The scene became chaotic and crowded in a short span of minutes, with uniformed officers, medical examiners, and weary-looking detectives dressed in cheap, wrinkled sport coats all meandering around each other. And all the while, the lights of numerous emergency vehicles continued to pulse: red and blue, yellow and white, out of sync, over and over as the service radios crackled with activity. With the exception of one uniformed officer stationed close behind me, the rest of the personnel all spoke amongst themselves, often turning to look or point at me, but so far, I’d been asked very few questions, just my name, address, and my relationship to the deceased.
The back door of the van was opened, and everyone descended on Nick’s body like flies on a carcass. My breathing rose in short, quick spasms, and I began to hyperventilate. The investigator’s camera flashed in slow, deliberate succession, whirring and clicking over the quiet hum of the expanding crowd. One of the detectives pulled me up by the arms and ordered me farther away. I did as he asked, but kept my attention on the van and what they were doing with Nick.
There were several detectives on scene who watched me closely, one of them a dark-haired woman who spoke in hushed tones to the man who had asked me to move. She eyed me suspiciously then turned away and walked into the emergency room. My heart faltered when I saw the coroner zip Nick’s body into a black bag and load him onto a gurney. I bit the back of my hand, squeezed tight into a fist to stop it from shaking, and pressed my eyes closed.
I couldn’t stand to look anymore. I bowed my head and wrapped my hands around the back of my neck as nausea rolled through me in waves. I feared I would throw up at any moment. They loaded Nick’s body into their van, slammed the doors shut, and pulled away. I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. They spilled down my face, falling silently to the asphalt between my feet, as my shoulders shook with both withdrawal and sorrow. My brother—the only person I had left in this world—was gone. And ultimately, I was to blame.
The toes of a scuffed pair of loafers came to rest near my feet, and from above my head, a voice called out my name. Not ready to face anyone just yet, I chose to ignore him, but it was one of the weary detectives addressing me, and he refused to be disregarded.
“Mr. Karras,” he barked again.
I raised my head. “Yes,” I replied, my voice still hoarse. I swiped at my eyes, stood up, and shook the outstretched hands of two police detectives.
“I’m Detective Paul Stevens and this is Detective Chris Avery,” one of them said, indicating his tired-looking partner next to him. “We have some questions we’d like you to answer.”
I nodded, trying to be cooperative. “Yes, of course.” I wiped my sleeve across my eyes and coughed, wrapping my arm around my body as my ribs screamed in protest. The detectives looked me up and down, though neither of them reacted to the bruises and cuts all over my face, or the tattered flesh across my knuckles, other than to glance briefly at each other.
“There was no identification on the deceased. You said he was your brother?” Stevens asked.
“Yes, my younger brother, Nicholas Karras.”
“And how did you come to be in possession of his body?”
I sighed in exhaustion. “That’s a very long story.”
Stevens pressed his lips together in impatience. “How about the condensed version for now.”
I was so tired. My hands and voice both trembled as the DTs ramped up in the wake of my withdrawal from alcohol. “Well, we were both taken against our will and forced to fight for our lives like dogs.” I paused for a moment and looked back and forth between them. “Nick didn’t make it.” I said curtly, becoming defensive knowing how it must sound to them.
“But you did, Mr. Karras?” Stevens asked with mock amazement.
“Right. Very astute of you, Detective.”
I figured I should only answer direct questions and then only as briefly as possible. They weren’t going to understand until I was given the opportunity to fully explain, something that wasn’t going to happen in the hospital parking lot at two in the morning.
“And you somehow managed to free yourself from your kidnappers and bring your brother’s body here?” Stevens shot back at me. By his tone, I didn’t think he believed me.
“Exactly.”
“Well, who killed your brother, Mr. Karras?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know his name, and ultimately, somebody else is responsible for Nick being there. For killing him.”
“And who might that be? Or do you not know his name either?”
I looked them each square in the eye and sighed. “Dmitri Chernov.”
