The Memorist (27 page)

Thursday, May 1
^st
—11:22 a.m.

S
tanding across the street from the police station at Deutschmeisterplatz 3 on the busy Schottenring, Malachai weighed his options. He didn’t know what to do and that wasn’t a feeling he was used to. All he knew was that there was no way he could conduct a proper search for either Meer or Jeremy by himself. Not in a foreign country where he barely spoke the language. And there was no time to hire anyone. There was too much at stake to risk anything but a full-out effort with the local authorities. There were simply too many questions he didn’t have answers to.

Who else knew that Meer found the flute yesterday? And Jeremy? What had happened to his friend? Had he found out Meer was missing and checked himself out of the hospital to try to find her? He’d do anything to save his daughter; endangering himself wouldn’t be of any consequence. But who had he called? The nurse said he’d left with a man. Maybe Sebastian? But Sebastian wasn’t answering his cell phone.

Despite the traffic, few car horns honked and the
morning was deceptively lovely. There were red and purple flowers in the pots in front of the clothing store next to the station house. On the other side of the street the early nineteenth century building showed off a sculptured frieze of Pan playing his pipe.

Everywhere in Vienna there were monuments to music. This particular one being on this particular corner would seem to be a coincidence to anyone else but not to him. He’d spent the last thirty years refuting coincidences.

If he didn’t walk across the street and through the large glass doors to file a report, he could be endangering both Jeremy’s and Meer’s lives. That they were
both
missing couldn’t be chance. But by making the report he would certainly be opening himself up to scrutiny he didn’t want. The circumstantial evidence would be against him yet again. It didn’t take a leap of imagination to construct the argument the FBI and Interpol would make: for the second time in less than a year an ancient artifact worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that could challenge the belief systems of millions of people and many scientific precepts had been stolen, and Malachai Samuels was not only at the scene of the crime again but was also a close friend of the missing persons involved.

Except weren’t there hundreds of people who would want the item besides him? He could name several himself. It wasn’t about money for Malachai and he doubted it was about money for whoever else was involved at this point. He knew the limits of his own conscience, but how far would the board of directors of the Memorist Society go to get the flute?

How badly did Fremont Brecht want to prove reincarnation? Last night he said he’d hired someone to find the gaming box but his contacts hadn’t been able to locate it
yet. Was he lying? Had he found out that Meer had discovered the flute? Had he kidnapped her?

How desperate was Dr. Erika Alderman to prove the potential of binaural beats?

She’d been studying the idea of harmonic resonance for the last thirty years. He’d seen determination flare in her eyes last night when she talked about proving her theories and establishing her place in the scientific community.

And for all Malachai knew there were other Memorists he hadn’t met who coveted the flute. Certainly by now there were dozens of people who would know what he’d known all along: if there was any chance of the flute and the memory song being found, Meer Logan would be instrumental in that discovery. Conversely, if anything happened to her, any chances for access to the flute would disappear.

In his life, the opportunity to actually prove the existence of reincarnation would not come that many times. It had already slipped out of his grasp once. He couldn’t allow it to happen again. But willingly talking to the police?

He imagined Detective Barry Branch back at home smiling smugly at hearing the news. The baby-faced member of New York’s Finest who’d been the investigating officer on the memory stones case from the beginning would reopen that case, and Malachai would be under intense investigation once again. Except there was no evidence to use against him. None found to date. None that they would ever find.

The steel handle was cold to the touch and the glass door was heavier than he expected. Inside there was so much activity no one even noticed him until he’d been standing at the front desk more than five minutes. Finally, the officer on duty turned to him and, in rudimentary German,
Malachai explained that he needed to talk to an inspector who could speak English.

Waiting on an uncomfortable wooden bench, Malachai pulled out a deck of cards and shuffled them, letting the slapping sound soothe him. Not paying attention to how many times he performed the activity, he went over and over what he would tell the police and what he’d keep to himself. It was important to be prepared and only give as much information as necessary.

The story he’d offer was that he’d come to Vienna to meet with his old friend Jeremy Logan and inspect the treasure Logan had found. As head of the Phoenix Foundation he had many reasons to do that.

