The Devil_s Garden

by Richard Montanari

  According to the officer, a call had come in on 911 of two men fighting in the parking lot of the Squires Inn Motel. Michael said he knew nothing about it.

  Michael snuck a glance at his watch. He had missed the call from Kolya.

  “Could you wait right here for me?” the officer asked. He pointed to the rear of the Ford. Michael moved to the back of the car.

  “Sure.”

  As Michael approached he noticed a thin trickle of blood coming from the lid of the trunk. He moved from the left rear fender to the trunk, leaned against it.

  As the young officer communicated on the radio, he looked from the laptop in his cruiser, to Michael, back. It seemed to take forever. Michael glanced again at his watch. He was now a full five minutes past the deadline.

  The officer got out of the car.

  “Sorry about this, Mr Roman. You know how it is. You get the call you have to check it out.”

  “I understand.”

  The kid looked at him for a few more seconds, then around the parking lot, at the motel itself, still not really comprehending the situation. Michael knew he would have crazier days than this.

  “Have a good day, sir.”

  Michael wondered how the uniformed officers had gotten the call. Had Kolya’s cousin seen the altercation from the office? Had she seen what happened and called Kolya, and now something had happened to Abby, Charlotte and Emily?

  He glanced at his watch a third time. There was no point going back inside.

  He slipped into the Ford, turned over the engine. Under the seat was Omar’s pistol and cellphone. He was glad the incident with the police had not progressed to a search of the vehicle. A few moments later he pulled out of the parking lot, and merged into traffic.

  He headed home.

  FORTY-TWO

  Aleks had not intended to let Kolya live, but neither had he expected it to end like this. He hated it when things got messy, and this was as messy as it could be.

  He had owed Kolya’s father Konstantine many debts – indeed, the man had saved his life on more than one occasion – but the son held no power over him, had earned no such arrears.

  While Abby took a shower, Aleks dragged Kolya’s body into the clothes closet. The bedroom was all but coated with blood, and moving the heavy, lifeless form streaked even further a deep crimson into the light-colored carpeting.

  He went through Kolya’s pockets, taking the dead man’s cellphone, but leaving his wallet, which was connected to a belt loop via a silver chain. He opened the phone, checked the list of recently placed calls. The last call to the motel was more than forty minutes ago. Aleks hit the redial. The phone at the motel rang twice, three times, four times, five. Michael Roman was no longer there. If he was, he would certainly have answered the phone. Aleks scrolled down the list until he came to Omar’s cellphone number. Figuring that Omar had Kolya on his caller ID list, Aleks took out one of his prepaid cellphones. He dialed Omar’s number. The phone rang once, twice…

  … THREE TIMES. Michael stared at the phone in his hands. The readout said the call was coming from a private number. He turned on the radio, then the heater, cranking the fan to high. He opened his window. On the fifth ring he answered. He kept his mouth a few inches away from the phone, answered.

  “Yeah.”

  Silence from the other end. “Are you still at the motel?”

  It was Aleks. He was calling Omar. He was calling Omar to see if Michael was still under lock and key. Why hadn’t Kolya placed the call? Michael tried to remember Omar’s voice. It was deep. He hoped the background noise covered him. “Yeah.”

  Another hesitation. This time Michael heard the girls talking in the background. They were with Aleks. His heart shattered.

  “Do not come here Mr Roman,” Aleks said. “If you do you will not like what you find.”

  “Listen,” Michael said. “Just tell me what you want. You can have everything I have. Just don’t hurt my family.”

  For a moment, Michael thought Aleks might have hung up. He had not. “If you come here you will drown in your family’s blood.”

  The phone clicked. The connection was broken.

  Michael slammed his fist into the dashboard three times. He pushed the speedometer to eighty.

  They were ready. The woman had packed a pair of bags for herself and the girls, as well as some food. Everything Aleks needed was in his leather shoulder bag. The gear was stacked near the front door.

  In a moment Aleks would collect the girls from the backyard, explaining to them that they were going on a little journey. They would take Kolya’s SUV. They would find somewhere to hide for just a few hours, until midnight, then they would head for the Canadian border.

  By this time tomorrow they would be in Canada, and he would be one step closer to becoming deathless. By this time tomorrow the woman would be dead, and Anna and Marya would be his. This had not gone as smoothly as he would have liked, but there was nothing to be done about that now.

  You’ll never get them out of the country. Someone is going to catch you.

  Perhaps Abigail was right. He touched the two empty crystal vials on the chain around his neck. If they closed in on him and the girls, he knew what he had to do.

  For now, though, he still had his daughters, and there were no obstacles on the horizon.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Abby looked out the front window. In the drive was a late-model dark sedan. She had not heard anyone drive up, and she always did. She was attuned to the sounds around her house. But the horror of this day, as well as the throbbing pain in her head, made it impossible.

  She looked at Aleks. He said nothing, but rather glanced through the back window at the girls. He stepped into the hallway, out of sight.

  Abby crossed the foyer, opened the door. On the porch was a tall, slender black woman in a dark suit. The woman had the look of authority. Abby knew the demeanor, the posture, and she was suddenly even more frightened.

