Lost and Found in Prague (18 page)

Under the wing of peace we march in gentle revolution

to claim our cherished life and freedom

The salvation of the world

to be found in the human heart

She liked the sound of Damek’s voice, the cadence and tone as if he were reading poetry. It sounded different, softer, than his cop voice.

He hit eject. “You believe this has significance relating to Sister Claire’s death? The theft of the Infant?”

“Not exactly church music,” she said.

“These words, some from poetry of the first president of whom we spoke.”

“You read poetry?”

“At times.”

There were many sides to this man, Dana thought. “You think there are political implications?”

“In the music? Of course.”

“I mean in the motive for the theft of the Infant.”

“I do not know the motive.” He glanced at Dana as if she should offer something more. They pulled onto Nerudova.

“You still believe Sister Claire’s death was natural?” Dana asked.

“She suffered a heart attack. Yes, this
is
the official cause of death,” he replied emphatically. “I have no doubt of that fact.”

They were just a half block from her hotel, their car the only one on the street. “Are you going to check into this Lenka connection?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch.

Dana glanced at hers. It was now half past two in the morning—already tomorrow. “Could I go with you?”

“With me?”

“If you find her.”

“What is your
personal
interest in what has taken place at Our Lady Victorious?”

“A friend,” she said after the smallest hesitation.

“If the Infant is truly missing, as you and Father Borelli believe, there are few who would know. The thief. Or thieves. Father Ruffino. The nuns who dress the Infant. One of the nuns, American. About your age. Your friend, she is the American nun?”

No response required.

They’d come to a stop at her hotel.

“You still want my passport?”

He nodded.

“When we arrived at the bar, you referred to a murder three years ago. Did you solve that one?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly she felt so tired she questioned if she even had the energy to go up to her room, get the passport, and return with it. She was about to get out of the car, wondering if he intended to escort her to the room, when she turned to face him. “You and Father Ruffino? You obviously know him. You speak so highly of him. As does Borelli. According to just about everyone, the man’s a saint. Shouldn’t you have called in someone to take over the case? Back home we’d call this conflict of interest.” She thought this might make him angry, which at this point probably wasn’t a good idea, as they seemed to be working together, but it was pretty obvious he’d done a terrible job. Even if the old nun had died of natural causes, something else had definitely taken place in the church that morning. The Infant of Prague was missing.

The look on his face was not one of anger; she couldn’t read it at all. Then something shifted almost as if a mask had been removed, a softening, a vulnerability, something she’d had a brief glimpse of earlier in the evening.

Damek nodded, but for several moments he remained quiet. Finally he said, “My son.” He stared out the car window at the deserted street. “Several years ago he became very ill.” He spoke in a soft voice. “There were tumors, cancer. One tumor, then a second, then a third. The first, at the base of his skull, and then the second, it moved up closer to . . .” Damek ran his fingers slowly along the back of his head. “They remove these. But with the third—” He shook his head. “He is dying. The doctors say there is no hope. Though Karla . . .” He smiled, and Dana understood he was speaking of his wife. “She will not let go of hope. She told them—the doctors—that Petr will be saved. If we believe in God’s power, he will be saved. I did not believe her. How could I? I stare down at this fragile boy, my son, so small his bones cracking the thin skin at the bends of his elbows, his bruised knees, his frail little shoulders.” Investigator Damek paused for a long moment as if the image had taken away the words. “The doctors, they tell us the third, too close to his brain. Nothing more they can do. . . . Our son, so weak . . . he now goes into a coma.” The dim glow of the streetlight revealed a glisten on Damek’s cheek.

She could hear, in the quiet night, his taking in a breath, releasing it slowly. Then she could hear her own breathing and feel the tense beat of her heart. Did they share this—an unspeakable bond of loss?

Then Damek smiled and said, “He’s doing very well now. He is nine and a healthier boy you would never see.” He took in another deep breath as if attempting to regain his composure, and again Dana felt the thump of her own heart.

