Nocturnes Read online

“Yes. It seems that he was only a few months from succumbing to throat cancer. He probably knew his time was short. The morphine must have offered a combination of escapes…from the pain, and from the reality of his condition.”

  They had returned to the lobby. The coroner was shaking his head. “Unfortunately, he is just one of many such stories around here. He won’t even be missed. Well. I wish you luck in locating your brother, Mr. Stratton. Good afternoon.”

  Isaac had kept the taxi waiting, and his bags were in it.

  “Take me to the airport,” he said to the back of the driver’s head.

  He had anticipated something strange…almost a premonition. He had packed and made reservations on the next flight to Atlanta. This was a detour from his assignment, but he would only need a day there to wrap this up…whatever this was. Either there were similarities in the two deaths, or there weren’t. He would give the matter just that much attention and no more. But that much was necessary if he was going to exorcise the nagging demons of his conscience.

  Another call from a “concerned relative” got him access to Jane Doe’s file, all that was left of her. One of several receptionists in the coroner’s office pulled the particular Jane from the particular day in question and, without the slightest inquiry, handed the slender file over to him. He took a seat in the barren lobby and opened the folder to the two-page autopsy and coroner’s report.

  He read it through three times, then set it on the seat beside him. A tingling sensation started somewhere behind his eyes and spread rapidly to the base of his skull. This was not real. He was having a dream. The tingling ran like electric wires down both of his arms, straight through to each fingertip. A secretary coughed behind the counter. A phone was ringing.

  It was a replay of the case in St. Louis, just a different potentially-fatal disease robbed of the chance to finish her off. Leukemia. And morphine.

  He rose and returned the file to the receptionist, then walked stiffly to the exit and out onto the busy street. For several minutes he stood, blinking against the sun before returning to the counter and asking for a phone. He called a cab and went directly to the same hotel from which he had started upon this odyssey. In his room, he downed four quick shots of brandy and stretched out on the bed to think.

  “Now what?” he asked himself pointedly. “Do I call the police? Excuse me, officer, but I was walking in Piedmont Park after dark and noticed a rather suspicious character. I believe he may have had something to do with the death of that homeless lady.”

  “Is that so? You were walking in the park after dark, saw a strange person and a homeless lady that you know was dead the next day? We’ll check right into that, Mr…uh, what was your name again, sir?”

  Probably not a great idea. Not yet, anyway. Better to do just a little more research on the subject. Then perhaps an anonymous call with all the facts laid out for the authorities. That seemed like an acceptable solution. He rolled onto his side, turned off the bedside lamp, and waited for sleep.

  The next day he returned to the coroner’s office, dealt with a different clerk, and used his real name and credentials to gain access to five years’ worth of Jane and John Doe files. To the “why do you need this stuff?” question, he simply replied that he was conducting some research for a possible article on the homeless, and needed some baseline data that might indicate dietary habits, life expectancy, causes of death, etc.

  He copied everything before returning to St. Louis that evening, where he repeated his request at that coroner’s office the following day.

  *

  Files and photocopies were scattered about the suite. Before he examined any of them, he ordered a bottle of Secco-Bertani, ran a hot bath, and eased into the steaming tub to open the pores of his heart and mind to the problem before him. He had felt from the beginning that Lessa was somehow exerting a kind of psychic influence in this affair. He was not going to close his mind to that possibility. Rather, he would try even harder to tap in to her love and compassion. He would need her help to look bravely and objectively upon those files.

  He took a long, fulfilling draw of the elegant wine and closed his eyes…soft cherries and strawberries, caressed by a firm acidity. Lovely. He took the mental notes for his travel piece, then cleared the present from his mind and allowed his thoughts to carry him back. Back through the smoke and thunder of his pain…and back, slowly. Until, at last, he could part the heavy, dark curtain that he kept sealed against Warsaw.

