Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

Whenever Michael rode to homicide scenes, he always stood on the sidelines, confident and somewhat in awe of the job that the criminalists did. He watched how they addressed the scene, always mindful of every aspect and department of the forensic team – fingerprints, hair and fiber, blood evidence, documents. He had never wanted to jump in and help. Everyone had their job, and in Queens County those people were among the best in the city. But now, watching the glacial pace of the physical investigation, he felt helpless and increasingly hopeless. He wanted to tear through the file cabinets and see which files were missing. He wanted to go through the disks and CDs in Viktor Harkov’s desk and delete any mention of the names Michael and Abby Roman. He wanted to drop a match in the middle of this dusty, ugly office, and destroy the essence of the practice. He wanted to do all these things because, if there was any possibility that his relationship with Viktor Harkov became known, there was a real possibility that Charlotte and Emily could be taken away. And that would be the end of his life.

All he could do, for the moment, was stand on the sidelines.

And watch.

Fifteen minutes later, after the body had been moved to the morgue, which was located in South Queens, Michael and Tommy stood next to Tommy’s car. Every other car on the block had gotten a ticket. Tommy had his Queens County DA’s placard on the dashboard.

Neither man spoke for a long minute.

“Go to work,” Tommy finally said. “You have a case to try.”

Before Michael could respond, Tommy’s cellphone rang. He stepped away, answered. While he talked, Michael looked down the street, toward Astoria Park. He watched them working on the huge pool in the park, getting it ready for the summer season. He recalled many a hot July or August day when he was small, jumping into the clear blue water, not a care in the world.

Tommy closed his phone. “We don’t know too much yet,” Tommy said. “First, they lifted a dozen prints off the file cabinet. They’re running them now. Second, it looks like there were no backup files in the office. They took a quick look at the hard drive of the computer, and it was wiped clean.”

“Do you think they’ll be able to salvage anything from it?”

“They’ve done it before.”

“So this was about Viktor’s business.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Tommy said. “But get this. They’re pretty sure that the telephone and the wires were set up as some sort of torture device.”

“The phone?”

“Yeah. I heard that the way it was hooked up was that if the phone rang, it would send a charge through the wires. They think whoever did this had it hooked up to the old guy’s genitals, and his left eye.”

“Christ.”

“Sick bastard. They dumped the phone records from the office, and they found out that Harkov’s office phone got sixteen calls in a ten-minute period, all from a disposable cell.”

“My God.”

“Whatever this guy wanted out of Harkov, the old fucker didn’t give it up easily.”

“What about his hands?”

“They figure it was post-mortem. But just.”

“And this is how Harkov’s son found him.”

“Can you imagine?” Tommy said. “Turns out Viktor moved in with his son Joseph a year ago,” he continued. “I guess they were pretty close.”

“Did Powell get a statement from him yet?”

“Just a preliminary statement. And dig this. Joseph Harkov told Powell the police could not go through the old man’s effects.”

Because Viktor Harkov had something to hide, Michael thought. He felt his stomach churn with every breath.

“As you might expect, Powell is none too happy about this,” Tommy added.

“Where is that warrant?”

“Calderon started working it around eight this morning. It was in the pipe before you called me.”

Michael knew the process. A fresh homicide warrant would be expedited, as time was of the essence. It could come through any minute, or it might still be a few hours.

“Does anyone else live in the Harkovs’ apartment?” Michael asked.

“I don’t think so,” Tommy said.

“Do you think the old man may have kept something at the apartment? Backup files, duplicate files?”

Silence from Tommy. He knew what Michael meant. He glanced at his watch.

“Let’s go.”

Aleks stood in the hallway on the second floor. On the walls were enlarged photographs of Michael and Abigail Roman and their two adopted daughters. One had them standing on a beach somewhere, tall sawgrass tufting through the sand all around them. Another had them all looking down into the lens, as if the photographer was in a hole of some sort. Yet another, when the girls were quite small, showed them standing between Abigail and Michael, against a brick wall. The girls barely came up to the adults’ knees, and the photo was cut off at the parents’ waists. It was clearly meant to be amusing, to show scale. The girls were much taller now. It made Aleks consider how much time had passed since he had ridden down to the Keskkulas’ farm that dark night, how much time had passed since the midwife had found him and told him that Elena had gone into labor early.

He stood in the doorway to their room. There were two beds. The walls were pastel pink; the windows and doors had white trim. The furniture in the room – a nightstand between the beds, a low dresser, a pair of desks – were all white as well. The room was tidy, considering the occupants were four-year-old girls. There was the odd toy on the bed, a sweater folded on one of the desks. Beyond these things, the room was arranged with a casual precision.

In the far corner was a table with four little chairs, a table bearing place settings for three.

The room smelled of powders and fruity shampoo. On the walls were posters and drawings. The posters were of someone called Dora the Explorer. The drawings were of Valentines and shamrocks and Easter eggs.

He crossed the room, opened one of the drawers in the dresser. In it were neatly folded little T-shirts, rolled socks in shockingly bright colors. The second drawer held small plastic purses, folded nylon knapsacks, and two pairs of white gloves.

Aleks reached into the drawer, held the gloves in his hand, closed his eyes, felt their presence within him, saw the women…

… standing by the river, eternal, caught in that ephemeral beauty that knew neither youth nor age… at their feet the clear water runs… the ceaseless cycles of life. He sits on the nearby hill, flute in hand, his pride boundless. As everything around them is birthed and dies, generations flitting by in seconds, they remain the same. Above them, a light in the deep violet sky. Olga, never seen, always present…

The master bedroom on the second floor overlooked the front of the house. It was tastefully, if not expensively decorated. A four-poster bed, a dresser with an LCD flat-screen TV on it, an exercise bike in the corner. This room was not quite as tidy as the girls’ room. It had the look and feel of people who lived their lives in a hurry.

Aleks went through the drawers. It seemed Abigail had control of the top three drawers in the dresser; Michael the bottom two.

The closet was packed with suits, shirts, skirts, dresses on wooden hangers. The shelves were crowded with boxes containing folded sweaters and vests. The top shelf held a box full of photos and memorabilia. Aleks removed the box, placed it on the bed.

He flipped through a pair of photo albums – Michael and Abigail at their wedding, their honeymoon, at Christmas and birthday parties. The second photo album was dedicated to the girls. On the first page was a large photo of Anna and Marya in a crib, in what looked like a doctor’s office. They were no more than a few months old. Aleks tried to recall this time in his life, the first year or so after the girls had been stolen from him. The fury he felt was never far from the surface. The rest of the album was of the girls on the beach, the girls in the backyard, the girls on their tricycles.