L.A. Boneyard

by P. A. Brown

  Immediately Konstatinov wrote something down and passed it to David. It said “Damn children. Should never have gotten involved.”

  “Hush,” Fishburn snapped to his angry client. “Don’t you know they would bring an interpreter?”

  194 P.A. Brown

  Mikalenko scowled and picked at the skin of his cuticles. “I did not kill her.”

  David leaned forward. “I don’t recall giving a sex for the victim. Who is ‘her’? Halyna Stakchinko?”

  “I did not kill Halyna.” He raised his head and glared at David. “I love her.”

  David glanced at Konstatinov, then back at Mikalenko.

  “Love?” he said, filling his voice with loathing. “You sold her into prostitution. Did you impregnate her too? Easy enough to prove. Once we get a warrant for your DNA we’ll be able to match you to the baby Stakchinko was carrying.”

  “Bah, your witchcraft does not scare me. If Halyna was carrying my baby then it was God’s will she do so. Just as it was God’s will she fall to her death—”

  Two things happened then, Fishburn leaned forward and hissed in his client’s ear, “Shut up!” and David stood up.

  “Mr. Valerian Mikalenko, you are under arrest for the murder of Halyna Stakchinko and for causing the premature death of a fetus.”

  “My client is invoking his right to silence,” Fishburn said.

  “He can invoke anything he wants; he’s still under arrest.”

  David nodded toward the two-way. The door opened and Jairo entered the room. He held a pair of handcuffs in his hands.

  Mikalenko went pale at the sight of the bracelets dangling from Jairo’s lean fingers.

  “Stand up, Mr. Mikalenko—”

  “I did not kill her!”

  “Three women are dead at your hand, Mr. Mikalenko. You can make this a whole lot easier if you just tell us about them—”

  “Three?” Mikalenko gaped at him and David saw genuine confusion in his blue eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Halyna Stakchinko, Zuzanna Konjenko and Natalya Lapchuk. Halyna and Zuzanna roughly five months pregnant at the time of their deaths. All having resided in the same address, L.A. BONEYARD 195

  1208 Leland Way in Hollywood, between November of last year and eight days ago.”

  “I never touched any of those girls.”

  “You better have more than just some DNA on my client to bring on such charges. Being the father of a woman’s child does not automatically make him a killer.”

  “Having all three women under his roof at the same time, having all of them wind up dead, is pretty strong circumstantial evidence. I’m sure a Grand Jury will agree.”

  “I wish to leave,” Mikalenko said.

  He and his lawyer stood up. “This interview is at an end.”

  David rose too. He nodded at Jairo who cuffed their prisoner and pulled him out of the room followed by his still protesting lawyer.

  “I’ll see you in court, counselor.”

  The interview room door shut behind them. David met Konstatinov’s gaze. “Did he really say that?”

  “I exaggerate a bit. I make an inference on what he means.

  Was I wrong?”

  “No, your instincts are dead on. You spooked him good.

  We’ll see if the seeds you planted bear anything interesting.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You can probably go back to your Lieutenant for the rest of the day. I’ll call you if Mikalenko wants to talk more.”

  “Yes sir!”

  David had a bounce in his step when he headed back to his desk. He didn’t even mind facing the blank screen of his PC

  while he formulated the right words to do his report of the interview. He could taste success. After a grueling—not to mention frustrating—investigation they were about to nail their killer. It was always a heady feeling.

  Jairo returned shortly after. Some of David’s good mood evaporated. He ignored his partner and concentrated on his computer.

  196 P.A. Brown

  “Whatever you did to him, I’d say it’s working,” Jairo said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The little twerp was sweating bullets while I was taking him to lockup. His lawyer spent the whole time trying to get him to shut up but he blubbered all the way there.”

  “Did he say anything incriminating?”

  “Nah, he may be a stupid asshole, but even he’s smarter than that. But he sure didn’t like your inference that he lit up those other two broads.”

