Fairstein, Linda - Silent Mercy

“Well, most of their teachings claim such an act would disregard the symbolic and the iconic value of male priests, who are a representation of Christ himself, and of course, of Christ’s manhood.”

“That’s all I need to know. Call my cell if you have anything to tell me. And thanks, Faith. We’ll talk with you soon.”

I waited for Mike to finish his conversation. “Is there anything else about your friend Ted that we ought to know? Anything at all you remember?” I asked Daniel.

He answered softly. “No.”

Every trace of Mike’s good humor had disappeared by the time he hung up the phone. I asked Daniel to step away for a few minutes.

“Is it all bad news?”

“Peterson will have state troopers waiting for us in Providence. May even bring in some feds because of the interstate abduction possibility.”

“And the Zukovs? What if they don’t talk to us?”

“Fine with me. They’ll be climbing the monkey bars in the local j ail.”

“No sign of Fyodor?”

“Not him. Not Chat. There’s one Angus truck missing from the lot. The commissioner’s doing a stand-up with the mayor at nine p.m. to release all the photos and ask the public for help. The APB on the truck has gone out to every police department and highway patrol. AMBER Alerts and all that. Maybe the guy’s going home to his roots, to Florida.”

“And the rest of whatever has you so bummed?”

“The Secaucus cops broke open the back of every one of the trucks still on the lot. There’s dried blood in all of them.”

“No surprise. They’re butcher shops,” I said.

“One of them had a sleeping bag in it. There’s blood in that too. Don’t tell me the filet mignons didn’t like the cold. ME’s testing to see if it’s human. It’ll take a while longer for DNA, but this may be where he finished off Naomi or Ursula.”

“Could be he was camping out in one of the trucks, getting handouts from his family. That would still have let him use the train as home base, without anyone else aware he was around.”

We started to walk single file, catching up with Daniel Gersh.

“I need you to go back to your room, Daniel,” Mike said. “Ms. Cooper and I got work to do. Don’t talk to anyone. Not about Naomi or your job or knowing us. Stay put, and when the train gets to Providence, you come out on the platform and look for me. Understood?”

“Yeah. I get it.”

We continued back to the suite that had the Zukov name on the door. Mike opened it and entered without knocking.

In the living area, a man and a woman were sitting on opposite ends of a sofa. The woman cradled a sleeping child in her arms, while both were fixed on a flat-screen TV on the wall, watching a twenty-four-hour news broadcast.

The man rose immediately — I guessed him to be Giorgio, the Zukov brother-in-law — and called out for Yuri and Oksana. “The police are here,” he shouted to them.

The child was awakened by the commotion and started wailing.

Mike rushed back to the closest bedroom, heard the lock click shut from within, and kicked open the flimsy door with his foot.

Yuri and Oksana Zukov, the brother and sister of our probable perp, were being briefed on our intrusion by Kristin Sweeney, the stunt rider from Texas.

“WHERE’SFyodor?” Mike asked.

Kristin Sweeney had cost us the element of surprise. Mike directed her back to her compartment, but there was no way for the two of us to secure people or possessions.

“We don’t know where he is,” Yuri said, turning to face us with his arms folded across his chest. That kept his sister positioned behind him while she dried her eyes and tried to compose herself.

“Let me have your phones,” Mike said.

“I don’t have one.”

“Bullshit. Both of you, give me your phones.”

Yuri held out his arms to the side. He was wearing the classic bodysuit of an acrobat or dancer — a leotard and tights, with a zippered sweater over them. “No pockets, Detective. I use the satellite phone only,” he said, pointing to the nightstand next to his bed.

“Coop — take her into the other bedroom,” Mike said, pointing to Oksana. There was no hope of getting information unless we separated them. He was giving me a shot at the weaker link.

“Why don’t you come with me?” I said, smiling at the terrified woman. “Is your room next to this one?”

She didn’t speak, but she nodded.

“You can just do this?” Yuri asked. “You know we’re Americans.”

“Oh, yeah, we can just do this. I don’t give a damn if you’re flying Martians. There are cops from here to Sarasota looking for your brother, and if you want to see him alive, you’d better put on your thinking caps.”

Oksana slipped between Mike and the door without protest and took me into the adjacent compartment she shared with her husband.

“You understand why we have to find your brother quickly?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk about the women who’d been murdered. “If we can save the woman who’s missing, maybe Fyodor has a chance.”

“It’s not his fault, Ms. Cooper,” she said. “None of this is his fault.”

The most tired lines in the perpetrator phrase book. I didn’t care to think about who Oksana would blame. “When is the last time you heard from your brother?”

“I’m not sure. Yuri probably knows.”

“Did you see him this week?”

“This week? What day is today? Maybe Yuri remembers.”

“Here’s the thing, Oksana. Yuri is talking to Detective Chapman, so whatever Yuri knows, he’ll eventually tell. When the train stops in Providence, all your friends will get off and stretch their legs, go out for a drink, get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s matinee. If you haven’t answered my questions — and Yuri plays the same game — you’ll both go to the police station and sit there, handcuffed to chairs, until your memories improve.”

