The Deep Dark Descending

by Eskens,Allen

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m . . . just a coworker. I’ll try back later.”

  I turned around, folding my coat over my holster as I stepped off the porch and headed back to my car, muttering curses under my breath. I would wait until Whitton came home. I could be patient. Strategy, not reaction. Intellect, not emotion. That’s what I told myself, but that didn’t stop me from slamming my fists into the steering wheel as soon as I closed the car door. I thought about leaving, driving around the block. The woman might have been watching me from a window, calling Whitton and screwing up my plans.

  I was about to start the car to move to a different vantage point when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked at the screen and saw it was Niki. I gave serious thought to not answering. How many ways can I tell her to give up on me? Leave me to my blindfold and my ledge. She was my last tether and she refused to let it be a simple cleave.

  “Rupert,” I answered.

  “Oh, is that how it is now—Detective?” No sarcasm. Hurt.

  “Yes, that’s how it is.”

  “Well, I called because I thought you might want to know Zoya’s last name.”

  “You know her last name?” I heard a note of excitement in my voice that I didn’t mean to put there.

  “Yes. It’s Savvin.”

  I returned to my flat tone. “I appreciate it. How’d you find it?”

  “I looked on Interpol and other databases for missing persons and had no luck. Then I typed in the name Zoya and Lida, the city you thought she might be from. I found a local website for missing Belarussians. There’s not much on her. It says she and her sister left Belarus to take jobs in Canada. They disappeared from Toronto. I’ll email you the link.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I stopped talking and let the silence drag on.

  “Max . . . are you okay?”

  “I got to go.” I ended the call without saying goodbye.

  I turned my attention back to the house. Nothing had changed, and I decided not to move my car. I checked my watch. Five-thirty. Any minute now.

  My phone chirped to let me know that Niki’s email came through. I opened email app. Might as well kill some time reading.

  I scrolled past rows of Russian letters and words that meant nothing to me—of course it would be written in Russian—until I came to Zoya’s picture. There was no question it was her, a little younger than the autopsy photos, and much more beautiful. A high school class picture maybe. She smiled a mischievous smile, the smile of a girl with plans, the smile of a girl who couldn’t fathom a path that would lead to a frozen dumpster in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  I shook my head and scrolled down looking for more pictures of Zoya. Soon, another picture entered my screen, a face I recognized, but not Zoya. This was a different girl—a girl with luminous blue eyes. I had seen those eyes before. They were the eyes that had greeted me just now when I knocked on Reece Whitton’s door.

  I tried to understand the connection as I looked back and forth between the picture and the house, summoning my memory from only a few minutes ago. It had to be the same person—a little older now and packaged as a woman—but the same person. Who was this woman and what was she doing in Reece Whitton’s house?

  I toggled to a pop-up at the bottom of the screen that offered to translate the page for me. I hit it and looked at the name under the picture. Anastasia Savvin, the sister of Zoya Savvin. The woman in Reece Whitton’s house was Jane Doe’s sister.

  I grabbed Zoya’s file from my case, stepped out of my car, and walked at a brisk pace back to Whitton’s front door. Fragments of understanding floated around me, always in my periphery like fireflies. I wanted answers. She would give me those answers.

  The door opened, and this time I held up my badge. “I’m Detective Max Rupert. I need to talk to you,”

  She didn’t smile or ask me in, so I stepped past her.

  Her eyes lit with fear. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to talk to you about your sister, Zoya.”

  Fear turned to confusion. “My sister? I don’t understand.”

  “You are Anastasia Savvin, aren’t you?”

  “I am married now. But I was born Anastasia Savvin, yes.”

  “Sister to Zoya Savvin?”

  “How do you know my sister?”

  “I’m investigating her death. I—”

  “You are wrong,” Anastasia hissed. “You are a liar. Why do you say this to me?” She looked like she was searching my face for proof of my deception. “My sister is not dead. She is home in Lida.”

  Now it was my turn to search her face for deception. I saw none. This was not going the way I expected it to go. I opened my folder and pulled out the crime scene photos of Zoya Savvin. I hesitated before handing them to her.

