By Any Means (7 page)

“Anything?” asked Lev. Kostya nodded and reached inside. He found four envelopes; the first two held cash, probably emergency money. The third envelope held her birth certificate, her wedding certificate, and other important documents. Kostya slipped that one into his jacket's pocket. The fourth envelope felt heavier than the others. He slipped the top flap from the interior and pulled out eight passports from various countries. They all belonged to young women, mostly teenagers. He also found a black address book.

“What is this?” asked Lev.

“I don't know,” said Kostya, holding out a hand. Lev pulled him to his feet. “We'll find out. I know someone at the—”

Heavy footsteps interrupted him. James walked into the room, his face drawn and his breath shallow.

“We found something in the basement.”

“What is it?” asked Kostya.

“A girl.”

Kostya fingered the passports. “Is she alive?”

“Oh yeah. She ambushed us and hit Michael with a lamp. He's still trying to calm her down.”

Kostya glanced at Lev. “Come on.”

When they arrived in the kitchen, Michael stood at the top of the basement stairs, repeatedly calling for the girl at the bottom to calm down. It didn't work, possibly because they didn't speak the same language. Every time Michael spoke, the girl would respond in Russian so quickly that even Kostya, a native Russian speaker, had trouble understanding it. He put his hand on his nephew's shoulder and asked him to take a step back.

“Why can't you leave me alone?” The girl's voice was high pitched and breathless.

Kostya answered in Russian. “We're not here to hurt you. I'm an old man. I couldn't hurt you if I tried. Can I come down and talk?”

She hesitated. “No. I'll hit you if you come. Stay up there.”

“I understand,” said Kostya, speaking as he had to his own children when they were young. “Do you know Kara?”

“Yes. She's my friend.”

“She was my daughter. She and her husband passed away this afternoon, and I'm trying to find out what happened to her. Can I come down now?”

The girl didn't say anything.

“Please,” said Kostya. “I need to find out why my daughter is dead. Will you talk to me?”

“Kara's dead?”

“Yes,” said Kostya. “I loved her very much. I don't know what happened.”

The girl remained silent for a moment. “You can come down. Just you, though.”

Kostya looked over his shoulder at his brother-in-law. They had worked with each other for so long that they didn't need to communicate plans verbally anymore. Lev would stay at the top, but he and his boys would come down if they heard a scuffle.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Kostya visually searched the basement for threats, an old habit he had picked up as a young man in a Soviet prison. Kara hadn't finished the room, but it looked and smelled clean and dry. Someone had painted the cinder block walls white, while the floor was bare concrete. He found a couch, bookshelf, and bed in one corner and a washing machine and dryer on the other side. He looked at the girl last. She was exceed­ingly pretty. Fear, hope, and pain merged in her eyes to form a gaze that was simultaneously pitying and pitiful. At one glance, Kostya knew she didn't pose a threat. She tried to hold his eyes for a moment, but then she looked at her feet.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I'm not here to hurt you,” said Kostya. “So please don't be scared.”

“Okay.”

She didn't seem convinced. Kostya smiled, hoping to put her at ease. He had only looked at the passports briefly, but he hadn't seen her before. He didn't know what, if anything, that meant.

“Do you live here?” he asked.

She looked at the bed and nodded but didn't try to make eye contact.

“For two weeks. Kara and Daniel took care of me. They were very good people.”

“Daniel was her husband?”

She nodded. “Kara talked about her father some. She said you might be able to help me, but Daniel said it was too risky to call you.”

He wanted to ask what else Kara had said about him, but he refrained. They didn't have time for that.

“How did you meet my daughter?”

She hesitated at first. “She and Daniel saved me.”

“Tell me about it.”

She choked up. “I don't know if I can.”

Kostya knew what a frightened child looked like. He spoke softly.

“Try to take it one word at a time. I need to know. As long as I'm here, no one will ever hurt you.”

She stared at him, apparently trying to gauge his sincerity before walking to the bed and sitting down. Kostya sat nearby on the couch, his hands folded on his lap. The girl introduced herself as Iskra Konev and said she grew up in a small town in the Ukraine, an area which was, coincidentally, not far from a farm owned by Kostya's aunt and uncle. She stumbled over her sentences at first, but she picked up speed quickly once she began talking. A woman named Ann had brought her to the United States with the promise that she'd be able to go to college and work in an office to pay her way. When she arrived, she found Ann had a quite different future in mind for her. Iskra never said exactly what Ann forced her to do, but Kostya knew. From the way Iskra shied away from him, from the way she held her hands across her chest, from the way she wouldn't make eye contact. She said that after a week of her new life, she wanted to kill herself; after six months, she already felt dead. Had she been his child, he would have lied to her and said that everything would be okay. It wouldn't, though, not for her or anyone in her circumstances. She was beyond comfort any human could give.

