The Altar Girl (14 page)

CHAPTER 21

O
N THE MORNING
of her third day, Nadia woke up to find her fire had survived the night. The log-feeding mechanism Mrs. Chimchak had taught her to build had actually worked. The sight of the low burning flames boosted her spirits, as did the realization her fever had broken.

She climbed out of her lean-to. The red sun rising in the East told her it was still early morning. She still had the rest of the food Marko had brought, and enough juices and water to last her through the night. With the fire burning and the extra matches he’d left her, nothing could go wrong. All she had to do was waste time and survive one more night.

Nadia ate a Baby Ruth candy bar for breakfast. It was the smart choice. It had peanuts for lasting energy and caramel for an instant pickup. Then she hiked to the stream and washed up. After she was done washing her face, however, she had to sit on a log to rest. The short walk and the simple act of splashing water with her hands had tired her out. By the time she returned to her camp she felt feverish again. Nadia cursed her bad luck as she fed the fire.

She wished she had some Sucrets throat lozenges or some Vicks cough drops to ease the pain in her throat. It hurt every time she tried to swallow. Then she remembered Mrs. Chimchak had given her the box of Altoids. Maybe a mint really could make a person feel better when she had no better options.

Nadia popped one into her mouth. Instead of a burst of mint, however, she choked on a bitter explosion. Nadia bolted upright and spit out the tablet. What was it? A salt or iodine tablet? Was it another test? Was she supposed to survive with some sort of strange substance in her body? Maybe the KGB had interrogated Mrs. Chimchak back in Ukraine. Maybe this was her sick way of toughening Nadia up. All the immigrants were wacko that way, Nadia thought. They had a different mentality about what made a person strong from regular Americans because they’d been through so much themselves.

The residual aftertaste of the tablet lingered on Nadia’s tongue. Thirty seconds after she’d spit it out, she recognized the taste. It was aspirin! The kind adults took, not the baby kind her mother used to give her. She’d taken only one tablet about nine months ago when she’d had a terrible headache. Mrs. Chimchak had pretended to give her mints, but she’d filled the box with aspirin. It was a real wonder medicine, and Mrs. Chimchak cared about her so much she wanted her to have some in case she got sick. Either that or Mrs. Chimchak could already tell she was getting sick when she’d visited her camp. She knew things about people they didn’t even know themselves. She was a strange, bizarre, spooky woman. She was the best.

Nadia took a fresh aspirin and washed it down with some pineapple juice. Then she slipped into her sleeping bag to rest. Her mind wandered, and she began to get scared about being sick all alone in the wildness.

Marko had taught her how to deal with unpleasant situations like these. Don’t be scared of getting scared, he said. It’s normal to be frightened in unusual circumstances. Make fear your friend. Let the fluttering in the belly and the pounding of the heart remind you to be alert and not do anything stupid. Then focus your mind on something else, Marko said. Picture yourself doing something you enjoy, and imagine you’re really doing it.

And that’s what she’d trained herself to do when she got scared or nervous. She did it when she had to recite a poem in front of the entire Uke community on stage at the National Home. The community put on half a dozen banquets during the year to commemorate a person or an event like Uke independence day. Sometimes a Uke dance troupe would perform, other times a Uke choir would sing.

And then there was the obligatory Nadia Tesla poetry recital. That was her punishment for being the best Uke student in school and having the best Uke diction. There was nothing she hated more than being volunteered by her father to commit eight stanzas to memory and stand in front of five hundred people and perform. She didn’t even know what half the words meant or what she was getting all emotional about.

As the recital approached, her nerves got so tight she thought her head would explode. To ease the tension, she pictured herself eating her reward at McDonald’s, a cheeseburger with fries and a vanilla shake. The key moment was when she sipped the shake with a mouthful of food, and the sugar in the shake blended with the salt from the burger and fries. Except she didn’t get any reward after the last recital because she forgot a line and had to be prompted by her teacher from behind the stage. Her father got so mad . . .

But not as mad as he got when he learned Marko had doctored his report card, used a typewriter to turn an F into an A. As soon as he’d taken his belt off, Nadia had raced upstairs to her bedroom, hidden under the blanket, and covered her ears. Then she pictured herself reading
The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
in the living room, her father smoking a pipe, her brother watching baseball on the TV as their mother pared apples for them to share. They were happy. So happy . . .