  Her reaction started with a slight quiver in her lip. She looked at me as if I might tell her that it was a mistake, that it wasn’t her little sister lying pale in that dumpster. Her hands began to shake as she looked again at the picture. Tears flooded her eyes and the name “Zoya” escaped from her lips.

  She dropped to her knees, her knuckles white as she gripped the picture with all of her strength. “Zoya!” This time it was a howl that filled the house. She collapsed inward, her stomach heaving her words out. “No! No! Zoya, No!” She rocked back and forth on her hands and knees, the picture in a crumpled wreck on the floor. Her breath hammered out of her chest as she wailed in Russian, spitting out words that announced her pain with no need for translation.

  I wanted to put an arm around her, comfort her, but I was afraid that any such movement might result in a fight. She was a wounded animal ready to lash out to ease her pain. Then she stopped rocking. Her breath calmed and she looked up at me with such hatred that I froze.

  “Get out,” she snarled.

  “I have some questions I need to—”

  “I said get out!” She stood and grabbed a lamp off of a nearby sofa table.

  I opened my mouth to speak and she launched the lamp at my head.

  I raised my arm and took the blow in the forearm. Before I could counter, she had a vase and sent it flying.

  “Get out of my house!” she screamed.

  I turned to the door as the vase hit me in the back. “Get out!” Her yowling sounded more like a wounded cat than a human. I made it to the door just as a candle stand crashed into the wall beside me. The door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the deadbolt click. And then from deeper in the house I heard the animal wail again.

  Chapter 28: Up North

  Chapter 28

  Up North

  I plod back toward my little nest in the snow with the gait of a starving refugee. The bundle of rocks, slung over my shoulder, pulls at my arms and wrists and fingers. Twice it slips from my grip and falls behind my heels. With each step I am bludgeoned with thoughts and voices, memories that cut through the fog of time. I start counting my steps out loud, losing track before I get out of double digits. When the bundle falls for a third time, I grip the edge of the snowmobile cover behind my back and drag it through the snow.

  Why are you doing this?

  Nancy’s voice has a way of parting all of other thoughts and demanding attention. I still have a long way to go before I’m back at the nest, so I answer.

  “Something has to be done to restore balance to the world.”

  You’re restoring balance to the world? And how will killing this man do that?

  “His death will be justice.”

  Justice? Or vengeance?

  “He has to pay a price for what he did.”

  “And you are the one to determine that price?

  “He robbed me of my wife—my child. I think I have that right.”

  Did Mr. Yager have that right?

  I shake my head as the memory comes rushing in—as if I could wave it away that easily. I can still remember the drop of sweat that glistened on Mr. Yager’s upper lip as I told him that Kristen, his fifteen-year-old daughter
, was dead. A tow-truck driver found the girl’s body in the trunk of an abandoned car. It was a hot day, the temperature touching one-hundred degrees, sweltering for Minnesota. When I told him that she was found in the trunk of a car owned by a man named Victor Nacio, I could see the recognition in his eyes, even as he told me that the name meant nothing to him.

  I offered Mr. Yager my condolences and left, driving my car around the block to wait. Two minutes later, Yager came out of his house with a paper bag in his hand, a bag that swung as if it held something heavy—a gun, maybe. I followed him to a flophouse in North Minneapolis. When Yager stepped out of his car, carrying the bag, I debated whether I should stop him. I actually gave voice to the thought of letting his vigilantism be the last word on the death of his daughter. No courts. No judges. No plea bargains.

  Yager walked up to the house and peeked into one of the windows. When he put his hand into the paper bag, I ran up and stopped him. I expected a fight, but Yager began crying instead. He fell to his knees, handing me the sack with the gun inside. He kept uttering the words, “He killed my baby. He killed my little girl.”

  “We’ll get justice for Kristen,” I told him. “That’s our job, not yours. I promise, we’ll convict Nacio and he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  I found Victor Nacio inside the flophouse, passed out on a couch. When I put him in handcuffs, he wouldn’t shut up. He kept asking why he was being arrested. After I told him that I was taking him in for questioning regarding the death of Kristen Yager, he stopped talking all together.

