The Devil's Garden (31 page)

“Powell just called here,” Tommy said. “She was asking about Abby.”

“
What
? Abby? Why?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

Michael tried to anticipate the course of the investigation. “What did she ask?”

“She asked about where Abby worked. About where she
used
to work.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her the truth,” Tommy said. “It’s not like she couldn’t get the information elsewhere.”

Michael tried to process it all, but everything seemed to bottleneck.

“What are you going to do?” Tommy asked.

Good question, Michael thought. “I’m going to go back into the room and wait for the call. Then I’m going to my house.”

“You’ll never get there in thirty minutes.”

“I’m going to try,” Michael said. “And Tommy?”

“What?”

“Promise me you’re not going to make a move.”

Tommy took a moment, perhaps weighing all the odds. “I’ll meet you.”

“No,” Michael said. “Look. I’ve got this phone. Have you got the number on that end?”

Michael could hear Tommy scribbling on a pad. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

“Okay. Just put your ear to the rail and call me the second you know something. If Powell gets any closer, you call.”

“Mickey,” he said. “You’ve got to –”

“I know, man. I know.”

Michael closed the phone, put it on vibrate, slipped it into his pocket. He listened. There were no sounds coming from the trunk of the car.

He looked into the rear-view mirror. The sight he saw there unnerved him. His face was dotted and streaked with blood, slightly swollen and bruised. He reached into the Burger King bag, pulled out a handful of napkins. He opened the forty-ounce, dampened the napkins, and did his best to clean his face.

He looked again. Clean enough. His ears were still ringing from the blow he had taken to the side of his face, his heart was pounding, his head ached. He said a silent prayer, put his hand on the door. He had sixty seconds to get into the room. He prayed his watch was accurate – that Kolya’s watch was accurate – and that he had not missed the call. He opened the car door, got out.

“Put your hands where I can see them!” the voice behind him shouted.

Michael spun around. Flashing lights dazzled his eyes.

He was surrounded by police cars.

A
bby could not wait any longer. Every second the girls were gone, every second she did not know Michael’s whereabouts, was another arrow in her heart. Keeping the gun on Kolya, she had made a number of phone calls. She had called the office and was told Michael had left for the day. She had called his cellphone and gotten voicemail. She had called a few of his haunts – the Austin Ale House, the Sly Fox. No one had seen him. She almost called Tommy, but Tommy would see right through her. Tommy would know something was terribly wrong.

She wanted to put an end to this, to see the reassuring presence of a police car in her drive, the calm, assured manner of detectives and FBI agents, authority figures who could take this out of her trembling hands. She wanted to hold her husband, her girls.

But unless she knew her daughters would be safe, she could not take that chance. She looked out the window for what was probably the fiftieth time in the past ten minutes.

“You know, he’s probably not coming back,” Kolya said. He was slumped in the upholstered chair in the corner, a chair that until recently had been a putty velvet. Now it was caked and streaked with deep brown blood. He was breathing through his mouth, which for him, Abby thought, was probably business as usual.

“Shut up.”

“You know what I think, Mrs ADA? I think he took your precious little girls and he hit the road. God only knows what he’s doing with them right this second. He’s probably –”

“I said shut the fuck
up!
” Abby pointed the .25 at him. Kolya didn’t react. Abby wondered just how many times this man had had a weapon shoved in his face over the years. “I don’t want to hear another word. You don’t get to talk.”

Kolya acquiesced. For the moment. He shifted his weight in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position. Abby hoped he was never going to be comfortable for the rest of his life. Hopefully he would spend it in a prison cell.

Kolya looked at his watch. “Fuck this. I’m outta here.” He struggled to his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.”

Abby tensed. “Sit down.”

Kolya stood, facing her, not ten feet away, his hands behind his back. “No.”

This isn’t happening
, Abby thought. “I swear to God I will put a bullet in your head. Now sit down.”

Kolya smirked. “You a killer now? That what you are? A killer nurse?” He edged a few inches toward her. “I don’t think so.”

