‘Leo Lukanov,’ said Harper, breathing heavily, ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of David Capske.’
PART TWO
Chapter Thirty-Four
Denise Levene stayed in the taxi for a few minutes, staring across the road at the unremarkable suburban house in a row of other unremarkable suburban houses. She had coped better than she’d expected with the ordeal in Brownsville. Maybe Mac was helping, but she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself; she was feeling angry. She wanted to do something. She needed to.
The driver didn’t speak English too well, but he was happy to keep the meter running. She looked down at the note in her hand. Detective Gauge had provided her with the home details, but had warned her that it wouldn’t be easy. No one coped well, and Dr Goldenberg was worse than most.
She noticed that the drapes were shut in every room. Maybe he was sleeping. Sometimes it was the only way if the worry and the strain kept your mind whirring all night long.
She’d called a colleague at Columbia and heard that Dr Goldenberg hadn’t gone back to work. He was on compassionate leave. Since Lukanov’s arrest, she had tried not to imagine what might have happened to Abby. But she felt the sadness deeply. There was nothing here to hate: a small suburban lot and a divorced man bringing up his daughter. Now it was shot to pieces. He was in hell because of racists like Leo Lukanov.
Denise had spent the morning reviewing the case with Harper, gleaning what she could from the new information. Abby was the golden girl by all accounts — a grade-A student with charisma, musical ability and an independent mind. It was terrible to imagine that people like Lukanov could take it all away for nothing, for some messed-up sense of history.
Denise handed a twenty through the Plexiglass and got out. She steeled herself, walked to the door and rang the bell.
Dr Goldenberg answered quickly, almost as if he was expecting Abby or news about Abby at every moment. Behind him, the house was in darkness. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light.
He was dressed in a plain blue two-piece suit. His hair was almost completely gray and he wore dark-framed glasses. Denise recognized him as the colleague from Columbia University, but a changed man.
He was shrunken by a few inches; his shoulders dipped forward and his clothes looked baggy. His skin was gray. His eyes were creased so badly that he looked like a victim waking up from major surgery. They were rimmed with red and there was a strange depthless quality to his stare, as if his body was going through the motions, but his soul or heart, or whatever it was, had flown.
‘Hello, Dr Goldenberg.’
His hand reached out and grasped hers. It was soft but it gripped her hand tightly and didn’t let go. His eyes rose, almost as if he’d seen a glint of hope.
‘Dr Levene,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much for coming by. On the phone, you said you had news?’
Denise stood with her hand gripped by his, looking into his eager eyes. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some news, but it’s not necessarily positive.’
‘What is it?’
‘Please, could we go inside?’
‘I understand, of course,’ said Dr Goldenberg. His eyes were now trying to read hers. ‘Tell me, please.’
Denise pulled her hand from his. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I am. I just want to say it.’
‘I appreciate it,’ he said. ‘We can talk all about it later, but just tell me, what have you got?’
‘Of course.’
Dr Goldenberg’s mouth creased with some memory of his daughter. ‘Abby is…’ He stopped mid-sentence and Denise watched as his whole face contorted in silent pain.
He brought himself under control.
‘Please — come in, Dr Levene.’
They walked through the house. It was quiet and felt unlived in. Goldenberg switched the light on in the living room and motioned impatiently towards a seat.
‘What have you found?’
Denise pulled out a folder. ‘Nothing conclusive. Last night, the NYPD arrested four men. Leo Lukanov, Patrick Ellery, Thomas Ocksborough and Raymond Hicks.’ She showed him the photographs.
‘The four men who attacked Abby?’
‘Yes. I went to speak to them.’
‘You?’
‘I thought they might know something. They came after me.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Were you hurt?’
‘No. I was frightened,’ said Denise, ‘but I wasn’t hurt. The cops got there real quick.’
‘Have they told you where Abby is?’
‘No. We can’t even be sure they’re involved, but something spooked them. Why come after me, try to frighten me, if they didn’t have some connection to Abby?’
‘Could you try to tell me what happened?’
‘I went to see these four men with officers from the Hate Crime Unit. Next day, they came after me.’
‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘I heard the news.’
‘There may be a link.’
‘With the murderer of David Capske? Please don’t tell me that.’
‘Lukanov bought the barbed wire that was used in the murder of David Capske.’
‘You think my Abby could have been a victim?’
‘There’s going to be an investigation. Homicide will look into it. It means that she’s going to get more time.’
‘That is something.’
‘Not much, I know.’
‘I appreciate it, Dr Levene. I know this is not easy. Do they know why these men might have been targeting people?’
‘It could be something to do with anti-Semitism,’ said Denise. ‘But we can’t be sure, yet. I’ll keep you informed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Could I see Abby’s room?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Anything specific?’
‘No, I just want a sense of her.’
Inside Abby’s room, Denise felt the horror of her disappearance again. Life was made up of the tiniest fragments. Memories, loves, events. Denise saw the pop posters, the half-naked men, her wide-ranging intellectual interests, her passion for music, her adoration of her father, her love of her mother, her independence, her eccentricity, her karate skills, riding skills, ballet.
Denise sat down in Abby’s room, the drapes drawn, and opened her diary from a year earlier. She had no idea what she was doing or why, but she felt unable to leave without engaging as much as she could, for an ex- colleague she barely knew and a girl called Abby, whom she knew even less, but for whom, for some reason, she felt responsible.