  But Nacio never went to prison because Victor Nacio didn’t kill Kristen Yager. Rich Molitor, a man who was letting Nacio crash at his house, killed the girl. Molitor had slipped a few clonazepam into the wine that Nacio and Kristen shared that night. Victor Nacio slept in the bowels of a drug-induced blackout while his girlfriend was raped and murdered and stuffed into the trunk of his car.

  Victor Nacio was an innocent man.

  “I’m not Yager.”

  You don’t make mistakes?

  “I didn’t make one here. I’ve come too far. I’m too close. I have to make it right.”

  You sound like your father.

  “I’m not my father.”

  No, you’re not, are you?

  And just like that I’m back in fifth grade, crossing the playground to punch Hank Bellows in the nose. I was almost to him when I heard Nancy’s words in my head; “you’re the one who has to live with what you do.” Her voice stopped me in my tracks, and Hank went home from school that day oblivious to how close he came to getting his nose broken.

  I put the bundle of rocks down and crouched to catch my breath.

  “There’s got to be a reckoning,” I say. “There’s a great many things I can live with, but I cannot live with is the thought of this piece of shit seeing another sunrise. I cannot live with the notion that men like him can murder and maim without repercussion.”

  And what if you’re wrong?

  “I’m not wrong.” I pick up my bundle of rocks again. “He’ll confess. I’ll make him tell me that he killed Jenni.”

  My forearms are burning to the point that my grip fails and I sit in the snow to rest. Up ahead, I can see the shadow of the nest, but I can’t see the man. He must be lying deep in the snow and out of sight. I’m still far enough away that he can’t hear me, but I’m getting too close to keep talking to myself like this.

  He wants a chance to defend himself.

  I stand up and drag the bundle of rocks to where the auger lay. The wind is notching up, biting where my cheeks and neck are exposed. My left foot is starting to throb from the cold.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll give him a trial. He’ll lie to me and try to convince me that I’m wrong, but I’ll give him his trial.”

  I wait for Nancy to answer back, maybe applaud my magnanimity or chide me for some unseen flaw in my offer. I wait, but I hear nothing other than the wind. She is gone from my head, and I can tell that she is gone for good. Her absence leaves me with an odd sense of loneliness, even though I know that she was never there to begin with.

  Chapter 29: Minneapolis—Yesterday

  Chapter 29

  Minneapolis—Yesterday

  “God dammit!” I pounded my fists against the steering wheel. This was not how it was supposed to go. All I managed to do was kick a pile of leaves and scare off my prey. I got nothing out of Anastasia, except bruises. She didn’t know her sister was dead. No one can fake that kind of pain. I know. I’ve been there. The picture knotted her up inside, dropping her to her knees. That was genuine.

  I sat in my unmarked squad car trying to decide what to do next. I could wait here for Whitton to come home, or I could . . . I don’t know. If Anastasia told Whitton about my visit, what would he do? I never mentioned Jenni. For all Anastasia knew, I was simply looking into Zoya’s death. I had every right to question Whittton’s wife about the death of her sister. Hell, maybe I should barge back in there and demand that she talk to me. I should treat her like any other witness—or suspect.

  As I narrowed my options down, settling on a plan to get back inside, a light came on in the garage. After a minute, the garage door rose up, and the brake lights of a vehicle shown out of the bay. Then reverse lights. The vehicle backed out of the driveway and headed up the street. I followed. The first few snowflakes of the evening sparkled in front of my headlights. I turned on the radio to an AM station, hoping to catch a weather report.

  Anastasia drove her car fast, barely slowing for stop signs, pulling out in front of other cars. I considered the possibility that she was trying to shake me, but at one stoplight where she was forced to halt, I made it in behind her and she never looked in her rear-view mirror. Her erratic driving had nothing to do with shaking a tail.

