The Truant Officer v5 Read online

  Zubov reached down and scooped up a pair of hedge-clippers. He performed a couple of quick chops like a batter in baseball taking warm-up swings, and then snipped away the ropes.

  As Dantelli shook the circulation back into his limbs, Zubov laughed again. A deep hearty one—his trademark. “You better watch yourself. It looks like that little punk almost killed you. Maybe next time he’ll do better.”

  He took note of the anger simmering within Dantelli and laughed. The guineas were always so emotional. No matter what that line in the movie said, it was always personal with them. It was their weakness, and the reason that the Russians had passed them by.

  “That kid disrespected me in my home and now I’m going to kill him.”

  Zubov began clapping. “Bravo, bravo.”

  Dantelli looked frustrated. “You don’t think I’ll do it?”

  “I think you are doing a great acting job, because the last thing you really want to do is kill Nick.”

  Dantelli appeared to gather himself. “You’re right. Mr. Sarvydas has said he wants to deal with Nick personally. His word is the only word.”

  Zubov laughed again. “More acting—I love it! It’s like I’m talking to fucken DeNiro! I think the reason you don’t want to kill Nick is that his testimony can put Alexei away for a long time, and with Viktor in exile, your new boss, Parmalov, can take over the Organizatsiya.”

  A moment of terror came over Dantelli’s face. This was Zubov’s favorite part.

  Dantelli didn’t crumble, as expected. “I work for Viktor Sarvydas and only him. I have always been loyal to him.”

  Zubov shook his head. The guineas were always talking about loyalty. When will they learn—the only loyalty is to one’s self. Zubov shrugged. “I hear things—it’s my job to check them out.”

  “If you checked things out, then you’d know that I followed Mr. Sarvydas’ orders. I set up the Zellen meeting, tied him to a chair in the kitchen, and then left the place wide-open for whoever was going to do the job. I had no idea Alexei was to be the one. I returned as the first officer on the scene, just as I was ordered. I did my job. Everything went as planned.”

  Zubov knew exactly why Alexei was the one. It all went back to that night Zubov ambushed Miklacz and Alexei’s mother. And that was just the beginning—the secrets went much deeper. Family was always the ugliest of businesses.

  “I don’t remember the part of the plan where Nick shows up.”

  “We figured he must have arrived in between our leaving and Alexei arriving, because he didn’t know anything about Bachynsky and me. And he claimed to come in through the back entrance, so he didn’t see Karl in the kitchen until he heard Alexei doing the job. So someone must be talking to him.”

  “Or Nick is a smart kid, and he figured things out.”

  “Whatever happened, if he isn’t stopped, he’s going to keep messing things up.”

  “Don’t worry—Nick will be taken care of,” Zubov said with a crooked smile. “I’m more concerned that you are scheduled to testify against Alexei next week. With what you know, that could be very damaging testimony.”

  “I am just following my orders.”

  “Yet Parmalov is the only one who benefits from this trial continuing.”

  “I told you—I only follow Mr. Sarvydas’ orders! I don’t know why he wants me to testify against his son, but he ordered me to work with the prosecution, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Well, I’m here to inform you that there’s been a change in plans. Alexei has learned his lesson, and suffered enough. A trial is good for nobody, except Parmalov. Secrets could come out that should stay hidden.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “To make long story short, you won’t be testifying, and I can assure you Nick Zellen won’t be either. There will be no trial.”

  Dantelli remained defiant. “Why should I listen to some washed-up hitman?”

  Zubov smiled. “You see, Viktor Sarvydas is not calling the shots right now. I’m here representing the don’s son. And his son doesn’t want a trial. We both agree that the secrets of that day need to stay buried.”

  “I have always kept Mr. Sarvydas’ secrets and I can be trusted with his son’s,” Dantelli saw which way the winds were blowing on this one. He hadn’t lasted this long by not being flexible.

  So much for the loyalty thing. Zubov was a little disappointed—people always seemed to disappoint him in the end. “His son is confident you take your secrets to grave.”

