by Anton Strout
“What’s this about someone being dead?” he asked.
I nodded, and raised my arm, pointing into the park. “There is,” I said. “At the base of the statue.”
“Back to the center of the park,” Short and Stocky said, already driving us back as he walked forward with caution. “Now.”
I shook my head, my legs shaking. “I don’t think I can,” I said.
“You can,” he insisted, grabbing one of my shoulders hard, “and you will. You’ll do as we say until I see what’s going on there.”
It’s amazing the strength you can find when someone is pointing a gun in your general direction. Although I had no desire to go anywhere near what I had just seen, I found myself doing as I was told. When we were close enough to the statue for Tall and Blond, he turned his light on the base of it. In regular light the body was more broken and tangled than the shadows had told. A crimson-brown spatter of blood radiated out from the body, and it was all I could do to turn away before my stomach retched again.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. He flicked off the light and turned away from it as his partner focused his on it instead. Tall and Blond’s voice went from dark wonder to something colder, more formal. “Would you care to explain what you were doing in here?”
“That man,” I stammered, unable to shake the surreal, dreamlike state that was slowly washing over me. “His head…”
The officer’s eyes fixed on mine, unmoving.
“I need you to explain what you three were doing in here. Now.”
I couldn’t speak. The image filled my mind, threatening to take it over. When I felt someone touch my arm, I just about screamed before I realized it was Rory.
“Relax,” she said. “Does it look like any of us could have done that?”
He considered this, then sighed and went for the thick black book sitting in the oversized pocket on his uniform. “You live here, then?”
I nodded. “Not in the park…” I corrected, then felt my face flush.
Rory squeezed my arm and stepped forward. “She’s just flustered, but yeah. She does.” She pointed to the west side of the park. “Over there. The Belarus building.”
I could have hugged her just then. Even though she had been the one to rush into the park, Rory was busy talking while I simply couldn’t.
The officer scribbled in his book. “And the three of you are each other’s alibi, I suppose?”
“Alibi?” Marshall said, nerves filling every word. “What do we need an alibi for?”
“We were walking along the south side of the park and saw the cop car lights flashing,” Rory said. “From the other side of the park, so I used her key so we could cut across and see what all the fuss was.”
“Did you see anything?”
“Other than the body?” I said, finally able to speak, but still in shock over the deformed shape of the dead man’s head. “No. We didn’t even know it was a body until we got close to the statue…Are we in trouble here?”
The officer shrugged. “That depends on how cooperative you are, miss.”
I shook off my shock as best I could. He was right. I needed to tell him everything. The symbol on the man’s hand, my encounter with him earlier—
“If you want her cooperation,” my father’s voice boomed out from somewhere back toward the direction of the police lights, “you will have to talk to me first.”
Both officers turned. “And you are…?” the short and stocky one asked.
“Douglas Belarus,” he said, moving close enough that I could see his face. “Her father.” His eyes were locked onto the two officers. “Is there a problem here, gentlemen? I’m a trustee of the park. My family has been for several generations.”
“Hello, Mr. B,” Rory said, giving him a grim half smile.
He looked at her as if he was noticing her for the first time, giving her a curt nod.
He turned to me, his face cold, but his eyes concerned. His heavy hands rose and came to rest on both my shoulders, squeezing. “Are you all right, Alexandra? What is going on?”
“I asked you a question, Mr. Belarus,” the officer continued, his voice full of indignation at being ignored.
“I’m fine, Father,” I said. “We’re all fine…just a little unnerved.”
He relaxed a little, his grip easing. “Good. I thought I told you not to leave the building.”
I didn’t want to get into that here, now, and flicked my eyes over toward the cops. They’re waiting.
My father looked over his shoulder at the officers, but made no attempt to turn to them, which seemed only to piss them off.
“So tell me, Mr. Belarus,” the blond officer said, looking down at the shadow-covered body over by the base of the statue. “How do you think this body got here?”
“Body?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.
The second officer waggled his flashlight back to the base of the statue, drawing my father’s attention to the broken body lying there.
I started to speak, wanting to tell the police what I knew of the man, but my father silenced me with a firm squeeze of my arm and spoke instead.
“I am certain I have no idea,” my father said. “I have no idea who would have done something so heinous. Why someone should leave a body with a caved-in head here in our park is simply beyond me.”
“No one just left him here,” Marshall added.
My father gave a grim chuckle. “Oh, really? He certainly didn’t climb over the gate and walk in here of his own accord with a crushed-in skull like that.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Marshall said.
The blond officer turned to him. “Well, what do you mean?”
Marshall pointed at the ground beneath the body. “See that spatter? That’s from impact. Whoever he was, he fell from at least ten stories.”
I stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“How does your brain even come up with that?”
He shrugged, then looked away. “I had a cruel Dungeon Master in my D and D group. He made us work hard for every experience point. Lots of puzzle solving in our games. I can’t help but think critically in a time like this.”
“So what we have is a jumper,” the blond officer said to the other.
