Ceremony

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  “Forward the recording until she turns toward the camera.” Bernadette watched carefully.

  “It’s too dark.”

  “She’s about to walk under that streetlight. There.” The tape paused as the woman was illuminated by the sodium streetlamp. “Now zoom again.”

  The scarf, draped around the woman’s neck, covered her mouth but dipped below the woman’s nose.

  And peeking above the edge of the scarf, off-center and perfectly circular: a beauty mark.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “That’s Annika Nakrivo,” Bernadette said.

  Maura rubbed her forehead. “How did she wind up in a homeless woman’s clothes pushing a shopping cart?”

  “The pile of clothes in the shopping cart must be Kymer Thompson,” Lesley said, squinting. “It’s a bigger pile than when she—well, when Rhonda first appeared.”

  “I don’t follow,” Maura said. “I get that I’m watching Annika push our murder victim in a shopping cart. What I don’t get is how Annika wound up being the killer. We don’t have a motive. We’ve assumed that she was a victim until the ceremony ended in Nick LaSalle’s death. Now we’re looking at evidence that she’s the killer.”

  Bernadette nodded, her heart racing. “Look at the timeline again. Two weeks after Kymer Thompson sends Mariska Sikmo the fan letter—”

  “And the keylogger program tracks it all,” Lesley put in.

  Bernadette nodded. “That’s when Annika Nakrivo left Miami for Cleveland. Had plastic surgery—”

  “To look more like Mariska Sikmo,” added Maura.

  “Bankrolled by Parr Medical.”

  Lesley clicked on another screen and a spreadsheet popped up. “The flight information, hotel check-ins, and medical records. Yes—that all matches up.”

  “Then Annika Nakrivo enrolled at Kilbourn Tech and got an internship in the lab.”

  “So Annika, in a striking resemblance to the Anne Askew character from Six Wives,” Maura said, “gets the religiously obsessive Kymer Thompson’s heart all aflutter, and she—what?”

  “She must have been on Parr Medical’s payroll this whole time,” Bernadette said. “That was her motive. She was hired to stop the research project.” It wasn’t for love, it wasn’t for jealousy—Annika was essentially a hit man. “She convinced Thompson to share some information about the lampreys. Especially how they were protected.”

  Lesley swore softly.

  “What is it?”

  “I checked Annika’s cell phone records and location for this week. Her phone was in her dorm the Monday night of Kymer Thompson’s murder and during the shooting of Eddie Taysatch, so I didn’t think any more about it. But I didn’t check where it was two weeks before the murder.” She opened a screen and began typing.

  “Two weeks before?” Maura asked.

  “Of course,” Bernadette murmured. “Fond du Lac. Annika was at the Wildlife Specialties in Fond du Lac, wasn’t she?”

  Lesley clicked twice more, then nodded and pointed to a line of digits on the screen. “Yes, right here. I’d have to double-check, but I think this is the same time as Douglas Rheinstaller and Cecilia Carter were there.”

  Another click in Bernadette’s head. “The Justice for Oceans brochures in Annika’s dorm—I bet Annika went to a few Justice for Oceans meetings and convinced Cecilia Carter that she and Rheinstaller needed to work together—against a common enemy.” She started to pace. “We were so busy thinking Annika was a victim in all of this. But she coordinated everything.”

  “But you saw Nick LaSalle with the tote bags,” Kep said. “The ones I smelled TFM in.”

  “Nick was paid handsomely for going behind the scenes and helping out,” Bernadette said. “Installing the keylogger. And I bet he’s the one who disconnected the cameras and stole the footage at Juneau Hall—and probably disconnected the alarm system.”

  “So—” Maura scratched her scalp with both hands. “Who killed all those lampreys?”

  “Annika must have killed the ammocoetes,” Kep said. “If Bernadette is correct, Annika also persuaded Carter and Rheinstaller to purchase the TFM.” He sucked in air through his teeth. “I identified TFM in the trunk of the Camry—because Annika is the one who pilfered it from Rheinstaller’s shed.”

  “But why kill Tommy and Eddie?” Maura asked.