  He and Lessa were at a popular night spot in the Stare Miasto, old Warsaw. It was a gay evening, warm and alive with stars. They were out with a group of friends: the young, the brave, and the creative heart of the city. They were dancing, and raising glasses to their esoteric little society.

  Josef Griter, a longtime admirer and would-be lover of Lessa’s, had just completed a satirical speech on the morally-enlightening qualities of Scotch whisky. Isaac took Lessa’s hand and led her out to dance. With his arms safely around her, Lessa was able to let go of the last wisps of the anxiety that had clouded her days of late. Isaac felt her relax into him and marveled again at how well they fit together.

  “Josef will probably go to his grave carrying your heart on his sleeve,” he said casually.

  “Isaac. You exaggerate. Josef likes the idea of love more than he likes the work required to sustain it. He’s too sentimental. And he admires every woman he knows he can never have. But he doesn’t care for me any more than he cares for Sarah, or Judith. Besides, he loves you like a brother.”

  “Perhaps. But he would certainly jump at the opportunity to love you like more than a sister.”

  “You’re jealous,” she laughed against his shoulder.

  “Of course I am. It goes with the territory of loving the most beautiful fish in the sea. One is always looking out for hungry sharks.”

  She squeezed his hand as they laughed some more, and laid her head against his chest. This was where she belonged. Her home was right here. And everyone who saw them together knew it. The song ended and they returned to the crowded table.

  “Oh, Lessa! You’ve returned in the very nick of time.” Josef took her hand from Isaac’s and led her to the head of the table, explaining, “Karl has been driving the spikes of his alleged poetry into our ears, and we need you to soothe our fevered brains with something cool and embraceable. Ladies and, ahem, gentlemen,” he shouted above the din at the table, “I give you the most lovely, the most talented, and temporarily the most obscure poet in all of Poland: Lessa Frankle! Or should that be ‘Bloom’?” He winked knowingly at Isaac as the group applauded and whistled.

  Lessa smiled and looked at each of her friends in turn. “These are the best of times,” she thought. “But they cannot last.”

  She pushed the troubling whispers aside and addressed the table.

  “You honor me with your enthusiasm. And Isaac has promised me that the ones who whistled will be entitled to a little extra over what was discussed.”

  Isaac pretended to reach for his wallet as everyone whistled in unison.

  “I’m afraid that I have nothing new to share with you. I am working on some new pieces now, but they won’t be finished for a while…”

  The exaggerated agony of their pleas assailed her. “Anything, Lessa! Recite one of your lullabies.”

  She laughed. A luxurious and rich low-note melody. To Isaac, her laughter was her greatest lullaby.

  She was enjoying herself, and smiled at them all again.

  “All right, then. A lullaby for my sleepy friends.

  As you fall to sleep now,

  Remember to dream.

  The night is not as long

  As at first it seems.

  The daylight needs its rest as well.

  So use these hours between the suns

  To laugh and sing in a sweet-dream spell.

  Love finds its courager />
  In the shadows and shade,

  Where it meets the monsters

  That our selves have made.

  But I will be here

  When you’ve journeyed through.

  (From the loving womb,

  To the powerless tomb)

  My candle burns all night for you.”

  They applauded furiously, offering her imaginary garlands and awards. A hasty crown was fashioned from a napkin and placed upon her head. Isaac burned with love. She walked quickly to his end of the table and sat next to him. He kissed her ear.

  “Have I mentioned that I love you?”

  She looked into the fountain-brightness of his eyes.

  “Oh, Isaac. You tell me in all the words you speak and in all the things you do. And you give me such courage.”

  She squeezed his hand hard. The two of them sat there, but somewhere else, as the Warsaw night played out around them.

  There were more drinks and more stories, and the talk gradually turned from the lightness of lullabies to the heavy rhythms of Germany and Hitler.

  Karl had gotten a little drunk, and was speaking with too much fervor, too much false bravado, as though he would rally all of Poland to his words.

