She shrugged. "Some Gypsies are meant to wander. I do believe it is in their blood."
"My wife and I have lived in the same Romanian town for more than fifteen years. We have a farm where we raise horses."
"Ah, but you're here now, aren't you?" Mary Baxter said. "I imagine this position with the Roma Rights Center keeps you away from home much of the time. It is your own form of wandering."
"It is a new thing for me. But I admit to being away frequently. Perhaps you are right. But I'm interested in this particular community. Is there anyone you know who resents the wall enough to shoot a police officer over it?"
"Many."
He gestured out the window toward the man with the dagger. "That one?"
"His name is Mathias. He is their protector and he takes the job seriously."
"Might he have killed the lieutenant?"
Mary Baxter shook her head. "That dagger is his weapon. I have never seen anyone on the block with a firearm."
He motioned toward the peeling paint. "This place needs work. The house at the end of the block is in much better shape."
"Rosetta Lacko. She has a husband and two fine children. They're not all that lucky. But I hope to find time to paint these walls while I'm here."
"Who lives upstairs?"
"Mathias."
"The one with the knife?"
"He doesn't worry me. Next year it'll be someone else."
"Why do you keep coming back?" Michael asked.
"Because the job is never finished, is it?"
"No," he agreed.
* * *
Mary Baxter prepared something for them to eat, and they talked into the evening hours. "Michael is an unusual name for a Rom," she observed.
"Not in Romania. I was named for their last king, deposed by the Communists after the war and still living in exile. We were ruled with an iron fist until recently."
"Sometimes I wish for a strong president here to keep the local police under control."
"I thought Václav Havel was a strong leader. He's highly regarded in other countries. Can't he control them?"
She shook her head. "Havel has lost much of his popularity with the Czech people. He seems to do nothing toward helping the Gypsies."
The conversation shifted to the murder of Lieutenant Lyrik, and who might have fired the fatal shot. "There aren't a great many men on the street," Michael observed. "Is there a tribal king?"
"The last one moved away. Rosetta's husband Bruno will probably replace him."
"Where does he work?"
"He has a booth at the fun fair on the outskirts of the city, one of those where you hit the target and win trinkets or stuffed animals. He should be home soon."
Michael glanced at his watch. "I must be going. I hadn't realized it was so late."
"Where will you stay?"
He smiled. "The Roma Rights Center arranged for a hotel room. I have two beds if you'd care to sleep in comfort for one night."
She smiled and shook her head. "It is a kind offer, but my place is here."
"When does Mathias return with his dagger?"
"When he's so drunk I have to help him upstairs to his bed."
"Before I leave, could you show me the upstairs apartment? The side facing the wall?"
"Follow me."
She snapped on the stairway light and led him up to Mathias's place. The door was unlocked, and as they entered Michael could smell the odor of beer and stale tobacco smoke. He stood at the window for a moment, trying to gauge the angle down to the wall in the center of Masarak Street. "I need more light," he decided. "Could I return in the morning?"
"Certainly. It may be our last day here if the police drive us out."
"You don't think Lyrik's killer will confess?"
"Whoever did it, he is not a Gypsy. He is not here."
Michael looked again at his watch. "I really must leave. I'll be back in the morning."
She saw him to the door and he headed down the street the way he had come, nodding to some of the Gypsy families lounging in front of their apartments. Though it was after nine o'clock, Rosetta's children were still practicing on their instruments and she was seated on the front steps. As he stopped to say hello, a well-built man with glasses and a moustache loomed up beside her. "Bruno," she said, "this is the man from the Roma Rights Center that I told you about."
"Bruno Lacko," he said, extending his hand to Michael. "Rosetta tells me you've come to help."
"If I can. Mary— Mrs. Autumn— tells me you're in charge here."
"When I can be. I work long hours for my family."
"What is the feeling among your people? Might one of them have killed Lieutenant Lyrik?"
"In a fair fight, certainly. No one on this block would have fired a rifle at him. No one owns a rifle that I'm aware of."
Michael nodded. "I'd like to return tomorrow and take some measurements from your upstairs window to the wall. Would that be all right?"
"Certainly, so long as you make it before the police deadline. We don't know what will happen then."
* * *
Michael slept well in the strange bed and ate breakfast at the hotel. As he retraced his route to Masarak Street he was aware of the police cars slowly circling the blocks. One of them came to a stop at a corner, blocking his route across a street. The window rolled down and Captain Mulheim peered out.
"I did not expect you to be here still, Gypsy. At six this evening Masarak Street will not be a safe place."
"I'm hoping I can help settle this matter before your deadline. Would it be possible for me to examine the lieutenant's body?"
Mulheim shook his head. "It was cremated this morning. He had no wife or close relatives."
"Captain, I ask that you consult with me before moving against those Gypsies."
"I can make no promises," he said, and the car window slid silently shut.
Michael continued on his way, aware that he was never out of sight of at least one patrol car. He entered Masarak Street from the other end, but the street showed little difference when approached from that direction. The first adult he saw was Mary Baxter, directing children into a small van that he guessed must function as a school bus.
"You've come back," she said.
"Of course. Are these children schooled by the state?"
