With the engine turned off all the heat had left the car and I sat there, a chill setting in, wondering what to do next. Do I go back to Oksana's to see if she is okay? What could I do if she wasn't?
Stacy Winters's card was still floating around in the bottom of my bag, but by the time I found it, I'd talked myself out of calling her. What would I say? Two people I didn't see may be visiting a person I barely know?
I started the car slowly, with a KISS. Key, ignition, seatbelt, signal. An old boyfriend told me that when he taught me how to drive and I still thought of it—a lifelong habit started by a boyfriend of a hundred days. By the time I got to signal, I saw the headlights of a car racing toward me. The same car, with the same two passengers. The stocky driver made the turn that I had missed minutes before and luckily he didn't notice the Jeep backing out of the hidden driveway.
Rather than get on the road behind them, I kept my lights off and slowly navigated the rutted dirt road they'd just left until I pulled into the trailer park and found my way back to Oksana's.
When I got there, she was gone.
Twenty-two
"Someone you drove home isn't there? Is that really why you're calling me at this ungodly hour?"
Detective Stacy Winters was lucky I hung up the first time I called, almost two hours earlier.
No one had answered at Oksana's place and repeatedly calling her name before six A.M. got me nothing but angry responses from her neighbors. The loudest was the guy with the peace sign. I drove to the casino, and from there back to Titans, checking the rearview mirror so often I nearly missed the exit for the hotel.
I should have been exhausted but too much information was coming at me all at once and I needed to talk to someone about what, if anything, all of this meant. When I finally broke down and called Winters, I spilled everything I knew about Lucy's disappearance, Oksana's story, the Crawford brothers, and the Ukrainians.
"Look, I know I told you to call me if you thought of anything else, but lots of times we just say that. We don't really think you're going to call us. If we thought you really knew anything about Vigoriti's murder we'd still be questioning you."
Stacy Winters was in no danger of being burdened with either a warm bedside manner or an insatiable curiosity. Even after I told her about Nick's involvement with the Mishkins and the Crawford brothers.
"Nick was always claiming he knew more than he did," she said, unimpressed. "He should have gone into politics. With his looks and shtick he could have been governor. You don't have to be smart, you get all the dates you want, and you get to rub shoulders with big-time criminals—not the small fry Nick usually hung out with." I could hear her slurp a drink and rustle a few papers in the background.
"Look, you're what? A gardener? Go plant some tulips and leave the police work to the professionals."
What was her obsession with tulips? Was that the only plant she knew? I was tempted to tell her you don't plant tulips in the spring, but somehow I knew it wouldn't be received as the scathing criticism I meant it to be, so I didn't respond.
"What about my friend Lucy? I haven't spoken to her in two days."
"I've got friends I haven't heard from in ten years," she said. Big surprise.
"What was her last message? Two men . . . ? She could have been sending you a joke—Two men walk into a bar."
"Why would she have called Nick twice?" I said.
"How should I know? Maybe she was asking him to bring the K-Y jelly. We don't know that she did call him twice. Or even once. Oksana Smolova is what we in law enforcement refer to as an unreliable source."
She told me Oksana had been picked up for soliciting three years ago when she was still a teenager, bailed out by a local dirt-bag who claimed to be her guardian.
"Sweet old Uncle Sergei, that nice man with the doggies."
Apparently, Oksana and Sergei had had a falling out when she went to work at Titans. She failed to catch the eye of the newly widowed Bernie Mishkin, who they both assumed was rolling in dough; then she latched on to Nick Vigoriti.
"Never one to say no to the horizontal hora, Nick took her out a few times, then they cooled off. At least he did. She was still looking for that sugar daddy or meal ticket. You know you're lucky she didn't lead you into a trap where some of her Ukrainian buddies slapped you around. Or worse."
