The Netscher Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  “It might be a good idea to first scan the articles to see if they are relevant.” Olivia looked at me. “I did a search for any and all mentions of Grandpa Szabo and Grandpa Koltai. The first seven articles are from that search. All the others come from internet searches I’ve done.”

  “Give us a minute.” Captain Palya got up and joined Andor at the board. I took a few steps back as the captain waved his arm to the left. “Garas, take that side and look for anything that could be useful. I’ll take the right and we’ll meet in the middle.”

  I didn’t like this. Usually, I was the one who not only found such articles, but also searched them for relevant information. How could I trust that Captain Palya and Andor would know what could be relevant or not? The more I thought about the high probability of them missing some key information, the more agitated I became. My breathing increased, as did my blinking.

  It was only when Colin took my hand in his that I realised I’d been scratching my thigh nonstop. My skin was burning, but it didn’t feel broken. He pulled me to face him, concern pulling his brows together. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t trust them.” The words fell from my lips before I had time to properly organise my thoughts. I shook my head and raised one hand when both Andor and Captain Palya turned to face me, their expressions communicating their displeasure. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths and mentally wrote the first five bars of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor before I looked at them. “I don’t know you. I don’t know how your minds perceive and process information. Therefore I’m uncertain that you will notice key information that could be easily overlooked.”

  Captain Palya’s nostrils flared and his lips thinned as he inhaled to speak, but Andor stepped forward with both his hands palm down in a placating gesture. “And I don’t know you. But I took a leap of faith when I researched your reputation. You know my reputation. You know that I’m one of the best investigators in Budapest, if not Hungary. Captain Palya is not heading this department because of his handsome moustache. He got here because he is exceptionally good at leading as well as investigating. Trust us. If there’s a clue in here, we will find it.”

  I couldn’t. The fallibility of the human mind was far too prevalent for me to trust as openly and easily as Andor. I bit down on my bottom lip to strengthen my focus not to say something that would offend.

  Colin took a step closer to Andor and Captain Palya. “We’re used to working as a closed unit, so this is new for us. We trust that you will be thorough.”

  Nobody from our team agreed with Colin, but also no one contradicted him. It was clear on the faces of the others that they also found it difficult to blindly trust someone we’d never cooperated with before.

  Francine shivered as if to shake something off her shoulders and turned to the desks arranged against the wall closest to her. “Ooh, computers.”

  Olivia smiled. “Captain Palya got their IT department to bring us two laptops. They said they didn’t have any more, but”—she lowered her voice to a loud whisper—“I got the feeling that they didn’t want to trust us with more.”

  “Everyone has trust issues.” Francine shrugged. “No biggie. I have my laptop which I can guarantee will eat both of theirs and still be hungry.”

  My confusion lifted when I looked at Francine. She was jesting. She sat down at one of the four desks and put her laptop next to the one already open and running.

  Olivia sat down next to her, but looked at me. “These computers are connected to the police network, so we have access to all the case files.”

  Francine rubbed her palms together, but pouted when she started typing on the police computer. “Oh. Hmm. This is not good. This computer speaks Hungarian.”

  “I can imagine all their case files, reports and such will also be in Hungarian.” Manny pointed at Francine’s computer. “Can’t you design some translation program thingymajiggie?”

  “Listen to you speak tech jargon.” Francine winked at him. “It’s very sexy.”

  Manny lowered his brow and scowled at her. “Can you?”

  “In a jiffy.” Her attempt to copy Manny’s accent was an awful failure, but it made Vinnie laugh. Even Olivia smiled for the first time since we entered the room.

  “I think I’ve got something.” Andor was staring at the electronic whiteboard, his head tilted. “Cap, can we access the internet through this thing?”

  Captain Palya stepped closer and looked at the article in front of Andor. “Think of this as a big touch screen, Garas. We can do anything on it.”

  “What are you looking for?” Francine’s fingers were hovering above her keyboard.

  “Huh.” The captain nodded his head slowly as he read the article. “This might be something.” He turned to Francine and gave her a website address.

  Andor touched the screen and highlighted some text. “This says that there is an archive of photos from 1925-1939. The Ministry of Culture had a project ten years ago where they uploaded as many photos as they could find from that era. There are photos from government events, private functions such as weddings and funerals, as well as gala events where all the who’s who of that time gathered.”

  “Got it.” Francine blinked a few times. “Oh, you sweet young man. How wrong you are. There are not thousands of photos here. There are tens of thousands.”

  “Are they searchable?” Colin asked.

  “Let me... Yes!” She typed on her keyboard, pressed enter and tapped her manicured nails impatiently, staring at the monitor. “Ooh! We’ve got results.”

  I walked closer and looked over her shoulder. And squinted. “Can you put that on the whiteboard?”

  “Hmm.” She typed a few commands. “Done.”

  I turned to look at the photos. There were seven of them. A cursory glance told me that Francine had searched Franz Szabo’s name. He was in all the photos. I walked from the one side of the whiteboard to the other, committing the photos to memory. Then I slowly walked back to confirm my observations. I ignored the speculation and talking around me, and focused on the nonverbal communication of the people in the photos.

