Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

Through the screen door Abby said “Yes?”

“Are you Abigail Roman?”

“Yes.”

The woman held up a badge wallet. A gold shield. NYPD. “My name is Detective Desiree Powell. I’m with Queens Homicide. May I come in for a moment?”

It took all of Abby’s strength and concentration not to look anywhere but the detective’s eyes. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“I just have a few routine questions. May I come in?”

“I’m terribly busy right now.”

The woman put her hand on the screen door handle. Abby let go. The woman smiled, opened the door, stepped inside. She did a quick perusal of the entrance, living room, the stairs leading to the second floor. “I know your husband, Michael. We’ve worked a few cases together,” the woman said. “By the way, he’s not here by any chance, is he?”

“No,” Abby said. “He’s in court today.”

Powell glanced at her watch. “They’re adjourned for the day, I believe. I called his office and they said he’s gone for the day. Would you happen to know where he is right now?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

Powell gave a closer look at the living room, its decor. “You have a lovely home.”

Here comes the bullshit, Abby thought. She had to find a way to get this woman out of her house. “Thank you. Now if -”

“Are you all right?”

Abby instinctively touched her face. She had iced it down, and the swelling was not as noticeable as she thought it was going to be. “I’m fine. Got whacked with a tennis ball this afternoon.”

Powell nodded, clearly not believing the story. She was a cop. She encountered a lot of married women who walked into doors, tripped in the shower, slipped on the ice. As a nurse, Abby had met her share, too.

“I’ve never played. Always wanted to. Having you been playing long?”

“Just a few years,” Abby said.

“Are your girls here?”

“Yes.” She pointed out the back window. Charlotte and Emily were sitting at the picnic table in the backyard.

Powell looked out the window. “Oh my. They’re adorable. Michael talks about them all the time. How old are they?”

“They just turned four.”

“Can I ask what their names are?”

“Charlotte and Emily.”

Powell smiled. “Like the Bronte sisters.”

“Like the Bronte sisters.”

Powell stepped further into the house. “You’re probably wondering what this is all about.”

“Yes. In fact, we were just about to leave in a few minutes.”

Powell glanced at the bags by the door. Two lilac nylon duffels, two bags of groceries, and a man’s leather messenger bag. “Going on a trip?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “We’re going to visit my parents.”

“Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”

Abby took a short step towards the door, the kind of move you make when you are trying to usher someone out of your house. “They’re in Westchester County. Near Pound Ridge.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful up there. Especially this time of year.” Powell angled her body in front of Abby, her back now to the hallway leading to the kitchen. She pointed at the man’s leather bag. “Is Michael coming with you?”

“He’s going to meet us up there.”

Powell nodded, held Abby’s gaze for a moment. She wasn’t buying any of this. She took a notebook out of her pocket, flipped it open. “Well, I won’t keep you too long.” She glanced at a page of her book. “Do you know a woman named Sondra Arsenault?”

The name was familiar to Abby. She couldn’t immediately place it. She also knew, from five years of living with a prosecutor, that the best way to handle this was to plead memory loss. “I’m not sure. Who is she?”

“She’s a social worker,” Powell said. “She lives over in Putnam County with her husband James.”

“The names don’t really ring a bell.”

“They have twin girls. Just like you.”

Abby knew that this detective would not be asking these questions unless she already had the answers. And she now knew what this was about. “I’m sorry. I don’t know them.”

“Okay,” she said. “What about a man named Viktor Harkov?”

Abby brought her hand to her mouth, trying to keep the emotion inside. She couldn’t. It was all about to come tumbling out, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She could still smell the dead man on her, could still taste the blood. She leaned forward, whispered: “You have to help us. He’s here. In the house.”

“Who’s here?”

In that moment Abby saw a shadow move behind Powell, a darting gray silhouette on the wall. It was Aleks. In his hand was Abby’s. 25 semi-automatic pistol. There was no doubt in Abby’s mind that he had reloaded it.

Abby looked over the detective’s shoulder. “Don’t.”

Powell understood.

She spun around.

Before Detective Desiree Powell turned fully, she saw the soft yellow muzzle flash, heard three quick blasts. She felt as if she had been mule-kicked in the side of the chest, the pain roaring through her body like a white-hot freight train. The air was pummeled from her lungs. She felt herself falling backwards.

She hit the floor hard, the pain in her chest turning an icy cold, her legs falling numb. She looked at the ceiling, the patterns in the stippled finish starting to swirl, to coalesce into a Dali dreamscape.

For a moment, she smelled the sea, heard the waves crash onto the beach on Montego Bay, heard the unmistakable lilt of the steel drum.

Then the darkness drew her down, into the long night.

Lucien, she thought, the light fading. You were wrong, my sweet boy.

I did hear it.

Aleks stood over the woman. Abby had collapsed in the corner of the room. It was one thing to kill Kolya. He was a liability from the start. No one knew where Kolya was, or where he was expected to be. No one would be looking for him here.

It was something entirely different with a police officer. Even in Estonia you did not do this, if you could avoid it. Where there was one there were many, and it would not be long before there were more. The detective had mentioned Viktor Harkov’s name. They would soon make the connection to the missing girls, and perhaps they would get a tape from the cameras at the post office, seeing him with Anna and Marya. If that happened, they would be looking for him. He had to move.

He took the handcuffs from the fallen detective’s belt, along with her keys.

They would leave right now.

Michael parked the blue Ford on Creekside Lane. He had stopped on the way, pulling off the road about a mile from his house, back into the part of the woods that had once been a campground. He left Omar Cantwell’s body there, covered in leaves and compost. The man was still alive.

As Michael walked through one of the still-vacant lots in the new development south of his house, he saw a man he knew only as Nathan. Nathan and his wife had just moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago. Michael waved; Nathan waved back.

There was something in Michael’s stride that told Nathan there would be no stopping and chatting today. As a prosecutor, Michael knew well that everything that had happened this day, everything that would happen this day, went into a timeline, a continuum of impressions, facts, assumptions, interpretations. And, ultimately, testimony.

I spoke to Mr Roman at the motel, the officer would say. He seemed very agitated.

I saw him walking through the woods, Nathan would say.

Moments later Michael reached the top of the hill, just a few feet from the property line behind his house, his blood burning in his veins. He tried to banish from his mind the possible horrors of what had happened here, what he might find.