by Kelly Oliver
Chapter Fourteen
Dmitry knew he was a dead man if he mentioned Bratva to the cops. The Russian Brotherhood didn’t take kindly to narcs. They didn’t tolerate betrayal. The key to surviving this police interrogation was to say as little as possible. To his surprise, the two uniformed officers never asked the important questions, the ones he dreaded. He never asked about Dmitry’s father or his brother. He never asked about the money or the paintings. He didn’t even ask about his house burning down. All he wanted to know was why Dmitry had a bag of Professor Schmutzig’s laundry in the back of his minivan. No wonder the Pope ran this city like its mayor.
Vanya was waiting in his Escalade outside the police station to take him to fetch Sabina from the hospital. Since the “accident,” his smokestack cousin had been chauffeuring him around town, calling him “boss.” Maybe Dmitry was following in his father’s footsteps after all. He had one little mobster where the shoe pinched. It was a good thing too. He needed help. The Pope’s men had broken so many of his ribs that he was tottering like an old man.
He glanced at his watch. Sabina might have been discharged by now. Remembering the second degree burns on the side of her beautiful face made him wince. She’d been so brave and stoic last night at the hospital and he couldn’t wait to take her out of that horrible place and bring her home. Except they had no home, and now he’d be lucky to keep his job after the police showed up and hauled him off in front of that Texan Baba Yaga and the chair of the department.
“Got some place to go Mr. Durchenko?” the officer asked.
“My wife is being discharged from the hospital today, sir. I have to pick her up.”
“It won’t be much longer. Detective Cormier would like to ask you a few questions before you go,” the policeman said. He left Dmitry alone in the small cubical room.
A few minutes later, a handsome African-American man in a suit sailed into the room and extended his hand to Dmitry. “Detective Harvey Cormier,” he said, giving Dmitry an extra firm handshake. After a few pleasantries, and offering him a much-appreciated cup of coffee, Detective Cormier took a seat behind the desk, asked his permission, and then turned on a tape recorder. Perhaps he had misjudged the police force. Obviously the uniformed cop was just the warm-up act. The bag of clothes in the back of his van didn’t bother this cop. The black detective must think it normal for a rich white professor to have a poor Russian janitor do his laundry. Detective Cormier was digging at a different hole.
“How well did you know Professor Schumtzig?” he asked.
“I’m the janitor. I see him everyday.”
“Why did Professor Schmutzig change the lock on his door?” Cormier asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, his hands folded in his lap. His practiced stoicism, essential to surviving his childhood, served him well. He possessed such self-control he could pass a lie detector test if necessary. The trick was paranoia. Passing a lie detector test while lying just required building up the requisite level of anxiety for the simple questions. What is your name? had to provoke the same emotional response as Is your father the most wanted crime boss in the world? No automatically reeling off your address. No letting your guard down. Every answer must feel forced and fearful inside, but sound natural and calm outside.
“Donnette Bush told us he changed the lock last week because you broke into his office. Why would she say that?” Detective Cormier stared at him.
That big-mouthed Texan Baba Yaga doesn’t know anything. “I don’t know, sir,” he said in a steady voice. “I’m the janitor. Why would I break in to an office I clean every day?” For the next hour, the detective asked the same question over and over again in different ways, waiting for him to crack. He didn’t know Dmitry.
The second hour of interrogation, things got ticklish.
“I hear you’re an artist,” Detective Cormier said.
“I paint as a hobby, yes, sir.” Dmitry tried to conceal his surprise.
“What do you paint?”
What could he say? That he painted the same painting over and over again. “Mostly abstract paintings,” he mumbled.
“Do you ever copy other artists’ work?” The detective’s pensive stare bored into his skull.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “That’s the way all artists learn the craft.”
“Which artists have you copied?”
“Russian artists.”
“Which ones?” Detective Cormier was typing something into his computer.
“Kandinsky mostly.” Dmitry wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
“Any others?”
