The Altar Girl (21 page)

It was the man I’d hit with the rock.

“Donnie,” he said with a weak voice. “Donnie, she’s here.”

I kept my head low, slipped around the corner away from the window above me, and raced around the other side of the pool toward the front gate.

The German shepherd leapt from behind the van. I jumped to the side. The dog’s teeth came within inches of my leg but snapped backward before they could connect. A leash prevented him from stretching farther. He was tethered to a door handle of the van. He began barking furiously. I had a gun in my hand and I’d taken it to defend myself, but even at the moment it appeared I was going to get bitten, I hadn’t raised my arm. I could not imagine shooting an animal. Not unless it was rabid and charging me with saliva dripping from its mouth. Would I be able to pull the trigger at a human being if I had to?

I sprinted out the driveway and down the access road. After a hundred yards my lungs were heaving. I slowed down to a jog, glanced over my shoulders, and saw no one behind me. I ran the rest of the way to my car, started it, and peeled out of the neighborhood. Once I’d driven a mile away along the same route we’d taken to get to the house, I diverted onto a side street, turned my car around, and parked by the curb. The side street dipped down into a valley allowing me a decent line of sight as any cars drove by. They would have to drive past me to get to the main artery, Route 44, which led to the highway. My biggest concern was that one of the neighbors might call the police because some stranger had parked beside his house.

As soon as I killed the lights and the engine, I called Brasilia and asked for Marko. The woman who answered the phone told me he’d gotten sick and gone home for the evening. I knew it was a bogus excuse and that he had left to meet Donnie Angel, but I called him at home nonetheless. It was a futile attempt. I prayed that he would pick up so I could warn him that Donnie Angel had shovels, and shovels were used to dig holes, and those shovels had been left in a place where no one else went on a Saturday night. I prayed that my brother would pick up so I could warn him that the man who’d kidnapped me was going to kill him. He was going to kill my brother tonight.

But I was too late. Marko didn’t pick up. He had no cell phone, of course, and there was no way to reach him.

I sat and waited, wondering if I should call the police. I didn’t know where we were going nor was I absolutely certain a crime was going to be committed. At least not yet.

Less than fifteen minutes later the sedan, van, and delivery truck drove past me on the road above. I counted to ten to let them get ahead of me, and then I pulled out and followed them. They took a different route this time, circling the mountain peak and looping around Simsbury, through Bloomfield and onto I-91 headed for Hartford. It was a longer but less taxing route on the driver. The road was less serpentine, the ascents and descents less steep.

Eventually we merged onto I-91 headed south. I stayed ten car lengths back the entire time. When we approached Hartford, they got into the far left-hand lane for the entrance ramp to Route 2 headed east over the Connecticut River.

Many Ukrainian-Americans now lived east of the river, but that hadn’t always been the case. Growing up, most folks lived in Hartford or the surrounding towns west of the river to stay close to the church and the Ukrainian National Home. When I was a child, we’d taken this road for one purpose and one purpose only. Given the conversation I’d overheard between Donnie Angel and his man, there was no doubt in my mind where we were going.

My ex-husband was buried there, as was my father. It was a place where picks and shovels came in handy.

We were headed for the cemetery.

CHAPTER 31

T
HE RIDE WAS
interminable. The driver never surpassed the fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit on Route 2. Meanwhile, I relived memories of tossing the first handful of dirt over my father’s grave, the unpredictable gush of tears as my abusive husband’s casket was lowered into the ground, and Father Yuri telling me both times that it was God’s will.

The Ukrainian Cemetery of the Holy Ghost was built in an undeveloped forest thirty miles outside Hartford because the land in Hebron was cheap. When I rounded the bend toward the entrance and saw that all three vehicles’ taillights had disappeared, I continued past the cemetery for a quarter of a mile. Then I pulled onto the edge of the woods and parked on the side of the road.

I climbed a small embankment to even ground and hiked two hundred yards through the woods. The property appeared to be four acres in size with a thousand graves. The high ground on the northern side was filled, but there were still plenty of unfilled lots on the south side closer to the main road. The sedan was parked in the northwest corner of the cemetery by the groundskeeper’s hut. I’d been in that hut many times. It contained a storage shed and an office with cedar siding on the inside. I’d stood beside Father Yuri as his altar girl while he prepared for more funerals than I could remember over a five-year span. Maybe that’s why I associated the smell of cedar with tears, mourning, and closure.

