Complete Mia Kazmaroff

by Kiernan-Susan Lewis

  If the guy really was Catholic, that would be his parish. Mia looked up the name of the pastor on the Internet and memorized a couple of the names of the deacons too for good measure. It was a weak ruse but it was all she had. She parked her car in the driveway of a bland, innocuous home that matched Martin’s street address, walked to the front door and rang the bell.

  A woman in her early sixties answered the door.

  “Mrs. Martin?” Mia said. “I’m Mia Kazmaroff, from the parish?”

  The frown on the woman’s face melted away and she opened the door wider.

  “Oh, thank you for coming,” she said. “Please come in.”

  Mia stepped into the foyer. It had a soaring ceiling intended to give the feeling of space but, unfortunately, the walls on all sides were crammed full of amateur artwork and posters, fostering a claustrophobic, closed feeling instead.

  “Did Father Matthews send you?” The woman asked, leading Mia into the living room off the foyer. She was thin, her face showing signs of strain and tension. An unpleasant odor was present in the house and Mia had the sudden thought that it might be coming from Mrs. Martin.

  “Yes, he did. I’m just here to see how you’re getting along and if there’s anything we can do for you.”

  “No, all the casseroles have been very helpful though. I’ll never get through them in a month.”

  “Well, during such a dreadful time as this,” Mia said, sitting on the couch and feeling it crackle as if it were stuffed with cellophane, “you need all the help you can. I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I am new to the parish, myself.”

  “I didn’t think I remembered you.”

  “Can I ask you about Jim? Father is putting together a few words in his honor.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful.” Mrs. Martin pulled a tattered tissue from her sweater sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “He was the best son. Never missed a Mother’s Day.”

  “And he lived here with you?”

  Mrs. Martin stiffened. “Yes. Just until he got back on his feet.”

  “Of course. The recession has made it very hard for everyone. Jobs lost, foreclosures…and of course, it’s even worse if you have any kind of disability at all.”

  “I’m sure, although, thank God that was not the case with Jim.”

  “That’s good.” Shit.

  “Can I offer you a Coke, Ms…I’m sorry, how do you pronounce your name?”

  “Please call me Mia. Yes, a Coke would be great. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Not at all.”

  “And I hate to ask, but could I use the bathroom?”

  Mrs. Martin stopped and looked at Mia with a frown. She glanced down the hall, presumably in the direction of the bathroom.

  “I’m afraid, with the pregnancy and all, I have to go all the time,” Mia said.

  “Oh, goodness, dear. I remember, myself. It’s the last door on the left down the hall.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mia left her purse on the couch and walked down the hall as Mrs. Martin disappeared into the kitchen. Mia walked first to the bathroom and shut the door without going in, then returned to the first bedroom door off the hallway. The door was closed, and when she touched the knob it radiated sadness and despair up her arm.

  This has to be his room.

  Inside, it looked like the room of a twelve-year-old boy. It probably was. Little Jimmy Martin’s room before he left home as an adult thinking he’d conquer the world and only ever come back to Mom’s on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

  She needed to hurry. Mia crossed to the bed and felt under the covers, trying to ignore the agonizing shrieks of pain and grief that crept up her arms as she did. That poor woman.

  She turned to his desk. An ancient laptop lay on top but she didn’t bother with it. How long does it take to grab a Coke and pour it over ice? Hurry, Mia. Keeping one ear attuned to the possible sounds of footsteps in the hallway, Mia raked open the drawer on the bedside table. Pens, petroleum jelly, a set of Braves baseball cards, a prescription bottle of pills. Her fingers wrapped around the bottle.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Mia whirled around to see Mrs. Martin standing in the doorway, a glass of cola in her hand. Her eyes looked beyond where Mia was standing to the open nightstand drawer.

  “I…was just looking for something that Father might use, you know, to talk about.”

  “Who are you?” Mrs. Martin took a step into the room. “Get out of here. Get out of his room!”

  Mia edged past the woman and hurried into the living room. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Martin,” she said. “I just wanted to—”

  “I am calling Father Matthews right now. He must be a moron to send someone so insensitive to a grieving mother. Get out! Tell him this is the reason we don’t come any more! Nosy busybodies.”

  Mia snatched her purse and walked to the front door. As she jogged down the front steps to her car, Mrs. Martin stood on the porch and yelled after her. “And you can tell him to stop sending the goddamn casseroles! I can make better food in my fucking bathtub!”

  *****

  Mia drove from Jim Martin’s house to the parking lot of Ansley Mall, three miles away. Her adrenaline was still pumping overtime from being chased out of the house—a house that vibrated with fury and sadness. It wasn’t until she’d driven a good two miles from the neighborhood itself that Mia could fully breathe again.

  She looked at the prescription bottle on the car seat next to her, pulled out her iPad again, and carefully typed in metoprolol from the label. Within seconds she had her answer. Wanting to bounce out of her seat with barely suppressed excitement, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found the number for Jack’s attorney.

  His secretary buzzed her through.

  “Murray here,” he said, his voice clipped, business-like, and harried.

