She began to skim the piece of writing for details. It was lengthy, so she decided to just do a Find search on the page. She got a hit immediately.
“Interesting,” she said to no one in particular.
Michael Roman’s wife was named Abigail.
S
ONDRA AND
J
AMES
A
RSENAULT
sat in the squad room of the 112th Precinct. Sondra had never been in a police station before, and she had no idea how unrelentingly grim they could be.
In her time as a social worker she had met many types of people. Granted, the nature of her work meant that many of the people with whom she came in contact were in some way troubled but, for Sondra Arsenault, this was both the joy and the challenge. While it was true that some people entered the mental health field with a god complex – an exaggerated sense of hubris in which a patient is formed and molded by the therapist into a vision of normalcy – most of Sondra’s colleagues in the field were dedicated people to whom a person entering into therapy was not a blank slate to be recreated in some sense of normalcy, but rather that few behaviors are hardwired, and that adjustment could be made.
Until today. As she scrolled through computer screen after computer screen of mugshots she realized she had seen more evil in an hour than she had seen in her previous eighteen years in the field of mental health.
Looking at these faces she was reminded of the difference between working the city and working the suburbs. Perhaps Detective Powell had been right when she asked her about where she applied her science, and whether there might be a difference in what happened in a city, as opposed the comfort and safety of the suburbs.
The detective was right. There was a difference.
P
OWELL STEPPED INTO THE
cramped, windowless room. “How are you guys doing?”
Sondra looked up. “All of these men have broken the law?”
Powell cleared a chair of papers, sat down. “Some more than once,” she said with an understanding smile. “Some more than ten times. Some are working their way through the alphabet – assault, burglary, car theft, driving without a permit.” She winced at her reach on that one, but no one seemed to notice. “Have you seen anyone who looks familiar?”
“This is what frightens me,” Sondra said. “I have seen a
few
people who look familiar. Or maybe I’m just projecting.”
“Don’t worry if you don’t find the man who broke into your house among these photographs. He may not be in the system. It’s always worth a shot, though.”
Powell opened up a 9 × 12 envelope. She had printed off two pictures from the
New York Magazine
article. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to show you a couple of other photographs.”
“Sure,” Sondra said.
Powell held forth the first one. It was a picture of Michael Roman, taken from the cover of the magazine. He was leaning against a BMW convertible coupe, black trousers and open white shirt, his suit coat over his shoulder, looking pretty
GQ
, if Powell had to say so herself. Powell had cropped out the magazine’s logo, and everything else that might indicate it came from a magazine. She didn’t want to give the woman the impression this was some kind of celebrity, even though he probably was in certain New York legal circles. It might taint the woman’s identification, although Powell found Sondra Arsenault to be a careful, meticulous professional, and didn’t think she’d fall for the hype. “Do you know this man?”
Sondra took it from her, looked at it closely. She shook her head. “No.”
“This was taken five years ago. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m quite sure.”
“He doesn’t look at all familiar to you?”
More scrutiny, probably just to be polite. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”
“Okay,” Powell said. “Thanks. Mr Arsenault?”
James Arsenault shook his head immediately. Powell noticed that his lips were chapped and cracked and white. In his hand was a small bottle of Tylenol. He was probably taking one every twenty minutes, without water. This guy was a wreck.
Powell put the first picture back in the envelope, handed the woman the second photograph. This one too had been cropped. “What about her?” she asked. “Does this woman look familiar?”
Sondra took the color copy of the magazine page. “That’s her!” she said. “That’s the woman who gave me Viktor Harkov’s phone number.”
“This is Abby?”
“Yes. No question.”
“And you don’t know her last name, where she lives, where she works, anything else about her?”
“No,” Sondra said. “Sorry. I met her at the conference, we talked about adopting, and she told me that she and her husband had just adopted, and that she knew a lawyer who did a really good job. She gave me Viktor Harkov’s phone number, and that was about it.”
