The Death Trust

by David Rollins

  Mrs. Scott wore a black dress shrink-wrapped onto her little chicken bones, and black shoes. Her blond hair had been worked into a tight coif on top of her head, with not a strand loose. The makeup was heavy, with dark liner circling her pale gray eyes, brown lipstick, and she smelled of foundation cream, perfume, whiskey, and stale cigarettes. The overall effect was grim. She appeared to be in a mood. This wasn’t something that could be interpreted from her features, for they were as empty and unruffled as a body of water in a vacuum. On the moon, say. But her tone betrayed her. “I was just telling your partner that I don’t appreciate the invasion of privacy,” she said, the powdered wattle of loose skin under her neck vibrating, reminding me of an aging turkey. “And who said you could just walk into my home?”

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” I said. “The door was ajar and I thought you left it that way for me. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I didn’t. Now, what do you want? Your partner doesn’t seem able to get the hint. I have a funeral to prepare for.” She fixed me with those gray lidless eyes of hers: It was vaguely like being struck with an ice pick.

  “Yes, Mrs. Scott. This is an awful day for you and I’m sorry we have to intrude on it,” I said in full reverse, beeping furiously. “But, as you know, your husband was a very important man. Washington wants to know why he was murdered, in case there are national security issues.”

  “Don’t presume to tell me what Washington wants, Major,” said Harmony, alluding to her family’s position of power. “And my husband wasn’t murdered. He killed himself.”

  “Killed himself? Why wou—”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about Abraham Scott. Did you know that he was having an affair, Special Agent? A tawdry affair with some slut he kept in a hotel room on the other side of town?”

  She knows? “An affair—”

  “If you’re going to keep repeating everything I say…”

  My jacket covered my name tag. “Special Agent Vincent Cooper, ma’am.”

  “…then this conversation will be even longer and more tedious than it otherwise would be. It’s obvious. Abraham killed himself because he couldn’t go on without our son, Peyton. The two were very close. We were all close. Until Peyton was killed in Iraq. You do know about that, at least?” she asked with a frigid smile of condescension.

  “Yes.”

  “Your assistant here—or are you her assistant…?”

  “We’re a team.”

  Masters nodded.

  “How nice. Well, this other major informed me yesterday that Abraham’s glider had been sabotaged.”

  “That’s right. We believe—”

  “Well, I can’t tell you how many times Abraham told me he had no intention of dying of old age pushing around a walker. He wanted to end it in that glider. Said so many times. It’s obvious he fixed the plane himself to make that happen.”

  “Are you sure, ma’am? Suicide?” Masters and I exchanged a glance.

  “I knew my husband. That’s what happens after twenty-four years of marriage—you get to know someone. How well do you know him?”

  Having met Harmony Scott twice now, what I couldn’t understand was why General Scott hadn’t killed himself sooner. “Not very well, ma’am.” The lady was a bully, just like her dear old dad, Vice President Toe Cutter. “Did your husband know you knew about his affair?”

  “If he did, he never mentioned it,” replied Mrs. Scott. “It’s not the sort of thing a husband talks about with his wife. Not among people of my generation, at any rate.”

  “Then if he didn’t tell you, how did you know about it?” asked Masters, tag-teaming.

  “Because, as I said, after twenty-four years of marriage, you know.”

  “And knowing about it, or sensing it—did that change your relationship with the general?” Masters continued fearlessly.

  Harmony turned her ice picks on Masters and I could see my partner shift uneasily as they hacked into her. It was a tough question. It contained the hint that we were sniffing around for a motive for murder, and that the dead man’s wife might possibly be considered a suspect.

  “What in hell’s name are you insinuating?” she asked, her voice going up in volume and pitch like a ripsaw biting into a nail hidden in the wood.

  “Mrs. Scott, did your husband ever talk to you about a second autopsy performed on your son?” I intervened, changing tack and sparing Masters a mauling.

  “What? No,” said Harmony, diverted.

  “He never mentioned it?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. Scott,” I said. “We’re sorry to bother you.”

  Her lips pursed and she walked out of the study and down the hallway toward the front door, which was framed by bloodred light streaming through stained-glass windows. We were expected to follow. Harmony Scott opened the door and became a black silhouette against the daylight pouring in, and, from the set of her body—one hand on the bone of her hip—an impatient one. I made my way quickly down the hall, overtaking Masters, not because I was keen to comply with Harmony Scott’s body language, but because of General Scott’s cell in my pocket. It was ringing, vibrating against my leg with an incoming call.

  The door banged shut behind us as I fumbled with the phone. The number on its screen I recognized as the one previously captured by the cell, the number for a landline in Kaiserslautern. As I put it to my ear Masters raised her eyebrows at me as if to ask, “Is that Scott’s phone?”

  I nodded. “Hello? Morgen? Ja?” I said, covering all the bases.

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  More silence.

  “Hello!” I took the question out of my voice and replaced it with a demand. The caller was still there, trying to decide whether to hang up or answer. Mine was obviously not the voice the person on the other end of the line expected to hear. I decided to gamble. “This is Special Agent Cooper. Your phone number has been previously logged on this cell and a police car is right now on the way to your front door. It will be there within three minutes.”