  “Hi, Paul. This is Mia Kazmaroff. I’m calling on behalf of Jack Burton.” Murray hesitated so Mia plunged ahead. “I need you to check on something for me. I have reason to believe Jim Martin suffered from…” Mia glanced at the webpage she’d found on her iPad, “…hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.”

  “Look, Mia,” Murray said with a heavy sigh. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. And I know Jack said the guy had a heart attack or something, but the evidence just doesn’t support that. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Mia said patiently, “it wasn’t a heart attack. It was Sudden Cardiac Arrest. There’s a difference.”

  “Does Jack know you’re calling me?”

  “It turns out Jim Martin had a prescription for beta blockers that he filled nearly five months ago, but his bottle is still full.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Listen, all you have to do is subpoena the guy’s health records to show he had a heart condition, which he obviously did. A heart condition he needed to take medicine for.”

  Murray paused. “What was the name of the condition you think he had?”

  Mia glanced at her iPad again. “The most common one is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy but it could be one of several. But the point is, if Martin wasn’t taking his medicine and he got overly excited, the stress could stop his heart.”

  “Overly excited. You mean like running away from someone?”

  “Exactly. If we can prove the guy needed beta blockers in order not to fall down dead when he got stressed out—”

  “And then see if the autopsy confirms those meds weren’t found in his system. I’m with you.” His voice had picked up in excitement.

  Mia exhaled. “Yes,” she said. “Then the ME’s report about the spleen is irrelevant because the guy was already dead when it burst. Just like Jack said.”

  “Do I want to know how you got this information?”

  Mia laughed wryly. “Didn’t Jack tell you? I’m kinda psychic.”

  After she hung up with the lawyer, Mia felt a flush of exhilaration. Any
thing is possible if you’re determined not to give up. Maybe that philosophy could be extended a little farther? She picked up her iPad and went to the first of six bookmarks for people searches. With a name like Wojinziky, it couldn’t be that hard to find an address. Thirty minutes later, Mia closed out the last of her people finding sites. No joy on any of them. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and frowned.

  An unemployed plumber with a seriously Polish-sounding name. How is it this hard? Finally deciding she’d have better luck on a full stomach, she pulled into the drive-through of the nearest Starbucks and ordered a sandwich and a venti iced coffee with four sugars. She had plenty of experience suddenly finding answers to vexing problems the minute she did something else and sure enough, as she was wadding up the paper of her sandwich, it occurred to her: a property record search.

  While ol’ Jeffy boy might not own his own house—except what self-respecting plumber couldn’t afford a five-bedroom Wieland on what plumbers charge?—his parents surely must. She started with Fulton County and by the time she’d searched Forsyth and Cobb, the light was starting to fade. One more county and she’d do the rest from her living room.

  DeKalb County. Tanya and Jeffrey Wojinziky.

  He’s married? Wasn’t there a rule against married guys signing up for online dating services? Mia plugged the address into her GPS. It was across town, and with rush hour going on she knew she wouldn’t make it there in daylight. Which suited her just fine. She put the car in gear and pointed it toward the Wojinziky residence.

  Between the wedding and Jack’s case she hadn’t really had a chance to process Victoria’s case falling to pieces. One thing she knew as sure as she knew traffic in Atlanta was that with Maxwell’s team handling it, steps would be missed and protocol skipped. The case had already fallen off the front page—and the third—and while they’d put a squad on it, Mia was convinced the sad ending of Victoria Baskerville was well on its way to becoming a cold case.

  Not if I have anything to say about it. Did the cops even know about Wojinziky? Had they ever questioned him? Had they even gotten that far? She turned onto Ponce de Leon Avenue. The map on her GPS made it look like the Wojinzikys lived in Atkins Park. That was a pretty neighborhood and bordering on upscale for the area. Pretty good for an unemployed plumber.

  She turned off Ponce in front of the old Plaza Theatre onto Barnett Street. The azaleas and dogwood down this street clearly hadn’t gotten the memo from the rest of Atlanta’s foliage and the season. It was an early explosion of pink and cotton-ball white punctuated up and down the avenue as the dogwood and the Bradford pear trees vied with each other for sheer stunning display.

  Wojinziky’s house was a split-level that had been renovated. The landscaping wasn’t professional, but it was mature and lush. There were two cars in the driveway, one of them a pickup truck with a magnetic sign on the door that said Fast Plumbing. No wonder she couldn’t find him by Googling his name. He was smart enough to know nobody was going to remember Wojinziky’s Plumbing.

  Just as she unbuckled her seatbelt, her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen before answering.

  “Hey, Jack,” she said. “How you feeling?”

  “A lot better since I talked with my lawyer. Mia, get your ass home so I can kiss you. I can’t believe you found out the guy had a heart condition! How did you find out?”

  “Oh, you know us private eyes, we have our little ways.”

  “Tell me you didn’t go to his house.”

  “Hey, don’t ask, don’t tell, baby.”

  “Mia, if I wasn’t so sick—and so amazed about what you discovered—I’d kick your ass.”

  “No need to thank me, Jack. Your smiling face is all the thanks I need.”

  “Seriously, Mia, thank you. I’m just sitting here stunned because I can finally see a way my life won’t be a total nightmare going forward and I really need you home.”

