by Thomas Kies
I immediately recognized the woman, though. Her name wasn’t Anna.
It was Eva Preston.
Chapter Thirty-Three
On my way back to Sheffield, I wrestled with what I knew.
It was looking more and more like Leon Dempsey had been paid to help break Merlin Finn out of prison. Twenty grand before and fifty grand after.
Then what? He got cold feet? He thought they were going to reopen the investigation into who helped Finn get out of jail?
The theory that he had a nervous breakdown, got into his Dodge Dakota, and took off for parts unknown with no money in his pocket didn’t sound right to me.
How did Judge Preston’s wife fit into it?
All along, she said that the judge had been having the affair. Eva Preston had told me that more than once. But had it been her having the affair with Leon Dempsey?
Had she been the one who paid Dempsey to help get the head of the Aryan Brotherhood over the wall? Why?
She must have known that if Merlin Finn got out of prison, he’d be coming to kill her husband.
Or was that the reason? That she wanted Judge Preston out of the way?
What did I know about her? Basically, what Shana and John had told me. That when she came to the United States, she was working as a hooker for the Tolbonovs. When the judge became a widower, the Russians gave Eva to Niles Preston as payment for his ongoing services in the courtroom.
And to keep an eye on him?
When Judge Preston had heard that Finn was free, he knew that he had a target on his back. According to John, the judge had asked the Tolbonovs for protection, and when they refused, he contacted the Friends of Lydia to hide him.
The night that Abby Tillis was supposed to take him and his wife, Eva, to Hartford to hide in a safe house, both Abby and Judge Preston were brutally murdered by Merlin Finn.
Did Eva tell Finn where Abby and Niles were going to meet?
Did Eva facilitate Finn’s escape from Lockport?
It made no sense. Eva Preston was supposed to be a Tolbonov operative.
The setting sun had been in my eyes as I drove west toward Sheffield, right up until I turned north on Route 7 and headed to Wilton. It was dark and nearly six o’clock when I pulled in front of the Preston house.
Just before I pulled onto the cul-de-sac where the house was located, I passed a cop going the other way. I watched my rearview mirror to see if he’d switch on his blue and whites, turn around, and bitch at me. The last time I’d been out to see Mrs. Preston, a cop had told me to leave her alone.
I parked my car at the curb in front of the house and glanced around me. It was dark and silent.
From the interior of my car, I looked through the large bay window into the living room. It was holiday festive. The Christmas tree was lit with hundreds of multicolored lights. Before I went up the steps, I checked my bag for my phone and for my container of Mace.
Then thinking about John, I took out the tiny GPS device he’d given me and pushed it into the pocket of my jeans.
I didn’t anticipate any trouble, but I wanted to be ready.
When she opened the door and saw me standing on the porch, her face registered confusion. “Geneva Chase? From the newspaper?”
“I’m sorry to bother you. Can I come in and ask you a few questions?”
Her wide cobalt-blue eyes blinked twice. She forced a smile. “Of course.”
Walking into the warm house, I could smell cinnamon and the aroma of something roasting in her kitchen oven. “It smells really good in here.”
Her smile became genuine. Her long blond hair was pinned to the top of her head, and she was wearing a baby-blue sweatshirt, designer jeans, and slippers. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting guests. “Yes, a small ham casserole. There’s a potluck dinner at my church tomorrow night, and I like making these things ahead of time so I can just heat it up before I take it over. I mean, who wants to cook on Christmas Eve?”
For a moment, I was caught off balance. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve? I’d lost track of the calendar. And she belonged to a church? Hardly what I would have guessed if she had engineered the betrayal and death of her own husband.
I noticed for the first time a drink in her hand.
She saw me glance at the glass. “Can I get you something to drink? Something festive?”
“Coffee sounds pretty festive.” I was sorely tempted to ask for a cocktail, but I needed to stay sharp.
Eva smiled at me again. “Follow me into the kitchen.”
Her entire house had an old New England feel to it. The brick walls were painted white, the cabinets were blue, and the glass in the doors showed stacked dishes stored inside. The flooring was black and white tile, and the floor-to-ceiling windows gave a view of the backyard. Floodlights illuminated the snow covering landscaping behind the house.
While I stared out the windows at the winter wonderland behind her home, she poured my coffee into a mug festooned with Christmas trees and handed it to me. She held up her own glass and said, “Cheers and happy holiday.”
We clinked. “Cheers.”
We sat down at the table. “You said you had some questions?”
I put my phone on the table and hit the recorder app.
She held up her hand. Her smile was gone. “I’m sorry. Everything we talk about must be off the record.”
I blinked. “You don’t know what I’m going to ask you yet.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll be happy to be as honest with you as I can be, but I don’t want anything recorded.”
Disappointed, I put my phone back in my bag. “Okay, tell me about your relationship with Leon Dempsey.”
She jerked as if she’d just gotten a tiny electric shock. “Leon Dempsey?”
“You met Mr. Dempsey in a bar called Jack’s in Lockport. You met him there shortly after his wife was killed in a car accident. What was the nature of your relationship?”
