Fatal Lies Read online

  “Of course,” he said, “none of this new information shines further light on the death of Thomas Zelenka. Which, I believe, was your original purpose.”

  “That is true. But in spite of your analysis of my unconscious motives, the defensive denial of premature death, and so forth, I cannot rid myself of a persistent conviction that if I continue with this investigation, something relevant, something explanatory with regard to Zelenka's death, will eventually arise.”

  Liebermann took another puff of his cigar.

  “Well… you might just be right.”

  “What?” said Rheinhardt, turning his head in disbelief. “Have you changed your mind, then, about policeman's intuition?”

  “Not at all.” Liebermann tapped his cigar on the ashtray. “However, if there is something new to be learned about Zelenka's death— and it is a very substantial if—then I am afraid to say, Oskar, that you have failed to interview someone who—in my humble opinion— merits the closest questioning.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The mathematics master.”

  “What makes you think he's important? I haven't even told you his name. You know nothing about him!”

  “I know enough,” said Liebermann, smiling into his brandy.

  14

  DREXLER STUBBED OUT HIS CIGARETTE and immediately lit another. They were a cheap Turkish brand that produced pungent wreaths of fulvous smoke. He had sunk deep into a wicker chair and was hunched over a well-thumbed volume of E.T.A. Hoffmann's short stories, the print of which was illuminated by a candle. His only other source of light was a paraffin lamp, some distance away, suspended from a beam.

  “Do you know why you're here, Stojakovic?” It was Kiefer Wolf's voice, emanating from a dark recess on the other side of the room.

  Drexler lifted his head. A scrawny Serbian boy was standing between Barend Steininger and Odo Freitag. Steininger was tall, big-boned, and mature enough to sport a downy mustache and fuzzy sideburns. Freitag was much shorter but stocky, possessing a thick, muscular neck and facial features that thrust forward like those of a pit bull terrier.

  The Serbian boy peered into the shadows and blinked.

  “Come on, Stojakovic,” said Steininger, digging his elbow into the boy's side.

  “Yes, come on, Stojakovic,” Freitag repeated, clapping his hands on his shoulders.

  The Serbian boy opened his mouth, but no sound escaped.

  “I asked you a question, Stojakovic!” Wolf's disembodied voice grew louder.

  “He did,” said Steininger, grinning. “Wolf asked you a question.”

  “Yes, don't be impolite, Stojakovic,” said Freitag, tightening his grip. “Be a good fellow and answer Wolf.”

  The boy glanced at Drexler—but it was a wasted appeal. Drexler shook his head.

  “I don't know what passes for good manners in your country, Stojakovic,” Wolf barked. “But it is our custom to give an answer when asked a question.”

  “Very true,” said Steininger. “Very true.”

  The boy's mouth opened again. He produced an unintelligible wavering noise.

  “What did you say?” asked Steininger.

  “I'm…,” the boy croaked. “I'm sorry.… What was the question?”

  “I don't believe it,” said Steininger.

  “He wants you to repeat the question, Wolf,” said Freitag.

  “Are you hard of hearing, Stojakovic?” said Steininger. “A little deaf, perhaps?”

  The boy shook his head.

  Steininger bent down and looked into the boy's ear. “Then perhaps your ears are dirty?”

  Freitag looked into the boy's other ear. “Yes, I believe they are.”

  “Were you, by any chance, raised on a farm, Stojakovic?” asked Steininger.

  “I think he must have been,” said Freitag.

  “That would explain a great deal,” said Steininger.

  “Indeed,” said Freitag.

  “I wonder, do you have soap and water where you come from, Stojakovic?” said Steininger.

  They suddenly burst out laughing and looked to Drexler for approval, but his face remained impassive.

  “Have you lost your sense of humor, Drexler?” said Freitag.

  “Quite the contrary,” Drexler replied. “I find Hoffmann very amusing.”

  “Oh, well, if your sense of humor is still intact,” said Freitag, “you'll enjoy this—the latest Serbian joke.”

  “Careful, Freitag,” said Drexler. “Some of my ancestors were Serbian.”