  Through the screen door Abby said “Yes?”

  “Are you Abigail Roman?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman held up a badge wallet. A gold shield. NYPD. “My name is Detective Desiree Powell. I’m with Queens Homicide. May I come in for a moment?”

  It took all of Abby’s strength and concentration not to look anywhere but the detective’s eyes. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “I just have a few routine questions. May I come in?”

  “I’m terribly busy right now.”

  The woman put her hand on the screen door handle. Abby let go. The woman smiled, opened the door, stepped inside. She did a quick perusal of the entrance, living room, the stairs leading to the second floor. “I know your husband, Michael. We’ve worked a few cases together,” the woman said. “By the way, he’s not here by any chance, is he?”

  “No,” Abby said. “He’s in court today.”

  Powell glanced at her watch. “They’re adjourned for the day, I believe. I called his office and they said he’s gone for the day. Would you happen to know where he is right now?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Powell gave a closer look at the living room, its decor. “You have a lovely home.”

  Here comes the bullshit, Abby thought. She had to find a way to get this woman out of her house. “Thank you. Now if -”

  “Are you all right?”

  Abby instinctively touched her face. She had iced it down, and the swelling was not as noticeable as she thought it was going to be. “I’m fine. Got whacked with a tennis ball this afternoon.”

  Powell nodded, clearly not believing the story. She was a cop. She encountered a lot of married women who walked into doors, tripped in the shower, slipped on the ice. As a nurse, Abby had met her share, too.

  “I’ve never played. Always wanted to. Having you been playing long?”

  “Just a few years,” Abby said.

  “Are your girls here?”

  “Yes.” She pointed out the back win
dow. Charlotte and Emily were sitting at the picnic table in the backyard.

  Powell looked out the window. “Oh my. They’re adorable. Michael talks about them all the time. How old are they?”

  “They just turned four.”

  “Can I ask what their names are?”

  “Charlotte and Emily.”

  Powell smiled. “Like the Bronte sisters.”

  “Like the Bronte sisters.”

  Powell stepped further into the house. “You’re probably wondering what this is all about.”

  “Yes. In fact, we were just about to leave in a few minutes.”

  Powell glanced at the bags by the door. Two lilac nylon duffels, two bags of groceries, and a man’s leather messenger bag. “Going on a trip?”

  “Yes,” Abby said. “We’re going to visit my parents.”

  “Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”

  Abby took a short step towards the door, the kind of move you make when you are trying to usher someone out of your house. “They’re in Westchester County. Near Pound Ridge.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful up there. Especially this time of year.” Powell angled her body in front of Abby, her back now to the hallway leading to the kitchen. She pointed at the man’s leather bag. “Is Michael coming with you?”

  “He’s going to meet us up there.”

  Powell nodded, held Abby’s gaze for a moment. She wasn’t buying any of this. She took a notebook out of her pocket, flipped it open. “Well, I won’t keep you too long.” She glanced at a page of her book. “Do you know a woman named Sondra Arsenault?”

  The name was familiar to Abby. She couldn’t immediately place it. She also knew, from five years of living with a prosecutor, that the best way to handle this was to plead memory loss. “I’m not sure. Who is she?”

  “She’s a social worker,” Powell said. “She lives over in Putnam County with her husband James.”

  “The names don’t really ring a bell.”

  “They have twin girls. Just like you.”

  Abby knew that this detective would not be asking these questions unless she already had the answers. And she now knew what this was about. “I’m sorry. I don’t know them.”

  “Okay,” she said. “What about a man named Viktor Harkov?”

  Abby brought her hand to her mouth, trying to keep the emotion inside. She couldn’t. It was all about to come tumbling out, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She could still smell the dead man on her, could still taste the blood. She leaned forward, whispered: “You have to help us. He’s here. In the house.”

  “Who’s here?”

  In that moment Abby saw a shadow move behind Powell, a darting gray silhouette on the wall. It was Aleks. In his hand was Abby’s. 25 semi-automatic pistol. There was no doubt in Abby’s mind that he had reloaded it.

  Abby looked over the detective’s shoulder. “Don’t.”

  Powell understood.

  She spun around.

  Before Detective Desiree Powell turned fully, she saw the soft yellow muzzle flash, heard three quick blasts. She felt as if she had been mule-kicked in the side of the chest, the pain roaring through her body like a white-hot freight train. The air was pummeled from her lungs. She felt herself falling backwards.

  She hit the floor hard, the pain in her chest turning an icy cold, her legs falling numb. She looked at the ceiling, the patterns in the stippled finish starting to swirl, to coalesce into a Dali dreamscape.

  For a moment, she smelled the sea, heard the waves crash onto the beach on Montego Bay, heard the unmistakable lilt of the steel drum.

  Then the darkness drew her down, into the long night.

  Lucien, she thought, the light fading. You were wrong, my sweet boy.

  I did hear it.

