Authors: Michael Genelin
J
ana returned to her small house in the Rusovce District after buying a few cherries from a street vendor nearby. She waved at a neighbor, Mrs. Miklanova, who ducked her head, pretending that she had not seen Jana.
Jana had stopped Mrs. Miklanova’s husband from beating her up some years back. The husband had to spend a few days in the hospital, which she had never forgiven Jana for. Jana opened her door, wondering if the woman had ever considered what would have happened to her if she hadn’t stopped him. Mrs. Miklanova had already been bleeding from a broken nose and a scalp wound when Jana intervened. And, to Jana’s knowledge, he had never beaten his wife again. After all, the police officer who’d put him in the hospital was still living across the street; he only enjoyed beating his wife when there was no one to stop him. Jana had thought briefly of moving, but she was not going to be forced out by a cowardly wife-beater, or by the anger of his victim.
She walked through her unlocked front door.
At first she didn’t know what was hanging from a red ribbon tacked to a ceiling beam in the middle of the room. It swung slowly back and forth in the air current. Jana slowly closed the door behind her, stepping closer to the object. A simple necklace of gold links was dangling from the ribbon. Hanging from this chain was a diamond. The diamond was the size of a small candy egg. Jana turned a lamp on, moving closer to the necklace to examine it.
The facets glittered sharp and bright, demanding to be looked at, with a piercing luminosity that seemed to grow sharper and brighter as she focused on the gem. The stone looked even larger from up close. It seemed to consume the light in the space around it. It had its own life, demanding to be looked at.
Jana managed to pull back, forcing herself to look away. Someone had been in the house, and perhaps was still there. She snapped her holster open, ready to use her gun if she had to, cautiously but quickly going through the house to make sure she was alone. Then she walked back to the gem.
The diamond was still there.
It was hypnotic. It said, “You want me. You need me. We are meant to be together.”
Jana was amazed at the effect the diamond had on her. First, greed and lust. Then came a feeling of unease at her reaction. It was followed by dread that she might so easily be corrupted by such a thing. It was crazy, and wrong.
Why had someone hung the diamond in her home?
Jana pulled the stone and its gold chain off the ribbon. It felt cold in her hand. She now wanted to cast it off, to throw it away. Anything to get rid of it. Her fear increased. She was a police officer. Whoever had put it in her home had placed her in jeopardy.
How could such an inanimate object be so threatening? Not only the diamond, but what it represented. Danger. Personal danger. It had been hung in her house for a reason. The stone was too expensive to be a gift. It meant . . . something else!
Hide it! She started toward her couch, thinking to conceal it under a cushion, then halted. The ludicrousness of hiding the diamond under a cushion jolted her. What was she thinking? She forced herself to stop. Yes, her own department might be kicking down her door at any moment, ready to arrest her for corruption, or theft, whatever crime the diamond would implicate her in. But this was no way to deal with the issue. Jana calmed herself.
She would get out of her wet clothes, take a bath, let the hot water soothe her. She had to think. The cherries were still in her other hand, half crushed. She took them with her into the bathroom, laying them next to the tub, then ran a hot bath. Knocking sounds began emanating from the hot-water heater as if someone imprisoned inside the tank was demanding to be let out. It had been repaired twice before by Brod, the handyman, the man who did repairs for everyone. Unfortunately, he also jury-rigged failing parts so he didn’t have to buy expensive new ones, and sooner, rather than later, the item he serviced would break down again. She listened to the sounds, focusing on them, trying to take her mind off the diamond.
Jana had purchased a small bottle of bath oil in a little town just over the Austrian border. She poured the remaining contents of the bottle into the tub, regretting for a brief moment that she had none left for her future baths, her regrets vanishing as she slipped into the water. She tried to luxuriate in the heat, 1ying mostly submerged, eating an occasional cherry, safe from the snow-turned-to-sleet outside. The bath oil would smooth her skin, which Peter would like . . . and she wanted Peter to like it.
Jana tried to forget, to think only of the evening ahead, seeing Peter of the dark, dark eyes and the contrasting pale skin waiting for her outside the opera just a short two hours from now. Peter, the only man she had been this attracted to since her husband’s death.