  “Don't worry,” said Freitag. “I'll speak very slowly.… Now, how do you get a one-armed Serb down from a tree? No idea? All right— you wave at him.”

  Steininger slapped his thigh and guffawed loudly.

  Freitag turned to address their captive: “Why do you Serbians bring a bucket of shit to your weddings?” Before the boy could answer, Freitag added: “To keep the flies off the bride, of course.”

  Again, Steininger fell about laughing.

  “Enough!” Wolf shouted, clapping his hands slowly.

  Steininger collected himself and assumed a more serious expression.

  “Stojakovic!” Wolf continued. “I will ask you once more. Why have you been brought here?”

  “I don't know,” said the Serbian boy—his denial sounded like a desperate plea.

  “Then I'll tell you,” said Wolf. “You have been indiscreet, Stojakovic.”

  “Now, that is bad,” said Steininger.

  “Quite unacceptable,” murmured Freitag.

  “Did you really think,” said Wolf, “that you could blab to Lang in the middle of a calligraphy class and not be overheard!”

  “I didn't—”

  “Speak up!”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “Don't lie, Stojakovic!”

  The sound of Wolf's footsteps preceded his appearance. He emerged from the outer darkness between two columns of smoke that turned slowly in the displaced air. His mouth was a horizontal slit—its linearity suggesting boredom. He had a thin, hungry face, and dull gray eyes. However, his hair was bright yellow—like a cap of gold.

  Wolf drew on his cigarette and stepped up close to the Serbian boy. They were roughly the same height, and their noses almost touched. Wolf exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, quite calmly: “You have attempted to make trouble for us, and you must be taught a lesson. It is your own fault—you understand? You brought it upon yourself.”

  The boy could not maintain eye contact, and looked down at the floor. Wolf trod on his cigarette, turned, and marched toward Drexler.

  “Get up!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to sit down.”

  “I'm reading.”

  “Drexler! I won't tell you again!”

  Drexler sighed, got out of the chair, and leaned against the wall.

  Wolf reached into the battered suitcase and removed something— an object. The others could not see what it was because Wolf concealed it with his hands.

  “Now, Stojakovic,” said Wolf, “you will do exactly as I say and no harm will come to you; however, if you choose to disobey me…” Wolf raised his arm. He was holding a revolver. “I will shoot you.”

  Steininger and Freitag looked at each other and laughed.

  “Where did you get that from, eh, Wolf?” said Steininger.

  Wolf waved the revolver from side to side, indicating that his two lieutenants should withdraw.

  “Hey, be careful,” said Freitag. “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course it's loaded, you fool!”

  “Where did you get it from?” Steininger repeated his question.

  “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “Never you mind.” Wolf thrust the revolver forward at Stojakovic. “Take your clothes off. Don't just stand there—you heard what I said. Take your clothes off. Hurry up—all of them.” His voice had become agitated, and flecks of spittle sprayed out of his mouth.

  The Serbian boy undid t
he buttons of his tunic and fumbled with his belt. His hands were shaking.

  He hesitated when he reached his undergarments.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Wolf. “Get on with it!”

  The boy peeled off his woolen vest and stepped out of his long johns. He stood, completely naked, in a cone of milky luminescence. He was a thin, pale boy, with alabaster skin and dark hair. His genitals were barely visible, having retreated into a luxuriant tangle of wiry pubic curls. The effect was quite disconcerting. Stojakovic looked feminine, submissive, sexually ambiguous, and the rapidity of his breathing betrayed the magnitude of his terror.

  Steininger laughed. It wasn't a comfortable laugh. It had a hysterical quality—ending abruptly, and leaving a tense, uneasy silence in its wake.

  “Now what?” said Drexler, snapping his book closed.

  Wolf's eyes flashed at Drexler. They were filled with latent fire, an admixture of malevolence and anger. Drexler, who ordinarily experienced the world as if everything in it were somehow removed or distant, felt his sense of privileged detachment slip. It surprised him—like a jolt of electricity. The sinister cast of Wolf's lineaments had reined him in.

  Wolf got up and walked purposefully toward the Serbian boy. When he reached his side, he inspected his face.

