The Altar Girl (22 page)

“A ghost?” Donnie said.

“The harbor scene was painted on top of the nativity scene. Kirtch Bay. No one in customs would ever know. To them they would have looked like a set of cheap posters. How would they know what was painted under one of them?”

“You lying little whore,” Rus said. “This is the stupidest story I’ve ever heard.” Rus glanced at Donnie with pleading eyes. “Why? Why would our friends possibly alter the delivery process to send my brother some sort of bonus? Bonus for what?”

“For maintaining your arrangement,” I said. “When Takarov died six months ago, his sons assumed control of all his businesses, including this one. My godfather—your dear and loyal brother—immediately demanded a token of good faith to transfer his partnership from the man he’d known since DP camp in Germany to two young men of questionable integrity he knew nothing about.”

A lie depends on the voracity of detail behind it, and the quality of its delivery. I knew I’d nailed it. I knew it even before Donnie Angel’s eyelids shot up to his forehead, and Rus’s jaw dropped. The momentary silence that ensued told me I’d won a reprieve. It might last a minute, an hour, or a day, but I was still alive. And if I could get them to New York, anything could happen. A doorman, a fire alarm, a cop. A cop! There were more cops in New York City than coffee houses in Seattle. All I had to do . . .

“Where is this nativity scene now, Nadia?” Donnie said. “And be honest with me, or you and your family are gonna pay dearly.”

“In my apartment building,” I said.

“In New York?” Donnie said.

“Every tenant has a storage locker. For bicycles and luggage and stuff. It’s in the basement. Only the super has the key to the basement, and only I have the key to the locker. It’s there, wrapped in a blanket and sealed with duct tape.”

The more truth to the detail behind the lie, the easier it is to sustain it. That’s why most frauds inevitably reveal themselves. They become lies built on lies. The lockers existed, my super and I had the keys as discussed, and my storage space contained a framed object wrapped in a blanket. It was a limited edition print of a winter scene from Hunter Mountain in New York. I loved it to death, but it had been a gift from my husband and I didn’t want his memory hanging on my wall.

“All right then.” Donnie pointed to one of his men. “You take him home,” he said, motioning toward Rus. “And stay with him. Don’t let him out of your sight, not even to the bathroom. Nobody goes out of our sight until I figure out what’s what.”

“You’re a fool,” Rus said. “My son was a fool for trusting this ugly harlot, and you’re the biggest fool of all.”

Privately, I had to agree with him. For the moment, at least, I was no longer the greatest fool.

“Watch your mouth,” Donnie said. “She’s not ugly and she’s a friend of mine. I go back a lot longer with her than I do with you.” Donnie gave me another gorgeous, psychopathic grin. “Don’t we, babe?”

One of the thugs put the whiskey and masonry jars in a corner. After Donnie gave logistical orders—one of the men would drive while the second would keep a gun pointed at me during the entire trip—the other thug opened the door.

An object came whipping around out of nowhere. The glint of steel, a wooden handle, a pair of hands. It happened so quickly, that’s all I saw. The object crushed the man’s face. He collapsed to the floor. I could see at the last second that it was a shovel that had hit him in the face. The hands pulled the shovel back out of the doorway.

The crunch of bone beneath the shovel sounded like sweet salvation. The hands that had swung the shovel couldn’t belong to a cop. The police didn’t announce themselves with earth-moving
equipment. Neither did disgruntled clients from tony suburbs like Avon. And the hands couldn’t belong to someone I knew because there was no one left who cared—

Two men burst into the office. Both of them looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place them. One held a gleaming silver revolver in his hand. The other aimed a shotgun at Donnie Angel.

“Don’t move,” the man with the shotgun said.

Marko stepped into the office, shovel in hand. It was a brand new shovel. The promotional sticker was still affixed to the blade. Kobalt, made in America. Heavy gauge, tempered-steel blade for increased strength and durability. I could not for the life of me understand why I read that sticker or why it mattered to me that the shovel was new. But it did. My brother had come to save me and he’d brought a brand new shovel for the job. It was amazing what we noticed when we were under duress, I thought. Only then did it dawn on me that this was an unlikely observation under the circumstances, and that I might be in shock from the events of the last half hour.

Marko scanned the room without emotion, pausing only on Rus’s face. Evidently, his presence was the only surprise to my brother. When he was finished appraising Donnie and his crew, he stood before them.

“My associates are licensed to carry firearms,” Marko said. “They’re also veterans of the United States Army which means they’re trained and know how to use them. I’m guessing you’re not and you don’t.”

Marko told them to remove their weapons and put them on the floor. They followed his instructions. Afterward, he had one of his boys search four of the men. He tended to Donnie Angel himself. After patting him down, Marko looked him in the eye.

“I thought I told you to leave my sister alone.”

Donnie grinned as though he didn’t have a care in the world, and shrugged.

Marko slugged him in the jaw and knocked him to the floor.