“Dmitri Chernov?” Avery repeated. He glanced over at his partner and chuckled. “As in the Russian Mafia?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
They looked at each other with more than mere surprise. It was almost gleeful the way their eyes lit up when I confirmed Dmitri’s involvement.
Avery nudged his partner with his elbow, leaned close, and said, “That warehouse south of Market.” Stevens nodded silently. But their joy was short lived as we were interrupted by two more men, both of whom were expensively dressed in designer suits and imported leather shoes buffed to a crisp shine. With their air of superior authority, I immediately took them for federal agents, and I was proved right when they each flashed their identification at the detectives.
They asked Avery and Stevens to step aside for a moment then seemed to share some unwanted news with the local boys, for the detectives became instantly indignant, their arms flapping about in frustrated discourse. It seemed the feds were about to step on their delicate toes. Of course, it wasn’t good news for me either. The involvement of the federal government would only make this more difficult. I had taken the oath of allegiance when I was naturalized nearly eight years ago, and had even married a U.S. citizen, but being somewhat ignorant of U.S. immigration law, I feared for my status, especially since Jillian was dead.
The FBI shut down the whole show at that point. When the detectives returned, one of them handcuffed me, while the other read me my rights. I was arrested on suspicion of murder, a trumped up charge, no doubt, just to get me in for further questioning. I figured it might play out this way. I knew I would have to give them my story at some point, but I didn’t know what they were aware of yet as far as Hannah was concerned, so I was worried about tipping my hand too soon.
I was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed, then dumped handcuffed into a small interview room and left to stew by myself for over two hours, shaking and sweating in a hard wooden chair. I imagined insects running across the floor at my feet, a sure sign that my withdrawal was in full swing. I breathed in deep, closed my eyes against the hallucinations, and tried to focus on Hannah. I desperately wanted to ask about her, but I had no idea whether they’d made the connection between us yet.
One of the federal agents entered the tiny room and took a seat without a word. He was tall and thin, with dark blonde hair, and long fingers. He had that gaunt look of an Eastern European, with large sunken eyes, a sharp nose, and thin lips. Detective Stevens followed him in, removed my restraints, and threw a file folder onto the table in front of me. He took a seat and opened the file, revealing arrest records for Nick. I jumped in my seat as a cockroach skittered out from between the pages and scurried toward me along the table’s edge. The men traded stares with each other over my reaction. I breathed in deeply to slow my heart rate, which continued to race, as much from the situation I now found myself in as it did from the delirium tremens and hallucinations that plagued me. Stevens looked me over, surveying my symptoms with a measured stare.
“DTs, eh?” he asked, as if he knew only too well from personal experience.
I gave him a rueful smirk. “Yep.”
Stevens glanced again at the agent sitting next to him who indicated that the interview should continue regardless. Stevens raised his brow in doubt, but complied.
“Okay Mr. Karras, we’ve been busy looking into your br
other’s past. You might already know that his arrest records here in San Francisco go back nearly four years—mostly petty stuff—but his file does note his suspected involvement in quite a few auto theft incidents attributed to the Russian vory v zakone, or thieves-in-law, as they like to call themselves. You, on the other hand, well...we’ve found nothing on you at all, not even a parking ticket, though there are a couple of unsigned complaints with your name on top. Interesting you never pressed any charges. Wonder why that is?” Stevens said as he peered above the rim of his glasses.
“Your point?” I asked.
“Well, we’d like to know how an upstanding citizen such as yourself became involved with your brother’s criminal activities, and just how you managed to get on the bad side of Dmitri Chernov.”
Stevens leaned back in his chair with his hands on the back of his head and his elbows stretched out to the side. My one good eye shifted back and forth between both men before I decided to play their game.
“I don’t know anything specific about my brother’s activities, though I tried to extricate him from Dmitri’s influence. I suppose that’s how I first got on his bad side, as you say.”
“What was your relationship like with your brother,” he asked.
