Cemetery of the Nameless

by Rick Blechta

  “Doesn’t Tory have anything to say about it?”

  “But of course! I will consult with her, but the decision will be up to the examining magistrate ultimately. I am asking simply if you will be comfortable if I can bring about this outcome.”

  “I can’t be comfortable, dammit! You’re asking me to go along with committing my wife!”

  “The alternative is that your wife would remain in jail. I think my way is more preferable, don’t you?”

  Tory’s words about preferring to die rather than be locked up brought any further objections up short. At least in a hospital setting, she would be monitored.

  “All right,” I said with a frown. “We’ll do it your way.”

  “It is for the best, my friends. You will see!” He led us to the door.

  “I will meet you at the court. My secretary will give you directions and instructions on what to do.” As I squeezed by him, Schultz clapped me on the shoulder. “Herr Lukesh, we have made the correct decisions. Schultz guarantees it!”

  “Well, at least one of us is confident,” Elen said under her breath as the door closed behind us.

  TORY

  When they pulled me away from Rocky and Elen in the courtyard of Vienna’s main police station, hustling us off in different directions, I honestly felt like curling up and dying. I went into a kind of mental “off ” mode as more people than I care to remember moved me through the dehumanizing process known as “arresting someone for committing murder”.

  It wasn’t that I was treated roughly (something I’d been terrified of). The police technicians were actually generally polite and businesslike. It was what they were doing to me that was so horrible.

  After they examined and took samples from every inch of my body inside and out, and I mean every inch, I was photographed, pushed, prodded, fingerprinted, footprinted, had DNA samples taken, and finally left to rot for an eternity in a small, stuffy room that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and body odor. When I asked to visit the john, they sent a female attendant along who closely watched everything I did. That was probably the most humiliating thing.

  Eventually, the large, rude man with the bad attitude who had been in charge of the police extravaganza at Elen’s apartment entered the room with several underlings in tow. He shouted questions at me for a long time. I quickly decided that I couldn’t be bothered listening to him. If he’d simply lowered his voice, I might have been more cooperative.

  When I finally told him that, he announced that he would stop shouting as soon as I gave satisfactory answers to his questions. Instead, I told him to take a flying whatever. That actually shut him up, although he fixed me with a death-ray stare for several moments.

  With icy calmness, he asked if I understood that I was being charged with the willful homicides of Rudolph von Heislinger and Thekla Grillzer (or words to that effect), and based on the evidence which had already been collected, I would most certainly be convicted and incarcerated for the maximum time. “It would be to your advantage to make a full and complete statement. I will inform the examining magistrate of this fact and ask the court to take it into consideration when dealing with you. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “Thekla had that knife sticking out of her chest when I found her,” I said irritably.

  “And Baron von Heislinger? What about him?”

  “I don’t remember anything about what happened that night.”

  “Don’t remember or don’t wish to remember, Fräulein Morgan?”

  “I don’t remember,” I repeated, looking down.

  After that I decided not to say any more, even though the annoying man kept up his barrage of questions for quite a while longer. I simply switched him off. Normally, I would have listened to my “internal music”, but it remained obstinately AWOL , and I spent the time reflecting on how completely empty and alone I felt.

  Eventually, they drove me to another building, where I was given different clothes and dumped in a cell no more than eight by ten which contained a lumpy mattress on a concrete shelf attached to the wall. Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to share the cell with anyone. The door clanging shut echoed down the corridor and in my head with a sound like doom. With no hope, I lay down on the mattress. No matter what horribleness happened in my dreams, I simply could not stay awake any longer.

  I woke with a start, realizing that it hadn’t been because of a bad dream.

  Turning over, I found a man coming into my cell with a tray of food.

  It suddenly dawned on me that I was actually hungry for the first time in days, so I motioned vaguely, and the guard set the tray down on the end of the bed. The door clanged again and I was alone, although I could hear the guard walking down the corridor handing out more meals. Eventually, I looked at the tray. It contained all the things I hated: some kind of foul-smelling sausage, sauerkraut, mushy carrots and lukewarm milk, everything cut up so it could be eaten with a plastic spoon. I decided to shovel it down anyway.

  The next time I was wakened, a male guard threw some different clothes (more like a coverall) into the cell, telling me to get dressed. When I called out that I was done, they came back in and put manacles on my feet which ran up via a chain to some handcuffs, which they fastened around my wrists. Then they led me shuffling down the corridor, through several barred doors and finally to an indoor loading dock. A police van waited, and they shoved me in. I sat despondently on the bench.

  A short ride later, the van stopped with a jerk that sent me flying to my knees. Outside I could hear noises from a large crowd, which didn’t sound overly friendly. Sunlight blinded me when the doors opened. Through squinting eyes I could see police officers pushing back a crowd of at least two hundred people. Two very large officers reached in and lifted me up bodily, setting me on the ground. The crowd hurled jeers and insults the moment I appeared, surging against a barrier of police with their arms interlocked. I stood blinking as what seemed like several thousand flashes went off at point blank range. Then, with a guard on each arm, I was led, shuffling, into the side door of a building. I knew a photo op when I saw one and sensed the revenging hand of the big cop named Müller behind it. Perhaps I should have answered his questions, after all.

