Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (107 page)

Natalya let go of his hand, looked deep into his eyes. Somehow, in the past few minutes, her eyes seemed to have changed from a soft gray to a glossy black.

“The white flower,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“The white flower, Detective Byrne,” she repeated. “Take the shot.”

Now he really
was
spooked.

Byrne put his notebook away, buttoned his coat. He thought about shaking hands with Natalya Jakos, but decided against it. “Once again, we’re very sorry for your loss,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Natalya opened the door. An icy blast of air greeted Byrne. Walking down the steps, he felt physically drained.

Take the shot,
he thought.
What the hell was that about?

When Byrne reached the car he glanced back at the house. The front door was closed, but every window now had a glowing candle in it.

Had the candles been there when they arrived?

9

Kristina Jakos’s new apartment was not an apartment at all, but rather a two-bedroom brick townhome on North Lawrence. As Jessica and Byrne approached, one thing was clear. No young woman who worked as a receptionist could afford the rent, or even half the rent if she was sharing. These were pricey digs.

They knocked, rang the bell. Twice. They waited, cupped their hands on the windows. Sheer curtains. Nothing visible. Byrne rang one more time, then inserted the key in the lock, opened the door. “Philly PD!” he said. No answer. They stepped inside.

If the outside was attractive, the inside was immaculate—heartwood pine floors, maple cabinets in the kitchen, brass fixtures. There was no furniture.

“I think I’m going to see if there are any receptionist jobs open,” Jessica said.

“Me too,” Byrne replied.

“You can work a switchboard?”

“I’ll learn.”

Jessica ran a hand over the raised paneling. “So, what do you think? Rich roommate or sugar daddy?”

“Two distinct possibilities.”

“Maybe an insanely jealous psycho
pathic
sugar daddy?”

“A
definite
possibility.”

They called out again. The house appeared to be empty. They checked the basement, found a washer and dryer, still in the boxes, waiting to be installed. They checked the second floor. One bedroom held a folded futon; the other had a rollaway bed in the corner, a steamer trunk next to it.

Jessica returned to the foyer, picked up the pile of mail on the floor in front of the door. She sorted through the stack. One of the bills was addressed to a Sonja Kedrova. There was also a pair of magazines addressed to Kristina Jakos—
Dance
and
Architectural Digest.
There were no personal letters or postcards.

They stepped into the kitchen, opened a few drawers. Most were empty. Ditto on the lower cabinets. The cabinet beneath the sink held a collection of new apartment staples—sponges, Windex, paper towels, cleanser, bug spray. Young women always had a supply of bug spray.

She was just about to close the last cupboard door when they heard the creak of the floorboards. Before they could turn around they heard something that was far more ominous, far more lethal. The click of a revolver being cocked behind them.

“Don’t … fucking … move,” came a voice from the other side of the room. It was a woman’s voice. Eastern European accent and cadence. It was the roommate.

Jessica and Byrne froze, hands out to their sides. “We’re police officers,” Byrne said.

“And I’m Angelina Jolie. Now put your hands up.”

Jessica and Byrne both raised their hands.

“You must be Sonja Kedrova,” Byrne said.

Silence. Then, “How do you know my name?”

“Like I said. We’re police officers. I’m going to reach into my coat now, very slowly, and pull out my ID. Okay?”

A long pause. Too long.

“Sonja?” Byrne asked. “You with me?”

“Okay,” she said. “Slow.”

Byrne complied. “Here we go,” he said. Without turning around, he plucked his ID out of his pocket, held it out.

A few more seconds passed. “Okay. So you are police. What’s this about?”

“Can we put our hands down?” Byrne asked.

“Yes.”

Jessica and Byrne put down their hands, turned around.

Sonja Kedrova was about twenty-five. She had teardrop eyes, full lips, deep auburn hair. Where Kristina had been pretty, Sonja was glamorous. She wore a long tan coat, black leather boots, a plum silk scarf.