“I loved him, obviously. Why else would I risk my own life to protect him?” I countered, annoyed at his combative tone.
“And how did Nick feel about that?” Stevens asked, his demeanor becoming more challenging.
I was pissed, on the verge of losing my temper. My whole body shook like a malaria patient. I was strung out and on edge. It had been nearly thirty hours since my last drink. I had no hope of getting another. I regretted not taking the opportunity while I was home earlier, though at the time I had debated with myself whether or not I should.
“Look Detective, I haven’t slept in…God…I don’t know how many days, and in that time, I’ve had the living shit kicked out of me. Twice, in fact. So why don’t you just save us all the time and ask me exactly what it is you want to know instead of dancing around.”
“Fine, Mr. Karras. Tell us, please, how you got involved with the Russian Mafia, and why your brother is lying dead in the morgue,” Stevens asked as he pointed his finger against Nick’s file on the table.
I sighed, wiping my hands over my face in exhaustion. I told them the story of Nick’s accident, the deaths of our family, his injuries, recovery, and subsequent addiction. I related how Nick turned first to petty crime to support his habits, then to armed robbery which led to the involvement of the Russians. I explained how I’d tried, in vain, so many times, to pull my brother away from their influence, even going so far as to injure one of Dmitri’s men, something for which he took great offense. I told them how I was lured to Dmitri’s Tea House to see my brother, who’d been injured while forced to participate in human dog fights because of my transgressions against them.
Neither one of them seemed surprised when I shared the details of my evening in the cage, or of watching my brother crushed beneath the boot of a brutal animal, all at the whim of a rapacious madman who benefited financially from each blow. I felt as though they knew it already and were simply waiting for me to confess my participation. The federal agent, who had remained silent up to this point, finally addressed me with a steely gaze.
“Mr. Karras, I’m Special Agent Maksim Sidorov with the FBI. I am very familiar with Dmitri Chernov and the Russian syndicate here in San Francisco. I have been investigating Chernov for well over two years now, including his involvement in the Solntsevskaya Bratva and vory v zakone,” he said with a perfect Russian accent, “and all of his connections in Little Russia and beyond. I attended the fights tonight at the warehouse. I saw what happened to your brother. And I saw you, as well.” His implication was clear.
My eyes danced between the two men before settling on Sidorov. “Bloody hell! You were there?” I jumped up to face him, knocking my chair over backwards and pushing the table forward as I leaned towards him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why didn’t you stop it? How could you allow that to continue after the first fight?”
I stepped out from behind the table. Detective Stevens was surprisingly quick as he bowled me up against the wall behind me, his forearm crushing my throat. I ignored Stevens and glared at the agent across the small room. Detective Avery burst in and grabbed me by the arm. He bent it behind my back and spun me around to face the wall. I resisted both men as they worked to subdue me, twisting my head to look back over my shoulder at Agent Sidorov.
“You goddamn son of a bitch! You could have prevented this, but you just sat there and watched with the rest of those fucking animals. You let my brother die! How could you do that? How?”
“Calm yourself, Mr. Karras!” Sidorov shouted over the detectives who were mumbling threats in my ear. “There was nothing I could do. I was deep undercover and couldn’t reveal myself. You saw how fast your brother was taken down. I left the building and called for backup when I saw how badly your brother was injured, but it was too late. There was nothing I could have done.”
“That’s fucking bullshit! If you knew about Dmitri like you said then you should have known what could have happened. You never should have allowed those fights to take place in the first place.”
“Mr. Karras, the few times I’d been allowed to attend the fights, there had never been anyone killed. I was trying to gather the evidence to bring Chernov down, to stop those fights, as well as his other activities. I didn’t expect anything like that to happen. I’m very sorry, but there was really nothing I could have done at that point. I had no choice but to see it through.”
“Fuck you! There’s always a choice. You just made the wrong one.” I struggled against the two detectives who pressed me against the wall. “Get the fuck off me!”
