In the Hush of the Night

by Raymond Benson

  “He’s in Russia, supposedly. He has dual citizenship. He left at the end of May.”

  “He does have regular deposits of sizable amounts on his bank statements, but not so large that they’d trigger red flags. It’s possible he’s getting other income elsewhere, though.”

  An email popped up on her computer monitor from Colin Clark.

  “Hey, I just got an email from the ALAT in Russia. Let me call you back, okay? Thanks.”

  Annie hung up and opened the email.

  Agent Marino—

  Our investigator in St. Petersburg has uncovered significant information on Fyodor Utkin. In fact, he has been murdered. His body was found washed up on the shore of Neva Bay near Big Port container terminal, wrapped in plastic, and his throat was cut. Investigators believe he was in the water at least a month.

  Informants have stated that Utkin was in the city in early June but he hasn’t been seen since. His last known public appearance was at a restaurant on June 10, where he dined with Evgeni Palit and another man who may have been an American. Palit is a legitimate businessman who runs a company that also has a Chicago outlet—Palit Wool. It’s a textile company that specializes in wool products. Do you know it? Evgeni Palit runs the manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg. The retail distribution part is in Chicago.

  However, my contacts in local law enforcement say that Evgeni Palit has been an associate of Nikolai Babikov for a long time. Babikov is believed to be in the Novgorod mafia. This organized crime outfit operates out of the Novgorod area in northwest Russia, not far from St. Petersburg.

  In the 1980s, Palit was suspected of using his shipping infrastructure to smuggle black market goods in and out of Russia, including drugs. A Palit Wool employee was caught smuggling jewelry and fine art in 1988. Evgeni Palit was cleared of wrongdoing, but the suspicion remains.

  I suggest you look into Palit Wool in Chicago.

  Yours,

  Colin Clark, Assistant Legal Attaché

  “Holy shit,” Annie said aloud. She felt her pulse pick up. Her instincts were red hot, and she felt that familiar surge of excitement when she knew she was right. She opened the attachments, which were crime scene photos of Fyodor Utkin’s bloated, decomposed body, local police reports, and newspaper clippings about the incident.

  She shot back a reply, thanking Clark for the information and asking that Utkin’s finances in Russia be carefully examined. She also asked for more information on Evgeni Palit and Nikolai Babikov, as well as the Novgorod mafia, although the FBI would surely have plenty of files on the organization.

  Annie then sent the email attachments to all her colleagues who were actively involved in the Bear Claws Case to bring them up to date.

  It felt good. Progress at last. Annie stood, looked out of her cubicle to make sure no one was watching, and performed a little of the tap routine she’d memorized. The flats she was wearing weren’t the best shoes for dancing, but they’d have to do. She recited the steps in her head as she moved—

  Right paradiddle, Left paradiddle

  Right para para, Right paradiddle

  Left paradiddle, Right paradiddle

  Left para para, Left paradiddle

  “Marino? What are you doing?”

  Annie gave a little shriek and turned. SSA Gladden stood with his hands on his hips, but a smile played on the edges of his mouth.

  “Sorry, John, just letting out some tension, heh heh.” She felt her face flushing. “Uh, I heard from the ALAT in Moscow. There’s some progress!” She pointed to her computer screen. “Look, I just sent you an email, but let me show you the—”

  “That’s okay, I’ll read the email. Right now I have to rush to the SAC’s office.” He turned away but Annie could tell he was stifling a laugh.

  “Well, shit,” she muttered aloud as she sat at her desk. Then she snorted aloud at the absurdity of it all.

  Oh geez, Annie, great job, you’ve succeeded in embarrassing yourself, now get back to work!

  Again she studied the face of Fyodor Utkin’s son, Makar, on her screen. The question was—where the hell was he? How much should she tell Jason, her friend and neighbor, about these revelations?

  She was convinced more than ever that Trey Paley just might be a suspect.

  What was it Jason had told her about the Paleys and Michigan? The family owned a cabin there, somewhere in the forest, in the “middle of the state.”

