Fixed in Blood (20 page)

Lydia tilted her head over her shoulder. “I’m on the clock. But I’m free after five. Take off the wrap and give me something to make the clock run slow.”

Feldoni chuckled. He reached for the clip holding the wrap in place.

“Stop right there.” Ben Verte stood, crossed over to his star, and placed his hand over Feldoni’s. He turned to Mort. “Go. Right now. We’re done answering and we’ve got a movie to shoot. Should you have additional questions for me or Mr. Feldoni, we’ll be happy to meet you downtown. And we’ll be sure to have a team of attorneys with us. Now go.”

Mort slipped his notebook into his pocket while Lydia gathered her things. He left his card on the table and held the door open for Lydia. They walked back to his Subaru in silence as dozens of cellphones snapped their photos.

They buckled their seatbelts and Mort backed up. Two people ran up and snapped a picture of his license plate.

“So this is what it’s like to be a celebrity? I wonder if Robbie gets this kind of treatment when he goes on his book tours.” Mort shifted and pulled away. He waited until they were down the twisting gravel road and back on solid asphalt to speak.

“We got Verte’s attention, that’s for damned sure.” Mort slid into the lane leading to the freeway. “What caught your eye?”

“Verte was very casual about Eddie Yaz’s possible involvement in a murder.”

Mort nodded. “He said Eddie’s interest in film was a whim. Brushed him off as a flighty rich kid. That struck me as odd given what we were there investigating.”

“If Eddie’s been discounted his entire life, could be he’d want to do something big to show people he needs to be taken seriously.”

“Maybe. Let’s hold on to that. What else?”

“Verte knew I was looking for something on Feldoni’s hand. He stopped us fast.”

Mort turned north toward Seattle and inched into I-5 traffic that didn’t understand the concept of isolated rush hours. “And Verte never took his gloves off, either. I’ll get a warrant for photos of Feldoni’s and Verte’s hands.”

“There’s something here, I’m certain. Maybe we could—” Her ringing cellphone interrupted. She saw the number and held up one finger to stop their conversation. Mort drove as she punched two numbers into her phone.

“This is Dr. Corriger.” Mort watched her startle a moment later. “Certainly. Connect us, please.” Lydia punched another button on her cell’s screen. She looked up at Mort. “It’s my service. I’ve got it on speaker.”

“But—”

“It’s Delbe Jensen. If we’re right about this all being connected, you need to hear this.”

“I have her.” A male voice came over Lydia’s speaker. “Go ahead, ma’am. I have Dr. Corriger on the line.”

“Delbe? Are you all right? Tell me where you are.” Lydia’s voice was rock-steady calm.

“Dr. C!” Delbe Jensen’s frenzied panic was evident. “I can’t call my parents. They’d kill them. Dr. C…Dr. C…” Her sobs were punctuated by frantic gulps for air.

“Delbe, Tell me where you are.”

“No…movie…can’t…won’t…have to…” Delbe’s garbled words were difficult to discern between her desperate sobs. “…girl…help…I…”

“Delbe. Just tell me where you are. Nothing else.” Mort was fascinated with her calm in the face of such a whirlwind.

“I don’t know.” Delbe was able to choke out one complete sentence before dissolving into another spasm of sobs. “I…movie…scared.” There was a sound of a door opening followed by the bellowing male roar and the unmistakable sound of flesh on flesh.

Then the phone went dead.

Mort kept his eyes on the road. “What do you need, Liddy?”

Lydia stared straight ahead. “Get me to my hotel. Fast.”

She promised it would be easy to find Maria. Should he be so upset that she lied? His wife had been irritated when she called. Maria hadn’t come back from dance class when she was supposed to.

“This is how it starts,” Olga yammered into the phone. “Those teen years. You’ve got to stop this in its tracks. No more Daddy Sweet Cakes. No way in hell I’m putting up with a teenager who disrespects the rules of this house. I want you to put the fear of God into her when you get home.”

Boss Man had struggled to keep from choking and assured his wife he would. Then he hung up and cried. His office door was closed, but he wouldn’t have cared who heard.
I’d sacrifice my own life if it meant Maria could torment Olga with teenaged rebellion.

His wife wasn’t irritated when she called back two hours later. Maria still wasn’t home. Olga had called her cell again and again. She’d called Maria’s friends. No one had seen her after dance class. One friend had invited her over to watch television, but Maria had begged off. Said she had to get all her chores done before her special date with her dad.

We were going to watch to see who got the roses.
He tried to reassure his wife everything would be fine and promised to come straight home.

Maria’s dead
. The thought haunted him as he drove.
Maria’s dead and it’s my fault.
As he neared his house he steeled himself for the role he was forced to play. He got out of his car and trusted his weak legs would support him. Boss Man walked up to his front door as a new thought invaded.
My wife will go insane and that will be my fault, too
.