  Dantelli’s face filled with fear and he began to tremble. He then dove head first into the pool. Moments later, after Zubov finished his work with the hedge-clippers, the rest of his body followed.

  Chapter 30

  Eicher hit the pause button and stared at the blonde reporter in disbelief. He was watching a video of a report on a local Phoenix TV station, which exposed the teacher/student sex scandal at South Chandler High. After earlier revealing Nick’s identity, she was now pinpointing his location.

  As much as he detested this Stafford woman, he understood she was doing her job...maybe a little too well. Unlike Fitzpatrick, who claimed that it would be safer to “integrate” Nick into society, in this case a school setting, rather than lock him away from the world. Eicher couldn’t believe he signed off on that, and he should have been more forceful in demanding that they got Nick out of there at the first hint of trouble.

  “All taken care of,” he mocked Fitzpatrick’s false confidence. He then started in on Nick and the reckless act that had put everything at risk.

  “I think we need to cut the kid a break,” Dava said calmly.

  “We can cut him all the breaks we want, but Zubov is going to cut his head off. How could he be so damn stupid?”

  “Put yourself in his shoes for a minute. The kid is in a foreign place, not knowing who to trust, and has all this pressure building on him with the trial coming up. His parents and girlfriend were murdered. He was looking for something to cling to, and Lilly McLaughlin was there for him.”

  “A tantalizingly attractive female just happened to be there to seduce him,” he wondered aloud, still staring at the frozen screen. His phone rang, waking him from the nightmare. It was LaPoint.

  Eicher didn’t even give him a chance to speak. “Have you seen this damn report?”

  “It’s like watching Nick’s funeral,” LaPoint said soberly.

  “Can’t we get this bimbo off the air?”

  “The cat’s out of the bag now, so what’s the point? And besides…”

  “Besides what?”

  LaPoint sighed. “She’s the most accurate source we have on Nick’s whereabouts. Nobody had them in Vegas—we were thinking Mexico or somewhere out in the middle of the desert. But somehow this Jessi Stafford found them.”

  “You’ve confirmed her report?”

  “Yes, they were spotted on the casino cameras, and she’s paying with the husband’s credit card. One way or another, they’ll be captured within an hour. It just depends on who gets there first.”

  “Maybe we can hire Stafford to replace Fitzpatrick’s sorry ass.”

  “There will be plenty of blame to go around on this one. But a lot less shit will hit the fan if we can get Nick back in one piece.”

  Eicher agreed. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Did you check out the videos I emailed you?”

  “Not yet. If you haven’t noticed, it’s been kind of a busy morning.”

  “Check them out—I’ll mobilize here—and let’s reconvene in an hour.”

  Eicher hung up and scrambled to his computer. Dava followed close behind and asked, “What is it?”

  Eicher played the videos, recognizing them as a feed from a casino. Lilly and Nick were at the blackjack table. The next video featured them strolling hand-in-hand past rows of slot machines like a honeymooning couple. Lilly was in the same miniscule dress she wore for her abduction, while Nick was dressed in a suit, looking much older than normal. It confirm
ed that they were there, but Eicher wasn’t sure why LaPoint was so eager for him to look at the video.

  Then he saw it.

  His heart sank. Dava spoke for him, “Oh God—it’s Zubov.”

  Eicher spilled his cold coffee. The brown puddle expanded over his desk without an attempt to stop it. He just stared ahead, as it began dripping off the desk onto his lap like a waterfall.

  As Eicher slumped in his chair, the phone rang again. But this time it was Dava’s.

  “Hello,” she answered pleasantly, but her face quickly dropped. She muttered something in Lithuanian, but the term “uh-oh” crossed all language barriers.

  She hung up and turned to Eicher. “That was Fitzpatrick.”

  “Don’t tell me—Fitzpatrick is arranging a FBI escort for Sarvydas from Israel to Vegas?”

  “No—Dantelli’s dead.”

  That was a big uh-oh.

  Sarvydas seemed pretty determined that there would be no trial. Eicher begged Dantelli numerous times to go into protective custody, but he wouldn’t listen—still fighting his childish FBI/NYPD turf wars.

