In the Hush of the Night

by Raymond Benson

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “Um, no.”

  “We’ll go across the street to the diner in a bit, is that all right?”

  “Sure.”

  The captain returned with the coffee as she liked it. When he joined them at the table, Caruthers nodded at the chief. “Go ahead.”

  Daniel cleared his throat and spoke. “Captain Mike here was on patrol on Wednesday night. Technically, early Thursday morning. Mike, tell her what you encountered.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, ma’am, I was driving down on 82, heading west toward Highway 37.” He pointed at the road on a map that lay flat on the table. Annie noted that Highway 82 was a straight east-west line not too far south of Lakeway.

  “Isn’t that out of Lakeway city limits?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, but we often patrol on the back roads in the vicinity. The county sheriff is in White Cloud, so we do it. He asked us to do the preliminary investigation ’cause they’re swamped, and we’re kind of quiet right now. Anyway, it was raining pretty hard. Just after midnight, here, about two miles west of the intersection with Garden Road, I came upon an accident. The Sebring appeared to be going west, and the bakery truck was headed east on 82 toward Howard City. We’re pretty sure we know how the collision occurred. The truck driver said the Sebring suddenly swerved into his lane, maybe skidded somehow, and the impact was practically head on. The driver of the truck, name of Samuel Zielinski, was just calling it in to 9-1-1 on his cell phone as I approached the scene. I’d just missed the accident by less than a minute, if you can believe that.”

  He explained how he checked on the man behind the wheel of the Chrysler after seeing that the other driver was all right. “He was dead. No question about it. At that point I didn’t think there were any other passengers. The car was totaled, so I called it in. Now this happened pretty much out in the middle of nowhere; the forest is all around, there weren’t any witnesses.”

  “Where does Garden Road go?”

  “It goes north toward the Muskegon River and into the forest where there are some private homes tucked away in the woods. Chief Daniel and I know the people who live there; they’re all good folks. Everyone vouches for everybody else.”

  “There are lots of rural roads that intersect with 82,” Daniel added. “Both vehicles were towed into Lakeway, and that’s when the driver discovered the body in the trunk. He called us back immediately.” The man sighed and shook his head. “She was in there with her hands tied behind her back and ankles tied together with zip cords.” Daniel slid eight-by-ten-inch color photographs across the table. “These were taken in the tow yard.”

  Annie studied the gruesome images of a badly mangled woman trapped in the clutches of twisted metal. Lots of blood. The limbs were clearly immobilized, as the chief had described.

  “Looks like she’s wearing, what, blue jeans and a T-shirt?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And she’s barefoot.”

  There were also photos taken at the scene of the collision. The driver’s head had smashed through the windshield and he lay on the bowed hood.

  “I understand the car’s registration was bogus,” Annie said.

  “That’s right,” Caruthers answered. “It’s a counterfeit registration. The VIN number was reported stolen three years ago.”

  “But …” She looked for the driver’s name. “… this Vladimir Markov, that’s his real name?”

  “We think so. The phone at the address on his driver’s license belongs to Markov’s ex-wife, whose name is also Markov. We got Chicago PD to go by the house and talk to her, and he hasn’t lived there for two years.”

  The chief continued the story. “We had an autopsy done on the driver and it showed a blood alcohol level of .19 percent. He was drunk. That’s how the accident happened.”

  “Yeah, I read that.”

  “Anyway, we got her out of the car and to the medical examiner over in Big Rapids. I guess you’ve seen her autopsy results, too.”

  “I studied them last night. There was evidence of brutal sexual assault by more than one perpetrator. She was beaten, had an orbital rim fracture, a broken collarbone—seems to me it’s clear all this occurred before the crash—you know, many contusions on her body under her clothes that were created earlier. From the ligatures on her wrists and ankles, it was obvious she had been restrained by cords that cut into her skin. She was in bad shape before the accident. Your pathologist wasn’t sure if she was even alive when the collision occurred. She wouldn’t have bruised after death. I think the crash was just the last straw.”

  “That’s right. We’re thinking that if she was still alive, she might have died within hours anyway,” Caruthers said. “Her body was being transported somewhere.”

  “And you think Chicago?”

  “It’s a guess. The fake registration was Illinois. The driver’s license address is Chicago; like I said, it’s his ex’s place, but we don’t know where he actually lived. They were headed west on 82. Sure, they could’ve been going anywhere—Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, one of the dozens of small towns along the way—but I’d bet money they were going to Highway 37 to head down to Chicago.”

  The chief cleared his throat again. “Once I saw that this girl had maybe been kidnapped and held against her will, I called the FBI. That’s a federal crime.”

  Captain Mike said, “I kind of thought we could solve it ourselves, you know, but the chief insisted on calling in you guys before the county boys stepped in.”

  Annie wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it was probably a case of small town resentment of the feds “taking over” an investigation, which in reality almost never happened.

  “Captain Mike, I hope you will solve this yourselves,” she said. “As I’m sure Agent Caruthers told you, the FBI is here only to assist and advise. As for me, personally, I’m really here just to observe and gather information as it might pertain to some cases I’ve been working in Chicago. I’m sure Agent Caruthers will offer you any assistance you need on solving the kidnapping and—I’m going to say it, because I believe it’s what you have—the crime of murder. But don’t worry, you’ll be doing all the heavy lifting.”