  “In a very literal sense,” Bernadette said, closing her eyes and talking with her hands, “she killed two birds with one stone. Both Kymer Thompson and Eddie Taysatch were on call. They were the ones alerted when the aquarium was compromised. Plus, they both had the most institutional knowledge of the science behind the development of the medication.”

  “And Thompson found out?”

  “Or maybe he interrupted Annika during a dry run,” Bernadette said, opening her eyes. “That would explain why he was killed instead of—I don’t know, distracted or knocked out. It also explains why he called the campus police to ask the cost for adding overnight security. He wasn’t afraid for his life. He was afraid for the project—he was talking about the lampreys getting killed.”

  “Annika had access to the concentrated ibogaine,” Kep said. “We took her word as gospel, yet she kept feeding us bad information.”

  “And we fell for it,” Bernadette said.

  Maura nodded. “But that doesn’t get us any closer to where Annika Nakrivo went after the anchor ceremony.”

  “But this might,” Lesley muttered. The screen in front of her had changed to flight paths.

  Maura squinted at the monitor. “Is she in the air? Where is she headed? Are you tracking her that way?”

  “Not quite.” Lesley pointed at the screen, at a plane over the southern part of Lake Michigan, heading west. “This is a small jet with the same aircraft registration number as the one that flew Annika Nakrivo from Miami to Cleveland. It took off from Cleveland about an hour ago and according to its flight plan, it’s headed for Milwaukee.”

  “The Milwaukee main airport?” Maura jumped up.

  Lesley traced her finger to a line on her monitor. “No. Timmerman. The executive airport. About five miles north of downtown.” The screen changed; lines of dark green text appeared. Lesley smiled. “There it is. Scheduled to land in fifteen minutes.”

  As Maura turned on the SUV’s engine, Bernadette slid into the passenger seat, Kep in the back. “If we can catch Annika before she gets on that plane,” Maura said, “she might give us the leverage we need to get that Parr Medical warrant unstuck, too.”

  “Want me to contact airport security to hold the jet there?” Bernadette asked.

  Maura clicked her tongue as she turned on the lights. “I thought about that, but I don’t want to give Parr Medical any warning that we’re about to arrest Annika.”

  “Won’t they already think the feds are on to them based on the subpoena?”

  “I hope their lawyers think we’re going on a fishing expedition,” Maura said. “Besides, we didn’t suspect Nakrivo until now. They might think we’re still chasing Vivian Roundhouse.”

  “I’ll keep in touch with Lesley. See where the plane is.”

  Twenty minutes later, Maura pulled the rental SUV into the Timmerman Airport parking lot and idled in front of a large building with off-white vinyl siding with a sign reading Maintenance and Services.

  “And what about the jet?”

  “Lesley says it’s sitting on the tarmac. Pilot called in needing to refuel.”

  “Crew?”

  “Besides the pilot, just a flight attendant. And Lesley just sent me this.” Bernadette tapped her phone screen and a news article from The Miami Observer appeared. “The article is about Hester McCall, who was about to testify in a class action lawsuit against Parr Medical. Murdered in an attempted carjacking in Ft. Lauderdale. That was three weeks before Annika Nakrivo pulled her disappearing act to Cleveland.”

  “Are you suggesting,” Kep said from the back seat, “that she’s a killer-for-hire for Parr Medical?”

  Bernadett
e set her mouth in a line. It was exactly what she believed, though she had no proof. “If she’s not, it’s a big coincidence.”

  Maura drove the SUV around the corner of the maintenance building. Directly in front of them, parked diagonally across two spaces, was a light blue van.

  “So much for the APB,” Bernadette muttered.

  “What’s the end game for Annika?” Maura asked, pulling into a space near the main building. “She escapes on the plane after killing four people and thousands of lampreys, and what does she get?”

  “Money, I assume. Maybe another assignment. A new identity.”

  “Without being able to talk to anyone at Parr Medical,” Kep said, “it’s impossible to know.”

