by E. R. FALLON
Dino faced Natalia, who was hovering behind him. She looked nervous and her eyes were wide.
“Okay, Ms. Dubinina, come with me, please.”
“Okay,” she said faintly.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said uncertainly.
Dino had to use his hands to keep the elevator doors from closing on Natalia, when they exited on the basement level.
“Are you all right?” Dino asked.
Natalia stood in front of the closed doors, with her palm on her forehead, shaking her head.
“Could we just wait a minute?” she asked. “I want to sit down for a moment.”
Dino didn’t like wasting time, especially when he was trying to solve a case, but he felt that he could make an exception for Natalia.
“Where should we sit?” he asked.
She pointed to a wooden bench at the end of the hallway. “There?”
Dino sensed that she wanted him to lead her, and so he did, walking directly ahead of her.
Natalia promptly sat down on the bench. She looked up at him and asked, “Aren’t you going to sit?”
“I think I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. I want to stretch my legs.”
He was worried that if he did sit, she might cry on his shoulder. He had a hard time dealing with women when they became emotional. He always felt helpless in those situations and didn’t know what to do. That had been a real sore point with his ex-wife.
“I understand,” Natalia said. She started to withdraw a cigarette and lighter from her purse.
Dino pointed to a red-and-white sign that read No Smoking. Natalia frowned and tucked the cigarette and lighter back into her purse.
After about five minutes, Dino said, “Are you ready?”
She nodded and then rose from the bench.
He walked in front of her to the pair of swinging doors. A big sign on the one of the doors said Morgue Entrance with the words No Unauthorized Visitors written below it in bright orange letters.
Dino pushed his way through the doors. A tall man in a white laboratory coat made his way toward them, weaving in and out of the rows of empty metal tables. There was only one table in use, and the small, fragile figure on top of it was under a white sheet.
“Hi, detective,” the man said. “I’m the attendant on call. I just took him out of the fridge for you . . .” He stopped talking when he saw Natalia standing behind Dino.
Natalia reached for Dino’s arm. She glanced around at the empty tables and seemed frightened. She whispered to him, “Why are there so many?”
“Sometimes, if there’s a bus accident or something, they need places to put multiple casualties.” He refrained from elaborating.
The attendant removed the sheet from the boy’s body, and Dino approached the table with Natalia.
She gasped and then looked away and shut her eyes. “I can’t look,” she said.
“Natalia,” Dino said quietly. “I really need you to do this. Please help us. Help him.”
Natalia slowly opened her eyes. She took a tissue out of her purse and dried her eyes. Then she faced the table. “It’s him,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
Natalia looked at the body again. “Yes. This is Lev. He has the same sad face as when I last saw him. His teeth are good? Lev’s teeth were.”
“They are,” Dino said. He didn’t want her to have to watch the attendant lift the boy’s small lips to show them his teeth.
“Then it’s him. Definitely.”
He patted her shoulder. “All right. Thank you for doing this.”
Natalia muttered something he didn’t hear and then raced out of the double doors. Dino thanked the attendant and then followed her.
“When we return to the station, I’m going to need you to sign a statement saying that you identified the boy as Lev,” he said to Natalia’s back.
She replied to him over her shoulder and continued to walk fast. “Fine. I need to leave now. Please.”
He saw how desperate her eyes were. She needed air ASAP.
Dino waited in the car while Natalia vomited in the alleyway bordering where they had parked. He rang Terry on his cell phone to let him know they had an ID for the boy’s body and that the witness was on her way back to the station with him to sign a statement.
Terry didn’t seem too optimistic about the revelation. If the boy’s parents were the ones responsible for his death, they probably weren’t still in the country. Regardless, as non-citizens, they were nearly invisible inside of the country and would be very difficult to find. What could Dino do next — drop Interpol a line?
Natalia was more talkative on the drive back to the station. She insisted that Dino leave her window open even though it was freezing out, and she kept looking outside at the bleak streets. Dino figured she still didn’t feel well. He decided to use the time in the car to feel her out and test if she was protecting Alexei Fedotov. It wasn’t that he doubted her emotional display inside the morgue, but he didn’t know her well, and in his line of work he knew firsthand that sometimes criminals were good actors.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“A little,” Natalia murmured.
“How long did you know Alexei for?”
Natalia sighed. “I didn’t know him back in Russia, if that’s what you are thinking. I knew him for as long as I worked for him, which was two years.”
“And now you’re working at Northeastern General?” he said. “You have your nursing license?”
“Yes, that is correct. I like it there.”
“That’s good. It’s too bad you thought it was okay to work illegally without a license with Alexei for two whole years.”
His implication didn’t seem to faze her. “Are you going to charge me?” she asked.
“I’m not interested in that right now.”
After a moment, Natalia asked him, “And do you like what you do, detective?”
“It’s all right.”
“Just ‘all right’? Aren’t you supposed to, as you Americans say, dig it?”
