by Linda Ladd
There were two armed guards at the front gate, and Claire stared at them as Bud rolled the Bronco to a stop. She wondered if Black had been right, and if they were going to be swallowed up in said Russian Thugland, as surely as if plunging headfirst into a deep space black hole. He had certainly overreacted the first time he thought she was going to visit Petrov, acted as if it equated with entering a Moscow-run portal to hell. Right now, they were on the verge of walking straight into Petrov’s compound and checking out all the bad things, and yes, they certainly did have their hands full, oh, yeah. Murderous Mafioso, or not, however, surely this guy wouldn’t dare lay a finger on them. He better not. Charlie would have every cop in both Missouri and Illinois on his back, if he did. Of course, they’d both still be in corpse mode, and Black would be pissed about that, too.
“Yes, sir, may I help you?” the polite lowlife guard said to Bud, no doubt pretending he was a regular, normal human being. Then he leaned down farther and examined Claire’s face, where she sat watching the action from the passenger’s seat. “Oh, hello there, Detective Morgan. How you doin’?”
“Have we met, sir?” Claire asked him pointedly. She’d never seen the guy before in her life. He was clean cut for a henchman, not as heavily muscled as most of them. He sported a little goatee and mustache that reminded her of the Three Musketeers but he had no detectable French accent. Nope, his accent was American with a Russian lilt that she could just barely pick up. He wore wraparound black sunglasses and a long black trench coat that helped with his menacing image thing.
“No, but I saw you at the fight arena with Nicky Black. Congrats on the upcoming wedding.”
Claire frowned, somehow feeling dirty. “Thank you. We’re here on official police business to see Mr. Ivan Petrov. Is he at home?”
“Yes, ma’am. Let me call up to the main house and get permission for you to enter the compound.”
“Very courteous guy,” Bud said, pressing a button and rolling up his window. “He probably smiles when he knifes people, too. And what is this, anyway, the White House?”
“More like the Kremlin. I did hear that people who go inside this compound don’t come out. At least, not alive.”
Bud jerked his face toward her. “Now you tell me that?”
“Well, Charlie knows where we are. If they try anything funny with us, they won’t get away with it. And I did put in a cautionary call to the East St. Louis PD to apprise them when and where we were going in. I’m supposed to call them once we’re safely out.”
“Oh, wow, Claire, that makes me feel so much better. Who told you all that?”
“A little birdie.”
“A Black birdie, maybe? Hope he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Alas, but he usually does.”
The guard was tapping a bent knuckle on the window. “He said to come on up. Just follow the road until you hit the end of the line.”
“Thanks,” Bud said, and then accelerated through the gate, which closed behind them in a rather final way. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. End of the line—that sounds like a premonition to me.”
“We’re gonna be fine.” She hoped.
The parking lot was just up around the first curve. There were several more beefy men standing out there waiting for them. All were wearing heavy winter overcoats, scary black ones like the other guy’s that hung past the knee, probably with M60 machine guns hidden under them, loaded for bear. They also had on mafia-inspired fedoras and black leather military boots with their pants tucked in. Probably hobnailed, too. “Looks like we’re gonna be outnumbered, Bud.”
“Great. I can’t tell you what a good time I’m havin’. Yeah, and just when Bri gets back, too.”
“Okay, let’s go see what’s so scary about our deceivingly chummy Moscow buds.”
A rather hefty and pockmarked and swarthy Slavic giant examined their badges, even turning them over and looking at the backs, no doubt looking for Toys “R” Us tags, before he motioned them to follow him. He wasn’t particularly chatty. Or friendly. In fact, he said nothing. Maybe he couldn’t speak English. Maybe he couldn’t speak any language and just grunted and gestured his way through life. They trailed him up a wood ramp to an extremely modern structure that appeared to be the main house. Another hood stood guard at the front door. His big gun was readily apparent, in his big hand, even. He checked their badges, too. Jeez, there probably weren’t this many checkpoints at Fort Knox.
