Hidden Crimes (20 page)

Something happened sooner than he expected.
He’d been in his car maybe fifteen minutes when it occurred to him
to pop his earpiece back in. The moment he did, Dana their
dispatcher started yelling at him.

Needless to say, her calling him a dickhead
wasn’t SOP.

“Jesus, Dana,” he said. “What crawled up your
butt?”

“Get your ass to 122 on Park. Ivan the
Terrible is dead.”

“Dead,” he repeated, his brain refusing to
compute this. He couldn’t be dead. They were still trying to put
him in jail.

“That isn’t all,” Dana told him, her upset
causing her to be voluble. “Vasili slipped his minders at the safe
house. He’s unaccounted for at the time of his brother’s
death.”

“They didn’t notice him leaving?”

“Apparently not. What’s more, Vasili claims
to have found the body.”

“Crap,” Nate said. When this got out, the RPD
would look as competent as gnats. “Adam’s on scene, I take it.”

“On scene and wondering where the eff you
are. You were supposed to leave that earpiece on.”

Nate decided it wasn’t worth pretending it
had malfunctioned.

“I said prayers for you,” Dana reproached. “I
asked three saints and an angel to steer you back onto the right
path.”

Dana was notoriously superstitious, her
tech-laden cubicle at the precinct scrawled so thickly with good
luck spells that the squad sometimes wondered how the various
powers she was importuning knew who she was talking to.

“Thank you,” Nate said, because right then
wasn’t the time to tease. “I’m sure the praying helped.”

~

Ivan’s mansion at 122 Park Avenue looked like
an embassy and was probably even more secure. Located across from
Resurrection’s sprawling version of Central Park, the residence
hearkened back to the days of carriages and top hats. A wrought
iron fence girded its sliver-wide front grounds, safeguarding it
from curious tourists. They frequently mistook it for a museum.

At the moment, tourists weren’t getting
anywhere near the place. Half the RPD’s black and whites appeared
to be surrounding it. Nate squeaked his vehicle into a clear spot
and ID’d himself to the uniforms. Though he was in no rush to
collect his dressing down, he sprinted up the carpeted double
stairway in the front hall. To judge by the thickest clustering of
police personnel, the second floor was where the action was.

A roped crystal chandelier hung from the
foyer dome. It cast an undiscriminating glitter onto the many
living and the single dead.

Adam gave Nate a cool look when he saw him,
not bothering to wave him over. Rick and Carmine had corralled
Vasili at the end of the long landing, away from his brother’s
body, which the Crime Scene guys were still swarmed around. Nate
approached carefully, stopping when he’d reached Adam’s side at the
edge of activity. The evidence techs were muttering to each other
in a way that didn’t sound happy. Nate had a sinking feeling this
corpse had received the same magical cleaning as the
accountant’s.

Nate pulled his focus together to study
it.

Ordinary dirt and gore were clinging to Ivan
fine. He’d been a big wolf: tall, muscular, with a peppering of
gray in his beard and at his temples. He was just starting to get
jowls and deeper wrinkling around his eyes. He looked the seventy
years he was—seventy for a wolf anyway. Rumor had it that early in
his career, Ivan had strung up one of his lieutenants on four meat
hooks. Because the man was a were, his dangling body had torn and
healed, torn and healed until he confessed . . . to whatever Ivan
wanted, Nate assumed. In death, the crime family’s leader looked
strangely ordinary—tired perhaps, but not capable of infamous
cruelty.

Vasili was twenty years his brother’s junior.
Their parents had died young, so Ivan had filled the role of father
and sibling. An old-fashioned dagger with a gold-encrusted hilt
appeared to have severed both relationships. Thrust between Ivan’s
ribs and into his heart, the murder weapon looked like it had been
twisted for good measure, allowing more blood to gush from the
wound than would have escaped otherwise.

The blade must have been electrum. Ivan’s
wound showed no sign of having started healing before he died.

“That’s a helluva personal way to go,” Nate
observed. “Face to face. Stab
and
twist. The killer had to
be someone close to him.”

Adam grunted grudgingly. “Someone close and
someone angry.”

“Not too angry, or there’d be more than one
stab wound. We’re looking for someone with strength, aim, and
emotional control.” Nate wasn’t sure Vasili qualified—his lack of
alibi notwithstanding. Maybe Adam was thinking along the same
lines. He glanced at the apparently distraught man Rick and Carmine
were restraining. Then he looked back at Nate.