  I hoped the caller had seen enough police television shows to believe this bullshit.

  More silence and then, suddenly, “Hello.” It was a woman’s voice, uncertain, reluctant.

  “Who are you? What is your name?” I didn’t for a second think these questions would be answered, but then the woman said, “Varvara. My name is Varvara Kadyrov.”

  FOURTEEN

  I was getting to know the stretch of road between Ramstein AB and K-town pretty well, but the town itself was a different matter. Masters took the pilot’s seat.

  “The address puts her in the historic part—the old town,” she told me.

  “Who lives there?” I asked.

  “In the old town? Locals with money, and staff officers without dependents. Von Koeppen—people like that.”

  I glanced at her. This was our first break. Not knowing where von Koeppen lived, but finding this woman, the one General Scott was apparently putting a hump into.

  “Was the phone where you thought it would be?” asked Masters, overtaking a line of cabs, sitting on the horn as she passed so that they wouldn’t pull out in front of us.

  “Pretty much,” I said. That won a smile from Masters, a genuine one this time.

  “You’re good at this,” she said.

  I can deal with abuse; compliments are hard. I ignored it and instead took the photo of Peyton Scott out of my pocket, the one I’d taken from the garage, and propped it on top of the dash. “We need to find out more about this guy.”

  Masters weaved through the traffic like a fighter pilot on a bandit’s six. “Mrs. Scott was lying when she said she knew nothing about that second autopsy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I felt that, too.

  “And her coming out with the news about her husband having an affair—what did you make of that?”

  “I think she said it to throw us. It was almost like she enjoyed telling us. She knows we’re
going to find out about this other woman. I’d say she was just getting in first, sort of taking the wind from our sails. Question is, why the games?”

  Masters nodded. We were making headway, and not just on the case. “What about the suicide thing?” she asked.

  “I guess it’s possible.”

  “But do you think it’s likely?”

  I considered that before answering. It was the question I’d been chewing on myself, and having difficulty swallowing. “Last night I’d have said definitely not, but now?” I shrugged. “I’m not a hundred percent sure either way, but not because of anything the widow has said. We know that Scott was badly broken up about his son’s death. It hit him hard.” In other words, the palings were up my ass as I sat up there on top of the fence. I remembered the photos of Peyton on the garage wall and on display in the study. The collections were like shrines. But there was something odd about the photos, something niggling at me. I had that feeling. The one where I know the answer will come. It just takes time. Though hopefully not a year’s time, when I’m lying on a beach somewhere.

  “But there was nearly thirteen months between the death of the son and the death of the father. If General Scott was suicidal over the news of Peyton, why would the old man take so long to end it all?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. That was a good question. “Maybe we can ask Varvara. She might know.”

  “Did you notice the books in the general’s study?” she asked. “War history of the last century—almost every single title.”

  “The guy was a general. I’d have been surprised if he had a reference library on macramé,” I said. I’d noticed his books, too. He was a big fan of WWII, especially of the conflict in the Pacific.

  “I took some pics of his study, his books, when Harmony wasn’t looking.” Masters accelerated into a gap in the traffic and then hit the brakes to avoid crashing into the tail end of a semi.

  “Do you always drive like this?” I asked.

  “When it’s a rental.” Masters appeared oblivious to this near-death experience.

  “Remind me to insist we take your car next time. Why the sudden rush?”

  “You’re the one who said we’d be there in three minutes. And what kind of name is Varvara, anyway? Where does a name like that come from?”

  We pulled into a parking space outside a newish apartment building that was mostly glass. Actually, it was mostly sky and rainbows if I was to be poetic about it—reflections thereof. Varvara had said she lived on the seventh floor, which Masters confirmed with a simple directory assistance call to the local phone company. Apartment 703. We took the elevator to the seventh floor. The building seemed deserted, although that was probably because most of its residents were at work. Mindless Muzak filtered through hidden speakers and was sucked into the thick carpet underfoot.

  Apartment 703 was a short walk from the elevator. I rang the doorbell and waited. Varvara was taking her time. I knocked. I heard a rustle behind the door and a shadow filtered across the spy hole. “Who are you?” came a muffled female voice.

  “Varvara Kadyrov? OSI. You’re expecting us.”

  “Show me ID.”

  Masters and I shared a look. We reached into our coats, pulled our badges, and held them up where they could be seen. The lady was nervous. After a moment or two of hesitation, chains and latches were released and the door opened.

  My first impressions of our hostess were colored by the polished nickel-plated Colt 45 that appeared the size of a cannon in her petite hand, which she pointed at my face, chest, groin, and face again as she waved it about. It was a ceremonial pistol, probably the general’s, but it could kill just as effectively as any ten-dollar throw-down. “You come alone?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Varvara’s eyes swept from me to Masters, and then back to me. She was having trouble believing me.

