As the moon crept between buildings, she meandered back to the Orient, footsteps lonely on the cobblestones as she passed the old fire station. Originally constructed for horse carriages, it now housed older trucks and retro show ponies mostly reserved for parades and the rare First District blaze. So it startled her when the round garage door windows lit up like glowing eyes, glaring onto the empty Am Hof Square.
A cherry-red vintage fire truck peeled out, siren whining as it sped past and turned onto Tiefer Graben. The same way she was headed.
She quickened her pace to a run, rounding the corner as the clown-car-size fire truck screeched to a halt at the far end of the street.
In front of the stained-glass awning of the Hotel Orient.
— 17 —Siebzehn
It was Friday the thirteenth, his second day on the case, and Andreas was barely in the station before Beate jumped up from her chair to talkathim.
He recoiled, splashing coffee down his coat. “Hoppala!” he said, dabbing it with the paper bag holding Beate’s pastry. He’d eaten half of herMohnkipferlin the three-minute journey from bakery to station, which left poppy seeds stuck between his teeth. More sugar than he’d consumed in a year. For some inexplicable reason, Andreas had woken up feeling ravenous. The wax-paper bag made a lousy napkin, which seemed a swift but suitable punishment for his sins.
The coat was his spare, a gift from his mother intended for dressy occasions. But yesterday’s clothes smelled like spilled liquor and the sort of easy women who made life difficult. One in particular. He felt hungover, though he hadn’t drunk anything. His mind was muddy, every thought stained with red lipstick.
Afterthe incidentoutside the Loos Bar, he’d stopped by the station to log the victim’s wallet into evidence and sat with his paperwork under his desk lamp’s harsh blue LED, agonizing overthe entry for box 7B,Chain of Custody.He wasn’t keen to officially record the incident of unprovoked physical interaction that occurred with the Concierge. Nor to reveal to his colleagues that he could pick pockets.
It took him fifty-six minutes to complete box 7B.
He’d declared the wallet came from the Loos Bar, where the male victim had forgotten it. The statement was close to the truth but still far enough from it to make his skin itch.
After that, he’d returned to Floridsdorf and stared at the ceiling, ruminating aboutthe incident. He hadn’t slept. He rolled out of bed for a run at five. He’d made terrible time. So, good luck to any sorry sop who dared mention he looked tired today, because Andreas was feelingextraViennese.
He had a bad feeling about this day. But at least he had the identity of their male victim: David Goldfinch.
Beate waved her tablet in his face. “Top of my inbox this morning was a love letter from MA 68, and an initial report from the M.E.,” she said.
“MA 68? Why’s the fire department involved?” He curled his upper lip like a resentful local who’d spotted a tourist smiling too wide.
“Dr. Bell sent her preliminary autopsy report,” said Beate, passing him a tablet displaying the examiner’s findings.
“Already? It’s barely been a day.”
“She was up all night. It’s incomplete, but based on her initial findings, she called the fire department to check the Hotel for a carbon monoxide leak. It wasn’t just the red lighting in Room 5, the victims had bright-red blood in their veins. Which is evidently caused by two types of poison: carbon monoxide gas and cyanide. Fire brigade found nothing. So Dr. Bell ran the spec analysis herself and confirmed it was cyanide.”
“Achso,” he said, adjusting his glasses as he struggled to read and listen simultaneously. “But the female victim had a head wound, wasn’t that the cause of death?”
She continued. “Her head hit the towel rail. No signs of struggle. It quickened her death, but she’d have died regardless. Cyanide prevents your body from using oxygen, so you basically suffocate. It turns the blood in your veins candy-apple red. Looks like she got a full dose from her flask.”
He scanned the report. They’d found cyanide in Hedy’s stomach and on her lips. David’s lips too, though less. But his blood tests tagged a slew of substances: alcohol, barbiturates, muscle relaxants, and ketamine—a drug that made people compliant and induced memory loss. A growing favorite among Vienna’s club crowd and its criminal underground.
“David’s tox results are wild.”
“Exactly. Someone wanted him inebriated. What Dr. Bell can’t determine from the levels is if they wanted him dead. She’s testing the powder from Hedy’s makeup for ketamine. It didn’t match her skin tone, so it could be the source.”
“Oida, it’s like a game of toxic Russian roulette with those two.”
She swiped to the next report. “I asked digital forensics to run a background check on David Goldfinch. Sarah didn’t need to look him up, she recognized him. She’s not a fan.”
Beate swiped to a news report about David Goldfinch, CEO of a start-up called Glass House that was making waves. Andreas scanned the article, catching names of a few local politicians and the police commissioner.
“What does Glass House do? This article’s vague—security tech?” he asked.
“Sarah said it’s facial-recognition software for security cameras.”
“Wouldn’t that violate data protection laws?”
“It would. He was lobbying to change the laws so they could test his system in Vienna.”
