Lost and Found in Prague (24 page)

Her scent arrived before the door opened. But, when Dal looked up, Detective Sokol stood alone, enveloped in a cloud of that musky, overwhelming perfume Dal had smelled in the state archives as the young woman handed him the files on Filip Kula.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dal asked, though he wondered if the question was even necessary. He wouldn’t say,
I was worried,
but he had been.

“This morning, before I left for coffee—I ran out for coffee, because I wanted to stay alert, and of course didn’t have any in the apartment because I’m not a coffee drinker, as you know.” It seemed important to the young detective to explain why he’d left his apartment with Hutka’s laptop unguarded. Dal didn’t interrupt. “Well, before . . . I unlocked a couple more of Hutka’s files. They contained some names, and I wanted to get in to see those particular referenced files in the state archives, and then of course it being Sunday, the archives were closed, and then . . . I realized that . . . there’s nothing illegal about examining the files. They are officially open to the public now.”

Dal nodded, having a good idea how young Kristof had gotten access to those files on a Sunday morning.

“I’ve made copies. I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone by hanging out in the archives on a Sunday.”

Dal had no doubt the archives’ director would not approve. But, if Kristof had simply made copies, the director might not even know the detective had come in that morning.

“Have you found anything of value?” Dal asked.

“I’m just starting,” Kristof explained.

“Let me know if you find anything.” Dal waved him out of the office.

No sooner than he was gone, Cerný called. It was Dal’s preference that his detectives trek down the hall to speak to him if it was important, but he made exceptions for the old detective whose leg didn’t always cooperate.

“The mime came in,” Cerný said. “He was performing near the Karluv most and claims he saw the man again, the one taking photos of the rooftops in the square just days before the senator’s murder. He had a more detailed description this time. The man was headed toward the bridge. Surveillance video’s here for review. If we find anyone fitting that description, the mime’s agreed to come in and see if he can identify him.”

The bridge was laced with surveillance cameras, mainly to keep the tourists off the statues that lined the balustrades. Everyone seemed to want a photo involving one of the statues. It still amazed Dal what a drunk tourist would engage in with a stone statue for a little photo souvenir of his trip. But with the cameras on the bridge just about any activity was recorded. He wished he could say the same for the surveillance at Kristof’s apartment or the nonexistent video from Our Lady Victorious. The apartment cameras had been tampered with and provided nothing. The cameras at the church weren’t even functional.

“Call if you find anything,” he told Cerný.

Dal sat, rereading the notes he and Kristof had made after examining the Filip Kula files, studying the information Reznik and Beneš had gathered on Fiala Nedomová, Senator Zajic’s assistant who’d had contact with Filip Kula then disappeared. Yet all the while he was thinking of Dana Pierson, her asking him to call after the meeting with the priests. Then he thought about his request of Bo Doubek to find more information on Lenka. He shouldn’t be wasting his time and resources.

After Dal took Petr home, earlier than he’d originally anticipated to allow for his meeting with the two priests at the café in the Malá Strana, he’d spoken with each separately. He didn’t completely understand Father Ruffino’s reasoning, but Dal had determined before the meeting that after this, he was finished with any investigation concerning Our Lady Victorious. Father Ruffino had begged Dal to follow through on the possible connection with Lenka and Václav before turning this over to another investigative team. He feared that, if the Infant hadn’t already been destroyed, an official report to Interpol would set off extensive media coverage, and the thieves would become aware that Father Ruffino had not followed their request.

Dal told Father Ruffino he’d give him one more day. He’d attempted to trace the e-mail source, but, just as he suspected, it proved untraceable, set up just for this purpose. He’d called the chief whose unit should be assigned the case, though, unlike the homicide chief, he kept surprisingly regular office hours. He’d left a message requesting a meeting with Father Ruffino for the following day, Monday. If they turned up nothing before, Dal was done.