We stood there for ten minutes until two state police cars arrived. Most conflicts were resolved within the community, but the prospect of a second murder—my own—was too much in Marko’s opinion. He’d call the cops himself. I didn’t disagree with his decision.

When I thanked Marko for rescuing me, he looked at me and waited, as though expecting me to follow up with something else. I didn’t. I wanted to say more, but I simply couldn’t. Even in light of what had just transpired, the prospect of sentiment streaming from my lips made me nauseous. As a result, what should have been a time of celebration became an experience of physical and mental relief coupled with extreme emotional anguish. I thanked God I was alive and prayed for his forgiveness for the indomitable Tesla pride that defined me.

During the entire wait, Marko never said a word to me. He didn’t ask me how I was feeling or if I was hurt.

That was okay with me. Sometimes a makeshift weapon in a brother’s hand is all the love one needs.

CHAPTER 34

N
ADIA TRIED NOT
to think of the images that came to mind, but the more she wished them away, the more vivid they became. What sound would her fingers make when they pulled the man’s eyeball out of his head? How mushy would it feel?

She felt the urge to puke. She waited. The wave of nausea crested, and then nothing. She waited some more but nothing would come out. She understood why. There was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

Her body heaved up and down in cadence with the man’s lungs as he took one long step after another. Sweat rolled down Nadia’s forehead. She had to do it. She had no choice. PLAST had taught her self-reliance. Who else was going to come rescue her?

Nadia brought the first three fingers of her right hand together to form an adjustable clamp. Grabbed the man’s T-shirt with her left hand for ballast. Yanked herself up, reached around and jammed her fingers toward the man’s right eye.

He turned his face toward the woman behind him to say something to her.

Nadia’s fingers connected with his cheek instead of his eye.

“What the hell.” The man shouted and cursed.

Nadia stabbed at his eye. Got a handful of slimy hair instead.

The man tossed her to the ground. Nadia landed in a bed of ferns.

“You little brat,” the woman said.

The lantern swung toward Nadia’s head illuminating the woman’s orange sneakers. The right sneaker reared back, its toe aimed at Nadia’s head.

A strong wind shook the pine trees to either side of her. Nadia was reminded of the night she’d first arrived, when dusk came and the trees began to whisper and move as though they were human, capable of pulling her to their trunks with their branches and devouring her with hidden mouths. The next morning, she’d thought how silly she’d been when she’d thought a tree could come alive, but now she realized she hadn’t been silly at all. Trees had faces. Maybe most people didn’t know this because the trees revealed themselves only at night. Like the one she was staring at right now.

And then, the tree came alive. She could make out its face clearly. The eyelids batted once, twice, three times, right at her. The trunk sprang a limb and raised it to its lips. The tree was going to save her. It was telling her to be quiet. If only she could keep quiet, the tree would come to her rescue. That it would do so didn’t come as a surprise, Nadia thought. She was always one with nature. She’d never chopped a live tree for kindling, she didn’t leave garbage behind her, and she stepped on bugs only if they were near her lean-to. She loved nature and nature loved her. Of course it would save her. Of course it would.

The face of the tree moved. It grew a human body. She could see its outline within the tree itself. It was the body of a young man. It sprang from inside the trunk—a hollowed-out, dead tree trunk. The man’s face was caked with mud the same color as the tree. The golden locks that had been tucked behind him were released. They fell to his shoulders and bounced off his back. He gripped a homemade bat carved from a thick tree branch. His ferocious blue eyes were glued to their target.

Wait, Nadia thought. She knew those eyes. They didn’t belong to a tree.

They belonged to Marko.

He swung the bat into the man’s knees. The man fell. Marko pummeled him in the head once, twice. The woman lunged at Marko with a knife. Marko darted away. Not quick enough. The blade stabbed him in the side. He let out a muted groan.

Nadia screamed her brother’s name.

Marko and the woman squared off. Bat against knife. She backpedalled, pointing the blade at his chest. Put the lantern down to free her left hand.

Take two more steps, woman, Nadia thought.

One.

Two.

Nadia leapt from the bed of ferns and grabbed the lantern. Turned it down until there was only a spark left.

Everything went black.

A shuffle of feet. A yelp and a thud.

Five seconds later Marko told her to turn it back on.

“You all right?” he said.

“I’m good,” Nadia said. In fact, she wasn’t good. Her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering and she felt light-headed, as though she might faint any second and never wake up. But she couldn’t let Marko think she was a weakling so she pretended she was okay. “What about you? You got stabbed. You must be bleeding. Let me take a look.”

“There’s no time for that, Nancy Drew. We need to tie these two up. Get the hell out of here.”

They bound her captors’ wrists and feet with rope from Marko’s backpack.

Afterward, Marko carried Nadia three miles to a ranger’s station, where a man in a gray uniform drove them to a hospital in his pickup truck. Nadia thought of fun things during the entire ordeal. There were plenty of them, she realized. Life wasn’t so bad. There was Fanta Red Cream Soda, her best friends Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, and there was Marko. He was her brother and as long as she had him there would always be joy in her life.