Winters let the words hang in the air for effect. I couldn't have been so wrong about Oksana. That girl was terrified. Still, she did admit to telling the Michelin Man about me. Was he the one who'd ransacked my place? And she'd told him about Lucy. I'd called all of Lucy's numbers a dozen times since her first text message. Where the hell was she?
According to Winters, Lucy wasn't considered one of the missing. If you're over the age of eighteen in the state of Connecticut and there doesn't appear to be any evidence of foul play, you're just gone.
"So how long does she have to be gone before she's missing?"
"You're not listening. It's not a time thing. No evidence of a crime, no missing person."
"So, poof, someone's gone, just like that?" I asked.
"Just like that."
Twenty-three
I didn't have so many friends that I could afford to have even one of them go poof. Since I'd moved to the 'burbs I'd discovered who my real friends were. The party crowd in New York, the business acquaintances I'd kept on speed dial because they owed me a favor—those guys were gone. Lucy was the only one from my past who was more than the occasional drinks, e-mail, or Christmas card friend.
I had a hard time believing what Detective Winters had told me about missing persons in Connecticut. I preferred to think she was just a bitch on wheels with some as-yet-unknown agenda so I grabbed a Diet Coke from the minibar, powered up my laptop, and went online to do my own research. I soon learned everything Winters had told me was true.
There were more than one hundred thousand missing persons in the United States, seven hundred in Connecticut alone. And if you weren't a child under the age of eighteen, or a senior, you could very easily just go poof. One poor woman in Connecticut was still so heartsick over her son's disappearance that she'd been paying for a billboard with his picture on it for eight years.
Without evidence of a crime there was no state or local law addressing missing adults, only children or at-risk adults with diminished mental capacity or health problems. I didn't think I could sell Lucy as diminished capacity, and her only health issues were that she'd now missed three krav maga workouts and pretty soon her roots would start showing.
In this neck of the woods, you had a better chance of getting a stolen car found than a healthy thirty-four-year-old woman.
Wait a minute, that could work.
In New York City a stolen car wouldn't get much of a rise out of the police, but in Connecticut it was tantamount to stealing someone's horse in the Old West. If Lucy's car was found at a ski resort in Vermont, I would simply drive there and brain her for making me go through all of this. If it wasn't, well, I'd deal with that if it happened.
Lucy shared an assistant with another producer. The few times I'd spoken with the girl she sounded like any one of the overworked twenty somethings I remembered from my former career—in the office by eight A.M., at her desk until eight or nine P.M., and on call 24/7 waiting for her first credit, her first break. Smart, ambitious kids who would gleefully step over their boss's broken and bleeding body if it meant they'd be included in a programming meeting or get sent to the Sundance festival. I called Lucy's office again.
As she was taught, the assistant picked up after three rings. I chose my words carefully. Lucy had asked me to call, she'd misplaced the keys to her rental car. Did the assistant have an 800 number for the rental car company? All the best lies are short and sweet. Once you start explaining too much you get into trouble. There'd be no long-winded explanation of how that wacky Lucy had lost the keys juggling a champagne bottle and her BagBorroworSteal purse in the hot-air balloon she'd taken off in with a handsome Aust
ralian pilot. Keep the lie short and sweet.
"It's 1-800-YO-DRIVE." Click. That was easy. Since I could no longer further her career, the assistant didn't feel the need to chat with me any longer than absolutely necessary.
YoDrive was a small private company near Lucy's office that extended special long-term rates to KCPS staffers. I'd used them myself back in the day. The next lie might be harder since a diligent employee could justifiably be worried about the company's property and ask questions I didn't want to answer.
I needn't have worried. Remembering what a tiny office it was I intentionally waited until lunchtime to call, in the hopes that whoever answered the phone would be distracted—either by his takeout order arriving or because he was shorthanded at the desk. I was right.
