The Tatra Conspiracy

By Stephen P. Matava

The mystery begins in the winter of 1921 when a beautiful young girl is found strangled in the foothills of the High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. There was a clearing in the first hill of the mountains where the young couples would gather.

The young lady was from the village of Rusbashy. The town was divided into two villages with the Poprad River ran between them. She was from the northern part of town where the poorer people lived. The southern part of town was where most of the people lived. It contained the town hall and most of the shops.

There was no police force in the northern end of town so the people asked a young man by the name of Andre if he would find out what was going on. Andre owned a small horse farm and he had two men working for him so he agreed and took over the investigation. He had no training, but he took on the task and through trial and error, he hoped to bring the killer to justice.

When he ran out of suspects, there was another murder and then a third one. The town's people were frightened because they feared there was a serial killer on the loose and any help they would give Andre would bring the wrath of the murderers down on them.

We explore the life in the small town in Slovakia where our hero is torn between the duties on the farm and his investigation into the crime around him. The crime is eventually solved and justice is swift in the foot hills of the High Tatra Mountains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462827855

Stephen P. Matava

Stephen Matava was born of immigrant parents, ten years after his parents came from Slovakia. He was raised in a Slovak neighorhood and spent most of his life in the shadow of his parent's native land. He was the fifth child and the first to graduate fom high school. The older children had to leave school to help support the family. He was raised with strict family and religious values and passed these on to his own children, He hold a degree from the University of Hartford and spent most of his life in the insurance business world. The author is married and has raised three children who have left the nest There are three grandchildren that he sees as often as possible. He learned of his ancestors from the stories that were told around the supper table and from any other material that he could find on the subject. He spent fifteen years years as a claims adjuster for a large insurance company before going into business for himself as an insurance agent. Following the family values of his forefathers has been good to him and he now finds time to write full time. Besides this nove, he ahs written a book of selected poems which will be next to be published.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was still dark when Andre awoke and as usual, his eyes suddenly popped open telling his body it had enough sleep. It was October of the year 1924 and it stayed darker in the shadow of the High Tatra Mountains, in Northern Slovakia. The sun had to wait a little longer to warm the bones of the people in the small town of Rusbachy. He looked over at his wife, Anna, and in the moonlight, he could see her breathing in and out. She slept soundly every night and got up before he did, but he remembered her getting up in the middle of the night to tend to their three—year old son, Stefan. She usually had difficulty sleeping on her stomach because of her condition, Anna was eight months pregnant and she was a little larger than she had been with Stefan. Since they had been married, he had never known her to sleep anywhere, but on her stomach and lately, she has not been sleeping very well. This was a good woman he married because, even in her condition, she would never wake him to take care of Stefan. He looked at her once slender figure and her light brown hair as it fell across the down pillow. Her lips were full and parted as she let out a gust of air from her lungs. The blue eyes he loved so much were closed, but when they were open, they were soft, and betrayed her gentle nature.

He suddenly felt a cold chill and pulled the comforter up to his chin. Looking out of the window, at the foot of his bed, he could see the lights in the barn and knew his two hands must be up and about. They were taking care of the animals and he would allow them to work alone for a while longer before he got up. He could feel the warmth radiating from Anna’s body and he thanked God for his good fortune.

As he was leaving, he gave Anna a few pats on her behind which was sticking up in the air and when she grunted he knew she would follow him down the stairs. She had to wait for him to get the fire going because she had to make the morning meal for her husband, Pavel and Hendrik. Little Stefan usually had to wait until the adults finished and Anna cleaned the kitchen before she attended to him. He just sat in his chair, waiting patiently until it became his turn.

Andre hoped Stefan would stay upstairs for a little while longer. He probably had been up all night with a stomach problem or some other malady and he could use the extra sleep. He was sure Anna would let Stefan sleep until he woke up by himself.

Anna awoke a short time later and felt to see if Andre was still under the comforter. His side of the bed was still warm so he must have just gotten up. She loved this man who slept next to her. He had gotten up so quietly so she could rest a few more minutes. Usually, he would give her a pat on the behind, but she didn’t feel anything this morning. She rose from her bed and straightened the comforter before she got dressed.

All of these thoughts went through her mind as she put the bread in the oven. The bread would take an hour to bake so she heated some water, took it to the little room that served as a pantry and washed. Except for the front of her, Anna wasn’t a large woman, but her body was muscular from her activities around the farm and lifting her heavy son all the time. When she reached back to wash her neck, she felt a sharp pain in her left side. She sat down on the box she used to reach the food on the top shelf. She thought that she would just sit there for just a minute and rest. She felt the baby would come early and it wouldn’t be an easy birth. The pain went away and she finished washing herself. She would have the morning meal ready, as usual, by seven o’clock and the men will have worked for two hours before they ate. They were given a good meal of sausages, eggs, fresh baked bread and real butter. The butter was milky white, the coffee was hot and black and one of the men would bring in a pitcher of warm milk to put into the coffee. She went upstairs to check on Stefan while the bread was baking and he was still asleep. He was on his stomach, with his thumb in his mouth and his hind end sticking into the air. Anna smiled and wondered where he had picked up that habit.