Ushered into a surprisingly spacious living room, all burgundy and black decor, and maybe about the size of a basketball court and a half, they found the King of Red Square sitting in court beside a huge walk-in stacked stone fireplace with a giant moose head above the mantel. All the furniture was black leather with lots of studs and rough wood with my-owner’s-one-tough-mother appeal. Oh, yeah, everything looked mucho manly, in an elegant East European sort of way. Maybe Ivan needed tough surroundings to help him scare his visitors to death. It was working.
“Ah, there you are, my dear, the future Mrs. Nicholas Black. Please, do come in, come in. I’ve been absolutely dying to meet the woman who slipped that ring through Nicky’s nose. Nobody thought it could be done. Me, included.”
Nice. Not. Okay, true, that little spurt of nasty certainly rubbed Claire the wrong way. What a creep. Everything about the man, the giant room, the deep voice, and the roaring fire, all of it made her want to rub him the wrong way, too. Rub him out, maybe. She fought the extremely strong urge overtaking her, the one that compelled her to sprint the rest of the way to the smug Russian and make his nose bleed. Instead, she remembered her mission and stopped in front of the supposedly scary-as-hell Mafioso, and said, “Thank you for seeing us, sir. We do need to ask you a few questions. It won’t take long. This is Bud Davis, my partner, and my name is Claire Morgan.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, we’re all at your service. Any friend of Nicky’s is a friend of mine.”
Then Ivan Petrov finished his annoying name-dropping and looked her up and down as if she didn’t have on a bulky parka and a sock hat that made her hair stick out with static, and all of which pretty much hid anything that he might be interested in insulting. Lascivious? You bet. Why, she wasn’t quite sure. Her insulated down parka and jeans and makeup-less face didn’t exactly excite strip club ogling. No way could he tell what was underneath all those layers; she could look like a geriatric bag lady, for all he knew. To her sensibilities that branded the remarks as simply hateful and meant to provoke wrath.
So, okay. Who gave a hot damn what a deadly imbecile thought? He hadn’t gotten her goat yet, if that was his plan. But he had one hand on its bleating neck with malice aforethought in his head. Bud was frowning, also understanding the tacky innuendo and not liking it any more than she did. But he didn’t punch out their host, either. They both remained the picture of official restraint. She shuddered to think what Black would’ve done to him, but the mental picture did have a certain happy appeal for her.
“This concerns your ex-wife, Mr. Petrov,” she told him, still calm, watching his face for a revealing reaction to the subject.
His face registered on cue. Open and easy to read. Surprise, shock even. He got that under control quickly enough. “Blythe, you mean? You probably want to talk to her current husband, not me. We were divorced several years ago.”
“Well, yes, but thing is, sir, we recently found that little text message you sent to her cell phone on occasion. You know, the one that said, ‘I’m gonna kill you, bitch, if you don’t come home.’”
Curtains down on incriminating expressions, just like that. He’d had some practice evading answers in police interviews, all right. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about. But please, where are my manners? Please, sit down and make yourselves comfortable. Let me get you something to drink. Shall I call someone to take your coats and hats?”
“No, thank you. We’re fine.” They took seats across from the chair aka throne on which he sat. However, he immed
iately stood up, and moved to where he could warm his back at the huge grate with its leaping, crackling flames. He looked extremely relaxed now. As if he had them where he wanted them, and was oh, so pleased with himself. Claire fought her desire to pull her weapon and blast him a good one right through the chest. All humanity would be better off.
After a moment, Petrov pondered aloud. “That message sounds like a terrible thing to say to anyone. I assure you that I would never say such a thing to my ex-wife. Blythe is much too fragile and easily upset to frighten like that.” He smiled, easy and self-assured, and now really hunkered down into his lies.
“Then I guess you didn’t slit her throat and toss her out her bedroom window, either. Right?”