“Karla, my wife, is a spiritual person, very religious. She believes in the goodness of people, in the loving mercy of God. She wanted to take him to the church, Our Lady Victorious. We argued. Karla begged me to take Petr to the Christ child. They say the little statue can heal the sick, that the Infant is an instrument of miracles. I told her we could not take our son from the hospital, that he would die if we did. I knew the doctors would not allow it. I called Father Ruffino. He came immediately. When Karla told him what she wanted to do, he said . . .” Damek was again on the verge of tears. He sat quietly for a long moment before continuing. “Father Ruffino told us, ‘It is not the statue that has the power to heal. It is God. The statue represents God’s love for us, his sending his Son to become one of us, to die for our sins, but in itself, the statue has no power. We will pray together here with Petr to the Infant King.’”

Damek stared out on the street. A cab moved by, bumping on the slight mound where the ditch had recently been covered. It stopped in front of them. A couple got out and walked into the hotel.

“I did not believe in miracles,” he said. “I did not have Karla’s faith, but I prayed as I have never prayed in my life. I begged.”

“But you do now?” Dana asked, remembering what he’d said earlier when she asked him about the religious medal he’d entrusted to Borelli. Her chest, as well as her throat, felt so tight and dry now, she could barely get the words out. “Now you believe in miracles?”

His shoulders heaved, and she thought he might be crying, and the mother in Dana wanted to reach out and hold him, and yet it was that same maternal feeling that burned like a stone in her chest, the heat fanning out as if her entire body had been placed into a fire.

“Yes, I believe in miracles,” he said.

She
had prayed. For a miracle. A miracle that had not come. Dana closed her eyes tightly to prevent her own tears from escaping.
Breathe,
she told herself, though she felt as if she were suffocating.
Breathe
. Slowly in, slowly out.

She was filled not with tenderness toward this man, not with joy for his miracle, but with anger that had been seething inside her for five long years. Finally, after a long, empty silence, she said, “I have a son.” The words came as if from someone else, so oddly calm. She did not hear the anger in her voice. She could not bring herself to say the words,
I had a son
.

Their eyes met, and now it was Damek who waited for Dana to tell her story.

“He would be eight,” she said.

He said nothing.

“Just a little younger than your son. It was five years ago.” She paused, and considered leaving, just opening the door, going up to her room. She could do it.
He won’t follow me,
she thought. “We had gone to visit my mother for Easter. It was a tradition. We’d go to my folks every year. When we were kids—myself, my two brothers—when my dad was alive, he used to do the Easter egg hunt. He always said it was the Easter Bunny. My brothers, Jeff and Ben, do it now. Outdoors if the weather is nice. I have two nephews, Zac and Quinn, a little niece, Olivia. We just had Zac and Joel, my son, our son—I had a husband then, too. That year it was just the two boys. Quinn and Olivia don’t even know Joel—Joseph Leon, but we always called him Joel. The kids were both excited and we expected them up early. Zac got his dad up, but he said Joel was gone. The two boys were sharing a room. He said a man came in the night and took him. Jeff thought Zac had just had a bad dream, but when he went in to check on Joel . . .”

Dana didn’t think she could continue, but she knew she had to. Now that she had started, she had to finish. She had told it so many times, during those first days, so many times. But she hadn’t spoken of that morning in years. She didn’t think she could anymore. But she knew, tonight, she had to.

“We searched everywhere. Inside. Outside. We thought he was playing a trick. Hiding, like an Easter egg. He was gone. We called the police. Another search. Hours passed. I prayed. I prayed so hard. I begged God.
Please return my son safely
. A day passed. Another. Now it was a miracle I prayed for. I knew after those first twenty-four hours . . . if . . . I prayed for a miracle.” Heat burned behind her eyes, invaded her brain, as if it could scorch every nerve, every fiber, heat to a boil, explode inside her head. She felt the warm, sticky moisture roll down her cheeks.

She stared at Damek through the blurriness. “Am
I
not worthy?” Her voice rose with each word. “Was
my
son not worthy? Why were
you
given a miracle? Why was
your
son chosen, not mine?” Her hand curled in a fist, against her leg, shaking. Everything trembling, as if her body, her limbs, were moving on their own, as if she had no control. Their eyes met, and she saw a reflection of her pain in his eyes. She hated him at this moment.