Before she could answer, I heard a cell phone go off in the living room. “Excuse me.” She left the kitchen, and I fought the urge to follow her. Instead, I sat where I was and strained to listen to her end of the muffled conversation.
When she came back into the kitchen, she seemed mildly relieved. “You were asking about Leon.”
“Yes.” I was surprised that she used his first name.
“We were lovers.”
I was shocked that she was so forthcoming. “How did you meet?”
She took a drink from her glass, and I sipped my caffeine. “You said yourself. I met him at Jack’s.”
“Did you meet him by chance, or did you know he was going to be there?”
A tiny mischievous smile played nervously on her lips. “I was supposed to meet him there.”
“You were told to meet him there?”
She nodded.
“By who?”
She was silent.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Did you pay Leon Dempsey to help Merlin Finn break out of prison?”
She upended her drink and drained her glass. She stood up and grabbed my half-empty cup and went to the counter to refill them. “Yes.”
“Why? You must have known that once he was out, he’d come to kill your husband.”
She handed me the mug, now full, and gave me a grin. “Of course.”
“Is that why you did it? You wanted your husband dead? Certainly, the Tolbonovs didn’t want that. Your husband was on their payroll.”
She held out her glass again. “Cheers.”
I frowned but reached out and touched her glass again. “Cheers.” I took a sip and placed the cup on the tabletop. “You once worked for the Tolbonovs.”
“I still do.”
That admission made me sit back in my chair. “Did they know that you helped get Merl
in Finn out of Lockport?”
She remained silent.
“Did you kill Leon Dempsey’s wife, Nancy?”
Eva stared out the back window. “Me? No.”
“But someone killed her?”
“It was part of the plan. She had to be out of the picture.”
“Leon wanted his wife dead?” I blew on my coffee and took another sip.
“Leon never knew that his wife’s accident hadn’t been an accident at all.”
Why was this woman telling me all this?
I recalled what Chet the bartender at Jack’s had said. Leon hadn’t received a penny of that money yet. “He never got the life insurance money.”
She shrugged.
It was truth or consequences time. “Is Leon alive or dead?”
“I don’t know. It’s none of my business, and it shouldn’t have been any of yours.”
I was suddenly exhausted. I didn’t know if it was because I was talking to this hard-hearted bitch or it was realizing that it was almost Christmas or that I had stumbled onto an Alice in Wonderland scenario. I put my coffee cup back on the table. “Who killed Judge Preston’s wife, Claudia?”
She looked at me with sad eyes. “That genuinely was an accident. Niles was heartbroken when she died. I came into his life just at the right time. I made him very happy.”
“Until the man you helped break out of jail killed him.”
I was suddenly so sleepy. My words were slurring.
Eva chewed her lower lip. “Niles lost his faith in the Tolbonovs. He never should have reached out to the Friends of Lydia.”
“He was scared of Merlin Finn.”
Just before I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes, I heard Eva say, “There was nothing to be afraid of. Merlin Finn is dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was dark.
And cold.
So cold…
I couldn’t move my arms or legs. My mouth was dry, buzzing rattlesnakes in my head.
Bad hangover.
Where am I? I can’t move.
Suddenly, I panicked, trying to move my arms and legs. I was in a chair, but I couldn’t stand up. My arms behind me. My legs tied to something.
My bare feet were cold, flat on the floor, felt like cement.
I suddenly wondered, did that bitch drug me and then tie me up in her basement? Cool air on bare skin.
Do I have clothes on?
“Hello?” I said it tentatively, not certain if I wanted someone to hear me or not.
Where am I?
“Hello?” A little louder that time, hearing it echo softly off a hard wall.
Mouth so dry. Tongue thick. I tried moving my arms again. No luck.
“Hey!” I shouted that time.
Fear gripped me when I heard movement, like a door opening.
A bright fluorescent light came on overhead, and I was momentarily blinded. I couldn’t move my arms to shield my eyes.
I saw who it was.
Holy mother of God.
Bogdan Tolbonov.
Nearly seven feet tall, shoulders filling the doorway, head like a cinder block atop a short, thick neck. Hair cut close to his scalp, stubble shading the lower half of his face, square chin, thin lips, tiny pig-like eyes.
You’re dead, you motherfucker.
Terror crept over me like a thousand cockroaches.
He grinned at me like an ape. “I told you you’d model those for me.”
I glanced down. Dressed in only my black bra and pink panties, I was tied, nearly naked, to a wooden kitchen chair.
My horror multiplied when I saw where I was. I wasn’t in Eva Preston’s basement.
I was in Merlin Finn’s torture dungeon. I was in the stone house on Oak Hill, far from where anyone would hear me scream.
He had on a black T-shirt, tight to his muscular body, and his bare arms were like tree limbs. He wore jeans and heavy, steel-toed work boots. The kind you could kick a man to death with.
Bogdan stepped to one side. Valentin came in behind him, wearing a dark-blue button-down shirt, slacks, shoes polished to a high gloss. When he saw me tied to the chair, he took a breath. “How did we get here, Geneva? I never wanted this for you. It’s much more fun having you out in the world, chasing clues, writing your newspaper stories. Thank you, by the way, for the piece you wrote about Bogdan’s untimely demise. It was very helpful to us.”
