Lost and Found in Prague (21 page)

Dal studied his young son, strapped into his life jacket, rowing the boat with vigor, glowing in the warmth of the April sunshine, smiling proudly as if there were nothing finer than spending the day with his father. Petr had asked to row and Dal agreed, instructing the boy how to hold the oars, strike a steady rhythm, and keep the boat on course. With everything in him he tried to focus on his son. He’d asked about school, about his friends, but Dal’s mind drifted, his thoughts invaded over and over by a dead senator, a dead actor, a dead nun, a missing Infant, and a missing laptop, whose owner was dead, too.

“Do you have to go back to work?” Petr asked.

“No.” Dal dipped a hand into the water and playfully splashed his son, who ducked and giggled. Leaning back in the boat, Dal attempted to relax.

“You could take me home, if you do.” The boy sounded so grown-up.

“I want to spend the day with you,” Dal told him.

“I could go with you,” Petr said with a grin. “I could help you solve the murder.”

Murder?
Petr knew that his father worked homicide, that he’d recently been promoted to chief. The boy knew what his father’s work involved. This was what he did—solve murders.

“Could I go with you?” The boy stopped rowing for a moment and stared at his father, a serious expression fixed on his face. Like Karla, he had a pale sprinkle of freckles across his nose that seemed to all but disappear during the dark winter months, then explode with the first touch of sunshine.

“Look at that,” Dal said, pointing to a couple of swans gliding along the far bank of the river. “Remember when you were little and we rented a boat shaped like a swan?”

“I think I want to be a police detective when I grow up.”

“You’d make a good detective,” Dal said. “You’re a clever boy. But, you know, you’ll have many choices.” He thought back to when he doubted his son would grow up, to when he and Karla both thought they would lose him. Dal didn’t consider that possibility anymore, but he knew Karla did. Perhaps Dal, who never saw his faith as equal to Karla’s, had been the one to truly accept the miracle they had been given. He would never expose his son to harm, yet he felt the child had an extra layer of protection, as if permanently and safely wrapped in the arms of God, whether it be the Father or the Infant Christ.

The doctor had pronounced it spontaneous remission, but Dal had witnessed the mixture of astonishment and puzzlement on the normally unemotional man’s face, the tears he could not contain. They all knew it was more than that. A tumor, growing larger each day . . . and then totally vanished!

“You hungry?” he asked Petr.

“A little.”

“After we return the boat we’ll find something to eat. Then we could—”

“Can we go to Stalinska?”

Everyone called it “the Stalin,” though the enormous statue of the Russian leader, erected in the mid-1950s, had been destroyed in ’62. The park, officially known as the Letná, stood on an embankment overlooking the meandering Vltava River and offered a lovely view of the city. Dal remembered how he and Karla used to go there when they were young, then with Petr to ride the carousel when he was a toddler. The boy had outgrown the kids’ stuff now, and Dal knew very well why his son wanted to go to the Letná. The concrete slab, along with the marble stairs and metal rails left over from Stalin, made a perfect skateboard park.

“Stalinska, huh?” Dal asked with a grin, and Petr flashed back with a hint of father-and-son conspiratorial bonding.

What harm would it do to go and let the boy watch?
Dal thought. He knew his mother would never take him there. Dal wouldn’t allow him to go alone or with a group of boys, either, though most of the kids who hung out at the park were just having fun. Yet Dal knew a certain element could be found in sections of the Letná.

“Maybe after we get some lunch, we can go to the park,” Dal offered.

The cell phone rang, though when he pulled it out of his pocket he didn’t recognize the number on the screen.

“Damek.”

“Father Borelli.”

Dal knew the priest didn’t have his cell number. It had to have come from Father Ruffino. Or Dana.

“Father Ruffino wishes to meet as soon as possible. He’s ready to—”

“It would have to be later this afternoon,” Dal cut in.
Good and fine,
he thought, Father Ruffino, finally ready to talk. A little late, and Dal wasn’t adjusting his schedule. “Five,” he said. “My office.”

“I hoped we might meet sooner,” Father Borelli said, almost apologetically. “Perhaps somewhere other than your office.” He suggested a restaurant in the Malá Strana.

“I have obligations.” Again Dal glanced at his son. How could he use the word
obligations
? This was a privilege, spending time with his son.

“He’s not involved in the theft,” Father Borelli said, “but he—”

“We’ll talk at five.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Borelli cleared his throat. “Yes. I understand.” He paused for a long moment and then added, “Yes, I understand you’ve had a very busy day.” The tone of his words carried a hint of contention that Dal couldn’t quite read. “At this point perhaps there is no urgency.”