Marshall shook his head. “The buildings aren’t that tall around here,” he said, looking up. “And we’re in the middle of the park. He couldn’t have jumped this far in from one of the buildings. It’s impossible.”
“You sure you didn’t have something to do with this?” the dark-haired officer asked, shining his light in Marshall’s face.
What little color there was in Marshall’s face went away. “N-no, sir.”
The officer turned back to my father. “Well, then, any thoughts, Mr. Belarus?” he asked.
“Maybe he jumped from a plane,” Marshall offered.
My father’s eyes turned on him, on the verge of burning like lasers straight through my friend.
“Marshall,” I warned. “Shut it.”
“You explain it, then,” Marshall said, getting defensive.
I gave my father an apologetic look, going for the most disarming expression I could muster under the circumstances, but he turned his glare to me and it was withering.
“Go home, Alexandra,” he said.
“But—”
His withering look that meant there was no arguing with him. “Go home. Now. I will deal with these officers.”
I didn’t even bother trying to respond when he had his business voice on. I simply turned from him and headed toward the north gate, Rory and Marshall falling in behind me. My father must have bigger contacts out there than I thought because the officers didn’t make any move to stop or detain us. Sometimes I forgot how hard-core a leader of industry he could still be despite his flakier moments.
“I expect you to be alone when I get home,” he called out, causing Rory to swear under her breath.
The three of us pushed through the crowd standing outside the gate and walked down
the block back toward my home. None of the other arriving officers tried to stop us.
“Did you see the way your dad just took over?” Marshall asked once we cleared the gathered crowd, still walking.
“And they just let us go!” Rory added.
“You sure you’re not some sort of Mafia princess?” Marshall asked.
I shook my head. “Not Italian, remember?”
“You going to be okay?” Rory asked when we stopped in front of my home. “We can wait with you if you want.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m just creeped out. Did you see the mark on his hand?”
Rory and Marshall both shook their heads.
“I’m pretty sure that was the guy who attacked me earlier tonight,” I said. “He disappeared in that alley…and now he turns up here. Dead.”
“A shocking coincidence, I’m sure,” Marshall said.
“That’s an understatement.”
“On the plus side, guy’s dead,” Rory reminded me.
“Rory,” I said, tweaked. “Show some respect.”
“Respect?” Rory laughed. “Lexi, the guy pulled a knife on you.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing,” she continued, her voice getting serious. “Maybe you need to get out of your family’s building a bit more, but this city is jacked up, Lexi.” She pointed off to the park. “Case in point. You might not see it every day, but it’s out there. So when someone who tried to take a swipe at my best friend turns up dead, I’m sorry, but I really don’t mourn their loss.”
“That’s cold,” Marshall added.
“It’s not,” Rory insisted. “I just think if it’s us or them, I prefer that we’re the survivors.”
“Go,” I said, feeling my nerves get all jangled up again. “Now. This is all getting to be a bit too much and I already need to steel myself for a talk with my father when he’s done…bribing them, or whatever the hell it is he’s doing in there.”
Rory nodded and grabbed Marshall by the arm, dragging him down the block with her as she left. “Good luck with all that,” she said. “Come on, Marsh. Let me give you pointers on how not to impress the ladies by bringing up your ‘Dungeon Master.’”
“I wouldn’t want to be with a woman who didn’t appreciate it, you know,” he countered.
“You may never be with a woman ever at this rate,” she said, continuing on, but her voice fell out of earshot as they rounded the corner, heading west. I hated to see them go. They may have been annoying the way they picked on each other, but at least they were a welcome distraction compared to whatever stern dressing-down my father had in store for me later.
On the plus side, I was still better off than the dead man in the park, rest his unfortunate soul.
Nine
Alexandra
When my father caught up with me later that evening, I was sketching at one of the old drafting tables my great-great-grandfather had once used.
“Alexandra,” he said, sounding just as pissed off as he had in the park, only now I was ready for it, having had some time for the shock of seeing the dead body to wear off and to regain my composure.
“This is not my fault, so please don’t take that tone,” I said, hearing it reflected in my own words. “Before you say anything else, I need to know something. Have to know.”
He paused, his face a mask of frustration, and gave a reluctant nod. “Yes?”
I let out a long breath, the shaking of my nerves returning from earlier. “I may regret even asking this, but here it goes. Are you…connected?”
His eyebrows creased, his vast expanse of forehead wrinkling as his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “Connected…?” he repeated, his voice unsure.
My stomach tightened. “You know,” I said. “Like to the mob? Like in The Godfather. Only a more Slavic version, I guess.”
My father’s eyes widened with dawning comprehension. A smile rose up on his lips and he did something he rarely did. He laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard that sound out of him. Certainly not since before Devon’s death, at least.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Tell me, Alexandra, where did you come up with such an idea?”