It had been a long evening. Olga was the first to lose confidence in his reassurances. Then the boys. He urged them to go to bed at their regular time. “When you wake up, your sister will be here. You can yell at her all through breakfast for making us so worried.” He prayed to a God he was certain wasn’t listening that his sons would never learn his role in their sister’s death.

They called the police just after midnight. Olga insisted. The officers were polite and stepped through their routine as kindly as they could. Olga gave them recent photos and lists of school, lessons, and friends. They answered the officers’ questions. Olga through tears, he through a choking throat.
No, we have no idea. No, she’s never late. No, she doesn’t have a boyfriend. There’s no trouble at school. No trouble at home.

The police questions were easy. The never-ending damnations pounding in his own skull were torture.

He left Olga and the boys in the care of her mother and no fewer than five neighbor women. A pill materialized from someone’s medicine cabinet and Olga finally lay down around five that morning. He needed a break, he’d told the bevy hovering in hushed tones. Just a few hours of normal back at work. Everyone looked at his red-rimmed, sleep-deprived eyes and nodded in solemn respect. They promised to call the moment they heard anything. One particularly chirpy bird from down the street said, “The minute Maria walks in the door.”

He needed to make arrangements. Tokarev had already been paid for one more film. The customer was waiting. If he didn’t deliver, Tokarev would come.

If he followed through and delivered the girl to the film site, Tokarev’s whore would come. She promised if another girl died his sons would not have the death Maria had. His daughter had giggled with delight as Staz played with her in the pool. Boss Man closed his eyes and tried to focus on his daughter’s last moments. All he could see was the last few seconds of her struggle. When she knew the game was over and she would die. That was all his mind could conjure.

That and her blue hair ribbon.

He’d worked through his panic and grief and devised a plan. Tokarev’s whore had power over him, but she was still Tokarev’s whore. Boss Man would appeal to the power. He’d give Tokarev his film. Show his loyalty despite the overwhelming cost to his family. Surely the Russian would reward that. He’d find a place for Olga and the boys to go. A place not even the whore could find. When he got the all-clear from the Russian, he’d bring them back home. They’d be safe. Forever sad, but safe.

But Maria’s body needed to be found. There was no way Olga would leave while her baby girl was still missing. His wife needed to know any thread of hope had disappeared. They’d come back for the giant funeral sure to follow. Tokarev could handle his whore by then. But for now, he could sell Olga on the idea of the five of them going away to solidify themselves as a wounded family.

Why was it taking so long to find Maria’s body?
He phoned the client. Sick son of a bitch. Told him the schedule had to be moved up. Shooting was to take place that night. The location was secure. He had the girl. Lights, camera, action. Let’s go. The asshole said it would be inconvenient. Something about already having plans for tonight. Boss Man wanted to come right through the phone and strangle him with his bare hands.
My daughter’s dead. What’s left of my family will be, too, if we don’t get this done.

But the client didn’t give one rat’s ass about him or his family. Boss Man was a pimp. A provider of services. Any inconvenience he might experience was accounted for in his very substantial fee. There was no need for the client to feel any pressure to meet his timeline.

The asshole agreed to a compromise. Filming was scheduled to start at ten o’clock tomorrow night. He looked at his dashboard clock as he pulled into the weed-filled lot behind the three-story building housing his private operation. Just a few minutes past eleven. The next snuff would start filming in thirty-five hours. Plenty of time to find a place to put Olga and the kids.

Olga and the kids.
He coughed the clench out of his throat. For years that’s what it was.
Olga and the kids.
Now it will be Olga and the boys.

He’d get his part done. He’d save his family.

Why was it taking so long for Maria’s body to show up?

Boss Man got out of his Accord and scanned the street and empty lots surrounding him. No sign of Staz and his fucking black Escalade. Why didn’t the idiot just get vanity plates that read killer? He entered the building through the back door. Noise was coming from another room. He walked toward it, still unsteady on his feet. He didn’t want another encounter with Staz, but he’d do what he needed to. Thirty-five hours. That’s all he needed.

He saw Jessica in his office. She had her back to him, a rag in her hand.

“The fuck you doin’ here?” Boss Man boomed.

The girl spun around, startled. “I thought you weren’t coming in today. I brought her some food. Thought I’d do some cleaning up. It’s a mess in here.”

He didn’t have the energy to argue. “Go on home now. I’ll see to the girl. She scheduled to go out tonight?”

Jennifer nodded. “You might want to send other girls on her dates. She’s pretty upset about having to do that movie. Says she never done anything like that before.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll bet she’s having lots of new experiences.”