  “What do you see, Doc?”

  I turned around and blinked in surprise. I was the only one standing in front of the whiteboard. Everyone else had moved away. Captain Palya and Manny were seated at the table, Francine, Andor and Olivia at the desks, Vinnie was leaning against the wall, very close to the door, and Colin was standing in front of the windows.

  I turned back to the whiteboard and enlarged the third photo. “This photo has all three men in it.” I pointed. “Szabo, Szell and Koltai. They are in most of the other photos and always close together. In this photo they are in a serious conversation, but their body language is clear that they know and trust each other. See how open their body language is. Their arms are away from their torsos, they’re leaning towards each other, even into each other’s personal space. Trust.”

  “We found more photos.” Francine raised an eyebrow and waited until I nodded before she placed those photos on the whiteboard as well.

  I inspected them and nodded. “Yes, they were definitely friends. We need more information on them. That will tell us how their connection has led to the deaths of their grandsons. And now Antal Udvaros.”

  “I did a quick search.” Andor nodded at the computer on the desk behind him. “The men in these photos were the elite of those days. They were very successful businessmen between the two world wars. All of them survived World War Two and somehow managed to hold on to their successes, money and power during the Soviet reign. I’ll have to do more research to figure out how they managed that without being part of the Communist Party, but when communism ended, they were able to continue their respective businesses without any problems.”

  “Is it possible that they were part of some secret organisation?” Francine’s eyes were wide. “Like a type of Freemason secret society of business owners?”

  “Are you serious?” Captain Palya stared at Franci
ne in shock.

  She lifted her shoulders as if innocent of creating another conspiracy theory. “I’m just asking.”

  “Ignore her.” Manny turned back to the whiteboard and looked at the photos. “We need to learn more about these men, but especially their businesses.”

  “I’ve got something.” Andor pulled the laptop closer. “It says here that Ferenc Szell’s father founded his business in 1989. His son, Ferenc, was named co-owner of one of the first large corporations started after the fall of communism. The Szells set the gold standard for family businesses to recover after the oppression of communism.”

  “Communism really did a number on your country.” Olivia shook her head. “Two years ago I handled a case that had some links to Slovakia and Estonia. I learned about the suffering that communism brought to this region. We weren’t taught these things at school. I don’t know about other Western countries, but when I studied history at school, it was very, very basic information about communism.”

  “The communism we experienced after 1960 in Hungary was a bit different from the other countries.” Andor coughed for a few seconds and frowned. “Stupid seasonal allergies. I thought I was done with them. Anyway, from the sixties until the end of communism, we used the term ‘goulash communism’. Of course we named it after our national dish. But we used the term because it was a deviation from the Soviet principles from before. We had an improved human rights record and even elements of free market economics. I reckon that is why Szell was able to become a multi-millionaire from a business started during the communist years.”

  Olivia asked a question and soon Andor and Captain Palya were in full discussion about that era in Hungarian history. As interesting as I found the personal insight into the effects and reign of communism in Hungary and the challenges of post-communism, my attention kept being pulled back to the whiteboard. There were still so many elements of this case that were unknown and it felt like we had too little to work with at the moment.

  I turned to Francine. “Are these the only photos with Franz Szabo’s name?”

  “Uh, yes.” She swivelled in her chair to face me.

  “Are all the photos in that archive tagged with names of the people in the photos?”

  “No. I had a quick look and I guesstimate that only about a third or even fewer of the photos are tagged.”

  I nodded. This was as I’d suspected. “Are you still working on that advanced facial recognition software program?”

  She rolled her eyes and grunted. “Supposed to be top secret, girlfriend. But yes, I am.” Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, my God! Yes, of course. I’ll input the faces of Grandpa Szabo, Grandpa Koltai and Grandpa Szell and set a search for them on all the other photos. You’re a genius!”

  “I know.”

  “How many photos are in that archive?” Colin asked.

  “Thirty-one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight,” Olivia said. “I think that it might be generous to say one third of the photos are tagged. Many of those photos don’t even have any information like who took it, where or when. I think this project needs some help organising those photos into something that would actually be useful.”

  I watched as Francine searched for the photo with the clearest profile of Franz Szabo, cleaned it up in a photo editing program and uploaded it to her facial recognition program. She typed a few more commands and a small window opened with a bar showing the percentage of images checked for a match. She then did the same with photos of Grandpa Szell and Grandpa Koltai. I looked at the three bars. This was going to take a while.

  “Once you have more matches, it might be a good idea to look for other people who are also in those photos,” Colin said. “I mean, people who appear more often than anyone else in those photos. If these men were friends, there might be other people in their close circle as well.”

  “Consider it done.” Francine tapped her index finger on her lips for two seconds, then started typing more commands. “This will take a while though. I’m using pupillary distance as well as ear shape to identify similar faces.”

  “That was astute.” The corners of my mouth lifted in a small smile as I looked at Colin. “We should get even more data when we know who these men’s friends were.”

