The Boy Who Stole From the Dead (6 page)

“I just got back from Rikers Island. He’s in the infirmary.”

“Did he get sick?”

“He had some issues with anxiety. And then he was beaten.”

Meredith let out a cry, covered her mouth. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry this happened to Bobby. And you. Trent and I know it’s a misunderstanding. When we saw the address…Trent was the general contractor on loft conversions a block away from where it happened. We couldn’t believe it. It’s as though it happened in our own back yard. We’re sure it’ll get straightened out.”

“I’m trying to straighten it out. But I need your help.”

Meredith’s eyes widened as though Nadia had asked for a limb. “Of course.” She swallowed hard. “Anything we can do. Anything.”

“The night of the murder, Bobby told me he was coming here.”

“And I told you on the phone he didn’t come here.”

“But was he supposed to come here?”

“No. I asked Derek and he said they hadn’t planned anything.”

“Would you mind if I spoke with Derek?”

Meredith shifted in her seat. “Forgive me for saying this, Nadia. But if Derek already said they didn’t plan anything, how else could he possibly help?”

“I’m hoping Derek might have some insight into Bobby’s state of mind, if not his whereabouts that night.”

“Why would Derek know anything about his whereabouts?”

“He’s Bobby’s friend. He might know something and be completely unaware of it.”

“Nadia, Trent and I love Bobby to death. You know we do. And we love you, too. But we don’t want Derek distracted from his schoolwork.”

“It’ll only take a couple of minutes. I promise.”

Meredith grasped for words.

“We can talk right here,” Nadia said. “You’d be in the room with us.”

“Obviously I’d be in the room with you. I’m not sure you understand…”

“Of course I understand. Bobby’s been arrested for murder. You want to protect your son. You want to distance him. You don’t want him involved. You don’t want him talking about it or even thinking about it if you can help it.”

“Exactly. I’m so glad you see. It’s not personal—”

“No, it is personal. Everything that matters in life is personal. Bobby’s in jail, Meredith. He’s already been beaten once. In a week they’ll release him from the infirmary. I’m trying to find something, anything that might help us understand that evening.”

“I wish we could help you.”

“Before he gets beaten again.”

“I really do.”

“Bobby didn’t kill anyone in cold blood,” Nadia said. “You know that. You see how he plays hockey. He doesn’t have a mean streak. He doesn’t have any violent tendencies.”

“As opposed to who, my son?”

“No, Merry. As opposed to the person who’s really responsible for that poor young man’s death. As opposed to the thugs who beat Bobby and might kill him next time.”

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here and comparing my son to the criminals your boy is in jail with.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Please leave, Nadia.”

Nadia felt her composure slipping. All she wanted to do was talk to the kid with his mother present. Was that unreasonable? Funny how you never really knew a person until you suffered through adversity with her. Nadia took a quick breath to steady herself.

“I didn’t compare Derek to anyone,” she said. “This conversation has gotten a little—”

“Get out.”

“Merry. Please. I’m just trying to find out if Derek knows anything that might help.”

The floor creaked. Meredith turned toward the door.

“Help with what?” a man said.

Trent Mace filled the doorway. A spoon protruded from a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy. He bounded into the sitting room and hugged Nadia with his free hand. She’d spied him watching her in the Fordham stands on more than one occasion. Nadia guessed she might have better luck with him.

“Help with what?” he said.

Nadia explained.

“Honey, go ask Derek to come in for a few minutes.”

Meredith bristled. “May I speak with you in the kitchen for a minute?”

Trent excused himself and followed his wife out of the sitting room. Meredith’s fury echoed down the corridor, but Trent’s reply didn’t. A minute later they returned with Derek. He sank into an upholstered chair.

“I don’t know why he said he was coming over here,” Derek said.

“You didn’t make plans earlier in the day?” Nadia said.

“Nope.”

“Is it possible he was going to pop over unannounced?”

“Huh?”

“Did Bobby ever come over unannounced, or did he always make plans ahead of time?”