She had the turned-out foot position of a ballet dancer, feet planted firmly on the floor. I held the back of the chair to keep myself balanced as we hurtled forward along the tracks. She dabbed at her eyes and bent her head toward the wall, trying to make out the conversation between Yuri and Mike.

“Did you see Fyodor this week?” I raised my voice a notch.

“I think so.”

“Yes — or no?”

Oksana pouted.

“Sit down.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable, Ms. Cooper.”

She was so much better balanced than I that she was probably counting on me lurching over at the next bump on the tracks.

“I asked you to sit.”

Her fear was morphing into defiance now, like it was the Zukovs against the world. Slowly and with the graceful movements of her art, she pivoted and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Did you know that in the state of Georgia there’s still a death penalty, Oksana?”

I wasn’t sure whether she flinched at that prospect or at the tone of Mike’s voice coming through the wall.

“There are more than a hundred murderers on death row there, most of them likely to be burned to toast in the electric chair.”

There were moments I knew I had spent too much time in Mike Chapman’s company.

She swallowed hard. “Georgia? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Your brother killed a man in Georgia.”

Oksana crossed and then uncrossed her long, slender legs. “That’s absurd.”

“The mayor of New York City is going to hold a press conference any minute now. Your brother’s name and picture will be broadcast all over the country. Armed police officers, trained bloodhounds, and gun-happy vigilantes hungry for reward money will be looking to track him down.”

“I don’t even know what you want him for. I don’t know what he did.”

Every time I thought we would be moving forward, Oksana took a step or two back.

“I guess you haven’t had the TV on for very long, have you? If Fyodor’s still in New York — New Jersey — he’ll have a better chance. You can convince him to turn himself in. He’ll be safer in the long run.”

She tilted her head and stared at me, trying to divine the truth. Meanwhile, Mike was getting nothing from Yuri, as I judged from the noise level next door.

“Did you see him this week?” I asked again.

“Yes. Yes, we saw him.”

“Where, Oksana? What day did you see him and where?”

“Tonight’s Friday, right? It was yesterday. Thursday morning.”

“Where?”

“In Manhattan. Where we were rehearsing, at Madison Square Garden.”

“He called one of you?”

“Yuri told you the truth. We don’t use cell phones.”

“How did Fyodor get into the Garden?”

“He still has his identification card. He knows our practice schedule. He showed up, that’s all I know.”

“How long did you talk with him?”

“I didn’t. Just to say hello. It was Yuri he wanted. For money, for Yuri to give him money.”

“Did Fyodor say what the money was for?”

She hung her head and answered. “No. But it must have been for food. For everything. I don’t know how he’s been living. I’ve been so worried about him.”

“And Yuri gave him cash?”

“Yes. Almost three hundred dollars.”

“But Yuri doesn’t have any pockets, I thought. Where did he get the cash?”

Oksana didn’t like my sarcasm. “His gym bag. Fyodor was in the back row of seats, sort of in the dark. I saw him first. It’s where one of us usually sits to spot the others when we’re on the wire. Yuri went up to talk to him and came back for the money. He only let me say hello for a minute. To ask how he was feeling.”

I tried to sound empathetic, as hard a stretch as that was. Maybe she’d be more forthcoming if I showed interest in her brother’s health condition. “What’s wrong with Fyodor? Why did he have to give up the act?”

“He — he won’t tell me. He’s embarrassed, I think. He’s the first one in the family in more than three generations to cause — well, to have a terrible injury happen to a partner. I thought he was going to kill himself that first night.”

“Is he being treated by doctors?”

Rabbi Levy told us that Naomi talked about meeting a friend — probably Fyodor — at Bellevue, shortly before she was killed. Maybe it was psychiatric treatment that he was undergoing, as we had speculated.

“I don’t think he has any use for doctors. He said they can’t help him.”

“Did he tell Yuri where he was staying?”

“No,” she said, getting weepy again. “If they arrest Fyodor in Georgia, are you sure they could put him to death?”

“I’m sure. A hideously painful death.”

Oksana was biting the inside of her cheek. “But not in New York?”

“Not in New York.”

She was struggling with whether to confide in me, maybe encouraged that the conversation in Yuri’s room sounded like it had taken a more civil turn.

“I don’t know where Fyodor has gone, Ms. Cooper. But he doesn’t have friends in New York. He doesn’t really know people here.”

“That’s very helpful, Oksana. Are there people he trusts somewhere else? People in whom he confides?” Was she telling me that she believed her brother would be on the move to the South?

“It used to be that he told Yuri everything. It used to be they were very close. When you work together like this — when you do what all of us do — you practically have to read the other guy’s mind. It’s instinct and trust. What wasn’t passed on to us by our parents, we learned by spending our whole lives in each other’s hands, literally. But then — the accident changed things.”