A light came on in the office. A shadow moved against the walls. It was the man with the turned-up collar. He was removing his hat and coat. I still couldn’t see his face or figure, only an amorphous black silhouette. The light in the office would prevent him from seeing out the window. There was no risk that he could see me. I guessed Donnie Angel and the other three men were in the shed or digging my brother’s grave, but I didn’t take it for granted.

I weaved my way up a modest incline toward the hut, choosing the path with the highest tombstones, the ones that afforded me some cover. I hunched as I walked to minimize my exposure. My gun—yes, it was my gun now—felt cool and lethal in my hand. It gave me a sense of omnipotence. I’d been striving to become emotionally invulnerable, to cease to be affected by my relationships with my family. The gun imbued me with a different form of self-confidence. The kind that could get me killed or land me in prison for life if I wasn’t careful. I took some solace in knowing that I was still self-aware enough to understand that.

Somehow, I still ended up walking past my husband’s grave first, on the low ground, and my father’s grave second, on the high ground. I didn’t know if this was a function of familiarity, guilt, or a tug from the afterlife. I found myself speeding through “Our Father” twice, one prayer for each of their souls. I didn’t believe in the afterlife anymore—did I?—but I was programmed for prayer from youth. There was nothing an altar girl could do about it.

I heard noises coming from the storage shed. Donnie Angel and the other three men emerged laughing about something and headed to the office. I assumed Marko’s grave had been dug. Meanwhile, the mysterious man in the office disappeared from sight. Another light had come on in the western side of the hut, where the bathroom was located. As soon as the other four men entered the office, I sprinted the final fifty yards from the window to the eastern side of the hut. I wondered if I should have called the police now, or waited for Marko to arrive. I still had no evidence of a crime having been committed, other than my assault on the man in the vineyard. I reminded myself that Marko’s safety was my primary concern. As soon as I saw his car approaching, I would race toward him and warn him it was a trap. That they were going to kill him.

I knelt down behind a tall headstone and caught my breath. Thirty seconds later, I lifted my head around the granite block enough for my right eye to see past it. I scanned the area surrounding the hut and found what I was looking for. A mound of dirt was piled high beside a grave. But a headstone stood in front of that plot, implying someone was already buried there. I glanced toward the office. One of the men had pulled out a bottle. Another was passing glasses around.

I crawled on my hands and knees and read the inscription on the headstone.

Renata Clara Zen. Born 1917, Died 1979. I didn’t know the name or understand the significance of the headstone, but I knew there was one. Donnie Angel hadn’t chosen it at random. I glanced in the unearthed lot. A layer of dirt covered the casket but I could make out its outline. And then it hit me.

It was a woman’s grave.

Marko’s body wouldn’t fit in the hole atop the casket. But mine would.

Marko wasn’t coming. The grave wasn’t for him.

It was for me.

I suppressed a sense of doom and scurried back to my hiding place. I put my gun in my pocket and whipped out my cell phone. I managed to punch in a nine and a one before I heard the metallic snap of a pump-action shotgun.

The man I’d hit with the rock stood above me. He told me to give him the phone. I did.

“Where’s my gun?” he said.

I gave him the gun. When the polymer grip slipped out of my hands, some of my confidence went with it. But not all of it. I still had my wits about me.

I stood up.

He punched me in the jaw.

Pain shot through my nose. My eyes watered. I staggered backward but a gravestone kept me upright. Good, I thought. I hadn’t fallen. I’d kept my balance. That was a victory. A small one, but nevertheless a victory.

“That’s for hitting me in the face,” he said.

He escorted me to the hut. When I stepped into the office, Donnie Angel was seated in a folding chair sipping an amber liquid from a masonry jar.

“Home girl,” he said with his trademark smile. “Been waiting for you.”

A briefcase stacked with bills lay on a desk to his left. Two other men flanked him. They were also drinking.

Water gushed through pipes. Someone had flushed the toilet.

The doorknob turned. The bathroom door opened. The person who’d been wearing the coat with the turned-up collar stepped out and revealed himself.

CHAPTER 32

N
ADIA HUNG UPSIDE
down over the man’s shoulder. She’d patted her pockets in search of her whistle, but it was gone. It must have fallen out when the man threw her over his shoulder, or when she got dizzy and fell by the stream earlier in the day. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d found it. No one would have heard the sound over the thunder and the rain, and either the man or the woman would have taken it away within seconds.