“No.”
“Why only Kandinsky?” he asked.
“He is my favorite,” Dmitry lied. His palms were sweating. He caught himself worrying the corner of his handkerchief between his fingers. He had to stay focused. He couldn’t afford to betray himself with little tells.
The detective turned the computer screen toward him. “You paint only this picture, isn’t that true Mr. Durchenko?”
When he saw the image of Kandinsky’s Composition VII, his heart jolted at the sight of the familiar forms: The conversion of matter into energy, the fusion of body and soul. Even the computer screen couldn’t flatten the spirit of Kandinsky’s masterpiece.
He made up half-truths about the painting being his childhood favorite after he’d seen it on a school field trip to Moscow. It was true, Composition VII was housed in the Tretyakov Gallery. But Dmitry’s painting was Fragment Number 2 for Composition VII, a small study Kandinsky had made for the larger painting.
After over two hours of questioning, Detective Cormier finally asked, “Have you ever sold your paintings?”
“Of course not,” Dmitry replied. “Sir,” he added less forcefully.
“Did you give one of your paintings to Professor Schmutzig?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
“What did he do with it?”
“He hung it on his office wall, sir.”
“Where is it now?” Cormier asked.
“I told you sir, it’s on his office wall.”
“What if I told you it’s not on his office wall?”
Dmitry had no idea why the painting would be missing from the professor’s office.
“One last question Mr. Durchenko. How did you get those bruises on your face?”
Dmitry took a breath and looked him straight in the eye. “I fell down the stairs at Brentano Hall, sir. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” After nearly three hours of questioning, the detective finally let him go. Dmitry was exhausted from the exertion of holding his tongue. His entire being ached. In the last 48 hours, he’d been beaten, burned, intubated, interrogated, and stabbed with needles by an evil nurse. The money his mother had risked her life to give him had turned to ash, and now the paintings may be missing. If the paintings went on the auction block, his father’s Kryshi would find him for sure, and then Dmitry was a dead man.
Chapter Fifteen
When Jessica came to, she was in a soft bed--her first clue something was wrong. The second was she was wearing large men’s pajamas. Third, and most disturbing, she had no idea where she was, but it looked like a museum with a bed in the middle. To top it off, her mouth tasted like she’d licked a bar floor after a rodeo. She groaned and leaned her head over the side of the bed.
“Good morning, Cinnamon Dolce,” a man’s voice said. “There’s a wastebasket next to the bed. Please use it.” She took his advice then rolled back into bed. “Where am I?” she asked. “What day is it?” She put her hands over her eyes to block the blinding light burning into her skull.
“You’re in my apartment, Dolce.” She peeked through her fingers and saw Nick Schilling sitting in a carved wooden chair across the room. “It’s Tuesday.”
“How did I get here?” she asked. Kill me now, please.
“I’ll tell you over breakfast when you’re well enough,” he said.
“Give me a few minutes,” she said stalling to figure out what
to do next. She was afraid to get up for fear she’d throw up again, but she wanted to get out of Nick’s apartment as soon as possible.
“Okay, Dolce. Come down whenever you’re ready.” Somehow Nick’s voice both calmed and stirred.
When Jessica was sure she could move without fainting, she stalked the circumference of the room, taking it in. The floor to ceiling windows with a view of the Chicago skyline to the right and Lake Michigan to the left made her feel like she was standing on a cloud.
She’d never seen such a posh apartment. As she surveyed the room, she was drawn to a canvas smeared with thick blue, red and green paint, an abstract landscape with a giant blue tree covered in candy red dots at its center.
An original Kandinsky? “The more frightening the world becomes,” Kandinsky had said, “the more art becomes abstract.” Her world was certainly frightening, but the art on every wall was just making it weirder. Growing up in Montana, Jesus-prints pasted onto slices of wood along with a few Western landscapes were all she’d known of art.