“Five, then.” He’d promised Karla he’d have Petr home for dinner. He wanted to talk to Kristof, go over the crime scene report from the theft at his apartment. He’d asked Cerný to keep him informed, but he’d heard nothing. He wondered if he’d even have time for a trip to the park.

•   •   •

Dana’s eyes darted from side to side as she hurried across the bridge. She could hear music at the far end, the familiar beat she’d heard her first morning in Prague. The quartet, she was sure. She pushed her way through the crowd and stopped abruptly. Not a quartet at all. A trombone player. Another musician on a flute. A third man on bass, the man who’d smiled at her with a flirty grin. Hadn’t there been another? A guitar player? And wasn’t this the exact group the grandfather had described? The now missing musician being the man who looked exactly like a young Pavel Novák. His son, Václav Horácek? She recalled the young guitar player had sat on a stool, wearing a baseball cap, head tilted. She didn’t think she’d even noticed his face. She studied the three remaining players. The bass player looked up at her with a smile. She guessed he flirted with all the tourists and probably didn’t remember her. She waited for them to break, but after several minutes realized she was running out of time. She stepped closer.

“Václav isn’t playing today?” she asked the bassist.

An eyebrow rose, but he didn’t miss a beat as their eyes met.

“Václav Horácek?” she asked, testing.

He nodded, but said nothing.

Her heart skipped a beat, then thumped to the tempo of the bass. “I’m an old friend of the family,” she said.

He leaned in, still playing. “If you are friend,” he whispered in a hoarse voice, “you know where he is today.”

•   •   •

Just as Dal asked Petr if he was getting tired, if he’d like his dad to take the oars, the phone rang again. Dal grabbed it, thinking it might be Cerný or Kristof.

“Investigator Damek, it’s Dana.” She sounded out of breath, her words hurried. “It’s Václav, his son, not Pavel, we’re looking for. He’s a musician on the bridge.”

She went on, explaining how she thought there were two people in the church that morning, one a man who had come to the neighborhood offering to sharpen scissors and knives, the same man who had been seen at a marionette store near the Staromestské námesti. She spoke so fast, Dal could hardly follow.

“Why do you believe it was Pavel’s son and how are these two men related?”

“I talked to some locals who live near the convent, showed them the copy of the Internet photo. A man who looks exactly like Pavel in this very old photo is a musician who plays with a quartet on the bridge.
Young
, not
old.
It couldn’t be Pavel Novák. Has to be his son.” She took in a deep, exhausted breath. “I went over to the bridge and I think I found him . . . well, not him, but the group he plays with, and—”

“I’m with my son today.”

“Oh, I apologize.” Her voice had softened, slowed down. She sounded sincere, almost sweet, and he couldn’t help but think of what she’d revealed to him early that morning in front of her hotel. “It’s a beautiful day. I hope you’re enjoying the outdoors.”

“Yes, we are.”

“That’s wonderful.” She paused for another moment, as if considering leaving him to continue this time with his son uninterrupted, but he sensed she wasn’t finished.

“I am meeting with Father Borelli and Father Ruffino at five.” He caught his son’s eye and knew the boy was listening closely, though he wasn’t sure how much English he understood.

Dana said nothing, as if waiting for an invitation to the meeting, which Dal had already decided wasn’t going to happen. In fact, he would speak first with Father Ruffino alone, without his friend Father Borelli holding his hand.

“I’m having lunch with Sister Agnes—Caroline—my cousin,” she said, then added something too fast for him to understand—he wasn’t even sure she was still talking to him.

Again his eyes rested on his son. He should take the boy home, go back to headquarters, go over any information uncovered at Kristof’s apartment. Surely Karla would understand. Now, a meeting with the priests. He thought of Father Ruffino’s deception. He’d better have a damned good reason why he hadn’t shared any of this with Dal when he called him to the church last Friday morning.

“I could meet you somewhere after lunch,” Dana persisted. She was like an ornery old dog fighting for a bone, he thought, wondering again why he found her so attractive.

He said nothing and neither did she, but he could hear the tempo of her breathing increase, then a rat-tat-tat as if she were tapping on a counter or desk.

“I will call you later,” he finally replied. Dal nodded at Petr reassuringly. He hoped the boy couldn’t hear the frustration in his father’s voice. He might think it had something to do with him, that his dad would rather work than spend time with his son.

“I’m concerned about my cousin.” Her voice had shifted again, the tone fretful and motherly.

