The conversation gave way momentarily to the traffic sounds, the hum of the street, the apparatus of a crime scene. Powell glanced at Michael. “So how have you been?”
“I am well,” Michael said. He felt anything but.
“You are both working this,” Powell said.
There was a direct question in that statement, a question more for Michael than Tommy. It hung in the air like smoke in a darkened theater.
“I knew him,” Michael said.
Powell took a few moments, nodded. She probably knew this. She probably knew a little more about Michael and Harkov, but out of respect for Michael’s position, she didn’t press it. For the moment. “I am sorry for the loss of your friend.”
Michael wanted to correct her – Viktor Harkov was by no means his friend – but he let it drop. He knew the less he said at this time the better.
“What did you get from the son?” Tommy asked.
“The son says he last saw his father last night. Says he brought the old man a bowl of soup. I think he knows a little bit more than he is saying. I’ll have him in the chair later today.”
“But you don’t like him for this,” Michael said.
Powell shook her head. “No. But I think he knows some reason why this was done. I’ll get him talking. Like they say in Kingston, the higher the monkey climbs the more him expose, eh?”
“Des?”
It was Desiree Powell’s partner, Marco Fontova.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said, stepping away.
Fontova was around thirty, disposed to striped suits a size too small and a bit too much cologne for daytime. His hair was short and spiked, a style maybe five years too young, but he pulled it off. Michael did not know him well, but knew that Marco Fontova was part of the post 9/11 class of investigators on the NYPD. And that meant, to people who didn’t know better, mostly in the media, he was lacking.
Michael learned early on that detectives, good detectives, did not learn what they knew from the academy, or manuals, or the bosses. Detectives were schooled by the older cops. Techniques of interrogation and investigation were passed down from experienced detectives to rookies in a ritual as old as the department itself. But when 9/11 happened, a good bit of that changed. On that day, and for weeks and months afterward, law enforcement in the city of New York – and to a certain extent, criminal activity – shut down. Every available detective headed down to ground zero to help out.
The result was that a lot of detectives near their twenty-year mark accumulated so much overtime, that they retired that year. The further result was that the next crop of city detectives did not have rabbis from whom they could learn, and there were some who felt that many investigators on the job for the past seven or eight years were not up to the task.
Desiree Powell was not one of these detectives. She had come up on her own at a time when women, especially black women, were not welcomed into the club that was the gold shield detective. Michael could not think of anyone he would rather work with. By the same token, he could not think of anyone he would rather not go up against.
POWELL STEPPED BACK over to where Michael and Tommy stood. She glanced at the window on the second floor, then at Tommy. “CSU is wrapping up. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
“We’ll be across the street,” Tommy said, pointing at the pizza parlor.
Powell shoved her hands in her pockets, turned, and walked across the street. In that moment, a transport van from the ME’s office arrived. Two weary techs stepped out, walked around back, casually slid out the gurney. They moved as if underwater, and for good reason. It was a beautiful spring day. Viktor Harkov wasn’t going anywhere.
THEY STOOD AT THE window counter at Angelo’s. Tommy worked a slice. Michael was not hungry.
Michael had related the entire story, sparing no detail, beginning with the first call made to the adoption agency in South Carolina, and ending with the moment he and Abby unlocked the door to the house and brought Charlotte and Emily into their new home.
As he was telling the tale, Michael watched Tommy’s face. He knew that this would hurt Tommy – they had few secrets from each other – but Tommy just listened, implacable, not judging.
Like the savvy lawyer he was, Tommy gave it a few long moments before responding with the options. “You’re saying the papers were forged?” he asked.
“Just the one document,” Michael replied, matching his volume. “The adoption broker in Helsinki, the one whose job it was to approve and clear the time frame. His assistant was paid five thousand dollars to forge his name on the clearance. The man – the official – died two years ago. We always felt that, unless they began to dig deep and ask a lot of questions, it couldn’t possibly come out.”
Tommy folded his slice, took a bite, wiped his lips. “They’re going to start digging in about an hour. You know that, right?”
Michael just nodded. He knew that, if his name was in one of Viktor Harkov’s files, investigators would get around to him.
Tommy finished eating, rolled his trash and put in the can. He carefully inspected his shirt, tie, trousers. No grease. He sipped his soda. “How did Harkov work these things Did he keep separate files?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I met him once at his office, then a second time at a restaurant in midtown.”
“Were there official documents you signed?”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “The standard papers. Everything filed with the state of New York is perfectly legal.”
Tommy looked across the street, at the growing official presence. He looked back at Michael. “You know if you go up there, you have to sign the log. It will all be on the record.”
“I know.” Michael tried to sort out all the ramifications of his presence at this scene. He couldn’t think straight. All that mattered was keeping his family safe and intact.
POWELL STEPPED OUT of the crime scene building, caught Tommy’s eye, waved him over.
Tommy slipped on his suit coat, shot his cuffs. He handed Michael the keys to his car.
“Let me see what I can find out.”
Michael watched Tommy cross the street. He looked at his watch. He was due in court in ninety minutes.
MICHAEL STOOD ON the street. The sun was high and warm, the sky clear. Too nice a day for dead bodies. Too nice a day for the world to end.
He recalled the first and only time he had visited Viktor Harkov in his office. He had known what he was doing was wrong, that making a covert payoff to grease the wheels of the adoption process might one day come back to haunt him, but there was a higher purpose, he had thought at the time, a nobility in his larceny.
As he stood there, watching the police do their job, getting ever closer to the truth, he asked himself if it had been worth it. In his mind, he saw his beautiful girls. The answer was yes.
He took out his phone, scrolled down to Abby’s cellphone number. His finger hovered over the touch screen. He had to call her, but couldn’t tell her about this. Not yet. Perhaps this had nothing to do with Viktor’s side-business of adoption. Maybe this was just another robbery homicide, or some family or ethnic dispute gone terribly wrong. Maybe Viktor Harkov had gotten involved in something far more dangerous than simply circumventing adoption laws. Maybe there was nothing for them to worry about.
On the other hand, maybe there was.
EIGHTEEN
He stood about ten feet away, in the hallway leading to the first-floor office. He was half in shadow, but seemed to fill up the entire door jamb.
Abby watched him. She tried to think of how much cash she could get together. The man had said nothing yet about money, but it was coming. What else could this be about? The man who called himself Aleksander, along with his partner, had probably done this before, stalking a suburban family, holding them for ransom. She’d read about it.