by D. A. Keeley
They huddled at the top of the ridge.
Hewitt examined the guitar case. “Foam cutouts are certainly shaped for guns. Whoever was here went tree to tree until they reached the house.”
“Looks like they went in the front door,” Peyton said and handed the binoculars to Hammond. The sun was dropping, and a late-winter breeze was kicking up.
“Maybe someone got wind of the sale,” Hammond said, “and wanted to get the painting before it went underground again.”
“Can you see any movement inside the house?” Hewitt asked.
“No,” Hammond said. “We need to be closer.”
4:17 p.m., Paradise Court
For the first time, Michael was really scared.
The guy had simply appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a shotgun. And when Uncle Ted stood, the guy with the Santa Claus beard just knocked him down—one punch, while keeping the gun leveled on the room. He’d taken the pretty woman’s purse and pulled a small handgun from it. Then he sat them in a semicircle in the living room: Dariya and Ted on the sofa, Michael and the woman like bookends in leather chairs.
Michael didn’t know who the man was or what he was saying in Russian. But he sensed the tension among the adults, and he could feel sweat on his brow.
“Where’s Pyotr?” Nicolay asked Marfa and glanced over his shoulder, guarding against an ambush.
“With my father, if what you say is true, and since you’re here I assume it is.”
Ted rubbed his jaw. “What’s going on, Sonya?”
The big man shook his head. “Sonya?” he said in English. Then to Marfa in Russian: “They don’t even know your name.”
“What’s going on?” Dariya said.
“What is going on, Nicolay?” Marfa asked.
“You know why I’m here.”
“The money?”
“First, the money, yes. You’re going to transfer what is owed to me.”
“And then?”
“Then I go. And you do whatever you were going to do to these poor …” He searched for a word, couldn’t find it, settled for a headshake. “Sonya?” he said again. “That’s what the gun in your purse was for, wasn’t it?” He turned to Ted and spoke in English again: “She’s killed two already—her father and husband. You’re next.”
“No,” Ted said, eyes on Marfa.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Pyotr and now these three? And a boy?” He shook his head in disgust. “A boy? You didn’t get that from your father.”
They were speaking English now, and Michael started to cry.
“No?” Marfa said. “My father never killed anyone? If that’s true, we both know who did it all for him.”
“You’re wrong about all of it.”
“And you’re a liar.”
“No time for this. Where’s your computer?”
“I don’t have it, Nicolay. I didn’t bring it.”
“It’s on the table over there. I see the red sticker on the front. That’s yours. I’m going to bring it to you, and you’re going to transfer the money. I have someone watching my account. When he gives me the signal, I leave.” He walked backward slowly, the shotgun still leveled at the room. Michael saw the big man glance at the window and do a double take.
“Nyet! Nyet!” Nicolay said.
“What’s going on?” Ted shouted.
Nicolay ignored him. “I came for two things,” he said to Marfa. “One is lost now.”
“What?” she asked. “Who is out there?”
Michael could see the rage in the big man’s eyes as he took three steps into the center of the room.
“I might lose out, but your father won’t,” he said and pointed the 12-gauge at the pretty woman.
Michael saw the realization on the woman’s face, watched as she desperately pressed herself up and backward, as if trying to scamper over the back of the leather chair.
“Nyet,” the man said for a third time, this time softly as he shrugged and pulled the trigger.
4:20 p.m., Paradise Court
Peyton heard the blast and sprinted. Hewitt paused to call for backup. Hammond went to the right. Ramirez went straight at the house and reached it first. He went up the front stairs and kicked the door in. A shotgun’s blast reverberated, and Peyton saw Ramirez leap to the side of the door and off the stairs.
“Motherfucker!” Ramirez shouted.
“Are you hit?” It was Hammond’s voice in Peyton’s earpiece.
“No, I’m fucking pissed!”
“Assess the situation, Ramirez,” Hammond said. “Stand down and assess.”
Peyton kept running, circling to the rear of the house. The basement door was open. She entered and went to the stairwell. She reached for the wall switch and killed the stairwell light. She crouched as she started up the stairs, the 12-gauge leveled in front of her. It was a pump-action. She wished she had a semiautomatic.
“I see someone in the window!” It was Ramirez’s voice. “I’m taking the shot!”
“How many guns are there?” Hewitt said. “Do you have a visual?”
“I see someone,” Ramirez said. “I’m taking the shot.”
“Assess the situation, Ramirez!” Hammond said.
Peyton heard breaking glass and a shotgun’s boom, then a scream from inside the house. She thought the voice was Ted Donovan’s.
“Hold your fire unless fired upon!” Hewitt said.
Peyton was halfway up the stairs when the door flew open. Nicolay Fyodorov took two steps, his head down to see where he was going in the dark, the shotgun at his side. He looked up and froze.
“Drop it!” Peyton yelled, her 12-gauge leveled at his chest.
“I lose,” he said quietly.
“Drop it!” she yelled again.
“No prison for me.” He smiled and raised his shotgun.
She pulled the trigger.
