Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

As if this last memory exhausted her more than her whole life story, she laid her forehead on her knees. Buback’s tiredness, meanwhile, had completely fallen away.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why did you return the ring? It’s not as if you deceived him. On the contrary…”

And then he realized he was jealous of both the Italian and the actor.

“That’s odd….” She shook her head.

“What’s odd?”

“Martin asked the same thing. Typical that you’d ask as well.”

“Why is it typical?”

She yawned, threw off her towel, and slipped under the quilt, without even a longing glance at the bathroom.

“Think about it, Buback. Or sleep on it; with you it amounts to the same thing. Good night, love.”

The woman’s newly widowed sister found the corpses. Despite their ghastly appearance, she kept her head; instead of fainting or raising an alarm, she relocked the apartment and went down to the police. Jan Morava, accompanied by all the free men in his group (and by Buback) was for once able to arrive on the scene of the crime first and secure the evidence. Soon Beran arrived, called by a pale Jitka out of his latest useless meeting with Police Commissioner Rajner, who was agonizing over how long to keep serving the occupying powers.

The three men on duty yesterday at the graveyard were there too. ebesta remembered the murdered woman well; he had seen her hurry off through the side gate toward the embankment. He swore solemnly that no one had been following her, and Morava spotted a gaping hole in his net: the murderer would have taken Jana Kavanová for a widow by her clothing, even outside the cemetery.

Jana’s sister cleared up the mystery of the dead youth. His flight from the trenches could no longer harm anyone.

The perpetrator had as usual chosen a time for his attack when men were away at work, children at school, and women at the stove. According to the witnesses, only the garbagemen, coalmen, a policeman, and a postman had come down the street since morning. These testified to seeing only a pair of housewives. Once again the unidentified killer had left no trace. He appeared and then vanished into thin air.

Morava had to summon all his strength to keep on track. Outwardly he seemed fine, but inside he was in utter despair. There was one person, however, who did notice. When the German finally left to inform his office, the superintendent clapped his adjutant on the shoulder.

“Take me along with you.”

Morava was so crestfallen that he fell speechless. He waited, suffering, for Beran to say the inevitable words. Halfway across the bridge from Újezd to Národní Avenue, the superintendent turned to the driver.

“Stop here, Litera. We’re going for a little walk.”

Morava saw the driver cast a sympathetic glance his way. He followed the superintendent down the stairs to St elecký Island like a condemned man. At the bottom, Beran strode along the path for a while in silence, stopping finally at an old oak. He ran two fingers along a slender twig sprouting from it that was dusted with miniature greenery.

“Nice progress since last time, don’t you think?”

Of course, Beran did not expect an answer; he understood his companion’s mind was elsewhere.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? I have to say it, though. Yes, I’m taking this case away from you.”

Morava must have been the very picture of misfortune.

“Don’t act like you’ve been betrayed and abandoned, Morava,” Beran snapped irritably. “You did nothing you shouldn’t have and everything you should have. Personally I can’t find fault with you, because I’m no idiot. We’re hunting a treacherous predator. For now he has the upper hand, but you’ve set a ring of hunters on his trail, and the noose will eventually tighten around him, as long as he keeps to his habits. At the moment yes, the murderer is fixated on widows and the Vy ehrad cemetery. I wanted to tell you clearly, face-to-face, that you have no reason to criticize yourself. I’m taking over the case so that they won’t ask for your head; Rajner is scared out of his wits and is looking for a sacrificial lamb.”

Morava found his tongue.

“And you think you’re a better target because your surname means ’ram’?”

“He won’t touch me, because he knows the whole operation would shut down without me. They executed my potential replacement, and the next best person would be you.”

Morava stared, dumbfounded, at the man who had just demoted him and then paid him the very compliment he’d desperately longed for.

“Yes, Morava, I sense a talent in you, the same kind — all modesty aside — that I once had. And you’re just as tenacious. There are dogs who won’t let go of their prey even if you swing them round in the air by their legs. You’ll get that monster!”

“But how, if I’m not—”

“I don’t have the time to reinvent the wheel, and fortunately I don’t need to. I will officially conduct the meetings of the investigative team, but will always ask you first, one on one, how to do so.”

“But—”

“Don’t try to make my life any harder than it is already, or yours any easier. In public I’m taking responsibility away from you, but in private you will run things for me. Now, listen closely. I’m convening the team for two this afternoon to take charge myself. Fifteen minutes before that I want you to give me a precise plan of action and tomorrow’s task roster — for everyone, including yourself. Take two more laps around the island to clear your head; in the meanwhile I’ll inform Rajner and the Germans.”

As he left, he turned around once more.

“You can let your beloved in on our little secret this evening. Just so she doesn’t think she’s marrying a good-for-nothing.”

As directed, Morava set off around the sandy oval, trying to make sense of his public fall and private resurrection. He knew he had not made any mistakes, but also that this meant precious little. One of Beran’s first pearls of wisdom, which Morava had written into his notebook, was that a seasoned detective had to do more than just what was necessary; he had to think one step further.

He felt sure the superintendent would want a fresh idea from him at a quarter to two. A new, more urgent message for the newspapers? He doubted strongly that widows would read it. A further appeal to a wider circle of specialists, maybe with a photograph of one of the horrid death altars? He remembered Beran’s solemn warning. Reinforced surveillance of the cemetery? He knew the team was stretched to its limit; the criminal police could barely keep up as it was. Stretch them any thinner, and Prague would become a playground for thieves, robbers, and “ordinary” murderers.

He rounded the tip of the island for the second time. Leaning against a tree, he looked out across the water. Charles Bridge, the castle — this scene always raised his spirits, but now he barely noticed it. The worst thing, he admitted to himself, was that he had lost his spark, lost the thread, couldn’t even concentrate; he caught himself thinking in turns about his mother, Jitka, their child — treasures the war would threaten far more than the widow killer ever could.

A long object slid into the corner of his vision; a barge drifted down the Vltava, with a solitary fisherman and two rods attached to the stern. Slowly and silently it floated down toward the nearby weir as a weak wind carried the rumble of falling water off toward the Old Town bank.