“Did Kara say why she didn't take you to the police?”

Iskra shook her head. “No.”

Kostya stayed still, trying to think that through. His daughter was playing a game he didn't understand yet, which meant he would need to step carefully. Kostya rocked his weight forward and stood, his knees smarting from the movement.

“I'm going to send you home.”

Iskra shook her head. “I can't pay you.”

“You don't need to,” said Kostya. “I'm sending you home. My daughter would have wanted that. ”

“I...I don't...,” she began.

Kostya shushed her. “It's done. I'm sending you home.”

“I don't have a passport yet.”

“Let me worry about that,” said Kostya, trying not to grimace as he took his first few stiff-legged steps toward the stairway. Apparently sensing that he wasn't a threat, Iskra followed him a few steps back, but as soon as she saw Lev and his boys in the kitchen, she started shaking and pressing her back against the nearest wall.

“It's all right,” said Kostya, his voice soft. “These men are my family. They're Kara's family.” He pointed to Lev. “This is her uncle, and his sons are her cousins. They won't hurt you.”

She bit her lower lip and nodded. Her eyes looked like those of a wild animal caught in a snare.

Kostya put his hand on Lev's shoulder. “My brother-in-law and his son Michael will drive you to people who can take care of you. Lev is my oldest and best friend. You'll be as safe with him as you would be with me. We'll get you home as soon as we can.”

She nodded and put her arms across her chest. Kostya smiled at her and held her gaze. She dropped her eyes from his.

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” he said, keeping his hand on Lev's shoulder. “If you'll excuse us for a moment, we need to make arrangements.”

He took Michael and Lev to the living room and spoke in low, hushed tones.

“This young lady has been through more pain in her life than anyone deserves. Bury her deep enough that her body is undisturbed by animals.”

“Of course,” said Lev. Kostya looked at his nephew. Michael swallowed hard and nodded.

“Good boy,” said Kostya, squeezing his nephew's shoulder. “Your brother and I will take care of the house.” Kostya walked back to the kitchen and smiled at Iskra. “They will take you to Chicago, which is four hours from here. Take all the time you need to get ready. I'll make arrangements while Lev and Michael drive.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I can never repay you for this.”

“You don't need to. I'm truly sorry for what's happened to you.”

Iskra used the restroom and gathered a small bag of clothes. As soon as she was packed, Lev and Michael escorted her to one of the vans out front and James grabbed a red four-gallon container of gasoline from the garage. He doused the furniture and floors with the liquid while Kostya turned on the gas stove to high. The air in the kitchen quickly became toxic, so they went to the front porch. Kara may have saved Iskra's life for a time, but Kostya doubted her hands were completely clean. With what happened to Iskra, there'd be more bodies to bury before they were through.

“We're done here. Light it up.”

A
technician from the station's IT department rerouted the tip line to three phones in the conference room. As soon as their story aired, they'd get calls from just about every nut job, paranoid schizophrenic, and crazy asshole within a hundred-mile radius, and they'd be fed lines of bullshit so thick it'd be hard to tell the truth from the fecal matter. It'd be a lot like watching a presidential debate. Someone out there knew something, though. No one can disappear completely, least of all someone with a hostage and an injury.

Ash stood and paced the room, his stomach twisting the way it did when he and his family huddled in the basement after hearing tornado sirens. All five detectives on the task force knew their jobs, four homicide detectives stood on call if needed, and the rest of the department stood ready to back him up in case of an emergency. He shouldn't have felt nervous, but he did.

“Kristen Tanaka didn't attend the press conference tonight,” he said.

“She was probably out boffing somebody for tipping her off to the case,” said Smith, leaning back in his chair and sticking his legs on the table. “I don't know how you get invited to the party, but I hear she does that sort of thing.”

Ash shook his head but didn't say anything. Kristen might fail a journalistic ethics class, but he didn't think she'd skip a press conference with the lead detective on a major case to thank a source. She might, though, if she had a meeting with someone more pressing.

“Does anybody know how to use this thing?” he asked, grabbing one of the room's three remote controls from the table.

“I've got it,” said Alvarez. Ash threw him the remote, and the detective hit half a dozen buttons, causing the lights to dim, a screen to roll down, and the projector to spontaneously turn on. “What channel you want?”

“Whatever channel Kristen Tanaka is on.”

Alvarez flipped through the lineup until coming to the local channels. Rebecca's abduction led the newscast at Tanaka's station, but the lead anchor covered the story, not her. He even showed an edited clip of Captain Bowers speaking at the press conference; the station must have purchased the video from one of the other broadcasters. They stuck to the department's narrative: a still unknown suspect abducted Rebecca, and they needed help finding him. Almost as soon as the station flashed the number for the Crime Stoppers tip line, the phone banks lit up and the detectives went to work.