  “The other two—you mean Zuzanna Konjenko and Natalya Lapchuk?”

  “Yeah, those two. He didn’t seem too put out you told him he did the other one, but for some reason the mention of those two got his ticker all in knots.”

  David frowned and leaned back in his chair. “So he seems willing to cop to Stakchinko, but denies the other two? I wonder why.”

  “Hey, the guy’s a whack job. How can you expect him to sound sane?”

  “You’re right. But I think I’d like to schedule another interview with the guy soon anyway. See how he likes his new home over at Men’s Central. It might soften him up a bit, make him even more talkative.”

  “Works for me. You going to do it today?”

  “Tomorrow’s good enough. Let him stew in lockup for a night.”

  “You have a cruel streak, anyone ever tell you that?” Jairo’s voice dropped. “I like that in a man.”

  David glared at him. “What did I tell you about that, Detective?”

  “I can cool my jets,” Jairo said with a shrug. “For now. I know it won’t be permanent.”

  “You know too damn much.”

  Jairo licked his lips. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I do.”

  L.A. BONEYARD 197

  Tuesday, 4:20 PM, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles Chris got off the phone after a lengthy conversation with Jantz. His new boss apologized for dragging him to New York for business when he was so recently out of the hospital, and it was several minutes of back and forth, before Chris could convince the guy he was fine. In fact he planned to come in to work the next day to start planning the implementation of their new system. The equipment was already on order, equipment Chris had overseen the procurement of, and now the next phase would begin. Chris felt the usual burst of excitement a new contract brought. He was good at what he did, and knew it.

  It was especially gratifying when someone else recognized his skills. Jantz had been suitably impressed, and Chris figured working through the injuries didn’t hurt his cause. He foresaw a long and profitable future with Jantz, and his startup enterprise.

  He threw together a quick pasta dish, and ate in the living room where he could moon over the flowers David had sent.

  He hadn’t even had a vase big enough for the roses and had to go out and buy something. Now both bouquets sat on the dining room coffee table and Chris wasn’t sure which one he liked more. The orchids and daisies were wonderful, and he knew David remembered how he liked the combination of sophistication and down-home-feel-good, but the roses, each a deep crimson red, were beyond compare. They spoke of a truly deep feeling and Chris got all teary-eyed when he thought of what David was going through. So he had gone online to a local florist and arranged to have flowers delivered to David at work, since he had no idea where David was staying right now. He thought briefly about how David would react getting such a wildly inappropriate gift at the police station, and almost succumbed to the giggles when he thought of David’s reaction.

  Not to mention the other cops. He got the dishes into the dishwasher and grabbed his jacket out of the hall closet.

  Sergeant trotted after him, knowing what was coming and eager to get out of the house.

  Chris paused only to make sure his BlackBerry was on his belt, he had the dog’s Frisbee, and his keys were in his pocket, 198 P.A. Brown

  then he grabbed the leash, snapped it on, and headed to the park. Sergeant trotted briskly at his side, eager to
run. Once in the park Chris made a short dash to let Sergeant stretch his legs and blow off some steam, then they settled into a more sedate walk.

  “Bet you’re sorry David’s not here to take you, aren’t you big guy? He’d give you a real running.”

  Sergeant wiggled his butt and leapt up to catch the Frisbee Chris held in his hand.

  “Yeah, I miss him too.”

  The dog worried the Frisbee, throwing his head from side to side as he tried to “kill” the flying disk. Chris looked around surreptitiously, and when he saw no one in sight, he unclipped the leash, drew the Frisbee back, and flung it out across the grass. Sergeant took off after it, flying through the air to snatch it out of the sky. He raced back to Chris, dropping it on the ground in front of him, waiting for Chris to do it again. They did this several times, until a lady with a pair of salt and pepper Schnauzers came into the park. She eyed Sergeant with wary eyes and pursed her mouth in a thin line.

  “You’re supposed to have your animal on a leash,” she sniffed.

