by Anne Hagan
“That kidnapped that poor baby? A couple of my earlier customers were talking about this. I tried to pull it up from the news channel site on my phone but the reception here is so lousy, it wouldn’t load.”
She studied the picture for several long seconds then shook her head. “It really could be Mel but I can’t swear to it. It was so dark. I didn’t get the best look at them before they knocked me out and I didn’t see their hair at all. I told you, they were both wearing hats...toboggans, as a matter of fact.”
Dana stared at the TV screen intently as she watched the 10:00 newscast from our bed while I watched her wondering what she was thinking. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Rolling on her side to face me, she said, “You’re not going to believe it when I tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
“That guy I’ve been working up a background on?”
“Yeah; what about him?”
She looked back at the screen again but shook her head as if to clear it as the news broadcast moved into the next story. “I can’t help but think that there’s a striking similarity between the guy I’m doing a background check on for Young, Roman Bakula, and this guy you’re looking for. I don’t know that it’s the same guy but, wow, the resemblance is striking.”
We got out of bed and moved into my den. I booted up my laptop then waited while she got into her email and pulled up details Rosita had sent her about her assignment.
She had a copy of his driver’s license. The photo didn’t render perfectly over email but, seeing it, I had to agree that he looked similar; not the same, but close enough that he could have been related.
“I admit, his features are a bit different and so is his hair and skin tone, if this drawing is accurate,” Dana said.
Joking with her in my first real release of tension all day, I said, “Every case you pick up from here on out isn’t going to be related to my cases, you know?”
Chapter 19 - Conniving
Dana
Friday morning February 20th
I was out the door and headed to Whitehall as soon as Mel left for work herself. Feeling guilty about leaving Boo alone all day, I took her and her favorite toy and blankie with me. I didn’t figure on having to do much out of the car .
Traffic was heavy for so early in the morning. I got to Whitehall in just enough time to see Roman Bakula leaving his townhouse for work. “Right on schedule,” I told Boo.
I followed him and waited in a store parking lot as he stopped to get gas at the station next door. Instead of paying at the pump, he went into the station. A few minutes later, he came back out with coffee, got back in his car and continued on to work.
We sat in the parking lot at Jov-Tech for about an hour after he went into the building. Other workers poured in, none of them paying us any mind. Hardly anyone came out. The work day had officially started.
I drove out of the office park and found a Wendy’s that served breakfast. After letting Boo relieve herself out behind their building, we got back in the car, got into the drive-thru lane and grabbed breakfast. Boo got excited when we pulled up to the window. She’d never been through a drive-thru before but somehow I think she knew people food was coming.
We ate slowly...well, I did. I knew it was going to be a long day of waiting but I had another mission planned to occupy some of our time.
After we finished and disposed of our mess, I pulled up Google maps on my phone and let the beautiful mechanical lady voice guide us to the Italian Village just north of downtown Columbus.
Finding the Victorian wasn’t hard. It was well cared for but it stood out a little in a neighborhood of mostly brick homes and former homes that now housed businesses like professional law offices.
We drove right past the Victorian. There was no signage out in front of it to indicate that it was any sort of business and no overt indication that the two and a half story structure with a basement as well was any sort of apartment building as I had originally suspected.
There were only two outside entrances visible; one off of a traditional front porch and another at the right side as I looked at it, off the driveway. There were no outside stairs leading up to the second floor or the half story attic floor above the second like would have been necessary for apartments.
As we slid by I noted a single car, a white sedan, parked at the back part of the driveway in front of a single car, detached garage.
To my surprise, since I hadn’t studied the map of the area very closely, at the end of the street was a little community park. I parked there, got out and beckoned to Boo. She was sated from sharing my breakfast and stretched out on her favorite blanket on the front seat so she was in no hurry to get up and go out into the cold again.
It took a little coaxing and the promise of a chewy treat but I finally got her out and her leash attached. We walked through the park and then up the street, past the Victorian.
It was just after 9:00 AM by the time we were passing in front of it and warming up a little but I didn’t see any activity at all in the house. Sure, there was a car in the driveway but, if anyone was home, they didn’t seem to be up and about.
Dejected, I took Boo around the block and back to the car. As I worked to get her settled back on her blanket with the promised chewy, I got an idea. First, I made sure she was wrapped a little and would be warm enough and then I took up her leash, exited the car with only it and locked her inside.
I worked my way back up the street to the house holding only the leash. As I neared the home, I started calling for Boo and swiveling my head like I was actually looking for her.
When I reached the home, I stood on the front sidewalk for a minute calling out, “Boo! Boo, come!” I scooted back and forth and even edged up the driveway as I acted like I was looking for my runaway dog.
No one came out of the house. Realizing that the only way I was going to find anything out about the place at all was to be a lot nosier, I went and rang the bell.
An immaculately dressed woman in a burgundy skirt suit with knee high white boots on and a white turtleneck sweater answered my ring with one word, “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you. I live just up the road and I was walking my dog. She saw a cat and she slipped her collar and took off. She darted into your back yard.”
