Aria in Ice (28 page)

He did. She shook her head several times
after Gerard explained that we were leaving but would get the
clothes back to her and the other ladies. She rattled off a few
sentences and Johnny smiled.

“What did she say?”

“‘
It’s yours, little flower of the Czech
Republic.’
Really. I gather this costume was hers back in the
day and she’s not exactly wearing it for dances anymore and you
look lovely and she wants you to keep it.”

It was all I could do not to start crying.
Her kindness had just made up for a hell of a bad start to this
day. I thanked her again, then ran over and hugged her as hard as I
could without breaking the brittle old bones.

We left her standing by the electric heater
warming those bones and blessing us and our children and children’s
children and on and on.
Kouzlo Noc
was still struggling to
shove off the effects of murders and curses from the ungodly but in
this little village, it was obvious that saints ruled.

The desk clerk at the hotel didn’t even blink
when I waltzed through the lobby in my folk dance apparel looking
like I was auditioning for a modeling gig on a cuckoo clock. A few
of the hotel’s guests stared. I debated breaking into a few
choruses of “
My Favorite Things”
for them.

Shay and I parted by the elevator (the stairs
were just too much effort today) and I was barely in the room for
ten seconds before I removed the Czech folk ballet regalia. Next up
was diving into a shower so hot I was nearly scalded, then
collapsing, towel wrapped around me, on the comfy bed.

I wasn’t sleepy anymore, just exhausted. I
stared at the ceiling for about thirty minutes before getting
dressed and roaming around the room tidying up the clothes and
books and junk I’d left the day before. The hotel’s maids had
replaced linens and made the bed, but wisely left my stuff where
I’d tossed it. People get very testy about their personal
belongings being moved. I’m not one of those folks who minds having
someone clean for me, but I was rather glad the maids hadn’t gotten
obsessive and put things where I’d never find them.

I grabbed the bag I’d been carrying all over
Prague, including all the times I’d been up at
Kouzlo Noc
.
Shay had had a fit of efficiency and brought it to me at the police
station. I was sure it needed cleaning out of old tissues and
receipts and crumpled notes and all those items that reproduce
asexually in suitcases, carry-alls and purses if one does not
attack one’s luggage with a vengeance at least once a month.

This bag had all that clutter and more. My
new clock was still inside; wrapped in its original box. The pink
suede organizer I thought I’d lost at
Club Krev
was wedged
between my wallet, keys and a package of black cherry-flavored
cough drops. Three bags of cheese doodles (ill-gotten gains from a
vending machine somewhere in Manhattan, unopened but at least four
weeks old), the
Magic Flute
playbill from a few nights ago,
Louie’s Lingo
translations, and two guidebooks filled up the
rest of the space.

The bottom of the bag produced a surprise.
The book I’d borrowed—okay—snatched from the room in the north wing
of
Kouzlo Noc
where I’d found the music stand and the
modern-era flute the day Shay had arrived, was lying alone and
unwanted on top of three crumpled tissues. If I remembered
correctly after the insanity of the last couple of days, I’d
grabbed the book because it had a title about Mozart prominently
displayed on the dust jacket. I was right. I pulled it out of my
bag and read the words, “
Mozart—A Man Ahead of His Time.”
I
didn’t see a sub-title like, “
How Ignatz Jezek created a Flute
for the Maestro and Imbued it With Magic then Hid the Flute before
He Was Murdered by Baron Smetana’s Father-in-Law in the Bathroom
with the Golden Towel Rack”
but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t
find some interesting insights into possible hiding places and / or
murder weapons.

I got my second surprise when the dust jacket
came off and I discovered a plain leather binder with no title. I
opened the book. Czech. Nuts. The dust jacket title with Mozart’s
name had been in English. Why didn’t the contents match? I took
another look and realized that not only was this Czech but it was
handwritten. I slowly began turning pages. This was not a published
work. This was someone’s journal.

“Johnny. Holy crap. I need to call him and
tell him to get his denim-clad burgling butt over here to try and
translate.”

I was at the phone before it hit me that I
didn’t have Johnny’s number. I wasn’t even sure where Johnny was
staying. He’d never told me. For all I knew, he’d dropped Shay and
me off at the hotel and gone back to
Kouzlo Noc
to make sure
nothing else happened to Marta. Either that or headed for the
National Marionette Theatre
to do another command
performance as Macduff.

