Lost and Found in Prague (23 page)

Investigator Damek left her with the boy at a café several blocks from Lenka and Václav’s apartment. Dana wanted to go, but could see why Dal would hesitate to take his son along.

They ordered ice cream cones and found a table outdoors, then sat and talked about the boys at the park, Petr speaking slowly in English, throwing in some simple Czech now and then that Dana could understand. With the aid of animated gestures, accompanied by some giggles, they carried on a conversation.

She found him a delightful, intelligent child.

Suddenly he took on a serious tone and asked, “
Policie
 . . . you . . . in USA?” She wondered if he thought she was a police officer like his dad.

When she told him she was a newspaper reporter, explained with pantomime and easy words, he smiled and replied, “My father, he does not like newspaper writer.”

She couldn’t help but smile.

“You write about . . . bad men?” he asked, eyes wide. “Killers?”

“I like to write about good guys like your dad. He would make a good hero for a story.” She wondered if he thought this was why she was here—to write a heroic account of his father’s adventures.

“Yes, superhero,” he said with a grin, and Dana guessed the idea of superheroes was universal among little boys. “You have childs in USA?” he asked, running a finger along the side of the cone where the ice cream had started to drip.

“No,” she said with a catch in her throat that she hoped he didn’t notice. She studied the boy as he licked the ice cream off his fingers and thought about his being a little miracle, sitting right before her, enjoying one of the simple pleasures of life. She wondered how much he knew about his illness, his supposedly miraculous cure. She wondered if his dad shared anything about the murders he solved, about the missing Holy Infant of Prague. She guessed not. Perhaps his mother and father both protected him in their own ways.

She took a bite, a crunch of cone, and glanced down the street. Damek walked toward them with a brisk step, speeding up as he got closer.

“A nice apartment for a single woman,” he said as he approached the table, “who once worked in the theater, now retired—”

“You saw Lenka? You got inside the apartment?”

“Unfortunately Lenka moved out last month. The landlord did not know where she now lives. He explained that she wished to be closer to the hospital. He confirmed there is another child, a daughter with poor health.”

“Yes,” Dana said with a nod and a tightening of her lips, determined she wouldn’t add,
I told you that already.

Damek pulled his cell from his pocket. Dana couldn’t understand most of what he said, but she caught the names Lenka Horácková and Václav Horácek. He flipped his phone shut, motioned them both toward his parked car. Dana had finished her cone and tossed her napkin in the trash. Petr was still working on his, more cone than ice cream now, which he was attempting to dig out with his tongue.

“An officer I work with, very good at tracking financial records,” Damek explained to her as they walked. “I ask to find information on—”

“Lenka.” She finished his sentence, understanding that Damek wanted to know how she could afford such a luxurious apartment when she had no known employment. “Do you think she’s involved in some illegal activity, along with her son?”

“I am curious about the source of her income.”

As they walked, Dana asked if he would give her a call that afternoon with an update and he nodded vaguely, a gesture that might have been interpreted as either a yes or a no. She told him she was going to find the marionette shop, to see if she could somehow tie these two men together—Václav and the man who’d come to the convent. Dal spoke only to Petr as they hopped in the car, motioning him to the back, Dana to the front. As they drove, the cadence and tone of the conversation was sweet and fatherly.

Just as they pulled onto her street Dal said, “Perhaps it best you leave this to the authorities. I will pass all information we have gathered to the officer assigned the case. You are scheduled to leave tomorrow. Please know that this theft will be treated seriously by the Czech Republic Police.”

She took this to mean he most likely wouldn’t call, that he was dismissing her. She obviously was not invited to the meeting that afternoon. He didn’t have to tell her she had no value in this investigation. She had no firsthand knowledge of the crime. She’d witnessed nothing, hadn’t even been in the city when it allegedly happened. Anything she knew could be passed on by Borelli or Damek.

She glanced into the backseat at Petr.

“A pleasure meeting you, Petr,” she said with a smile, which he returned. Suddenly she was overcome with a deep, familiar sense of sadness and loss.

Before heading up to her room, she asked the clerk to look up the number of Borelli’s hotel. Maybe the priest would go with her to search for the marionette store, and she wanted to share everything she’d learned over the past hours, before he and Father Ruffino met with Damek. No answer when she called from her room. She knew she couldn’t sit still. She’d walk to his hotel and wait for him.

When she arrived she marched up to the desk and asked if they could ring Giovanni Borelli for her. Surprisingly, he answered the phone. His voice sounded groggy, as if she’d awoken him from a nap. Dana wondered if he’d been there all along.

“Can we talk?” she said.