Okay, he wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked stunned. Then he looked disbelieving. Then he looked stricken. Then he looked like he was crying on the inside. Then he really was crying on the outside, real live godfather tears running down his cheeks. Whoa, Nelly, he wasn’t holding anything back, either. He was in full-fledged grief mode. Bud looked over at her as their tough-guy host hid his face in his hands and sobbed out loud. “No, no, no,” he kept saying.
Well, well, what’d you know, the guy had a heart in there somewhere, after all. And Anna had been on target about him still loving Blythe Parker. But now, he had resurfaced again, super creep once more, coming out of his two-minute mourning period just like that, and now onto fierce, stampeding mad-elephant anger mode, which was definitely a transition worth watching.
“Who? Goddamn it, who killed her? Tell me!” Abruptly, he went silent, then let out a pitiful little sob muffled behind his hand, then mopped the tears off his face with a white handkerchief that he pulled out of the inside pocket of his dark brown suede smoking jacket. “You tell me, girl, you tell me right now who dared put his hands on her.”
Girl? Alrighty now, enough is enough. “Or what, Mr. Petrov? I am an officer of the law, and I expect you to remember that and address me with respect. You got that, sir? Now compose yourself, because I want to ask you some questions we need answered for our homicide investigation. Are you ready to proceed? Or do you need time to get control of your emotions?”
He didn’t need time. And he didn’t like her anymore, and didn’t think Black was so lucky to hook up with her, either, she supposed. He glared at her, and she took it in stride. Not exactly something she wasn’t expecting. Lots of people glared at her. Even Black, now and again. She was used to it.
Bud chose that moment to enter their polite back and forth. He said, “You need to sit down, Mr. Petrov, or we’re gonna think you’re tryin’ to hide something.”
Then Petrov shared his glare with Bud. Apparently not used to people answering back without being shot in the temple right where they stood. She wondered if he had one of those devious trapdoors under their chairs, like in all those 007 movies when the villain pulled a lever and his victims plummeted into a pool of sharks or a vat of acid. They waited for the plunge or attack by summoned thugs, both of them matching the guy stare for rude stare.
Surprisingly, Petrov didn’t pull the lever. “I’m sorry, detectives. I’m just in shock, I guess.” He sank down into a different big wingback chair covered with fabric that had designs of German castles standing majestically on high cliffs, or maybe they were Russian strongholds. He shook his head. “I never stopped loving her, even when she ran off with that fighter. I always wanted her to come back home and live here with Anna and me and the boys. I could’ve protected her from this. Better than Paulie ever could.” He leaned his head back against the cushions and shut his eyes and sighed, really pitiful now. So tired of murder and dead wives and getting blamed for everything.
Okay, that was all very interesting. Fearing he’d dropped off to sleep, however, she raised her voice. “Protect her from whom, Mr. Petrov?”
He jerked up to sitting, faster than a blink, accent growing thicker now. “From her crazy family, that’s who. The Fitches. Those goddamn crazy sons of bitches. They’re all nuts, insane, all of them, every single one, down to the smallest child. That’s why she fled her parents in the first place and came to St. Louis to be my wife. She knew I could protect her, that’s the reason she married me. And I did. As long as she lived in this compound, they couldn’t get within an inch of her. Then she up and ran off with Paulie. I tried everything to get her to come back, but she could be so stubborn, and she thought she was in love with that bastard. And now, she’s dead. Just like I told her she would end up.”
Claire and Bud sat there and listened to all that and studied his very emotionally charged face. Nothing about this interview was going as she had envisioned. Black had talked as if this guy was Attila the Hun, for God’s sake, and now Petrov was acting like Little Orphan Annie at Daddy Warbucks’s funeral. But Black the Shrink was not usually this much off with his take on other people’s character traits. If he said that Ivan Petrov was a scary, maniacal killer, then he was one. But he was also doing a pretty good job of acting like a sad and distraught former husband who still loved his wife. Maybe he could be both, which was a more likely scenario. Still, she didn’t feel sorry for him. She wasn’t so sure he hadn’t ordered the hit on Blythe, either, and/or cut her throat himself with his own special finesse and the sharpest, one-swipe blade in the world. Maybe he was putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. Maybe he had been president of drama club at Moscow Senior High School.
