Against a Brightening Sky

by Jaime Lee Moyer

  He shifted in his chair, still restless and unable to keep still. The sound of crackling paper reminded him of the telegram in his pocket. Gabe took the folded yellow paper out and passed it to Jack. “I heard from Colin. He’s positive the locket was part of the Russian crown jewels. Colin’s just as sure that it belonged to the dowager empress. He doesn’t remember the occasion, but the locket was a gift from her son.”

  Jack read the telegram quickly. “Damn, Dora was right.”

  Dora’s voice right behind him made Gabe jump.

  “Of course I was right. I usually am.” She sat in the overstuffed chair at the other end of the settee and rubbed her eyes. “Remind me what we’re talking about. I seem to have forgotten.”

  “A telegram from Colin. He identified the locket in Eve Rigaux’s hand as belonging to the Russian royal family.” Gabe glanced over his shoulder, looking for his wife. “Is Dee coming down?”

  “Not just yet. She’s helping Sadie lie to Annie. The three of us decided telling her the whole truth wasn’t a good idea. Thanks to Pastor Grant’s influence, Annie’s convinced I’m in league with demons.” Dora was tired or she’d never have allowed an edge to creep into her voice. That she did was a measure of how much Annie’s poor opinion bothered her. “Telling her that Connor was attacked by a foreign necromancer would add fuel to that fire and upset her more. She doesn’t remember a thing before I brought her around. Concocting a story about fainting was much kinder.”

  Jack drained the last of his whiskey and set the glass aside. His cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were clear and focused. “I keep asking myself why this killer went after Connor and Annie. If you’ve got an answer to that, Dora, I’d like to hear it.”

  “I don’t think he came looking specifically for Annie and Connor, but once here, he took advantage of the opportunity. I’ve no doubt he was hoping to find Alina.” Dora frowned, her long nails tapping silently on the padded arm of the chair. “The type of protections on the house may have had a great deal to do with drawing him here. What Dee and I put in place to protect Connor are precisely the kind of barriers that keep him from finding Alina. That made him curious about what you were hiding. It’s a double-edged sword. For the life of me, I can’t see another way.”

  “They were easy targets, Jack.” Gabe cleared his throat. So many people they knew and cared about were easy targets. “We need to remember that this man isn’t entirely sane. Delia’s convinced he’ll use anyone to find Alina.”

  Jack looked between Dora and Gabe, his voice flat, unemotional. “Even a two-year-old.”

  “Even a two-year-old.” Dora leaned forward, fingers gripping the arm of the chair tight. “He didn’t flinch from killing innocents at the parade or from harvesting power from their deaths. Dee’s right in believing a necromancer will use anyone who comes to hand. She’s just as right to believe him more than a little mad.”

  “All right.” Jack toyed with the rim of his glass, running a finger around the edge and staring at melting ice. He looked up, all his carefully hidden anger sitting stark in his eyes. “Fair warning, Gabe. I won’t flinch either. I’ll shoot him if this man comes near my family again.”

  He didn’t argue. Gabe stood, pulling out his pocket watch to check the time. “I have to get back to the station. Will my going upstairs to tell Delia good-bye complicate things for her?”

  Dora’s dismissive wave was another measure of how tired she must be. She rarely passed up the opportunity to tease him. “Go kiss your wife, Captain Ryan. I’ll get Dee home safely.”

  Gabe went to her chair, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Dora. Be careful.”

  She smiled. “I’m probably in the least danger from this killer, and I’m always cautious. You and Randy are the ones I worry about. Promise me you won’t forget that this man can look like anyone.”

  “I promise. Don’t fret about me.” He glanced at Jack, noting the harsh new lines in his partner’s face and the hollow, haunted look in his eyes. Gabe wasn’t about to forget, and neither would Jack.

  Not a chance. They had too much at stake.

  CHAPTER 18

  Gabe

  A phone call from Randy Dodd granted Gabe’s wish to see inside the sanctuary at Holy Trinity Cathedral.