  They took me to a room furnished with only a table and two scarred wooden chairs. Eventually a chubby man with a clipped mustache and very expensive suit arrived, introducing himself to me as Herr Doktor Schultz, the lawyer Rocky had retained to represent me.

  “I am sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances, Fräulein Morgan,” he said in very good English, holding out his hand. “I have many of your recordings and heard you play Brahms and Bartok with the Wiener Philharmoniker six years ago.”

  I kept my own hands firmly in my lap (being embarrassed by the handcuffs) until Schultz withdrew his and sat down with a grunt, wiggling his bulk until he got a comfortable fit on the small chair.

  “How are Rocky and Elen? Are they all right?”

  The lawyer smiled. “The police have decided that no purpose would be served by keeping them in jail. They were released before daybreak.”

  “Thank the Lord! I’ve been worried sick about them.”

  “They have asked me to tell you that they are doing everything they can to help you.”

  “What exactly is going on?” I asked. “Why am I here?”

  “You are being brought before an Examining Magistrate, something you do not have in your justice system, either in America or Canada. I might best describe it as a judge and a prosecutor in one person. He will decide what the next steps will be.”

  “Will they put me in jail for months and months until the trial, or will I be able to get bail?”

  “Given the notoriety of your case, my dear, the state is pushing for an early trial date, perhaps just a few weeks. Given the fact that you were caught while ‘on the run’—as you Americans say—I think that it will be thought wise to keep you in custody.”

  My stomach lurched at the thought. “I can�
�t face even another hour in that cell! I’ll lose my mind!”

  “There may be a way you will not have to. Under the circumstances, your husband and I think it might be better for you to be taken to a hospital, where you will be examined for a few days. I would like to present this option to the magistrate.”

  “Examined for what?”

  “We will say, ah...the soundness of your mind.”

  “Rocky thinks I’m crazy?”

  “I did not say that. Do you wish to stay in the StraflandesgerichtWien until your trial? Come, what we are arranging will be the best for you. We will have many talks over the next several days and get to the bottom of all your troubles. Schultz will not fail you!” He smiled beatifically. “Now, I have some very important questions for you to answer.”

  I looked down at my hands, knowing what they would be.

  ***

  My appearance in a packed Viennese courtroom mercifully lasted less than an hour. They asked me if I wanted a translator and I shook my head, not even bothering to look up. Schultz and another man (the one responsible for the evidence against me, I suppose) were questioned for most of the time by the man behind the bench. Some of the exchange between him and Schultz got pretty heated. Eventually, I was told to rise and face the examining magistrate. As he started speaking, the guard next to me provided a simultaneous translation.

  “Victoria Morgan, it is the judgment of this court that you be sent to Baumgärtner Höhe, where you will be examined in order to evaluate your mental fitness to stand trial for the willful murders of Rudolph Franz Christian von Heislinger and Thekla Marie Grillzer. Do you have anything you wish to say?”

  For the first time, I looked around the courtroom and immediately spotted Roddy, Elen and Rocky. Turning to the magistrate, I asked if I could have my violin. Someone tittered, which was followed by a couple of guffaws before the magistrate slammed his gavel down, barking something in German. He did not answer my question.

  As two guards led me away, I turned to my husband, calling out as clearly and loudly as I could, “Rocky, I must have my violin!”

  In my last glimpse of him, he had a very sick expression on his face.

  ***

  The hospital was an improvement over the jail, even though I was most assuredly still in a cell of sorts. At least it was bigger and had a window looking out on a tree-covered hillside.

  I refused to eat anything at the evening meal, although I did accept a Styrofoam cup of warmish coffee late in the evening, but only because I was so thirsty. Thus closed my first day of incarceration.

  I honestly longed for death to take me away.

  ROCKY

  Tory looked like a lost waif as she shuffled into the packed courtroom, her arms held tightly by two burly guards. I was appalled to see they had her in manacles. Once in the prisoner’s box, she sat down wearily. Roderick provided a running translation of what we could hear, but a lot took place with Schultz speaking quietly at close range with the examining magistrate at his raised dais. Tory kept her head lowered throughout, avoiding all eye contact.

  Schultz got his way about the psychiatric assessment with little apparent trouble. His trump card of the world’s close attention to this case made it easier. Practically every seat around us contained someone scribbling in a notebook.

  The only time Tory looked halfway alive was when the magistrate asked if she had anything to say. When she asked if she could have her violin, a few people laughed. My heart stopped. Elen on my left and Roderick on my right looked stricken as the realization hit them, too.

  In all the uproar since the night before, it was understandable but still unforgivable that we’d forgotten all about Tory’s precious $4,000,000 collection of wood.

  There is no way I will ever forget Tory’s tortured expression as they led her away. She turned and looked directly into my eyes, and her cry came from the bottom of her soul: “Rocky! I must have my violin!”