The cards moved so quickly they blurred.

Maybe he shouldn’t stay. He wasn’t used to vacillating and was annoyed with himself that he was second-guessing his decision. Besides, having come this far, if he didn’t report Jeremy and Meer as missing and left now, it would be even more suspicious; he’d already given his name to the officer on duty. Clumsily he mixed the deck and the cards flew out of his hand and spilled onto the floor. The last thing he wanted to do was get down on his hands and knees and pick them up, but the only alternative was to leave them there like litter.

“Dr. Samuels? I’m Inspector Kalfus. You asked for someone who could speak English. How may I help you?”

Thursday, May 1
^st
—11:26 a.m.

W
ipers swept back and forth on the taxi’s windshield, sluicing away the steady rain. Meer’s hands were clasped together so tightly she hurt herself. Nothing about the trip so far felt familiar until the driver turned the corner on to Engerthstrasse and up ahead, through the rain, she saw the stone columns of the Toller Archäologiegesellschaft.

Walking up the steps to the Memorist Society’s building, she saw a bright yellow sign affixed to the gate—it showed the symbol of a door with a large X through it. Despite the obvious
do not enter
warning and the fact that the Society didn’t open till after noon, Meer pressed the doorbell.

Thirty seconds passed. She pounded on the door. Sixty. She rang the bell again. Ninety seconds. Leaving her finger on the buzzer, Meer wondered how Sebastian knew where her father was. And why had Jeremy left the hospital if he needed a procedure? Would she and Sebastian find him in time? Her mind had been churning the same questions since she’d run out of the hotel.

Why wasn’t someone answering the door?

Suddenly a sickening thought occurred to her: she didn’t know Sebastian’s handwriting. Maybe the note wasn’t from him at all. What if the people who attacked her in the woods and knocked Sebastian out, who were probably responsible for stealing the Beethoven letter and the gaming box and for Ruth’s and Dr. Smettering’s deaths, were behind this ruse too? Maybe they had Sebastian and her father and the flute.

A creaking hinge alerted her as the door opened quickly, and before she could protest or look to see who it was an arm reached out and grabbed her, pulling her inside into a dark, shadowy foyer.

“Thank God it’s you. Is my father here?” she blurted out as soon as she saw that it was Sebastian.

“Yes.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yes, I’ll take you to him.”

Meer was skeptical.

“You’re sure he’s all right.”

“Meer, he’s fine. I promise.” He looked right at her and she felt safe and then instantly frightened as if she were hearing two different beats, one in each ear.

“He’s this way.” He gestured to the gloomy interior and she followed him inside.

“The flute’s missing, Sebastian. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all? Yes?”

As they passed into the main room where it was even darker, Meer’s anxiety increased. The first time she’d come here with her father she’d had a toxic reaction; the air was rife with affliction and tragedy on Monday and it was worse today, so thick she thought she might choke on it.

“The flute’s safe. I’d never let anything happen to it.” His words echoed along with their footsteps on the marble floor.

“I don’t understand…why did you take it? And why did you leave without telling me?”

“There was no time to waste. I’m sorry about this. About everything.” There was so much pathos in his voice it broke through the alarm she was feeling.

As they left the inner sanctum and kept walking, Meer asked him why there was a no-entry sign outside the building.

“The majordomo received a call this morning that there might be a gas leak in the sub-basement so he alerted the staff and told them not to come in until notified.”

“There’s a gas leak and my father’s here?”

“I told you, he’s fine.”

They’d reached a large oak door that Sebastian held open for her. Stepping into the book-lined library she spun around, looking for Jeremy but saw only empty chairs, yards of carved wooden shelves, intricately patterned carpets, a suite of stained-glass windows.

“Where is he?”

“This way.” In the corner he flung open another door, revealing a small walk-in closet. Cartons were stacked at one end, double shelves lined the opposite wall. As he reached out Meer knew even before he did it that he was reaching for a hidden handle, and when a section of the wall swung out, she rushed to the access and looked down into a gaping black hole, smelling a surge of damp, dank air.