“Did she say anything to you about his methods, the way he worked?”
“No,” Sondra said, perhaps more forcefully than she would have liked. “I mean, I later got the impression that Abby may not have known that the guy was a little . . .”
“I know what you mean,” Powell said, finding no reason to supply Sondra Arsenault with a pejorative term for a man who was at that moment being dissected on a cold steel table in South Jamaica. They all knew who he was and what he did. The question, if there would
be
a question, was what did Abby Roman know about the man, and when did she know it? Before she recommended Harkov to the Arsenaults, or after.
There had been two sets of twins illegally brokered by Viktor Harkov in 2005. Two sets of girls. If Harkov’s killer had visited the Arsenault house perhaps he was now in search of the other pair of twins. Perhaps he had already found them. Perhaps there
was
another family in jeopardy.
Like
Cape Fear
, Powell thought.
She had to get that movie, check it out.
W
HILE THE
A
RSENAULTS
spoke to a police artist, and created a composite of the man who had broken into their house, Detective Desiree Powell left the Homicide Squad, stopped at the Homestead on Lefferts Boulevard for a cherry strudel and a coffee.
Within twenty minutes she was on the Van Wyck, heading toward a small town in Crane County called Eden Falls.
THIRTY-NINE
T
here were four vehicles in the parking lot. A pair of Fiestas that looked like rental cars, a ten-year-old van, and the blue Ford.
Michael walked slowly over to one of the Fiestas. It was parked three spaces away from the Ford. He glanced quickly at the Ford and saw that the man sitting in the driver’s seat was black, perhaps in his twenties, earbuds in his ears. He had most likely seen Michael emerge from Room 119, but had paid no attention to the man in the baggy raincoat, tweed hat, and sunglasses. He had his eyes closed, his head bobbing to the music.
Michael stepped over the low guard-rail fence behind the cars. He searched the area near the expressway for something, anything. He found a short length of steel rebar, the material used to strengthen concrete. He picked up the pipe, slid it into his waistband in the back, then dropped to the ground behind the Ford. He waited a full minute. The man in the car had not seen him in the rear-view or side mirrors. Michael crawled along the ground, along the right side of the Ford, then circled in front of the car. When he reached the left front tire, he took out a small piece of the broken mirror. He had wrapped it in a washcloth, but it had cut through the fabric. His hand was bleeding. He began to cut along the tire, right at the rim. After a minute or so, he heard the air begin to leak out.
Two minutes later, with the tire almost flat, Michael crawled to the back of the car, stood up, and made his way back over to the Fiesta.
When he reached the car, he dug into his pocket as if he was fishing around for car keys. He glanced over at the driver of the Ford. The man looked over. Michael pointed to the front tire on the Ford, mouthed a few words. The man just stared at him for a few moments, then rolled down the window.
“You’ve got a flat tire.” Michael said. He knew the man could not hear him.
The man opened the door. He was about Michael’s size, but younger. He was dressed in green camouflage pants and a black hoodie. Michael knew that once the man got out, he would only have a few seconds to act.
The man stepped out of the car, pulled the headphones out of his ears. He regarded Michael with suspicion. “What?”
“Your front tire,” Michael said, doing his best southern accent, the word
tire
coming out
tar
. “It looks like you’ve got a flat.”
The man considered Michael for a few more moments, then walked around the open car door. “God
damn
it.” He stood for a few seconds, hands on hips, as if willing the tire to inflate. He then reached into the car, extracted the keys from the ignition. He walked to the rear, opened the trunk. Michael sidled up.
“You want me to call Triple A or something?” Michael asked. “I got the Triple A.”
“I’m good,” he said, with a look that said
back the fuck off
.
At the moment the man turned his back on Michael, Michael slipped the pipe out of his waistband, and brought it down on the back of the man’s neck, pulling back at the last second. This was far from his area of expertise, and he didn’t want to kill the man. It was a mistake. The man grunted on the impact, and staggered away a few steps, but didn’t go down. He was strong.
