minutes. By then it was after eleven so I found Herr Bach and made my farewells.” Oblonski frowned. Gdansk was proud to be the site of BADA headquarters and Madame Nordstrom was a familiar sight on local television. It was inconceivable that her departure should have gone unnoticed.
“But the waiters don’t remember getting you a taxi.”
“That’s because I didn’t take one. I drove myself to Old Town and parked a block over. With the weather so bad, I asked Herr Bach to show me out the back way.”
“The back?” They stared at each other with the same incredulous frowns.
“You do know the traffic situation, don’t you, Colonel?” she demanded. “Parking was not permitted on the street. As I was directly behind the building, it was much easier for me to use the rear alley than to walk down to the river, over one block, then back up.”
Thinking furiously, the colonel murmured, “I see.” His questions to the catering staff had been based on the assumption that all guests had departed from the main entrance. H
ow many others had chosen a different route?
The caterer’s second roundup was composed of his backstage crew and Colonel Oblonski was now a beneficiary of the passing hours. The journalists infesting Gdansk had fallen on Wanda Jesilko’s death with gusto, busily creating a Romeo and Juliet tragedy in which the caterer’s employees were thrilled to play a role. Every single one of them remembered Madame Nordstrom. Her progress through the kitchen quarters had been a triumphal march. “I’ve seen her on television, but she looks even better in person,” enthused a dishwasher.
“And she was wearing such a lovely fur,” chimed in a younger woman.
But real glory had touched the lady who concocted Baltic specialties. “Madame Nordstrom complimented me on the herring salad,” she plumed herself. “Said it was the best she’d ever tasted.”
“And when she opened the door and saw the sleet, she stopped to tie a scarf around her hair. Just like you or me,” the younger woman marveled.
Oblonski, who had kindly made no attempt to stem these recollections, was rewarded. “Oh, that one! If she was the lady coming from the kitchen in a fur coat and a scarf, I met her. I was wheeling a dolly from the truck and she passed me in the alley,” said one of the men who had been carrying in crates during the evening. Queries about additional departures from the rear were answered more vaguely. All agreed that there had been several others but these were ordinary mortals, unrecognized at the time and probably unrecognizable in the future.
“It’s bad enough normally with just the boss on our tails,” explained the delivery man. “But this time we had Herr Bach too, nagging about every little thing.”
With a sigh Oblonski returned to Madame Nordstrom. “She drives a black Saab. Did you happen to notice when it left?”
Pushing his cap back, the delivery man plunged into heavy thought. Then his face cleared. “My God, I think I did. There was this Saab with its nose parked right up against my truck. It was there when I passed her in the alley but next time I went out, it was gone. I noticed because that made it easier to unload and Herr Bach was at my shoulder yelling for me to hurry.”
