Vanishing Act

by Linsey Lanier

  “You look like a Cossack.” Tall, virile, excruciatingly handsome.

  “Let’s hope we don’t run into any of those.”

  Feeling ready to take on an army of Cossacks, she took Parker’s arm and they went out the door. “Let’s see what kind of magic we can work.”

  ###

  Tatiana’s village was about forty kilometers to the northwest, which translated to about twenty-four miles and a forty-five minute drive.

  There was night traffic in the city, but once they got out into the rural area, it was dark and cold. The road was so bumpy and icy, at one point Miranda thought they were going to have to get out an push the Beamer up a hill.

  Just when she thought they might be lost, she spotted a brightly lit house at the top of a rise.

  A snow-laden rooftop covered a large rectangular structure. Running up to it from the road, a long wooden fence cast long shadows on the glistening snow. It didn’t look very stable.

  Somewhere a dog barked.

  “Is that it?” she said.

  “I believe it is, from Tatiana’s directions.”

  There were buildings behind the house. Miranda thought she spotted an animal stirring there. It was a small farm. “She grew up in the country.”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Let’s go see who’s home.”

  There didn’t appear to be a driveway, so Parker pulled the BMW to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

  Miranda got out of the car and made her way toward what looked like a gate, glad for the sweater and warm coat against the chilly wind. Not to mention the fur hat.

  Their boots crunching on the frozen ground, they found a path covered with footprints.

  Assuming it had been recently used, they followed it to what looked like the front door. The old brick and plaster and painted shutters told her this place had been here for centuries.

  “Here goes nothing,” she muttered under her breath as Parker knocked.

  There was shuffling inside and Miranda had to move from one foot to the other while she waited.

  At last the door opened. But no one was there.

  Then she looked down and saw a small round faced boy who couldn’t have been more than three.

  Little fingers in his curly dark hair, he sucked in a breath of astonishment, his eyes growing round.

  “Kozak!” he cried, and ran to the other side of the room.

  It was a brightly lit square-shaped space done in yellow with an ancient hardwood floor and no furniture. Some sort of entry room. But even from outside Miranda could smell something delicious in the air, no doubt coming from the kitchen.

  Her stomach rumbled.

  The next moment a woman appeared in the doorway. She looked to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was short and honey blond, but she had the same attractive face and figure as Tatiana. Obviously a relative. She wore a cream colored sweater and a blue flowered skirt.

  “Dimochka,” she chided the boy. Then she hurried over to Parker and Miranda.

  “Laskavo prosymo. Come in, please. And get out of the cold. Are you the investigators Tatiana is sending us?”

  Relieved the woman could speak English, Miranda nodded. “Yes. From Atlanta. The US,” she added to clarify.

  The little boy pulled at the woman’s skirt. “Baba. kozak.”

  “Nemaye, Dimochka,” she laughed. “My apologies. I was telling my grandson a fairytale about a Cossack prince. He thought the prince had come to life and was at our door when he saw you.”

  Miranda gave Parker a nudge. “I told you you looked like a Cossack in that hat.”

  Returning a sly look, Parker removed his hat and extended a hand to their hostess. “Dobryy vechir,” he said. “I’m Wade Parker and this is Miranda Steele.” He handed her the bottle of wine.

  Smiling, she took it. “Thank you. Yes, yes. I am Anastasia Pavlova, Tatiana’s sister.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Miranda said, taking the woman’s hand and wondering where Parker had learned Ukrainian.

  Another woman’s voice echoed from a nearby hallway.

  Anastasia answered back in her own language, and an older woman appeared wearing a purple dress in a diamond pattern that reached almost to her ankles. The sleeves of her dark sweater were pushed up to her elbows and a drab blue bandana was wrapped around her hair. The lines in her face and shape of her eyes told Miranda this must be Tatiana’s mother.

  In her hands she carried a loaf of freshly baked bread with lovely braiding on the top. It smelled wonderful.

  She and her daughter exchanged a few more words, then she handed the bread to Anastasia. Anastasia tucked the wine bottle under her arm and took the bread while her mother put both of her palms on either side of Parker’s face.

  “Pasynok,” she said, then struggled with the next words. “Our Tatiana’s stepson. And his wife. Welcome.” She reached for Miranda’s hand, squeezed it and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “We are so happy you are here,” Anastasia explained. “You are family.”

  Miranda hadn’t expected this kind of a welcome, but she guessed they were related by marriage.

  “We’re glad to be here,” Parker replied. “I hope we can be of help.”

  The older woman, beckoned them toward another room.

  “Come in,” Anastasia said. “You may leave your coats and boots here.”

  Miranda turned to a wall and saw a row of hooks laden with winter coats. Beneath them lay a pile of shoes and goulashes on the floor.

  As he reached for her coat, Parker leaned close to her ear. “It’s a custom to remove footwear at the door.”

  Good thing she’d wore thick socks.

  He hung everything up, pulled off his own boots.

  “Come,” Anastasia said. “Let us eat.”

  Chapter Five

  They followed their hostesses down a short hall and into a room filled with chattering people and a table laden with food. The whole space was filled with mouth-watering smells.