I wasn’t about to tell him the whole truth on the matter, that Marshall had put the thought in my brain. It would probably get him—and Rory by association—banned for life from my home. “You’re a well-respected man of business, but I don’t know many businessmen who can talk the police out of pursuing a case. You just told them you’d deal with them and they let me and my friends go without further question. Plus there was an actual body left outside our building…”
My father shrugged. “It is true that I am a powerful man,” he conceded, “but such is true of anyone who owns real estate in Manhattan.”
I wasn’t convinced. “And the body out in the park? That’s not some kind of horse-head-in-the-bed kind of warning?”
He gave me a dark smile. “Do you forget we live in Manhattan?” he asked. “There is crime. New York is an amazing city, but let us be honest here—people are murdered every day.”
“Since we are being honest,” I said, “I just thought you should know…that person in the park…wasn’t some random person. That was the man who attacked me earlier this evening.”
His face went stone serious. “I see,” he said, and walked over to one of the couches in the library section of the floor, groaning a little as he sat. He patted the seat next to him for me to join.
I got up from my desk, walked over, and sat down. My father looked me in the eyes.
“You have been through much tonight, my darling daughter,” he said. “But trust me when I tell you that God is watching over you.”
“I’d be lying if I said I understood your unquestionable faith in God or the universe or whatever,” I said. “But I’m sorry, Father. I have a hard time buying into it. After all, God didn’t seem too keen on watching out for Devon.”
I waited for him to react—sadness, anger, something—but he stayed calm and fixed me with a peaceful smile. “Even the blessed must suffer to know at times how truly blessed they are. The same applies to our family.”
“How can you be so sure, so…full of faith?”
“I have lost one child,” he said. “I have faith my family will not lose another.”
“‘The family,’” I repeated. “You sure we aren’t mobbed up?”
He smiled and patted my leg. “We are not, but I think perhaps that would make more sense to your way of thinking than what I’m about to tell you, oh, daughter of little faith.”
I settled back on the couch, turning to him.
“Our family has been very fortunate over the years,” he said. “Lady Luck, she has smiled on us, for several generations.”
“Maybe our luck is running out,” I said. “It didn’t help Devon.”
A pained smile crossed my father’s face. “No,” he said, “but nothing—not even our luck—is perfect, rest his soul. Besides, who is to say Devon is not in a better place? All of God’s plans are not meant for us to know.”
I could have argued with him. The odds didn’t really seem in the favor of Devon ever reaching the pearly gates, unless being cruel had been added to the terms of admission there. Then there was the deeper philosophical argument of whether there even was an afterlife, but that was something I definitely wasn’t ready to get into with him, so instead I nodded and waited. The pain slowly faded from his face as he began talking once more.
“It started with your namesake, Alexander, whose first luck came when fleeing to this country from Kobryn, along what was then the Lithuanian side of the border with Poland. He was fortunate as a stonemason to escape a life of servitude under the quite mad reign of the local lord Kejetan Ruthenia. Kejetan the Accursed, he was called.”
I pointed at one of the statues on the far side of the studio space, one depicting a Slavic-looking man with an enormous jaw and heavy brow. “That’s him,
” I said. “Although my great-great-grandfather labeled the base of the statue ‘The Bloody Lord.’”
“My own father, your grandfather, talked about that when I was growing up,” my father said, a faraway look in his eyes, lost in his own memories. “He said Alexander never spoke of why he fled the old country, only that he came to the Americas to start a new life with your great-great-grandmother and his two surviving children. My guess is that, yes, the lord of the land earned the name on that statue, but Alexander escaping tyranny under his rule was the first bit of blessed Belarus luck. He came to America and settled in New York City, helping to build it as it rose higher and higher into the sky. Your great-great-grandfather’s dealings in the construction of this city only grew, making a name for him that ensured the well-being of his family for generations. We have benefited greatly from that, living well.”
Enrapt as I was in this bit of family history I had heard only in bits and pieces, I still fought the urge to contradict the “living well” comment. After all, Devon certainly wasn’t.
“But there have been times of misfortune, too,” he said, a little of the sparkle slipping from his eyes. “When I was a young boy, no more than fifteen, my friends and I used to sneak out and hang where we weren’t supposed to. We loved to go out on the ice up at the reservoir in Central Park. Only one night, I go to meet my friends, and, stickler for time that I am, I was early, but that also meant I was alone when some men in the park came after me. Hoping to escape them, I was forced to run out onto the ice, something I would never do alone. My friends and I knew the dangers of not having someone with you, but what choice did I have?”
“No offense,” I said, “but I’d like to state for the record Rory and I have never done anything half that dangerous.”
My father eyed me as if he didn’t believe me, but continued on. “I fell through the ice. I pray you never know such a horrid feeling as this in your lifetime, Alexandra. The chill, the shock, the confusion of it all. I fought to get back to the surface, following what little light I could make out above me, but every time I came up, I was under the full sheet of ice. I could not find the spot where I had fallen through, and, panicked as I was, I could not break through. That night, I was going to die and, what was worse, I knew it and could do nothing.”