“The theft of the Infant implies no danger to the nuns. Have lunch with your cousin, tell her the police are meeting with Father Ruffino. An official investigation will take place. Please assure your cousin that we are doing everything possible to find the Infant.”

“I will. Thank you.”

He’d checked both Father Borelli’s and Dana Pierson’s flight itineraries. He knew Dana was scheduled to fly out the following morning, and Father Borelli was leaving Wednesday afternoon. He still had Giovanni Borelli’s passport. He never did get Dana’s. After her emotional collapse in front of the hotel, he somehow couldn’t ask for it. He wondered if she’d cancel her flight, decide she couldn’t leave until the Infant of Prague was back on the altar.

“Enjoy this lovely day with your son,” she said again.

“I will.” Dal motioned, gesturing back toward the rental shop.

“Where are we going?” Petr asked, squinting up at his dad against the glare of the midday sun.

“Stalinska.” Dal flipped his phone shut.

Dana arrived at the convent out of breath, having sprinted the last block from her hotel, where she’d returned to use the phone. Unlatching the gate, rushing to the front door, she saw immediately that the handwritten sign announcing Sister Claire’s death and informing visitors of the mourning period had been removed.

Her knock was answered by a short plump nun, who greeted Dana with a
“Dobrý den,”
introduced herself as Sister Eurosia, and then silently led her down the long hall and up the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the dining room.

Caroline, Sister Agnes, sat at a long wooden table. An older nun, the prioress, Dana guessed, sat beside her, both women’s heads bowed. Caroline’s eyes jumped up, a relieved expression quickly flickering across her face as she rose and crossed the room to embrace Dana.

“Oh, it is so good to see you, Dana. Thank you so much for coming.” She planted a kiss on each cheek then placed her hands on Dana’s shoulders and looked into her eyes, studying her, taking in what she’d not had time or courage for when they met at the church. “I was worried. I thought you weren’t coming.” She smiled.

“I’m sorry,” Dana said, realizing Caroline had been concerned for her, too. “I’m fine. You?”

Caroline nodded, but seemed unable to let go, her hands moving down Dana’s shoulders, then her arms, clasping her hands. Finally she turned and spoke to the older nun and introduced her to Dana as Sister Thereza. The nun smiled warmly. Caroline led Dana to the table and motioned her to sit.

Another nun, tall and thin, glided in like a character from a Madeline book and placed a basket of bread on the table. Caroline introduced her as Sister Ludmila.

“You’re all right?” Dana asked again as Sister Ludmila retreated to the kitchen.

“Yes, fine,” she answered with a tentative smile. “We’ve been told to cooperate fully with you. To answer any questions you might have.”

“By whom?” Dana asked, surprised.

“Our prior at Our Lady Victorious.”

“Father Ruffino? The Italian priest?”

The tall nun returned with a tray on which she carried three large bowls of soup. She placed a serving in front of each of the three women and again left the room.

The prioress cleared her throat, and she and Caroline bowed heads and together recited a prayer. Then, reaching under the table, Caroline gave Dana’s hand another reassuring squeeze. The prioress passed the bread. Dana took a slice, nodding a thank-you. It was warm, fresh from the oven. Sister Thereza said something to Sister Agnes and offered a cautious smile to Dana.

“She wants to thank you,” Caroline said, “for the help you are giving us to return the Holy Infant to his home at Our Lady Victorious.”

“Father Ruffino admitted it had been stolen?” Dana asked.

“We already knew that,” Caroline replied, glancing at her superior. Dana didn’t know if Sister Thereza understood what they were saying; she didn’t join in the conversation. “We were told not to speak of it. Or what happened to Sister Claire.”

Dana detected an uncertain tone in her voice. “What
did
happen to Sister Claire?” she asked. It appeared nothing in the conversation was being censored. Borelli had obviously met with his friend that morning. Dana wanted to know exactly what Ruffino had told the nuns after the two priests spoke.

“Father Ruffino says the police confirmed she suffered a heart attack,” Caroline said, “that she fell on the clipping shears, though it was heart failure that killed her.” She closed her eyes for a moment.

“You knew the statue had been taken and replaced with a replica, because you dressed it for the Easter weekend services?”

A silent nod.

“You believe what Father Ruffino told you today?”

“Yes.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“That an important investigator has been sent from the Vatican, that he is working along with the Czech police, as well as an investigative reporter sent from America—”

“That would be me?”

Caroline’s tightly pinched lips lifted slightly.

“How did he explain that? A tad bit strange, isn’t it? He said
I’d
been
sent
?”

