Alexi’s blood boiled harder every time he read the name at the bottom of the screen.
This was not a common name, he thought. He knew from different things Irina had told him that Elena Estes came from a wealthy background. She knew these men with whom Irina had entangled herself. And now these men were being represented by an expensive lawyer of the same name.
Just how much a part of this group was the woman he had chosen to find out who had killed his Irina?
With every passing moment he became more and more convinced that she would never give him the name of the murderer. She would lie to him. She would lie to protect her own kind.
A single knock sounded against his door before it opened and Svetlana Petrova stuck her head in.
“I brought for you lunch,” she said, slipping into the office.
Every move she made was like a reptile slithering, Alexi thought. There was always that look in her eye as well: cold, sly. His brain, twisted with grief and lack of sleep and the pills he was popping to stay awake, superimposed an image of Irina over her. Irina, tall and elegant, proud. Irina, slender and graceful, her eyes large and watchful, her lips as full as ripe berries. Then the image melted away and once again he could see only Svetlana. Svetlana, short and stubby, calculating. Svetlana, with her piggy little eyes and garish makeup, her clothes too tight, her hair too big and brittle with spray.
She came around the desk and took a seat on the desktop.
“You are too sad, Alexi,” she said. “You torment yourself. It was not your fault. Irina did as she pleased, and this is what happened.”
Kulak stared at her, hating her more with each passing second. She wasn’t worthy to have kissed Irina’s feet.
She leaned forward so he could see her breasts inside her sheer blouse She reached out a stubby little hand and touched his cheek.
“Let me make you feel better, Alexi,” she whispered. “Let me take your grief away, if only for a short time.”
“You told me you brought me lunch,” he said bluntly.
She smiled her sly reptilian smile. “But of course I did.”
Her feet braced on the arms of his chair, she leaned back, raised her skirt, and allowed her legs to fall open.
Alexi stared at her as she touched herself, opened herself. Her pussy was wet and red. He could smell her. Heat filled him.
Heat, but not the heat of sex.
The heat of rage.
“You fucking cunt!” he shouted, coming out of his chair.
He backhanded her hard across the mouth, the force of the blow knocking her off the desk.
“You dare do this!” he shouted, rounding the desk. “You dare debase my grief! You are nothing but a whore!”
Svetlana was on the floor, dazed. She looked up at him as he came toward her, bore down on her, and she tried to turn onto her hands and knees to scramble away.
Kulak grabbed her by the front of her flimsy blouse, which tore away as he tried to lift her to her feet. She landed hard on her backside and tried to push herself backward, but as she started to turn, she ran into the old file cabinets.
This time he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet.
She tried to say no, but her jaw hung slack, and all that came out of her were animal sounds of fear.
“You dare think you can take her place, you stupid, filthy cow?”
Still holding on to her hair, he made a fist with his other hand and punched her in the breast as hard as he could-once, twice.
She was crying now, hysterical, trying to pull away. Her nose was broken and bleeding, the blood running into her mouth.
Alexi shoved her roughly to the floor, where she landed in a heap, half naked, mascara running twin black rivers down her face, making her look like a ghoulish clown. She glanced toward the door, looking for someone to come and save her, knowing no one would.
He made to strike her again, and she cringed and cowered like a dog.
“I should kill you!” he shouted. “I should kill you!”
And he might have, had something on the television screen not caught his eye. A photograph of a man, handsome, arrogant. Beneath the photograph a name: Bennett Walker. And beside it a photograph of a woman. Much younger than she was now, with a wild mane of black hair. Beneath the picture a name: Elena Estes.
He looked down at Svetlana and spat on her. “You are not worth my effort.”
He had more important things to do.
Once more he stared at the television screen. A photograph of Irina filled the frame beneath the title: MARKOVA MURDER.
He went back around his desk, took a gun from a drawer, and left.
Chapter 43
“I got the warrant. I’m at Palm Beach Polo,” Weiss said. “We’ve got the girl’s car driving in the west entrance at two-thirteen a.m. Sunday.”
“Can you see her in the car?”
“The tape isn’t that good.”
“And Walker?” Landry asked, getting that old familiar tension in his belly. He could practically smell Bennett Walker’s blood.
“And Walker and Barbaro in Walker’s Porsche. And Brody’s Escalade with a passenger. Ovada, maybe. And a couple of other cars I’ve got a deputy running plates on, but even money one is Paul Kenner and one is Sebastian Foster.”
“Jesus,” Landry breathed.
He stood on the far end of the sidewalk from the entrance to the ER. If he walked back inside and had a nurse take his pulse, they’d probably admit him.
He had the addresses of all the men in Brody’s clique. Of them, two lived in the Polo Club development: Paul Kenner and Bennett Walker.
“And going out?” he asked.
“Brody leaves via the west gate around three-thirty; the car I think belongs to Foster goes out behind him. Not Kenner, not Walker.”
“And the girl’s car?”
“Drives out the west gate Sunday night, late.”
“Can you see the driver?”
“No.”
“Shit,” Landry said. “Go to Walker’s place and canvass the neighborhood. See if anyone was aware of a party going on there Sunday morning. Kenner lives in the Polo Club too. If you don’t lit pay dirt in one place, try the other.”
“If we can place the cars at either house, I’ll get a search warrant,” Weiss said. “In the meantime, should I get Walker and Kenner picked up for questioning?”
“No,” Landry said. “We wait until we’ve got enough for an arrest warrant. Picking them up now will only piss off their lawyers-and give Dugan another excuse to chew our asses some more.
“I’ll talk to Dugan about having someone sit on them from a distance.”
“Right.”
“Did they get any prints off the car?”
“A couple of partials is all.”
“Better than nothing.”