He knew it was going to be a long night. He doubted he’d make it back to his apartment before his meeting with the chief of criminal investigations at nine the following morning. Gulping his coffee, he checked the messages on his cell, which he’d set on vibrate, determined he’d pick up nothing unless it related to the murder investigation. Dana had called and left a long rambling message about her belief that the man who’d come to the convent, taken the keys, stolen the Infant was indeed the man at the marionette store, but also the patron they’d seen in the bar, the bald fellow with the marionette. She’d given him the address of the marionette store. She’d also instructed him—yes, that was the way it came across—to reexamine the twenty-year-old photo of Pavel Novák and his music group.

Dal called her hotel room, but got no answer. Logging on to a business database, with the address she’d given him he found the name of the store, then the owner. Milos Horácek. Related to Lenka Horácková? The only address listed for the man was the store itself.

This surely tied him, as Dana suspected, to Václav and possibly the theft of the Infant. He wondered if either Václav or Milos Horácek had sent the e-mail message and if they truly intended to return the Infant. Or if it had already been destroyed.

Dal grabbed his jacket, pulled the photo he’d examined time and time again out of the pocket. Immediately he saw why Dana had asked him to take another look at the photo. The only musician whose identity Dal did not know was the man sitting on the wooden stool, guitar on knee, leg bent, pants hiked up. He wore a high-topped athletic shoe, the same as the man they had seen in the park. Dal rubbed his forehead, attempting to bring up an image. The man they’d seen was heavier than the musician in the twenty-year-old photo. But people tended to put on weight as they aged.

The way the man sat in the photo, guitar on knee, was similar to the way the man had sat reading his newspaper. Dal was well versed in biometrics, the method of identifying humans based on intrinsic behavioral and physical traits. A person’s basic facial structure, the symmetry or lack thereof, was a constant, and using computer technology for facial recognition was often beneficial in the modern age of terrorism. Exact measurements could be made to identify a face, either living or dead, something they had used on occasion to identify a homicide victim. Distance between eyes, space from nose to mouth. Shape of skull, measurement of eye sockets, angle of jaw and cheekbones. Many of these physical characteristics were obscured on the man in the photo because of his sunglasses. Round, like the type John Lennon wore. Exactly the style the man at the park had been wearing.

He heard a knock on the door, Kristof letting him know the surveillance video from the Karluv most was ready for viewing. As they left his office, Dal asked if he’d found anything yet in the files and Kristof just shook his head. “If I knew what I was looking for, I could probably find it,” he said with a frustrated grin. They entered the room where the surveillance video had been set up.

“There are a couple of possibilities,” Cerný told Dal as they stared at the screen. The bridge was lined with a dozen cameras, and they’d sorted through the videos, pulling anything out that showed a man who might possibly fit the mime’s description.

“This one,” Cerný said, “seems the most likely.” Dal’s eyes darted from frame to frame, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It seemed impossible, but he was sure the individual Cerný had singled out as the best match for the mime’s description was the same person he and Dana had seen at the park. A man who might possibly be in a twenty-year-old photo with both Pavel Novák and Branko Banik. But the most disturbing and puzzling thing Dal saw was the woman whom neither Cerný nor Kristof would recognize. A woman whose hurried, impatient pace had become very familiar to Dal over the past four days. And, if he was not mistaken, the man was just a few paces behind her.

Back in his office, Dal grabbed his holster and jacket. Just as he started out, Bo Doubek appeared, file in hand. “I’ve found some information for you on this Lenka Horácková.”

Dal motioned him in. Enthusiastically, the young man slapped a computer printout down on the desk. “If someone is trying to hide a payoff, a more sophisticated system of transfer would most likely be used. The woman is getting a nice deposit to her account each month. From a variety of sources.”

“You’ve traced them?”

“Enough to provide some information.”

Dal glanced down at the printout, noticing Doubek had also found an address for Lenka, as he’d requested. “Explain.” He could hear the impatience in his voice; he didn’t want to waste time looking over some printout. “Same amount each month?” Though he could see—four times what he took home as chief investigator of homicide. To an unemployed actress.

“But different sources. I wasn’t able to trace all, but I can keep at it. Most are corporate accounts—see, here,” he said, sliding a finger along a business name Dal didn’t recognize, grinning as he flipped to a second page. This was a man who enjoyed his work, a man who loved the game, who relished explaining in detail every tiny aspect of his research.