The lying was coming easier now; I guess some skill sets you never lose. This time I was calling from a sister station in Massachusetts. I needed Lucy's vehicle info and license plate number to make sure that she didn't get towed when she arrived tomorrow and parked in our small visitors lot. It was weak, but I delivered my lines with just the right touch of boredom to suggest that I really was who I said I was. Never underestimate the ability of a disinterested employee to give you information.
Lucy was driving a white 2007 Subaru standard SUV with Rhode Island plates, 475 LMP. I'd simply report the car stolen. That way the police would have to look for her. Or at least her car.
I called it in to the local police telling them the last time I saw it it was at the Titans Hotel. I gave them my cell phone as a contact number. It was all I could do at the moment. The moment being one where I'd had three hours of sleep and finally started to feel it.
After a shower and some zzz's, I'd try to see Bernie Mishkin again. Some of what Oksana had told me made me think that his investment opportunity was at the heart of a number of mysteries at Titans, and maybe even Lucy's unexplained absence.
I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and peeled off my clothes. Hands on sink, I stood there with the steam filling up the room, inspecting my face in the mirror. I looked worse than I thought I would.
After thirty they say sleep and sex are the best beauty secrets, and I wasn't getting much of either. Having a seasonal business or job always sounds good to those people who don't have one. They only think of the time off, not the time spent planning, the financial crunch, and the plain uncertainty of things you can't control, like pests and the weather. I was getting a taste of what farmers must go through, and it was keeping me up at nights.
Lucy had been trying to nudge me back into the television business for the past year until, as she put it, I "got this thing out of my system." But I had a five-year plan for Dirty Business. If I was still treading water in five years I'd give it up and go back to TV.
"Dream on," Lucy had said. "I can hold your seat at the table for a while, but this next generation is carnivorous. I can't stand still for a minute without half a dozen assistants breathing down my neck."
That was the attitude that made me still cling to the possibility she was chasing down a story. But it was the likelier possibility that she wasn't that was giving me the worried, haggard look I saw in the mirror. I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth. Mercifully the steam began to obscure my reflection. Just then I felt someone's presence outside, in my room.
I covered up with a towel and quietly closed the bathroom door, pressing my ear against the door, straining to hear who it might be. With the shower on and the door closed I couldn't hear a thing so I pushed the button on the doorknob and held the door with my left foot, against the intruder I was sure was just about to burst in. I reached out with my right arm and stretched to turn off the shower. Of course the towel fell. My reflection in the cloudy mirror showed a woman practicing yoga for spastics—sun salutation meets pratfall.
With the water turned off I definitely heard someone outside. There was nothing in the bathroom I could use to protect myself but I remembered that the lamp I'd knocked over the night before was just a few feet from the bathroom door. If necessary, it was thin enough and light enough for me to yank out of the wall and use as a club. As long as the intruder didn't have a gun. If he had a gun the lamp probably wouldn't work, but I had to think positive. I picked up the towel, unlocked the door, and cracked it open an inch. I heard something snapping. I opened the door another inch.
Twenty-four
With her iPod on, the housekeeper hadn't heard a thing. She'd been shaking out the bedspread I'd yanked off the bed and when she let out her scream, it flew back over her head, temporarily blinding her. I stood there naked, dripping wet, with a lamp in my right hand, ready to bludgeon a short Guatemalan woman struggling to remove a coverlet from her head. It was absurd. She was more frightened than I was.
I covered myself with a towel and we both apologized profusely. At least I think she was apologizing; half of it was in Spanish and, as noted, my Spanish still sucks. She was happy to be shuttled out of the room and promised to come back later, although I wouldn't have blamed her it she didn't. I scooped a handful of chocolates from her cart and put the privacy sign on the door handle. Then I threw the long bolt just to make sure I didn't have another Janet Leigh/Psycho moment in the shower.
Replaying the last sixteen hours, it seemed insane that I would tear ass back to the hotel to save Lucy from . . . what? Worse than death? She hadn't texted or e-mailed Help, thank god, so what was I worried about? Maybe the break-in at my home had shaken me up more than I realized.