The rest of the meal was made quickly and before she took the bread out of the oven, she reached outside and rang a big bell three times. The bread came out of the oven and she waited for it to cool so she could slice it. The next chore was to go to the kitchen door where she stood with her arms folded across her large stomach.

Some time ago, Anna told Andre, I want all of you to take your boots off, brush your clothes off and get into some slippers before you enter my kitchen. You aren’t going to walk into my nice clean kitchen with your manure soiled boots!

She knew Andre would never try it but once when she came into the kitchen after dressing Stefan, she found Hendrik seated at the table with his boots on and shouted, Out! Out! Out! Get out of my kitchen with your soiled boots and don’t come back because I won’t feed you. You know what the rules are, don’t ever try to do that again!

He ran out as if he was shot out of a cannon and didn’t dare come into Anna’s kitchen with boots on again. He was fortunate that Andre put some bread in his shirt without Anna seeing, otherwise poor Hendrik wouldn’t have gotten anything to eat until the evening meal.

They sat down to their morning meal and no one said a word until there was nothing left on the table but a few crumbs. The two hands felt that there were other places where they could work but the meals that Anna put on the table were the best around and it wasn’t worth the change. When they finished their last bite, Andre allowed them to linger over another cup of coffee while they rolled and smoked a cigarette. Pavel was the first to get up without having to be reminded to get back to work. He knew that Andre could take away the short rest period they took after the morning meal so he didn’t take any chances by staying over. As soon as Pavel got up, it was a signal for Hendrik to follow. When the men cleared the door and it was closed behind them, Andre gave Anna a kiss on the lips and went after them. She was happy on this seventh day, she could spend the entire day with her husband.

If there were a frost overnight, she wouldn’t see her husband all day Monday. After his morning chores, he and one of the men would be spreading manure over the fields. She thought to herself, God, how I hate this time of the year. Not only do I have to break my back cutting cabbages, but I will have to contend with smelly men in my kitchen.

The three men spent the early morning taking care of the animals when Andre excused himself to get ready to get to church. Hendrik was excited about seeing his girlfriend, Helga because they were going to refine their strategy when they went to have supper with her parents. They were seeing each other at the lover’s grotto all summer and they were going to tell her parents how they felt about each other. He asked Pavel to finish the chores so he would have plenty of time to get ready. Pavel just smiled and with a wave of his hand sent him to their room because he knew how important this day was to Hendrik. Pavel finished milking the cows while Hendrik spent the rest of the morning getting ready. Hendrik waited for the family to get back from church before he went to the grotto to meet Helga.

On the way back from church, Anna and Andre discussed Hendrik’s plans and he said. I don’t think it is a very good time for Hendrik to see Pan Lasky.

Why not? Asked Anna, because she had discussed it with Hendrik and suggested he confront the problem as soon as possible.

This isn’t the time to approach Pan Lasky, said Andre. He has other things on his mind besides his daughter.

What are you not telling me?

All in good time, my sweetheart, all in good time.

They pulled into the yard, just as Hendrik was riding out. He smiled at Anna and waved as he rode north. She saw the sack of food she prepared for him bouncing against the side of the horse as he rode out. Anna continued to question her husband when they had their Sunday dinner, but Andre had a stubborn streak and wouldn’t answer her questions. Pavel ate with a smile on his face because he knew that the couple loved each other and were just playing games. They finished their meal and the men went outside for a smoke and to enjoy the colors of the leaves on the mountains when they saw a rider coming hard in the distance.

Hendrik rode up and he was out of breath as he gasped. Andre, someone has killed Helga. She is dead.

The men looked stunned and Andre blurted out. Where! When! How!

Anna ran out of the kitchen door when she heard the shouting. Hendrik looked as if he were crying because the tears had run down his dust-covered cheeks. Hendrik’s words seemed to have echoed from the highest peaks of the High Tatra Mountains and back to their little valley. Hendrik leaped from his horse just as Anna came up to him. She realized that he was in a great deal of pain so she put her arms around his neck, laid his head on her shoulders and gently patted his back as he sobbed. The love of my life is dead

Andre looked at Pavel who had his face turned away and he could see Pavel’s shoulders heaving with each sob. Pavel knew what his friend was going through.