Dal just wanted the bottom line. “A single corporation?”

“Subsidiaries of a large corporation. All interconnected.”

“Publicly traded?”

“Private.”

“Can you trace the major stockholders?”

“This appears to be a family-owned corporation,” he said, “dating back to the midnineties.”

“Primary stockholder?”

Dal glanced at the young man and saw a wide, satisfied grin tug at the kid’s mouth.

“Branko Banik,” he said, “but that’s not even the good part.”

Branko Banik?
The very man Dana had said might have been involved in Pavel Novák’s disappearance. A man who had possibly participated in illegal activities in the past. Banik was now considered a successful, legitimate businessman, a philanthropist. It was puzzling that Doubek had traced the source of Lenka’s income in just a few hours. If a business mogul such as Banik wished to hide a money trail, he’d surely have done a better job than this.

“The good part?”
Dal asked
.

“This is a Swiss IBAN.” Again, he pointed.

“Untraceable.”

Doubek’s grin grew wider. “The same number on the records I examined for Filip Kula.”

“Same source?” Dal’s voice jumped as he glanced back at Doubek.

But how, Dal wondered, did this all relate? Lenka . . . Branko Banik . . . Filip Kula?
Bribes?
Blackmail payoffs? Shares of an illegal enterprise?
Dana had said Sister Agnes thought Branko Banik was involved in Pavel Novák’s disappearance, along with questionable business practices. Somehow this all tied together. Lenka must have knowledge of something that could do great harm to Banik, and he’d been paying her off all these years. If he’d killed Pavel Novák, he might just do away with Lenka, too. Or possibly Lenka herself was involved in some type of illegal activity with Banik. Had Kula been blackmailing Banik? Dal sensed that his and Kristof’s theory that the person paying Kula was also the person who murdered him was correct. Banik was involved, but Dal wasn’t yet sure just how.

“Determine how far these payments go back,” he told Doubek. “And if there are any further ties to Banik or Kula.”

Doubek flashed a smile and gathered his printouts.

“When you were in commercial crime, ever do any investigations of Banik?”

“Nothing resulting in criminal charges. Most likely his wealth originated from illegal dealing decades ago, but no, nothing. The man is straight up now. A model citizen.”

As soon as Doubek left, Dal entered Banik’s name into his criminal database, quite sure he would find nothing. The man was as clean as they get. He entered the name in an Internet search engine. A quick glance at several articles in the
Prague Daily News
confirmed what Dal already knew. The man owned multiple businesses, was somewhat of a philanthropist; a recent article listed several contributions, one to the IKEM, a well-respected local hospital.

Then Dal did something he seldom did. He called the newspaper and asked for the reporter whose name was on the byline.

Forgiveness.

It was essential to his identity as a priest, as a man entrusted by God and his Church to administer the sacrament of penance and utter the words,
Your sins are forgiven.

Yet it was Beppe, also a priest, who had lied to Giovanni, his purported best friend, and this made it particularly difficult to extend a hand of forgiveness. Father Borelli lay in bed, unable to sleep. His stomach rumbled so violently he wondered if his neighbors in the next room could hear it, or the burp that soon erupted, making him feel somewhat better. He’d had a late dinner, and he’d eaten too much.

Were some sins greater than others? As a theologian he knew the answer, and any Catholic child past the age of reason could recite the catechism. Mortal sin was a grievous offense . . . venial, only minor. Murder, of course, was a ticket to hell. Stealing—depending on the value of that which was stolen, though he realized that was more a legal than a theological interpretation.

Lying? Everyone lied, and there were certainly degrees, a sliding scale of sin here. Now even Saint Giuseppe Ruffino was a liar. Just like Giovanni himself, who was perhaps one of the world’s greatest liars. And perhaps the lies one tells to oneself constitute the most severe. Giovanni Borelli lied to himself about his harmful habits. He promised himself to give up smoking, the promise a lie in itself. He lied about how much he ate, how often he ate, sometimes until he was truly miserable. He lied about how much he drank.