She hoped the door straight ahead led to a bathroom. She had to pee, and she wanted the sick taste out of her mouth, so she took the risk and padded down the hall. The bathroom was bigger than any apartment she’d ever rented.
With its marble floors, walk-in stone steam-shower, and art on the walls, even the bathroom could have been a museum gallery. Her favorite painting so far was one in the foyer to the bathroom. A gorgeous Chagall with a woman holding a bouquet and a man dressed in green flying over to kiss her. Everything in the room was off kilter and the woman was tipping forward like she might fall into an awaiting cake on the table in front of her. When Jessica saw the cake, she realized she was starving. Yesterday’s breakfast was long gone.
A plush robe folded across a heated stand, a new toothbrush still in its box next to the sink, and her dress and underwear from the night before cleaned and hanging behind the door, made her wonder if she’d been kidnapped and her blackout at the poker party was somehow expected or even premeditated.
She locked the bathroom door, then turned on the water as hot as she could stand it, and stood under the shower. After a few minutes scalding herself under the hot water to combat her hangover, she coated her skin in rich lather from a decorative bar of perfumed Hermes soap. The orange scent was rejuvenating, and her hangover was melting under the hot water.
Pulling on the sheath dress-of-shame first thing in the morning--or was it afternoon?—was a chore. It brought back memories of last night’s fiasco, starting with the backfired Frappuccino.
Whatever time it was, it was way too early for Lolita’s high-heels. She descended the spiral staircase barefoot. Whoa. Is that Munch’s original Scream? She stared at the sunken cheeks, bulging eyes, and silent scream.
When she saw Nick waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, his cheeks bronzed and eyes sparkling, she let out a silent scream.
“Without art we would die of truth.” She hoped Nietzsche was right and all this art would protect her from the dreaded truth about how she’d ended up in some billionaire’s penthouse wearing his pajamas.
“You look refreshed.” Nick handed her a fluted glass of fresh squeezed juice. “Would you like some orange juice?”
“How did I get here? And why was I wearing your pajamas?” Jessica gazed over the rim of her glass at him. “Did we….”
“No. God no. I’m not a sexual predator.”
She was relieved. But what did he mean, “God no” as in No never, not in your wildest dreams? Her face must have betrayed her thoughts because he added, “Don’t get me wrong. Under better circumstances, I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“Rule it out?” she asked, “Like a normal chest x-ray doesn’t rule out lung cancer?” She chugged the rest of her juice. “Sorry, that’s what the doctor always told my dad.”
“Your dad has lung cancer?” Nick asked, concerned.
“He smoked a pack of Marlboros a day for decades. But that’s not what killed him. His generosity did.”
When Nick wordlessly gazed at her and then wrapped his arms around her, she buried her face so he wouldn’t see her puffy bloodshot eyes. “Dolce,” he whispered in her ear, “I’m here for you now.” In spite of herself, she sunk into his arms and clung onto him, a little girl desperately in need of a hug. Just as he moved in for a kiss, the doorbell rang, followed by a pounding that sounded like it might splinter the door. She pulled away from him, and Nick went to the door and opened it. Two hulking men towered over him.
“Nicholas Schilling III?” asked one of the charmers.
“Yes, can I help you? How did you get past the security guard?”
The one with the pockmarked face flashed a badge. “We’re looking for Jessica James.”
Part Two
Chapter Sixteen
Palms sweating, Jessica gripped the edge of the vinyl seat in the back of an unmarked black Interceptor. The seat was cold against her bare thighs, and she longed for jeans instead of the skimpy dress from the poker game the night before. Rigid, she sat in silence and watched buildings and cars fly by outside the tinted windows. She didn’t know if she was being questioned for breaking into Schmutzig’s office, or worse.
The Chicago Police Headquarters on Michigan Avenue was housed in a concrete building with four floors of rectangular windows. From the back parking lot, the L-shaped building with small blocky windows looked like a prison. A uniformed officer led her through the parking lot to the backdoor.