  His driver double-parked in the middle of the street, sparing Gabe a long walk through the crowd of neighbors straining to see what was happening. He stood next to the car, buttoning his coat and looking around before going inside. The scene was much different from his first visit, more like an active murder investigation and less like a sleepy church supper.

  Six patrol cars crowded the curb in front of the church. The coroner’s van and two more police cars filled the drive leading to the rectory in back. A line of officers on horseback held the press and a throng of curiosity seekers at bay across the street. Reporters who recognized Gabe shouted his name, their raucous voices accompanied by the pop and snap of photographers’ flash being set off. He turned his back to them and started up the walk.

  The bell tower cast long, jagged shadows in the late afternoon light, rippling over the lawn and creeping onto the sidewalk. Deeper shadows darkened the covered entry into the church. Mindful of Dora’s warning, Gabe slowed his steps as he approached and made sure that the man waiting for him near the door was Randy Dodd.

  But even after Gabe reached the front doors, he found himself watching Randy for an extra few seconds, his heart beating just a little faster. Not being able to trust what he saw was unsettling.

  Gabe shoved the feeling down deep. He couldn’t work that way, and if he was going to catch this man, he needed to think. “Your phone call spoiled a perfectly good afternoon of paperwork, Officer Dodd.”

  Randy looked up from his notebook, his smile grim. “I’m about to finish ruining your day, Gabe. Father Pashkovsky is dead. Based on how it looks right now, Aleksei Nureyev may have killed him.”

  Gabe tipped his hat back to get a better look at Randy’s face. “But you don’t think he did it.”

  He went back to studying his notebook, avoiding Gabe’s eyes. “No, I don’t. I think someone did a damn good job of setting him up to look guilty. Aleksei was the one who called us.” Randy stuffed his notebook in a pocket and pulled open one of the double doors. “He’s waiting inside. He was sitting in the same spot when the beat cops arrived.”

  The doors into the sanctuary were propped open. Bursts of bright light flared and faded again as they stepped inside. Baker’s flash. An oversized chandelier filled the center of the ceiling, wired with dozens of electric bulbs. Opaque, amber-colored mica shades covered each bulb, softening the light.

  Stained glass windows ranged around the room, all set into the top of the walls to shine colored light down on the pews. This late in the afternoon, the sun had sunk too low to light more than a few windows. Gabe didn’t know the names of the Russian saints pictured, or the stories told, but he couldn’t deny they were beautiful.

  Aleksei sat in the front row of pews, staring at the large wooden crucifix hanging behind the altar. He muttered in Russian, but the singsong rhythm of his voice and the way he crossed himself every few seconds painted a picture of a man in prayer.

  Gabe didn’t need to ask why he prayed or who Aleksei’s prayers were for. Father Pashkovsky’s body was nailed up behind the altar, the light gone from his milky eyes. In death, the priest looked younger, a man closer to Nureyev’s age and who might have been a boyhood friend. Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

  Blood splattered the wall beneath the crucifix. More blood stained the altar, splashed the carpeted steps and the runner down the center of the aisle. Square-headed spikes, the kind used for railroad ties, were driven through Pashkovsky’s palms. More spikes were used to secure his wrists and shoulders, and through his crossed ankles. That explained much of the blood, but the knife driven into the center of his chest was what killed him.

  The way Eve Rigaux’s body had been laid out was only the start of the kil
ler’s message; this was the ending flourish. She’d been killed quickly, even gently, in comparison. Only a blind man would miss the symbolism in this, or a stupid man miss the hate.

  Aleksei Nureyev was neither blind nor stupid. One look at his face told Gabe he understood.

  Baker moved his camera a few feet to the left, taking more photographs. The flash reflected off gilt carvings of saints and statues of the Virgin Mary set into niches along the back wall. A carving of Jesus, torn from the crucifix before Pashkovsky was nailed up in its place, lay in pieces.

  Gabe took it all in and came to the same conclusion Randy had. Aleksei wasn’t the killer. The man who’d attacked Annie and Connor was responsible, just as he’d been responsible for the riot at the Saint Patrick’s Day parade and killing Alina’s guardians. Proving that, and catching the killer, was an entirely different matter.

