Authors: Michael Genelin
J
ana lay on her hotel bed, fretting over the things she hadn’t done and wondering why she had done other things so poorly. There were other players in the game, and she hadn’t dealt with them as she could have. A long, hot bath was in order, but the Spartan accommodations at the hotel only provided a shower; so Jana turned the spray on as hot as she could stand it, letting the water cascade for a long time over the back of her neck, hoping that the muscles would relax enough to allow her to either think more clearly or simply enjoy a long, deep sleep.
She toweled herself off, slipped on a T-shirt top and briefs, blow-dried her hair, then turned the covers down and switched off the light. Virtually at the same moment, there was a knock at the door. Jana quickly turned the light back on.
“Yes, who is it?” she asked. She made sure to step out of the doorway so she was not in the line of fire if someone tried to shoot through the door. It was the wrong moment to be careless. Jana swept her automatic from the dresser, jacking a shell into the firing chamber.
A muffled male voice came through the door, as if the speaker was trying to talk quietly so the other hotel guests would not become aware of his presence. Jana stepped closer to the door.
“It’s too late. Call me on the hotel telephone if you need to talk to me.”
The man’s voice was louder this time.
“Jana, it’s Peter. I’ve broken every rule to see you. Have pity and open the door.”
Jana opened the door. Peter focused on the gun she had pointing at him.
“Sorry.” She lowered the gun, looked both ways, then tugged him inside the room, locking the door behind him. “Why are you here?”
Peter looked Jana up and down, admiring her abbreviated outfit. “I’m here because I knew you’d greet me dressed just like this. I needed the inspiration of seeing a beautiful woman again.”
Jana, realizing how little she was wearing, pulled the coverlet from the bed and draped it over herself like a gown. Peter smiled while she struggled with it.
“You have an idiotic grin on your face,” Jana told him. “Leering at nearly naked women is not what people expect from a prosecutor.”
“Only when they don’t have a relationship with the woman.”
“Who said we have a relationship?”
“My cousin Groucho.”
Jana fought hard to suppress a smile when she heard Groucho’s name. “He must have misinterpreted.”
“You were very clear, and he remembered very well.” He stared at her gun. “Don’t you think it would be nicer if you put your gun away?”
Jana padded over to the dresser, put the gun in its holster, and laid it down.
“In the drawer, please,” Peter requested.
Jana put it in the drawer.
“Feel safer now?” she asked.
“Much safer.”
He put his arms around her and kissed her. She didn’t respond. He looked at her, shaking his head.
“You are out of practice.”
He kissed her again. Jana responded. Then she finally broke away.
“Time for explanations.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “You’ve left me operating in the dark. I love you. But all this craziness with you and Bohumil and the investigation that tried to implicate me, has me confused and angry.”
He sat next to her.
“I had no choice. When you became a suspect, particularly after the killing in Geneva, I couldn’t see you. It would have been impossible for both of us. Then, after the phone taps, it became even worse. To make it better, I
had
to make it worse.
“I knew you weren’t involved. I love you, so how could I not know it? However, to demonstrate to them that you were innocent of any wrongdoing, I had to let
you
show them.” He leaned closer to her. “I knew you would, and would do it easily. And you have.”
His face fell. “I also knew that my part in the investigation would cause hurt. For which I apologize. But for us, in the long run, it was for the best.” He sighed, looking at her, hoping she would forgive him. “When I could, I sent Groucho to you.”
They both smiled.
“Dear Groucho! He liked being the go-between for lovers.” Jana remembered the man’s delight when he heard that she still loved Peter. “He is a nice man, nearly as nice as his cousin Peter.”
“Nicer,” said Peter. “Remember, I’m a public procurator.”
“And I’m a police officer.”
“Does that mean that the only ones who can tolerate us are each other?”
“It must.”
They kissed. Jana reached over to turn out the light and slipped off her remaining clothes. They made love very tenderly.
The next morning, while they slept in, the phone rang. It was Trokan.
“Get the sleep out of your eyes,” he ordered. “Is he there?”
Jana looked over at Peter, still trying to wake up. “Yes, he’s here. How did you know?”
“I told you before, I’m a colonel. Besides, I called his office first. They told me he’d gone to Vienna. Where else would he be going but to see you, right?”
“Thankfully, true.”
“As you predicted, it happened.”
“Who was it?”
“Sabina.”
“I thought it might be.”
“We set up the camera. She went through the files in Bohumil’s office, then went to your office and pulled the files there as well.”
“You arrested her?”
“She’s in a cell in the Darensky substation.”
“They’ll try to get to Sabina before I’m ready to see her. Keep her protected.”
“There are two officers right outside her cell at all times. When do you come back?”
“One more task here, then back to Bratislava. I’ll interview her as soon as I get in.”
Jana hung up and lay staring at the ceiling.
“Your colonel?” Peter asked.
“Yes.”
“Good news or bad news?”
“Both.”
“How so?”
“We’ve found out who’s been leaking information to the probable killers.”
“Who is it?”