  “Are you crying, Stojakovic?” Wolf asked.

  The boy's head moved—a minute, almost imperceptible shake.

  Wolf lifted the boy's chin with the barrel of the revolver. Stojakovic's cheeks were streaked with silver.

  “Now, what did I tell you about lying, Stojakovic? If you lie to me, you will be punished. It's your own fault—you leave me no choice.”

  Wolf pulled the revolver hammer back with his thumb. It clicked loudly. Then he pressed the barrel against Stojakovic's temple.

  Time stopped.

  Drexler tasted metal in his mouth. The silence pulsed in his ears. A seeping, vitrifying cold spread through his limbs. He could not move, and felt that if he tried to, he would shatter.

  A loud hissing sound filled the room.

  At first, Wolf appeared confused. He looked quizzically at the others, then downward. Urine was flowing in wide yellow rivulets down Stojakovic's legs, feeding an expanding circular puddle, the circumference of which had made contact with the soles of Wolf's shoes.

  “You Serbian dog!” Wolf cried, his mouth twisting in disgust. He struck Stojakovic on the head with the butt of his gun. “You animal, you damned animal!”

  The boy fell to his knees, blood streaming from a deep gash on his forehead.

  Drexler ran across the room and grabbed Wolf's arm, preventing him from delivering a second blow.

  “Stop it, Wolf.”

  “Drexler?” Wolf was no longer angry. Rather, he seemed surprised—as though disorientated after waking from sleep.

  “You've made your point,” said Drexler. “Now that's enough.” Drexler pulled the Serbian boy to his feet. “Pick up your clothes and get out. And no more loose talk in the future, you understand? Get out.”

  Stojakovic scooped up his clothes and ran into the darkness. They listened to him getting dressed: ragged breathing, the clink of his belt, and, finally, the trapdoor opening and closing.

  Drexler looked into Wolf's eyes. The strange light had died, and Wolf's expression was blank. His thin lips were straight again. Slowly, something like a smile began to appear on his face.

  “Drexler! You idiot! I wasn't going to kill him. You're losing your nerve!”

  Wolf looked over at Steininger and Freitag. It was a collusive look—an invitation. They responded with laughter: fits and starts, encouraged by Wolf's widening smile, mounting, until their lungs and vocal cords were engaged in the production of a continuous asinine braying.

  “He wasn't going to kill Stojakovic, Drexler!” Steininger cried, “Whatever were you thinking?”

  “Yes, Drexler,” Freitag echoed. “Whatever were you thinking?”

  It was a good performance. But their relief was palpable.

  15

  RHEINHARDT'S HEAD WAS BURIED in his copy of the latest edition of the police journal, which contained an extremely interesting article on the work of Jean Alexandre Eugene Lacassagne—a professor of medicine at the University of Lyon who had made extraordinary advances in the identification of decayed corpses. As he read, Rheinhardt became increasingly aware of piano music: music of incomparable lightness. An innocent, profoundly beautiful melody leaped an octave, before making a modulating descent over a flowing left-hand accompaniment. It charmed him out of the dark, morbid world of mortuaries and rotting cadavers. When the melody climbed again, he lifted his head—as if watching the ascent of a songbird.

  His eldest daughter, Therese, was seated at the instrument, her slim fingers negotiating the naïve geography of Mozart's Sonata in C Major. On the other side of the parlor, seated at the table, were his wife, Else, and his younger daughter, Mitzi, engaged in some needlepoint. Mitzi was humming along with the tune. None of them were conscious of Rheinhardt's benign scrutiny.

  He registered the good-humored curve of Else's mouth, the thickness of Mitzi's hair, and the straightness of Therese s back—the way that something of his own likeness lingered in the lineaments of both his daughters and, by some miracle, did so without diminishing their beauty.

  Thomas Zelenka was only one year older than Therese. Although Zelenka wore a uniform and had been taught to use a sabre, he was still—like Therese—a child.

  To die so very young…

  It was a disturbance in the order of things that Rheinhardt could not—would not—accept as natural.

