The Truant Officer (5 page)

Darren was tiring of the code-speak and inside jokes. “Let’s cut the bull. Tell me what happened to my wife!”

Longa pointed his finger in Darren’s direction. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

Just as the words were about to fly out of his mouth, the doors of the room swung open and the cavalry barged in—led by a silver-haired man in an expensive suit. “This interrogation is over,” he announced.

Longa fought against it, but the man pulled rank. “This case is now officially under the jurisdiction of the FBI. One more stunt like this, and I’ll personally make sure you’re writing parking tickets for the next thirty years.”

Longa and his team were ushered out. When the doors shut, the distinguished looking man sat beside Darren and gave him a disarming smile.

“Mr. McLaughlin, I’m Agent LaPoint of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I’m your new best friend.”

Chapter 8

The US Attorney pounced off his chair in his Manhattan office and picked up the ringing phone. “Eicher here.”

“It’s LaPoint.”

Eicher felt a twinge of relief. He’d been waiting for this call since he got the news last night.

“Well?” he asked, having run out of patience.

“I just finished grilling the husband—the pilot. He either doesn’t know shit, or he should win the Oscar. And I don’t mean he should be happy to be nominated, he should win the damn thing.”

Eicher sighed. Another dead end.
How could he be living under the same roof and have absolutely no clue?
As a federal prosecutor, he believed in the standard of reasonable doubt, but as a card-carrying cynic, he was always skeptical of convenient coincidences. So he needed it proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the McLaughlins’ swift infiltration into Brett Buckley’s life was a random act.

“But we got lucky,” LaPoint tried to paint a bright side.

“And how would that be?”

“The local police had beat us to him, and they were going to get an arrest warrant for the wife.”

Eicher winced. He knew the type of publicity that these kinds of cases generated. Signing an arrest warrant would have been the equivalent of putting the kid before a firing squad. “I thought Fitzpatrick said that situation was under control.”

“If it was, then I wouldn’t be sweating my balls off in the Arizona desert, would I? Fitzpatrick ordered the local police to shut down their investigation weeks ago. We gave them no explanation other than our boy Buckley had a higher calling. But after last night’s events, I think they saw it as a chance to ride in like heroes.”

LaPoint gave the impression that Eicher should thank him for messing up his case, and probably getting Nick killed in the process. “Something sparked the kid—set him off. I interviewed him a hundred times over the past year. He was unflappable and levelheaded. This move was completely out of character. What do you think happened?”

LaPoint chuckled. “I think we both
know
what happened. And just the fact you asked means it hasn’t happened for you in a while.”

Eicher conceded the point. It was a logical explanation, especially when recent events were factored in. But when it came to this case, he had learned that nothing was as it seemed to be. He thought for a moment, before saying, “I think it goes deeper.”

“I think you and the kid have something in common.”

“Which is?”

“You’re both spooked. Seeing things that aren’t there. I think it’s straightforward—the local cops scared him when they threatened to make an arrest on the other matter. He knows who he’s dealing with—so it makes sense that he got scared. He even told Fitzpatrick that he saw Zubov scouting him out at the mall, which we both know couldn’t be true, because if it was, he’d be dead. So he did what we all do when we get scared—we run to our mommy—in his case, a mother figure. Traveling in pairs gives the illusion of safety, so that’s what they did.”

Eicher knew that panic was the first step toward tragedy. And just the thought of the soulless killing machine named Zubov made him ill. But he also knew what the kid had been through in the past year, so maybe LaPoint was right—the fear drove him to confide in his favorite teacher. In the end, she was the only one he trusted and she helped him concoct a plan to get him out of Dodge before Zubov got him. He wasn’t going to stick around to find out if he was real or imagined.

Eicher wondered if Lilly McLaughlin really understood exactly what she had gotten herself into. But then he had another thought. A troubling one. Perhaps she knew
exactly
what she’d done.