“I was just napping,” he replied. “Can we meet somewhere later this evening? I have an appointment at five with Father Ruffino and Investigator Damek. Perhaps I could drop by your hotel . . .” He paused as if checking the time.

“I’m here,” she said. “And I know about the meeting.” She attempted to keep the irritation out of her voice.

He was quiet.
“Here?”
he finally asked.

“Downstairs.”

“Come up.” He gave her the room number.

As soon as she arrived, he offered her a drink, which she refused. They sat. It was, as Dana suspected, a nice room with a little sitting area with sofa and chair. She told him she believed it was Václav, Pavel and Lenka’s son, who had come to the church along with
l’arrotino
, who she now believed was a man who worked at a toy store near the Staromestské námesti. She told him about her conversation with Sister Agnes, then finding the police investigator at the park, his going to Lenka’s apartment. When she asked Borelli if he’d heard from his friend the icon dealer, he told her no.

“So,” she said, “Father Ruffino admitted the statue has been stolen.”

The priest nodded, scratched his balding head. He went on to tell Dana what Father Ruffino had shared with him that morning, including the e-mail that stated the statue would be returned if he remained silent. If not, it would be destroyed.

“Too late for silence. Though the thief might not be aware that Father Ruffino didn’t contact the authorities . . . until now.” She shook her head. “The police might be able to trace an e-mail. Father Ruffino is willing to be completely honest?”

He nodded.

She told him her thought that the statue had been taken for its miraculous powers, and perhaps after the miracle—Václav’s sister restored to good health—it
would
be returned.

“No miracle—then what?” Borelli replied with a grunt. “We wait for the miracle, which most likely will never come.”

“You don’t believe God grants miracles to thieves?”

Borelli laughed, cleared his throat, then said, “I dropped by your hotel early this morning.” She noticed a certain tone in his voice that she couldn’t quite read.

“Why didn’t you call from the desk?”

“It seems you might have been preoccupied.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled.

“I saw that you had another guest, perhaps an overnight guest?”

She stared at him, then realized what he was talking about. “You saw Investigator Damek?”

The priest didn’t bother to reply, but it was obvious what he was thinking.

“It’s not what you think.”

“You’re a grown woman. It’s none of my business with whom you choose to spend the night.”

“Maybe I’ll have that drink after all,” she said quietly. “A very small drink.”

He asked if he should send for ice, a mixer, or add water, and when she declined he poured two glasses of whiskey, more than she wanted, Borelli’s regular dose, she guessed. She took a sip and let it slide down her throat. She didn’t like the taste at all, but it produced a nice, warm, numbing effect. She swallowed another gulp.

“Investigator Damek did spend the night,” she said, “what was left of it after we went to the club.”

Borelli raised an eyebrow. “A club?”

“He took me to a place where people who might know Lenka or Pavel hang out.” She summarized what they had discovered. “When we got home I asked him why he was letting Father Ruffino get away with his deceit and lies, what kind of personal hold the priest had over him.”

Borelli listened attentively as she told him the story about Damek’s son, a story that had taken on new meaning for Dana since she’d met Petr that afternoon.

Then calmly, without tears, she repeated her own story of her son. He listened without interrupting.

“It triggered something in me,” she said. “It brought back so many memories, so many questions, so much anger. Investigator Damek stayed, frankly, because I was hysterical, because he was afraid to leave. I was in no condition to participate in anything you might have imagined.” She thought about how she had physically attacked Damek, how he could have so easily taken advantage of her bizarre behavior. But he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Father Borelli said. He took a drink.

She took a sip.

“What do you do with such anger?” she asked sincerely. “Do I go to hell because I’m angry with God for taking my son?” She laughed harshly. “I’m already there. I know what hell is.”

He nodded in agreement, ran his fingers over his head. His hand was shaking and she knew he wanted a cigarette, but he did not reach for the pack that sat on the table next to his chair. He took a serious gulp of his drink.

“When I was a boy”—he spoke thoughtfully, slowly—“we went to confession each week. It was, in a sense, a part of our school day, the curriculum . . . like math . . . geography . . . confession.” He let out a small gruff sound that she thought might turn into a laugh. He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “The nuns would line us up and lead us over to the church, send us through the confessional one by one. But before confessing, as part of the ritual, the nuns assisted us in our examination of conscience. The good women, who surely themselves had nothing to confess—at least, this is what I assumed at that time, as a small child—they would orchestrate this with a review of the Ten Commandments, so we could count up all our sins silently to ourselves.” He smiled as if it were not an unpleasant memory. He did not look at Dana. “Some of them, the commandments, I didn’t understand, particularly ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ They always seemed to skim over that one.”

She wondered where he was going with this. Surely he understood that she and Damek hadn’t slept together and, as he said, it was none of his business anyway.