  He skirted around the blood on the floor and slid into the pew next to Aleksei. Gabe glanced toward the altar and tried not to flinch. Details revealed themselves in the light of Baker’s flash. A gag had cut into the corners of Father Pashkovsky’s mouth and dribbled blood into the priest’s beard. From the front row, Gabe could see echoes of pain in Father Pashkovsky’s eyes; the suffering set into his face. The priest had hung there for a long time before the killer stabbed him and ended his agony.

  Gabe leaned back, resting an arm along the back of the wooden bench. “Who did this, Alek? I know you didn’t kill him. Help me find the man who killed your friend.”

  “I have no friends, Captain Ryan. Sasha Pashkovsky was the last.” He shut his eyes and crossed himself again. “Josef has turned all of them into ghosts.”

  “Josef?” The killer’s name sent cold trailing down his neck and set off a flurry of whispers in his ear. Gabe couldn’t help hearing. What he heard made him ill. “Who is he?”

  “A man I shot and left for dead in the Ural Mountains. God have mercy on my soul, I shot him and drove off. I discovered later he’d already betrayed us.” He crossed himself again, but didn’t turn away from the blank, accusing stare of Father Pashkovsky’s eyes. “Josef works for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Killing him was the only way to keep him from following us, but I failed even at that. I’ve failed at so many things.”

  “Start from the beginning.” Gabe twisted in his seat to face Nureyev. “You weren’t alone on that road. Who else was with you?”

  Aleksei shuddered, forcing his eyes away from the corpse on the cross. “A young officer in the Red Army came to me with news of where the tsar and his family were being held by the Bolsheviks. He’d put together a desperate plan to save the grand duchesses, but he needed my help to pay a hired assassin known as Josef the Undertaker. I’d heard rumors about what this man was capable of, but this young lieutenant had already agreed to his price. Backing out meant losing any chance of freeing the family, so I went along.”

  The distant, detached cop inside him needed to collect details, to know what freeing a tsar’s daughter cost. Another part, the man who’d sat up in a darkened sitting room, gun in hand while his wife slept, flinched from knowing. That man didn’t want to know, but he asked anyway. “What did it cost the young lieutenant to free Alina?”

  Nureyev glanced at him, but didn’t seem surprised that Gabe knew. “Josef’s currency is death, Captain, and he demanded payment in people’s lives. I didn’t find out what Dmitri had agreed to until it was too late. Alina was the only one of the family to leave with us.”

  Baker was finished with his photographs. Randy Dodd and Marshall Henderson stood with the deputy coroner, arguing about the best way to remove the body. Getting Nureyev away from here before they started was for the best. He considered himself a somewhat hardened detective, but the thought of watching the coroner pry the spikes out of Pashkovsky made Gabe’s stomach flip. The idea of forcing Aleksei to watch hit him even harder.

  He stood and got a hand under Nureyev’s elbow. “You can tell me the rest of the story in my office.”

  “Are you arresting me, Captain Ryan?” Aleksei paused before stepping into the aisle, looking back toward the altar and crossing himself again. He didn’t resist as Gabe led him away. “Josef will find me in a cell as easily as on the street or in the union office. I’ll be dead by morning.”

  The hair on the back of Gabe’s neck rose. He believed him. “You’re not under arrest. And I’ve no intention of letting you die in my jail. I have the means to protect you if necessary.”

  “You mean Mikal’s widow, Isadora.” Alek pulled himself up straighter. “Thank you, Captain, but no. She has too many people to protect as it stands. You and I will talk, and once we’re finished, I will do my best to disappear. Maybe I can lead Josef away from San Francisco and buy you some time. I don’t hold much hope he’ll follow, but he’s fooled me before.”

  They stopped just inside the front doors, giving Aleksei time to button his overcoat and flip up his collar. Gabe thought about the crowd outside, the press of bodies and the reporters shouting questions. Every instinct he had told him not to parade Nureyev past the photographers.

  Gabe put a hand on Aleksei’s arm to keep him from stepping outside. “I’ve changed my mind. You’re not going back to the office with me, you’re leaving now. I know from experience the coroner carries extra coats and caps in his van. No one should look twice if you go out the back dressed like one of his men and drive away with them. I’ll square things with Dr. West. Call it a head start if you like.”

