“Get away from my door. I have a weapon. I’ll kill you if you try to get in. Leave me alone. Go away.”
“Willem Albert, my name is Jana Matinova. I’m a police officer. I’m here to help you and Mr. Kroslak. Please talk to me.”
There was another crash against the door.
“Get away. I told you, I’m armed. I’ll use my weapon.”
Jana relaxed slightly. Willem Albert did not have a weapon. Anyone with a weapon does not pound on his door with furniture to scare you away.
“That doesn’t help anyone, Willem Albert. Your furniture is going to be all smashed if you keep this up. Just open the door.”
There was another crash.
“I’ve just called the police.”
Jana was sure he had not called the police.
“I am the police, Willem Albert. From Slovakia. Like Mr. Kroslak.”
There was a long silence, followed by the sound of a lock being tinkered with. A young man who Jana supposed was Willem Albert peeked through a crack in the door.
“I told you to go away. Leave my apartment.” He looked Jana over. “You don’t look like the police.”
Jana reached inside her shoulder bag and pulled out her credentials.
“I can’t read them.”
“They’re in Slovak.”
“Go away.”
He shut the door. Jana heard him fasten the latch again. She was tired of trying to coax him to let her in. She stepped back two feet, then kicked the door in.
The professor was shocked.
“Force has its place, Professor.”
Jana pulled her gun from the small of her back, then quickly stepped inside. As soon as she entered, Willem Albert began to throw things at her, crockery, a vase, anything and everything he could get his hands on, screaming epithets at Jana in Dutch. Jana dodged the objects, ultimately getting angry, pointing her gun and cocking the hammer with a loud metallic snap.
“Time to stop being so inhospitable, Willem Albert.”
He stopped. The young man’s fear was so palpable that it came at Jana in perceptible waves. She had to calm him down; otherwise, she’d never be able to get any information.
“I’m putting my gun away.” She uncocked it, then tucked it into her waistband at the small of her back again, holding her hands out to show him that they were empty. An old scuffed wooden chair was lying on its side on the floor. Jana righted it, then sat on it, keeping her hands in sight, crossing her legs and leaning back, hoping that he wasn’t now going to rush her while she was in such a vulnerable posture.
“You see? No gun. No threat.”
The young man stared at her. She used the opportunity to look him over. There was no doubt that it was the same Willem Albert who had been described to her by Paola as Kroslak’s handsome significant other. He had the scar through one of his eyebrows.
“My name is Jana Matinova. I’m a commander in the Slovak police,” she said again.
The professor chose that moment to come in. He took the situation in, paused, then quickly sat on the floor, trying to appear unobtrusive.
“My friend doesn’t look like he’s going to attack anyone, does he, Willem Albert? He’s much too nice a man.” She sank deeper into the chair. “Neither of us is trying to be menacing. We’re all friends here, just trying to help each other.” She waited for a reaction from Willem Albert.
After a moment’s hesitation, his body posture began to moderate, the stress on his face easing. Jana allowed herself to relax.
“What do you want with me?” Willem Albert finally got out.
“We’re looking for Martin Kroslak, your partner.”
“So were the others, a few days ago.”
“What others?”
“Two men. They beat me up. They cracked one of my ribs.” Tears began to appear in his eyes. “Look what they did to my face.”
Even through the pancake makeup that Willem Albert had applied to his face, Jana could see bruising. He quickly opened his shirt, eager to show his other injuries. His upper body was purple.
“You see? One of them had a blackjack. The other man would ask the questions and when I gave an answer they didn’t like, the one with the blackjack would step in and slam me with it.” Willem Albert began to weep, and sank to the floor.
Jana slowly got up, walked over to the young man, sat next to him, and put her arm around his shoulders. All three of them were now sitting on the floor.
“It must have been terrible,” she murmured. “They were thugs.”
The two downstairs neighbors took that moment to stick their heads in, both of them worried about the noisy events going on in their upstairs neighbor’s apartment.
“We heard the crashing. Are you okay, Willem Albert?”
Willem Albert looked over to them.
“I’m fine,” he sniffled.
“You’re sure?” They eyed the broken door and the damage to the room. “We’re here to help.”
Willem Albert waved an all-inclusive arm at the professor and Jana.
“My friends are helping me.”
“We’re just downstairs if you need us.”
“Thank you,” Willem Albert wiped his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll have to call someone to repair the door. Would you like us to do it?”
“Thanks, I’ll do it myself, later.”
“Be well, Willem.”
They backed out. Jana waited for them to get out of earshot, then took Willem Albert by the elbow to help him stand.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’m glad you’re not one of the gangsters.”
“They gave you a bad beating.”
“Yes, they did.”
She led him over to a corner love seat. The professor stayed seated on the floor, looking at a show he didn’t quite fully grasp.
“Why do you want my friend?” Willem Albert asked.
“Mr. Kroslak has very important information for us.”