Jennifer looked up, as though she might be able to see into the girl’s locked room through the ceiling. “She’s crying. Yelling. Didn’t eat anything.”

“I’m not worried about that. It’s not like she’ll have to do a lot in the movie.”

Jennifer looked away, twisting the cleaning rag in her hand.

“Go on home.” He had calls to make. And he didn’t want to have any teenager see his reaction when the call finally came in that they’d found Maria.

Jennifer folded the rag and put it on the windowsill. “I’ll go up and get the garbage left over from lunch.”

“Leave it.” Boss Man wanted her gone. She was only a year or two older than Maria. It hurt to look at her. “I’ll get it later.”

Jennifer didn’t move. She looked up at the ceiling again. Boss Man knew that look. He’d seen it on his Maria a few times. Something was going on and she didn’t want to be caught.

But this wasn’t his daughter. This wasn’t the time for secrets.

Boss Man cursed and turned toward the stairs. He climbed them as fast as his still-healing foot allowed. He listened at the girl’s door. She was talking to someone. Crying. He turned the knobs of the four deadbolts, threw open the door, and let out an angry roar at what he saw.

The bitch was on the phone.

“It is time to leave London.” Vadim Tokarev chewed his toast with his mouth open.
Something Patrick would have died before doing,
she thought. “Meeting went well. My men know expectations for next weeks.” He looked across the table. “What with women? You enjoy night?”

Oh, yes, dear. Who wouldn’t enjoy an evening with two women whose English is even worse than yours? Who wanted nothing more than to slip into the nearest bathroom to snort a line of cocaine? Who stumbled through one of the finest museums in the world with all the excitement of watching corn grow? Both showing off their recently enhanced breasts in dresses tight and tawdry, giggling in unison to request “Club?”

“It was pleasant enough.” She sipped her tea and looked out at the city she’d come to love. Patrick had preferred sunny beaches. She missed bikinis and gauzy frocks. But Tokarev always looked like he’d just stepped out of a shower whenever the temperature hit seventy degrees. Given his insistence upon bathing just twice a week, she took to choosing northern locales for their various encampments. While she missed sand between her toes, the gentility and grace London demonstrated filled an appetite left unsated since her life with Patrick had come to such a brutal end. “When were you thinking we should leave?”

“Two days. You make plans. Go shopping one last time big. Money is in drawer.”

I know where the money is, you ape. You keep fifty thousand euros in the drawer of my bedside table. If I spend so much as one for a newspaper, another mysteriously appears in its place. If I spend it all at a Sloane Street boutique, somehow the drawer is restocked upon my return. That is my fee. A pile of money. Never ending. Yet never reaching an amount that might encourage my escape.

“Do you have somewhere in mind, my darling?” Patrick always let her choose. Each relocation brought them more excitement. More luxury and grandeur. But this one chose for himself. He’d announce and leave the details for her, allowing her to pick the grandest hotels and furnishings, but never the city itself.

“We go home. Moscow.”

Allie nearly dropped her teacup. Moscow was the first place he’d taken her. Back when Tokarev’s plans were to kill her in revenge for Patrick killing his favorite mistress. She’d tolerated the rapes, knowing it provided her a window of time in which to convince him of her value to him. What she hadn’t expected was the degradation. He’d held her for three days in a locked room. Naked. Cold. With a chamber pot, two bottles of water daily, and boiled potatoes every morning. Tokarev visited her as his whim or drunkenness dictated. Humiliating her in ways Patrick would have killed him for even thinking. But she pretended she liked it. She moaned in pleasure with each slap. Groaned in ecstasy as he manhandled her. Led him to believe she wanted him. It took every ounce of her will to maintain her sanity…to hold on to her plan.

The fourth day he brought her a blanket. He spoke with her in broken English and she responded with flattery and gentle flirtation. By the end of the week, she was moved to a room with a bed and linens. There’d been a table for her to eat freshly prepared meals. The door was still locked, but she was alive.

The universe smiled on day ten. Tokarev was drunk when he came to her, carrying a bottle of champagne. Allie recognized the label. It was from a winery she and Patrick had visited often. Despite the $1,500-per-bottle price, they’d order cases of the wine and ship them wherever they stayed. She resented seeing their house wine in the hands of a barbarian. Tokarev demanded she get out of the bed. He wanted to teach her a dance from his homeland. He popped the cork. Allie was surprised there was no explosion of gas. No gurgling of wine celebrating its release. Tokarev didn’t notice. He was too busy looking for something to use as a glass for her. He found a paper cup on the window’s ledge, poured her a sloppy fill, and handed it to her.

“We drink to music.” He held the bottle in his right hand and grabbed his crotch with his left. “Then we drink to this.”