  Annie pulled up her contacts and dialed Chief Daniel in Lakeway. Was it possible he might know the Paleys?

  “Police department.”

  “Chief Daniel?”

  “No, this is Captain Mike Baines.”

  “Captain Mike, hello, this is FBI Special Agent Annie Marino. Remember me?”

  “I sure do! You’re not somebody I’d forget too easy.”

  Annie cringed. She thought the man might have had a little crush on her. He’d had a goofy puppy-dog attitude around her when she was up there investigating the Irina Semenov incident, and she had felt it again when she was in touch with Captain Mike and the chief a few times later during the month of June to follow up on their progress.

  “How are things going there?”

  “Oh, it’s been pretty quiet this summer so far. Nothing too bad. Your usual traffic violations and domestic quarrels. Had two robberies and a stabbing. We helped county boys raid a meth lab in the woods, and that was pretty exciting. Otherwise, it’s been a slow summer, crime-wise.”

  “I was really asking about the Irina Semenov case. I guess I would have heard if you’d made any progress on that.”

  “No, that hit a dead end, that’s for sure. The county sheriff and his men are handling it now, with some of our help when we have the time. We’ve been slowly going around to all the people who live out in the forest, you know, asking questions, but there are only two of us here; four, if you count the part-timers. We only get them on weekends, or sometimes during the week if someone’s lost in the woods or something.”

  It was what usually happened when there was a case in an extremely rural area. Unless the solution to a crime was in front of their faces, or it didn’t take longer than a few days to reach a conclusion and arrest a suspect, most rural law officers tended to classify a case as cold and move on.

  “Listen, I wanted to see if you know anyone by the name of Paley? In particular, a young man named Trey Paley. His family supposedly has property in the woods up there somewhere.”

  “Trey Paley? Sure, I know him. I know his whole family!”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, they have a cabin not too far from here. They own a lot of land that was carved out of the national forest. They use it for hunting—it’s real good for bear and deer hunting. Trey’s granddaddy made some kind of huge deal with the government for the property quite a while back for it.”

  “Have you seen Trey recently?”

  “No, ma’am. Well, not since June. He was up here in June. Why do you ask?”

  “Are you friends with him?”

  “Well, I guess. I mean, we don’t hang out or anything. We know each other. I’ve actually had to talk to him a couple of times about hunting out of season. He tends to do that.”

  “Have you seen his father recently?”

  “Greg Paley? No, ma’am, I haven’t seen him up here too recently. When was it … maybe last April or so he was at the cabin for a little while. He doesn’t come up here much. By the way, I did talk to Trey about that girl we found. He wasn’t even in the state when it happened. Nobody was at their cabin when all that happened.”

  “I see.”

  “They’re good people. I can vouch for that. Shoot, Trey’s a war veteran.”

  “Okay, thank you. Uh, please tell the chief I called, will you? I’d like to talk to him, too.”

  “Sure thing. Bill’s going on vacation in two days, though. It’ll just be me minding the fort for a week.”

  “Better get you some of those volunteers.”

  “Nah, I don’t ne
ed ’em. Not unless we have a terrorist attack or something, and I don’t think that’s too likely in our neck of the woods. I’ll have Bill give you a call.”

  “Thanks.”

  She hung up, frustrated. Damn. Had she been hoping the captain would say that Trey Paley was a very suspicious person, possibly running a human trafficking operation out of his cabin in the woods?

  Unfortunately, nothing was ever that easy.

  24

  Yana looked at herself in the mirror in the shed’s bathroom. The tattoo on her neck stung. It felt as if she’d burned herself a little. It wasn’t terrible, but it was sore. The man who had applied the tattoo told her to wash it with antibacterial soap and to not use a towel to dry it. Paper towels were best, and she should blot the area, not wipe. He said the soreness would go away after a few days since it was a small tattoo on an area of her skin that wasn’t as sensitive as other places. Large tattoos like arm sleeves or elaborate ones on the stomach and back could take two weeks to heal.