  A Milwaukee police cruiser, lights off, turned in behind the SUV. The driver and passenger doors opened at the same time, and Dunn jumped out and ran to the SUV. Maura lowered her window; the crisp breeze cooled down the car almost immediately.

  Dunn stood at the driver’s-side door. “We’ve gotten word that a woman matching Annika Nakrivo’s description has boarded the jet on the tarmac.”

  “They refueled already?” Maura asked. “That was fast.”

  Bernadette cocked her head. “I don’t think they had time. Do you know how long it takes to fuel a jet that size?”

  Kep nodded. “At a small airport like this, refueling usually takes at least a half hour.”

  Dunn screwed up her face. “They haven’t been on the ground that long, have they?”

  “No,” Maura said. “Ten minutes, tops.”

  “That’s weird,” Bernadette said. “Why—” Then a thought struck her. “What if Parr Medical isn’t planning to get Annika Nakrivo off the ground at all?”

  “What are you saying?” Dunn asked.

  “Bear with me for a second. Nick LaSalle was killed, and he’s the one who hacked Kymer Thompson’s PC, disconnected the alarms, destroyed the camera footage. He knew too much.”

  Dunn nodded. “Or they didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What if,” Bernadette continued, “like Nick, Annika knows too much? Or they don’t trust her?”

  Kep pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Parr Medical set a trap for her, and the company plans to have us unwittingly execute it.”

  “Do you mean,” Maura said, “that Parr Medical thinks law enforcement will kill Annika Nakrivo?”

  Bernadette ran her hands through her hair. “Maybe it ends with us in a shootout. Or with Annika arrested. Or with the plane blowing up. But if that plane hasn’t refueled, it’s about to play out on the runway.”

  Maura’s phone rang.

  “Lieutenant Stevenson,” she said. “Yes. We’re here. Uh huh. Detective Dunn—is anyone else coming?”

  “We’ve got two other officers,” Dunn said. “They were about five minutes behind me.”

  “But no SWAT team?”

  Dunn shook her head. “We didn’t have one at the salt warehouse, and we don’t have one here. There’s no hostage situation. Looks like we need to board the plane and make arrests.”

  “Annika Nakrivo might act in ways you can’t predict,” Kep said. “We don’t have her complete background. We know she isn’t a nineteen-year-old university student, but, as Becker inferred from the Miami article, she could be the world’s most ruthless murderer-for-hire. If she believes she’s cornered, she could be lethal.”

  “She’s already been lethal,” Bernadette said.

  “We’ll be right there,” Maura said, and ended the call. “Come on—we’ve got to meet the security manager on duty.”

  The four of them walked around the right side of the building, the piles of dirty snow solidifying in the freezing night. As they came around the corner, they saw a small white jet on a strip of asphalt leading off one of the runways.

  A heavyset Black man wearing aviator glasses, a black Timmerman Airport cap, a black down jacket, and khaki trousers met them. “Lieutenant Stevenson?”

  “That’s me,” Maura said, stepping forward and shaking hands.

  “I’m Carlos Costa,” he said. “Head of security here. The jet is still on the ground. It doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere.”

  “Has the jet refueled?”

  “Not yet. Haven’t called in to refuel either, which is a little unusual before they take passengers on.”

  “Do we know for sure that the passenger is Annika Nakrivo?” Kep asked.

  “We’ve got the security footage,” Costa said, taking his phone out. He tapped the screen and held it out to Maura.

  Kep looked over her shoulder. “It’s definitely Annika.”

  Maura nodded. “So do you have protocol we need to follow?”

  “This is a police action, so we’ve shut down the runways.”

  Maura cast a nervous look at Bernadette. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

  “No,” Kep said, “but I’ll get as close as I can and smell for explosives.”

  “Explosives?”

  “Certainly,” Kep said. “If Parr Medical doesn’t want Annika Nakrivo captured alive, there’s a possibility they will kill her on the plane.”

  “But they wouldn’t—” Maura closed her eyes for a moment. “Fine. Go out there and smell for explosives.”

  Dunn raised her eyebrows. “I heard C4 smells like almonds.”

  “The scent is more akin to tar,” Kep said. “It can smell like plastic or vinyl when it’s warm.”