  Nureyev smiled, the first real smile Gabe had seen from him. “Thank you, Captain Ryan. For a police officer, you have a very devious mind.”

  “My partner says the same thing.” Gabe stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, thinking. “I need to ask something before you go. I can understand Josef wanting revenge against you for shooting him. But why kill Eve Rigaux, or Father Pashkovsky?”

  He stopped short of asking why this man had Jordan Lynch shot, or killed entire families, or why all the children that haunted Gabe’s dreams had to die. Once he started asking why, stopping might be impossible.

  “Do you know much about Russian history, Captain?”

  Gabe shrugged. “No, not a thing.”

  Nureyev pursed his lips and nodded, as if he’d known the answer all along. “Russia has been ruled by an emperor or an empress for centuries. Rightly or wrongly, all the ills that befall Russia are blamed on our rulers. That has always been true, but Lenin and his thugs won their revolution by making Nicholas appear to be an unfeeling monster. From there, it was but a small step to seeing the entire aristocracy as vermin, needing to be trapped and killed. Lenin loosed Josef on the world. I don’t know if he can be called back.”

  Gabe chewed his lip for a few seconds, thinking. “Then we need to find a way to stop him once and for all.”

  “I wish you luck with that, Captain. Be very very sure when you shoot him that Josef dies. Don’t make the mistake of showing any mercy. Alina’s life, and the life of my son, depend on you.”

  Gabe stared, ready to argue that there were other ways to stop Josef and that he was sworn to uphold the law, to see justice done, not gun down criminals in the street. He couldn’t get the words out. In his gut, he knew Aleksei was right. Isadora would likely agree, however reluctantly.

  He gripped Nureyev’s shoulder. “I’ll do my best, you’ve my word on that. Now, let’s get you on your way.”

  By the time Gabe went out the front door, Aleksei Nureyev was blocks away, riding in the back of the coroner’s van. If anything, the crowd outside was thicker, the shouts from the throng of reporters more insistent. He ignored them all, striding to his waiting car and climbing inside.

  He watched people from the safety of the backseat, scanning each face, looking for a sign he hoped he’d recognize.

  Josef could be any one of them. That he’d never know until it was too late made Gabe’s skin crawl.

  Delia

  Gabe got home long after supper, exhausted and discouraged. He told me about Father Pashkovs
ky’s murder and his conversation with Aleksei Nureyev. I assured him that having a name for this man, whether Josef was his true name or not, was a good thing. Names opened new ways for Dora and me to search for him. Our chances of finding him had increased enormously.

  The one truly bright spot in his afternoon was finding Pastor Grant alive and well, and confused about why the police came looking for him.

  He used the parlor phone to speak with Dora while I dished out the food I’d kept warm for him. We went to bed as soon as he’d finished eating.

  I’d covered the dressing table mirror earlier. Gabe offered to turn the mirror to the wall, but draping it with an old sheet was just as effective. I couldn’t fall asleep with all three princesses watching me, especially knowing where my dreams led and what I might see.

  Being accustomed to seeing ghosts, to knowing that the restless dead were always a part of my world, was far, far different from watching someone die. In all my years of dealing with spirits, I’d never before been forced to witness a death or the events that led to a last moment. A last good-bye.

  The watcher had changed that for me. I understood the necessity, but I didn’t thank her for the experience.

  I struggled with sleep, fought hard against drifting away from the comforting warmth of our bedroom into the forbidding chill of that far distant mountain house. All the dreams were vivid, stark in their harshness and the terror that made my heart pound before waking. But I always knew before dreaming what I’d remember and what would pass away.

  This dream I’d remember.

  * * *

  After that first night, the commandant ignored us. He slept in the village each night, coming to the house only to make sure we were being fed and that the guards hadn’t abandoned their posts. I heard one of the guards call him Yuri or I might never have learned his name. When he did speak to us, it was to deliver lectures, reminding us again and again we were citizens of the state now, with no more status than the village girls scrubbing pots in the kitchen.