  “I have one quick thing I have to do first. Want me to pick something up on the way back?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Near Ponce.”

  “There’s a great Thai place near there.”

  “Call it in then text me the address and I’ll pick it up on my way back.”

  “I love you, Mia.”

  “I love you, too, Jack. I won’t be long.”

  She grinned and tucked the phone into her purse. Things were working out. It was all just working out. Jack’s preliminary hearing would clear him. They’d go back to major snuggle sessions. And he would help her pick up the threads to a case nobody was paying them for and that everyone in Major Crimes would have a major shit fit about if they found out they were still investigating.

  Good times.

  She left the car and hurried up the cracked sidewalk to the front door. The porch light was on and she could hear noise from the television set. She took a deep breath and knocked. One way or the other, she was going to clap hands on whoever came to the door and get some answers once and for all. The temperature had dropped with the light and she found herself hugging her arms for warmth.

  Maybe the murderer would let her warm up inside his foyer for a few minutes while she questioned him?

  She knocked again, louder, and began searching for a doorbell when suddenly the door opened and none other than Jeff Wojinziky himself stood on the doorstep. She’d forgotten if she’d read how tall he was but he was big—linebacker big. Much of it was hanging over the front of his belt, but his arms looked like they could lift fully loaded meat hooks. Mia took an involuntary step back.

  “Can I help you?” He didn’t look particularly menacing, especially dressed in cutoffs and flip-flops, and Mia was about to speak when she heard a woman call from the living room.

  “Who is it, baby? I already paid the lawn guy.” The woman had the most discordant voice Mia had ever heard. Halfway between a screech and a squawk, the sound made Mia visibly wince.

  “It’s nobody,” Jeff called over his shoulder and then eyed Mia. “Can I help you?” he repeated, much less friendly now.

  “You don’t remember me, Jeff? We met on Atlanta Loves,” Mia said brightly. “You said you’d call but you didn’t, so here I am. Can you talk?” She was inches from stepping across the threshold to get a hand on one of his beefy Popeye arms, but he lunged out the door and grabbed her by the arms.

  Before she could catch her balance, he shoved her backward off the porch onto the sidewalk, then jumped down and placed a heavy foot on her neck.

  Chapter 11

  “Get the fuck outta here while you can still crawl,” Wojinziky said, his voice low and feral. Mia struggled to get out from under his foot but he pressed harder until she froze, her hands clawing impotently against the cold walkway.

  For a moment she was sure he was going to crush her windpipe, but he reached down and jerked her to her feet. The movement made her dizzy and her stomach lurched. She felt her sandwich coming up and fought to control the nausea. He held her by the lapels of her jacket until she could stand unassisted. She saw him look over his shoulder at the house.

  When he released her abruptly, Mia staggered away, her hand to her throat. The car felt like a very long distance away. She heard the front door slam behind her before she was halfway down the walkway.

  A man who can bully women so effortlessly probably doesn’t worry about them not obeying him.

  Mia reached the car and pulled herself into the front seat, her hands shaking so badly she could barely get the key in the ignition. She drove to the end of the street and turned down a side street in the neighborhood. She pulled the car onto the side of the road and parked. Don’t think, just do.

  Her heart pounding in her throat, she took her Glock out of the glove compartment and fumbled with the door handle. Her legs were still jelly and she leaned against the car for support. It was dark but she would still need to act quickly. Neighbors were always curious and she couldn’t afford for anyone to see her.

  She slid the gun in the back
of her waistband, blowing hard to steady herself and hoping she didn’t hyperventilate in the process. She forced herself not to think about what had just happened. She opened the car trunk and found what she was looking for under a tarp and a heavy blanket.

  Tucking the electronic tracking devise into the pocket of her jacket, she locked the car and walked across two darkened yards until she was across the street from the Wojinziky home. Her hands were still trembling and she took a moment to calm herself before jogging across the street and squatting behind the second car in the driveway. When she was sure nobody had seen her, she duck-walked to the back of the pickup truck and clamped the magnetized GPS tracker onto its undercarriage. She knew it was against the law to use it on Wojinziky’s truck without his permission. She knew Jack would shit three shades of blue.

  She flipped on the activation switch.

  Keeping low, she ran back to the facing yard and then made her way back to her car. She waited until she was at the Thai restaurant before she opened the browser on her smartphone to activate the tracking service for the device. She touched her throat. Her phone vibrated with an incoming text.

 

  <5 min away.>

 

  Mia dug for a compact in her purse to make sure she didn’t look any worse after her meeting with Jeff Wojinziky. The last thing she wanted to do was spoil what promised to be a joyous evening with Jack with annoying signs of having been attacked by a psycho killer.

  She got back in the car, the spicy aromas from the bag of Tom Yam Goong and Pad Thai takeout permeating the interior. Even without touching him, Mia had gotten the answer to her biggest question. It was him. She knew it without laying a finger on him. She knew it from his wild, hooded eyes full of fear and shame. She knew it from the way he’d reacted when she told him she was from Atlanta Loves—just like Victoria.

  Guilt, Jeff. It’s the karma that keeps on giving. Mia pointed her car toward Atlantic Station.