Blood pressed against the skin of her forehead as though her insides wanted to spill out. A bitter taste filled her mouth.

Blood? Was that blood in her mouth?

She stuck her tongue between her lips.

Not blood. Aspirin. Regurgitated aspirin leaking down her throat.

Nadia bounced off the man’s body with each step. When the lantern swung forward, it illuminated the path in front of them. When it swung backward, however, it lit up the area directly beneath her.

Ferns, leaves, a dead branch.

The woman’s orange high-top Converse All Star sneakers.

Nadia had already replayed Mrs. Chimchak’s lessons in hand-to-hand combat ten times in her mind. She knew what she had to do. What was the problem?

It was so gross, that was the problem.

She had to reach around with her hand and yank the man’s eyeball out. He’d fall to the ground. The woman would freak. Nadia would kick the lantern with her boot and kill the lights. She’d do it all so fast these assholes wouldn’t know what hit them.

So why wasn’t she doing it?

Mrs. Chimchak had taught her that the person willing to do anything was the one who had the advantage in a fight. The one who would survive.

Nadia repeated the mantra Mrs. Chimchak had taught her for such a situation:

There are no rules in a real fight.

There are no rules in a real fight.

There are no rules in a real fight
. . .

CHAPTER 33

T
HE MAN WHO
emerged from the bathroom was all too familiar to me. The only shocking thing about him was his sudden mobility. He was Danilo Rus, Roxy’s father, and my former father-in-law. The man who’d hit me in his home, the one who’d hated me from the moment his son had started dating me. Now he was going to get his ultimate revenge for his son’s death. After all, if his son hadn’t been married to me, he would have never received a distress call from my mother, and he wouldn’t have driven headfirst into a tree.

“You’re looking well, father-in-law,” I said, in Ukrainian. “What happened to the Parkinson’s?”

“It’s like my recollection that you were once my daughter-in-law. An affliction that will eventually kill me. When my brother came to me for help, I decided to accelerate my decline. To take any suspicion off me. No one ever worries about the gimp.”

I turned to Donnie Angel. “How did you know?”

“Know what?” Donnie said.

“At the house. You told your man my brother would be coming. And asked him where the shovels were. That was for my benefit.”

“You think?”

“But how did you know I was there?”

“Memo to Nadia. If you see a house with an infinity pool, a tennis court, and a vineyard—a fucking vineyard—assume security cameras are watching you.”

“You saw me—”

“From the minute you stepped foot on the property.”

“But the grave. It’s dug out already. All prepared. As though you knew that I wasn’t going to New York. As though you knew I was going to find you at the warehouse.”

“The gravedigger is on my payroll. It’s the type of connection that comes in handy in my line of work. The hole in Mrs. Zen’s resting place was dug a few days ago on account of my knowing that you’d eventually show up again. And by the way, Mrs. Zen has no living family so no one’s going to show up and ask questions why the dirt on her grave’s been messed up. I knew you wouldn’t let it go, especially since you were worried your brother was involved. Didn’t know it would be tonight. Real sorry it worked out this way. I gave you every chance, Nadia. I gave you every chance to walk away.”

My head spun. My body temperature soared as though the invisible jaws of death had grasped my body and squeezed. But of course they had. The grave really was for me. I’d mentioned it nonchalantly, ever the cool and calculating analyst, subconsciously hoping Donnie would laugh and tell me I was out of my mind, that he wasn’t going to snuff out my final breath and toss my body into a casket containing another woman’s bones . . .

Unless he was planning to bury me alive.

The jaws of death squeezed tighter. All the moisture in my mouth evaporated. I felt like a useless ball of cotton candy.

He wouldn’t do that, would he?

Donnie was so insane I couldn’t rule out the prospect. I imagined him tossing a shovel full of dirt onto my mobile body, covering my head and filling my nostrils as I struggled to breathe . . .

I took a deep breath as though I was lying in that crypt. The focus on my lungs snapped me out of my spell. A voice sounded in my head.

There is always a way out of trouble.

When in doubt, I reminded myself, ask questions.