  The chief addressed that. “We’re a two-man shop, Agent Marino. I have two other officers who work on a part-time basis. But we’ll certainly do what we can. As Captain Mike said, we’re turning the whole thing over to the Newaygo County Sheriff. It’s their jurisdiction, technically, but they asked us to do the preliminary investigation since it happened this close to Lakeway.”

  They went over more details in the reports until Caruthers looked at his watch and said, “Lunchtime.” The chief and captain bowed out to stay at the office. Annie retrieved her weapon from the cubby and left the building with Caruthers. They crossed the street to Barbara’s Diner.

  She found his company to be similar to that of her colleagues in Chicago. He was a clean-cut example of the all-American boy, properly groomed, physically fit. He seemed nice enough. At least he didn’t run his eyes up and down her body like the small-town captain had done.

  “How long you been with the Bureau?” she asked.

  “Three months.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” He blushed. “I’m a newbie. I’m still learning the ropes. I got assigned to VC-2 right after I got out of Quantico. I’m originally from New Mexico.”

  “I thought I detected a different kind of accent. I was going to say Texas. What were you doing before training?”

  “I did four years in the army.”

  “Oh, my. Did you go overseas?”

  “I did. Two years in Iraq. When I got back, I decided to try for the FBI. I didn’t have a master’s degree, but they took me.”

  After more small talk, their discussion went back to the case.

  “I think I’d like to take a look at the car,” she said over a BLT that wasn’t half bad. “They still have it somewhere?”

  “Yes, I was looking at it yesterday.�
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  “It had to have been driving from somewhere. Where it came from is more important than where it was going. How many places are we talking about in this region?”

  “Plenty. A lot of the forest is federal land and a lot is state land, but you’d be surprised how many cabins the woods can hide.”

  “Agent Caruthers, I—”

  “Call me Harris. Please.”

  “All right, Harris, I also want to interview the ex-wife of the driver in Chicago. I might do that tomorrow. You talked to the truck driver? Zielinski?”

  “We have his contact info. Daniel and Baines let him go. He lives in Howard City, where the bakery’s located. His truck was messed up, so he stayed in Lakeway that night. His wife picked him up sometime on Thursday. He was just delivering goods to a grocery store in Fremont and was heading back home.”

  “So how is this going to work?” she asked. “I handle wherever the case takes us in Illinois, and you take on the Michigan end?”

  “That’s how my SSA saw it, and I think yours, too?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Great, we just ate,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Just in time to see the victim’s body!”

  Captain Mike drove Annie and Harris to the county morgue, which was a half hour away in the township of Big Rapids in Mecosta County, just east of Lakeway. The facility was shared by the two counties. Along the way, Mike pointed out landmarks, including where “Old Man Jameson” bagged a black bear the size of a Buick. “That thing was a monster,” he said. “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. He was king of the forest, I’ll bet. Well, until Old Man Jameson got him.”

  Annie pegged the captain as an honest-to-God country boy, probably having grown up in a nearby part of the state.

  The morgue was located in the basement of the small administrative building. Mike led them through and explained to the pathologist on duty what they wanted. They signed in, and the pathologist opened the cold chamber door.

  “We’re keeping her in the fridge until we get some kind of ID,” Mike explained as the pathologist pulled out the drawer containing the corpse.

  Annie put on rubber gloves and stood close to the victim’s head and shoulders. She gently turned the head to the left, pulled back the thick, dark hair, and exposed the right ear. Sure enough, there it was. A bear’s paw, baring its long, sharp claws that dripped with a few small globules of red blood. Even though she had already seen the case file photos, Annie took a few pictures with her cell phone.

  “The autopsy said the tattoo was recently applied,” she said. “Looks new.”

  She turned to look at Mike. “You ever seen this?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s come up before. It probably means she was the ‘property’ of someone.” Annie held up her hands and ripped off the gloves. “Allegedly. I think whoever that someone is, he’s Russian, and he’s probably overseas. I think. I’m betting our Jane Doe here is Russian, probably an illegal immigrant.”

  “She looks Eastern European,” Harris noted.

  The captain scratched his head. “Wait, you think there’s some kind of prostitution ring here in Michigan that’s run out of Russia?”

  “I don’t know if it’s prostitution. Obviously, she was restrained. Kidnapped? Forced labor? This was a pretty woman. Could be she was being trafficked for sex work.”

  Mike almost laughed. “We don’t have that kind of thing here in this part of the state. Really? I don’t believe it. Maybe in Detroit or Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo, but not here.”

  “You do now,” said Annie.

  Harris said, “Like I said before, I think Mr. Markov was taking her to Chicago.”

  Captain Mike nodded. “That’s probably right. Chief Daniel and me, we don’t think anyone around here has anything to do with this. They could have just been passing through the state.”

  “But from where?” Annie asked. “We’re north of Detroit and Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo and all the other sizable cities in Michigan. If you go straight east you run into Lake Huron. No, I think whatever happened to her before the accident occurred somewhere up here in rural Michigan.”