“There are no cats here,” she responded with just the hint of an Eastern Bloc accent.
“I don’t know where it came from,” I told her as I snuck a peak over her shoulder as she leaned slightly out the storm door toward me.
The front entry opened into a rather large foyer type area that seemed to be set up as a waiting room. There was even a desk I could see just behind her that was neat and tidy but unoccupied.
“I just know she chased it that way.” I motioned as if to point behind the house. “Can I please go and look for her back there before she gets too far?”
“Suit yourself,” she said and then tugged the screen door closed with a click. I heard the main door close with the firmer sound of a thud as I made my way off the porch and down the driveway side of the home that I now knew was really the office space for some kind of a business or professional practice.
I pretended to go looking for Boo around behind the structure. While I was walking back there, I called out for my dog but I paid as much attention as I could to the windows and other entrances into the place. The windows on the right side had heavy drapes and, toward the back, the last window on that side had internal shutters on the lower half. There wasn’t much I could see.
At the very back, to the left was a screen door atop a set of three stone steps that came down from the house to a tiny, empty patio. That set of doors was all closed up but I imagined it led into a kitchen or mud room. Set off from that, almost perfectly centered at the back of the house was the covered stairway entrance to an old root cellar; the kind with two double doors that opened up and out. One door was just slightly offset from the other. It appeared that the last ti
me they’d been closed the wrong door had been pulled in first, leaving them slightly ajar.
Realizing I was staring that way, I turned to face out into the yard and called out, “Boo,” rather loudly while I contemplated whether I should try to gain entry that way. Now, after turning my attention away from the structure, I noticed that there was a board fence that started at the opposite corner of the back of the house, turned quickly at the property line to run along the side of the back yard and then turned inward again to run along the back where it ended at the back left corner of the garage. There was a gate at the very back near the garage that I presumed led to an alley.
The fence appeared to be more for privacy than containment since it didn’t encircle the yard but I could see no evidence that anyone ever spent time out there other than to do a little maintenance. It was still winter but it was obvious the few trees and shrubs around were tended to and the grass had been mowed to a reasonable length sometime in the late fall, before the snow started to fly.
I began to move in the direction of the gate and called Boo again when a sound behind me caused me to turn and look back. The woman who’d answered the front door was now wearing a long overcoat and she was coming through the back screen door.
I made a show of getting down on my hands and knees and looking under a slight dip under the board fence. “Boo seems to have gotten under here,” I called back over my shoulder. Is it all right if I go through this gate?”
She waved a hand at me dismissively. I trundled through the gate, into the ally and went right instead of left toward the park, calling for Boo as I went.
Chapter 20 – Nabbed
Mel
Friday afternoon, February 20th
Muskingum County Sheriff’s Department
I was waiting patiently at the booking desk while my deputies Treadway and Gates brought in a man I’d had run-ins with before, Galeb Radenovic, and a woman they said was with him at the time they grabbed him. Radenovic, I recalled when I heard he’d been arrested, was a reasonable match for the sketch rendering of the man Annemarie Beatty claimed she saw at the WIC office and he had the Slavic accent she’d said the suspect had to boot. He was a known violent offender to me and, when I pulled up his record, I found out he was currently wanted on a warrant by the Columbus PD.
“Leopards don’t change their spots,” I told the desk sergeant as I watched Treadway propel Radenovic through the doorway into booking from the sallyport area beyond. The man was cuffed and in shackles and still fighting Joe the whole way.
Gates followed with a thin, spaced out looking woman in cuffs walking meekly along. She barely blinked as Radenovic upped his antics when he saw me.
“Just settle your ass down,” I bellowed at him or you’ll be maced and left to burn in holding until you can act human.”
He tried to spit on me.
“Get me a hood,” I commanded the intake deputy.
“Right here Sheriff.”
Gates took a cuff off the female and reattached it to a chair then reached for Radenovic’s arm opposite the one Treadway already had a hold of. Between them, they jerked the man to his knees on the floor. I stepped forward and looped the spit hood over his head.
“Take him straight to interview, for now.” I told Joe.
To my deputy Lomas Gates, I asked, “Who’s this one?” as I pointed at the female.
“Name’s Sasha Nist, according to her State ID. She was with Radenovic when Treadway stopped him. Shook her down, boss. No warrants but she’s got enough of what’s probably meth on her that we can book her for intent to distribute.”
“Probably not.” I looked at the woman closely. “She’s a user. He’s probably her supplier and keeping her high so she’ll do his bidding like all of the others before her.” The woman looked at me unblinking as I talked. I don’t know that she understood a word I said.
“Get her booked,” I said to the intake deputy, “but keep her close. If he starts offering up excuses and alibi’s, we may need her. Get her some food too. She’s gonna’ need it.”