I took another breath and turned back to Rus. “Were you involved in this from the beginning? Because I don’t get it. If you were, why was my brother hired to provide protection for your brother?” I glanced at the three thugs. “Looks to me that, between Donnie and his guys, there’s plenty of muscle here.”

Rus was busy trying to remove his belt from around his waist. “When the call came from Crimea, my brother was too scared to see the opportunity. He came to me for advice and I became his silent partner. I was the one who suggested he use your brother as protection for his first big delivery.”

“Silent partner,” I said. “I get it.” I looked at Donnie. “You’re the connection to Crimea, but you kept your distance to minimize your legal risk. But when my godfather died, you had no idea where the inventory was. You had to get involved. And when you couldn’t find out on your own, you let me ask the questions and followed where I went.”

“You were always a smart cookie,” Donnie said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“How did I lead you to the warehouse?”

“You didn’t,” Donnie said. “You led me to him.” He nodded at Rus. “You searched your godfather’s house with Roxy, then went straight to his house. Alone. Everyone knows the two of you hate each other, so you weren’t going there to say hi to the old father-in-law. I figured you must have found something that made you wonder. So after you left, I went in and asked a few questions of my own and found my silent partner. Once he understood that the inventory wasn’t going to be his for the keeping, that he had partners here and in Ukraine whether he knew them or not, we got along just fine. Didn’t we, Danilo?”

Rus cringed at the sound of Donnie using his first name. There was no love lost between the partners that I could see. I wondered how I could use that to my advantage. Rus slipped his belt from around the last loop in his pants.

“What was Roxy’s role in this?” I said.

Rus’s head snapped in my direction. “She had no role in this. My daughter is a good girl. She understands her place is by her husband. He’s useless but that’s not her fault. And now her inheritance will provide for the rest of her life.”

“My godfather’s cash,” I said. “You took it from his house before Roxy and I ever searched.”

He confirmed my suspicion with a stoic glance. I was momentarily pleased to hear that Roxy wasn’t involved. My circumstances, however, prevented anything more than a fleeting thought in that direction.

“The letters DP in his calendar,” I said. “They were your initials after all. Danilo Rus. Except the “R” is a “P” in Ukrainian.”

Rus stared at me stone-faced. He kept one end of the belt in his right hand and grabbed the other end with his left.

“You killed him,” I said. “You killed your own brother.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Rus rolled his eyes. “The smartest people understand themselves the least. My brother fell down the stairs. You made up some theory about him being murdered to come back here. To make amends with me, your family, your community. Everybody can see that. It’s a small community. We all know each other. I played with you when you came to visit me that night for sheer entertainment purposes. Just to watch your massive, overgrown ego get even bigger. The police said it was an accident, but you, the great intellect among us, you, Nadia Tesla, knew better. What a farce. Nobody thinks he was murdered. Nobody but you.”

My head spun again. Rus’s words sounded like a dart hitting the bull’s-eye. Had I concocted everything for my own subconscious purposes?

Of course I had. The room turned sideways. Then it hit me.

“That’s not true,” I said. Mrs. Chimchak believed me. Mrs. Chimchak had brought him his wine that night. “I’m not the only one who thinks he was murdered.”

Rus made small circles with his wrists around the ends of the belt to shorten its length. “Oh, right. Mrs. Chimchak. The accountant. I forgot about her. You do realize she’s suffering from dementia? Three months ago they found her wandering half-naked at Naylor elementary school. Scared the hell out of the boys.”

Mrs. Chimchak suffered from dementia? I remembered her rambling incoherently on the phone. The signs had been there, but I’d refused to see them. I felt my confidence and my life slipping away from me. Had I deluded myself so badly? Was I such a wreck? Visions of my childhood survival test flooded to mind again.

Yes. I was such a wreck. After everything my brother and I had been through. How could we not be wrecks?

Rus stepped forward. “Grab her,” he said.

Two of the thugs grabbed me by the shoulders, one on each side. I tried to break free but could barely move. It wasn’t only their strength. I seemed to be operating at half power, as though I was accepting my inevitable fate. Then I felt warm breath in my right ear, and the sickly-sweet smell of Brut aftershave in my nostrils.

“Love you, baby,” Donnie Angel said.

Rus’s jaw tightened. A look of unadulterated hatred spread over his face. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since my boy died. Good-bye, bitch.”