  The music suddenly shifted into a minor key, as if responding to his thoughts. He remembered visiting Zelenka's parents—the empty birdcage, the unoccupied bedroom, the void behind Fanousek's eyes: the four gas towers, like massive mausoleums, breaking the line of a bleak horizon, the terrible, suffocating atmosphere of desolation, misery, and loss.

  How could any parent survive the loss of a child? How would Rheinhardt ever cope, if the piano playing ceased, the humming subsided, and the parlor was chilled by his daughters’ absence? The silence would be intolerable.

  Yes, Liebermann was probably right—by denying juvenile mortality he, Rheinhardt, was railing against fate, attempting to safeguard his children. But did that really matter? The existence of such a mechanism did not invalidate his feelings. Perhaps intuition originated in parts of the mind too deep for psychoanalysis to fathom. Moreover, Rheinhardt comforted himself with the thought that even Liebermann was beginning—albeit reluctantly—to accept that there might be something more to Zelenka's death than Professor Mathias's autopsy had revealed.

  Rheinhardt looked at his daughters again and was overwhelmed by a force of emotion that made his breath catch. It was not comparable to the comfortable affection he felt for his wife, the companion-ate closeness that had mellowed and matured over the years. No—it was something quite different. A raw, primitive emotion—a violent, visceral, instinctive attachment combined with a desire to protect, whatever the cost. And yet, at the same time, it was remarkably satisfying and joyful. It defied description, was characterized by contradictions.

  The music had recovered the tonic major key, and the principal subject was being recapitulated. The inspector counted his blessings and raised the police journal to conceal his watering eyes and the peculiar shame associated with the expression of uncontrollable, improvident love.

  16

  LIEBERMANN AND HIS FRIEND Dr. Stefan Kanner were seated in a private windowless dining room. The food they had eaten was traditional fare, simply prepared but deeply satisfying: semolina dump lings in beef broth, Tyrolean knuckle of veal with rice, and schmalzstrauhen—spirals of sweet batter, fried until golden brown, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. A few schmalzstrauhen remained, untouched and quite cold, on a metal rack. The wine was unusually good: a local red, the color of garnet, redolent of bonfires, plums, and raspberries. Bleary-eyed, flushed—neckties draped o
ver their shoulders—and gloriously drunk, the two men conversed under an awning of cigar smoke.

  “It was a beautiful day,” said Kanner, tracing a flamboyant arc with his hand to evoke the cloudless empyrean. “Jeanette and I drove out to Döbling and had dinner, alfresco… and the following Sunday we went across the Kahlenberg to Klosterneuburg. On our way home, in the railway compartment, her head fell on my shoulder— and she said that she loved me.”

  Kanner pushed the box of cigars into the middle of the table, and encouraged Liebermann to take another.

  “Go on—help yourself. They're Havanas. A gift from a grateful patient—well, her husband, actually—whom I cured of a zoöpsia accompanied by gastric pains.”

  “What animals did she hallucinate?”

  “Only one: a dancing bear.”

  “And how did you treat her?”

  “Maxim. Just take a cigar and let me finish my story will you?”

  Liebermann muttered an apology and signaled that his friend should proceed.

  “Still under the benign influence of the sweet vin de paille from the cloister cellar,” said Kanner, “I was quite ready to believe her. My customary skepticism vanished, and when our lips met, I was Kanner s eyes rolled upward. “Transported. The following day, however, my skepticism returned—”

  “Which is just as well,” Liebermann interjected.

  Kanner thrust out his lower lip and blinked at his friend.

  “Have I told you this story before?”

  “No.”

  Kanner shrugged and continued. “I spent the afternoon in Café Landtmann… and when the streetlights came on, I went for a stroll in the Rathauspark. It was quite dark—but I'm sure it was her.”

  “Jeanette?”

  “In the arms of Spitzer.”

  “The throat specialist?”

  “The very same.”

  Liebermann threw his head back and directed a jet of smoke at the ceiling. The gaslight flared and made a curious respiratory sound— like a gasp.

  “So, she wants to be an actress.”

  Kanner sat up straight—surprised.