When the nurse in the emergency room took Nadia’s temperature it was 102. The doctor feared she was coming down with pneumonia so he admitted her for the night. Marko’s wound needed twenty-one stitches but otherwise he was okay.

Two policemen came and listened to Nadia’s story. They told her the man and the woman had concussions but were going to live, and spend most of their lives in jail. The man had escaped from the Coxsackie Correctional Facility four days earlier. It was a maximum-security prison in New York State. He and his girlfriend were making their way to a farm she’d inherited in Canaan, Connecticut. They both had a history of doing bad things to children.

Nadia stayed in the hospital for one night. Then she went home and recuperated without catching pneumonia.

Two months later at a PLAST summer camp, Nadia was awarded her merit badge. The pride in her father’s eyes made the entire ordeal worthwhile. She’d pleased him. He was happy. There would be no yelling or screaming for at least a few days.

When Nadia held the cotton badge in her hand at the awards ceremony, she knew there was nothing in this world she could not do.

CHAPTER 35

T
HE LOCAL POLICE
arrived to help the troopers restore order at the cemetery. Then more troopers arrived, and we were driven to the eastern district headquarters of the Connecticut State Police in Norwich. A detective from the Major Crimes Unit debriefed us individually. During my stay, I learned that Marko had gotten to know some troopers over the years through his business. I wasn’t sure if that was his motorcycle or strip club business, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to ask. Perhaps both. He’d called them after his two men let him know I had followed Donnie Angel and his crew to the cemetery.

I found the white Honda that I’d seen following me parked near the cemetery entrance. It turned out it belonged to one of Marko’s men, the one with the handgun. Behind it was the black Subaru I’d seen the night I’d met Roxy at the Stop & Shop parking lot. That’s how I knew the men who’d burst into the office with Marko to save me. I’d caught glimpses of their faces through their windshields.

The state police released us at 6:00 a.m. Marko and I walked to the parking lot. A team of cops and troopers had driven all the vehicles from the cemetery to Norwich. Marko used his long stride to try to forge ahead of me. I hustled to keep up with him.

“When did you start having me followed?” I said.

He gave me a sour glance as though trying to wish me away, but I refused to leave.

“Well?”

He shook his head. “As soon as you told me you’d run into Donnie Angel, and that you had some cockamamie theory that your godfather had been murdered. First, you don’t run into scum like Donnie Angel unless you’re dirty or he wants you to run into him. And you’re not dirty. Second, I figured one was related to the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Donnie Angel and your theory that your godfather was murdered. It was too much of a coincidence. Them happening at the same time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That it was. Why did you go to his house that day?”

“The bastard hadn’t paid me.”

“Did he pay you then?”

“Yeah. He was all apologetic and what not. He wanted to sit on the money for as long as he could. A lot of people are like that when it comes to business. Even though you don’t earn anything on your money these days.”

“So he was fine when you left him?”

“I left him watching reruns of
American Pickers
on TV.” He let a moment of silence pass. “He died like the cops said he did, right?”

“Yup. Whatever else he was, Rus was his brother. He knew him better than anyone, and when he said it was an accident at the cemetery there was no lying in his face. He must have fallen down the stairs going for more wine, to check for flooding, or for whatever reason we’ll never know. I guess I was looking for something to do. I guess I got myself all riled up for nothing.”

“How about that.”

“What about the blessing of the Easter baskets?”

He glared at me. “What about it?”

“The reason you couldn’t make it. You said you were meeting someone at the airport. Someone who was coming from LA related to your business. But the bouncer told me that woman wasn’t coming in until next week. Why did you lie?”

He looked incredulous. “I didn’t. She’s not appearing at the club until next Saturday, but she’s touring the other clubs in the area during the week. Hartford, Vernon, Springfield, and the like. I’m coordinating her gigs, showing her some hospitality, if you know what I mean.”

Not only had I deluded myself into believing a murder had been committed, I’d made simplistic assumptions, too. An effective forensic analyst did not necessarily make an effective investigator.

“Why did you go to the cemetery alone?” Marko said. “What were you thinking?”

“I thought you were meeting Donnie’s crew there. I thought they were going to kill you.” A sense of pride washed over me. I’d gone to the cemetery to protect him, and now Marko knew the truth.

Marko leaned toward me, face etched in fury. If he hadn’t rescued me, I would have thought it was sheer hatred. And maybe it was. Maybe I was still deluding myself.

“Get this through your thick skull,” he said, spittle flying from his lips. “You don’t protect me. I protect you. You understand? It was that way, is that way, and always will be that way. Now once and for all, will you please fuck off?”

He climbed into his truck and left. I stood there, eating his exhaust.

Nothing had changed. My brother still cared.

Nothing had changed. He never wanted to see me again.