But there were times when the trick didn’t work. Like when her father and mother screamed at each other, when he told her marrying her was the dumbest decision of his life, and she said she regretted having had his children. There was one time in particular, when they went totally ballistic and her father picked up a kitchen knife and pointed it at Nadia’s mother, and Marko jumped in and stood in front of their mother to protect her. The anguish in Nadia’s soul had been so intense she thought she would never get out of the moment, that she would never recover from the incident, that she would be incapable of experiencing happiness again.

Much to her surprise, she did recover from that incident. And her family went on pretending there were no problems, that they were a normal family. And so she would survive her final night here on the Appalachian Trail, too, Nadia thought.

She drifted in and out of sleep for hours. When she woke up to the sound of spitting and cracking, she thought she was seeing things because giant orange flames were raging against the black of night. That was impossible, she said to herself, because she’d been sleeping and hadn’t fed the fire. Then she felt a gentle hand on her forehead and heard a voice that made her realize she was no longer sleeping and this was not a dream. It was the sound of a voice that might have instantly calmed other girls, but for Nadia it was the voice of holy terror.

It was the sound of her father’s voice.

CHAPTER 22

T
HERE IS A
paradigm in the financial markets called the greater fool theory. In such a scenario, a person buys an investment knowing she is paying too much for it, with the underlying assumption she’ll be able to sell it to someone else at an even higher price. In essence, the person knows she’s exercising poor judgment but thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. She believes she’ll unwind her investment in time.

Such was my current situation. I knew Donnie Angel and his organization were out there. Maybe they were tracking my every move, or perhaps they simply kept watch on the motel where I was staying. But there was no doubt they knew I was in Hartford and understood exactly what types of questions I was asking. I had no doubt of this because if that weren’t the case, I would have been already punished for breaking his leg.

I was certain this was the case as soon as I walked out of Mrs. Chimchak’s house. In fact, I probably knew it earlier, the moment she implied my godfather had dealt in stolen art or antiquities, and that he hadn’t trusted banks with his money. Those revelations meant that my godfather had probably left something valuable behind him. And by inquiring into my godfather’s death, I was providing Donnie Angel an invaluable service.

I was leading him to the prize.

I doubted there was any cash in my godfather’s home as Mrs. Chimchak had suggested. The house was protected with an alarm, but a criminal like Donnie Angel would know how to acquire a code or get past it, wouldn’t he? If he’d found what he was looking for, he wouldn’t have lifted me off the sidewalk in New York. It was as though he knew that my kidnapping assured him that I would continue to ask questions. I wondered if it were possible that Donnie Angel was so smart that he was playing me, or if I was simply thinking too much. Either way, there was no doubt in my mind that he was using me now.

The Uke community knew his reputation. People in the community wouldn’t answer his questions. But he knew they would answer mine. That was the reason I’d remained unscathed since breaking his leg, I thought. In fact, it suggested that Donnie wouldn’t have exercised his threat of breaking mine, that strapping me onto his leg-breaking machine was just a scare tactic. Why break my leg and risk that I would stop pursuing what he wanted?

Even if that were true, his mercy was calculated and temporary. Eventually, I’d discover what he wanted me to find or I’d cease to be useful. When that time came, he’d have his vengeance. By going on with my investigation even though I knew what awaited me, I was assuming that I would be able to extricate myself like the aforementioned person who’d overpaid for his investment.

As a result of my actions, I had become what I’d always deplored. I was playing the part of the greatest fool. Even worse, I was playing the role consciously and willingly, which surely made me the greatest fool of all. And yet I persisted. The thought of quitting was a nonstarter. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was so committed, nor did I care to stop and hyperanalyze my motives. I had a mission and I was determined to complete it.

I called Paul Obon, my friend in New York, and asked him to see what he could learn about the Black Sea Trading Company. Then I called Brasilia and found out my brother wasn’t working tonight. I tried him at home but got his answering machine. I didn’t bother leaving a message.