Jana had met Peter by chance when she had been asked to address a small committee of legislators at the parliament building. The minister of the interior had told Trokan he wanted her to speak in favor of a bill to prevent human trafficking that the government had ordered its members of parliament to pass. Some of them had misgivings because the penalties attached to the bill went beyond the limits imposed by EU treaty and UN conventions. She was to convince the swing votes that dealers in human flesh would keep their trade out of Slovakia, or at least limit it, when they became aware of how much more severely Slovakia would punish them than the surrounding, less-punitive states. Also, it was a good bill to pass just before an election, and played well in the more conservative parts of the country.
Unfortunately, the day she met Peter was also the day she saw Kamin again.
Jana had been sent over to parliament at the last moment. She met Sila Covic, known to all as the Red Devil, at the front entrance to the great lobby of the parliament building. The woman handled public relations and logistics for parliament. Covic was very short and dressed in conservative clothing, and would have seemed undistinguished had it not been for her deep, raspy, penetrating voice that forced everybody in the immediate vicinity to look at her.
Sila had gotten her nickname because she had once been a communist activist, and still often mouthed communist dogma even though she was now an avowed democrat. There was another reason as well: when she got angry, her face was suffused with a startlingly red flush. And Sila Covic got angry very often. So everyone tried to steer clear of her, except when business forced them to deal with her.
The Red Devil did not bother with amenities when she met Jana, hustling her toward the staircase leading to the parliament’s meeting rooms.
“I wish you had come earlier,” Sila rasped, her irritation apparent. “You could have had individual meetings. Now, you will face the four members who control the committee. One is with the SDL party, so he’s probably lost anyway, no matter what you say. The other three are vacillating; they’re the ones you have to focus on. They sent over a man from the attorney general’s office, their chief trial lawyer. He can talk about legality if they raise any questions.”
“Did this prosecutor write the bill?”
“He had input. You have a brief moment to discuss it with him. Brief!” she warned, her voice becoming even more penetrating. “They’ve made changes.”
“I haven’t seen them.”
“He’ll inform you. That’s his area anyway.”
They walked through the halls toward the meeting room, turned a corner, and Jana almost immediately bumped into Peter Saris, who was sipping a mug of coffee. The collision slopped coffee on both of them. Each immediately offered apologies; each tried to wipe the coffee droplets off the other and became embarrassed upon realizing they were touching a person they hadn’t even met, a person who was terribly attractive.
“This is Procurator Peter Saris of the attorney general’s office.” The Red Devil indicated Peter. “And this is Commander Jana Matinova.” Sila surveyed the two of them, goggling at each other. She snickered, and then, after a second of silence, said, “I think the spilled-coffee routine worked.” Her voice took on an acerbic edge. “You can repair to the nearest hotel room later. Talk about the statute now.” She laughed, her voice like the braying of a mule. “In here.” She pointed to the meeting room. “Two minutes.” She entered the room, leaving them standing in the hallway.
As soon as the Red Devil left them, Jana and Peter realized they were still staring. Both tried to bring themselves back to business. Jana’s heartbeat was so loud, she thought that he must hear it. She felt the urgent need to reach out and touch his face and repressed the impulse with difficulty.
“I—,” he began, then stopped.
“I think,” Jana began, and also stopped.
They started to laugh.
“We should talk . . . about the law,” he mumbled.
“Yes, we should,” she responded. She thought about it for a moment. “What law?”
“Cupid’s,” he suggested.
“I didn’t know he made laws,” she murmured.
“Oh, yes,” he got out. “And they can’t be broken.”
“Well,” she finally responded, “we’re both in law enforcement, and it would look bad if we broke any laws.”
“Absolutely!”
“How about the other law?” she wondered. “You know, the one we came to discuss?”
“Hard to care about it right now.”
Jana felt the same way.
The door to the meeting room opened; the Red Devil peered out.
“Time to talk to the committee members.”
Peter and Jana nodded and walked past Sila Covac into the conference room.
“And keep your minds on the meeting,” she snarled as they went in. “Or you’ll deal with me later!” She hitched herself up to her full height and followed them in.
The meeting went well, despite Jana and Peter having to try hard to keep their hands to themselves and focus on the bill. After it was over, they walked down the stairs together and left the building, going to the lot where Jana had parked her car. She offered Peter a lift. To her disappointment, he declined, explaining that he had business at the office. Dry-mouthed, Jana left wondering what she had done to drive him away. Was he married and doing the honorable thing before they became so besotted they’d both regret what would unquestionably have happened?