  “Let me help.” Olivia moved her chair closer to Francine, her eyes on the computer monitor. “Just tell me what to do.”

  For a moment, I listened to Francine boasting that her computer program didn’t need much help. I quickly grew bored. In Strasbourg, my role was much better defined when we investigated a crime. I usually sat in front of my fifteen monitors to either search for data or watch footage to find even the smallest nonverbal cue that could help us find the criminals.

  Here, I felt out of place. Not only was I so far out of my comfort zone that the blackness in my peripheral vision threatening a complete shutdown was becoming the norm, I also felt redundant. Andor was proving himself to be a very competent investigator. Our presence would no doubt hasten the discovery of this serial killer, but after observing him for the last three days, I was certain he would’ve solved these horrid crimes in time.

  But that was the key. We didn’t have that much time. I looked again at the three bars on Francine’s computer. The first one was only at twenty-three percent, the other two much lower. I couldn’t just stand here and wait for results. I needed to do something. I looked at the whiteboard and allowed Mozart’s Prague Symphony to fill my mind with its sophisticated introduction.

  A thought came to me and I turned to Andor. “I need to see more photos.”

  Chapter TWELVE

  “What photos?” Andor turned away from the conversation with Captain Palya and Manny, and faced the laptop in front of him.

  “Crime scene photos of the deaths of Gabor Szabo, Ferenc Szell and István Koltai...” I slowed down at the mention of the last name when I noticed Captain Palya’s expression. “Why are you angry?”

  “He’s always angry.” Francine didn’t even turn around when she said this. “I bet he’s staring daggers at my back now.”

  Manny took two steps to his left to hide Francine from the captain’s view. He raised one eyebrow. “Are you angry?”

  “Of course I’m pissed off.” Captain Palya put his hands on his hips, his thumbs facing back—a typical pose when someone became aggressive or argumentative. “We don’t have any crime scene photos. There was no reason to send the crime scene investigators to those scenes. All three of those men died of natural causes, remember?”

  Andor shifted in his chair. I stared at his back. His neck muscles were tense, his shoulders slightly raised and his arms had moved closer to his body. He was not facing us. I leaned to the side, but still couldn’t see his face. “Andor?”

  He turned around, saw my interest and dropped his head with a grunt. “Bleep it, Genevieve.”

  Captain Palya looked from Andor to me and back. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Garas! What the fuck have you done now?”

  Andor immediately raised both hands as he looked at the captain. “Nothing illegal, I swear. I might have coloured just a little outside the lines.”

  Vinnie’s chuckle drew everyone’s attention to where he was still standing by the door. When Captain Palya glowered at him, his chuckle turned into a full laugh.

  “What the bleeding hell is wrong with you?” Manny’s jaw jutted.

  This made Vinnie laugh even harder. I had not often seen him this amused. It interested me and I paid closer attention. He pointed at Manny, then at Captain Palya and shook his head. “You’re... oh, hah!”

  His laughter boomed through the room. Francine was now also laughing in response to Vinnie, and Andor also chuckled.

  Vinnie looked at me, wiping tears from his cheeks. “Help me out here, Jen-girl.”

  Now everyone’s attention turned to me. I leaned back.

  “What’s the big guy on about, missy?” Manny only called me that when he was truly vexed.

  “Is it about the s
imilarities?” No sooner had I asked Vinnie than he doubled over laughing. I closed my eyes and reached for patience. This was wasting our time.

  “What similarities?” Andor asked.

  “Vinnie must have noticed how similar in character Manny is to Captain Palya.”

  “Holy hell!” Manny slumped and leaned away from Captain Palya. “We’re nothing alike.”

  “Actually”—Colin scratched his chin and smiled—“you are.”

  “Well, I don’t fucking care.” Captain Palya was now even more irate as he pointed his index finger at Andor and shook it with each word. “When will you learn that I need to know what you’re up to so I can protect you? Tell me everything. Now.”

  Andor glanced at Vinnie, who uttered an amused snort, and raised one shoulder, his smile apologetic. “I took photos of those three scenes.”

  “You’re going to get yourself fired, you idiot!”

  “I don’t really see how, Cap.” Andor no longer looked apologetic. “I had permission from the families to enter their houses and take photos. I revealed nothing of my intentions or my suspicions. There is no reason to question my conduct.”

  “You got them to sign a release form?”

  “I did.”

  Captain Palya exhaled loudly. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get those photos up on the whiteboard.”

  “Give me a sec to get them from my cloud account.” Andor swiped and tapped the screen of his phone for a few seconds, then turned to the computer in front of him. “The first set is of Gabor Szabo’s house. By the time I started thinking there was something suspicious about these deaths, he’d already been dead for seven weeks. His family had sent in specialised cleaners to disinfect the house from top to bottom.”

  I took a step closer to the whiteboard when the photos appeared. There were four rows with eight photos in each.

  “I took photos of every room, but I focused on the room where Szabo died.” He got up and pointed at the photos in the bottom row. “These are all of his bedroom.”