Searching for him would have been futile, so I drove to the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hartford instead. I had been planning to visit with Father Yuri to see if he could help me. Now I had even more questions to ask him. When I arrived, the church was open. Nine people stood waiting in line across from the confessional. Father Yuri kept the church open the Friday night before Easter to provide a longer window for people to cleanse their souls. That he was still doing so didn’t surprise me. Sin was a perpetual growth industry.

Two banks of wooden pews faced a rich altar dressed in gold trim with colorful stained-glass windows above it. I dipped my right finger in a bowl of holy water resting on a sconce in the vestibule and crossed myself Eastern-style, thumb, index, and forefinger pressed together to represent the Holy Trinity. The openhanded gesture the Roman Catholics favored never made sense to me.

Tension melted from my body. The Church had been an emotional shelter where nothing could hurt me when I was a child. Time hadn’t erased its magic despite my prolonged absence. I considered getting in line for confession myself but I wasn’t prepared to bare my soul. Instead, I sat in a pew and waited half an hour for the church to empty and Father Yuri to emerge from the confessional.

Most priests looked older than their age, and the man who’d taught my catechism classes was no exception. The belt that encircled his waist could have secured a cargo container. He wore the toll of his profession on his body. Giant bags drooped beneath his eyes as he walked with a limp. When he saw me, he lit up. I smiled back but he screwed his face tight and nodded toward the exit instead. His frosty transformation filled me with dread.

I followed him outside. He looked around as he locked the church. I did the same. Cars lined both sides of the street, but they appeared as empty and harmless as the sidewalks.

“We have to talk,” Father Yuri said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see the only altar girl I ever had, but we have to talk. Let’s go inside the rectory . . .” His gaze fell on my Porsche. “Is that yours?”

“What do we have to talk about?”

“Zero to sixty in what—six seconds?”

“No. Under five. What do we have to talk about?”

“By God, that’s better than sex. Especially for a man in my profession. Not that I’d know but even a priest has an imagination. Forget the rectory. We’ll talk in the car.”

“We will?”

He waddled toward the street. I hustled to catch up, still fixated on his prior sense of urgency to talk.

“I didn’t remember you to be a car guy, Father.”

“New hobby.”

“Since when?”

“Since now. Let’s take it on the highway and blow the doors off some minivans. They’re constantly leaving my hybrid in the dust. I must have my vengeance.”

“But I remember you preaching forgiveness from the time I was five years old.”

“They didn’t make minivans when you were five years old, child.”

Father Yuri climbed behind the wheel and pushed the seat back to accommodate his huge belly. He was known as the gourmet chef, one who also received weekly platters from devoted Ukrainian spinsters.

“The Women’s League has been spreading rumors about me,” he said. “They say I emerged from my mother’s womb with a Heineken in my right hand.”

“Well, we know they’re wrong about that. It was Lowenbrau. I always saw you drinking Lowenbrau at summer camp. Lowenbrau Dark, wasn’t it?”

“You scoundrel,” he said, laughing.

“Why did you say we have to talk?”

“Why do children remember what we wish they’d forget?” He pointed at the shifter, looking confused. “What is this thing?”

I couldn’t have cared less about my car at that moment, but I did value our lives. “Wait. You’ve never driven a car with a manual transmission?”

He frowned. “What’s a manual transmission?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding you. But how hard can it be?”

I stammered through an incoherent answer.

“Of course I’m kidding you,” he said. “Buckle up, Danica. I did the two-day course at Lime Rock. It was a gift from a parishioner. He supplies them with tires. Let me show you how this thing’s supposed to be driven.” He wiped the traces of good humor from his expression. “And then we’ll talk.”

Fifteen minutes and an equal number of hairpin turns later, I was almost searching for a sick bag. The engine wailed as we raced down I-91 toward New Haven, carving up every minivan in sight.

“And she’s on the cell phone too,” Father Yuri said, as he passed one of them, finger pointed at the driver.

I clung to the armrest on the passenger door.

“What a machine,” he said, as he slowed down to sixty-five. He merged into the right lane and blended with traffic. He took a deep breath and exhaled with satisfaction. “Thank you for that, Nadia.” Then he glanced at me with the look of a man who was used to standing in God’s place. “Now tell me, exactly what do you think you’re doing?”

