Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

Jack rolled the car off the road and into the low overhang of hemlock branches. Rooting around, he found an old toothpick in the glove compartment, which he leaned up against the gearshift. As they got out, he made certain that the vehicle could not be spotted by someone driving by. He had already taken the precaution of switching license plates on the car with one they’d found parked on a suburban side street, so he felt that he’d done all he could to protect them. Then he looked around in all directions. Nothing but close-knit stands of evergreens greeted him. There was not another house in sight, the only vehicle theirs.

As they were about to start down the driveway, Annika said, “This man is dangerous. Maybe we leave the girl with the car.”

“Stop calling me ‘the girl,’ ” Alli said sharply.

“Stop calling me ‘psycho-bitch,’ ” Annika responded.

The two women glared at each other for a moment, then Alli turned away and snorted in disgust.

“I’m not leaving Alli alone out here,” Jack said. “She comes with us.”

Annika shrugged, as if to say, It’s her funeral , and they went down the driveway, following Jack, who, as much as possible, kept to the lightless areas nearest the line of six-foot evergreens.

Jack signaled them to halt when they were more or less three-quarters of the way to the dacha. Again, he looked around. Apart from a large black crow high up, guarding his nest, the edge of which Jack could just make out, the view was scarcely different than it had been at the driveway’s head. The sense of isolation or desolation was acute, the atmosphere as far from the bustle of Kiev as you could get, which, Jack supposed, was the point, especially if you planned to use the dacha as a trysting spot.

It wasn’t until they were on the broad veranda that Jack saw that the window on the far left was wide open. He tried the knob of the front door, but found the door locked. Motioning the two women to stay put, he moved along the veranda until he was beside the open window. Deep red curtains rippled like sails, and from inside he heard the sound of a stereo or radio playing Sergey Rachmaninoff ’s sumptuous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini , which conjured up images of Karl Rochev and his new mistress on an oversized bed covered with satin sheets.

For a time, he listened for other sounds: voices, footsteps, the clink of crystal and cutlery, but apart from the silky music, there was nothing. Ducking his head, he climbed over the sill. Inside, he drew the Mauser, the thick curtains still concealing him from whoever might be in the room. The scents of wood smoke and a perfume sweet and sharp came to him. With the Mauser slightly raised, he parted the curtain and like a magician appearing on stage found himself in a living room dominated by the kind of massive stone fireplace one found in old hunting lodges. A fire was crackling along merrily, providing a warm glow. Twin sofas faced each other, a low table between. The room was deserted, as was the adjacent dining room. He checked the rather large kitchen with its simple trestle table around which were grouped four ladder-back chairs. To the left was the back door. No one lurked in the small, windowed pantry on the right. In the entryway, a huge spray of dried flowers, garlanded with pinecones, filled a globular ceramic vase on a narrow wooden side table. He walked to the front door, unlocked and opened it for the two women. Then he headed for the stairs to the second floor.

Putting his back against the wall, he ascended without a sound. The second floor consisted of three rooms and a bath. The first room was set up as an office, the second as a library, wood-paneled, redolent of the two snifters of cognac and a half-smoked Cuban Cohiba in a heavy cut-glass ashtray. Jack stepped into the room, picked up the cigar, and smelled its tip. It had only recently gone out. Back in the hallway, he saw Annika and Alli making their cautious way up the stairs. They looked at him inquiringly and he shook his head, indicated that he was heading toward the third and last room, doubtless the master bedroom suite.

The door was ajar. Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody was nearing its end. While he still had the music for sound cover, he crouched down and opened the door with the barrel of the handgun. It swung open on a room almost as large as the living room, but carpeted and somehow cozy. To one side stood a delicate-looking escritoire on which was a photo of a man past middle age, still handsome in a rough-hewn Russian manner, dressed in a hunting jacket, standing in front of the dacha—Karl Rochev. A sitting area with a love seat faced a pair of windows that overlooked the deep forest and the fall of night. Porcelain lamps in the shape of graceful women were lit on either side of the bed, which was even larger than the one Jack had imagined. Not that it mattered.

The sheets were rucked back like foamy surf to reveal the lower sheet, rumpled and stained, on which lay a woman’s naked body in an angle of repose so relaxed that, apart from the arrow or spear sticking up straight from her left breast, she might have been asleep.

Behind him, Jack heard the women enter the room. The nude girl was very pretty, angelic, even. With her golden hair and blue eyes she might have been Annika’s sister.

“Take Alli out of here,” he said to Annika.

“Too late,” Annika replied. She went into the en suite bathroom and when she returned said, “No one’s in there. Where the hell is Rochev?”

“Maybe he fled after he killed her,” Alli said. And when the others turned to look at her, she added, “Isn’t that what killers do?”

“Assuming the murder was premeditated,” Annika said.

Alli turned ashen, and ran into the bathroom where they heard her retching and vomiting.

“She’s right about one thing, Rochev isn’t here,” Jack said. “The faster we get out of here the better.”

“In a moment.” Annika knelt on the bed.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She was peering at the murder weapon, which had a slender shaft perhaps three feet or a little more in length. “There’s something odd about this thing.”

Jack heard the sound of running water, then Alli appeared, looking whey-faced and red-eyed. He held out a sheltering arm and she came to him, putting her arms around him and hugging him tight. Her face was averted from the mess on the bed and she was trembling violently.

“Can we leave?” she said in a small, lost voice.

“Absolutely,” Jack said. “Annika, what’s odd about that thing, it’s an arrow, right?”

“No,” she said, touching the end. “See here, there’s no fletching.” Then, quite shockingly, she grabbed the shaft in both her hands and, with a grunt, pulled it so violently from the victim’s chest that for a moment the corpse rose up, its white back arched, until Annika could tear the murderous tip from the flesh.

Backing off the bed, Annika brought the weapon over to him and held aloft its business end, steeped in blood and viscera. “You see, the tip is diamond-shaped. Very unusual, very distinctive.”

Alli caught a glimpse of it and began to whimper.

“Let’s go,” Jack said, heading to the bedroom door.

He heard Annika following him down the stairs. In utter silence, they crossed the entryway. The Rachmaninoff was done, and a viscous, choking silence pervaded the dacha. Alli had begun to hyperventilate, and Jack urged her to take slow, deep breaths. He pulled open the door and they stepped out onto the veranda. The gathering wind had brushed away the late-afternoon clouds and now, in the aftermath of sunset, the sky was a deep pellucid blue. He looked up into the evergreen, searching for the vigilant crow, but it was gone from its perch, leaving the nest unprotected.