The Mazovia Legacy by Michael E. Rose Read Free Book Online

“I’m sorry.”
    â€œHe was a very old man, and the police say he drowned one night while getting into the bath.”
    Delaney knew from her eyes and from the ever so slight tremor around her lips that this was hard for her. He watched how she handled it.
    â€œThe police say,” he repeated.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you don’t buy that.”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œI see. And you would like me to help you find out what really happened to your uncle. Is that it? Investigative journalist, knows his way around the police stations, that sort of thing?” Delaney was surprised at how hard that sounded. “Do you think I might get a story out of it, is that it?” he asked.
    This sounded even worse. He didn’t bother trying to correct the impression he must be giving.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” Natalia said. “That would depend. But, no, I was wondering if you would perhaps just help me find out what happened.”
    â€œWhy would I do that?” he said, for some reason still wanting to appear cruel and uncaring. “Especially if there is no story in it.”
    â€œOh, I think there is a story in it,” she said. “But maybe not the kind you are used to. Not the kind you would use for your magazine. Or, no. Maybe not the kind I would want you to use for your magazine.”
    â€œSo why would I bother?” He wondered whether she would still want such a person to help her now.
    â€œBecause, and I know I shouldn’t mix my professional knowledge of you . . .”
    â€œSuch as it is.”
    â€œ. . . mix my professional knowledge of you with my own needs, but I know that you are experienced in these things, that you’ve travelled a lot, and you’ve been in difficult and complicated situations, and that despite all your defence mechanisms and your attempts this morning to make me think the contrary, I think you still have a curiosity . . .”
    â€œCuriosity,” Delaney repeated, smiling bitterly.
    â€œWell, perhaps that’s too silly a word. You have a desire to understand things and I think you are a kind person and, again I am being unprofessional in saying this because of what I learned about you some time ago, I think you may simply decide to help me because the opportunity presents itself and you are that sort of person and you are at that stage of your life.”
    â€œOh, please,” he said.“Do reasons for things have to be always complicated by all of that?”
    â€œWell, I don’t know then,” Natalia said. “I was just hoping you would be able to help me. That’s really all there is to say.”
    They sat quietly for a moment, considering the situation, several situations. For a moment, Delaney thought she might be about to get up and leave. But she continued to sit quietly on his couch, watching him watch her. He observed that the tremor was gone from her mouth, that her hands did not move at all as they lay in her lap. Whatever she was feeling was now not betrayed by her body movements. She is probably thinking the same thing about me, he thought.
    â€œWhy would anyone want to kill your uncle?” Delaney said suddenly.
    â€œThat’s what the police have asked me,” she said.
    â€œIt’s a natural question,” he replied. “The police ask the natural questions. Reporters may stay around to ask other ones.”
    â€œI don’t know who would want to murder him,” she said. “I have an intuition that someone did. And besides that, some things didn’t seem right at his house on the night I found him.
    â€œIt was you who found him,” Delaney said.
    â€œYes.”
    He considered this for a moment, knowing how hard that must have been for her, knowing what a drowned body looks like. He remembered watching a couple of distraught Nicaraguan mothers finding their sons floating in the river near the border with Honduras, in Contra