  He mumbled an apology and clipped Sergeant’s leash on.

  The dog picked up the Frisbee and followed Chris down toward the reservoir.

  That was when he saw Jairo. He stood beside a low, sporty car with the same brown lab he had brought to the park the last time. The dog got all excited when he saw Sergeant, which told Chris they had met before. How many times, his treacherous mind wondered. He thought of the two huge bouquets of flowers David had sent him the last two days. Guilt gifts or true regret? Then he thought of his own gift he had sent only this afternoon. Would it come across as an apology for how he’d kicked David out? Or a simple declaration of love? He glared at Jairo, who sauntered over.

  “What are you doing here?”

  L.A. BONEYARD 199

  “Came to see David.”

  “David’s not here.”

  Jairo frowned. “Not sure I follow you.”

  “David has gone. You want to talk to him, I guess you’ll have to do it at work.”

  “You mean he left you? So I guess the flowers are your way of saying you’re sorry? He put them in his locker, you know.

  Didn’t want them on his desk. Left you, huh.”

  “That’s none of your fucking business. Now leave us alone.”

  Jairo and his dog retreated to his car, and Chris took Sergeant home, where he shut and locked the door behind him.

  After a while he collected both bouquets and dumped them in a large plastic garbage bag. He put them out in the sealed bin out back that helped keep the local wildlife at bay, and slammed the patio door shut on the way back in. The glass panes rattled at the violence. He barely registered it. In the kitchen he opened a bottle of Merlot, and took a glass, and the bottle, into the media room where he watched sitcoms until the bottle was empty.

  The next day he went to work and arranged to have the locks on the house changed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Wednesday, 7:55 AM, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando Road, Los Angeles

  Jairo entered the squad room minutes after David. He draped his jacket over the back of his chair and slid his laptop up on the scarred desk. He glanced up at David.

  “I’d like to sit in on any further interviews you do with Mikalenko. It’s as much my case as yours and I think I’ve earned the right.”

  It galled David to admit it, but Jairo was right. He had earned it. When he wasn’t trying to start something, he had proved his mettle, and his willingness to buckle down and get the job done. It wasn’t entirely his fault that he completely rubbed David the wrong way. It was David’s. He finally had to accept that it was his own desire for the sexy young man that had brought grief down on himself. If he could have maintained a professional mien from the beginning none of this would have happened. Before he had met Chris, he had indulged, picking up one guy or another for a few hours of hard, satisfying sex, but he had always been in charge of those encounters. He hadn’t let anyone penetrate his guard, and pick the time and place.

  Jairo was a whole new experience and David found he didn’t like it one bit.

  “So what’s our first stop with this guy?” If Jairo was aware of his turmoil, he gave no sign. “How do you handle someone who’s lawyered up?”

  “Ask him as many questions as you can think of until the lawyer makes him stop. These guys have egos that don’t quit, they want to brag. And we make him sweat. You don’t always have to get verbal responses to figure out what’s bugging 202 P.A. Brown

  someone. He gets spooked, he’s going to give something away.

  Only the coolest psychopath can remain calm all the time.”

  “You lie? That always puzzled me, that we have to tiptoe around these scum bags, but it’s okay to lie through our teeth to them.”

  “We can lie, but don’t threaten them. It might make you feel better to promise them the gas chamber or a needle, but we can’t do that. The lawyers will ace you every time if you try that stunt. And it would set you up to lose an appeal if you do manage to get a conviction. So play it cool. Tell him we found meth in his house, but not that he’s going to death row in the big Q.”

  “So how are you going to approach him?”

  “Get all my facts on the table. Show him what we’ve got. It’s dirty and I hate it, but sometimes it’s better if we can plea them down and get the guy off the street instead of being stubborn and going for the max and losing it all to a technicality or a jury having ‘reasonable doubt.’ The CSI effect can kill us too. People watch those shows and think the forensics is really a magic bullet that always tells the whole story. If the DNA evidence doesn’t match their expectations they walk the perpetrator.”