Dino chuckled a little. “I haven’t heard that expression much since I was a kid. But to tell you the truth, Ms. Dubinina, up until recently I loved being a cop.”
“And what’s made you change your mind, recently?”
“Age.”
“I know what you mean. Doing the same thing for so long can only be so—”
“Fulfilling,” Dino said, completing her sentence.
“That is true.”
They got stuck in rush-hour traffic a few blocks from the station.
“Traffic is bad, yes?” Natalia said.
“Yeah, it’s a real jam. Sorry about this. Looks like you’re going to have to miss your appointment after all.”
“It’s no worry. I can miss it. Routine dental cleaning. It’s not important. I help you today, that is important. I might seem like an ‘old grouch,’ as you say here, but I am not really.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed as the cars in front of them began to move.
Natalia giggled.
He pulled the Crown Victoria into the station parking lot. “Let’s get you inside,” he said to her.
“I need to use the ladies’ room. Do you have one in there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It just seems so manly in there.”
Dino chuckled. “Actually, we have women who work here. Two of our homicide detectives are women. One of them is working on this case.”
Natalia had a smile on her round face. “You work with her?”
Dino pulled the keys out of the ignition and wondered where this was going. “Yes. You met her when you first arrived.”
“Yes, now I remember. She is very pretty.”
“Time to go inside.” Dino didn’t like how their conversation was heading in a personal direction.
“You want my advice?” She spoke in a way that told him she was going to give him her advice regardless.
“Qu
it before you’re ahead,” she said. “I was once in love with a doctor I worked for. I know how badly these things can turn out.”
Dino wondered if the doctor she was referring to was Alexei. “I never said I was involved with her.”
“Maybe you aren’t now. But I can tell that you’d like to be,” Natalia said.
Dino stepped out of the car and held open the door for her.
Terry was standing anxiously in the doorway to the homicide. Dino pointed out the bathroom to Natalia.
“Are you sure you don’t want Everhart to escort her?” Terry said to him as Natalia walked away. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll escape out the window?”
Dino chuckled.
Natalia returned and dictated her statement as Terry typed it. Afterward, she quickly read the printed copy of her words and signed it without any additional questions. She handed it to Dino.
She smiled over at him when Rebecca walked into the room. She whispered, “Good luck” into Dino’s ear when he told her she was done.
He was thinking about Lev flat on the cold steel at the morgue and the faint seaweed color of his skin. He looked up to see Rebecca standing by him with a cup of coffee in her hand.
“We went to Lulu’s,” she said, as if he had just asked her a question. “I got you this. Figured you could use it.”
He smiled. “Thanks. I sure can use it.”
“Terry briefed me. I’m glad she IDed the boy. Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
“I think she is. But who knows? She said she was once in love with a doctor, which I took to mean she was smitten with Alexei Fedotov. So would she cover for him? Maybe. She’s hard to read.”
“Women are good at hiding their feelings,” Rebecca said. “Sometimes I think they’re better at it than men.”
Dino stared at her, wondering what she meant, and thinking that he knew. Suddenly he wanted to hold her and kiss her, and tell her that he thought he loved her, although he had only known her for a few days.
The feeling faded when Rebecca looked at him like she knew what he was thinking.
“I think we should tell Terry to go home,” she said. “He has a family. I feel bad that he’s been stuck here more than us this week.”
“Hey, Terry,” Dino called out. “Everhart and I want you to go home to that lovely wife and kid of yours. Leave things to us with no lives, okay?”
Terry strolled over, chuckling. “If you insist. But I don’t believe I’ll be much more welcome there.”
Dino looked at him. “What? Tulia’s crazy about you. Everhart, you have to head over to Terry’s house some time and meet his family.”
“You’re welcome any time.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Terry collected his coat and hat from his desk. “Watch it, Romeo,” he whispered to Dino.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
“I bet you do, and that’s exactly the problem.”
Dino resisted the urge to give in to the escalating tension. “Just go home, will you?”
“See you two tomorrow. Call me if anything happens,” Terry said to him and Rebecca.
“We will,” she said.
Cooper slowly turned to Rebecca. “Looks like it’s just us.”
“Yeah, just us.” She went back to working.
Dino stared at the clock on the wall and then closed his eyes. He must have fallen asleep for a moment. He woke up with a start when someone rapped their knuckles on his desk.
“Tired, Cooper?” Captain Peters said. “Where did Jackson go?”
“He went home for a little while,” Rebecca said.
“He’s been here since last night, sir,” Dino added.
“He was telling me that you want to contact Interpol, is that right?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said to Peters. “We think it’s time to put out an arrest warrant for the boy’s parents.”
“You think they’re the ones who dumped his body?”’
“Maybe,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah,” said Dino.
“You don’t sound very sure,” said Peters.