“Mother
fucker
.” The man reached behind his head, saw the blood on his fingers.
Before he could turn around to face him fully, Michael stepped in, raised the pipe again, preparing to deliver a second blow, but when he brought his arm down, the man raised an arm to block it. He was fast. The man then wheeled around, shifting his weight, and caught Michael on the side of the face with a glancing blow. Michael saw stars for a moment. His legs buckled, but he maintained his balance.
When he recovered he saw the man reaching into the trunk, coming back with a handgun.
There was no time to react. Michael brought the pipe up and around as hard as he could. He caught the man on the bridge of his nose, exploding it into a thick mist of blood and cartilage. Michael saw the man’s eyes roll into his head. His legs sagged, gave out. He fell backwards, half-in and half-out of the trunk. The gun, a small-caliber revolver, fell from his hand onto the pitted asphalt of the parking lot.
And it was over. The man did not move.
For some reason, Michael was frozen with inaction. He was afraid he had killed the man, but soon got over it. He realized that he was standing in a motel parking lot, within sight of the avenue with a bloodied steel pipe in his hand, and a man’s body laying in the trunk of a car in front of him. He gathered his wits, his strength. He threw the pipe in the trunk, picked up the gun, stuffed in it into his pocket. He glanced around, turning 360 degrees. Seeing no one watching him, he pulled the spare tire and the jack out of the trunk. He then lifted the man’s legs, and maneuvered the body fully into the trunk. He closed the lid, grabbed the keys out of the lock.
Ten minutes later, with the tire changed, he got into the car. He found that he could not catch his breath. He glanced around the front seat. An MP3 player, a half-eaten Whopper, an unopened forty-ounce. The smell of cooked meat and blood made his stomach churn.
He opened the glove compartment. A pair of maps, a pack of Salems, a small Maglite. Nothing he could use. What he needed was a cellphone. He looked in the back seat, in the console. No phone.
He grabbed the keys out of the ignition, got out of the car. He walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk. The man had not regained consciousness, but his face looked all but destroyed. Michael reached in, touched the side of his neck. He found a pulse. He began to pat the man down, searching his side pockets, his back pockets. He found a small roll of cash, a small bag of marijuana, another set of keys. But no phone. He tried to turn the man onto his side, but he was heavy, and a dead weight. He tried again. He couldn’t budge him.
Suddenly, the man began to moan. Michael reached further into the trunk, retrieved a long steel crowbar. He slipped it beneath the man, began to roll him over. The man coughed, spitting blood into the air.
“The
fuck
, man . . .” the man managed. He was coming to. And getting louder. Michael reached into the pocket of his raincoat, got out the now bloodied washcloth. He rolled it into a ball, stuffed into the man’s mouth.
Michael then went back to his task of prying the man’s body onto its side. After a few more tries the man rolled over. Michael reached into the pocket of his fleece hoodie, and found a cellphone, along with a few hundred in cash, and an ID that identified the man in the trunk as Omar Cantwell. Michael took the phone and cash, slammed shut the trunk, got back in the car.
With his hands surprisingly steady, considering what he had just done, what he was
about
to do, he opened the phone, punched in the numbers, and called Tommy Christiano.
T
OMMY FELL SILENT
. Michael knew enough to wait it out. His head throbbed, his eyes burned.
“Is he dead?” Tommy asked.
The truth was, Michael had no idea. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
He had told Tommy everything, beginning with the phone call from the man called Aleksander Savisaar.
“You’ve got to come in, man.”
“I can’t, Tommy.”
“You have to. This is getting worse and worse. How long do you think it will be before Powell adds it up?”
“This is my family, man. We can’t call in the cavalry. Not until I know the play.”
“You can’t do this alone.”
“It’s the only way.”
Tommy quieted again. Michael glanced at his watch. He had three minutes to get back inside the motel room.