  “Which it’s not,” Maura said.

  “Correct.” Kep rubbed his chin. “I will be able to smell explosives at approximately twenty meters from the plane. However, with the jet fuel and the asphalt, it will more difficult to distinguish certain explosive materials. Anything that’s fertilizer-based or plastic-based, though, I’ll be able to detect. I can warn you if there’s danger.”

  The radio on Costa’s belt buzzed. “Hold on a second,” he said, taking a few steps away from the group.

  Two officers appeared from around the corner of the maintenance building: Officers Lamar Chesapeake and Lance Schroeter. Bernadette did a double take, then caught Chesapeake’s eye. He smiled and touched the brim of his police hat, and Bernadette took a few steps away from the group.

  Chesapeake walked up to Bernadette. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me.”

  He laughed. “Like I said, I need all the overtime I can get.”

  Bernadette smiled. “I see. It’s all about the overtime.”

  “It looks like my long working days might be coming to an end after tonight. Would you like to have dinner with me before you leave Milwaukee?”

  Bernadette turned toward the white jet on the tarmac. “I should probably see if we both survive this first.”

  Chesapeake nodded. “Yeah. It won’t be a straightforward arrest, will it?”

  “Probably not.” Bernadette’s phone rang; she looked at the screen. A 754 area code.

  “Seven-five-four?” she asked. “Where’s that?”

  “South Florida,” Chesapeake said.

  Bernadette answered the phone. “Bernadette Becker.”

  “Ms. Becker?” It was a woman’s voice, not low, not high. Calm. Familiar.

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s Annika Nakrivo.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Bernadette waved wildly. The team stared at her, and she put her finger to her lips. Confusion washed over their faces, but Bernadette put the phone on speaker.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you, Annika. I didn’t even think you had my number.”

  “You gave me your business card when you came to my dorm room in Juneau Hall, remember?”

  “Ah, yes,” Bernadette said. “So I did. Why are you calling me?”

  “I can see you from the airplane window. Take me off speakerphone.”

  “Why?” She started sweating despite the cold and unzipped her puffy purple coat.

  “Because you�
�ll be the only one getting on this plane.”

  “You must know that we’re here to arrest you.”

  Silence.

  “Are you still there?”

  “I thought you arrested Vivian Roundhouse.”

  “We did. But then we saw you on camera. With Tommy’s dead body in the shopping cart.”

  Silence.

  On the tarmac, the door to the jet swung down slowly.

  “Hey!” Annika yelled. “What are you—”

  Two women, both in uniforms, jumped from the plane, then dashed across the asphalt.

  “The pilot and the flight attendant,” Dunn exclaimed.

  Costa, hand on his belt—was there a holster under his jacket?—hurried toward the pilot and flight attendant. A female figure appeared in the door, holding a phone to her ear.

  “You promised that you’d believe me,” Annika said. “I guess that was a lie.”

  “No—wait—Annika!”

  The line went dead.

  The door to the jet, as it reached the bottom of its descent, began to rise slowly.

  Then the plane jerked forward—toward the runway.

  She’ll try to take off anyway. And she doesn’t know there’s not enough fuel. She’ll crash into downtown Milwaukee.

  Bernadette broke into a sprint.

  Surprised shouts came from Dunn, Maura, Officer Lance Schroeter—but a glint was in Kep’s eye as she darted past him.

  The door was almost halfway closed now, but she was racing toward the plane, and if she timed the leap right, she could make it.

  The pounding of her boots against the pavement, the whine of the jet engine as it tried to turn onto the runway—was Annika a pilot in addition to a killer-for-hire, a scientist, an escort, and a chameleon?

  The plane turned and Bernadette changed her angle. It was closer now, the door still partially open.

  Twenty yards.

  Ten. Five.

  She leaped.

  Her head and shoulders flew through the open space in the door, her bruised hip crashing painfully into the corner of a seat. The pain seared for a moment—she might have dislocated her shoulder, too—but she had the presence of mind to pull her knees up. Then the door was closed. And the plane was still moving.