“One of Bohumil’s police officers. The partner of the man who was killed in Geneva. Sabina Postova.”
“How do you know she’s the one?”
“She ransacked our police files last night. I was responsible for triggering the trap. It snapped on her.”
Peter got up on an elbow to look down at her. “I could swear you were with me last night. Besides, with what we were doing, you didn’t have the time.”
“I told a friend of mine something yesterday. Sabina found out about it. To find out about what I told my friend, my friend had to either tell her, or tell someone else close to her. We laid a snare for Sabina if she acted on the information. She did. But now my friend may be implicated.”
He lay back down. “What pointed you to Sabina?”
“Guzak’s escape. Inside information was leaking out. Then there was the killing in Switzerland. How did the killer know I was going to be there, in this small town on Lake Léman? Someone had to have told him.”
“The killer may have been following you.”
“Not me;
them!
He followed the police officers who were following me. How did he know they were going to follow me? She told him.
“He was supposed to execute me. But Sabina’s partner recognized whoever it was, and tried to stop it, which got him killed. It had to be clear to her just from the crime scene alone that I had nothing to do with the killing of her partner. Yet she accused me.”
“Who’s the friend?”
Jana found it hard to say Sofia’s name. Peter saved her the trouble.
“Your friend Sofia.”
Jana stayed silent.
“You’re going back to Bratislava?”
“This evening.”
“Why not now?”
“I have to talk to Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Boryda’s wife. I’ve always wondered what kind of woman marries a man like that. This is the most opportune time to find out.”
“But first. . . .”
She turned to look at Peter.
“A little bit of love.”
He pulled her over to him.
T
he lady was traveling with her husband. Knowing that, it was easy to find out where they were staying. Hotel guests in Europe are required to provide their passports to hotels when they register; the names are routinely furnished to the police. The Austrian police, always models of efficiency, checked the hotel lists and referred Jana to the hotel where Klaudia and Ivan Boryda were. Everything is near the Ring, the center of the city of Vienna, and the Im Palais Schwarzenberg Hotel was within walking distance of Jana’s room.
When she got there, the hotel stunned her with its opulence. Im Palais Schwarzenberg was in the middle of a Viennese park, redolent of the days when Johann Strauss, father and son, were composing waltzes for Emperor Franz Joseph. When she first walked into the lobby, Jana would not have been surprised if some majordomo of the old imperial court had come to scold her for not using the servant’s entrance. Fortunately, the people at the desk could not have been more extravagantly polite.
They swiftly located Klaudia Boryda in the conservatory-style dining area and escorted Jana to a tranquil area of tables bearing linen tablecloths, crystal glasses, and expensive china, where the guests were silently served by impeccably dressed waiters. The maitre d’ took over from her escort at the entry to the dining area and led Jana to the table at which Klaudia Boryda was seated.
The woman, in her fifties, dressed in a well-cut, expensive suit, stood and extended her hand to Jana.
“Commander Matinova, a pleasure to meet you.” She gestured for Jana to sit, picked up a crystal water glass, and took a sip. “I wondered what you would look like. There are not many women in the Slovak police with the rank of commander.”
Jana was as surprised by the woman’s poise as she was by her use of Jana’s name and her apparent familiarity with her career. The waiter approached, and Jana felt compelled to ask for a coffee. While she was ordering, Boryda’s wife studied her, making no effort to hide her scrutiny.
“You are younger looking than I thought you’d be.”
“Thank you,” Jana politely replied, making her own assessment of Klaudia Boryda. The word “impressive” sprang to mind. Intelligent, a planner, with a touch of ruthlessness. Jana decided she would be the perfect wife for a politician.
“My husband told me that you might be looking me up. Wasn’t that perceptive of Ivan?”
Too much praise for Ivan Boryda, thought Jana. The woman was praising herself indirectly.
“If I may make a supposition, the deputy prime minister told you that I was in town and you deduced I might look you up.”
“Why would I think that?”
“You’re totally unflustered, which means expectation and preparation on your part. Ivan told you that I had met with his mistress, which means he was sufficiently worried about me to tell you about it. He didn’t know how to handle it and wanted your advice. You’re long-term allies. You’d have prepared him, and prepared yourself at the same time.”
Jana was impressed by the woman’s control. She hadn’t even blinked when Jana mentioned her husband’s mistress.
“The woman is not currently his mistress.” Klaudia Boryda tore a small piece off a breakfast roll, put a dab of jam on it, then nibbled at the piece. “It’s a dead issue.”
“She still has hopes.”
“I can’t blame her. My husband is very attractive.”
“Why do you think it’s a dead issue?”
“I know my husband. He won’t give up what he has. And he would have to if he took up with her again. Ivan uses people. He still has some use for her. However, it’s progressively becoming smaller.”
“Why is that?”
A smile flickered across her face. “I told him it was over. And, like all good husbands, he is attentive to his wife’s wishes.”
Jana listened carefully to her tone. There was too much assurance in her voice. She described her advice as if it had been given by a master to her slave.