Inside the air was chilly, and she was glad Nick had insisted she wear his wool jacket. She rolled the edge of the jacket’s piping back and forth between her right thumb and fingers, inhaling the faint reassuring scent of Nick’s cologne.
A pot-bellied cop led her past a line of messy desks stacked with papers, computer, clipboards, and coffee cups. When they reached the end of a long corridor, he dropped her off in a tidy office and closed the door behind her.
Everything on the desk was just so, as if whoever put things there had used a ruler to measure the distances between the computer, the keyboard, and a cup of pens and pencils.
She noticed photographs on the wall and tiptoed over to take a closer look at them. They all featured the same handsome young detective she’d seen questioning Donnette at Brentano Hall. The athletic man with cocoa skin and amber eyes was accepting awards, grinning broadly, shaking hands with various officials in suits.
The door open behind her and she took a step back away from the photos.
The man from the pictures said, “Take a seat Ms. James. I’m Detective Harvey Cormier. I’d like you to answer some questions.”
She was on autopilot, answering his questions. “Name?”
“Jessica James.”
“Age?”
“21.”
“Occupation?”
“Graduate student.” But probably not for much longer once they found out about her breaking and entering and illegal drug use.
When Detective Cormier started asking her about her dead advisor, she sat on the edge of the chair, feet firmly planted on the floor.
“How well did you know Professor Schmutzig?” he asked.
“For the last year, he was my thesis advisor and I was his teaching assistant.” She shifted in her chair, shivering from the cool air blowing down on her from the vent over her head.
“Ms. James, have you ever known Professor Schmutzig to use drugs?” he continued.
“I don’t think he was a drug addict, if that’s what you’re asking. Switching from Pepsi to Coke was hardcore for Wolf. ” The detective’s gaze was so intense she had to look away, but not before she noticed the golden flecks of light in his amber irises.
“We found your fingerprints in Professor Schmutzig’s office.”
“I’m his teaching assistant, so I was in there a lot.” Jessica’s face was on fire.
“Even in his bathroom? When was the last time you were in his office?”
“The last time,” she repeated, choking on the w
ords. The detective left the office to get her some water, and returned a few seconds later with a paper cup, and handed it to her. Her eyes were tearing up from coughing, so she reached into her jacket pocket for a Kleenex. Her pockets were always full of tissues, especially in June, the height of allergy season. But this wasn’t her jacket. Her right hand recoiled from Nick’s pocket as if a snake had bitten it. She stared down at the offending pocket.
“Is something wrong?” the detective asked.
“No, I’m fine officer,” she said, sitting bolt upright.
“Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?” he asked.
“Yes, a cup of tea would be nice,” she said to get him out of the room again.
When he was gone, Jessica put her hand back into the pocket and carefully pulled the little revolver up to the edge of the opening. She glanced around the room for hidden cameras, but didn’t see any, so she slid the gun out onto her lap to examine it. Its size made it look like a toy, but the heft of the black steel, and the rough pattern on its handle, left no doubt that it was real. Before she could get the pistol back into her pocket, the detective had returned with her tea. She opened her legs and swallowed the gun into her little black dress. Pressing her thighs together, ankles crossed, she took the cup of lukewarm tea in both hands.
“Did you notice anything different about the decorations on his walls the last time you were in his office?” The detective sat back down behind his desk.
“Decorations on his walls?” she repeated.
“Yes, the posters or prints on his walls.”
“Posters or prints?”
“That’s right. Did you notice anything different about his walls, Ms. James?”
She liked the way he said “Ms. James,” pronouncing the final s as z, producing a pleasant buzzing sound. Mzzzz. James. She thought of those adorable furry yellow and black bumblebees in the lilac bushes back home, the ones she used to catch in a jar, then regret it and let them go. But what if the detective was more like a detestable yellow jacket, sporting a nasty stinger lying in wait in the bushes? Best not to find out.