Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

Morava’s boss had become the legend and the terror of the Prague underworld in the interwar years, but because Beran had always steered clear of politics, the Germans left him in his post. Of course, now he only had jurisdiction over Czech wrongdoers; Germans were tried (and sometimes even punished) by the occupiers.

Morava knew he should fill his time with useful work on his assigned cases. The front moving west toward Prague swept in criminals along with war victims, but at the moment he wasn’t in the mood to deal with them. He put on the radio to find out more about the raid. They were broadcasting solemn music, apparently while the censors tinkered with the official statement.

He thought of Jitka and longed to see her. Why not use her sensational chicory coffee as an excuse? Summoning his courage, he crossed the hall to Beran’s office. She raised her large brown eyes, disconcerting him as usual. This house of horrors was no place for a shy lamb like Jitka! But otherwise he never would have met her…. Before he could speak, the phone rang.

“I’m sorry,” she answered like a well-mannered schoolgirl, “the superintendent is out in the field…. No, I don’t know… everyone is out on call after the air raid, but I can let you speak with the assistant detective…. Yes, one moment please, I’ll put him on.”

She handed him the receiver, but he was so enchanted by her serious smile that he did not realize who was barking at him.

“What’s your name?” the voice snapped.

“Yours first,” he retorted.

“Rajner, as in the police commissioner. Now, if you please…?”

“Morava… Jan Morava…. I’m sorry, sir.”

“So, Morava.” To Morava’s surprise, the much hated and feared commissioner softened a bit. “Listen closely. Take a driver, or a taxi, for all I care, and get over to Vltava Embankment, number five, top floor, but fast! Someone’s put away a wealthy German lady; apparently it’s a pretty messy job.”

Morava wasn’t following. He decided to object.

“But, sir, the Gestapo takes care of German cases….”

“They’re the ones who asked for Beran. Until I can get hold of him, I’m sending you. But watch out, kid, do you understand?”

The long arm of the Nazis hung up. Morava stood immobile, his face burning, with the receiver clamped against his ear. Jitka was shaken.

“Gosh, I… I forgot to tell you who…”

He hung up and flashed a smile at her.

“It’s fine, believe me. Is there a bicycle around?”

“I’m sure I can get you a car. Wait downstairs a minute.”

He hurried after her, mesmerized by her supple gait. He felt vaguely jealous when the garage manager, Tetera — the pretty boy of Four Bartolom jská Street — who also fell under her spell, agreed to drive Morava there personally in a freshly washed car.

They had barely turned left just past the National Theater when Morava smelled the fire and spotted a column of smoke. The corner house down by Jirásek Bridge (renamed Diensthoffer by the Nazis) was aflame and half in ruins. They drove onward into a black snowstorm; particles of soot and flecks of half-burned paper drifted down from a blue sky. The car wound past a line of stopped trams and came to a halt at a blockade of fire engines. Morava and the driver gazed upward, openmouthed. After a while, the detective had grown accustomed to murder victims; they were nothing more to him than strange-looking store mannequins. He had never seen the prolapsed innards of an apartment house.

The top four floors had collapsed down onto the second, leaving a motley chessboard of paint, wallpaper, and tiles on the outside wall of the neighboring building. Paintings, tapestries, mirrors, wall lamps, bookshelves, racks with towels, hooks with bathrobes, even sinks and toilets hung forlornly in space. Morava thought about the people who had used them and shivered. In his line of work he had learned to think of violent death as a temporary suspension of societal norms. Often there was a motive — sometimes a poor one, but it could always be traced. Scores of people in this building would have welcomed the fliers as angels of salvation; wiping them off the face of the earth made no sense at all.

An anxious policeman ordered them to move along. Morava sent Tetera back, praying that he wouldn’t go to Jitka for payback on the favor. Showing his papers, the detective dodged past the rescue workers and their machines to Number 5, two buildings down. A pair of disfigured corpses on the pavement did not faze him; they were no worse than the cases he saw every day. As he walked, he took care not to get his imitation leather boots wet in the puddles near the fire hydrants.

He rang the single bell, which must have led to the caretaker’s apartment. There was no answer. Tentatively he tested the handle of the heavy double doors and found them unlocked. The entrance hall, its marble mosaic dominated by the inscription SALVE, led to an elevator of dark wood as spacious as a small bedroom. It bore him silently upward, with a regal slowness. Even as he stepped out of the elevator at the top, he could have sworn he was at the wrong address.

Immediately the apartment door flew open. On the threshold was a man in a leather coat who had to be from the Gestapo.

“Der Hauptkommissar? Well, finally.”

“The superintendent’s on his way,” Morava replied. “I’m his assistant; Commissioner Rajner sent me.”

His decent German had the desired effect. The man gestured — a bit more politely — for Morava to follow him. In the bedroom, a number of men were standing around. And on the table was an object unlike anything he had ever seen before. When he realized what it was, he felt his stomach heave.

He had a fabulous view from his bench on the far side of the Vltava. It’s like being in a box at the theater, he thought happily; no! it’s like being in the choir loft! Even past noon, the weak February sun struggled to break through the mantle of cold air, but he was still dripping hot. He unbuttoned his jacket, placed his satchel between his legs, and rested his arms on the back of the bench. Relaxed and at ease, he drank in the spectacle before him and slowly regained his composure.

He was delighted that no one was around to disturb him. The embankment was deserted; the city had crawled into its shell at the first sign of danger. To the left across the river, fire engines and ambulances swarmed around the destroyed corner building. However, he was most interested in the building he had just left — how long ago? He stared at his left wrist; he could see the hands of his watch, but could not read them.

It felt like ages. He had passed the burning wreckage and traipsed across a bridge covered with shards and chips of brick. A while later, a siren had sounded on the other side and the first fire engine appeared. Two private vehicles had pulled up at HIS house much sooner than he’d expected. That man, he remembered, that oaf I met on the stairs! He deserved it TOO. ..

No! He couldn’t kill an innocent person, especially not a man. He was not a criminal; he was an INSTRUMENT. He was chosen to CLEANSE. That was why the METHOD had been strictly defined for him. He’d blown it that time in Brno, true; he’d been a terrible disappointment. They’d said in the papers that the person who’d done it was a DEVIANT. But he was not a deviant; he had just been clumsy. It was his fault they hadn’t recognized the MESSAGE. He was lucky he hadn’t been punished for his failure. Or was it luck?

CLEARLY MY SERVICES WERE STILL REQUIRED!

He laughed aloud with joy: today he had pulled it off perfectly. What must they be thinking? What do they make of it? This time they must have understood! The newspapers won’t dismiss it so easily this time. Maybe they’ll use photographs too; yes, definitely — after all, words can’t do it justice. The only thing he lacked now was proof of the deed, and the papers would take care of that. An indisputably faithful picture of his work, just like the picture SHE had once given him as a guide.