Allie brought the cup to her lips. It was the first wine she’d been allowed and she was eager to indulge herself with memories of a finer time. But as she inhaled, she didn’t catch the familiar floral aroma so associated with the champagne she adored. Instead she smelled something acrid and metallic. She looked into the cup. She should have seen dozens of trails of tiny golden bubbles reaching from the bottom of the cup to a healthy foam floating as if on air. Instead she saw large, gaseous blobs suspended in the center of the wine.

Tokarev stood several steps away, unsteady on his feet, leaning back to take a swill directly from the bottle.

“No!” Allie yelled. She flew across the room and knocked the bottle from his hands. Rage clouded his face in an instant. He drew back his fist.

“It’s poison!” Allie spit out the words loud enough to break through his drunken haze. “The wine. If you drink it, you will die.” She pointed to the bottle, now on the floor, then put her hands over her throat, pantomiming someone in the throes of death.

Tokarev dropped his fist. He looked at her with suspicion. Allie saw her chance. She embraced him. Rocked him back and forth like he was a long-lost cub of a lonely mother bear. She cooed words of endearment to him, stroked his hair, and led him to her bed, and for the first time she took the lead. She showed him a gentler way of making love. She exaggerated her responses to his clumsy moves. She feigned a release loud enough to convince any man he was a stallion. She knew she’d succeeded when he fell asleep in her arms.

And when he awoke the next morning, she did it all again.

There had been a bloody purge. Tokarev had the wine tested. He traced the source of the poison. He was relentless in the murders that followed, explaining to her, now his trusted confidante, that he must not only punish those who did, but warn those who might dare.

By day twelve there were no locks on her doors. By day fifteen she was Tokarev’s only mistress. By day sixteen she was running his house.

She’d been successful in Moscow. But she had no desire to return to the scene of her torture.

“Moscow, darling? It’s still winter there. Why not stay here for a few more weeks? Allow summer to arrive in your home.”

“No.” Tokarev slurped his coffee. “You have not seen dasha. It is, what is word?”

“Country house, darling. It’s your country house.” Allie wondered what sort of hovel a man as crude as Tokarev might consider rustic.

“Da! Country house.” He lowered his booming bass. “
Our
country house. You make pretty. Like classy woman live there. Make the women of my men push them work hard.” He smiled that way he did when he was about to show off a newly learned phrase. “You will be Jackie O.”

Allie forced a smile. The thought of reigning over a mob of knuckle-draggers and their coked-up whores from a hovel in the Russian wilderness didn’t captivate her. Her excitement throttle ran higher than that.

“That sounds glorious, darling. I’ll build you the palace of the czars. What is my budget?”

Tokarev snorted. “You and business words. You like too much. You want, you get. You like, I pay. No budget.”

I pay, all right. My jaw is still sore from that beating last night.
She’d build him his castle. She needed him. As cruel as he was, he brought protection…and endless streams of carefully allotted money.

“How long are the flights from Moscow to Seattle, darling? If I’m going to be wrapped up building our new home, I’m thinking I need to drop in on my little enterprise there. Staz does a wonderful job being my eyes and ears, but there’s nothing like the boss being there to make sure things stay running according to plan.” She immediately regretted using the word “boss.” “I learned that from you, darling. I’m learning so much from this little project you let me have.” She hoped that was enough to erase her faux pas.

Tokarev smiled again. “Is no more project. Is done.” He reached into his jacket pocket and slid a square velvet cube across the polished table. “Open.”

Allie did as she was told. Her gasp was immediate. A solitary diamond, an inch square, sparkled atop a platinum band encrusted with half-carat diamonds. The light streaming in through the windows burst into swirling, twinkling rainbows when it hit the gems.

“I don’t know what to say, darling. This is exquisite. Like the queen’s jewels.”

“Better.” Tokarev beamed. “Czarina jewels. No more Seattle. You build me czar’s house. You will be czarina. Next project is babies. Seattle done.”

A chill ran up her spine and stabbed into the base of her skull.

“We marry. Soon,” Tokarev announced from across the table.

Allie took several long breaths, forcing a smile as thoughts swirled through her mind.

“I’m surprised, my darling. I have one request.”

“You are czarina now. No ask. Tell and is yours.”

“A party. Here. In London. A grand party with all your lieutenants and their women. We’ll announce our plans.” She lowered her eyes in the bashful way he liked. “You are the czar. I am the czarina. They are our subjects.”

Tokarev considered her request. He banged his fist on the table.

“A party! A party for my czarina. Three days from now.” He pushed himself away from the table, his napkin still unused. “Then go to Moscow. Build house and make babies.” He crossed the room to leave, calling over his shoulder.

“Party for my czarina. No budgets.”