  As I followed Anastasia into the city, I caught a weather report saying that they were increasing their snow-fall estimation from six inches to eight—even more up north. Anastasia made her way to Hennepin Avenue and into the heart of the city’s entertainment district. She pulled into a parking lot across the street from a block of bars and shops and one upscale strip club called the Caviar Gentlemen’s Club.

  I pulled into a tow-away zone near the front of the club and parked. With the snow coming and the cold wind picking up, patrol officers would be too busy with car accidents to pay attention to red zones tonight.

  From my vantage point I could see Anastasia getting out of her car. She wore a thick down coat and carried a purse big enough to be a gym bag. She walked with a determined stride, crossing the street less than twenty feet in front of me. She never looked my way. As she neared the entrance to the strip club, she eased a hand into the purse. Whatever she had been reaching for, she found immediately and she rested her hand in the bag as she opened the door to the club with her other hand.

  I didn’t like the look of it. I jumped out of my car, pulling my badge from my belt, and scurried the few feet to the door.

  I had never been inside that club before. The guy at the door didn’t ask for an ID; he barely looked at me. He was still watching Anastasia, who walked through the place like she owned it.

  I stood in the doorway waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room. A single stage jutted out into the audience with a pole in the middle of the runway. A young woman in a red thong, and nothing else, swung lazily around the pole to Wild Thing by The Troggs. Five or six men lined sniffer’s row with beers at their elbows and dollar bills in their fingers. Tables littered a hardwood floor between the stage and the bar, and four other girls in skimpy, tight-fitting attire roamed between those tables offering lap dances and other forms of companionship.

  At the far end of the room, a staircase with a wrought iron rail led up to a balcony with what appeared to be private rooms or maybe offices. Anastasia had made it halfway to that staircase before a man from behind the bar scuttled out to intercept her. He stepped in front of her and was shaking his head. They argued. Anastasia still had her h
and in her bag, nodding toward the upstairs offices. And the man shook his head with more vigor, not noticing the implicit danger of whatever might be in that bag.

  I started making my way to Anastasia, brushing past a woman asking me to buy her a drink. I couldn’t hear the argument, but I could see anger animated on the faces of both Anastasia and the bartender.

  In a dark corner, near the bottom of the steps, I saw a man sit up and take notice of the disturbance. It was Whitton. He had a near-naked girl on his lap, and he held her by the arms as she continued to grind. He said something to the girl and she stopped her act.

  That’s when Anastasia pulled her hand out of the purse, a small automatic pistol in her grip. Now the bartender understood the gravity of the situation. He grabbed the gun and pushed her hand up toward the ceiling. The gun fired.

  The girl on stage screamed and dropped to the floor. Whitton threw the girl from his lap and stood up, but made no further move to advance. I ran to Anastasia, getting there just as the bartender pulled the gun from her hand. I shoved my badge in his face. “Minneapolis PD!” I yelled. “I got this.”

  The bartender took a step back, more confused than compliant. I grabbed Anastasia by the arm and yanked her toward the door. Whitton took a step in our direction but stalled there, a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

  As I got Anastasia to the door, I saw a man upstairs step out from an office and onto the balcony. He was early-forties, dark hair, and well dressed, with a thin beard. I suspected that he might be the owner of the club, and he too looked on with confusion as I pulled Anastasia out into the night air.

  “What are you doing?” Anastasia screamed. “Let me go!”

  I dragged her to my car, opened the door, and threw her in. “Stay!” I shouted, pointing my finger at her as if to suggest that I meant business. She nodded her capitulation. Closing the door, I ran to the driver’s side and jumped in. As I pulled away, I could see, in my rear view mirror, both the bouncer and the bartender step out, followed by Whitton.

  I headed for my house, a ten minute drive from downtown. I didn’t know where else to take her. I needed to talk to Anastasia and if kidnapping was my only option, then so be it. She faced away from me, her forehead resting against the passenger window. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but stopped when I heard the sound of her crying. I expected her to lash out at me, or attack me, or maybe even to realize her plight and leap from the car. I didn’t expect crying. I held off saying anything until her sobbing had run its course. By that time, we were nearly to my house, and it was Anastasia who spoke first.