Even with that story aired, the unease didn't leave Ash's stomach. Tanaka should have handled it. She had something else going on. He found out what when the anchor introduced the second story of the night and the video shifted to a live report from the parking lot of the state fairgrounds, roughly a block from the corner where Rebecca had been abducted. The camera panned to Kristen and a heavyset woman in sweatpants and a purple tank top. The woman shifted her weight from foot to foot, shaking her head slightly. The camera probably made her nervous, but her weight shifting made it look as if she had to go to the bathroom. That probably wasn't her intent.

“Unfortunately, as tragic as Rebecca Cook's case is, she wasn't the only victim tonight,” said Kristen. “At approximately six this evening, three police officers carrying shotguns came to Lynette Rogers's near-north-side home and dragged her unarmed son to the front lawn where they Tasered him repeatedly after he reported not knowing anything about Ms. Cook's disappearance...”

Ash swore aloud, causing Alvarez to stop speaking midsentence and look up, his eyebrows raised quizzically. Ash pointed to the screen and swore again.

“He resisted arrest,” said Smith, resting a phone against his chest so the caller he had been speaking to couldn't hear him. “What should we have done? The asshole had an outstanding warrant against him for assaulting his parole officer with a lead pipe. He came at us, and we Tasered him because we didn't know if he was armed. It was him or us.”

If true, Detective Smith had acted correctly to protect the other officers in his detail, but that probably wouldn't help matters much. The situation had been ugly all night, but now Detective Smith had just set foot in front of a giant fan in the midst of a shit-throwing contest.

“Make sure to detail it in your report,” he said, leaning against the table and glancing at the screen again. Tanaka's witness claimed that the police tried to kill her son and make it look like an accident. Ash could only shake his head; the assertion made little sense, but lots of people would still believe it. Finding cooperative witnesses was always a challenge, but now it would become damn near impossible. He swore under his breath and looked at his fellow officers. “Tanaka got this from someone. Who was at the arrest?”

Alvarez hung up the phone but ignored the next blinking light.

“Smith, me, and Dion Butler from patrol. I've been with Smith the entire night, and neither of us called anybody. Butler just finished her probationary period, so I doubt too many reporters have been grooming her for stories.”

Ash rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache growing. Life seemed so much simpler as a detective. He didn't have to deal with things like this.

“Someone talked to her, so we need to find...” Ash stopped himself before finishing the remark. Kristen had completed her interview with Lynette Rogers and moved on to an interview with Sylvia Lombardo, the deputy chief. The headache he had been hoping to stave off started throbbing. Lombardo had ambitions well beyond IMPD and made little secret of it. Normally, that didn't matter; she did her job well, and then she went home at the end of the day. About a week ago, though, she gave thirty days notice, ostensibly so she could spend more time with her family, but in actuality, everyone knew she had her eye on the vacant director's position in the Department of Public Safety, the civilian agency that oversaw the law enforcement community in Indianapolis. If the mayor appointed her to it, IMPD would become her plaything. Ash fervently hoped it didn't come to that.

“I wondered if you could comment on these allegations, Sylvia,” said Kristen.

“Let me first say that my heart goes out to the Cook family. IMPD is doing everything we possibly can to find Rebecca, and I'm confident we will. As to these specific allegations, I can't comment except to say that if my officers acted improperly or illegally, I will personally ensure that they face a suitable punishment, including criminal prosecution if warranted.”

She'd have a difficult time doing that as a civilian, but the point probably scored well with the public and the mayor's office.

“So where does Ms. Cook's case go from here?”

Lombardo took a deep breath. “As with every case we work, our investigation into Ms. Cook's abduction is fluid and dynamic. In situations like this, we will bring as much manpower to bear on the issue as we can and will consult with our federal partners as well.”

“So, the FBI?”

“Our department maintains a strong working relationship with the Bureau, so yes.”

“Why didn't you bring in the FBI immediately?”

“We give wide latitude, within procedure of course, to our officers in the field. In this case, those officers did not feel bringing in the Bureau was warranted.”

“As a law enforcement official, what do you believe?”

Lombardo held her hand to her chest. “Personally? As a mother and a thirty-year veteran of the Indianapolis Police Department, I'd want everything possible done. Beyond that, I don't feel it's appropriate for me to comment.”

“Would that include—”

“Turn this off and get to work.” The voice belonged to Mike Bowers. Ash turned and saw him standing in the doorway, pointing an index finger at him. “I want to see you out here for a moment.”

Ash didn't know how much Bowers had seen of the broadcast, but he assumed he had at least heard about the incident with the Taser. As Alvarez's and Smith's supervisor on the case, he deserved the ass-chewing he was about to receive, but he didn't have to like it. Bowers didn't have a private office on that floor, so their conversation took place in front of the entire homicide squad. Most of the detectives had enough tact to turn away.

“Whatever happened with the Taser is on me,” said Ash. “I told Alvarez and Smith to be aggressive, and they were.”