“Later in life, as I became an adult, I realized it was much more effective, for me in particular, to use the seven cardinal sins for my examination of conscience—like a playbook for all my downfalls.” His guarded smile turned now to a quiet laugh. “Pride. Covetousness. Lust. Gluttony.” He pronounced the words clearly, pausing between each. “Envy. Anger. Sloth. Guilty of all.” He threw up his arms, then settled back in his chair and took a slow drink of his whiskey. “Anger. That one I always ponder with some confusion. How can anger be a sin? Even Christ was angry.”

“When he overturned the money changers’ tables in the temple?”

Father Borelli nodded.

“What do you do with the anger?” she asked.

“Hand it back to God.”

“I think I’ve done that—thrown it right in his face. Over and over again.”

“Then tell him to keep it, that you don’t want it anymore, that you can’t handle it. Move forward. Cherish the memories. Cherish those who are close to you. Family. Friends.”

She said nothing.

“You know,” he said after several moments, “I’ve always wondered why God allowed me to be a priest. I’m not very good at this.” There was something in his tone, and she wondered if he, too, was plagued with doubt and uncertainty.

His vulnerability touched her, and she was filled with an unexpected tenderness toward this man. She took another sip of that awful-tasting liquid. “I hate to waste this,” she said, “but it really is dreadful.”

He smiled, reached over, and took it from her. Suddenly a shrill ring filled the room—the alarm clock, which he’d obviously set to rouse him from his nap. He walked over to the nightstand and turned it off. It was quarter past four, his meeting in forty-five minutes.

She stood. “I’m scheduled to leave tomorrow.” They stood staring at one another. “It’s been a pleasure, Father Borelli.” She reached for his hand.

“Yes,” he said, awkwardly. “I don’t suppose I’ll see you again before you leave.”

“No,” she said and bent over to kiss him on the cheek before she turned and left the room.

Tourists shuffled shoulder to shoulder, stopping now and then to admire the art, listen to a musical group, take a photo, lean against the balustrade to gaze out upon the city, the spiky steeples rising to meet the lovely blue of the late afternoon. The quartet, reduced to three that morning, no longer entertained on the bridge.

Dana wandered around the Staromestské námesti, looking for the street and the shop the children had told her about. Finally, after almost a half hour, she found what she believed was the one Jan had described. The sign in the window read
CLOSED
in both Czech and English, though the time posted on the door indicated it should be open until eight. Tourists, surely missed opportunities, still flowed thick as jam on the streets.

Gazing into the store window, Dana was reminded again that she still hadn’t done any shopping and had nothing to take home to her niece and nephews. Along with a half dozen marionettes, wooden cars, trucks, and building blocks made for a colorful display.

A wide-eyed clown marionette stared out with open mouth, taunting.
What are you searching for?
he seemed to say. He looked familiar. As did the grinning troll and also the court jester, with pointy, elflike shoes. It seemed she’d seen them all during the past several days in the city. Thousands of marionettes entertained on the streets, the bridge, and at the Easter market. Clowns and jesters, witches, fairies, and goblins. Guidebooks touted puppet performances as one of the city’s highlights. She turned and started back to her hotel.

As Dana began packing her bag, she questioned if she could really leave. She’d check in with Caroline the following morning as planned. If the nuns felt comfortable with the newly opened investigation, then Dana would head out to the airport.

She placed items she’d need in the morning on the bathroom vanity, a change of clothes on a chair next to the bed, then sat, going through items in her handbag. When she pulled out the twenty-year-old photo of Pavel and his band of musicians, again she studied the four figures.

Marek Cermak. Famous rock star. Dead from a drug overdose.

Pavel Novàk. Also dead?

Branko Banik. Still alive and thriving.

The fourth man had been identified by Caroline as Jirí Jankovic. Branko’s goon. Still gooning?

Dana’s gaze slid from the top of his head, down his body. His long hair hung loosely, the right side tucked behind his ear. He wore round, seventies-type sunglasses. He sat on a tall wooden stool, guitar on one knee, foot wedged on the stool’s wooden rung. The position of his body and leg had hiked up his pants, making them appear too short. High-waters, she thought with an inner laugh. How cool was that for a rock star? He wore high-topped athletic shoes.

Something seemed familiar.

The man in the park—he’d worn the same kind of shoes. Nothing unusual there, she realized. How many millions of those were manufactured every year? Yet once a man, or a woman for that matter, found a well-fitting athletic shoe, he was more likely to trade out his spouse than change his shoe brand. She considered this as she studied the man in the photo—the goon. Did he look anything like the man watching the boys at the park? The man she and Damek had seen was heavier, but about the age this man in the photo would be now. He wore the same type of sunglasses. Could it possibly be the same person?