  She felt the urge to cough again. When she did, dark phlegm projected into the sink. She washed it away with the faucet. For a while she’d felt sick, as if she had a bad cold. She wheezed a little when she breathed. Not good.

  It was her fourth day in the forest. Yana had no idea if she was still in Illinois or not—she didn’t think so. Time, like her spatial movements, was blurry.

  She remembered riding in the trunk of Makar’s blue Nissan Altima from Chicago to their destination, wherever it was. The trip had taken around four hours, maybe more—it had been difficult to keep track of the time while curled up in the darkness of the trunk. It was night when they arrived. Makar let her out, and she saw that they were in a heavily wooded area.

  Her first thought was that she was so far from civilization that no one would be able to hear her scream.

  A log cabin stood in front of them, and she had never been so happy to be able to use the bathroom. For such a structure in the woods, it was very nice. It had two bedrooms, a living area with a fireplace, kitchen, bathroom, and storage space. A family could live there comfortably.

  But no family lived there, and neither would she.

  After she’d relieved herself, she saw Makar take a small ring of keys out of a drawer in the kitchen, and then he led her away from the cabin along a dark path through some trees, maybe thirty yards or so, to a small wooden shed. Makar used a key on the ring to unlock a padlock on the door. He removed it and opened the door. He then reached in, switched on an overhead light—a naked bulb—and pushed her inside.

  “This is your home for a few days,” he said.

  It was basically one room, maybe twelve by sixteen feet, with an adjoining tiny bathroom. A queen bed occupied most of the floor space, along with one chair and a nightstand with a reading lamp. The bathroom had a toilet, a sink, and a mirror. On the sink was a single tube of lipstick. There was nothing else, not even a bathroom door. No fireplace, heater, or air conditioner. The only window was a small skylight in the ceiling, which was just high enough that she couldn’t reach it even if she stood on the bed.

  A long, thick chain was attached to the wall at the head of the bed. At the end of the chain was a cuff. Makar ordered Yana to remove her blue jeans. She did so, knowing that if she didn’t obey he would strike her. He then told her to sit on the bed. Makar attached the chain cuff to her right ankle and locked it with another key on the ring. The chain was long enough for her to get up and go into the bathroom, but too short for her to reach the door of the shed. She supposed that was to keep her from attacking someone who entered. She was also unable to reach the light switch on the wall next to the door. The only light she could control was the lamp on the nightstand.

  Once she was “settled,” Makar turned off the overhead light and left her alone with some blankets and a stack of magazines. She heard him lock the padlock on the outside of the door. There was nothing to do but lie down, and she slept poorly. In the morning, he brought her breakfast. She was starving, having not eaten since the previous afternoon. A little later he brought her some lunch, and that evening came dinner. It wasn’t terrible food, but it wasn’t cooked by a gourmet chef, either.

  On the third full day of her captivity in the woods, the tattoo artist arrived. Makar had come, unlocked the cuff, and let her out of the shed. They walked along the path to the main cabin, which was a different experience in the daylight. Tall trees were everywhere. She could barely see bits of the blue sky overhead. In another life, she might have asked what kind of trees they were, but at the moment she didn’t care.

  A black pickup truck was parked in front of the cabin next to Makar’s Nissan. It obviously belonged to the tattoo artist, who was inside, setting up his equipment. He didn’t speak to Yana. He was an older man, around sixty, and was tall, fit, and bald. He didn’t tell her his name. He’d brought a portable machine and containers of ink, laid out on a table beside a chair.

  Makar ordered her to sit and be still. He said he would tie her to the chair if she didn’t cooperate. The tattoo application hurt, as she had always heard they did. The process took about an hour.

  At one point, Makar asked the other man in English, “Have you heard anything about when I can go home?”

  The artist merely replied, “No.” Even from the one-word answer, Yana could tell the man was American.

  “Have you heard from my father?”

  Again, “No.”