“He’s a reasonable man,” his wife added.
“Does the fact that Sofia was important to him bother you?”
“Men have a gland that women don’t. They persist, from time to time, in exercising it. I will not allow myself to get upset over the exercise of a tiny gland.”
Jana realized that the waiter was unobtrusively pouring a cup of coffee for her. He set the pot down next to the cup, then disappeared as quietly as he had appeared.
“A very comfortable hotel,” Jana remarked. “Service without a fuss, a beautiful setting, gorgeous grounds. Very old money, I would think, comes here.”
“Yes,” Klaudia Boryda acknowledged. “Old money.”
“Are you saying that you come from old money?”
“Old enough. We recovered well from the communist era.”
“That must be good for you, and better for Ivan. Where did it all come from?”
“You’re implying that I have another source of money other than my family?”
“A politician always needs money. Moreover, the higher his aspirations, the more money he needs. Your husband, for example.”
“I would agree.”
“Have you both undertaken the task of getting more money to feed his aspirations?”
“People are very generous to Ivan.”
“He has no side business?”
Klaudia Boryda’s face became absolutely devoid of expression. She didn’t realize that eradicating all emotion was, in itself, a statement.
Jana had been thinking about the diamond that Sofia had received in the mail. Sofia had immediately associated the diamond with Ivan Boryda. He was her lover, which made it natural for her to assume that he had sent it. He had denied it, but had immediately broken off their affair. Jana had assumed that he had become concerned about bad publicity in the media, which could mean the death of his political life. But maybe there was another reason.
“You and Ivan Boryda have been political partners for years. I would assume that means you are also the keeper of his political and business secrets?”
The woman’s face remained a mask.
“I will take your silence as a positive response.”
“Take it any way you wish.”
“Do you like diamonds?”
Nothing about Klaudia Boryda gave anything away, except her failure to answer.
“All women like diamonds,” Jana answered for her. “So that means we both like diamonds.”
Jana felt for the two top buttons on her blouse and opened them, pulling Sofia’s diamond out far enough that it could be seen.
“Isn’t this a beautiful jewel? A perfect, unflawed diamond, rare for its size. Would you like me to take it off so you can examine it more closely?”
Klaudia Boryda finally betrayed an emotion by the curl of her lips, the flair of her nostrils: triumph.
“A beautiful stone, indeed. I think I’ve seen it before. I wonder where?” She pretended to be thinking, putting on a performance. “Ah yes, it comes to me. I have a marvelous memory on occasion, particularly when an event strikes me. When I first saw that diamond, I remember the woman who was wearing it for the entire world to see. Your friend Sofia. I’m sure other people at the party saw her wearing it. If you wish, I can give you some of their names. Do you want them now?”
Now Jana knew how the diamond had gotten to Sofia. Klaudia Boryda had sent it. It had been a snare for Sofia. And she had walked into it blindly. There is an old saying, “Give people what they’ve always desired and it will kill them.” People had seen Sofia wearing the diamond. The diamond just might destroy her.
“I’ll ask you to provide me with the list when we both get back to Slovakia,” Jana said reluctantly.
But Klaudia Boryda was still smug, believing that her trap had worked. She couldn’t resist rubbing it in. “I would think, Commander Matinova, that it would be impossible for a mere legislator to have acquired a gem of that quality, they earn so little. Where do you think she obtained the money to purchase a diamond? Oh, goodness!” she feigned shock and disbelief. “You don’t think she’s corrupt, do you? Perhaps she took bribes? It would be horrible if she did. And even if she didn’t, the press will convict her without giving her a chance to explain.” A cold, pitiless note entered her voice. “Of course, I’m sure she has a logical explanation, aren’t you?
“Do you have any other questions to ask me?” she continued. “If not, perhaps you will leave. I’d like to sit here alone, enjoying a quiet cigarette. Everybody makes such a fuss these days about smoking that I feel uncomfortable smoking with anyone nearby. You understand, I trust?”
Jana decided to stay for another moment. “You laid it all out, a road map for her to follow. You knew Sofia would wear the diamond. People would talk. You hoped the police would question her, they would find the diamond, and her career in parliament, and her affair with your husband, would be over. Your husband knew what had happened as soon as Sofia called him about the diamond. And he had to stop seeing her.”
“Ah, you’re trying to get your friend Sofia out of this by blaming me. It’s wrong of you to do that.” She took out a cigarette and lit it. “If I don’t hear from you in the next few days, I’ll call your supervisor, perhaps even the minister, and tell him about the diamond that you have in your possession. I don’t think you’ll chance that. Take my advice: turn it in. Start the investigation. Or else they’ll be investigating you.”
Jana rose and carefully tucked her chair in. In a dining room like this, it would be uncivilized to leave anything out of place. Jana took a step backward, almost bumping into the hovering waiter. She gestured at Klaudia. “The lady will pay for my coffee.” She walked away.
Jana now knew where to focus the rest of her investigation.
How had the Borydas come into possession of such a diamond? It would be interesting to find out.