“What is that you’re holding?” Byrne asked, pointing at the gun.

“It’s a gun.”

“It’s a starter’s pistol. It fires blanks.”

“My father gave it to me to protect myself.”

“That gun is about as deadly as a squirt gun.”

“And yet you put your hands up.”

Touché,
Jessica thought. Byrne wasn’t amused.

“We need to ask you a few questions,” Jessica said.

“And this could not wait until I arrived home? You had to break into my house?”

“I’m afraid it can’t wait,” Jessica replied. She held up the key. “And we didn’t break in.”

Sonja looked confused for a moment, then shrugged. She put the starter’s pistol into a drawer, closed it. “Okay,” she said. “Ask your ‘questions.’ ”

“Do you know a woman named Kristina Jakos?”

“Yes,” she said. Wary now. Her eyes danced between them. “I know Kristina. We are roommates.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Maybe three months.”

“I’m afraid we have some bad news,” Jessica said.

Sonja’s brow narrowed. “What happened?”

“Kristina is dead.”

“Oh my God.” Her face drained of color. She grabbed the counter. “How did this … what happened?”

“We’re not sure,” Jessica said. “Her body was found this morning in Manayunk.”

Any second Sonja was going to topple. There were no chairs in the dining area. Byrne retrieved a wooden crate from the corner of the kitchen, set it down. He eased the woman onto it.

“Are you familiar with Manayunk?” Jessica asked.

Sonja took a few deep breaths, puffing out her cheeks. She remained silent.

“Sonja? Are you familiar with that neighborhood?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “No.”

“Did Kristina ever talk about going there? Or if she knew someone who lived in Manayunk?”

Sonja shook her head.

Jessica made a few notes. “When was the last time you saw Kristina?”

For a moment, it appeared as if Sonja might be ready to do the floor-kiss. She weaved in that special way that indicated a fainting spell on the rise. In a moment it seemed to pass. “Not for maybe a week,” she said. “I have been out of town.”

“Where were you?”

“In New York.”

“City?”

Sonja nodded.

“Do you know where Kristina worked?”

“All I know is that it was in Center City. A receptionist job for an important company.”

“And she never told you the name of the firm?”

Sonja dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex, shook her head. “She did not tell me everything,” she said. “She was sometimes very secretive.”

“How so?”

Sonja frowned. “Sometimes she would come home late. I would ask her where she was and she would get quiet. It was as if she was doing something about which she was ashamed maybe.”

Jessica thought of the vintage dress. “Was Kristina an actress?”

“Actress?”

“Yes. Either professionally, or maybe in community theater?”

“Well, she liked to dance. I think she wanted to dance professionally. I don’t know if she was that good, but maybe.”

Jessica consulted her notes. “Is there anything else you know about her that you think would help?”

“She sometimes worked with the kids at St. Seraphim.”

“The Russian Orthodox church?” Jessica asked.

“Yes.”

Sonja stood, picked up a glass on the counter, then opened the freezer, extracted a frosty bottle of Stoli, and poured herself a few ounces. There was hardly anything to eat in the house, but there was vodka in the fridge. When you are in your twenties, Jessica thought—a demographic she had just recently, grudgingly, left behind—there are priorities.

“If you could just hold off on that for a minute, I’d appreciate it,” Byrne said. He had a way about him that made his commands sound like polite requests.

Sonja nodded, put down the glass and the bottle, retrieved the Kleenex from her pocket, dabbed her eyes.

“Do you know where Kristina did her laundry?” Byrne asked.

“No,” Sonja said. “But she would often do it late at night.”

“How late?”

“Eleven o’clock. Maybe midnight.”

“What about boyfriends? Did she have someone she was seeing?”

“Not that I know of, no,” she said.

Jessica pointed toward the stairs. “The bedrooms are upstairs?” She said this as amiably as she could. She knew that Sonja was well within her rights to ask them to leave.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I have a quick look?”