In the confined area, the blast shook the house as if struck by a car. Nicolay ran backward before landing on his back at the top of the steps. His shotgun clattered down the stairs, landing on the basement floor.
Peyton took three more steps toward the open door.
“Freeze!” The voice was Sally Hann’s. “I said, Freeze!”
A second figure appeared in the doorway.
Peyton pointed the shotgun at the figure. Ted Donovan stopped short.
Dariya peered over Ted’s shoulder. “Run!” he said and shoved Ted. Then he saw Peyton and turned back.
“On your knees!” Hann said. “There’s nowhere to go and too much bloodshed already. Get down!”
Peyton watched Dariya crouch. At the top of the stairs, she looked around the room. The woman in the photo Hewitt had shown her was no longer recognizable. Part of her face was missing; there was blood and brain matter on the wall behind the leather chair. Dariya was on his hands and knees, vomiting, and speaking rapidly in Russian.
“He’s saying something about a sick wife, about using his son.” Hann pulled him onto his knees and cuffed him. “He says he wants to die.”
Across the room, Hammond was talking to Steven Ramirez near an overturned loveseat beneath a broken window. Hammond was whispering but waving his hands. Ramirez’s face was red. Peyton saw Adidas sneakers and blue jeans protruding from behind the loveseat.
“Who’s that?” she asked and moved closer.
“Is he …?” Ted said. He forgot he was supposed to kneel. He stood and moved closer to his nephew. “Is he dead?”
As Ted shuffled toward the overturned loveseat, Hewitt was next to him all the time, his. 40 drawn, an arm on his forearm.
Ted got to the loveseat, peered around it, and immediately vomited.
“He was just trying to jump out the window!” Ted shrieked. “You fucking killed
him! He had no gun! Now he’s gone!”
Peyton heard Ramirez say, “The window broke, and he started out. I thought he was going to shoot. It was a good shooting.”
“He never cleared the window,” Peyton said. “Mike asked for your visual.”
“It was a good shooting,” Ramirez said again.
Hammond looked at Ted. “Where’s the artwork?”
“We don’t have it. Michael took it. We don’t know where.”
“There is no weapon near him,” Peyton said. “The boy was unarmed.”
Ramirez looked at Hammond. “It was a good fucking shooting, right Frank?”
Peyton looked from Hewitt to Hammond. They locked eyes. Then she walked outside.
9:30 p.m., Garrett Station
This time only Hewitt, Hammond, Hann, and Peyton were at the break room table. Steven Ramirez was meeting with state police officials, including Stone, to discuss the shooting of Michael Donovan.
“So what are we left with?” Hewitt asked.
The whiteboard had changed. “Dariya” and “Ted” had lines through them. “Michael,” “Marfa,” and “Nicolay” each had the letter D next to their names.
“Those two”—Hammond pointed at the names Ted and Dariya on the board—“are facing federal charges, and everyone else is dead.”
“Nicolay wanted to die,” Peyton said. Her interview with state police officials had lasted thirty minutes. “I’ve never been forced to …” She couldn’t find the words.
“Help someone kill themselves?” Hewitt finished her sentence.
“Yes,” she said. “He said he wasn’t going to prison. And then he smiled.”
Hammond shook his head. “There are no winners here.”
“Is Ramirez coming back?” Hann asked.
“He might be facing a murder charge,” Hammond said.
“Everybody loses,” Peyton said, “and we don’t have the painting to show for it.”
Hammond nodded. “We don’t have any of the missing pieces.” He was drinking Diet Pepsi. “The Gardner Museum called for an update. Both Ted and Dariya say the same thing: Michael took one painting and hid it. They don’t know where. And I had to tell the museum the other works might be lost.”
“Ted told me that same story in the truck on the way here,” Peyton said. “I believe him.”
“If he had the painting,” Hewitt said, “now would be the time for him to use it.”
“These guys don’t have it,” Hammond said.
Sally Hann rubbed her eyes. Then she pointed to the board. “So three people are dead and two others are going away for a long time. And the painting stays lost, after coming this close? We’ve spent twenty-five years looking and it stays lost?”
“Maybe that’s its destiny,” Hewitt said. “Maybe it’s just fate.”
Peyton didn’t say anything.
“Why would Michael take it from the uncle?” Hewitt said.
“No one knows, but it’s part of some tough conversations I’m having with the boy’s parents,” said Hammond.
“Dear God,” Peyton said. “I can only imagine. Who broke the news to them about their son?”
“Stone,” Hewitt said.
“That’s shitty,” she said.
“The worst part of being a state cop.”
“What happens to Aleksei,” Peyton asked, “if his father is in prison?”
“Dariya’s son?” Hammond shook his head. “That’s way beyond my pay grade.”
“I think Bill Hillsdale will be very involved in that decision,” Hewitt said.
“The kids were pawns in all this,” Peyton said. “One is planted here by his father, that father goes to prison, and now the boy probably gets sent home to care for his ill mother. And, for whatever reason, Michael tried to prevent the sale of the painting and ended up dead.”
The room fell silent.
“Nothing more is happening tonight,” Hammond said. “Go home, everyone. Get some rest.”