CHAPTER TWO

One night, while he was having a peaceful night after work, Andre’s thoughts went back to the time, three years before when his sister Kada left for America with her husband, Stefan Janek and Stefan’s mother, Olga. The young couple moved into the farm house soon after. The Janeks told no one they were leaving and Andre took them to the train station at Polodencz to begin their long journey to America. A week later the notary came to tell Stefan he would have to give the title of the farm to the government, but since he was gone, the government would just take it over. Andre was the logical person to take over the handling of the farm and he was made the manager. Two weeks later, the notary came with two men who would live on the farm to provide the labor and all Andre had to do, was supervise the running of the farm.

That was in 1921 and Stefan Janek was worried he might be recalled back into the Austrian Hungarian Army. His subscription date was June 20, 1914, just after the start of World War I and it was up on June 20, 1920. The government was new, just feeling its way and Stefan didn’t want to take any chances. He had enough of life as a common soldier and he didn’t want to go back under any circumstances. Stefan’s family had run this farm for two generations until the Central Government of Czechoslovakia decided to nationalize all farms over a certain acreage and this one fell into that category.

The farmhouse was situated on the side of a hill, in the foothills of the High Tatra Mountains. It was built on three floors and each floor had an entrance, which came out on the side of the hill. The first floor was made of stone gathered from the fields and this housed the two hands, Pavel and Hendrik, and the prize breeding stock. A corner of the room was closed off from the animals and contained two bunks and an old oaken chest, the men shared. They had a pitcher of water, a bowl and a small stove to warm the water, which they pumped from the well outside. When they first started working on the farm and it was cold, they rarely made it to the privy to empty their bladders in the morning.

Anna had been furious and complained to Andre. Have you seen the mess your two friends have made in the snow? I want them to go all the way to the privy, snow, or no snow! She stamped her foot and Andre had no choice but to talk to his hands. Like him, they knew once Anna had made up her mind, there was no turning back and the problem was solved.

The second and third floors were made of the oak trees that were found in the forest. The second floor contained the kitchen, dining room and a large sitting room. The stairs to the third floor opened into a hallway where four doors led into the bedrooms. Andre and Anna had the largest room, which had a stone chimney from the stove directly beneath them. The chimney became warm when Andre banked the fire for the night and it gave off some heat. In the wintertime, they placed Stefan’s crib in the big bedroom and he slept in the room with his parents. As soon as the weather turned warmer, he was put into his own room with a cast iron pot filled with red coals to take away the chill of the night because Stefan rarely slept under his covers. Since it was in the middle of October, he was still in his own room and would stay there until Anna pressured Andre enough to bring him in. Each morning when he got up, Andre thought about touching Anna and possibly waking her up because her warm body always started to get him aroused but he thought better of it. There had been no love making for the last few months and when she delivered, there would be none for the next few months. She probably would have consented, but she always appeared tired from her pregnancy and he would allow her to sleep as long as she liked. Even on Sunday morning before daylight when the sun came up, and he would get up to help the men in the barn. Once the work in the barn was completed, he would have to get ready to go to church. Andre gave Anna a long look, breathed a sigh before he got up. He put his clothes on over his long underwear pulled his boots over the stockings he wore to bed and went down the stairs to put some wood in the stove.

Andre had ridden to the Abbey of St. Francis and borrowed the cutting board to make their cabbage-cutting job easier, but even with that, Anna could hardly stand straight at the end of the day. It meant sitting on a stool with the board on her lap pulling the cabbages over the blade while the shredded cabbage fell on the clean cloth. When the cloth was piled high, she would put it into a barrel with some salt and one of the men would carry the barrel into the root cellar carved into the hillside.

She had to tell Andre about the pain in her side, but it would have wait until she finished the cabbages because if he knew what she had to tell him, he wouldn’t let her finish the work. He would insist on helping and he had enough to do. If she told her husband, he would insist upon staying in the house to help them and she decided to tell him after the cabbages were cut.

She wanted to supervise the project because she didn’t want the men with those dirty hands and the grime on the hands, which had handled manure, to touch her cabbages. Whoever helped would have to follow her strict rules about cleanliness and she wasn’t about to let two men handle the task without her being there. Besides, being with child usually made a woman’s body stronger as she had been told by her mother and the rest of the old wives she had met. She wished her mother were alive because she was such a big help, but she died right after Stefan was born. At least, she had gotten to see her grandson before she died.

CHAPTER THREE

Anna liked Pavel Kupchik, but he was always quiet and she never knew what he was thinking. She never pried into his past life, but Andre told her it was a hard and tragic one. Pavel was forty-two years old and slight of build, but very strong. His hands were large and he had muscles in his lower and upper arms from the use of the pitchfork. Before the Great War, he lived in Polodencz with his wife and a daughter who was five years old when the Madgars (Hungarians) came and took him away to fight in the war. He had been employed as a wood carver for a company, which made wagons for the rich. Life there was good because he made fairly good money and he had a clean home to go to after doing what he loved to do all day. He didn’t want to leave his family, but two men came and said he either board the train to Vienna or be shot on the spot as a deserter. They allowed him to say goodbye to his wife and daughter and he always remembered the sight of both of them in tears as the train pulled out of the station. That was the last time he saw either of them.