He flipped through a folder that had been sitting in the same spot on his desk for the past year. One photo was of Nick’s father, Karl Zellen, who wore a fashionable bullet hole in his forehead. The next picture was of his mother, Paula, lying lifelessly in the lion’s den, sprayed with bullets. But the photos that grabbed him by the throat—the ones that turned this case into an obsession for him—were the ones of Nick’s girlfriend, Audrey Mays. It was a warning to Nick about the perils of testifying against Alexei Sarvydas.

The
before
was a fresh-faced twenty-something with the smile of an idealist. The
after
was just a torso. No head—no hands—no feet. A corpse that some of his more heartless colleagues repulsively referred to as “Bob.” It was a favorite tactic of the Russian mob, and perfected by the Sarvydas Organizatsiya, to make identification virtually impossible.

“We need to find him ASAP,” Eicher stated, attempting to hide the desperation in his voice. “If Sarvydas gets to him first, they will be picking up his pieces with a wet-vac.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, counselor,” LaPoint replied, deadpan. “I thought Viktor Sarvydas was just a hardworking music mogul on vacation in Israel. A heartwarming rags to riches story.”

Even in jest, LaPoint outlined two of the biggest challenges in taking on Russian crime bosses like Sarvydas. First of all, they hide behind legitimate businesses. In Sarvydas’ case, it was Sarvy Music, an international music empire with a knack for churning out pop stars.

The other problem was the ease of their flight. Any Russian mobster worth his vodka had Israeli citizenship and passport—taking advantage of the Israeli policy of Right of Return, which allows citizenship and safe haven to all those with Jewish heritage and doesn’t bend for any extradition laws. But most Russian mobsters were Jewish in passport only. Eicher doubted that Viktor Sarvydas had ever seen the inside of a synagogue.

“Just find the kid,” Eicher barked into the phone and hung up.

Chapter 9

After hanging up with LaPoint, Eicher desperately needed a fix of good news. It was just past nine in the morning in New York, and the offices in Foley Square were beginning to fill up with the wretched rumblings of Monday morning.

Eicher viewed the hustle and bustle through the glass partition of his office and noticed a man who didn’t fit in with the conservative suit-and-tie attire of the US Attorney’s Office. And he was headed directly into his office.

The intruder didn’t alarm Eicher. In fact, he was happy to see Ivan, even if he wasn’t thrilled with the heavy scent of fish he brought with him.

“Ivan—it’s April, not January,” he greeted his visitor, noticing his fur cap and dense beard. He carried a cooler one might use to store bait. “Going fishing?”

Ivan displayed a toothless grin and spoke in his thick Russian accent, “We already do fishing today, and I think you be interested what we caught.”

Eicher nodded his head, indicating him to continue.

“Moziaf Butcher Shop was raided first thing this morning, investigating last week’s shooting. I could have saved them time, they, of course, found nothing to connect Moziafs to murder. But they came across something that might interest
you
.”

Ivan was an undercover cop in Brighton Beach—a section of Brooklyn that is the home office for the Russian mob in the United States. That’s not to say the majority of the residents weren’t hard working and law-abiding citizens, but Eicher was only interested in those who broke the laws. Ivan was one of the rare few willing to talk, and only Eicher and a few colleagues above his pay grade knew Ivan’s true identity. He very rarely showed up here—there are only so many times you can claim to being hassled by the feds without suspicions being raised—so Eicher knew this must be important.

Like many Russians, he emigrated to Brighton Beach in the 1970s, and became a popular street vendor in Little Odessa. He was known for his homemade foods that included everything from pirogi to pastry shells filled with spicy pork. Word of mouth attracted none other than the don of Brighton Beach, Viktor Sarvydas. He was so impressed with Ivan that he made him his personal caterer at his popular club, Sarvy’s.

But at heart, Ivan was a man of honor. And after observing Sarvydas’ unspeakable acts, Ivan chose to become what the Russians call a
musor
, or informant. While he was never able to get Sarvydas, he did have success in the arrest and prosecutions of many of his dangerous underlings. He was so successful that the NYPD offered him a full-time position.

“So what was this shooting about?” Eicher made conversation as he accepted the ice chest and set it on his cluttered desk.

Ivan shrugged. “Who knows? Moziafs are crazy. Maybe they no kill anybody this week and needed fix.”