Abby backed up. She cocked the weapon. “Sit down. Don’t make me do this.”

Kolya looked around. “So, what’s stopping you? There’s no one here. Who’s gonna know it was cold-blooded murder?” He took another step. He was five feet away now. “All you gotta do is tell them I tried to jump your bones. They’ll believe you. You being a citizen and all.”

Abby backed up another inch. She was almost against the closet now. “Stop.”

Kolya stopped moving forward, his hands still behind his back. “You know what? I don’t think you can do it, Mrs ADA. I think you’re all talk. Just like your husband.”

“Shut up,” Abby said, her voice cracking. “Just shut up!”

Kolya took another small step forward, and suddenly there was another voice in the room. Somebody talking about how the lottery jackpot was up to $245 million, and how you too could be a winner. Somehow the flat-screen television on the dresser had clicked to life. Instinctively, Abby glanced at it. And understood. This was why Kolya had his hands behind his back. He had the remote. He was trying to distract her, and it worked. She only looked away for a second, but it was long enough for Kolya. He lunged across the room. For a short, stocky man he was incredibly fast.

Abby fell back against the wall, raised the gun, and pulled the trigger. Twice.

Nothing. The weapon didn’t fire. It was empty.

Once Kolya realized he was not going to be shot and killed in this suburban house in Eden Falls, New York, Abby saw the full animal emerge.

In a second he was on top of her. “You fuckin’ cunt! I’m gonna fuckin’
kill
you!”

Kolya lashed out with his right hand, catching her high on her forehead. The blow knocked her back to the dresser, shattering perfume bottles, toppling pictures, dumping the television onto the floor. Before she could recover her balance Kolya grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the bed. Abby kicked her feet, flailed her arms, trying to connect, but he was too strong.

“But first I’m gonna fuck your brains out.”

He threw her to the bed, slapped her a second time. This time the blow was more powerful, more expertly leveraged. Abby felt herself fall to the edge of consciousness. Still she fought. Kolya pulled out his small pocket knife. He cut her dress away from her body, tearing it off, flinging it across the room.

Abby, nearly insensible, tried to bring her knee into his crotch again, but this time he was prepared. Stars danced at the edges of her eyes, and she felt for a moment as if she was going to pass out. She tasted blood in her mouth.

Kolya leaned back, unzipped his jeans. He had a full erection. “You’re out of your fuckin’ league, bitch.” He cut her bra and panties away, climbed back on top of her, all the time keeping tight hold of her hair. Abby fought him as hard as she could, but she was overpowered.

He grabbed her by the throat, applied pressure. “You point a gun at me?”

Kolya spread her legs with his other hand, settled his heavy body between them. “You’re gonna like this, Mrs ADA. Too bad you won’t be able to tell your friends about it.”

As Abby felt the world pull away, she heard something click onto the bed next to them, something metallic. It sounded as if something had fallen from the ceiling, but she couldn’t be sure what it had been.

Kolya stopped for a moment, looked up at the ceiling, then at the bed. On it were five small-caliber bullets. Kolya looked into Abby’s eyes. And knew.

Before he could make a move, Kolya grunted once, a wet animal sound. Abby’s face was suddenly bathed in a warm, viscous liquid. Some of it went into her mouth and nose. The taste made her gag, making her head pound, but bringing her back from the edge. Her world went bright red.

It was blood. Her face was now covered in it.

In her near-delirium, Abby thought it was her own blood, but when she looked at Kolya, she saw that his face was frozen in a rictus of pain, the muscles on his neck were corded and taut. Something was growing from his throat. Something silver and flat. Kolya fell on Abby in a quivering lump, and Abby now saw the shape of a man standing at the foot of the bed.

It was Aleks. He had stabbed Kolya from behind, and now the spasming man was laying on top of her, the huge knife protruding from the back of his neck. A second later, Aleks leaned over, pulled out the knife.