She grabbed the car door, yanking at the handle. He reached for her, his hand on her arm, but she pulled away and was outside the car, sprinting toward the hotel, running on legs of rubber. She could sense him coming behind her, again reaching for her, spinning her around. Then she hit him in the chest. Before she realized what was happening she did it again. Hard. He grasped her wrists, but she jerked away. She slammed her fist against his chest again, feeling something hard and unyielding beneath his jacket. He held up his arms defensively and then again he clutched her wrist, her arm, then her whole body, holding tight to prevent her from hitting him again, to calm her. She shoved, pushed, pounded his chest, striking him with all the power her body possessed. He grabbed her again, held her tighter and tighter as if he could force the grief out of her, as if his grasp could destroy the pain still growing, tangling, snarling deep inside her.

She was sobbing, then her mouth was pressed to his chest, reaching with her hands to his face, pulling him to her, her lips soon on his, and she wanted nothing more than to consume him, to become part of this miracle, which in some strange, unexplainable way she knew was the only way she would be saved.

Father Giovanni Borelli knew Dana Pierson was right, but he did not understand why Father Ruffino, his fellow priest and childhood best friend, was withholding information. Giovanni was certain Beppe could not be involved in the theft of the Holy Infant, but there had to be a reason for his deceit. Had he been threatened by someone?

Giovanni sat alone in the dark, nursing a whiskey, a growing concern for Dana Pierson stacking itself atop his worry for Beppe. He’d called her hotel a half hour after Investigator Damek dropped him off at his, to make sure she’d made it back safely. No answer. Maybe she’d gone to get her passport, then when he called had returned to the car to surrender it to the Czech officer. Father Borelli called fifteen minutes later, but still no answer. Maybe she was in the shower, he reasoned, or she’d turned the phone down to get some sleep. It was late when they left the restaurant. They were both tired. He guessed all three of them were tired. But Giovanni thought they had reached an agreement—that they would work together. He reached toward the nightstand where he’d placed the small medal Investigator Damek had given him earlier in the evening. He ran his fingers over the surface of the image of the Infant of Prague. Had he misjudged the man?

Giovanni realized he was developing a fondness for the young woman, clearly a paternal protectiveness that both surprised and puzzled him. Had he remained in a secular life, he might have had a daughter her age. There was something about her . . . he genuinely liked her. The Americans would say she had spunk. He liked a woman with some spirit, some determination.

Gia had been such a woman. He thought of her often. They had been engaged to be married—over forty-five years ago, which seemed impossible to Giovanni, as the memories were fresh and clear. Just three weeks before the wedding, she had come to him and told him she was in love with someone else. She had gone to Rome with her mother to pick out a wedding gown, and she had met someone. Just like that, she falls in love with someone else. She told Giovanni he was not a romantic, that he was too caught up in his books, his studies—at the time he was studying secular law—and that she had decided, after meeting this man in Rome, that she would end up leading a boring, uneventful life if she became the wife of Giovanni Borelli. That was what she said—he would bore her to death. There were worse ways to go, he thought now.

In his heart he knew it would not have worked. She and the man, according to Giovanni’s aunt, had separated three years after the marriage, though at the time divorce was not an option in Italy. She’d run off with another man. No, it would never have worked. Giovanni Borelli was a man who believed in commitment.

He fixed himself another drink and sat, studying the pattern of morning light beginning to play against the wall of his room. Then he stared up at the wooden beams on the ceiling, hand-painted in a Bohemian style. He would go to Dana’s hotel to make sure she was okay. Then he would visit Giuseppe and have it out with his friend.

•   •   •

Dana, barely aware of how she had made it up to the third floor and into her bed, awoke as morning stripped the darkness from the room. She had collapsed on the street in front of her hotel, and it was coming back to her slowly as if she were watching the scene from outside her own body. Damek had carried her up to her room, taken off her shoes, washed her face with a cool cloth, and put her to bed. She was still dressed in her jeans and hoodie. The flashlight, her glasses sat on the bedside table next to the convent’s keys.