  David shuffled some papers. “I think we’ve built a pretty solid case, even if it is mostly circumstantial. DNA’s not going to help us much in this case and that’s always worrisome. We can prove he’s the father of Halyna’s baby, maybe even the baby in the first grave, Zuzanna I suspect. But I doubt even Dr. Galt can type the bones of the third baby. It’s pretty hard to even sex them at that age. But we’ve got them all in the same house, all coming over from Kiev where we can put Mikalenko at least part of the time. I suspect he traveled back and forth a few times, recruiting girls, arranging to smuggle them over. We can start working on warrants to get the flight manifests from Ukrainian flights to the US or Mexico. The cell phone records that put him in touch with the doctor, and some other numbers I want to look at. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some of his business associates.”

  David chewed on his mustache. “The only thing I can’t figure out is their connection to the Avenues. What possible L.A. BONEYARD 203

  association could a Ukrainian ex-pat and baby broker have with a low life gang set? Do gangs even broker babies? It’s not part of any MO I’m aware of.”

  “It’s a little too touchy-feely for them,” Jairo said. “Face it, someone would have to look after the kids while they waited for the perfect mark. They’d have to make sure it was well taken care of too, no crackhead sitters. They might be happy pimping the girls out, but these women were pretty high class for the Avenues to run. They could hardly sell them on a street corner in Glassell Park to other homies.” Jairo snorted. “That would be like giving prime rib away to the tweakers on Western.”

  David met Jairo’s eyes squarely. “You seem to know a lot about bangers.”

  “I got a cuz or two in the hood,” Jairo said warily. “I never got jumped in. Knew some of the sets, but that’s about it.”

  “It’s still more than I ever did. You can look into that angle.

  Tell me why the Avenues are doing business with a Ukrainian doctor.”

  Jairo seemed excited. Finally a venue he could shine in? “I’ll get right on it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Wednesday, 8:40 PM, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles Chris’s car was not in the driveway. Working late? David felt an ice worm slide through his gut. He hoped that’s all Chris was doing, but if he wasn�
��t... He couldn’t fault his lover for seeking comfort somewhere else. But the thought brought a pain worse than a knife slash. How could he live if Chris was unfaithful?

  Had he given up all his rights to Chris? Just how much of a fool was he?

  The biggest one. Just how badly had he messed up here?

  And was it salvageable?

  He stood outside his cooling Chevy and stared at the home he had shared with Chris for over four years. Then squeezing his fist around the house keys he strode up to the enclosed courtyard, past the two Italian cypress trees Chris’s grandmother had planted thirty years ago.

  He tried to insert his key. It wouldn’t go into the slot. He stared down at the innocuous piece of metal and frowned. And tried again. Same result. He swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat.

  Chris had changed the locks.

  Inside the house he heard Sergeant growing increasingly excited; he knew David was on the other side of the door. His fretful whining deepened in the gloom that had sunk into David’s chest. Behind him he heard the shuffle of human footsteps and a dog padding along with them. He turned to find Joanne, their neighbor and their black lab Koko.

  “Hello, David. Haven’t seen you around lately. You and Chris keeping busy?”

  “Ah, yes, Joanne. We have been.”

  206 P.A. Brown

  “I hardly see either of you.” Something seemed to penetrate her mind. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh sure,” David said. “I guess I just left my keys at work...”

  They both looked down at the keys in his hand. He abruptly stepped down onto the cobblestoned driveway. “Well, I need to get back to work. Take care, and say hi to Tim. Maybe we’ll see you around now that spring’s coming...”

  “Of course. You and Chris will have to come over for a barbecue some night. Tim’s got some new fangled gadget to use on the barbecue and he’s dying to try it out. You know men and their toys...” Her voice faded into an awkward silence. He took advantage of it to get to this car and flee before she could say anything else. As he drove back to the hotel his mind was numb.