I called Shay. “Guess what?”

She growled. “‘What’ had better be damn
stinkin’ good, because otherwise I’m breaking your other ankle. I
was finally getting some sleep—something that wasn’t possible last
night with Lily Lowe and her stream of consciousness monologues
about how wonderful she was as Little Crystal. As Ophelia. As
Portia. As Titania. If she’d told me how wonderful she’d been in a
one-woman show of
The Tempest
, I’d’ve just thrown her out of
the window and accepted the twenty-generation Duskova curse on my
head.”

“Will you hush? This is important.”

“Fine. What?”

“I found a journal.”

Silence.

“And your point?”

“Shay, this journal is handwritten in Czech
and I found it in the north wing where I first heard the flute
music.”

Silence.

“And your point?”

“Gad, you are being pissy, aren’t you? This
could be a major clue in finding out where Ignatz flute is.”

“Yo. Abb-ess. Hold up there. This was just
lying around in a room in the north wing, right?”

“Right. I sort of filched it when I was there
the day you and the rest of the wandering hordes arrived.”

“I did not wander in with whores, thank you.
Lily’s a slut, but as to charging for her services? Now, now. Be
charitable.”

“Oh, shush. Anyway, I thought it was a book
about Mozart and I grabbed it before y’all came in and then I
forgot about it. The dust jacket wasn’t the same.”

She didn’t bother to ask me what the dust
jacket had to do with anything. It’s nice to have a friend who
understands your dumbest statements without asking for
explanations. Instead she jumped back to the point she’d been
trying to make.

“Okay. Book is there. You pick up book. Let
me repeat. Book is there in plain sight. No warrant needed. Now,
why, if this book, journal, diary, whatever, contains vital clues
as to the mystery surrounding a two-hundred year old flute—why, I
repeat—is that journal just lying around waiting to be picked up by
any old bum who drops in. Not that I’m calling you an old bum, of
course, but you get my drift.”

Silence while I pouted. “Shoot. You’re right.
It’s too easy. Even if by some loopy stretch of the imagination it
happens to be Jezek’s journal, with my luck it’ll just contain
notes on how many potato pancakes he consumed the night before with
his in-laws. Nuts.”

“Now, Abby, don’t sulk. It could well bear
more fruit than you or I are giving it credit for. Let’s get the
bloody thing translated and see what it’s about.”

I brightened. “Okay. Who, what, where, and
when?”

“Well, not now, you nag. I’m sleepy and the
durn book has been untranslated by the American geniuses for many
years, so it can wait at least a couple of hours to let me regain
my lively and lovely self.”

“Oh. Okay. Who do we want to trust with this
thing, though? Or is it whom?”

“Jozef,” was the prompt response. “He told
you about Ignatz, he’s related to Ignatz, he was marvelous with the
whole tragedy about Trina and marvelous helping with Marta and he’s
a nice guy.”

“He also looks like God.”

“I beg your pardon.” I could see Shay’s eyes
widening even over the phone.

“You heard me.”

“Go to sleep, Abby. We shall contact the
bookshop Deity later today. Right now the only god I want to meet
is the Sandman.”

She hung up. I knew she was right but it
didn’t help. I wanted to know whose journal I held in my hands and
whether it had anything at all to do with Jezek. Or what had been
the murder of Trina Duskova and the attempted murder of her sister
Marta. Jozef was still out at
Kouzlo Noc
. If he’d been in
Prague, I’d’ve trotted down to his bookstore and politely forced
him to read the thing to me. I wondered if any of the hotel staff
would accept a substantial tip for translating, but decided that
wasn’t a great plan in case some startling revelations
were—well—revealed.

If I got desperate, I could rent a car and
head back to the police station and ask one of my Czech folk
dancing dressers to read it. The one who spoke English seemed
pretty trustworthy. Or I could rent that car and drive it all the
way to
Kouzlo Noc
. Yeah. Over what were still wintery
conditions outside. Not a good plan. Either trip.