  Aleks stood over the woman. Abby had collapsed in the corner of the room. It was one thing to kill Kolya. He was a liability from the start. No one knew where Kolya was, or where he was expected to be. No one would be looking for him here.

  It was something entirely different with a police officer. Even in Estonia you did not do this, if you could avoid it. Where there was one there were many, and it would not be long before there were more. The detective had mentioned Viktor Harkov’s name. They would soon make the connection to the missing girls, and perhaps they would get a tape from the cameras at the post office, seeing him with Anna and Marya. If that happened, they would be looking for him. He had to move.

  He took the handcuffs from the fallen detective’s belt, along with her keys.

  They would leave right now.

  FORTY-THREE

  Michael parked the blue Ford on Creekside Lane. He had stopped on the way, pulling off the road about a mile from his house, back into the part of the woods that had once been a campground. He left Omar Cantwell’s body there, covered in leaves and compost. The man was still alive.

  As Michael walked through one of the still-vacant lots in the new development south of his house, he saw a man he knew only as Nathan. Nathan and his wife had just moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago. Michael waved; Nathan waved back.

  There was something in Michael’s stride that told Nathan there would be no stopping and chatting today. As a prosecutor, Michael knew well that everything that had happened this day, everything that would happen this day, went into a timeline, a continuum of impressions, facts, assumptions, interpretations. And, ultimately, testimony.

  I spoke to Mr Roman at the motel, the officer would say. He seemed very agitated.

  I saw him walking through the woods, Nathan would say.

  Moments later Michael reached the top of the hill, just a few feet from the property line behind his house, his blood burning in his veins. He tried to banish from his mind the possible horrors of what had happened here, what he might find.

  If you come here, Mr Roman, you will drown in your family’s blood.

  The back of the house offered no clues. He could see Abby’s car in the driveway, but no further. But that didn’t mean there were no other cars. There were a pair of turnarounds about twenty feet from the garage.

  He was just about to go back down the hill, and circle around to the side of the house, when he saw something to his right, a flash of gold in the late afternoon sun. He turned, his hand moving to the weight of the pistol in his pocket.

  It was Charlotte. Charlotte was standing right there. She was picking dandelions, putting them into a little jar. Right in front of him. For a crazy moment, Michael thought he might be hallucinating. How could this be? Had it all been some kind of insane hoax? No. He had seen Viktor Harkov’s body. That was real.

  Michael put the revolver into the back of his waistband. He edged to the top of the hill, slipped behind a tall maple at the rear of the property.

  Charlotte looked up, saw him. “Daddy!”

  Charlotte dropped the dandelions and ran across the yard. Michael got down on his knees and embraced her.

  “Baby!” he said. He felt the tears well up in his eyes. It had only been a few hours, but it seemed like years since he had seen her. He pulled back, looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I am,” she said. Formal, proper Charlotte.

  “Where are Mommy and Emily?”

  Charlotte pointed over her shoulder, toward the house. Michael took her by the hand, positioned the two of them behind a hedge, so that they would not be visible from the back windows. “Are they okay?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “What about… the man?” Michael asked. He did not know how to put this. He did not want to make things worse. “Is that man still here?”

  Charlotte thought for a moment. It looked as if something passed behind her eyes, something dark. Then she brightened, nodded again.

  “Is it just him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The other man left, I think.”

  “Okay, baby,” Michael said. He held her again, taking a quick inventory. There were no visible bruises. It did not appear as if Charlotte h
ad been crying, nor did she pull back because something hurt. “Okay.”

  Michael stood, held his daughter’s hand. He glanced around the yard. Everything appeared to be the way he had left it that morning. He peered around the hedge. There was no movement. Michael decided he would take Charlotte to the car, and come back.

  “Let’s go for a walk, okay?”

  Charlotte glanced at the house, back. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to see Shasta. You like Shasta, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you know exactly where Mommy and Emily are now?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “What about the man? Do you know exactly where he is?”

  Charlotte seemed to zone out on this question. Michael was just about to ask again when he saw a shape appear near the left side of the house, next to the garage. Michael got down low, peered through the hedges. It was Emily. She was standing at the corner of the house, looking out toward the woods. A few seconds later Michael saw Abby.

  Before he could stop himself, Michael stood, took a step out from behind the hedges, bringing Charlotte along. Abby saw him. She shook her head. Michael could see her mouth the word no.

  A second later a man stepped around the corner. Michael knew it was Aleks. He was tall, broad shouldered. He wore a black leather coat.

  The two men saw each other and, in that moment, knew each others’ souls.

  Michael looked at Abby. He could see the tears coursing down her cheeks. For a sickening moment the three of them looked like a family – father, mother, daughter. They looked like a suburban family in the yard of their suburban home, perhaps getting ready to leave for a day at the beach, or a picnic.

  Then Michael saw a gleam of silver. There, in the man’s hand, just a few inches from Emily’s head, was a large knife. The man pulled Emily close to him. Michael’s blood ran cold.

  He did not know how long they stood there on opposite ends of the property. No one moved. Michael had to make a decision, the hardest of his life. He did not know if it was the right decision, but it seemed to be the only one.