His question knocked the breath out of me. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play with me. This is your health and welfare we’re talking about. Why are you digging around into things that are none of your business?”

A shiver ran through me. “How do you know what I’m doing?”

“It’s an insular community, Nadia. You know that.”

“Who told you I was asking questions?”

He cocked his head at me as though I should have known better than to ask. The priest-penitent privilege protected any communication between Father Yuri and anyone who’d confided to him in confidence. He didn’t need to reveal what he knew to the police, and he certainly wasn’t going to share the source of his knowledge with me. I couldn’t even be sure it was only one person involved. There could be multiple degrees of separation between his source and one of the people who knew what I was doing.

“I presume you called me because you have some questions of me,” Father Yuri said. “I may know the answers to some of them. I may not be able to answer others. But I will not be party to putting your life at risk.”

I could hear my heart pounding as though someone had stuck a metronome behind my ear. “Is my life at risk?” I knew the answer, of course, but hearing someone else state the obvious was far more terrifying than believing it myself.

“Is Bohdan Angelovich using crutches?”

Father Yuri knew about Donnie Angel. He knew what I’d done to him, which meant he must have known that Donnie had kidnapped me. Only three people knew about that incident: Donnie, Roxy, and me. Except that was a guess. I had no idea how many people knew about it. Roxy, Donnie, the two guys in Donnie’s van, or their boss could have been the source. I couldn’t infer anything with certainty.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen him for a few days. Is my life at risk?”

“Didn’t your mother teach you to keep matches away from straw?”

“No. She sent me to PLAST camp where I learned how to put matches to birch bark. It burns just as fast.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Someone has to.”

“Nonsense. Prying into an unlikely death will not bring back the departed. Why do you care so much?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I just know I have to follow this through to the end.”

“Nonsense. You have a choice. You can walk away now.”

“You of all people, Father Yuri, should understand the concept of a calling.”

He slipped into the lane for the last exit in Hartford. It would deposit us at the border of Wethersfield, a mile away from the Uke National Home.

“Fair enough. We’re about ten minutes away from church. For those ten minutes, in appreciation for allowing me to use this sublime piece of machinery, I’ll discuss those things I’m permitted to discuss with you. I won’t discuss anything else, and you won’t mention this subject ever again once we get back to the church. And we will do so against my better judgment, as tribute to your generous heart and kind soul. The parish and I remain grateful for your donations.”

His thanks only served to remind me I was unemployed. I was glad it was dark and he couldn’t see me blush. I wondered if my financial situation would ever allow me to be generous again. Then I asked him if he’d seen any evidence of a surge in my godfather’s disposable income or a change in lifestyle.

“The church never saw any of that money, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

“So you knew he’d become rich?”

“He took me to Fleming’s Steakhouse once.”

“Where he had a regular table and the waitress knew his name.”

Father Yuri looked shocked. “How did you . . .”

“The church never saw the money?”

Father Yuri shrugged. “I didn’t say I didn’t get a free meal out of it. Porcini-rubbed filet mignon. Definitely heaven-sent. I think he wanted me to know he was doing well. Which meant he wanted the community to know he was doing well, but I didn’t see any increase in our collections.”

“That was rather inconsiderate of him.”

“I should say so.”

“You’d think he’d understand even spiritual enterprises run on cash.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I love a pragmatic priest.”

“As well you should. Believe me when I tell you, religion is a business, too. Prayers don’t pay the electricity bill. You mind if I pass this lollygagger?” He downshifted into third and blew past a late-model BMW, glaring at the driver as he passed. “Why buy a sports sedan if you’re going to drive ten miles below the speed limit?”

“Did you ask him how he’d come by his good fortune?” I said.

“I don’t pry. I remember telling him, ‘Business must be good,’ and he said ‘Never better. If you live long enough, anything can happen. Ukraine can gain independence, you can turn a profit on the past, and even an old scrounger can get lucky.
’
”

The last two lines caught my attention. “You’re sure that’s what he said? ‘You can turn a profit on the past and an old scrounger can get lucky?
’
”