I began to pace around the hotel room. Crazy.
I was impatient and frustrated and I didn’t even have an inkling of
whether this book had been written by Ignatz Jezek, Baron Smetana,
his bride Marie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or some guest of the
Duskovas named Johann Schmidt.

The phone rang. I picked it up on the first
ring. “Shay? Change your mind? Want to go back to the castle?”

“Johnny, not Shay. My mind is made up. And
I’m perfectly willing to go back to the castle, but I really called
to see if you’d like to go to
Bertramka
with me. I’m down in
the lobby.”

“Do they have good
gulas
and
wine?”

He howled. “Wine? Possible.
Gulas?
Not
so much. Don’t you remember your music history, darlin’?
Bertramka
is the Mozart Museum.”

“Meet you in ten minutes.”

Late afternoon on a day that had started with
a blizzard, and now the sun was out and I was almost too warm in a
light jacket over my knit jersey top and jeans. I’m used to the
Texas quick changes in temperature—the old joke is that if you
don’t like the weather in Texas just wait five minutes—but this was
bizarre for Prague. I wasn’t complaining about the difference from
below-freezing-with-ice-pellets that I’d so enjoyed during this
morning’s ride; I was just rather astonished by them. Aside from a
few dismal dirty snow piles, most of the ground was merely slushy,
and it felt like it was in the fifties now. As it should be on a
fine early spring day in the Czech Republic.

We took the metro to the museum, which gave
me a little time to tell Johnny about the journal. I’d dropped it
back inside my now somewhat-cleaner bag before hauling downstairs
to meet him.

“You stole it?”

I was indignant. “I didn’t steal it. I
borrowed it.”

“Oh sure. And you accuse
me
of
felonious activities?”

“Only every now and then. And you must admit
that you deserve the accusations. Sliding out of trees at
unsuspecting women who are just out for a peaceful walk around
castle grounds.”

“Peaceful walk? You, my love, were so
involved in your search for the source of flute music I’m surprised
your nose wasn’t sniffing like a bloodhound leading the fox
hunt.”

“Well, I wasn’t so intent on my quest that I
failed to notice your butt hanging out the window.”

He chuckled. “That’s because I have such a
fine derriére.”

He did. It looked damn nice in ripped denim.
Out of ripped denim too.

He changed the topic before we started an
anatomical discussion that could only lead to trouble on public
transportation. “So, where is it? The manuscript that could get you
five-to-ten in a Prague pokey.”

“Would you stop that? I’m taking it back. I
promise. After you take a look since that’s why I brought it.” My
hand dove into the bag. Naturally the journal was down at the
bottom again. “How good are your Czech reading skills? Really.”

“Not terrific. I’ve got menus and tourist
sites down to a fine art but that’s about it.”

“What? The great Gregory Noble who will
probably won a Nobel Prize along with creating a cure for cancer
while simultaneously solving global warming can’t zip through a
lousy book in Czech in five minutes or less? And you got hired as a
tour guide?”

“Hush. Since you obviously didn’t notice the
other day the bus said
Tokyo Tours
. It’s a company that
caters to Japanese tourists. I do speak some Japanese. Spent four
months in Gamagori which sounds like a shape-shifting monster in a
horror flick but is actually a coastal town with a cool amusement
park. And before you ask—yes—
Endless Time.
It was a really
stupid storyline and I’ve been trying to blot it out. So did our
producers since it was never aired.”

I groaned. “Why do I even bring up topics
which can only lead to soap episodes? ” I smiled. “I do feel better
that you don’t read Czech that well. It’s so durn hard to try and
outdo you and I was really reaching for any hidden talents I
possess to shock you.”

He gave me one of those green-eyed,
melt-my-bones stares but kept silent.

I handed him the journal. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He studied it for a few minutes.
“Okay. I’ve admitted to not being an authority on manuscripts
written in Czech, but I can tell you this much. It’s not the
journal of Ignatz Jezek.”

“You’re kidding? Durn. I’m disappointed. I
guess I thought the first page would say something like
‘Hi. I’m
Ignatz Jezek and this is my diary and I’m going to lead you right
to where I hid the flute I wanted to give to my good buddy, Mozart.
And by the way, future treasure seekers—here’s the scoop on what
the flute really does—now wait for it. Here it comes.’
Something basic and concise along those lines.”