"Not so they learn anything. I've managed to enroll them in a private school for half days. We have to provide our own transportation, but it's better than nothing."
Once the van pulled away from the curb, crowded to overflowing, she relaxed with a sigh. "I don't want them here this evening, in case there is violence. No one knows how serious the police are about evicting us."
"They're serious," he said, following her into the apartment. "If they are driven out, will you return to Ireland?"
"Not until Christmas, whatever happens. My husband—"
"Then there is a Mr. Autumn?"
She laughed. "Yes, there is. He teaches the autumn semester each year at Trinity College."
Michael stood by the front window, staring at the wall again. "Would you happen to have a ball of string or twine?"
"I think there's one in the kitchen. I'll get it."
She returned with it and they went upstairs together. "Is Mathias still here?" he asked quietly.
She nodded. "He came in late, and drunk as usual. He'll still be sleeping."
He followed her inside and opened the parlor window. They were just about opposite the spot where Lyrik had been shot. Hefting the ball of twine about the size of his fist, he said, "I'll see how my pitching arm is." Holding one end, he threw the ball out the window, aiming for the other side of the wall. Leaving a trail of twine as it unwound, the ball just cleared the seven-foot wall.
"What's all this?" a voice growled behind them.
It was Mathias, wearing a dirty nightshirt, his tall hulk filling the bedroom doorway. He had the dagger in his hand, as if facing some threatening intruder, but Mary quickly disarmed him. "You met Michael yesterday, Mathias," she reminded him. "He is trying to find out who killed the police officer."
He grumbled something but returned to his bedroom. "Here," Michael said, handing the end of the twine to Mary. "Hold this while I go around to the other side of the wall."
He then hurried downstairs and circled the end of the wall to the other side. About halfway along he found the ball of twine, much reduced in size. He pulled it taut so that it just cleared the top of the seven-foot wall. If the fatal shot had been fired from Mathias's apartment, or any of the other second-floor rooms in mid block, this was the path it would have taken. Michael had been standing right next to the victim, and he remembered holding out his hand to touch the wall. They'd been thirty inches away from that wall, probably a bit less.
But that close to the wall, the fatal shot would have passed nearly a foot over their heads. Any lower and it wouldn't have cleared the wall at all. It was a simple matter of geometry. The wall was too high.
Michael backed up until he could see Mary Baxter in the apartment window, holding the end of the twine. He knew a high-powered rifle can be accurate at a distance of a mile or more, but there were no taller buildings even at that distance. There was nothing but sky, gray with the threat of approaching rain.
He tried reexamining the facts. There'd been the sound of a distant rifle shot and Lieutenant Lyrik had fallen dead. The fatal bullet could not have come from in front of him because of the height of the wall, but Sergeant Cista was behind them. Could he have killed his superior with a pistol shot?
No, because Lyrik was facing the wall at the time. There'd been no blood on the back of his head, only on the front, where he'd been hit over the right eye. Michael turned to the right, looking over the wall at the last house. It had been the first house when he entered the street the previous day, Rosetta and Bruno Lacko's apartment, with its empty second floor.
He tossed the ball of twine over the wall and walked around to retrieve it. "Drop the end," he called up to Mary. "I want to try it again down the block at Rosetta's place."
The children were at school but Michael found Rosetta hanging out the wash. Bruno was in the small kitchen, preparing to go off to his job at the fun fair. "What will you do with that ball of twine?" the man asked.
"I'm trying to determine where the fatal shot might have come from. I ran a line from Mary Baxter's second floor over the top of the wall where Lyrik was standing. Now I want to try it from here."
Bruno Lacko nodded. "I must go," he called to his wife. "I will return before five."
Rosetta came in with her wash basket. "He doesn't want me alone if Captain Mulheim makes good on his threat."
"He cares about you," Michael said.
"He cares about all of us. Too much, I fear. If the police come as they threaten, Bruno will be standing in front of them, blocking their path. I worry about what will happen then."
Upstairs, in the empty apartment, he opened the window next to the broken one and hurled his ball of twine again, aiming down the street toward the center of the wall. This time his aim was a bit short. It hit the wall and came down on their side. "I'll go get it and throw it over," Rosetta said. "Stay here and hold the end. You can tell me where to put it."
He agreed and stood by the window with the end held firmly in hand. Out in the street, Rosetta hurried to pick up the end and then flipped it over the wall. He saw at once that she had not thrown it far enough along for a proper measurement and he sought out a way to help her. The end of the twine could be tied to something in the empty apartment and he could join her at the wall. But what?
He opened a closet door, thinking that even a clothes hook might serve as an anchor, and that was when he found it. A rifle, standing in the corner.
* * *
Rosetta watched him approach her with a grim expression written on his face. "I tied the twine to a hook in the closet," he told her. "I found something there."
"What do you mean."
"A rifle. Is it your husband's?"
She shook her head, confused. "Bruno never goes up there. Only the boys use it, for their practice."
"Could one of them, Josef perhaps, have fired the rifle? Is that how the window was broken?"
"That window was broken by a rock hurled by one of the boys across the street, before they put up the wall to protect them from us." She handed him the end of the twine. "Do your measurements. Tell me if a bullet from our rifle could have killed Lieutenant Lyrik."
