“Oh.” Tobias’s eyes flew over the first few lines of the search results, all article names like Suspected Meth Dealer Murdered, Man Guilty of Assaulting Cop Found Dead, and Shooting Victim Found on Lookout Mtn. Has Mob Ties. He and Church had kept an eye on the news for weeks after everything had gone down eight months ago in case something that could bite them in the ass ended up in the hands of the press or the cops, but as time had gone by without reports of meth, dealers or related violence, they’d eventually quit monitoring. “Oh, that’s bad.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Sullivan pushed the laptop back. “Don’t suppose you have any thoughts about this dead meth dealer?”
Tobias paused. “I never met him, but I know who he is.”
“Do you know his relationship to the guys in the picture? Seryozha, you said? And Yasha? Vasily’s brothers? Cousins?”
“Brothers. They’re nicknames, though. I don’t know what they’re short for, but my friend said that Seryozha’s the smaller guy, and that he’s really smart. He said not to underestimate him.”
“And your friend knows this how?”
Tobias reached over and turned off the recorder. “If I tell you about crimes, will you go to the cops?”
Sullivan dragged a hand through his hair, the strands tangling around his fingers. “To be clear, I have zero legal obligation to report criminal activity I stumble across during a case. I’m not law enforcement. That being said, if keeping my mouth shut will get someone hurt, I’ll sing like the proverbial canary. I have ethics.”
“You care more about people getting hurt than seeing bad guys go to jail,” Tobias clarified.
Sullivan frowned. “In the general sense, yes. In the specific sense, it depends on the situation.”
Tobias huffed a breath. “Are you going to turn my friend in or not?”
“Did he kill someone?”
“No.”
“You sound sure.”
“I am sure. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Sexual assault? Torture? Kidnapping?”
“Torture? Are you kidding? No.”
“Not even a meth dealer? No one likes meth dealers.”
“Not even Vasily Krayev.” Tobias’s chin lifted. “Not anybody. But I’m not sure about everything that he had to do to stay safe, so... I mean, there might be smaller stuff. I don’t know.”
“I’m not worried about smaller stuff. We’re good.” Sullivan restarted the recorder and picked up a pen. “Start at the beginning.”
It took about an hour from start to finish. Without using Church’s name, Tobias explained his hiring at the bakery owned by the youngest Krayev brother, Matvey, a good man who wanted to live outside of his family’s criminal activities. He talked about how the older Krayevs had brought their clumsy, burgeoning meth business into Matvey’s bakery without his consent, resulting in Church’s subsequent, accidental witnessing of some very illegal drug-related behavior. Cue a landslide of harassment from the oldest Krayev son, the now-deceased Vasily, who’d had a temper problem the size of a moon crater, and the eventual involvement of the Krayev matriarch, who had agreed to let the situation resolve without murder in exchange for Church’s silence about the meth and a favor from Ghost.
“There’re five Krayev brothers?” Sullivan asked, making notes. “Well, four, now that Vasily’s dead?”
“Yes. But Matvey’s not going to be a problem. He’s a good guy.”
“And this matriarch—”
“They called her Mama.”
“Right, she’s in charge, huh? Do you know her real name?”
“Give me a second.” Tobias texted Church: What was Mama’s first name?
The response came gratifyingly fast: Yalena? Yellena? Something like that everyone called her mama tho and fuck, you better be careful.
Tobias sighed and passed the message on.
Sullivan kept writing. “But you don’t know the specifics of what happened between Mama and Vasily and your buddy?”
Tobias jerked a shoulder. “I just know that on that last day when everything happened, Vasily went after my friend. Mama stepped in, Ghost agreed to do a favor for her, and neither me nor my friend have seen Vasily or any of the other Krayevs since.”
“Hmm.” Sullivan stared at his notes. “This was eight months ago?”
“Yes.”
“And it was around this time that Ghost moved into the new condo?”
“Not long after.”
“Think K in his phone stands for Krayev?”
“I don’t know. I think so, but...”
“But not sure. Fine. And you have no idea what the favor was?”
“No.” Tobias licked his lips. “What do you think?”
“I think we’re going to need to be careful.”
“I mean about Ghost. All of this is definitely connected to him being gone, right?”
“Well, I don’t buy that he suddenly fucked off to San Diego to visit Sea World.” As he spoke, Sullivan tugged one of Tobias’s bags of chips out of the grocery sack and opened it, popping a couple in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
“Help yourself,” Tobias said dryly.
Sullivan blinked down at the bag in his hand as if he wasn’t sure how it’d gotten there. “Oh. Yeah. Well, maybe people who live in glass houses full of blackmail shouldn’t throw stones at a little casual potato chip theft.”
“It’s fine. Just go on.”
“So Ghost is either on the run or he got grabbed.” Sullivan spoke with his mouth full. “But if he was grabbed, I don’t think the Krayevs took him.”
“You don’t?”
“The Krayevs came to Ghost’s place for a reason. One of them stuck his head into the room while we were in the closet, right? Not long enough to find something, but long enough to see that someone wasn’t there.”
“They were looking for him, too,” Tobias said slowly. “Maybe that’s why one of them hung around for a while. Waiting to see if Ghost would show.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s next?”
“Next I want to know how Ghost and the Krayevs are related to a dead housekeeper and a missing girl from 1992. Any thoughts on that?”
Tobias shook his head. “I have no idea. There was