“Where do you want me, boss?” Nate asked.

“I
should
tell you to interview the
staff with Tony.”

“But?”

“But Carmine’s better with domestics, and you
have damn sharp eyes. Join me and Rick in the dining room. We’re
going to give Vasili a little squeeze.”

Adam collected their weeping suspect from
Rick and Carmine, steering him gently but firmly by the elbow.
Vasili stopped struggling the moment Adam took him in hand. Though
the wolf might not realize it, his brother’s death left him
vulnerable to any strong alpha’s influence.

“Ivan’s gone,” he choked out as Adam guided
him to sit on one side of the long polished table. He was handsomer
than his brother but not as imposing. The tip of the hawk-like nose
they’d shared was pink, the rims of his leaf-shaped brown eyes
reddened from crying. His grief seemed sincere, but Nate had seen
other murderers spout tears after killing relatives.

One thing he hadn’t noticed genuine mourners
do was shoot the cuffs of their tailored shirts the minute they sat
down.

“Ivan is gone,” Adam agreed. He took the seat
next to Vasili. Its tall carved back and deep blue embroidered
velvet testified to Ivan’s fondness for pretending he was a duke.
When Rick sat on Vasili’s other side, his six-four frame made the
grand chair look normal sized. Nate remained by the door as if he
were guarding it. In actuality, it was in the perfect spot from
which to observe.

“We have to find who did this,” Vasili
pleaded, clutching at Adam’s arm. “Ivan was my only blood.”

“We’ll catch the murderer,” Adam said.
“First, though, we need to clear up a few inconsistencies.”

Vasili’s expression rippled with annoyance.
“I told the others. Those men who were guarding me fell
asleep.”

“But why did you leave, Vasili? You knew your
brother wanted you dead. Why not stay where you were safe?”

“I was climbing the walls!” he exclaimed.
“You know what it’s like for wolves when we’re cooped up. I wanted
to get some air.”

If Vasili hoped to help his cause by
reminding Adam he was a fellow wolf, he was barking up the wrong
tree. Adam thought worse of the Galinas for choosing the path they
had. His features hardened, though probably not intentionally.

“Why did you come here?” he asked. “Is the
‘air’ better in Ivan’s house?”

“It’s my house too,” Vasili said. “And I
wanted to talk to him. I thought if we spoke face to face, maybe we
could reconcile. My brother . . . loved me before all this.”

“Before you stole from him, you mean.”

“That was a misunderstanding!” Vasili’s back
was up, his defenses beginning to stiffen against his
questioner.

“Where’s Ellen?” Rick asked, smoothly
distracting him.

Vasili twisted around to him. “Ellen?”

When he said her name, a different note
vibrated through his energy. The change yanked Nate’s wolf’s ears
to attention, though it took a moment to identify the younger
Galina’s emotion.

Pride
, he thought. Winning his
brother’s girl was a source of pride to him.

“Ellen doesn’t have anything to do with
this,” Vasili said. “I haven’t seen her since you people took me
into your supposed protective custody. Ellen is a sweet girl. She’s
not cut out to be in the middle of this mess.”

Vasili’s body language indicated some or all
of this was a lie. Adam opened his mouth, likely about to press him
for the truth. Nate had a feeling this would simply make the wolf
clam up.

“Ellen’s fae, isn’t she?” he interrupted from
the doorway.

“What?” asked Vasili, seeming to notice him
for the first time.

“Ellen Owen has faerie blood.”

Again, irritation flicked like lightning
through Vasili’s red-rimmed eyes. “She’s only a sixteenth fae. She
doesn’t make a big deal about it. It’s not enough to give her any
special magic juice.”

“She’s pretty, though,” Nate said. “I’ve seen
pictures. She’s got that glowing skin part fae have. And those
green eyes that shine like jewels. Nice hair too. Ordinary people
don’t get that shade of red naturally.”

“Sure,” Vasili said, not quite selling his
casual shrug. “She’s beautiful. You got a thing for fae?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Nate asked. “They’re
Resurrection’s royalty, our very own magical golden boys and girls.
A man would do quite a lot to keep a female who was even a teensy
bit faerie tucked up safe in his bed.”