  “We’re alone. Now put the gun down,” said Masters in a soothing voice, trying to hypnotize the woman with calmness. It didn’t seem to be working.

  “You have come to kill me,” she declared, hand flexing on the grip, squeezing it, finger squirming inside the trigger guard. The hammer was cocked and I was starting to sweat. I’ve been shot a couple of times and I’ve learned it’s not pleasant.

  “No, we’re here to ask you some questions,” I told her. “Nice, easy questions.”

  “Abraham said you would come.” Her eyes flicked from me to Masters and back again, not sure who to settle on.

  “Put the gun down, Ms. Kadyrov,” I said. She didn’t hear me. The fear in her eyes told me that. Instead she took a two-handed grip on the weapon waggling inches from my nose and turned her face away, either preparing herself for the crushing explosion to come, or to shield her face from mine as it splattered back at her after being dissolved by the slug. I snatched out with my left hand as she clamped her eyes shut, a reflex grab. I wrapped my fingers around the gun and my pinky slipped between hammer and pistol body. Her muscles contracted and the hammer slammed home, the pain it caused completely out of proportion to the almost inaudible chick sound. “Oh, shit!” I shouted. My damn finger might as well have been closed in a car door. “Jesus,” I yelled a couple of times as I did a circuit of her room with the Colt dangling from my pinky. I cocked the hammer and released the digit, then seated the hammer back. I held the gun by my side while I shook my hand and completed a second lap of the room. “Fucking, fuck fuck!” I said. I examined my finger—all the skin had been stripped around the second joint and the pad was already blowing up with a blister full of blood. I wriggled it. Nothing broken. I removed the eight-round magazine, pulled back the slider, and ejected the round in the spout. That extra round told me Abraham Scott had loaded it for her.

  Masters had Ms. Kadyrov against the wall, her forearm jammed up against her neck and one of her arms twisted behind her back.

  “Let her go,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Let her go.”

  “But she—”

  “I don’t have any cuffs and neither do you, Special Agent. She’s not a suspect. Let her go.” It was obvious that Varvara Kadyrov was scared witless of something. Someone. Masters released the woman, who continued to lean against the wall, knocking a Miró print askew. She was crying silently, her back convulsing in short spasms. She turned and sagged against the wall, sobbing, her hand covering her mouth and nose. Masters looked at me, uncertain of what to do. I motioned at her with a waggle of the gun to comfort the woman. She put her arm around Ms. Kadyrov’s shoulders, brought her across to a brown leather sofa in the middle of the room, and seated her.

  “We are special agents with the air force, Ms. Kadyrov. Police,” I said, giving my hand another shake. “We’re here to investigate the death of General Scott. It was me who spoke to you on his cell.” The day’s edition of the Trib was on the coffee table; her late lover’s photo was on the front page. I walked into the kitchen, filled a glass with water, carried it back, and put it in front of her. The apartment was small but light, the furniture all new. The place could have been a spread in an Ikea catalogue. Everything had probably been bought at the same time, even the Miró prints, when Varvara Kadyrov moved into this place.

  Varvara leaned forward and took the glass. I noticed for the first time how strikingly beautiful she was. What is it with this place, I wondered. Do they put down ugly people at birth here, or just refuse them entry? “Ms. Kadyrov, did General Scott tell you people might come to kill you?”

  “Yes,” she said, sipping the water. I gestured at the newspaper in front of her. “You knew the general was dead, yet you called his cell.”

  “I wanted to know if it had been found, so that I could be prepared.”

  My pinkie throbbed, reminding me. Yeah, she’d been prepared to blow my head off. The woman looked at me over the rim of the glass and I was struck almost dumb by the bluest pair of eyes I’d ever seen, a concentrated blue that appeared to project particles of blueness.

  I
swallowed and tried not to stare. Her hair was thick and so black it even shone blue in places, and fell loose to the small of her back. She wore a thin blue cardigan over a fitted pink T-shirt, faded hipster jeans, and Nikes. “Are you Russian?” I asked. Her accent was unusual—different from German.

  “Latvian.”

  “From Riga?” Masters asked.

  Varvara nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. Masters and I exchanged a glance. The highlighted flights on the ATC management printout. RIX. Riga.

  “Who would be trying to kill you?”

  “People…I don’t know.”

  I tried a different approach. “Ms. Kadyrov, were you and General Scott lovers?”

  The woman shook her head vehemently. “No.”

  “What was your relationship with him?”

  “He helped me, took me away. I was grateful.”

  How grateful? I wondered. “What did he take you away from?”

  “Riga.”

  “Is that where you met?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you meet?” Women who looked like Varvara didn’t hang around the PX. Well, not the PX in my air force, at any rate.

  “At a club. My boss introduced us.”

  “What kind of club?”

  “A table-dancing club. I was a dancer.”

  I looked at Varvara with fresh eyes. Yeah, a stripper in a titty bar. That fit, possibly one of the few things that did in this case so far. General Abraham Scott—you ol’ dog, you…

  “Are the people he took you away from the same people who killed him?” Masters asked, taking the questioning off in a direction away from lingerie and poles.