She knew this place. Remembering the cloaked entrance and the details of what lay beyond it, she was lost for a minute between now and then and tried to grab hold of a tangible memory.

“We’re going down into the catacombs, aren’t we? Why?”

“All the Society’s valuables are down there…all the
historical papers,” he explained as he pulled a cord illuminating a deep descending spiral staircase and she hurried down the same staircase she’d seen in a memory lurch. Meer’s shivering started with sudden intensity and she had to put her finger between her teeth to stop them from chattering. Remaining in the present was urgent; she couldn’t allow memory to overtake her now.

Eight, nine, she couldn’t keep herself from counting the steps. Eleven, twelve…there were going to be fifteen steps, she thought, and yes, the fifteenth step was the last.

Sebastian flicked another switch. Weak light showed the way through a twisting tunnel. Hearing rustling, she spun around.

“Just mice, they scamper when they hear movement,” he said. “It’s not much farther, I promise.” The kindness and sympathy in his voice reached out to comfort her, but nothing except seeing her father would alleviate her anxiety.

Proceeding through the low-ceilinged passageway, she noticed niches carved into the stone walls, each containing a dusty skeleton but she wasn’t shocked. She remembered them, anticipated them, from Margaux’s journey down here. They’d looked at her with their eyeless, unwelcoming stares before.

Up ahead she saw footprints in the dirt. Three sets. Not all were going in the same direction. She remembered, from that distant morass of confused images and ideas, that there was an exit down here.

“Be careful you don’t slip, it’s muddy,” Sebastian said considerately, altering the distance between centuries. “We’re here,” he announced as they came around a last turn.

The vault room, barricaded like a prison cell with iron bars, stood at the end of this hallway. Inside a bare bulb de
scended from an ugly black cord that twisted down like a snake hanging from the ceiling and shed its harsh light on her father, sitting on the floor, his back up against the wall.

Thursday, May 1
^st
—11:31 a.m.

“T
hank God.” Jeremy Logan was enormously relieved to see Meer and Sebastian. His voice was weak and he was pale; there was no doubt her father was unwell.

“Meer, did they hurt you?”

“They? No. I’m fine but you should be in the hospital. Are you hurt?” She turned to Sebastian. “How are we going to get him out of here?”

He held up a key: old and worn and made of brass. Like so many other things related to this place, it looked familiar. “I have the key,” Sebastian said. “I was on my way down here when you rang the bell. Meer, you can stop worrying now. Everything is going to be fine.”

Meer took a breath, tried to relax. It was all going to be fine now that she and Sebastian were there.

Sebastian swung the cell open and Meer rushed inside to help her father, who had stood up but seemed to be shaky on his feet. Jeremy opened his arms to hug her and even though his grasp was weak, it reassured her that she’d
found him in time. He really was all right. They could get him to the hospital now.

Jeremy looked over the top of her head to Sebastian. “What happened to you?” he asked, concerned. “Did they hurt you? I can’t remember anything after—”

“Dad, how did you get here?” Meer interrupted.

“Sebastian came to the hospital this morning and said you’d been tricked into coming here, thinking I was here and in danger but that it was a trap and that you were the one in danger. We rushed over together and almost as soon as we walked into the building I was knocked out. When I came to I was locked in this damn cell, not knowing where you were or what I could do to find you.”

Meer’s shivering resumed as she desperately tried to make sense of what he was telling her and comprehend its implications. Without looking for it, her father found her crescent-shaped scar and he rubbed her back.

“You took my father from the hospital.” Meer spun around and accused Sebastian. “Even though he’s scheduled for a procedure today you brought him here and endangered his life? What made you think I was in trouble? I don’t understand.”

“You haven’t been here all along?” Jeremy asked Meer. Now he too was confused.

“No, I was at the hotel when—”

The sound of the iron door closing shocked Meer into silence and the click of the key turning in the lock punctuated the moment. Meer and Jeremy looked away from each other and through the bars at Sebastian, standing on the other side of the cell.