Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

“I will make a call.”

Solomon moved slowly across the room, to one of the spare bedrooms. He closed the door. Michael looked out the window. He saw no police cars. He looked above the buildings, toward the skyline of the city. His wife and daughter could be anywhere. New York had never seemed larger or more forbidding.

Although it was probably only ten minutes, it seemed like an hour before Solomon returned. His face looked even more bloodless, as if he had received some terrible news. Michael was not braced for this.

“Did you find anything out?”

“Yes.” Solomon crossed the room to his bookshelves. “This man is from Kolossova. He was in the army in the first wave in Chechnya.”

“And lived to tell.”

“And lived to tell,” Solomon repeated. “He is well known in eastern Estonia. A roimar. My cousin has had dealings with him.” Solomon turned, supported himself against the bookcase. He looked Michael in the eye. “There is no easy way to say this.”

“Then I suggest you just say it.”

Solomon took a long moment. “Charlotte and Emily are his children.”

Michael felt hot and cold at the same time, dizzied. Every slot in which he had tried to fit the events of this day now made perfect, horrifying sense, a wisdom he did not want. Aleksander Savisaar was here to take his daughters back. “Are you sure of this?”

Solomon nodded gravely.

Michael got up, began to pace. He considered that this news provided one thin ray of light, as discomforting as it may be at its core. If Aleksander Savisaar believed Emily was his daughter, perhaps it meant he would not harm her. On the other hand, it made Abby expendable, but maybe not until he got to where he was going.

“They say he consorted with a girl in Ida-Viru County,” Solomon continued. “An ennustaja. She bore him three children, but one was stillborn.”

The facts roared through Michael’s mind like a runaway locomotive. Three place settings. Three candy bars. Three everything.

“An ennustaja?” Michael asked. “A fortune-teller?”

Solomon nodded.

Everything began to fall into place, all the explanations of how Charlotte and Emily were far more in tune with each other, far more perceptive than even the brightest twins. Could it be that the girls were prescient, just like their biological mother? Had they inherited this? Was clairvoyance their legacy?

Ta tuleb, Michael thought. He is coming.

They knew.

“There is more, I’m afraid,” Solomon said. The words chilled Michael’s blood.

Solomon turned, unsteadily, and made his way over to a glass-enclosed bookcase. In it was a collection of leather-bound editions. He opened the case, searched for a few seconds, then removed a small, scuffed book. He leafed through it, then turned to Michael, a thousand miseries in his damp eyes. “Koschei,” he said. “Do you remember the story?”

The name was familiar to Michael. It walked the far horizon of his childhood memories. It had something to do with a boogeyman.

“It is an old tale,” Solomon said. “I used to read it to you when you lived on Ditmars. You got scared, but you never wanted me to stop. The story of Koschei the Deathless was your favorite.”

Bits and pieces of the tale came floating back.

“You used to think Koschei lived in your closet. You used to wake up your parents every night with your nightmares. Then your father and I rewired the closet and put that light fixture inside. You were never afraid again.”

Until now, Michael thought.

“What does this have to do with this Savisaar?” he asked.

Solomon seemed to choose his words carefully. “He is insane, Mischa. He believes himself to be Koschei. He believes he is going to live forever. And it has something to do with the girls.”

Michael tried to process it all. He remained silent. Now that he had an idea what this was all about, he might find a way to fight it.

Solomon nodded. “What can I do for you, Mischa?”

“I want you to watch Charlotte. I can’t think of anywhere in the world where she would be safer at this moment.”

Solomon turned to the window, made a signal to one of the men on the street. The man got on his cell, and within thirty seconds a car pulled up, and two other men got out. They walked toward the backyard. Solomon turned back to Michael, reached into his pants pocket, handed Michael a single key. “You will take this car. It is the silver Honda, parked three doors down.”

Michael took the key, stood, pulled off his oversized raincoat. “I could use some clothes, too.”

Solomon pointed to one of the bedrooms. Michael rose, crossed the room, opened the door. Inside, stacked floor to ceiling, were a hundred sealed cardboard boxes: electronics, small appliances, expensive liquors. Michael found a box of Guess jeans, rummaged through them until he found his size. There were also a dozen boxes of Rocawear hoodies. He found his size, slipped it over his head. In the corner of the room was a flat screen TV, tuned to channel 7, volume low.

The news came when Michael was at the door. It was a breaking story. His heart fell. Beneath the talking head was a headline.

Queens prosecutor sought in Homicide

Onscreen was his “executive” photo, the one taken by the office, the one that was featured on the DA’s office website. Next to it was a live shot of his house. A pair of Eden Falls sector cars flashed their lights.

Michael walked out of the bedroom, sat on the chair next to Charlotte’s. He looked at the table. On it was the piece of paper she had been working on, practicing writing 0 through 9. The numbers were all drawn in precise rows. The sight of his daughter’s diligent work almost made Michael break down. But there was something else about the drawings that caught his eye, and his attention. Charlotte had used two different crayons drawing the numbers. In all four rows of numbers, all but two of the numerals were drawn in black crayon. The only two numbers drawn in red crayon were the 6 and the 4.

Michael sat on the chair next to Charlotte’s. “That’s very good,” Michael said. He turned Charlotte’s chair to face his. “Honey, I need to go out for awhile. Onu Solomon is going to watch you.”

Although Charlotte had never met Solomon, Michael’s use of the Estonian word for uncle, and its affection, was known to her.

“Is that okay?” Michael said.

“It’s okay.”

Michael held his daughter close. “My big girl.” He sat back, looked her in the eye. “I’m going to go pick up Mommy and Em, and then we’ll all go out to dinner. I won’t be long at all. Okay?”

Charlotte nodded. She then reached over, picked up the page with the numbers, handed it to Michael. Michael looked back into her eyes. She seemed to drift, to be in some sort of trance. He had seen this before, usually at a time when she and Emily were separated.

“What is it honey?”

Charlotte said nothing. Instead, she began to hum a song. Michael didn’t recognize it. It sounded like a classical theme.

“Charlotte,” Michael said. “Tell Daddy.”

His daughter continued to stare off into the distance, a void into which Michael could not see. She stopped humming.

“Anna is sad,” she said.

Anna, Michael thought. The nightmare fable of his youth came flooding back. The girl in the story.

Michael scanned the piece of paper in his hand, the numbers. It was the same two numbers on the refrigerator door at home. Familiar numbers.

That’s what Emily meant when she pretended to be cold, he thought. She wanted him to look at the refrigerator. She was trying to tell him something, and Michael now knew what it was.

He moved through the farmhouse, the kinzbal on point. He had taken the dagger off a dead Chechen, a young soldier no more than eighteen. The smell of decomposing flesh filled his head, his remembrance.