  How could I have let her down so badly?

  “...we are therefore regretfully announcing that, effective today, our company will be unable to continue its affiliation with Victoria Morgan due to the circumstances of her current situation.”

  —Raymond J. MacDonald, VP, Marketing, Ariadne Records

  Chapter 21

  ROCKY

  I looked out, half-blinded by the lights, into a solid semi-circle of faces and cameras that seemed to stretch from the floor to the ceiling in the foyer of the courthouse. Schultz snuggled his bulk next to me in order to field any questions asked in German. Roderick stood stalwartly just behind. Time for damage control.

  I was still really upset with myself about Tory’s violin. No one knew better what her instrument meant to her, not to speak of what we both had suffered for it. And then there was its monetary value. We’d already dispatched Elen to see if by some miracle it was still in the apartment.

  Shocked gasps in some quarters and derisive laughter in others greeted my assertion that my wife was not guilty of any crime other than crossing the border to Italy and back using false documents. Unfortunately, I had no way on earth to back up what I was saying— not publically, at any rate. For the next ten minutes, questions ebbed and flowed, and I clearly got the feeling everyone thought I was a love-besotted fool who just didn’t have the sense to walk away from a hopeless situation. The media session ended with Schultz’s statement in German and Roderick supplying a translation into my ear.

  “We feel that the defense of Victoria Morgan will depend first and foremost on ascertaining what her mental state was at the time of the murder of Rudolph von Heislinger and what it is now. She suffered cruelly at his hands. That will all come out at the trial. I can say no more at this point. And yes, Herr Lukesh is correct in saying that Fräulein Morgan does not remember anything of that event. We hope to provide evidence in court to help explain why this may be. On the other charge, we maintain that Thekla Grillzer was already dead when Fräulein Morgan entered that apartment. It is our hope that our efforts will make it possible for Victoria Morgan to return to the concert stage at the earliest possible time. Thank you for your interest today.”

  With that, Schultz turned, forcing Roderick and me to follow. The press followed, right out of the building, shouting out several dozen more questions, which they suddenly realized they’d forgotten to ask. At the bottom of the steps, Schultz’s black limo was waiting, and without looking as if we were actually fleeing, we made every attempt to get the hell out of Dodge quickly.

  Schultz let out a huge sigh. “That last was a very delicate moment, my friends, but I can state with confidence that everything went quite as well as I would like this afternoon.”

  “That’s fine for you to say,” I responded, then told Schultz about Tory’s missing Strad.

  “And it is worth what they say?”

  “Yes. And half the world must know it. If someone has walked off with it, it would be a disaster.”

  “But surely it is insured.”

  Obviously, Schultz had no idea of the bond between a musician and his or her instrument, and I didn’t have the mental strength to enlighten him.

  Schultz patted my shoulder kindly. “Come, my friend, it is certain that your wife’s violin will return. Tonight, I would like to invite you all to dine with me. It is about time you were shown some Viennese hospitality. We must wash the taste of Müller from our mouths, eh, Herr Lukesh?”

  “Maybe another night. I have to come up with that violin first.”

  “Count me in on that,” Roderick added. “But thank you for your offer.”

  Schultz shrugged and took a cell phone out of his briefcase. “I will see if the police know anything of it.”

  We got little news. It seemed that no one would speak without Müller’s approval, and he’d gone home to rest from his Herculean labours. The person Schultz got that info from said something about Ertmann showing up at the apartment after we’d been carted off. Interesting... “You know of this man?” Schultz asked, and I nodded.
“You watch your step with him. He is very dangerous.”

  The media having followed us, they attempted another scrum back at the hotel, which didn’t do anything to improve my mood. Aided by some hotel staff, Roderick and I pushed our way through with grim faces and stony silence. It wouldn’t be long before the hotel got tired of the whole circus and asked us to leave. Trouble was, the reporters would follow us wherever we went.

  The relatives back in the States received my version of the day’s news with little joy. I had to tell Tory’s parents flat out that their presence in Vienna would do no good, since they would just be hounded by the media.“Sit tight, and I’ll let you know anything that happens. You could be here in hours if you have to come.”

  I didn’t bother phoning my parents. I was depressed enough already.

  ***

  Elen joined us an hour later with a long face and empty hands. Not only had the locks already been changed, Max had made it clear that she was never to contact him again. Her clothes, papers, laptop computer and small amount of personal effects had been left with the concierge. No violin.

  “The case is missing, too, along with the first page of the violin part from the concerto von Heislinger sent her,” she told me, flopping down on a chair. “And that wanker Max sounded more scared than anything when he gave me the big brush-off. Seems his wife has found out about me. Max says he doesn’t have it, and the concierge swears he didn’t see it when he cleared out my things from the apartment.”

  “You trust them?”

  “I told the concierge the violin was mine. I don’t think he knows much about music, and the violin does look a bit beaten up. Tory got some sort of cardboard case for it in Trieste so it would look less suspicious when we crossed back into Austria.”