The Widow Killer Read Online Free PDF Page A

shuffled away to pull down the shades. Morava was intrigued by the way Beran was sniffing. Could he smell the underwear?
    The caretaker was still unable or unwilling to remember what the man on the staircase had looked like. To distract him, the superintendent asked a few questions about the baroness. He gleaned only a couple of superficial observations; no one in the von Pommeren family knew Czech, and the caretaker’s German consisted of barely two dozen indispensable expressions. The general had been transferred here from Berlin just after the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Both he and his son had fallen on the front, and the baroness had had both urns buried at the Vysehrad cemetery nearby, where she visited them every day.
    Morava followed studiously as Beran reeled in his line, bringing the conversation back around to the morning’s events.
    “You greeted the man first, right?”
    “Yep,” said the caretaker without hesitation.
    “How?”
    “Well… ‘dobrej den,” I guess. Just ’hello.“ ”
    “And he said?”
    “The same. He said, ”Dobrej den.“ Yep, I’m sure of it.”
    “So that’s exactly what you remember?”
    “Well, he said it sort of strange like…”
    “Strange in what way?”
    “I dunno…”
    “Did he stutter? Hesitate? Mumble? Mutter? Did he have a lazy r? A hoarse voice? Or a high one?”
    Morava was amazed at the stream of possibilities his boss poured forth, but the caretaker kept shaking his head.
    “What was so strange about it?”
    “Dunno… something just wasn’t right.”
    Morava dared to enter the game.
    “Something about his clothes?”
    “Maybe…”
    Beran lunged into the gap.
    “So how was he dressed?”
    “If I knew, I’d tell ya… Look, I had enough for today; did this young feller tell ya what happened to me? Crapped in my pants.”
    He sounded almost proud of it. The superintendent decided to call it a day and stood up. Morava had a flash of inspiration.
    “So you definitely said to him… how was it?”
    “I said, ”Dobrej den.“…”
    “And he said…”
    “The same thing.”
    “And could he have said it slightly differently, maybe ‘dobry den’? So, ”dobry‘ instead of ’dobrej‘?“
    “Yeah. That’s what he said. Just like you said it. Like how they teach us in school, in books, you know?”
    Beran’s gaze suddenly turned respectful. Morava warmed to his task.
    “And something about his appearance didn’t fit with how he spoke?” I suppose…
    “What would have fit?”
    “Urn… what you’re wearing: a hat, a winter coat…”
    “And what wouldn’t have?”
    Morava was encouraged by Beran’s continued silence.
    The caretaker looked briefly down at his thermals.
    “What I’m wearing…”
    “So was he dressed in something similar?”
    Morava had noticed long ago that when people of low intelligence were forced to think hard, the exertion made them suffer almost physically. When the man finally spoke, there was a pained expression on his face.
    “Look, lemme sleep on it, I’m worn out today.”
    The superintendent had the caretaker let them into the baroness’s apartment. A bitter cold welcomed them. They pulled the brocaded drapes closed over the blown-out windows and turned on the lights in the now darkened apartment. Beran walked around the table, the glass crunching under his feet as he sniffed, doglike.
    “Did someone change the carpet here?” he mused.
    “We didn’t touch a thing,” Morava protested.
    “From the way you described it I expected pools of blood.”
    “I told you, he knew what he was doing. He got all her blood to run out into that ficus container. I sent everything to Pathology.”
    “The breasts too, and the… intestines?”
    For the first time ever, Morava saw his boss shiver.
    “Yes. The guys there were horrified by it; they said they’d put in a rush order.”
    “ ‘Scuse me,” the caretaker called from the entrance hall. “I think I’m gonna be sick again; could you lock up after