Dino glanced at Rebecca and then spoke to the captain. “Something doesn’t make sense to me. If it was them, then why did they wait so long? Why last week? They keep their son in hiding for two years and then just toss him and leave the country? How did they take his spleen out, and in such a professional manner?”
“I understand what you’re saying, and there’s nothing more I’d like than to get to the absolute bottom of this, but I’d also like to feed the press that the boy’s parents are the perps. I really think it’ll make parents out there feel safer — assume that it was a domestic thing for now, not some kiddie serial killer. There’s pressure being put on us from the very top. The mayor called. She wants us to do what’s best for the community at this time.”
“I agree with Cooper,” Rebecca said, speaking up to the captain. “I don’t feel that we can be one hundred percent certain.”
“Lately, has there been any time that we were one hundred percent certain?” the captain said.
Rebecca shook her head.
“Issue that warrant.” Captain Peters turned to Dino. “Call your friend at the Star-Ledger, will you?”
Dino nodded as the captain walked away. He dialed Tommy Monahan’s cell but had to leave a message.
“Peters seems to really respect your opinion,” Rebecca said.
“Don’t worry, he’s always like that. Even with me and Terry. Terry can be in the room and Peters will just talk to me, or I can be in the room and he’ll just talk to Terry. It’s nothing personal.”
“If you say so. Are you comfortable with what the captain is asking us to do?”
Dino shrugged. “Do we have a choice?”
“It was like that at my old precinct too.”
“Do me a favor,” Dino said.
“Yes?”
“Call Christopher McKnight. He’s a guy who works for the Department of Justice in DC. He deals with Interpol cases here in the US. He helped me a few years ago with a domestic homicide case where the guy escaped to the Far East.”
“I heard about that one,” Rebecca said. “The guy who killed his common-law wife with a hatchet? And then fled to Saigon?”
“Yep, that’s the one. Here’s McKnight’s number.” Dino handed her a white business card.
“If you know him, why do you want me to call him?”
“He’ll work faster for a woman. He’s a real ladies’ man. Watch out.”
Rebecca laughed. “He’s the one who better be careful.”
Dino chuckled.
She looked at the card. “Are you sure about this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not too into this idea of the parents killing the boy.”
“I’m not either, but it’s politics. You know how it goes.”
“It doesn’t seem right, you know? You were saying so yourself to the captain. I heard you. I just think we should give it a couple more days before we go throwing this thing out to the entire world.”
“I know, but I’ve been around here a long time, and—”
“Give me a break,” she said, cutting him short. “I’m not a kid.”
He eyed her intensely. “I know you aren’t, but please—”
“All right. I’ll call him.”
“Thanks. Do you want to get a drink when you’re done?”
That seemed to catch her off guard, and it took her a while to reply. “Where?” she asked.
“There’s this place a lot of people from our station go to called Morgan’s.”
“Where is it?”
“Close by. Not too far from Lulu’s.”
“All right,” she said. “Sounds fun.”
Chapter Ten
The lights were on in the house when Terry pulled into his driveway. He closed the car door and then remembered he’d promised to pick up dinner on his way home but had forgotten. Tulia hadn’t returned his call eithe
r.
The front door was unlocked and he shook his head. Many times he had advised Tulia to lock it. Even though Greenwood was a safe neighborhood, they lived less than five minutes from some of the most dangerous areas in the country, and though Carl Richardson was in prison, there were still a few heavy-hitters out there who possibly wanted Terry, and his family, dead.
“I’m home,” he called out once inside the house.
Tulia appeared in the doorway of the foyer. She wore black sweatpants and one of his Newark PD T-shirts. He found it so sexy when she wore his shirts. It took him a moment to notice she was barefoot. Tulia had said more than once that she disliked walking barefoot around their house. She held a tall-stemmed glass of red wine elegantly in her hand.
“You really should lock the door,” he said.
“I don’t like having to feel afraid all the time.”
“We need to lock it. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.” He took off his coat and hung it up. “Don’t you usually wear slippers?” he commented.
“I’d knew you’d say that,” she said. “People can change, you know. Now sometimes I like walking around the house barefoot.”
“Okay. I can accept that. But what’s with you lately? It’s like you’re mad at me all the time.” He finally had come home in the mood to have it out with her. The tension had been building for days.
“What’s with me? You’re the one who came in here looking for a fight. Whatever happened to saying, ‘Hello, honey. It’s great to see you. How are you?’ You’ve changed, Terry, and so have I.”
Terry felt his face redden and he clenched his teeth. He pointed his finger at her from where he stood, far away from her. “Are you fucking someone else?” he asked, and then couldn’t believe he had said it. What if Jimmy had heard him?
Tulia’s eyes widened. “I . . . no. Of course not. Why, are you?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“What gives you the right to talk to me that way, anyway?” she said, her voice rising. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m sorry, Tulia. It’s been a tough week.”
“When isn’t it?”
“You know about the case I’m working on. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. It’s like I can’t stop working until we solve this thing.”