Pavel was assigned to a Slovak Volunteer Company and sent to the Russian front. He was wounded a few weeks into the campaign when a fragment from a hand grenade ripped into his leg between his knee and hip. Two Russian soldiers found him sitting against a tree, bleeding to death and were going to shoot him.

He looked up at the soldiers and spoke in Slovak. The government forced me to come into the army. I have a wife and a daughter back home in Slovakia waiting for me to come home. One of the soldiers said, we thought you were German, but you are in the same situation we are in. We don’t shoot one of our Slavic brothers and we will take you to our aid station.

They made a liter and carried him back to an aid station, where a doctor pulled out a piece of metal. He cleaned the wound, put some cloth on it and sent him into the interior of Russia to work in a factory against his own people; he stayed there for four years. His family was told he had been killed in the war and they even had a memorial Mass for him in his church.

His wife scavenged for food as best she could and when she couldn’t pay the rent, she was thrown out in the cold. She and her daughter slept wherever they could, in a doorway, a hallway or a barn. They preferred a barn because the animals gave off some warmth. The first winter, his daughter, Marta died from the influenza and a month later, they found her mother dangling from the rafters of a barn where she had hanged herself.

After Russia got out of the war, Pavel started his journey back home. He walked almost all of the way because there were few trains running. The only way to get a horse would be to steal one and if caught, it meant certain death. Pavel arrived home to find his wife and daughter gone and he couldn’t find out what happened to them. A notary took pity, made a search of his records and told him the painful news. Pavel didn’t tell anyone who he was and allowed the news of his death to stand. Thinking someone in his city would recognize him and raise some questions he went west and got as far as Ruzbachy where he lived from hand to mouth, always looking for work. When the notary in Rusbachy, a Slovak named Benjamin Molovaski, told him there was an opening at a farm just taken over by the central government, Pavel jumped at the chance. He lived there for three years and planned to spend the rest of his life working on that farm. Pavel never left the farm except for a walk around the forest on Sunday afternoons when the weather permitted and on rare occasions, he went to the tavern with Hendrik and Andre. With Pavel, life was a matter of survival and nothing more. He didn’t want to provoke any hard feelings from Andre because the food was good, he could handle the work, but he didn’t want to meet anyone who would know him. When he did consent to go to the tavern with Andre and Hendrik, he always made sure they sat at a corner table. He wanted to be where he could see who came in and out so if he recognized anyone, he could leave by the back exit. Hendrik and Andre had tried to introduce him to various women who were eager to meet a man since there were few whole men who came back from the war.

Pavel always said, I have no use for women and I don’t want to get close to anyone. I have been hurt before from which I will never recover and I don’t want to be hurt again.

Soon they stopped trying and left him to live out his life alone.

*     *     *

Hendrik, on the other hand, was of an entirely different temperament. He was just a little shorter than normal, whatever that was, and inclined to be on the chubby side. He was fair skinned, with deep blue eyes and his hair was the color of a chestnut horse. He didn’t have much facial hair and shaved only once a week; before he went to church. His middle had gotten a little rounder from the beer he drank when he went into the tavern. In the beginning, the tavern was his entire social life, but he found it easy to make friends. His teeth were as white and as fresh snow that fell on the dark brown oak branches in the beginning of winter. He never missed an opportunity to display his even white teeth and when he smiled, which was often, his whole face wrinkled up. He used his smile to defuse many situations and the only person on which it wouldn’t work, was Anna. If there was anything left of Anna’s cooking, Hendrik usually asked for it and ate it. He was twenty-eight years old and somehow, like Andre, had fallen through the cracks and never went to war. He was working in the copper mines near Budapest and when the war broke out, he felt he had a better chance to avoid the conscription by going into the country. He traveled from one small town to another on the edge of the mountains and when he started to be known in one town, he would move to another one. He always stayed close to the forest at the foothills of the mountains because if the Madgars got close, he could seek refuge in the dark forest.

Most people on the outposts of the Empire feared the forest because of the legend of Vita, the gypsy witch who lived there and those who went in, most of the times, never came out. The gypsies promoted the legend to keep the people out so they could have it all to themselves because the forest provided food and shelter for them and they didn’t want anyone trampling through their domain. Hendrik worked with an exiled gypsy in the mines who told him the story and if any danger threatened, the forest was a place of haven.

A year after the war ended, Hendrik found himself in the small town of Ruzbachy. There were very few able bodied men around