And he lied about his wealth. He had told Dana Pierson just days before that he was not a wealthy man. He
was
a very wealthy man. Along with his sister, he had inherited the vineyards and winery when his mother died. He always referred to it as a
small
vineyard, which was not true at all. He had no active part in running the business, but each quarter a sizable check was deposited to his account in Rome. He had a financial adviser who had greatly increased his wealth. He contributed to the Church, to the missions, to political and social causes he believed in strongly. But it was difficult for him to admit, particularly to a stranger, that he was a wealthy priest. Priests were assumed to live in a saintly state of self-denial and poverty. Yes, he lied in so many ways. But he had never expected that Beppe was a liar, too, that he would lie to Giovanni, who had always held his friend up as a much better man than himself.

Now Beppe had finally gone to the police. Giovanni questioned if there was anything else for him to do. Perhaps it was time to return home to Italy. He wondered if the Infant would ever return to its home at Our Lady Victorious and wondered if it even mattered. He knew the news of this theft would soon go out to the world. Interpol police would be called in. Perhaps this news would bring even more visitors, more pilgrims to the church, more money dumped into the collection plates. Maybe Beppe should have let all this happen sooner. On Good Friday this might have created an even greater stir, larger donations. Damn it all anyway!

Finally Giovanni drifted off to sleep.

The shrill ring of the phone awakened him. Slowly, with physical as well as mental irritation, a dream fading into a wakeful fogginess, he reached across the nightstand.
“Pronto,”
he said groggily, speaking Italian without giving it a thought.

The reply came back also in Italian. The caller did not identify himself, but Giovanni recognized the voice. “My source,” the man explained, “has located a religious icon that fits the description you gave me. Sixteenth century. Spanish origin. The Christ child, about forty-seven centimeters.”

Borelli sat up in bed, ran his hand over the top of his head, trying to shake the murkiness, the confusion from his mind. “I must examine the statue,” he replied slowly.
Remain calm,
he told himself. “You have used the alias I gave you?”

“Sì.”

“Has a price been discussed?”

“The dealer wants cash. Euros. Two million.”

“How much?” Borelli asked, the shock of this suggestion jolting him to full alertness now. He glanced at the digital clock on his bedside table. It was 11:03
P.M.
His bank in Italy wouldn’t open for hours, though he could possibly initiate an electronic transfer.

“Sì, due.”

Two million?
He wasn’t even sure if a transfer that large could be done in this manner without being reported to authorities. Could it really be authentic, or was he being played? “I most definitely want to examine it, to verify its authenticity. You will arrange a meeting?”

He heard the phone click.

Giovanni sat on the edge of his bed, his heart thumping, his stomach rumbling. He got up to use the bathroom, then returned to his bed, lit a cigarette. Again his stomach turned, more nerves than indigestion now. A flame burned in his chest.

“What the hell are you doing, Borelli?” he asked himself aloud. And what was the significance of the note Father Ruffino had received in his e-mail? Was he heading into a scam? Should he call Investigator Damek? In the darkened room, lit only by the flicker of his cigarette, not bothering to turn on a light, Giovanni reached for the glass on his nightstand, his bottle, fixed himself a drink. He needed to calm his nerves. His hands were shaking.

Dana had suggested the thief had taken the Infant for its miraculous powers. The statue in itself held no power, but he was fully aware that some believed this to be true. Magic. Superstition. Worshipping false gods. The Church had been accused of idolatry more than a time or two. How weak is man, he thought. How easily we place our hopes in false gods.

Had two men entered the church? One with the intention of finding the physical, tangible source of a miracle, the other merely a thief? Giovanni’s mind would not calm as he considered the possibilities. A thief, preying on the devotion of another thief, the first with the sole intention of offering the Infant to the highest bidder? But why now? Why now, after more than a week?

Again the phone rang. He reached over and picked it up.

“Midnight,” the familiar voice advised him. “Come alone. Tell no one. Josefov. The cemetery.” A click.

Borelli took in one deep breath, then another, feeling again the heat in his chest, rising to his throat. Josefov—the Jewish Quarter.
How appropriate,
he thought.
Searching for the lost child Jesus among the Jews.