  Dava pushed the dazed Eicher away from his computer, and signed in to her email. “They sent me the video from Dantelli’s security system,” she explained.

  The first video stunned them. It was Nick and Lilly being invited in by Dantelli. The next video was of them leaving about twenty minutes later. The cameras covered the exterior, but they had no shots of what happened during those twenty minutes inside the house.

  Dava appeared befuddled. “Why would Nick go there?”

  Eicher shrugged. “Dantelli was the lead investigator in his father’s case. Maybe he was looking for some protection.”

  “Do you think they killed him? That makes no sense.”

  “They didn’t,” Eicher proclaimed, his concentration on the next video. This one showing Zubov entering the house through an unlocked door. “But I know who did.”

  “Zubov makes much more sense,” Dava remarked. “Fitzpatrick said that Dantelli was decapitated.”

  Predictable—the removal of body parts was Zubov’s M.O. What more interested Eicher was that everywhere Nick went, Zubov seemed to follow. Eicher didn’t believe this was a coincidence any more than he thought Lilly McLaughlin coming into Nick’s life was.

  Chapter 31

  A knock rattled Eicher and Dava to attention. A bespectacled man in a white lab coat entered the office, carrying a manila folder. It was Kurt Wilson.

  “I got your results,” he stated proudly, as he barged into the office.

  Dava looked stumped. “Results for what?”

  “From the hands they found during the raid in Brooklyn. The ones you guys asked me to ID.”

  Dava’s looked annoyed that she wasn’t in the loop.

  Eicher tried to explain, “They are Audrey Mays’ hands. They were discovered in a freezer at the Moziafs’ butcher shop. The tattoo is identical to Audrey’s. I just wanted to send it to the lab to make it official before I told you.”

  Judging from her icy stare, Dava accepted the apology, but had put him on probation.

  “That’s why I ran up here so fast,” Wilson said excitedly. “Those hands don’t belong to Audrey Mays.”

  Eicher was stumped. “But they’re a match.”

  “If you are speaking some alternate language in which match means they don’t match, then I would have to agree with you.”

  “Are you sure you’re not mistaken. What are the odds of another female hand with an identical tattoo being found in the Moziafs’ freezer?”

  Wilson shrugged—he was about the science, not speculation. “In this specific case, 100%. With the low temps in that meat locker, it is possible that the hand shrunk, distorting the ink, so perhaps it wasn’t the same tattoo. But the fingerprint science doesn’t lie—it definitely isn’t Audrey Mays.”

  Dava looked at the report, her normally placid expression turning agitated. “Then whose hands are they?”

  Wilson smiled. “That I do know. Her name is Rachel Grant. Ms. Grant was a ‘professional’ dancer here in the city who used the stage name Carrie Grant. Her prints were in the system because she was arrested on a couple of occasions for prostitution, a few years back. Her parents, who are from Wyoming, reported her missing about a year ago.”

  “Is it possible,” Dava asked, still studying the report, “that this Grant woman is the one who is buried in Oklahoma?”

  It was connected somehow. It had to be. “If the girl who was slaughtered in that apartment was Rachel Grant, what was she doing in Audrey’s apartment? And what the hell happened to Audrey Mays?” Eicher asked.

  “Maybe somebody is trying to throw us off. I think we need to exhume the body in Oklahoma and do a DNA match to the hands,” Dava thought out loud.

  When Wilson left, Eicher instructed Dava to work on getting information on Rachel Grant. And most importantly, anything that would connect her to Audrey Mays.

  Eicher cleaned the coffee off his pants, and then reviewed the case in his head. He felt like he was missing something.

  It all began with Karl Zellen’s arrest on money laundering charges, and things went downhill from there. On the surface, what followed was both logical and primal—Zellen was going to take down Sarvydas, who responded to the threat by having the wife of his longtime business associate killed. Karl sought revenge for Paula’s murder, and he ended up dead.