“He said the Holy Infant had sent these people to help us find the—”

“Holy Infant?”

Caroline smiled now, and the smile moved to her eyes, fully aware of Dana’s perceived irony in all this.

“Did he mention Pavel Novák?” Dana asked.

A line of confusion formed along Caroline’s brow, and Dana noticed a fan of wrinkles along the corners of her still-beautiful blue eyes rimmed with thick, mascara-free lashes.

“He didn’t?” Dana asked incredulously. “He didn’t say anything about Pavel?”

“What does Pavel have to do with this?”

Dana explained what Borelli had told her about his first meeting with Father Ruffino, Sister Claire’s dying words, information he obviously hadn’t bothered to share with the nuns or Damek. If there hadn’t been all this deception and lying, the Infant might be back on the altar already. As things were going now, it had been gone for more than a week and might never be returned.

“Remember, years ago,” Dana said, “you sent me a CD produced around the time of the revolution? Pavel had a song on it entitled ‘Laterna Magika’?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Is there a chance,” Dana asked, “that Sister Claire had heard it, that she recognized a voice?”
And could Václav have a voice identical to his father’s?
Dana wondered.

“Yes, and yes.” A finger rose to Caroline’s mouth and she tapped nervously for a moment. “When Sister Claire lost her sight . . . it was difficult. She still enjoyed music, our liturgical music, of course. . . .” Caroline put both hands to her mouth now, but this time Dana saw an attempt to suppress a giggle. “The old girl loved her rock and roll. Yes, she listened to that CD. She enjoyed it. It was sort of our little thing.”

Dana smiled, too, as she envisioned the old nun with a headset, bobbing and jiving to the lively beat of rock.

Sister Thereza sat, slowly lifting soup to mouth, wiping her lips now and then with her napkin, looking up at Sister Agnes, then glancing at Dana, as they conversed. She said something quickly to the younger nun, her tone that of a protective mother.

“She says we need to eat our soup before it gets cold,” Caroline said, and Dana couldn’t help but think of her own mother and Caroline’s mother. Sisters. Obediently each took a sip.

“I understand,” Dana said, “a couple of weeks ago”—she hesitated, deciding she wouldn’t add
before Sister Claire’s death
—“a man came to the neighborhood offering to sharpen knives and scissors. Did anyone notice a missing key after that?”

Caroline set her soup spoon down on the small bread plate. “Keys disappear around here all the time. We’ve several sets.” Dana had a set in her bag right now, and was trying to decide how to return it gracefully.

“We were all aware,” Caroline continued, “that Sister Claire was in and out of the convent at odd hours. We considered putting a lock on her door.” She glanced at Dana, who knew instantly that her cousin could hear the unspoken thought sitting on the edge of Dana’s mind—
Well, aren’t you all prisoners?

“We are free to leave if we wish,” Caroline explained. “Our vows are voluntary.”

“Are you happy?” Dana asked. Even now, Dana wondered if there were more to Caroline’s decision to join the convent than a religious calling. They’d been so close through their childhood, but the convent walls had created not only a physical barrier but an emotional one, too.

“With my life here at the convent?”

Dana nodded quickly.

“Yes, I am, though Sister Claire’s death and the disappearance of the Infant, not exactly the happiest moments of my convent life. She was very old . . . but, still, losing someone you love. But then, we all . . .” She stopped. “I’m sorry, Dana.” She reached out and placed a gentle hand over her cousin’s.

Dana knew what she was thinking. She felt a touch of that familiar intimacy again, a memory of how it had been with the two girls when they were younger, how, at times, she felt they could read each other’s thoughts.

“It was five years last week,” Caroline said quietly. “You are in my prayers each day, but especially during the Easter season.”

They had exchanged sporadic letters after Dana left Prague, which all but halted when Caroline entered the convent. She’d written after Joel’s disappearance, during the difficulties with Dana’s marriage, the divorce, but it had been twenty years since they had seen one another.

“How are you doing?” Caroline asked.

Dana just shook her head, and Caroline stroked her hand with heartbreaking tenderness, but for many moments she offered no words.

“I still pray for a miracle,” Caroline said softly. “It has happened.”

Dana nodded. They had never found the body. Yes, sometimes she, too, prayed for a miracle, though it was more a thought sent out involuntarily into a great emptiness, and maybe there wasn’t much difference.

“Thank you,” she said.