  The walls were papered with large dark red and blue flowers and hung with religious hangings and family photos. Around the table more than a dozen people were gathered, and they all seemed to be talking at once. Anastasia introduced Tatiana’s father, Pavlo Davydovych, her younger sister, Katerina Pavlova, her brother-in-law, her husband, her daughter and son-in-law, an aunt, an uncle, cousins, and even a few neighbors.

  They were an Orthodox family, so there was a prayer, and then the feast began.

  As the family continued to chatter away, they passed one exotic concoction after another to their guests. There were large platters filled with cheeses and hams and sausages that must have been Kielbasa. Pan fried potato pancakes with lots of sour cream. Borscht, the traditional beet soup, with more sour cream. Cabbage rolls and dumplings. And a scrumptious buttery herb filled dish Miranda realized must have been Chicken Kiev.

  The food was on the bland side for her, but the flavors were so rich and interesting, for once she didn’t care. She just dug in.

  Good thing she hadn’t eaten much since they’d left Atlanta.

  Wine and vodka flowed with the food. When the eating was done, the party moved to a cozy living room with a big fireplace and a piano. There were folksongs and stories and cheese crepes for dessert. Pavlo even tempted Parker into a chess match, which Parker graciously lost. Probably on purpose, though Miranda hadn’t even known he could play chess.

  The gathering was more like a family reunion than a missing persons investigation, and Miranda was beginning to think these folks had just wanted to meet Parker. But soon the extraneous guests began to trickle out, and the remaining core family members grew somber.

  Finally, a woman sitting on a bench near the fireplace addressed Parker in broken English. “So you have come here to look for my brother, no?”

  She was Katerina, Tatiana’s youngest sister, and she seemed to be in her late thirties.

  Like her sisters, she was lovely, though on the thin side. Anastasia had expl
ained earlier Katerina was a teacher at the village school. She was also the artistic one, and had painted some of the pictures on the wall, as well as embroidered numerous traditional costumes for her family and friends.

  Which had little to do with finding their brother.

  Miranda felt Parker straighten beside her on the small couch where they were sitting across from the family.

  “That’s what my father requested,” he said.

  “How will you begin?” Anastasia asked.

  “With you.”

  Anastasia blinked in surprise at the answer.

  “We need you to tell us everything you can about your brother,” Miranda added.

  Looking uncomfortable, Anastasia rose and reached for the dessert dishes. “I thought Tatiana would have done that.”

  The mother, whose name was Anya, began chattering in Ukrainian and waving a hand at Anastasia until she put the dishes down and sat back down, staring at her empty hands.

  Parker gave everyone a stern look. “We need you to tell us as much as you can about Sasha, even if it’s unpleasant.”

  His remark was met by silence.

  Miranda decided to get the conversation started with an easy question. “How old was Sasha the last time he was here?”

  “Eighteen,” Anastasia replied. “Tatiana was in nursing school in Kharkiv when he left. She was very upset when she found out he was gone.”

  “Understandable,” Parker said. “Do you have a picture of him?”

  Anastasia said something to her mother. Anya rose and went to a cupboard in the corner. She returned to the couch with a photo album and began turning the pages, a sad smile on her face.

  She took several photos from the pages and handed them to Parker. He spread them out on the coffee table so they could look at them together. Holidays when the family was together. Sasha was maybe six or seven in one, ten or eleven in another. Then came some older school photos.

  “He could be a moody young man,” Anastasia said. “He had many deep thoughts he did not share with others.”

  Miranda picked up one of Sasha by himself and studied it.

  The picture must have been taken in the spring or summer. With his hands behind his back, the dark-haired Sasha stood outside the house with lofty green trees in the background. Tall and big-shouldered he wore no smile on his round face. His skin was leathery. From spending a lot of time working outside, she gathered. His eyes were dark and emotionless.

  Miranda wondered what had been going on behind them. “He looks like a healthy young man.”

  Anastasia smiled sadly. “He was strong as moose. One time our calf got loose in the garden. He did not have a rope, so he picked it up and carried it back to the barn all by himself.”

  That was strong.

  Miranda took her phone from her pocket. “Do you mind if I snap a picture of these?”

  Anya must have understood what she meant and nodded vigorously.

  When Miranda finished, she handed the pictures back to the woman, and she put them away.

  “Did you report Sasha’s disappearance to the local police?” Parker asked.

  Anastasia shook her head. “He was—how you say? Of age. There was nothing they could do.”

  “I don’t suppose he had a cell phone?” Miranda asked, though she could guess the answer.

  “No, he never had one.”

  No possibility to track him that way. Not even if he’d kept it for fourteen years, which would have been unlikely.

  Anastasia took a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to her cheek. “We all looked for Sasha a long time. Some of our neighbors even hunted for him with their dogs. But we could never find him. We were brokenhearted. He was our little brother. We loved him very much.”

  Anya put her hands to her face. “Sérdeńko.”

  “My heart,” Anastasia translated in a whisper.

  “I’m so sorry,” Miranda said softly. Then she asked the hard question. “Why do you think Sasha left?”