Sonja thought about it briefly. “No,” she said. “It’s okay.”

Jessica mounted the stairs, stopped. “Which bedroom was Kristina’s?”

“The one at the back.”

Sonja turned to Byrne, held up her glass. Byrne nodded. Sonja let herself down to the floor, took a huge gulp of icy vodka. She immediately poured herself another.

Jessica continued upstairs, walked down the short hallway, entered the back bedroom.

Next to the rolled futon in the corner was a small box with an alarm clock on it. A white terry-cloth bathrobe hung on a hook on the back of the door. This was a young woman’s apartment, early days. There were no pictures on the walls, no posters. There were none of the frilly accoutrement one might expect in the bedroom of a young woman.

Jessica thought about Kristina, standing right where she was standing. Kristina, considering her new life in her new home, all the possibilities that are yours when you are twenty-four. Kristina, imagining a room full of Thomasville or Henredon furniture. New rugs, new lamps, new bedclothes. New life.

Jessica crossed the room, opened the closet door. There were just a few dresses and sweaters in garment bags, all fairly new, all good quality. There was certainly nothing like the dress Kristina wore when she was found on the riverbank. Nor were there any baskets or bags of just laundered clothes.

Jessica took a step back, trying to catch the vibe. As a detective, how many closets had she looked in? How many drawers? How many glove compartments and trunks and hope chests and purses? How many lives had Jessica run through like a trespasser?

On the floor of the closet was a cardboard box. She opened it. There were tissue-wrapped figurines of glass animals—turtles mostly, squirrels, a few birds. There were also Hummels: miniatures of rosy-cheeked children playing the violin, the flute, the piano. At the bottom was a beautiful wooden music box. It looked to be walnut, and had a pink and white ballerina inlaid on top. Jessica took it out, opened it. There was no jewelry in the box, but the song it played was “The Sleeping Beauty Waltz.” The notes echoed in the nearly empty room, a sad melody charting the end of a young life.

THE DETECTIVES MET
back at the Roundhouse, compared notes.

“The van belonged to a man named Harold Sima,” Josh Bontrager said. He had spent the afternoon tracking down information on the vehicles at the Manayunk crime scene. “Mr. Sima lived in Glenwood, but unfortunately met an untimely death by way of a fall down the stairs in September of this year. He was eighty-six. His son confessed to leaving the van in that lot a month ago. He said he couldn’t afford to have it towed and junked. The Chevrolet was the property of a woman named Estelle Jesperson, late of Powelton.”

“Late as in deceased?” Jessica asked.

“Late as in deceased,” Bontrager said. “She died of a massive coronary three weeks ago. Her son-in-law left the car in that lot. He works in East Falls.”

“Did you run checks on everyone?” Byrne asked.

“I did,” Bontrager said. “Nothing.”

Byrne briefed Ike Buchanan on what they had so far, and the possible direction of further inquiries. As they prepared to leave for the day, Byrne asked Bontrager a question that had probably circled him all day.

“So where are you from, Josh?” Byrne asked. “Originally.”

“I’m from a small town near Bechtelsville,” he said.

Byrne nodded. “You grew up on a farm?”

“
Oh,
yeah. My family is Amish.”

The word slammed around the duty room like a ricocheting .22 bullet. At least ten detectives heard it, and got immediately interested in whatever piece of paper was in front of them. It took every ounce of her power for Jessica not to look at Byrne.
An Amish homicide cop.
She’d been down the shore and back, as they say, but this was a new one.

“Your family is Amish?” Byrne asked.

“They are,” Bontrager said. “I decided a long time ago not to join the church, though.”

Byrne just nodded.

“You’ve never had Bontrager Special Preserves?” Bontrager asked.

“Never had the pleasure.”

“It’s very good. Damson plum, strawberry rhubarb. We even make a great peanut butter
schmier.
”