“Make sure they get their reports squared away. As long as they followed procedure, they'll clear a board of inquiry. We can't keep Chief Lombardo off the news, but I'll try to keep her out of the loop as much as I can. There are going to be leaks, though.”

Ash felt his shoulders relax. “I get the feeling she doesn't like me very much.”

“This isn't about you or Rebecca Cook. She's capitalizing on a tragedy to get her face on TV in a positive light. Don't give her any more excuses to talk about you or this investigation, and you'll be fine. Are you set for the night?”

“I've got three teams rotating between the phones, the streets, and Pamela's.”

Pamela's was a room in the basement with a couple of cots in it. At one time, it had an old poster of Pamela Anderson in a red string bikini on the ceiling, but someone from HR took it down about a year ago. She said female officers had complained. Since then, Pamela's received far fewer visitors.

“Good. Get to it.”

He clapped Ash on the shoulder and then turned around. Alvarez and Smith had resumed their duties on the phone when Ash stepped back into the conference room.

“Anything?”

“Nothing promising yet,” said Doran. “We'll get there, though.”

“I hope you're right.”

The calls came in pretty steady from about ten to midnight. A number of people said they had information they'd share for a reward, but they would only talk if they had money in their pockets. When pressed for information, those callers invariably hung up or lied in the hopes that they'd manage to get a detail correct by sheer chance. They wasted everyone's time, including their own.The rest of the callers seemed sincere, but they knew little more than the liars and nut jobs. Two calls in the first shift merited a follow-up, so Doran and Smith drove out. The first came from an elderly woman who thought she saw a woman being forced into a car. As it turned out, she witnessed her neighbor, a design student at a local art school, putting a mannequin on her backseat for a fashion show. The second call involved a couple of guys in a fraternity stuffing a blow-up doll in the back of their hippy philosophy professor's car. That call amused everyone at least, even while it wasted their time.

Since Ash had been up since five that morning, he took the first shift in Pamela's at midnight. It felt like he had barely closed his eyes by the time Alvarez woke him up at a little before two.

“We got another one.”

Ash blinked several times trying to wake up. The basement air tasted and smelled musty.

“We've got another what?” he asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

Alvarez turned on the light, illuminating the room. Once his eyes adjusted, Ash saw, in addition to a pair of cots, half a dozen filing cabinets, four metal desks, and two bronze desk lamps so old he could have taken them on
Antiques Roadshow
. He had been so tired on his way in that he hadn't noticed anything but the beds.

“We just got a call from a woman about two blocks from Shadeland Avenue. She claims to have seen a Caucasian man carrying a small Caucasian woman from a green Pontiac Grand Am.”

Ash sat up straighter. The pawnshop owner on Shadeland had mentioned a green Grand Am, but they hadn't released that information to anyone. It might have been a good lead.

“What else do we have?”

Alvarez shook his head. “Not a lot. According to our caller, the man carried the woman over his shoulder and broke into a foreclosed home about fifteen minutes ago. The caller is watching the house now, but no one's come out yet.”

“If it's Rebecca, where have they been for the past few hours?” asked Ash, standing, but almost instantly staggering back as blood rushed through his system, momentarily making his head light.

“Maybe just driving around until they found somewhere to lie low,” said Alvarez. “I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“It's the right part of town, but it's not enough for a search warrant. She said the house is a foreclosure?” Alvarez nodded. “No one should be in that this time of night. We'll check it out. If we can find signs of a break-in, that'll give us probable cause to call in the violent crime unit and detain everyone. You have everything you need?”

“Of course.”

“Let's go.”

Alvarez left the room first. Ash swayed on his feet. Two hours of sleep helped, but he needed at least four hours more to overcome the heavy, drunken feeling in his limbs. At least he had experience being drunk, so he knew how to conduct himself. He steadied himself and jogged up the stairs. The temperature outside had dropped about fifteen degrees since his last outing, and water puddled on low points on the sidewalks. His shoulder spoke the truth earlier: It had rained. Thankfully, they had finished clearing their outdoor crime scenes already.

Ash pulled his jacket tight around him and looked left and right before walking to the parking lot across the street. He felt a cold, nervous chill travel up and down his spine. Just eight months ago, a trio of misguided police officers had ambushed him on his way to the building from which he just exited, leaving him battered and bruised. He remembered that night vividly, not because of the beating but because of what happened afterward. His wife confronted him about his drinking for the first time, and he realized what a serious problem he had. He still had a hard time staying out of bars or away from liquor stores, but it had become easier now; he no longer felt alone.

Ash wanted more officers with them, but he couldn't justify the resources without further evidence of a crime. He considered taking Doran and Smith, but he needed at least one of them on the phones and the other on standby in case another credible call came in. Backup was always a phone call away, so their absence shouldn't be a problem.