He raised the belt over my head. My pulse quickened but I didn’t feed my fear. I let the moment pass, and I thought to myself:

You are not a fraud. A man is going to kill you but you can prevent it. You can prevent it because you are smart, tough, and resourceful. What do these men covet? Money. What is their weakness? They don’t trust each other.

Rus slipped the belt over my head.

I twisted my neck so that I could look into Donnie Angel’s eyes. They shone with the perverse anticipation of watching a woman be strangled.

There is almost always a way out of trouble. The woman who keeps her emotions at bay can find the way.

“You don’t want the nativity scene?” I said.

I choked on the last word. The belt strangled me. My airway shut. The blood from my throat surged to my face. I could smell Rus’s wretched breath, see the glint in his eyes as he pulled the leather taut and held it. I waited for Donnie Angel to tell Rus to release the belt. He would want to know what I meant by my question. Surely he would.

Black clouds blinded me. I needed air. Why wasn’t Donnie doing the logical thing? Why wasn’t he stopping this so he could ask me what I meant?

I needed air. I needed oxygen now.

I struggled with all my remaining might to break free from the grip of Donnie’s thugs. My struggles were for naught. I felt myself passing out.

Good-bye, Marko.

I heard some noise. It sounded like a man speaking. A struggle of some kind ensued. It happened right in front of me. Then I felt my head falling back . . . gently, gently . . . my back landed on the ground.

My airway freed.

I gulped air. Choked and swallowed air repeatedly.

Panic overtook me. I could not control it. I needed oxygen. Were they going to choke me again? Was I going to die? I couldn’t get the air into my system fast enough. I couldn’t keep my mind from racing, or my lungs from heaving—

Something touched my shoulder.

My vision cleared.

Donnie Angel was kneeling beside me, belt in hands. He wore a look of genuine concern. “You okay, baby? You need some water?”

He made calming noises and patted my shoulder like the doctor he’d emulated in his van. Then his men helped me into a chair. My limbs trembled. One of the men brought me a cup of water. I could barely keep my hand steady enough to lift it to my lips. My throat was so dry I choked and spit out the first mouthful. The second one went down, however, and the third restored some of my equilibrium.

Rus stood steaming in the background, hands open by his side as though they were ready to finish the job his belt had started.

Donnie bent over so he was at eye level. “Better?”

“Peachy,” I said. My voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “Ready for the debutante ball.”

Donnie doubled over and laughed. No one else bothered to even chuckle, and Donnie’s reaction was so over the top it left no doubt he was pretending to be amused for profit’s sake, and that I was a dead woman if he didn’t believe my story. But he would believe my story, I thought. He would believe it because I was going to give him my confidence. It’s what I did as an analyst. I ripped companies apart, understood them, and imparted my confidence to investors who paid me.

“What nativity scene?” Donnie said.

“The one your partners in Crimea sent my godfather. Direct. As a special bonus. I found it in his house the night Roxy and I searched it. Then I went back and took it the next day.”

“That’s a lie!” Rus said. “There is no such thing. All the goods were delivered through the shipyard in New London. If there was a bonus of some kind, I would know about it.”

Donnie stared at him through slits. “Maybe you do know about it, but I don’t.”

“Nonsense,” Rus said. “Can’t you see she’s making it all up—”

“Shut up,” Donnie said. He cocked his head to the side and pointed a finger at Rus.

Rus shut up.

Donnie turned back to me. “How did you get into the house alone when Roxy had the key?”

“Roxy doesn’t have the only key. I borrowed the other one from my godfather’s best friend and accountant. From Mrs. Chimchak.”

Donnie glanced at Rus. The old man didn’t say anything, implying he either knew Mrs. Chimchak had a key or it was a safe bet.

“Tell me about this nativity scene,” Donnie said.

“Adoration of the shepherds,” I said. “It’s a standard Byzantine theme. Common in Eastern Orthodox icons. Shepherds behind your basic nativity scene. Except this one is circa 1685 by a student of Rembrandt’s. It’s about yea big.” I estimated a width of fifteen inches by twenty-five inches with my hands.

“What a pack of lies,” Rus said. “You couldn’t get something like that past customs—”

“It came as a ghost on the back of a cheap reproduction of a harbor scene print,” I said. The lies were coming quickly and furiously to me. Any one of them could get me killed but I had no choice. I was already a dead woman. That realization emboldened me even more.