continue our discussion. Ten. Same place.” Damek said nothing. He heard only the caller’s shallow breathing, then dead air.
The officer handed the man’s ID to Cerný, who in turn pressed it into Dal’s hand without a word. Damek glanced down at the official government-issued ID, then at the body, matching the victim’s face with the photo of a jowly middle-aged man, aware of how easily one could be stripped of power, control, and dignity. Again his eyes met Cerný’s, and once more he read the old detective’s thoughts.
Seven days in, and Damek had been handed his first high-profile case as chief of homicide. Once more, he scanned the square, then stared up at the clock, the signs of the zodiac on the face of the tower. He’d come here to the Staromestské námesti, the Old Town Square, often with Karla when they were young, after the revolution, then with Petr, particularly for the holidays. During the Christmas season and again for Easter, the square overflowed with vendors and festivities. Easter, just two weeks away. The traditional beginning of the tourist season.
The unseen apostles remained silent and still, high in the tower, enclosed within the intricacies of the ancient mechanical device, hidden behind the star-dappled doors, as if they were the gates to paradise. Damek knew how it would all begin. The knell to mark each hour. The sliding doors opening to reveal the turning figures, the apostles’ procession. Below this parade of saints, four figures of stone stood without motion, poised for what was to come. Vanity held a mirror. Greed grasped a bag of gold. Death stood to the right, along with Sloth, two more figures for symmetry. Death, a form devoid of flesh and heart. Mere bones. In the left hand he grasped a rope, prepared to pull; in the right hand, the hourglass ready to turn. The sand would slip slowly, each sifting grain a reminder of time running out.
In myths and legends, Death stalked at midnight. Damek looked to the east, spires of the city visible in the early pink glow of dawn. In Prague, Death danced with delight after daybreak, performing each hour for tourists and visitors gathered in the square. This morning the esteemed Senator Jaroslav Zajic had been invited to join the show.
• 3 •
Two days after Easter
She traveled alone. Unnoticed. A woman, neither young nor old. Neither beautiful nor plain. Perhaps a woman with a secret, something hidden. Yet, if one were to look deeply, sorrow, rather than secrets, might be revealed. A grief she wished to share with no one. And so, each year, she left, arranging her schedule around the Easter holiday, leaving behind laptop, cell phone, any thread of connection to home, choosing destinations where she was unlikely to encounter anyone she knew. Dana Pierson wished to be alone, to disappear into the crowds.
She gazed out the airplane window at a vast expanse, wishing for a moment she could become part of it, then stared down at the open novel on her lap, realizing she’d read a full page, unaware of a single word. It wasn’t the type of book she’d normally pick up at home—an improbable mystery requiring little thought, silly and complicated at the same time, a book she may or may not finish and would probably leave in the hotel room for the next guest.
She’d spent a week in Rome and was now flying to Prague where she planned to visit her cousin, an exception to the solitude of her spring escape, though by virtue of Caroline’s life choice the two women would have little time together. Dana heard her brother Ben admonishing her, “Better with those who love you. You must know we are here for you.”
Caroline hadn’t been there. She’d sent a letter. Filled with words, attempting comfort. Dana hadn’t seen her in years. At one time they were very close. Then something changed, and Caroline had made a momentous decision that Dana had never understood.
Her thoughts turned to a gloomy November almost twenty years earlier, a