Vasili stared at him openmouthed, too dazzled
by the pictures Nate was painting to follow his full meaning.
Evidently, just thinking about his girlfriend caused his brain to
slow down. When it finally caught up, he shook his head like a dog
flinging off water. “You think I killed my only brother for my
girlfriend? Why on earth would Ellen want me to do that?”

“Maybe she wanted to be a boss’s girlfriend
again. Maybe she figured you’d take over with him out of the
way.”

“Right.” Vasili was bitterly amused. “I’m
going to take over from Ivan.”

The ridiculousness of this suggestion was
immediately obvious to everyone. Vasili didn’t have it in him to
lead, even with his brother out of the way.

His subordinate’s theory wilting, Adam
decided Nate had wandered far enough off script. He pushed up from
his tall carved chair. “You mind if I visit your brother’s kitchen?
I’m gonna rustle us up some sandwiches.”

“I don’t think I could eat,” Vasili said.

“Sure you can.” Adam dropped his hand to
their suspect’s shoulder, his hold visibly heavy. “We’re wolves,
right? We’ll think more clearly once we’ve seen to our
stomachs.”

Him assuming a paternal pose was no accident,
no more than the warning look he shot Nate. Reading its implicit
order, Nate followed him from the room.

Adam preceded him into what Nate supposed had
been a salon. The furniture was as grandiose as that in the dining
room. A huge still life of a dead deer hung over the fireplace’s
onyx mantel. Nate thought the painting might be a real
Landseer.

In case the testosterone wasn’t thick enough,
the walls were painted tobacco brown.

Adam faced Nate with his back to the hearth,
crossing his arms as he did. “Tell me you’ve got a decent reason
for grabbing control of that interview.”

Nate wasn’t convinced Adam would approve of
his reason, but he shared what he’d discovered at the smoke shop.
Adam was quiet for half a minute after he’d finished. Nate doubted
this was a good sign.

“You bought marijuana from them,” he said at
last, his manner icily sardonic, “which you didn’t get on tape,
because you decided to leave your fucking earpiece back in your
car. The earpiece I told you to wear for your own safety, because
it’s not like investigating Russian wolves might get dangerous. Oh,
and let’s remember you specifically asked not to have Tony back you
up.”

“Uh,” Nate said.

“‘Uh’ isn’t going to cut it, Nate. Given the
cockamamie story Vasili is trying to peddle, this is looking
increasingly like a coup and not a falling out. What do you want to
bet Ivan’s corpse has been charmed to remove evidence? We can’t
prosecute Vasili. We can’t shut down the Galina organization. We’ve
got nothing to show for our efforts but a dead mobster.

“Basically, this is a cluster fuck. The
Police Commissioner already called me twice, threatening to sic the
media dogs on me. You had a bird in the hand with Ellen Owen’s
cousins. You could have salvaged a scrap of progress from this shit
heap, but you fucking
let them go
.”

By this point, Adam’s chill had turned to
fire. Nate set his shoulders into a straighter line. He didn’t see
how it was his fault that Vasili’s minders had screwed up—or that
the PC was on the warpath. With an effort, he kept himself on
topic. “With the information I had at the time, what I did was
strategic. And it might still bear fruit.”

“Jesus, Nate.” Nate had been hoping to keep
the tone of this reasonable, but Adam shoved his hands through his
hair the same as if Nate were an irresponsible idiot. “This isn’t
the Wild Wild West, where you’re the only law in town, and you make
it up as you go along. You’re supposed to be a part of a team, a
team I’m the boss of. You need to run these things by me before you
hare off.”

A starch Nate knew he ought to suppress
surged into his spine. Sadly, knowing he ought to didn’t mean he
could. “I did better on my own than I would have with Tony. Plus,
I’d have been in a helluva lot more danger if that damned receiver
had been spotted in my ear.”

Adam’s eyes glowed with anger. “Are you
trying to make me pull the pin on ousting you from the pack?”

“You do what you have to do,” Nate clipped
out. “I’m not a fucking kid.”

They both knew this was too much defiance.
“Nate . . .” Adam said, more than a bit of a growl in it.

Nate didn’t know what would have happened
next, only that his heart pounded like a jackhammer. A vein ticked
in Adam’s temple, like a clock counting down his doom. Carmine
stuck his head in the door, sparing him from finding out what that
was.