As Peter left, Jana saw a limousine drive off. She recognized the passenger, which brought a chill to her. Almost in a daze, she got in her car and followed him. The limousine drove to a large house in the suburbs. Jana parked nearby, turned off her cell phone, and watched the house gradually fill with people arriving for a dinner party.
Kamin, the man who had ravaged Sofia inside the limousine, had returned to Slovakia and was in that house. Three hours later the guests began leaving, couple by couple, and the lights were turned off. When the house was dark and Kamin hadn’t left with the guests, Jana knew she had found his home. Now she could leave. He’d be there when she came back.
Kamin had evaded justice before. Jana wouldn’t let him get away again.
J
ana sat in the tub thinking about Kamin’s return until the water became frigid, her skin wrinkled from its long immersion in the water. She put Kamin out of her mind. The diamond was the issue she had to deal with now.
Slowly toweling herself off, Jana mulled over the few facts she knew. The diamond could have been placed where it was by anyone. Jana usually left her doors unlocked. If she’d locked them, anyone wanting to get inside would force the lock. It would only take an instant. Or they would go to the rear and punch out a glass window and be inside just as quickly. Besides, everyone in the neighborhood knew that Jana was a police commander. Thieves were stupid, but not so stupid that they’d break into a police officer’s house.
No, not a thief. What kind of thief would leave this kind of present behind him? Whoever had left the diamond knew that Jana lived there. And they’d hung the diamond up for her to see for a reason.
Jana picked up the diamond, then walked into her bedroom, deciding to wear one of her uniforms. The evening’s social activities would have to be put on hold. She had to be a police officer for a while longer. Jana finished dressing and called Trokan’s cell phone.
Trokan complained he had been sent out to a market by his wife, to pick up groceries. A demeaning job for a colonel! And who in the world needed green peppers after a hard day’s work, he grumbled. Trokan eventually suggested that they meet in the bus kiosk at the front of the market.
Jana reached the kiosk first, just in time to watch Trokan trudge through the slush toward her. With a groan, setting his packages on the bench, he sat next to Jana.
“Why are you still in uniform?”
“I have a police problem, I think.”
“Good police, or bad police?”
“Bad police.”
“So bad it could not wait until tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
He heaved a sigh. “This is probably going to be worse than the green peppers. Okay, tell me.”
“I went home, and the problem was inside my living room.”
He stared at her. “What did you find?”
“This.” She pulled the diamond from her pocket, swinging it by its chain like a pendulum. After they both stared at it for a moment she handed it to him. “It was hanging by a ribbon from a beam in the room. Needless to say, I had never seen it before.”
Trokan examined the diamond for a full minute, finally breaking away from its fascination. “A real diamond like this captures one’s attention, doesn’t it?”
“That’s why everyone wants them.”
“Did you want it?”
“For a very brief instant.”
“Now you want to get rid of it?”
“It was never mine to keep.”
“Well, don’t expect
me
to take it. What am I supposed to do, take it home to my wife? She would want it, too. Then what do I do? So you keep it for now.”
“It doesn’t feel right for me to hold on to such a stone. It’s dangerous for a police officer to have it.”
He thought about this.
“In the morning I’ll write a report about your finding the diamond, seal it in an envelope, and give it to one of the secretaries to tuck away. That way, if anyone asks what you are doing with the diamond, we can show them the memorandum to prove I set up an investigation. You, on the other hand are a police investigator. So, investigate and find out how it got into your living room.”
He tossed the diamond pendant back to her.
“I give you one week, then we tell the corruption investigation team about it. You understand the need for that? It is called covering your colonel’s ass.”
“Agreed.”
“Your first move in the investigation?”
Jana thought about it. “I’ll call Grosse at Europol. See if he can check on the diamond’s provenance.”
“He’s a good man. Tell him you ran it by me. Have him link up with Interpol. Make a large sweep. One more step in covering our backsides. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jana put the diamond back in her pocket. Trokan shook his finger at her. “Be careful with the stone. You don’t want to lose it. It’s your job if you do.”
“Sure you don’t want to keep it for me?”
“I didn’t have the misfortune to find it in my home.”
They both got up.
“You think this thing has anything to do with the internal affairs investigation? With Seges going through my desk?”
“Maybe. Then again, maybe not.” He patted her on the shoulder. “At the risk of sounding sarcastic, have a good evening.”
He picked up his groceries and trudged away through the parking area.
Jana called Europol on her cell phone, then walked back to her car. She already knew what her next move was going to be.