She looked over at the chair near the window. He sat, body slouched, staring out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She guessed he’d been afraid to leave her alone. She had been hysterical. An insane, uncontrollable madwoman. Strangely, now, as night turned to morning, she felt calmed. She was grateful that he had stayed, that he hadn’t left her alone.

“You are okay?” he asked.

“Okay?” There was a tone in her voice—she could hear it herself. She might as well have said,
I will never be okay
.

“I know,” he said, and Dana felt that this was as close as she’d get to true understanding from another human being.

“Thanks for . . . for getting me up here, for not leaving.” She knew he could have left her on the street in front of the hotel or taken her down to police headquarters, thrown her into that jail cell he’d talked about earlier in the evening, arrested her for assaulting a police officer, for interfering with an investigation. She remembered how she had pounded on his chest, beating with all her strength, how she’d pressed her lips to his, how he had resisted. Should she just curl up, pull the blanket over her head, and die from shame now? Yet somehow she felt that he did understand.

“You can go now.” She could think of nothing else to say.

He stood. “My number.” He tapped the top of the table next to the chair and she could make out a small piece of paper, along with a pen. “I will run a check on Lenka Horácková.” He lifted his jacket, then handgun and holster, from the back of the chair. “Father Ruffino will have to file a report. I will do nothing official until I hear from him.”

Dana knew he believed what she and Father Borelli had told him the night before, yet he still waited for a confession from Father Ruffino. Now she understood why. She watched, saying nothing as he repositioned his holster, put on his jacket, and started toward the door.

He turned. “There was no ladder at the altar when I arrived.”

•   •   •

Father Borelli had the cab stop in front of the hotel. Just as he was digging in his pocket, pulling out his money clip for the fee and tip, he looked up and saw Investigator Damek come out. Instinctively, Giovanni dipped his head, glanced at his watch, realizing how early it was. What the hell was going on here? His first thought was that the Czech investigator had done something to harm her and Borelli should never have left them alone. He had trusted the man. Was he losing his ability to judge others? But then he realized that if that were the case—if the Czech investigator had harmed her—Damek would have been out of the hotel hours ago or would never have even come to the hotel.

Then, slowly, he realized that Dana Pierson and Chief Investigator Damek had just spent the night together, and Giovanni Borelli felt an unprecedented jolt of paternal concern. These feelings were ridiculous, he realized, attempting to brush them aside. She was an adult, as was Damek. If they wanted to screw around, that was their business.

He waited until the police investigator was out of sight before he got out of the cab and walked up the steps to the hotel. At the desk he was greeted by a perky young woman, freshly scrubbed and well rested, as if she’d just come on duty. Father Borelli himself was exhausted. He was hungry and tired, and he could feel the sweat staining his fresh shirt, which he’d just put on that morning. He’d showered and made coffee in his room, but he hardly felt ready to welcome a new day and had yet to say his Office, which he generally tended to first thing in the morning.

He knew it was too early to ring her room and wondered what he was thinking, coming here at this hour in the first place. She was probably still asleep, dreaming of romance and adventure.

Yes, adventure, and hadn’t he gotten himself into this one. The statue of the authentic Infant of Prague was missing, and no one—Dal Damek, Czech police investigator; Dana Pierson, award-winning American reporter; nor Father Giovanni Borelli, canon lawyer, Vatican investigator, Devil’s Advocate—seemed to be making much progress in finding it.

Borelli felt a heaviness press down upon him. The devil had them all by the balls this morning.

He stepped out of the hotel, onto the street, and found an open restaurant, where he ordered coffee, a basket of bread with butter, a plate of cheese, a plate of sausage, and a plate of fresh fruit. He pulled out a cigarette, then sat alone, trying to put the words together for his meeting with Father Giuseppe Ruffino later at the Church of Our Lady Victorious after the 9:00
A.M.
Mass.

•   •   •

After leaving Dana Pierson’s hotel, Investigator Damek headed directly to his office. He’d slept little—dropping off for a moment or two as he sat gazing out the window—and he felt the familiar fatigue invading his body and spirit once more.
Why?
she had asked.