They ignored me and pressed even harder. “You gonna calm down, Karras?” Avery asked.
I was bruised all over, and too many of my ribs already felt broken without them smashing me against the concrete block wall. I stopped straining against them and slowly relaxed. “Yes. Now let go of me.”
The two men eased up and backed away. I wrapped both arms around my body, closed my eyes, and leaned my forehead against the wall, waiting for the pain to ebb.
“Do you need medical attention?” Sidorov asked, sounding more annoyed than concerned.
I considered it; I knew was in pretty bad shape. But Hannah’s claw marks and the bullet wound in my shoulder would likely bring about a whole round of questions Hannah would rather I not answer. So I gritted my teeth and declined. “No, just…just give me a minute.”
I dragged my chair back to the table and sat down. Sidorov and Stevens did the same while Avery leaned his shoulder against the wall behind me with his arms crossed over his thick chest. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes while I pulled myself together.
“Like I told you,” Sidorov began, “I was deep undercover. I’d already spent well over a year establishing a relationship with Chernov’s people. Nobody knew I was with the Bureau. As far as they were concerned, I was just another invited guest, there for a little entertainment and friendly sport.
“When your brother went down, I left to call for backup, but I still had to protect my identity. I went outside. A few of Chernov’s goons were standing guard nearby. I made it seem like I was going out for a quick smoke and a phone call. Next thing I knew, people were streaming out of the building. By the time my backup and the SFPD arrived, most everyone had already fled. But there was quite a mess left back inside, wasn’t there, Mr. Karras? I want to know what happened in there. So, what can you tell us about the seven dead men found at the warehouse after you fled?”
I stared at him without acknowledging what I knew. Frankly, I was surprised there were only seven. “Sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm, is that so? So you have no idea how the last remaining fighter ended up with a broken neck, or how Alexi Batalov might have sustained a cracked skull and a let
hal stab wound to his back?”
I squeezed my bruised hands together to subdue the tremors and shook my head, never letting my eyes fall from Sidorov’s. “Nope, none at all.”
“And the five sizable men known to be Chernov’s body guards? No idea how they died either?”
“Can’t say that I do, Agent Sidorov, but karma can be a real bitch, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t keep myself from throwing him a challenging smile. Sidorov and both detectives scowled at me, the same exasperated look drawn across each face.
“And what about Hannah Maguire?” Sidorov tilted his head to the side. “What can you tell us about her? How did she acquire her injuries?”
My smile faded, and my heart sank. I bowed my head in regret and humiliation and closed my eyes against all three men.
“We know you escorted Ms. Maguire into the emergency room earlier. We also know she was assaulted, suffering considerable injuries and—”
My head snapped up. “What injuries exactly? Is she okay? Will she be all right?”
Sidorov smiled, happy he’d found vulnerable spot. “Are you family, Mr. Karras?”
I looked at him, confused. “Family? No. No I’m not, but…she and I have—”
Sidorov interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Then I’m sorry. I can’t give you any details.”
With a sigh, I lowered my head to my hands clasped tightly on the table. Sidorov must have felt sorry for me, though he huffed in exasperation.
“She’s been admitted, but she’ll recover,” he offered.
I looked back up at him. “Thank you,” I replied, grateful for his mercy. I relaxed and leaned back in my chair.
“So, how do you know Ms. Maguire?” Stevens asked.
“That’s another long story.”
Sidorov threw his pen down onto his notepad then folded his arms across his chest. “By all means,” he said.
I told them about Jillian, the circumstances surrounding her death, and the woman I believed responsible. I explained how I started drinking heavily afterwards, wallowing in my misery, looking for some kind of retribution. I told them Nick and I had decided to find Erin Anderson and confront her, if for no other reason than to have some kind of closure, but we had inadvertently misidentified Hannah as Erin because, not only did they look alike, but Erin was also in a relationship with Hannah’s husband.
The Mistaken Page 31