Chapter XIII

Meanwhile, Back in Bistritz...

Officer Dancescu approached Detective Miklos, seated at his desk.

"I thought you might like to know; Barbu has gone home to rest," Dancescu told him.

Miklos looked up from his current task, typing a report in his typical one-finger style. "Why the hell would I want to know that?"

"The guy went through a traumatic experience," Dancescu reminded him.

"The guy's an idiot," Miklos summarized rather bluntly. "The only description he can give us of his assailant? 'Big! Horrible!' he screams before breaking down in tears. Everyone is big compared to Barbu! And what the heck is 'horrible' supposed to mean? Then he witnesses two others break into the morgue, but he can't give a description because he didn't see their faces!"

"Well, he was handcuffed in a drawer," Dancescu said, feeling perhaps not everything was Barbu's fault.

"So what did they talk about, I ask him?" Miklos continued in his ranting reminiscence. "Brains, he tells me! They talked about brains, and that's the last thing he can tell me before he breaks down and sobs again. So who are my suspects, zombies?"

Dancescu figured it might be a good idea to change the topic. "So, the Forensics guys found something interesting. Whoever broke into the morgue wore surgical gloves, so there were no fingerprints. But he left the gloves behind, and guess what?"

"Fingerprint on the gloves?" guessed Miklos.

"Bingo!" Dancescu told him.

"Check it against our database," Miklos suggested.

"Already done. We tried the local and national databases but no luck, so we tried Interpol. Again, no matches. But Interpol's been scanning older cases into a new archive, and suggested we try it. And we found a match!"

"Fantastic!" said Miklos as he stood and grabbed his hat. "So, who's our perp?"

Dancescu suddenly seemed a lot less enthusiastic. "That's where the trail runs cold, unfortunately. Crime was never solved. No name was ever associated with the print."

Miklos dropped his hat and sat down again at his desk. "Okay. Get whatever you can about the crime and we'll see if it gives us any ideas."

"Did that too," said Dancescu. "But I don't think you'll get any leads from this one. Strange crime. Took place in Berlin. Seems a fight broke out in a church in the middle of the night. Investigators described it the next day as a battle scene. No bodies, but lots of broken gargoyles for some reason. The fingerprint came from a gold collection plate that was embedded in a wall."

"So how can there be no leads?" asked Miklos. "Sounds like there should be mounds of evidence!"

"I imagine there was at the time, but there's no way to follow up now. All the witnesses are gone, mostly dead I expect. And the church itself was torn down to build condos twenty or thirty years ago."

"Thirty years ago?" said Miklos, a note of confusion in his voice. "Wait a minute, when did this crime take place?"

"That's the really weird thing," Dancescu told him. "It happened in 1948! So you can see, there's no way to investigate it now."

"1948!" yelled Miklos. "Are you telling me, whoever broke into our morgue last night was also responsible for destroying a church in Berlin almost seventy years ago?"

"Yeah. Weird, eh?" replied Dancescu. "But like I said, no identification, and no other possible way to connect the crimes."

"But don't you see how this limits the suspects?" Miklos exclaimed. "Assuming the guy wasn't a child when he was flinging collection plates and destroying churches in 1948, whoever we're looking for must be at least 90 years old by now!"

"Got anyone in mind?" asked Dancescu.

"We already met someone who meets that description in connection with this case. I'll bet my paycheck the person we're looking for is Roddy Williams!"

"I don't know," said Dancescu. "He doesn't really match the description of 'big' and 'horrible'."

"Forget that," Miklos said in disgust. "Barbu is an idiot. Just find me Roddy Williams!"

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(@ @)

  VVV

 Roddy entered the familiar doors of the Golden Crown and looked about. The restaurant was quiet, as the usual lunchtime crowd was gone and staff had been dismissed until the evening dinner service. Only Maria remained, at her usual place behind the bar, with Klaus seated in front of it.

"Maria, Klaus... I'm glad I've found you both here. About yesterday. I, I was, that is, I wanted..."

Roddy hardly knew where to start. He was facing the two people in the world who should never want to see him again, and he had no idea what he could possibly say to them. He needn't have worried though; Maria was around the bar in a moment. She had known Roddy her entire life, and had never hugged him before, but she hugged him now.

"Roddy, we were so worried about you!" she told him, unwilling to let him go.