Hewitt was nodding.
“I can’t thank you all enough, especially you guys.” Hammond pointed at Peyton and Hewitt. “You sort of fell into this shit storm, and it produced two arrests and not much else.”
Peyton stood. At the door, she said, “Mike, can I ask a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
“I haven’t been much of a mother the past few days. Is anyone using the snowmobile tomorrow?”
thirteen
Saturday, March 15, near the Canadian border, 8 a.m.
She hadn’t slept well. She woke once from a dream about a ship in a storm. Aleksei and Michael were sleeping in the center of the ship as waves crashed over the sides. The men aboard the ship stood at the sides of the deck watching the waves. Now she was on the back of the Arctic Cat while Tommy drove them down the trail.
“Not too fast, Tommy,” she said, trying to sound relaxed.
He laughed.
The speedometer was bouncing near forty.
“Okay,” she said, “turn up here. Let’s head back toward town.”
Tourist season in Aroostook County, Maine, fell during the winter, when the region’s 2,300 miles of snowmobile trails were used. It wasn’t uncommon to find the parking lots at the Hampton Inn and the Reeds Inn and Convention Center full of out-of-state licence plates.
Tommy turned and passed a sign that read McCluskey’s Potato Processing. Snowmobile at your own risk. Kyle McCluskey, she thought, what a guy—use my land, but if you get hurt on it, I don’t want to know.
“Mom, can we stop?”
“Sure. You okay?”
“Too much hot chocolate,” he said.
“Find a straightaway,” she said, “and pull off the trail.”
He did. They were a mile or so from McCluskey’s Processing Plant.
“Never stop on the trail,” she said. “Too many people go too fast and can’t stop or turn.”
She’d seen enough accidents where someone traveling sixty miles an hour had hit something on a trail—a snowmobile or even a moose. The worst accident scene she’d been to had involved two snowmobiles colliding head-on.
“Pick a tree,” she said.
She watched him walk around in the snow, glad they had the day together. She couldn’t help but think about Davey Bolstridge—seven years older than Tommy and already at the end of his life. She’d interviewed hundreds, maybe even thousands of people over the years. But his interview would stay with her a long, long time.
“Someone might see me,” he said. “Can we walk deeper into the woods?”
“Okay, Mr. Modest. Follow me.”
“What’s that sound?” Tommy said.
It wasn’t a snowmobile; she knew that much. She knew where they were.
“Hold on,” she said, thinking of her conversation with Davey Bolstridge. “Wait a minute. Tommy, follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a hidden building out here. The generator was supposed to be off. And I just had a thought.”
“What do you mean?” Tommy struggled to walk through the snow. “What’s it hidden for? What’s in it?”
“Nothing that would interest you. But maybe something else.”
“What are you talking about?” Tommy said.
Peyton looked down at a large track that packed the snow. It looked like a toboggan track but was much wider. It stopped at the door of the shack.
“I think we just—” She didn’t finish her sentence.
She heard the generator running inside. Tommy walked to the back of the structure. She followed him.
“Privacy, Mom.”
“I changed your diapers.”
“That was a long time ago.”
She reached up and tugged the rope, releasing the front door.
“What’s that
?”
“Just do your business,” she said, and walked to the front door.
Inside, she saw the generator running and tracks on the plywood floor where someone had entered. She saw a chair with dried footprints on it. Then she spotted the dried tracks crossing the floor, and stopping at the edge of the ceiling loft. Someone had stood on the chair.
“Holy shit,” she said aloud.
“Mom, I heard that!”
“Sorry, Tommy.”
She pulled the chair to the edge of the loft, thinking about her visit to Davey Bolstridge’s house.
Is there any place he might go?
Not really, just the shack in the woods. But you know all about that.
“What are you doing on that chair?” Tommy asked. “What’s up there?”
“You’re not going to believe it,” she said and took out her cell phone to call Hewitt and Hammond.
epilogue
Thursday, June 19, 3:10 p.m., 12 Higgins Drive
Peyton was wearing shorts and a blouse and new sandals she’d ordered online.
“Tough day?” Stone said.
They were standing at the end of the driveway.
“Memorials are always bad,” she said.
Stone took her hand in his own. “They’re worse when it’s a kid. How were the Donovans?”
“I stood in the back. I don’t think they wanted to see me.”
“Ramirez goes to trial early next year.”
“He should. I spoke to Aleksei, though.”
“I thought he was going home,” Stone said.
“No, Bohana talked about adopting him. It’s in the works.”
“What about Aleksei’s mother?”
“We didn’t get that far,” Peyton said. “Maybe I can check in on him sometime.”
“I think Bohana will realize you had nothing to do with her son’s death.”
“You’re not a mother. I’d blame everyone and everything if I was in that situation.”
“I don’t think you would.”
“You’re not a mother,” she said again.
It was seventy-seven degrees. She was looking at the driveway. Sand and salt had been left from the winter. “One of us needs to sweep the sand off the driveway.”
“I specialize in back rubs,” Stone said, “not sweeping.”
