This time Capra took so long to respond that I thought we were disconnected.
‘Dominick?’
‘Yeah, I’m here.’
‘Well?’
‘Harry, listen close to what I’m sayin’. I feel the dead hand of higher-ups in this business. You’ve grabbed a buzzsaw, but gettin’ cut is not on my list of priorities. Not only will I not do this little favor for you, I don’t want you to call me again. Comprende?’
Chastened, I refilled my coffee mug before making a series of phone calls, to the Department of Finance, The Motor Vehicle Bureau, and the Department of Consumer Affairs. My hope was to connect Aslan to Domestic Solutions, but the calls were unproductive. Finance told me that Domestic Solutions was not incorporated and had never paid taxes of any kind. Motor Vehicles told me that the Econoline’s registration had been signed by Konstantine Barsakov. Consumer Affairs told me that Domestic Solution was unlicensed.
I’m not terribly superstitious, but I’d had enough of the telephone by then. I walked to the living-room window and stood for a moment, looking out on a playground overrun with screaming children. For the past week, the playground had been deserted because of the heat, so whatever the kids had been doing, they’d been doing it indoors. Now all that pent-up energy was pouring out.
The children were in constant motion, running from one apparatus to another, barely pausing to interact.
A few minutes later, I fired up the computer in my office and went back to work. Aslan Khalid had issued a personal challenge to me when he posed Barsakov in front of the Chechen flag. This was a display of ego I could certainly use against him. As for the challenge itself, the case became personal for me when I rolled Jane Doe over and saw what was done to her. I didn’t need additional motivation.
I jumped from my server to Google, typed in Chechnya, got 892,000 hits. For the next hour, I bounced from website to website, covering no more than twenty. At one, I discovered a version of Aslan’s flag. At another, a history of rebellion that stretched back to 1785 when a Russian army swept south to engulf Chechnya, at the time a virtually autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire. In 1944, a fed up Josef Stalin deported the entire population to the gulags in Kazakhstan. In 1959, a conciliatory Nikita Khrushchev allowed their return. The struggle for independence continued throughout. Not even the 1994 assault on the capitol of Grozny, an attack which left the city looking much like Berlin at the end of World War Two, was sufficient to stop it.
It was all very noble and I found myself in sympathy with the Chechen people. Still, the past ten years had seen a pair of troubling developments. After the rebels were driven out of the capitol and into the hills, Chechnya had been penetrated by Arab jihadists offering money, arms, and a concept of struggle that led to the mass slaughter of Russian school children. At the same time, in the absence of any rule of law, a criminal class had emerged. According to an article in Le Monde, Chechnya had become a trans-shipment point for everything from Afghani morphine headed for Europe to stolen BMWs headed for Thailand. Kidnappings for ransom were an everyday occurrence, even now that the Russians had consolidated what passed for a victory by installing a sadistic butcher named Ramzan Khadyrov as president.
I took a break at noon to stand beside the kitchen window while I ate a slightly overripe nectarine and collected my thoughts. According to Dominick Capra, Aslan couldn’t be in the country legally unless somebody in the Russian government requested a favor of somebody in the United States government. If so, it must have been a very big favor. Aslan’s description of the Russian assault on Grozny was too graphic to be entirely rehearsed. Almost certainly, he’d been there, in his mid-twenties, involved in the fighting. Was he already working for the Russians? Or was he originally a freedom fighter?
That was as far as I got before the phone began to ring. I knew it was from Adele before I picked it up. Adele was the only one who called these days.
‘Hi,’ she said, ‘how’d it go?’
I spelled it out for her, summarizing the facts, my tone neutral. On the prior night, just before I fell asleep, I’d come to a conclusion: I could not have reasonably anticipated the events leading to Barsakov’s release. Neither the presence of Monica Baird, nor the arrival of Barsakov’s lawyer, nor Drew Millard’s chickenshit decision. Any one, or even two, of these elements would not have been enough to spring Konstantine. It took all three.
But if my plan had been sound, that didn’t mean it was the only plan on the table. Far from it.
‘What you might have done,’ Adele pointed out, ‘was take a photo of Barsakov and show it to the witness first. That way, you’d be charging him with murder.’
I was quick to reply. ‘For that matter, I could have brought Clyde with me on the surveillance, let him ID Barsakov right there, then obtained search warrants before Aslan knew I existed. Or even better, I could have held off on serving the warrants until the women came back to Greenpoint on Saturday evening. Hell, by that time, I might have gotten warrants for them too.’
Adele finally brought me to a halt. ‘Alright, Corbin, I’m sorry. I know how you must feel.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then why don’t you come home, Adele? Or at least tell me what’s wrong.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could take them back. ‘I know I’m supposed to be a new-millennium kind of guy, faithful and understanding, but it’s been two weeks and I’m starting to lose hope.’
The inevitable prolonged silence followed, during which I paced from the living room into the rear bedroom and back. Then Adele said, ‘Don’t give up on me, Corbin. Not yet.’
I noted the quaver in her voice, almost with satisfaction. Adele rarely displays her emotions. Woman of mystery is more her style.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’
Another silence, followed by a change of subject. There was to be no revelation.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Adele asked.
‘About what, exactly?’
‘About your Jane Doe, Aslan, the women, the children.’
‘Ah, we’re back to them. Well, in the short term, there’s only one thing I can do.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I have to break the priest.’
A few minutes later, after a goodbye that might have been warmer, I went back to my computer. There was one more item I wanted to research. Several years before, a Catholic priest had violated the seal of the confessional to free a man unjustly convicted of murder. If it happened once, or so I reasoned, it could happen again. I just wanted to know the exact circumstances before I confronted Father Stan.
EIGHTEEN
By one o’clock, I was on my way to the Blessed Virgin Outreach Center, driving along Metropolitan Avenue, over Newtown Creek, through industrial Maspeth, finally into the small residential community surrounding the center. Again, I was impressed with the resolute orderliness of the neighborhood, with the carefully tended yards and the immaculate gardens surrounding the modest homes. Written off decades before, this little piece of Maspeth was as proud — and ultimately defiant — as it was working class.
The outreach center was up and running when I walked inside. Seven adults and at least as many children were gathered around several of the worn couches against the walls. Curiously, there were no children in the play area.
‘Can I help you?’ A young woman in jeans and a tie-dyed sweatshirt rose to her feet from a kneeling position.
‘I’m here to see Father Manicki,’ I said, just as though I’d called ahead to make an appointment.
‘He’s not here today. He’s attending a conference at the Diocese. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Thanks.’ I’d hoped to take the priest by surprise, which was why I hadn’t called ahead, but the trip wasn’t entirely wasted. There was always Sister Kassia and the pressure I hoped she’d put on Father Stan.
The nun took that moment to make an appearance, entering through a door that led back into the church.