  Again Anastasia looked uncomfortable. “We do not know.”

  There was a long pause in the room. Then Pavlo mumbled something, shook his head, rose and went to stand in the corner, hands in his pockets, a brooding expression on his face.

  Miranda turned to Anastasia. “What did he say?”

  She closed her eyes, obvious pain on her face. “He says it was all his fault.”

  “And what does that mean?” Parker’s voice was gentle enough to prompt a reply.

  “I had graduated and married. Ilya and I were living here with Mama and Papa. It was the last week of July. That morning I got up and went outside to gather eggs for breakfast, as I usually do. I heard arguing.” She gave her father a sad look then continued. “Papa and Sasha were in the barn fighting. Worse than I ever heard them before. Sasha said he was sick of taking care of the chickens and the cow. He wanted something better.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Papa shouted at him. Sasha told him he had had enough. He was leaving home for good. He packed his things, got on his bicycle and rode away. And we never saw him again.”

  Miranda watched Anastasia wipe a tear from her cheek. It was a sad story, but she had a feeling there was more to it.

  Before she and Parker could dig into that, everyone began to talk at once. Pavlo came out of his corner telling his family his version of the story, but his wife and daughters seemed to have another. At least, that was Miranda’s guess. She couldn’t make out a word, except that there were lots of zhe and sh sounds.

  She understood now what Mr. P meant when he said it was hard to understand the family.

  They hadn’t learned much more about Sasha than they had from him, though it sounded as if the family members were either blaming or defending one another.

  Finally Parker got to his feet and raised his hands. “Please. Everyone calm down. We didn’t mean to cause a disturbance.”

  Shaking her head, Anya muttered something.

  “She says it is a sensitive matter,” Anastasia explained. “She apologizes.”

  “We understand. But I’m afraid we’re not making much progress. Miranda and I will go back to our hotel and discuss the matter. We’ll let you know in the morning if we think we can help.” He bowed to Anya, then to the others. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner. Good night.”

  With a nod to Miranda he turned toward the door.

  Realizing what he was doing, she got up and followed him into the little entrance room where they’d left their coats.

  “Do you think this will work?” she said softly as she pulled on her boots.

  He held up her coat and she slipped her arms into it. “It’s our only option.”

  They could still hear the family arguing as they put on their ushankas and went out the door.

  Halfway to the BMW, they heard Anastasia’s voice. “Wait. Please.”

  The door opened again and she came trotting out in a coat and scarf she’d quickly wrapped around her head.

  Parker stopped and turned to face her. Miranda did the same.

  Anastasia reached for her arm. “I am so sorry for my family.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, feeling for the woman. “But what Parker said is true. We can’t do much without more information than what you’ve given us.”

  Anastasia gazed up into the dark sky as if she were lost. “I do not know what to say. It is all we know.”

  Miranda glanced at Parker. The next move was his call.

  She watched him struggle with his frustration a moment. The objective investigator in him won out.

  “Did Sasha talk to the neighbors about any plans to leave home?” he asked.

  Anastasia nodded. “He knew all the neighbors. He might have told them something, though I’m sure they would have said something to us by now.”

  “Did he have any close friends he might have confided in, possibly contacted after he left?”

  Anastasia thought a moment. “Sasha wasn’t close to anyone. Oh
, wait. He had one good friend. Boris Vladimirovych. He still lives in the village. He works at the gear factory.”

  It was too late to talk to any of these people tonight. “Can we see them in the morning?”

  Anastasia nodded. “Yes. Come for breakfast. I will take you to see all our neighbors and Boris then.”

  Parker shook his head. “We’ll come after breakfast. Eight o’clock.”

  “They will have left for work.”

  “Seven, then. But no breakfast.” Parker didn’t want to get caught up in another time-consuming food fest.

  Since he gave her no option, Anastasia nodded. “Very well. I will see you then. Thank you so much, Mr. Parker and Ms. Steele.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They shook hands again and Miranda headed for the car with Parker. “In the meantime,” she called to Anastasia over her shoulder. “Try to think of any remark Sasha might have made about where he might have gone.”

  “I will.”

  As Anastasia returned to the house, they climbed inside the BMW and turned on the heat.

  Parker rolled onto the snowy road.

  Miranda looked back at the cozy little country house and wondered if the family was still arguing. “I hate leaving like that.”

  “I do, too. But they need time to clear their heads and think.”

  She agreed. There was too much emotion in the room. And what they were trying to remember had happened so long ago.

  After they’d driven several kilometers in silence, she took out her phone and scrolled to Sasha’s picture again. People weren’t smiling in the photos she’d seen on the walls. Probably the culture. But Sasha’s look seemed deliberately solemn. Resentment?

  “A young man leaves a close knit family over a fight with his father and doesn’t return for fourteen years?” Didn’t seem likely.

  Parker turned onto a better lighted road where apartment buildings loomed in the distance. “They’re hiding something.”

  She looked over at him. “You felt it too?”

  “I did.”

  “Or something very bad happened to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But what?”

  “We’ll find out more in the morning.”