Dead Connection

you with the kids.”

Zoya opened the door. “Vitya is working late tonight, and Anton is napping. If we must talk, then we should do it now.”

The apartment was quiet, a first. The baby, Tanya, sat happily in a bouncy seat, popping bubbles of spit with her lips. Ellie took a seat on a black leather sofa across the room.

“When you said your husband couldn’t have done whatever it was you thought I was suggesting, what were you referring to?”

Zoya shrugged but held Ellie’s gaze. “I do not know. I figure, the police keep coming to our door. They must think Vitya did something wrong.”

“Or it could have something to do with the fact that the two of you saw her with an FBI agent right around the time that two of Vitya’s friends went to federal prison.”

“I told you that I do not know the man in your picture.”

“I know what you told me, Zoya, but I saw your expression when you asked if Lev Grosha went to prison because of Tatiana. You recognized him. My guess is you also know a man named Alex Federov. Did Vitya tell you he was killed in prison?” Zoya said nothing. “When you found out that the man in the car with Tatiana was an FBI agent, it was the first time you realized that your sister was responsible for Vitya’s friends being arrested. And now you’re wondering if she was killed for it.”

“But she was my sister-”

“I know you don’t want to believe it. I wouldn’t want to either. But your husband is in this a lot deeper than you’ve ever admitted to yourself. The man who was here with me when I first met you, Ed Becker? Do you know that he’s dead?”

Zoya’s eyes finally left Ellie’s and dropped to the floor. “Yes. I saw it on the news.”

“Let me guess. Vitya was watching very attentively.” Ellie took Zoya’s silence as confirmation. “You knew him before I ever walked into this apartment with him, didn’t you? I remember, when I came here that first day, you asked, Who are you? But you weren’t looking at Ed Becker. You only looked at me. And when your husband asked who was at the door, you said it was the police: the man from before, plus a woman – me. Becker was here talking to your husband, wasn’t he? He was here alone, and then came back up with me.”

“He was a friend of Vitya.”

Ellie shook her head, wondering how the last week might have unfolded if she’d realized earlier that Becker was not arriving at the Rostovs’ apartment the day she saw him on the street, but leaving.

“Friends? If they were friends, why did the three of you hide the fact that you’d just seen each other five minutes before I knocked on your door? You need to tell me what you know, Zoya, or I’ll go to the FBI, and they’ll ask the U.S. Attorney’s Office to open a grand jury investigation.” Zoya could not be forced to testify about her communications with her husband, but she didn’t know that. “Let me see if this gets you started. Vitya doesn’t work as a security guard. He might work at a warehouse somewhere, but it’s a cover for widespread criminal activity that includes dealing in heroin and stolen credit card numbers. When Becker was on the job, he was on the payroll.”

Zoya pushed a loose strand of hair out of her face and turned toward Ellie. “Vitya is a good provider. He works at the storage warehouse like I told you. They do imports and exports out of there, but I do not know the details.”

“You make a point of not knowing the details. But Tatiana didn’t have any reason to keep her eyes shut, did she?”

“As much as Vitya enjoyed insulting Tatiana’s lifestyle, yes, I always suspected that acquaintances of his might have shared some of her – bad habits.” She was still distancing her husband from the criminal activity, but at least she was talking.

“And it didn’t strike you as odd when your husband’s pal Ed Becker turned out to be the lead detective on your sister’s murder case?”

“Vitya told me that Becker took the case because he is our friend – that he would find out who killed her. I had no idea she was working for police.”

“And now what do you think, Zoya?”

A tear fell slowly from the corner of her eye, down the bridge of her nose, and stopped at her lips. She brushed it away. “I do not know what to think. Vitya, he is the father of my children.”

“And Tatiana was your sister. I talked to Charlie Dixon. He’s the FBI agent in the picture I showed you. He knew Tatiana was holding something back. She was protecting Vitya. She was protecting you and your son. She didn’t want you to have to earn a living the way she did, and it got her killed. If she hadn’t cared so much about you, if she had simply told Dixon everything she knew, Vitya would have gone down, and Tatiana would still be alive right now. Are you really going to be able to forgive him for that?”

Zoya took short quick breaths, trying to fight back tears, but then broke into a full sob. Across the room, her baby’s brow furrowed, and the bouncy seat came to a halt. Ellie told herself she should feel no sympathy for this woman. If anyone, anyone, ever hurt Jess, she knew exactly where her loyalties would lie.

“Tatiana told Agent Dixon that FirstDate had something to do with your husband’s friends. What’s the connection? You know now why your sister was murdered, but the families of three other women still don’t have the truth. If you can tell me how FirstDate fits into this, I might be able to give them some answers, and I could leave you out of this.”

Zoya shook her head frantically in her hands. “I told you, I don’t know anything. He doesn’t tell me anything. I am his wife. I am mother to his children. It is not like American marriage, these people on TV who talk to each other and share their secrets. He goes to work, he sees his friends. I do not ask what goes on, and he does not tell me.”

Ellie could no longer stomach being part of a conversation that Zoya was using to cement her misguided feelings of victimization. “I hope you can live with the choices you’ve made, Zoya.”

“I GOT ZOYA to admit her husband knew Becker.” Ellie called Charlie Dixon on her way to the subway station and gave him a quick update. “Barbara Hunter says her daughter used her new MasterCard only one time before an unauthorized charge turned up in Texas. Want to guess where she used it?”

“FirstDate.”

“You got it.”

“Damnit. That’s how FirstDate was involved,” Dixon said. “I assumed all along it was money laundering. Whenever you see white collar guys like Stern wrapped up with the kinds of scumbags Tatiana was involved with, it’s either because they’re using or pushing dope, or they’re washing money. Stern never struck me as a junkie-”

“But he could very well be a thief. You said he lives above his means, right? Well, he’s got access to a steady stream of credit card numbers. He hands those to Rostov and his buddies in exchange for a piece of the pie. Tatiana must have heard Rostov talking about FirstDate, but didn’t want to give him up directly because of her sister.”

“But then Rostov saw her with a guy like me and realized something was wrong.”

“Rostov followed my brother to Vibrations before the assault. He probably found a way to follow you to the federal building.”

In the momentary silence that followed, Ellie sensed that Dixon was forcing himself to hold it together, delaying the complete meltdown that would come if he allowed himself to contemplate his role in Tatiana’s death. “So Rostov killed Tatiana for cooperating, and then killed Caroline Hunter as a precaution? Or do you think Becker pulled the trigger?”

“Becker was on duty when Tatiana was killed,” she said. “I think Rostov’s the shooter; Becker made sure to take the call-out. That would mean Rostov’s probably the shooter on Caroline Hunter as well. Becker saw her death in the paper and figured out it wasn’t just a robbery. He took title to that boat just a month after Caroline’s murder. Want to bet it was the payoff for his silence?”

“I’ll see what I can learn about its previous owner. Maybe it’ll give us another link back to Rostov.”

“Thanks.”

“So if Tatiana and Hunter were killed to cover up a fraud ring, how do the other two FirstDate murders fit