Bogdan left the room for a moment, then came back in with a chair just like mine. He set it on the concrete floor directly in front of the one where I was placed.
In yet another surge of horror, I realized my chair was directly over the drain used to catch body fluids as they leaked out of the dungeon’s victims.
Valentin took a handkerchief from out of his trouser pocket and wiped the surface of the chair clean before he sat down. He motioned behind him. “So, look, Bogdan’s still alive.”
I glanced at the man, hulking, grinning next to the doorway, leering at me.
I cleared my throat and found my voice. “Eva said that Merlin Finn is dead.”
Valentin glanced back at Bogdan. “He was dead minutes after he escaped from Lockport Correctional Facility. Shot in the head.”
“Eva helped break him out.”
Valentin pointed at me. “If you hadn’t discovered that, we wouldn’t be here. You’d be home preparing for your holiday.”
“Why did Eva break him out?”
“We have people inside the prison who keep track of things for us. Finn was obviously pissed off about being inside for two consecutive lifetime sentences. He and his Brotherhood were making noises about Finn escaping and organizing a gang war, coming at us. I thought it was best if we help engineer the event and manage it ourselves. That way, once Finn set foot outside the prison, we’d know where he was and finish what I’d wanted to do months ago.”
“The two men he killed in this room weren’t drug dealers. They were your assassins.”
“Finn was picking away at the edges of our operation. He needed to be contained.”
The way Bogdan kept staring and licking his lips, I was painfully aware of how exposed and helpless I was. “How about you untie me, give me something to wear, and we can finish this conversation over a nice glass of red wine.”
He cocked his head sympathetically. “A nice offer. Let me consider it.”
Keep him talking.
“Finn caught your boys before they could kill him.”
“There was a spy working for me at the time. I didn’t know who it was until we let everyone think that Finn was out of prison and getting his crew back together. A man by the name of Charlie Tomasso told Finn when my men would come for him.”
“Charlie Tomasso. Where is he?”
Valentin sat back, thinking for a moment. “In our line of work, we need to hire men of a certain physicality.” He motioned back to where Bogdan was standing. “My brother is a good example. Tall, strong, brave, preferably loyal. Bogdan, Merlin Finn, and Mr. Tomasso all have similar builds. Mr. Finn lies in a grave out in these woods. The body you found that night at the marina, that belonged to Mr. Tomasso.”
“His skin burned beyond recognition, his fingerprints destroyed, I get that. Why take his eyes and pull his teeth?”
“Bogdan’s eyes are brown. Charlie’s eyes were green. And Charlie had a gold tooth, right here.” Valentin pointed to one of his own molars. “If we only pulled the one tooth, it might be too obvious that his killer was trying to hide something. And printing dental records? Child’s play. You can create anything on your computer these days.”
“Why didn’t you just use Merlin’s body?”
Valentin grinned. “Merlin was already dead. If Bogdan is going to disfigure someone, he prefers to do it to a person who’s still alive.”
&
nbsp; Jesus Christ Almighty.
When I visibly shuddered, Bogdan’s grin grew broader.
“Why pretend that Bogdan is dead at all?”
Valentin held up a finger. “Now we’re getting to the good part. This past summer, the FBI started taking an unhealthy interest in Wolfline Contracting. It was slowing things down to a painful level. That was bad enough.”
He leaned in as if sharing a secret with me. “Then in October, Jim Caviness was murdered by his wife. He left her a notebook with all his appointments and tasks and contacts. Mrs. Caviness handed it off to someone she trusted while she went to jail. The deal was that person would never go to the police with the notebook as long as Mrs. Caviness stays healthy.”
The fucking notebook.
Valentin’s lips broke into a grin. “I always suspected it was you who had it, Genie. But we didn’t know for sure until we caught you staking out one of our drug dealers back in November.”
Shit, shit, shit. Is he saying that I precipitated all this?
“By now, you realize that it was Bogdan who searched your house and took the notebook from your freezer. While there, he searched your hard drive on your laptop and didn’t see where you made a copy. However, last night when we brought you here, we found this thumb drive in your bag and a copy of the notebook in the file cleverly labeled Tucker’s Veterinarian Records. Bogdan told me that you own a tiny dog.”
Poor Tucker. Who would walk Tucker? It’s been hours.
Valentin held up the thumb drive. “Does anyone else have a copy?”
I lied and shook my head no.
John Stillwater has a copy.
“In time, Bogdan will find out if you’re telling the truth. Makes no difference really. Between the FBI and the stupid notebook, I knew I had to do something drastic. Make it look like we were getting out of the business, going legit.”
“Not true?”
He clapped his hand and chuckled. “Far from it. We’re in expansion mode. But the feds aren’t chasing after us anymore. They’re too busy trying to find Merlin Finn. From the perspective of law enforcement, the Brotherhood has taken over all the illegal operations that Wolfline Contracting once ran.”