The tall nun entered with a tray and three small bowls of berries with cream. Caroline spoke rapidly to Sister Ludmila, then turned to Dana. “She says the key for the Infant’s altar was missing after the man came to sharpen the knives, but then it showed up a couple of days later, and she just figured Sister Claire had misplaced it again. As I said, we keep several sets.”

“Did you see him?” she asked Caroline. “The man who came to sharpen the knives and scissors?”

She shook her head and exchanged more words with Sister Ludmila.

“She says he arrived on a bicycle.”

Dana remembered Father Borelli talking about
l’arrotino
, who traveled through the countryside on a bike, but guessed it was a common mode of transportation. If the sharpening tools were attached to the bike, he most likely wouldn’t have come inside, which might shoot down her theory that he’d taken the keys.

“An old-fashioned bike,” Caroline said, “with a portable toolbox that he brought inside.”

“So he did come inside?” Dana asked, and then she remembered the second receipt. “Did he come twice? The following day?” That was how he’d returned the keys, she reasoned, after making his own copies.

Again the two nuns spoke. “Yes,” Caroline replied. “Sister Ludmila asked that he come again, because she wanted to bring the garden shears from the church.”

The shears that slashed the old nun’s face, Dana realized, and guessed Caroline was envisioning the same.

“What did he look like?” Dana asked.

“She says he was probably about fifty-five, sixty, bushy hair.”

“What color?”

More words between the two nuns.

“White, maybe gray,” Caroline said.

Just like little Jan and Maria had described him, Dana thought. “Was there anything about him, any other distinguishing characteristics? Anything else that might make him stand out? Had she ever seen him before?”

Again Caroline spoke with Sister Ludmila, who thought for a moment, then replied.

Caroline turned back to Dana. “He appeared to have an abundance of hair, but when he came inside, took the hat off, he was bald as a mushroom on top. Spotted like a mushroom, too.” Caroline smiled at the image.

“Did he say anything unusual, make any special requests? Was he left alone?”

“Yes, for a moment or two, while he worked.”

“But she didn’t notice anything else unusual?”

Again Caroline conversed with the tall, thin nun, who shook her head toward Dana.

With no other questions, Dana thanked her. Sister Ludmila tipped her wimpled head and left as the two younger women dipped into their soup again, the prioress having already started in on the berries.

“Did Pavel and Lenka marry?” Dana asked.

“They lived together for a while. Little Václav was born. Later Lenka had a daughter. As I understand, she was not well.”

“The daughter wasn’t well?”

“As I understand.”

“She had a second child with Pavel?”

“No,” Caroline said quietly, glancing at the prioress, then back at Dana. “No, I’m sure it wasn’t Pavel. By then, he was . . .” She didn’t finish.

“He’d left Prague by then? He isn’t here in the city anymore?” Dana already knew this, but just wanted a final confirmation from Caroline.

Caroline shook her head, pushed her soup bowl aside. Dana could tell she didn’t really want to talk about it. Maybe Borelli was right. Maybe she had joined the convent because of a broken heart.

“Is Lenka still here in Prague?”

“I don’t get out to the theater much,” Caroline said with a laugh. “I don’t know . . .” She stopped, forked a berry, stuck it in her mouth, chewed, pursed her lips, wincing as if she’d just ingested something very tart. “About a year ago . . . sometimes I think back and consider that I might have imagined this, but . . . I think I saw him.”

“Pavel?” Dana asked incredulously.

Caroline shook her head. “At first I thought . . . I actually thought it was Pavel. He was too young, but he looked so much like Pavel.”

“His son?”

“He didn’t tell me his name.” Caroline picked up her spoon, studied it for a moment. Set it back down. “I was in the sacristy, preparing the vestments for the following morning. Yes, about a year ago, because they were the vestments worn during the Easter season . . . white, I remember that clearly. I stepped out into the church to say a brief prayer before returning to the convent.”

“You saw the boy?”

“He was kneeling before the Infant’s altar. I could see he was crying by the way his shoulders heaved and his hands rose to cover his face. I walked over and asked if I could help. When he turned, I was startled—I was looking at Pavel.” Caroline’s lower lip trembled.

“A ghost?”

Caroline laughed. “Yes, sometimes I feel as if spirits move about this ancient building, but reason tells me . . . Of course, he had no idea who I was. He asked if I would pray for his sister.”

“You said she was ill?”

“Her heart. Yes, that’s what the boy said, she had a weak heart. And incidentally, his voice—identical to Pavel’s. That gave me a second jolt. I thought maybe I was losing my mind, and maybe it
was
Pavel. But no, no, it couldn’t have been unless he’d discovered the fountain of youth.”