“Let me make sure that I understand you, Mr. Petrov. Are you telling us that Blythe Parker is a member of the Fitch family?”
“Yes. You mean, you didn’t know that?”
They did, of course. But milking him for additional information was not above her pay grade. “Are you talking about the Fitch family who live out north of Lake of the Ozarks?”
“Yes, they’ve got a regular little town out there. All the family lives together in a fenced in and guarded property that’s been in the Fitch family for decades.”
Ivan Petrov had uttered all of that with a high degree of contempt, which was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, in Claire’s biased opinion. Guarded, fenced mob compound equaled guarded, fenced regular little town in her playbook. Poor frail Blythe just couldn’t win for losing. “What can you tell me about the Fitch family, Mr. Petrov? It’s important that we know what we’re dealing with here.”
He put his hands, palms up, in the air with an expansive gesture of how-the-hell-should-I know. “They’re all just crazy. And I really mean crazy. Inbred, if you ask me. Except for Blythe. She’s different. She’s incredible, beautiful, fragile, ethereal.” He paused, trying to think up more adjectives that meant the same thing. Yeah, he did like his synonyms. Claire might’ve thrown in Snow White, but she waited politely and didn’t interrupt. “Especially those crazy brothers and cousins of hers. They are completely obsessive about protecting her virtue. You’ll see what I mean when you meet them. It’s a real strange place up there.”
It seemed rather X-Files to Claire, too, as did this interview, but it also seemed that everybody was awfully obsessive about one highly beloved albino lady. Excessively so, in her studied opinion. Why they were, though, was the pertinent question. “You’ve been out there? On the Fitch property?”
“Once, but only once. That’s about all anybody can take. Poor little Blythe had to grow up there. She had to escape like some kind of trapped animal who had to bite off her foot to set herself free.”
Cute analogy, Claire thought, but also here came the old pot and kettle scenario again. Petrov was kidding himself if he didn’t see that he had imprisoned her every bit as much as her folks had. And now was imprisoning his cousin, Anna, the very same way.
“And if they’d found her, they would’ve dragged her back, hogtied and under house arrest.” Petrov gave a bitter laugh. “She had lots of guts to thwart the old man.”
Claire wondered how he had met up with the Fitch clan. Probably some kind of crooked business deal that might bear looking into, too. It wouldn’t surprise her. The whole
case was getting pretty messed up, but it looked like their visit to the Fitch farm, or ’Salem’s Lot, or whatever the hell it was, was certainly now in the cards. Tarot cards, probably.
“We’ll be going out there for a death notification. Right now, however, we need to ask you where you’ve been for the last forty-eight hours, or so. Just to rule you out, you understand.”
“I’ve been here in the compound. Any one of my men can alibi me. Or Anna. That’s my cousin, who also lives here with me. We’ve been spending a lot of time together the last few days. We usually take our meals together with my sons since Blythe walked out on me. Nicky sees her as his patient at times. He might’ve even mentioned that to you.”
“No, he did not,” Claire lied with blatant nonchalance. “Then we will need to talk with this Anna. You understand, don’t you, that we’ll have to see her alone.”
“Did she suffer? Blythe’s such a fragile little thing. Did you know her before you found her dead?”
“We interviewed her about the death of her husband, Paulie Parker. Were you aware that he was beaten to death a few days ago?”
“I heard that he was murdered.” Ivan didn’t seem nearly as upset about that death. Concern for Paulie ran off him pretty much like water off the proverbial duck’s back. “Have you found his killer?”
“Not yet. You have any ideas?”
They locked eyes, but he didn’t give anything else away. He had sobbed away his initial raw and heartfelt emotions and now it appeared that he had none left, meaning a heart, of course.
“Also, we’d like to speak with your two fighters. Ike and Mike Sharpe. Are they available?”
“No, I’m afraid not. They’re on vacation.”
“Where?”
“Europe.”
“For how long?”