Roddy looked over Maria's shoulder to see Klaus, with a large purple bruise spread across his cheek. When Maria was finally willing to let him go, he approached the man.

"Klaus, I'm unbelievably sorry. I can't tell you..."

Klaus smiled, and shook hands with the old man. Then realizing this wasn't enough, he pulled him into a hug.

"It's okay, old friend!" Klaus told him. "We're just glad to see you're alright. It was also good to find out, I can still handle myself in a fight!"

Maria gave Klaus a sly smile, and took her place behind the bar. Roddy and Klaus sat across from her.

"Still, everything that happened," Roddy began. "You deserve an explanation, but..."

"The police came by this morning," Maria told him as his explanation faltered once again. "They said that you changed your story! That now you say those people, they were your friends."

 "The police?" said Roddy. "What did you tell them?"

"I told them that if you say there was no gun then I must have been mistaken," Maria told him. "I told them that you would know better than I. But Roddy, there was a gun. They held it on you. I saw it!"

"Yes, and I felt it," added Klaus as he lifted his hand to the back of his head. "Why would you defend those people?"

"It's... a long story," Roddy said with a twinge of guilt as he watched Klaus. "Over seventy years from start to finish, in fact. Some of it is difficult to explain, and most of it would be impossible to believe. I hope you can just trust me when I say, it truly is over."

"No, it is not!"

The three friends turned to the front door. There, standing in the entrance was a small, white-haired gypsy woman. She was no taller than five feet, but had a commanding presence that filled the room with a sense of great purpose.

"Can we help you?" Maria asked the old woman.

"Yes, and you will!" the woman (fore)told her.

"I'm sorry, but, do I know you?" Roddy asked, unable to place the woman but feeling some connection.

"Oh, Roddy," the woman said, looking at the younger man with disappointment. "This is awkward, isn't it? It must be difficult for you, all your old girlfriends showing up at the same time. But I had hoped our previous meeting would have been more memorable for you."

The pieces fell into place and Roddy rushed to the woman. "Zolfina!" he cried out as he held her.

"Girlfriends?" Maria whispered to Klaus with a smile.

"Who knew?" Klaus smiled back. "Just one more mystery, I suppose."

Roddy led Zolfina to a table and helped her to sit. "Roddy, I am surprised at you. You would tell your story to your friends, and yet you would leave out the part where you rescued the girl?"

"Did I?" he replied as he sat across from her. "And all this time, I thought it was you who rescued me!"

Roddy continued, "Zolfina, what happened to you? The next morning when I woke, you were gone. I looked for you, but I had no time; I had to report back to my unit. I wanted to thank you."

"To thank me?" said Zolfina with a wry smile. "Again? I thought that was what the previous evening had been all about!"

Maria and Klaus were listening intently from across the room. They glanced at each other as if to say, "Did you catch that?"

Roddy smiled. He looked at Zolfina, seeing past the elderly, white-haired woman who sat across from him, and instead remembering her long, jet-black hair, her deep, dark eyes, her flawless olivine skin, her enticing ruby lips.

"You used to be taller," he finally noted with a smile.

Zolfina laughed. "Oh Roddy, if this is the only difference you see then I am truly worried about you!"

"Why did you leave?" he needed to know.

Zolfina shrugged. "You had a life to live. As did I."

"And now? How did you find me, after all these years?" he asked.

Zolfina suddenly became very serious, and gestured for Klaus and Maria to join them. "I found you, because you need me. Roddy, I heard you tell your friends that your story is over. I am here to tell you that it is not! The Nazi woman may be gone, but she did not work alone."

"We would like to help," Maria said, looking across the table to see Klaus nod in agreement.

"Absolutely not," Roddy said automatically. "You don't even know what this is! I can't ask you to get involved."

"Get real, Roddy!" Zolfina scolded the man. "Look at us! You and me, alone? We need help! It doesn't take a gypsy fortune teller to know that. So say thank you and let's work out a plan!"

"So, we're all in?" Roddy asked around the table.

"All of us!" Klaus responded happily, smiling at Maria.

"Okay then!" said Zolfina, clapping her hands and rubbing them together. "Our first task is to get out of this room alive."

"Everybody freeze!" shouted Detective Miklos as he and Officer Dancescu entered the Golden Crown with guns drawn.