  Makar muttered something under his breath and moved away from the chair. For a moment Yana considered jumping up, wrestling away the artist’s little machine, and trying to use it as a weapon. But of course, that would be futile. She’d never be able to overpower two strong men. She was weak from fatigue and hunger. She didn’t have the willpower. It wouldn’t work.

  When he was done with the application, the artist spoke to her for the first time, giving her the aftercare instructions. Makar would make sure the antibacterial soap was in her bathroom. Then he packed up his things and left.

  It was back to the monotony of the shed and the chain. Long, boring days of nothing to do. Makar bringing three mediocre meals a day. He told her that “pretty soon” there would be a special guest coming that she was expected to “entertain.” At least Makar wasn’t bothering her. Not yet, anyway.

  Now, it was her fifth day in the woods. Yana stood in the tiny bathroom and examined the tattoo, which was healing nicely. The claws of a bear, with a few droplets of blood. To her, though, the droplets did not represent blood—they were tears.

  The tube of red lipstick they had supplied her was for their pleasure. She knew she would be required to apply it.

  Lipstick and bear claws.

  It was the ultimate humiliation, to be branded as someone’s property. She attempted to cover the tattoo with her hair, but the edge was still visible in the mirror. She was permanently trademarked. Made in Russia.

  25

  Annie arrived at the Palit Wool headquarters in Northbrook on time for a one o’clock appointment with CEO Greg Paley. He had been cordial on the phone and said he would be happy to speak to her. When he asked why the FBI wanted to talk to him, she said it concerned matters on the Russian end of his business. He offered no resistance; in fact, he seemed genuinely concerned that something might be wrong.

  The office took up the entire third floor of a six-story building that housed other businesses. When Annie stepped off the elevator into a foyer, she faced a large frosted glass wall and door with the legend PALIT WOOL tastefully embossed on it. She went in to find an attractive female receptionist sitting at a fancy marble desk. The waiting room had modern, European furnishings. In some ways, it reminded her of a clean and bright bank lobby. After giving her name to the receptionist, Annie was told to have a seat.

  Paley didn’t keep her waiting long. Within a minute after her arrival, he appeared through the door that led to the rest of the office.

  “Agent Marino? Greg Paley.”

  Annie stood and held out a hand, which he
shook. “Good afternoon, Mr. Paley, thank you for seeing me.”

  “You’re quite welcome. Come on back to my office.”

  She was struck by his height and good looks. The full head of white hair really did give him that “distinguished” appearance. The Slavic, rugged features of high cheekbones and a strong jaw were pronounced, and he had deep-set almond-colored eyes.

  They went through the door into an open-designed space not unlike her own tenth floor of the field office. People sat in cubicles working at computer terminals. Paley led her down a carpeted path and into a hallway past the staff.

  “This is, of course, our administrative headquarters, where all the pencil pushing happens. We have a warehouse in New Jersey where all the goods from Russia are stored and from where they are shipped to retailers. We also have a small manufacturing arm in Glenview, although 90 percent of our manufacturing is done in St. Petersburg. Can I get you anything? Something to drink? Coffee?”

  Coffee sounded good, she said. Paley said something to a secretary who sat at another marble desk outside the CEO’s office, and then he gestured for Annie to enter.

  His private inner sanctum was much different from the rest of the layout. Annie felt as if she’d just walked into the Explorers’ Club, a gentlemen’s abode decorated with mounted stuffed animal trophies, dark leather furniture, and a bar. She almost expected its occupants to wear Victorian-age British Empire hunters’ clothing, complete with pith helmets. A black bear and two large deer heads adorned one wall. A grizzly bear head and a deer with massive antlers were on the opposite side. Most impressive was the expansive black bear rug, complete with head, that lay on the floor.

  “Oh, my,” Annie said. “Someone likes to hunt.”

  Paley laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you could say that. Do you hunt, Agent Marino?”

  “Only criminals.”

  “Touché. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the comfy chair in front of his desk. Instead of sitting behind it, he sat on the sofa near her, beneath the grizzly.