She dismissed this ridiculous thought. Realizing she was starving, she decided, since this was her last evening in Prague, she would have a proper Czech dinner.

After a half hour of wandering, she found a place she remembered reading about in a guidebook, a restaurant specializing in local food and beer, with rustic decor, hand-painted wooden beams and ceramic mugs hanging from the walls.

The waitress seated Dana on a bench at a large table by herself, though she could see the seating was family style and she wouldn’t be eating alone. Soon, just after she placed her order, a lively foursome from Cleveland joined her. Immediately they requested the server bring a pitcher of beer, and by the time it arrived, they’d all exchanged the important facts, asking her where she was from, how long she’d been in Prague.

Her dinner—a traditional Czech goulash with dumplings—arrived. One of the men insisted that Dana have a beer and an additional mug was ordered and delivered with enough ceremony she felt compelled to accept. After another couple of pitchers, and the addition of two young Japanese students to their table, they were all the best of friends.

The waitress, plates stacked up her arm along the puffy sleeves of her costume, served the Americans—a variety of duck breast, pork loin, potatoes, cabbage, and dumplings—as one of the men filled up beer mugs so he could hand the pitcher back for a refill. He topped Dana’s mug and she knew if she was going to keep her place at the table, she should at least do a little sipping and join in the festivities.

“Bottoms up,” one of her dinner companions sang with a click to her spouse’s mug.

The Japanese students giggled and complied, beer dribbling down the chin of the one who looked too young to be drinking anything containing alcohol. The place was crowded now, a line starting to form at the door. Dana ordered dessert, an apple strudel.

Soon entertainers circled the tables—accordion music, men in colorful red pants, high black boots, embroidered vests, tall hats, women in dresses with lacy sleeves, intricately stitched aprons, twirling with partners, doing a Czech polka around the tables, grabbing a tourist now and then to join in the fun.

One of the Americans at Dana’s table, a spry, elfish-looking lady, with inhibitions doused by several mugs of pilsner, jumped up to join in the polka.

An animated performer pranced from table to table, lifting his hat from his head, taking a bow, offering a grin, requesting a koruna or two. Though his hair appeared to be thick and dark, without the hat he was a different man—the crown of his head was smooth and shiny. And spotted. Bits and pieces, faces and forms, images from Dana’s experiences over the past days in Prague crisscrossed and collided within her mind.

She stood, bid her new friends good-bye, paid for her dinner, and stepped outside. The air had cooled, yet she felt warm, perhaps from the beer, the heavy dinner. Her stomach turned. She walked, but too many thoughts circled through her head, too much food and drink doing the same in her stomach. She shouldn’t have drunk so much beer. Added on top of the whiskey offered by Borelli that afternoon, the goulash and dumpling she’d tossed in over that, then a final layer of rich apple strudel, she felt like she might get sick.

She stopped, leaning up against a building, trying to put her thoughts in some kind of order. Sister Ludmila had said the man who’d come to the convent was bald—as a mushroom, she’d said! Was this the same man she and Damek had seen at the bar? The man whose slick head pulsed with the reflection of overhanging lights? The man with the marionette, a jester dressed in red, similar, if not identical, to the one she’d seen in the store window? As she walked again, she had another thought. Hadn’t Sister Ludmila told her the man arrived on a bike with a detachable toolbox? Hadn’t there been such a bike just outside the bar last night?

After finding a cab, requesting the driver open a window for some fresh air as she gave him directions, Dana returned to her hotel, hurried up to her room, sat on her bed, and called Borelli’s hotel. No answer. She called Damek’s number. No answer. She left a message telling him her thoughts about the man they’d seen at the bar. Just as she was about to end the call, Dana added, “Take another look at that photo of Pavel and his musician friends.” She didn’t want to mention the shoes or sunglasses; she wanted Damek to notice these without being prompted. She knew his trained cop eyes had taken in every detail of the man at the park.

She lay back, feeling exhausted and overtaken with nervous energy at the same time. Her stomach still turned, as did her mind.

Hearing a movement outside her room in the hall, she rose and stepped cautiously toward the door just as a piece of paper slid underneath with the slightest whisper. She bent over and picked it up. It was her final bill from the hotel. If she decided to stay, would she even have a room? It was tourist season. Rooms all booked.

She crossed back to her bed, swept up the handbag she’d thrown next to the nightstand, grabbed her sweatshirt off the chair, left the room, rushed down the stairs, darted past the desk, and stepped out onto the street, the cool evening air slapping her face as she walked, her steps quick, her mind buzzing.