I dressed and went downstairs to the lobby, starting to feel like I lived there—a pretty depressing thought.
Hector was cruising the bar, keeping a watchful eye on three seniors in pastel track suits; it was a toss-up who would win if they had to go mano a mano. Amanda was hauling her gear into the corpse flower's enclosure. When she saw me she gave me a thumbs-up and sprinted over to tell me she was ninety percent sure tomorrow was the big day. I was hoping she'd be right. I cared less about the flower appearing than I did about Lucy appearing but with any luck, both would happen.
Hector joined us by the corpse flower.
"I thought you left," he said, folding his chubby hands in front of himself, eyeing Amanda and rocking back and forth.
"I came back. Is that unprecedented at Titans?"
He shook his head and wagged his finger at me. "I told you, this place is going to be happening." Amanda went back to her work and Hector stuck around to watch her climb the ladder in her snug Juicy sweatpants. He tilted his head to the right to get a better view.
"I didn't know you were such a plant lover," I said.
"Pretty little flower like that, you bet your ass. Oh, excuse me, mamí." I wondered if Hector had ever heard the term jailbait.
"Why are you so sure that Titans is going to be such a happening place this time? Bernie's had investors before, right?"
"Not like this." As he said it, he raised his chin slightly and motioned to a woman pushing through the revolving doors. She and I briefly made eye contact; I thought I recognized her.
"Who's that?"
"That's the Queen Mother," he said. I didn't get the reference.
"Shows what you know. That's Jackie Connelly, she's the grandmother of Sean Crawford."
"Very nice, is there more to it than she gets to go cootchy-coo and babysit? Wait a minute, Crawford?"
Sean Crawford was the only child of Jackie's daughter, Chantel, and the late Bobby Crawford, one of the three brothers. At the time of his death Bobby was tribal chief of the Quepochas. And his son and his widow were the only two people still officially living on the reservation.
"How can that be? Aren't there a lot of them? I mean, if they're lobbying for recognition?"
Once again, Hector was astounded by my ignorance. Amanda was gone and without her tiny butt on display alongside the corpse flower it no longer held any interest for him, so we walked to the raised lounge area near the bar. According to Hector the Quepochas had split into two factions—those suppor
ting the Crawfords and the others aligning themselves with another family. The Crawford ranks were dwindling.
"Oksana told me the other Crawford brothers aren't allowed here anymore."
"They're not allowed on the reservation any longer either."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "Hey, they had their turn, now it's someone else's chance to be in charge. Like the Democrats and the Republicans." I was beginning to appreciate Hector's simplified view of the world.
"They can't come here because the Mishkins got a restraining order against them. Crawfords are anti-gaming. They think if Bernie gets this loan . . ." He didn't need to finish. If Bernie got the loan he could pay off his debts and still fund the Quepochas' recognition suit. Presumably if the suit was successful and Congress officially recognized the tribe Bernie and the Crawfords would profit.
"Wouldn't they stand to make a lot of money if it happened?"
"I know," he said. "They're some crazy dudes." It was inconceivable to him that anyone would not be motivated by money. And, in truth, the amount of money being made by casinos in Connecticut was astronomical. Mother Teresa would have had a hard time turning it down.
"How crazy?" I thought of what Oksana had said about the brothers being seen at the hotel the night Lucy was to arrive.
"Crazy enough to set fire to a covered wagon on Titans property as a protest against what they called the exploitation of the tribe. They make enemies everywhere. I say live and let live, bro, you know what I mean? You know what else those crazy mo'fos did, oh, excuse me. They kidnapped a lawyer, to get her to take their case against their own tribe."
"They couldn't just call him?"
"It was a her. She was just as loco as them—she took the case. I think they call that Stockholm syndrome, or some shit like that."
I told Hector what Oksana had said about their being at the hotel, but he shook his head. "They know better than to come here when I'm around." He puffed out his chest.
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