“I don’t know. I guess there was always a plan. I mean, Bobby’s a planner, right?”

“Is he?” Nadia said. She’d never thought of him that way.

“Sure. He draws up plays for the coaches sometimes. And he knows what he’s doing every day for the next week.”

“Did he mention what he was doing the night he got arrested?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.”

“Did he seem different?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he seem upset or depressed or concerned about anything?”

Derek shrugged. “I don’t know. You can never tell about Bobby. That’s his thing. He’s poker face twenty-four-seven. If anyone should know what he’s been thinking, it should be you, shouldn’t it? I mean, you’re his guardian, right?”

“Hey,” Trent said. “Watch your mouth.” He turned to Nadia. “I’m sorry about my son’s manners.” He turned to Derek. “What about the girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” Nadia glanced at Trent, Meredith, and Derek. “What girlfriend?”

Meredith looked surprised. She glanced alternately at her husband and son.

Trent commanded his son with a nod of the head. “Speak.”

“There’s a girl in Brighton Beach,” Derek said.

“What?” Nadia said. “Since when?”

“I don’t know. About a month ago.”

“What’s her name?”

“I think it’s Iryna.”

“You think?” Trent said.

Derek stared at his father from the roofs of his eyes. “Okay, her name’s Iryna. She’s Russian.”

Nadia blushed. She could feel Meredith’s eyes all over her, judging her for not being intimately familiar with every aspect of Bobby’s life. And Nadia agreed. She thought she’d known about everything Bobby did, but clearly she’d been kidding herself.

“How did he meet her?” Nadia said.

“I don’t know,” Derek said.

Trent pointed a finger at Derek. “Son, you think you’re helping Bobby by keeping a secret? You’re not. It’s time for you to man up. Speak.”

Derek took a deep breath. “She’s a model.”

“What type of model?” Nadia said.

“Lingerie and swimsuits and stuff.”

“How old is this girl?”

“I don’t know. Maybe sixteen or seventeen.”

“How did Bobby meet her?”

“She friended him on Facebook.”

“Facebook? Bobby’s on Facebook? That’s impossible.” Bobby had agreed to stay away from social media to minimize the risk of someone recognizing him and revealing his true identity. “Since when?”

“I don’t know. A couple of months. He’s got fans.”

“He does?”

Derek nodded. “On account of the Gáborik race. The YouTube videos.”

“And how did this girl find him?”

“A friend of hers showed her his home page. They had a lot in common.”

“What friend?”

“Another girl. A friend of mine.”

Meredith frowned. “What friend of yours?”

“Someone I met. She goes to St. Mary’s in Flushing. We play them twice a year. She goes to the games.”

“And you’ve been seeing this other girl?” Shock registered on Meredith’s face.

“She friended me after one of the games this past season. We’ve gone on a couple of double dates. She’s a model, too. It’s nothing serious.”

“Who is this girl? Who are her parents?” Meredith turned to her husband. “Did you know about this?”

Trent shrugged.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Meredith said.

“Did Bobby go to see Iryna the night he was arrested?” Nadia said.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Derek said.

“Son, if you’re lying…”

Derek glared at his father. “I’m not lying.”

“Do you know her full name and address?” Nadia said.

“Her last name is Arshun. I don’t have an address. We never went to anyone’s house.”

“How about a phone number?”

“Nope. I never called her. She’s Bobby’s girl.”

“But you have your girlfriend’s number.”

“I wouldn’t call her my girlfriend.”

“Call her whatever you want,” Trent said. “But go get your cell phone, and call her now.”

Derek stood up.

“No, no,” Nadia said. “I just need a look at her Facebook page. If I can get a last name and a look at her picture, that’ll be plenty.”

“You don’t want her phone number?” Meredith said.

“No. I’ll find her,” Nadia said. She caught Derek’s eyes. “I’d rather her friends not warn her I was coming.”