“They wanted it also.”
“The two men who beat you?”
“They kept asking for papers he had. I told them he didn’t talk about his business with me. That’s when they started beating me up.”
“Did you tell them where Kroslak was?”
“I told them I’d filed a missing person report with the police. I didn’t know.”
Jana noticed he had used the past tense.
“Has he been in touch with you since?”
There was a long reluctant silence. Willem Albert was still not sure he should tell her anything.
There is a rule in police questioning: one confidence breeds another.
“The ones who beat you tried to kill me. If they catch up with Mr. Kroslak before I do, they’ll certainly kill him. You don’t want that to happen.”
“No.”
“When did he call you?”
“Yesterday.”
Jana felt a surge of relief. As of yesterday, Martin Kroslak was still alive. She still had a chance of getting to him before the killers.
“Those gangsters killed two friends of mine in Slovakia. One of them was my lover,” Jana revealed.
Willem Albert let out an audible gasp.
“The other person they murdered was an innocent student.” She indicated the professor. “The professor’s nephew. So you see we have every reason to want to find those men and bring them to justice before they commit any other brutal acts. So, if you want to save your lover, you have to tell me what he said.”
Willem Albert finally nodded.
“He said he loved me.”
“I’m glad. What else did he say?”
“That he’d have to be away for a while. That he needed to leave Amsterdam. I told him about being beaten up. He told me that he was sorry. That it was his fault for not realizing they would know about me. He was going to Prague. There was a possible witness to see about a case he was working on. If he …” Willem Albert’s voice quavered. “… If he survived, he would come back to get m
e.”
“He truly needs you.”
“And I need him.”
“Did he tell you where he was going in Prague?”
“Only that he’d be looking for a record.”
“A music record, a city record, a birth record?”
“Just a record.”
“That was it?”
“Yes.
She had come close, but not close enough.
“Did Kroslak have any friends he might have talked to?”
“We kept to ourselves.”
“Kroslak lived with you when he was in Holland?”
“Yes.”
“His clothes, his other possessions. Where are they?”
“They took everything. They brought boxes with them. Every last item of his went in the boxes. They took all the papers in the apartment, including all of mine.”
“Nothing of his was left?”
“It’s all gone. Every scrap.”
Jana thought of coming home and finding that all of Peter’s clothes had been taken from his closet in Slovakia.
“The two men who beat you, what did they look like?”
“Both big, one taller than the other. One had dark hair. Both, maybe, in their thirties. I was too frightened to think about what they looked like. And they were beating me.”
The tears began again. Jana waited until they slowed down.
“I want you to e-mail me if you come up with any more information.” She looked over to the professor, at the same time pulling the Mont Blanc pen and some paper out of her handbag. “It would be better to use your account instead of mine, Professor.”
The professor got to his knees, struggling to rise as he grunted out his e-mail address. Jana tried to write, forgetting that the pen had no ink, shaking it several times. Willem Albert looked intently at the pen.
“You recognize the pen, Willem Albert?”
“It was his fountain pen.”
“It was in Kroslak’s desk at Europol.”
“It doesn’t work.”
“No ink.” She shook the pen again to demonstrate that it was dry.
“It never worked. He took the insides out.”
Jana examined the pen, unscrewing the top. Willem Albert stared at it with anticipation, as if hoping it contained a note, a message from his lover. The top came off, exposing an empty ink chamber. Jana saw the disappointment written on Willem Albert’s face.
“Nothing there,” he mouthed. Tears appeared in his eyes, Willem Albert ineffectually trying to wipe them away with his knuckles. “He would scribble little notes for me and leave the pen so I could find what he’d written inside. We passed it back and forth. When it was from me he’d open it when he got back to The Hague.” He made a face. “Now it’s empty again.”
“When people go away, they leave empty spaces.”
“Big spaces.”
“Hard to fill them.”
“Yes.
Jana and the professor departed a short time later.
She left the pen with Willem Albert.
Chapter 22
Jana and the professor headed toward the professor’s rental car.
“I have to go back to The Hague, Professor.”
“Why?”
“I left some papers there. Colleagues of mine are participating in the investigation with me. I have to know what they’ve discovered.”
“Telephone them,” he suggested. “More practical than us driving there.”
“I’m not sure the telephone is a safe way to communicate right now. You don’t have to go, Professor.”
“I’m going if you’re going,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’ll check out of the hotel.”
They passed two men in a parked car, both with their heads buried in newspapers. Jana recognized Jan Leiden, the Dutch police officer, in the passenger seat. She leaned into the window.
“Investigator Leiden, nice to see you.”
“Are you sure its ‘nice,’ Commander Matinova?”
“Why wouldn’t it be, Investigator Leiden?”
“The last time I heard from you, it was in connection with two men who were shot to death in your hotel room. Did you shoot them?”
“They certainly tried to shoot me, Leiden. Are you going to arrest me for their deaths?”