He couldn’t answer, because he didn’t know. He did not understand why he and Karla had been blessed with this miracle—a son who was dying one day, healthy and thriving the next. It was a gift from God, he knew that. But he did not understand why
he
had been given such a gift. He had been determined to make himself worthy, to be a better man. Each day he got down on his knees and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.

After his son’s miraculous cure—and he knew that was what it was—he and Karla asked that Father Ruffino not make this known, as they did not want a spotlight shining upon their son. He knew the priest could have taken advantage, released this to the public. The doctors could not explain the boy’s instant cure. Father Ruffino could have advertised that a miracle had occurred through the Holy Infant, could have plastered it on the wall, along with the list of other miracles attributed to the Infant. But he did not.

Those first years after were the best of Dal’s life as he watched his little son grow. He had never loved his wife with such passion and tenderness.

But still he never felt worthy of this miracle. He often wondered,
why?
Why had they been chosen?

And now, had he and Karla squandered this gift? Should life not be perfect for a miracle family? In those last weeks before their separation they’d argued, it seemed, every day. Mostly over their son—their gift, their miracle. He was a normal, healthy boy, and wasn’t that exactly what they had prayed for? The child did not wear a halo. He wanted to do what boys do. He wanted to play football. He wanted to skateboard and learn to snowboard. He wanted to go with his cousins—all rowdy, undisciplined boys, according to Karla—to visit his grandfather in the country and swing out over the river on a rope knotted to a tree.

Karla treated him as if he were as fragile as a little statue made of porcelain. Entrusted with his care, she felt she should shield him from anything that might harm him. She wrapped him in warm woolen hats and scarves, outfitting him with gloves and boots before sending him out on a winter’s day. She lathered him with sunscreen and insisted on sunglasses and hats to shield him from the summer sun. If he caught the slightest cold, she rushed him off to the doctor. She would not allow him to play rough games in the neighborhood with the other boys, and she forbade him to join any teams at school. The boy had begun to resent this. He spoke back harshly to his mother, which his father did not allow. And yet, Dal understood.

Dal and Karla fought, continually, continuously. “You’ve got to allow him some freedom, some fun,” Dal would tell her, starting out calmly, but soon they were screaming at one another.

“What if he hurts himself?” she would come back. “What if he is injured?”

Dal had no one to talk to. He didn’t know anyone who had been gifted with a miracle. He and Karla went to a priest, their own parish priest, not Father Ruffino; neither of them could face him. How had this happened, how had they come to this?

He was going by this morning to take Petr on an outing. Soon he would be back with his family. And yet, again, Dana Pierson pushed herself into his mind. He had never met such a woman. Strong and yet so fragile. The image of her changing in her hotel room, before she and Borelli went to the church, kept coming to him. Though thin, she was curvy and feminine, something not evident from the way she dressed. When she leaned over to pull up her jeans, he could see her breasts spilling out of her bra, round and firm and tempting.

As he parked at headquarters, he thought again of her screaming, her pounding on his chest.
Why?
He could not answer, because he did not know. And then, her lips on his, forcing herself on him, as if begging him to make love to her, to take her, when he knew all she really wanted was for him to take away the pain. Which he knew he could not.

It would have been a betrayal in so many ways. No, he would never take advantage of a woman filled with such unyielding grief. And he would not betray his vow to his wife. He had been tempted many times, but now perhaps it was this loneliness, the pressure of his work that made him feel so vulnerable. But why this American woman?

It was early Sunday morning and the officers and administrative staff at the police headquarters went quietly about their work, no one aware that he was at this moment scheduled to take some personal time, his first in several weeks, perhaps accustomed to the fact that he was always working. Officially on his high-profile murder case, unofficially on the officially solved murder of Filip Kula, the “accidental” death of Hugo Hutka. And, then, of course . . . Sister Claire and Our Lady Victorious. He went to his office, sat at his desk, signed on to his computer, and began checking out several of his databases, attempting to find Lenka Horácková and her son, Václav.