CHAPTER 8

T
HERE WERE THREE
Arshuns listed in the phone book as living in Brighton Beach. All were listed under men’s names. Nadia called them sequentially. A different woman with an Eastern European accent answered each time. Nadia identified herself as Cynthia Moss, Vice President of the Lauder Modeling Agency in Manhattan. She asked to speak with the promising young model named Iryna. Each time she was told no such person lived there. Nadia asked if they knew a teenage model by that name that lived in Brighton Beach. The first two women said no and hung up. The third one, however, kept talking.

“Is this about modeling?” the woman said.

“No,” Nadia said. “Super modeling.”

The woman gasped. “Iryna lives with my daughter’s friend. Please hold. I give you phone number.”

Nadia called and left a voice mail. Iryna called back three minutes later. She spoke good English but with the same accent. They agreed to meet for drinks at 8:00 p.m. After Nadia hung up, an investment banker called with a job proposition. His client needed a forensic securities analyst fluent in English and Russian. He wouldn’t reveal his client’s name. They set up a lunch for tomorrow. The prospect of a paycheck energized Nadia. She called Johnny, told him what she was up to, and took the subway to Brooklyn.

There was a saying that Brighton Beach was conveniently located near the United States. Immigrants arrived en masse from the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. In the 1980s Brighton Beach became headquarters for the Russian mafia. A man named Marat Balagula was its leader. He had a kind heart with a soft spot for educated immigrants who couldn’t find jobs in America. He also made a fortune through shell companies that distributed gasoline but kept taxes for themselves. When word got out he was in business with the Italian mob, Russian hit man Vladimir Reznikov put his 9mm Beretta against Balagula’s head at a nightclub and demanded $600,000 for not pulling the trigger. Reznikov returned to the club the next day for payment. A Gambino crime family associate shot him dead.

Much had changed in Brighton Beach since then. The ghetto was torn down and replaced with luxury condominiums. Afghans, East Asians, Mexicans, and Pakistanis joined the mix. If there was still a Russian mafia presence, it never made the papers.

Nadia marched from the subway stop toward the Atlantic Ocean. The wind whipped her hair. The air smelled of salt. Nadia wasn’t worried about her safety but she still felt as though she was entering enemy territory. She was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants walking into a Russian enclave. Ukraine had suffered for centuries under Russian oppression. The Soviet Union was a Russian creation. Stalin did his best to starve Ukraine. Brezhnev tried to eradicate all traces of its culture.

Nadia learned to speak Ukrainian before English even though she was born in Hartford. When she was recommended for Russian language classes in junior high school by the Spanish teacher, her parents were initially reluctant for fear it would pollute her Ukrainian. They hailed from Western Ukraine, where nationalist pride ran deep. The further East one travelled, the more Russified the Ukrainian population. In Kyiv, Russian was still more prevalent than Ukrainian even though the country had been independent since 1991.

Bobby was from central Ukraine. His Facebook page said he was fluent in Russian. That infuriated Nadia as it hinted at his past. It was an exercise in mindless self-indulgence. His Facebook page didn’t mention he spoke Ukrainian. That irked her. If he was boasting he spoke Russian, why didn’t he mention he was fluent in his native Ukrainian? It was as though the latter didn’t matter.

His girlfriend’s Russian ethnicity also troubled Nadia. That ethnic bias, in turn, disturbed her. The end result was a continuous loop of distrust, apology, and acceptance. In Iryna’s case, however, Nadia seemed stuck on the distrustful part. She feared the girl was an opportunist who figured out Bobby might become a professional hockey player. She also worried Iryna might be older than seventeen.

The name of the restaurant was Gogol-Mogol. Nadia expected an elegant dining room that morphed into a rowdy scene at midnight. Instead she walked into a small café serving coffees and pastries. Pink walls featured elegantly stenciled recipes. Macaroons, Baba Au Rhum cakes and chocolate bombs filled the display cases. Crumbs littered the shelves behind the counter. They were empty except for four loaves of bread.