  “Hitler’s eyes rattle around in his head like the roulette balls at the casino. Where will they land? Italy? Austria…Poland? Not Poland, my friends. Poland will fight! But Austria will roll over like a kicked dog. That is where the little madman will go to expand his beloved Bavaria.”

  “Poland may well put up some resistance. But it won’t be for or about you, dear Karl.” Patrik joined in after not saying two words to anyone except Judith all night. “You are not a Pol to the Pols. You are a bargaining chip. To be used if the madman becomes bored with the stakes and wants to play a different kind of game.”

  Karl’s eyes shifted nervously about the group, seeking some support. Patrik was the understated voice of brutal truth, and Karl still preferred the comfort of lies.

  “Game? You speak of games. But I am a Pol. My family helped build this city. We are, all of us, Pols together. And we will stand shoulder to shoulder against Hitler’s ambitions.”

  Patrik stood and gathered his things and the hand of Judith, then looked at Karl as he passed from the group. “You are a Jew, Karl. You will believe what you must so that you can sleep at night. But don’t sleep too soundly, brother. The wolves are on the prowl.”

  Patrick and Judith departed as Karl turned his pleas on the remaining clique. Lessa grabbed at Isaac’s arm, layers of panic in her eyes.

  “Take me home, Isaac. I’ve heard all of this over and over again. It’s everywhere we go.”

  Isaac had seen this fear in her before. He knew better than to try to assuage it in the middle of someone else’s discourse on the subject. He rounded up their things and they slipped out, unnoticed by all except Josef.

  He put his arms around her as they walked away from the crowds and the noise. As he had so often in the recent past, he set about the task of comforting her against her dismay.

  “It is all a bunch of gossip and empty talk, Lessa. No one takes Hitler as seriously as they pretend to. He makes for great conversation, but he isn’t a monster.”

  “I fear that is exactly what he is. He is the entire topic of discussion at the university. His speeches are passed around and read aloud in the halls. He even has supporters right here in Warsaw. His speeches scare me, Isaac. I want to leave Warsaw. I want us to go from here together. There is a darkness gathering that the human race has not yet imagined.”

  “Lessa! You have allowed nightmares into your head that have no basis in fact. Besides, where would we go? Our families, our friends, and our work are all here. This has been the home of our families for generations. It makes no sense to run from someone’s words.”

  “It does if those words are applauded by an entire nation.” She stopped and turned to face him squarely. “He has his country believing in the things he says. He could tell them that the moon was green and they would listen. He has revived their national pride and honor at the expense of several scapegoats, including our own people. And he has the army and industrial base to go wherever and whenever he wants. He terrifies me. I have the most horrible dreams.”

  He put his arms around her again, drew her close, and once more felt the tension leave her. Somewhere up the street a lonely violin was weeping Albinoni’s Adagio, and they began to move together, slowly. Few people passed them at this hour, and he waltzed her up the street to her father’s house. She was calm again, and smiling.

  “Love finds its courage in the shadows and shade,” he reminded her. “Sing yourself to sleep, my beauty. My candle is burning for you. I will see you in the morning.”

  He kissed her hungrily and felt her body sigh.

  “Goodnight, Isaac,” she murmured into his mouth.

  “Goodnight, Lessa,” he murmured back.

  The bittersweet memory caught in the little whirlpool over the tub’s drain and went round and round, finally disappearing. He had relived that night a thousand times. And at the zenith of her need he had changed it all…changing history. He had taken her in his arms and whispered fiercely, “Yes. Gather your things and we will go. If we are wrong, we will laugh at ourselves. And we can tell our children how foolish we were. It will be a humorous memory to grow old with.”

  But he hadn’t changed history. He hadn’t fled with her. And his memories were all that was left of Lessa. Memories rich with the attendant anguish of his failure.

  He was a tired old man alone in the tub with his swirling troubles, a troubling task before him. He stood up and grabbed a towel, then walked back into the suite to begin.

