Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

The May meeting that brought Michael Vlado to Seville seven weeks later was billed as the First Gypsy Congress of the European Union, an attempt to organize against the growing wave of violence aimed at Roms and all people viewed as foreign. Michael’s little village in the Romanian foothills had remained relatively free of any organized violence, but as a Gypsy king he was all too aware of the killings and burnings nearby. He had come to Spain to do what he could.

It was a local Rom named Garib who told him of the killings. He was a tall, handsome man in his twenties with a bushy black moustache, and Michael had first noticed him during a question period when he raised his hand and asked, “Are you the Michael Vlado who solved the mystery near here four years ago involving the crypt of the Gypsy saint?”

Michael admitted he was, and a low murmur ran through the audience. Afterward Garib asked to speak with him in private. They went down to a large atrium in the building where the meeting was taking place. “We have nearly nine hundred thousand Gypsies in Spain,” Garib told him. “Most work as itinerant peddlers or beggars, camping on the fringes of cities in rat-infested shantytowns.”

“Is there no subsidized housing?”

“The gadjo is as poor as we are. They do not want Roms as neighbors. I am not concerned for myself. I have been luckier than most. In a few days I will be marrying a lovely Rom woman who has been educated in England. I will be leaving Seville for a job in Madrid. But my brethren are trapped here.”

“I wish there was something I could—”

“There is. An innocent man, a Rom, has been held in jail here for seven weeks, on charges that he killed three people. The police believe him to be the notorious Butcher of Seville.”

The name, so typical of modem journalism, caught Michael’s interest. “A so-called serial killer?”

“So they claim.”

Michael glanced around, aware of a young woman passing close enough to overhear them. Garib seemed not to notice. “Tell me about the killings.”

“The first was in late winter, an Englishwoman vacationing with her husband. Then an old Gypsy man was killed in his caravan. And during Holy Week one of the penitents in a procession was stabbed to death right in the back of the cathedral. All three of the killings were especially brutal, which earned him the name of Butcher. It was after the third killing that Nunzio was arrested and charged.”

“There is evidence against him?”

“Not enough to convict anyone but a Gypsy. He’d argued with Juan Diaz, the man killed at the cathedral, and he knew the old Gypsy, Kalderash.”

“And the English tourist?”

“He often took the children to the hotels to beg money from tourists. They think he might have met the woman there.”

Michael Vlado sighed. “I am no detective, Garib. I am in Seville for the conference.”

“Talk to him. It would boost his spirits if nothing else.”

So Michael accompanied Garib the next morning to the city jail, a grim stone building within sight of the royal palace of Alcazar. Nunzio was a young man, no more than thirty. He toyed with a pack of cigarettes in the visitors’ room, barely responding to the questions they addressed to him.

“I am innocent,” he told Michael without passion.

“Then the true Butcher of Seville must be found before he kills more.”

Garib snorted. “A wise killer would leave the city or at least cease the killings until Nunzio is convicted. Every day that passes without another killing strengthens the case against him.”

Michael could see the logic of his reasoning but he also knew that serial killers rarely behaved logically. When the urge to kill was upon them they did not stop to consider the consequences. “Did you know the Englishwoman?”

“No.”

“And the second victim?”

“I knew him as a fellow Rom. He was a sick old man. I saw him once or twice begging money near the hotels.”

“But you’d argued with the third victim.”

“In a tavern. It was nothing.”

“They have no other evidence against you — no bloodstains or fingerprints, no eyewitnesses?”

“None.”

“Then they shouldn’t be holding you. I’ll see if there’s anything we can do.”

As they left the jail, Garib asked, “Do you think you can get him released?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t really have much to say in his own defense. Still, we have two hundred and fifty Gypsies in Seville for this conference. Our voices may mean something.”

“I hope so,” the handsome Rom said. “Next week I will be married. If Nunzio is free and you are still in Seville, I want you at my wedding.”

By the time the four-day Gypsy Congress of the European Union came to an end, Nunzio Sorja was a free man. Michael and Garib, working together, had persuaded the Congress to issue a statement condemning the unjust imprisonment of Gypsies everywhere, and calling upon the Seville police to free Nunzio. It proved to be the right statement at the right time. “They didn’t have the evidence,” Garib concluded. “They must have been looking for an excuse to release him.”