“No. File a report with the police, Commander. If you need a little more time, a day, you may have it.”
“That’s good of you. What do you expect me to say in the report?”
“That two well-known Czech gangsters with long records of violence, using smoke bombs as a ruse, tried to kill you with assault rifles. You, being Slovak, a neighbor of the Czech Republic, knew who they were, naturally, and also know why they tried to kill you.”
“They didn’t wait to inform me before they tried to shoot me.”
“I was hoping you could fill in the gaps.”
“I’m trying to fill them in myself.”
“When you write your version of the events, forward it to me.”
“You’ll be the first to get it. Thank you.”
“I believe in helping a fellow officer.”
“No, you’re just hoping a fellow officer will lead you to whoever sent the men to kill me, here, in your country.”
“That’s also true.”
“How did you know I’d come here?”
“His boyfriend filed a missing person report on Kroslak. I assumed you would be trying to find Kroslak, which meant stopping off at the address in the report. We waited for you.”
“Kroslak’s lover was beaten up a few days ago.”
“By different people than the ones from your hotel room?”
“I think so. Two teams. Both teams probably had the same employer, just slightly different agendas.”
“One team after you, the other after Kroslak.”
“It looks like that.”
“How many of them are there?” There was an edge of disbelief to his voice. “Whatever the answer, there are more than I like.” His voice took on an accusatory tone. “And you brought them all to my country.”
“How do you know that they weren’t here already?”
“… Maybe,” he acknowledged reluctantly.
“Thank you, Investigator Leiden.”
She stepped away from his vehicle. He leaned out of his window.
“Be cautious, Commander. I don’t like cleaning up blood.”
“Neither do I, particularly if it’s mine.”
She and the professor walked to their car.
“He didn’t ask about me,” the professor complained.
“That’s not a good sign.”
“Why?”
“Because it means he already knows all about you.”
“How would he know?”
“He’s been in touch with Slovakia.”
“Is that bad?”
“It depends on who he talked to, and how much information he gave them about us, your car, what we’ve been doing, where we may be going, and everything else he’s collected on us.”
“I see.”
They got into the professor’s car.
“Now they know about the vehicle we’re driving. When we get to the hotel, we have to leave the car in a parking area and find another way to get back to The Hague. We have to do it without the knowledge of Leiden or the people who are after me.”
“What other way?”
“I’m thinking.”
They drove back to the hotel. On the way, Jana removed her gun from the small of her back, placing it at the bottom of her shoulder bag. With the items she rummaged through to make room was a piece of note paper. It had the name, address, and telephone number of Adele, the woman who had aided her at the gay help center. She had been eager to see Jana again. There was a chance she might help.
They parked two blocks from their hotel and then walked the rest of the way, Jana prodding the professor, before they had even entered the lobby, to forget about his belongings and continue on out the back door.
<
br /> “My clothes are in my room. I will need them,” he insisted.
“They won’t have had time to put anyone at the back of the hotel if they’re following us. If we walk straight out, we lose them. If we don’t, we probably lose that opportunity to get rid of them.”
“What do I do for fresh clothes? I need clean underwear.”
“We buy clean underwear when we get back to The Hague.”
“And my shirts?”
“We buy more.”
They kept walking through the hotel and went out the rear exit. After they had gone a few blocks, they found a small phone store where Jana purchased the cheapest cell phone they had. A calling card was included in the price.
“You can use my cell instead of spending so much money,” the professor offered.
“They now know about you. That means they also know about your cell phone and can listen in. This new phone will be good for today and maybe tomorrow. Then we have to toss it and pick up another.”
Jana dialed the COC woman’s number. Adele answered very quickly.
“It’s Jana calling. I hope you remember me, the woman who came in with her uncle for help in finding his lover.” The professor bristled. He was still smarting over the masquerade at the COC and its threat to his masculinity. Jana ignored him for the moment.
“I need additional help. I was wondering if I could see you.”
Adele invited Jana to meet her at her home, perhaps in an hour. Jana took down her directions.
When Jana hung up, she began to fault herself for taking advantage of the woman’s attraction. On the other hand, she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She needed a way back to The Hague, a way that was not immediately traceable. She had to act quickly and ignore the niceties.
Adele opened the door to her apartment with a welcoming smile on her face, which faded when she saw the professor. She ushered her guests in, offering her cheek to Jana for a kiss. Adele poured wine for the three of them, and then seated herself next to Jana, peering at her over the rim of her glass, hoping for an affectionate response.
Jana decided to tell her the truth right away. First she apologized, told Adele she was a police officer, showed Adele her credentials, and related the information she’d obtained from Willem Albert, including a description of the beating he had been given. Then came the hard part: she skimmed quickly over the two murders in Slovakia, but told Adele about the deaths of the men who had tried to kill her. By the time she was through, Adele had moved as far away from Jana on the couch as she could.
The Magician's Accomplice Page 14