  Chapter Three

  Five hours later, the phone interrupted his immersion in homeless mortality. It was his editor.

  “For God’s sake, Isaac, it’s been a major bitch tracking you down! What are you still doing in St. Louis? You were supposed to be in Baton Rouge two days ago. You’re going to have to hustle now because the deadline has been moved up by three days. Are you catching this, Isaac? Isaac?”

  “And good evening to you, Adam. Yes, I am quite well, thank you for asking. I will leave for Baton Rouge tonight. And I will finish the piece on time, as usual. Not to worry. Bon soir, Adam.”

  He hung up with the editor’s strangled reply choking to escape the mouthpiece.

  Baton Rouge was a distraction to him right now. There was a subtle but startling pattern in those files, too much to cite coincidence. He had little faith in coincidence anyway. It seemed certain that someone was killing homeless people in Atlanta and St. Louis. The pattern dated back to the beginning of the five-year period that he had access to. One or two people, always afflicted with life-threatening illness, and morphine. It maintained a cycle that repeated itself at roughly-annual intervals.

  It was easy to see why the authorities hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The police, when they bothered at all, only dealt with the homeless in their own towns. They would be oblivious to similar deaths in other parts of the country. And, after all, they were homeless people. There was no one to miss them. No one to demand an answer to suspicious questions. What was suspicious about unhealthy drug users living on the streets, anyway? For someone who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake, this was an almost perfect paradigm.

  In fact, there really was little reason for alarm. Not officially. If he hadn’t had the disquieting encounter with the stranger in Atlanta, even he would have put this matter to bed days ago. But it was undeniable. There was something sinister and purposeful about that man. Wasn’t there?

  Or was it him? An old man, who had witnessed too much horror, jumping at shadows?

  He had to slow down and think rationally. Perhaps Baton Rouge wasn’t a distraction after all. If there was a pattern in the two cities he had already visited, it was possible that the patt
ern was in place elsewhere…in other southern cities.

  Whatever the case, he would certainly need more information before he approached anyone else with his discoveries. If he was wrong, there was a world of implication for his future that he didn’t care to think about.

  “Come on, Lessa. Let’s go see if our phantom has been busy in Baton Rouge…”

  *

  “Good evening, Mr. Bloom, we’ve been expecting you. How was your flight?”

  “Uneventful, Thom. My favorite kind. How have you and your family been getting on since I saw you last? That must be five or six years now.”

  “Just fine, sir. Thank you for asking. What can we do to make your stay more comfortable? Still fond of old Gevrey-Chambertins?” The concierge asked with a wry smile.

  “I am still Chambertin’s slave, Thom. Please have a bottle of the ’85 sent up, and some chèvre. I’ll order some dinner after I have settled in. And I’ll need a taxi at ten in the morning. Thank you.”

  He made himself comfortable in his room. When the wine arrived, he poured a tall glass and turned the suite’s stereo up, loud. It was Delibes, Lakme. Sensual, powerful, and thoroughly revitalizing.

  “Well, Lessa,” he spoke softly, “what do you think of this situation? Your husband can now add criminal detective to his resume. That is, if he should ever seek some honest labor.”

  He rose and began to walk around the four rooms of his suite, talking to her as he wandered.

  “Why would anyone want to kill these people? Of all the victims to choose, these have the least to offer. Nothing at all for anyone to envy or lust after. Is it because they use drugs? Is someone killing them with their own poison…as some sort of revenge? And how did I get involved?”

  Now there was a sixty-four dollar question. The man who didn’t even pause for conversation on the streets of his own neighborhood was suddenly playing Sherlock Holmes halfway across the country.

  But he had to admit, morbid circumstances aside, that he felt more vital and alive than he had in many years. Still, he wasn’t going to get any more involved than was absolutely necessary. He would gather what information he could as discreetly as he could, confirm his theories as well as possible, and turn the entire matter over to the police.