  “Seeing that most of Michigan is rural …” Harris added.

  “… then that could be anywhere,” Annie finished.

  Back in Lakeway, Captain Mike took the agents to the garage where wrecks were stored. In the front, the Chrysler Sebring resembled an accordion. The back end, where the victim had been shut away, was relatively unharmed.

  “She would have been knocked around in the trunk by the accident, but do you think it killed her?” Annie asked.

  “I’m beginning to lean toward the idea that she was already dead,” Harris replied.

  Annie stooped to examine the tires, which were caked with dried mud. “You’ve had some rain, huh,” she said to the captain.

  “Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact, we did. Last Tuesday and Wednesday.”

  “The car was on a dirt road for some time, I think. Look at those treads.”

  She stood and looked in the open trunk. Dried blood stained the upholstery. Annie imagined the woman’s body squeezed into the claustrophobic space. If she hadn’t already been dead, then the terror the victim must have felt would have been insuperable. “Was anything else in here with her?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  What a horrible death, she thought.

  Annie left Lakeway at three o’clock, figuring she’d make it back to Chicago around seven. There was food in the apartment, so she wouldn’t have to stop. Along the way, she reflected on what she’d seen. Had she learned anything? Not really. The trip was probably unnecessary, but she was glad to have seen the tattoo herself. She had serious doubts that the chief and his captain would solve the case; they didn’t have the manpower to visit every residence in the Michigan forests. Hopefully the county sheriff would put more men on it. There was, however, something bugging her about the visit to Lakeway, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  The only thing she could do was follow up in Chicago with Markov’s ex-wife. Maybe, with the right questions asked, she would pick up a few more bread crumbs.

  5

  Annie had an unexpectedly leisurely Sunday morning. At first Aloysius refused to leave her lap, but she eventually pushed him off, dressed in workout clothes, and practiced tap. She’d missed the last three classes and was terribly behind. Derek was going to chastise her in his lovingly sassy way the next time she showed up, if she ever did.

  He’s a good-looking man; too bad he’s gay, she thought as she pictured Derek with his hands on his hips, lecturing her for not being “disciplined.”

  Ha.

  It was her discipline that had wrecked her relationship with Eric—the devotion to her job, the fact that being a Special Agent in the FBI was more important to her than having a boyfriend. It was the cliché of the week, of the month, of the year—she was the law enforcement woman who was too much of a workaholic.

  She wasn’t supposed to miss the romance after it had failed.

  Ha.

  Annie changed into jeans and a T-shirt, affixed her gun to her waist, and left her apartment around two. She’d found that interviewing subjects could be more productive if you appeared when they least expected you. A Sunday afternoon knock on the door by an FBI agent? Most people who were guilty of something usually revealed it.

  As she got in the Ford, her cell rang.

  “Anne Marino.”

  “Annie, it’s Harris. Agent Caruthers.”

  “Hi, Harris.”

  “I see you made it home okay.”

  “I did, thanks. What’s up?”

  “I’m in Chicago.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I decided I wanted to interview the truck driver’s ex-wife, Mrs. Markov. I find that Sunday afternoons are a good time to surprise someone. You want to come along?”

  Annie laughed. “I was just getting in the car to do the same thing. Sure, we can back each other up. I
’m twenty minutes away from the house.”

  “I’ll see you there. Park across the street. I’ll wait for you there.”

  Mrs. Markov lived on the south side, near Chinatown. As Annie headed for Lake Shore Drive, she reflected that it was best to have a partner whenever dealing with the public. She’d gone solo numerous times to interviews—one-on-one, usually with women—and that was all right. Still, one couldn’t be too careful. Most of the time, her partner from the FO was an agent named Ed Barnley; however, Barnley had been placed on a special task force that was going to take up most of his time over the summer. Annie was on her own for a while.

  Harris was parallel parked across the street, two doors down from Mrs. Markov’s house, which was a wreck of a place with a dilapidated 2002 Toyota parked in the drive. Annie got out of the car and greeted him.

  “You have a game plan?” he asked.

  “Not really. I just want to hear what she has to say.”

  They knocked. After a moment, a thin woman with tired eyes answered. She wore an apron and looked to be in her thirties.

  “Yes? What is it?” Her accent was thick.

  Annie and Harris showed their credentials. Annie spoke. “FBI, ma’am, we’d like to ask you some questions. May we come in?”

  The woman’s eyes grew wide. “Oh. Is this about Vlad? I already talked to police. I have nothing to do with him anymore.”

  “May we come in, ma’am?”

  She grudgingly let them inside. The house was hot—no A/C. The woman led them into a living room where two small girls were watching television. Annie’s first impression was that this was a family just getting by. They’d sacrificed the A/C to save money.

  The woman sat on a sofa while the agents remained standing. Harris held up a photo of Markov’s driver’s license. “Is this your husband, ma’am?”

  “My ex-husband,” she replied. “We divorced two years ago; the creep walked out on me. I haven’t seen him since. I told police that already.”

  “You haven’t seen him in two years?” Annie asked.

  “That’s right. He’s still in Chicago, though.”