Radenovic had come to the U.S. on a work visa from Yugoslavia. He married an American to get a green card and then divorced the woman a year after he got it. He moved back and forth between Columbus and Zanesville a lot. He had a history of known violence against women that led to a couple of my tangles with him. He also had ties to the Russian mob and had been known to deal drugs, thus my other run-ins with him.
In questioning he refused to say much at all other than to claim he was with Sasha the day Katie disappeared through the next night when the baby was kidnapped on until Joe nailed him after pulling him over for speeding. With that information playing in my head, I pulled the junkie up from holding to question her too.
“Is the address on your ID correct, Ms. Nist?”
“What address you got?”
I read off the Columbus address to her from the printout copy the desk made of her state issued ID card.
“Naw. Ain’t lived there in a while.”
“Where do you live now? With Galeb?”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t answer.
“Do you stay somewhere?”
“Sometimes with a friend, mostly on the street.”
She was homeless. “Do you deal for Galeb?”
She shook her head no.
“He your dealer?”
She didn’t answer.
“Look, I really need you to cooperate. There are some things at stake here, some people’s lives.”
Her eyes widened at that but all she said was, “I don’t know anything.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you about yet.”
She licked at her dry, cracked lips and then dropped her head even lower. I couldn’t see her eyes at all.
“Look at me,” I commanded.
Slowly, she raised her head about half way.
“You’ve got to tell me the truth, okay? It’s important.”
That earned me a half nod.
“How long have you been with Radenovic?”
“Seeing him?” She looked confused. “We don’t date, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You been hanging out with him for a couple of days, a week, how long?” I tried to sound a little casual about it.
“I don’t hang out with him. He tracks me down when he wants a blow job or a piece of ass and he supplies me with enough drugs to keep me high for a couple days. It’s the only way I can stand to sleep with him with his little ass dick.”
I winced but now that she was talking, I wasn’t about to stop her.
“Thinks he’s hot shit, trying to shove himself down my throat. He’s got maybe five inches when he’s hard but he struts around like a damn proud peacock...” She laughed at her own analogy.
“Is he abusive?” I knew the answer to that but I wanted to hear it from her.
“Hell yeah! He’s got, what do you call it? Little dick complex; makes him mean.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard a woman give voice to a possible explanation for his violence. I wasn’t buying it completely but I figured it probably did have some bearing on his criminal history.
“Back to my previous question; how long have you been with Galeb this week?”
“What’s today?”
“Friday.”
“Picked me up Wednesday night...late Wednesday night...Thursday...yesterday morning. Probably early, early yesterday morning.”
“Where’d he pick you up from?”
“Oh, I was hangin’, you know.”
“In Zanesville?”
“No. In Columbus...with friends.” She dropped her head and spoke more softly but I caught the words. “It was so cold.”
She’d been outside among the homeless and he came along and offered her relative warmth and drugs in exchange for sex, I thought. “Were you with him at all earlier in the week?”
She shook her head no.
“Think hard. Over the weekend? Maybe Monday o
r Tuesday?”
“I told you; no.”
“She doesn’t corroborate his alibi,” I told Shane who still had Radenovic sitting in the other interview room unaware we’d brought Sasha up and questioned her. “Get a hold of Annemarie Beatty and see if she’ll come in.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I’m a little ahead of you boss. I sent Joe back out for her. She’s waiting upstairs with Holly.”
“Well then, let’s get her down here.” They were learning, my detectives. They were learning.
Annemarie peered through the one way glass at Galeb Radenovic. “He looks similar but I don’t think it’s him.”
“You’re sure?” I asked her.
She nodded. He’s got the right build but, even sitting down, I can tell he’s too short. The guy at the WIC office was much taller than the girl. This guy would be, I don’t know; three maybe four inches taller?”
“I can have him stand,” I offered.
She waited while I interrupted Shane and we hauled the man to his feet. He seemed to know what was going on and he didn’t want to cooperate. He clammed up again after that making me hope Mrs. Beatty had heard enough of him speaking.
“How tall are you Sheriff,” she asked me when I re-entered the observation room.
“Five-six.”
“And he was only just as tall as you. You said Katie was five-foot-one. I told you the man at the WIC place was at least a foot taller than her. That’s not him. He looks close but he’s not tall enough and he doesn’t sound quite right.”
Chapter 21 – Snooping
Dana
Friday Afternoon, February 20th
Once I got back to the car, I started it and sat there for a few minutes to let the heater do its job then I drove from the park to a spot on the street where I could watch the front of the house for a bit. Boo was content to continue to lie on the passenger seat as she finished off the chewy bone I’d given her.
After about a half hour, I watched as a couple that appeared to be in their early to mid-thirty’s went up on the porch, rang the bell and were admitted inside. I kicked myself mentally for forgetting to grab my binoculars out of the trunk in the rush to get Boo settled and get going when we left that morning. I could tell it was a white man and a white woman but nothing much more and I couldn’t make out the numbers on the license plate of their car where they’d parked it, from my current vantage point.