  All of this would have landed in the large pile of lore and myth about the Russian mob—just as it did years ago with the ambush that brought Viktor to power—but Nick happened to make an unscheduled visit home that day, and witnessed his father’s murder.

  But with the events of the last twenty-four hours, Eicher was now starting to wonder about how easily the case came together. Especially how Karl Zellen, with little persuasion, was willing to turn evidence against his longtime business associate.

  Zellen was also known as the brains behind the Sarvydas Empire, who knew the monster better than anyone. And while Alexei was no genius by any stretch, he was brilliant when it came to murder, and Eicher wondered about all those clues he left behind. As he stared at a pair of hands that didn’t belong to Audrey Mays, he wondered if it fit too well.

  Was it possible that he was so intent on finally catching a break against Sarvydas that he overlooked all the coincidences and questions about the case, Lilly McLaughlin included?

  Eicher’s phone rang again, knocking him out of his distressing thoughts. He was expecting LaPoint, but it wasn’t.

  “You lied to me, Eicher. You said you’d protect me, but you didn’t keep your promise.”

  He immediately recognized Nick’s voice. “You are not safe out there. Tell me where you are, so we can pick you up.”

  “I’m safer than I’d be with your people guarding me. You have a leak in your office, Eicher. They found me. If I stayed I’d be as dead as my parents and Audrey.”

  Eicher kept the part about Rachel Grant to himself, until he had more answers than questions on that subject. “I admit we made mistakes, Nick. But whoever you’re trusting now is leading you toward danger.”

  “Maybe I don’t have a choice,” he paused to let the statement hang in the dead air. “Maybe the decision was made for me. Like I said, if I stayed I was a dead man.”

  He again thought of Lilly McLaughlin. “What are you trying to tell me, Nick?”

  “Remember what you told me about not believing in coincidences?” he said and hung up.

  Chapter 32

  “The gas pedal is the vertical one on the right,” Becks snipped.

  She hadn’t been a ray of sunshine since they met, but ever since Darren took away her driving privileges on account of her crazed tantrum at her school locker, she’d been downright surly.

  “Turn here,” she demanded. Darren continued to follow her orders.

  But he wasn’t a total pushover—he had changed the original plan. Darren knew nothing good could come of going to Las Vegas and confronting Lill
y. Or as Becks preferred—kill her. It was best to allow the professionals to bring her into custody and then they could figure out what happened together. And if it was some sort of mental illness, he wanted to make sure Lilly got the best medical care.

  They arrived at Brett Buckley’s house. The place Darren had met Becks—fist to face—just hours ago. She hopped out of the car and jogged toward the house, craning her neck back at Darren and blazing a “what’s taking you so long” look.

  Becks ran around to the backyard and began scaling a cedar fence. The Buckley house was impressive, built on the shore of a man-made lake. He remembered Mara Garcia saying something about the parents owning a software company.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he shouted to Becks, as she scooted over the wall like a cat. Or a cat burglar.

  “What, don’t you think you can get over, old man?” her muffled shout came from the other side of the fence.

  He couldn’t believe that he let a teenage girl talk him into breaking and entering. A long jail term seemed like the one thing that could actually make this day worse. “Let’s take a moment and really think this through.”

  “No wonder your wife left you for a younger man.”

  A cheap shot, no doubt, but motivational. He aggressively scaled the wall and leaped into the lushest backyard he’d ever seen in Arizona. Not the usual sand and cactus design. The yard sloped down to a lakeside dock.

  Becks was busy working on a fuse-box at the back of the house. She smiled like a Cheshire cat. “You would think that since the Buckley’s business is to make security software, that their own house would be better protected.”

  “We are compounding the problem by being here,” Darren proclaimed.

  “No, your wife is com-pounding my boyfriend, that’s why we’re here. Don’t worry, Brett gave me the code so I could sneak in at night when his parents were sleeping. Shoulda been my first clue that he had honesty issues.”

  Once the alarm was deactivated, Becks found a ladder and set it up against the house. She scooted up to the second floor and pried open a window with a gardening tool, before disappearing inside.