“
No
!” Abby screamed.

With all her strength she pushed Kolya off her. He rolled onto the bed, onto the floor, both of which were now drenched with blood.

“
What have you done
?”

Abby scrambled to her feet, the world spinning out of control. She tore a pillowcase from the bed, balled it, and put it over the hole in Kolya’s throat. Blood pumped from the wound, soaking the floor beneath Kolya’s head. His body jerked once, twice, then fell still. Abby kept pressure on the wound, but she knew it was too late. He was dead.

Abby glanced at Aleks. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom. His face offered no expression. Not anger, not remorse, not even satisfaction. He looked like a bird of prey, surveying his territory. Abby now realized Aleks had found her gun when he had been upstairs on his own earlier. He had unloaded it.

For a long time Abby couldn’t move. Then she realized her nakedness. She pulled one of the drapes from the rod, gathered it, wrapped it around her, the twin horrors of the past few minutes sinking in.

“Where . . . where are the girls?” she asked. Her voice sounded small, defeated, distant.

Aleks turned his head, looked at her. For a moment she wasn’t sure he knew who she was.

“Clean yourself up,” he said. “We are leaving in twenty minutes.”

T
he police officer was nervous. He was young, no more than twenty-two or so. His partner was a little older. Maybe his FTO, Michael thought, his field-training officer. Once the older cop had assessed that there was no imminent danger in the parking lot of the Squires Inn, he had told the other two patrol cars they could move on.

The young officer had worked it by the book, first asking for identification, then patting Michael down.

Michael had explained who he was, and that he was here investigating a case. He hoped that, being from a smaller town, the kid did not know that, as a rule, ADAs did not really do any fieldwork. He did not.

The officer had looked at Michael’s outfit, perhaps wondering why a Queens County prosecutor was wearing maroon golf slacks and a raincoat that were both clearly two sizes too big for him. If he was wondering, he said nothing about it. But Michael knew the mindset, even for a young cop. Something was off. And when something was off, it did not right itself.

“And why don’t you have any ID, sir?”

“It’s in my golf bag,” Michael said. “I got this call about a witness going squirrelly on us and I just jumped in the car.”

The officer looked at the blue Ford, then back. He glanced at his partner, who just shrugged.

According to the officer, a call had come in on 911 of two men fighting in the parking lot of the Squires Inn Motel. Michael said he knew nothing about it.

Michael snuck a glance at his watch. He had missed the call from Kolya.

“Could you wait right here for me?” the officer asked. He pointed to the rear of the Ford. Michael moved to the back of the car.

“Sure.”

As Michael approached he noticed a thin trickle of blood coming from the lid of the trunk. He moved from the left rear fender to the trunk, leaned against it.

As the young officer communicated on the radio, he looked from the laptop in his cruiser, to Michael, back. It seemed to take forever. Michael glanced again at his watch. He was now a full five minutes past the deadline.

The officer got out of the car.

“Sorry about this, Mr Roman. You know how it is. You get the call you have to check it out.”

“I understand.”

The kid looked at him for a few more seconds, then around the parking lot, at the motel itself, still not really comprehending the situation. Michael knew he would have crazier days than this.

“Have a good day, sir.”

Michael wondered how the uniformed officers had gotten the call. Had Kolya’s cousin seen the altercation from the office? Had she seen what happened and called Kolya, and now something had happened to Abby, Charlotte and Emily?

He glanced at his watch a third time. There was no point going back inside.

He slipped into the Ford, turned over the engine. Under the seat was Omar’s pistol and cellphone. He was glad the incident with the police had not progressed to a search of the vehicle. A few moments later he pulled out of the parking lot, and merged into traffic.

He headed home.

A
leks had not intended to let Kolya live, but neither had he expected it to end like this. He hated it when things got messy, and this was as messy as it could be.

He had owed Kolya’s father Konstantine many debts – indeed, the man had saved his life on more than one occasion – but the son held no power over him, had earned no such arrears.