No statement could better sum up the Moziafs—a husband and wife team of killers. They had been working for Sarvydas in recent years, although their allegiance was usually with the highest bidder for their services.

Oleg, the husband, was an enormous four-hundred-pound former Olympic weightlifting champion from the Soviet Union. He loved three things—killing, steroids, and his wife, Vana. She was arguably the more ruthless of the two, and claimed that killing was like sex for them. Ivan joked if that were the case then they sure were getting more than the average couple. The shooting connected to this morning’s raid was the typical work of the Moziafs—six people shot in Coney Island in the middle of the day with hundreds of people there, yet no witnesses.

Eicher was mildly surprised by the reappearance of the Moziafs on American soil, as Viktor Sarvydas and most of his henchmen had been on the next plane out of JFK after the arrest of his son, Alexei. Last Eicher had heard, the Moziafs were taking up the sport of car bombing in Moscow, and with the trial only a week away, he expected Sarvydas’ troops to lay low.

“Not one person could identify them?” Eicher asked.

Ivan had a hearty laugh at his naiveté. “They interviewed fifty witnesses and they all say
ya nectevo ne znago—
I don’t know nothing. There are lots of rumors. With Viktor out of country and Alexei going to trial, many think Sarvydas’ deputy lieutenant, Parmalov, is making power play and Moziafs doing dirty work for him. But who knows with these people—they have no loyalty. When I first arrive, Moziafs and Zubov were rivals in war that leave bodies from New York to Moscow, and now both work for Sarvydas. Ask me this afternoon and everything be different.”

Eicher understood the frustration in Ivan’s voice. When it came to the Russian Mafiya, they were severely outgunned. Eicher removed the top from the cooler and immediately jumped back about a foot.

“Moziafs like to keep souvenirs,” Ivan stated, matter of fact.

Eicher stared at the frozen hands that were stored in plastic Zip-lock bags like they were leftover chicken in the refrigerator. He felt sick, but his nausea turned to interest when he saw the tattoo on the left hand in the webbing between the thumb and index finger. It was an interlocking
N Z
. He instantly knew that it belonged to Audrey Mays, Nick Zellen’s girlfriend.

Alexei’s powerful lawyers would have a field day with the search, and it wasn’t a smoking gun by any means, but it was another connection the prosecution could make between the murders and the Sarvydas family.

As Eicher looked at the amputated hands, it sure didn’t feel like something to celebrate. He feared getting to that place where finding the remains of a murdered girl would constitute a good day.

He thought of Nick, remembering how devastated he was by Audrey’s death. He wanted to be mad at him for the ulcer he was causing him this morning, but could only find compassion. Eicher couldn’t even fathom the emotions that must have been haunting Nick as the trial grew closer. He just hoped the next hands they found wouldn’t belong to him.

Chapter 10

Viktor Sarvydas lounged in the back of his stretch limo, parked outside of the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. He peered out the tinted bulletproof windows and marveled at the sheer numbers, and the ferocity of those who came out to protest his latest protégé, pop sensation Natalie Gold.

The Wailing Wall was a place where Israelis had come to mourn the past since King Herod built the retaining wall over two thousand years ago. It was considered one of the most holy places in Jerusalem. And that is exactly why he chose the spot to shoot Natalie’s latest video, full of all the gyrations and revealing outfits of a pop princess.

Sarvydas smiled, proud to have achieved the desired controversy once again. And it’s not like the protestors could stop him—he had friends in the highest places.

The video was classic Sarvydas. It combined his ruthless business savvy with his passionate love of music. But most of all, it was fueled by his lust for power. He not only had a kingdom that ranged from Brighton Beach to Israel to Moscow, but he was also a kingmaker. A few months ago, Natalie Gold was a homeless girl named Daria Scheffer, who was singing for her supper in Tel Aviv, outside of a Russian bookstore that Sarvydas frequented. Now, only six months later, Natalie had rocketed to worldwide fame, and her first single “Vengeance” was the most downloaded song on
iTunes
.

He spotted Natalie pushing past the angry mob, surrounded by machine-gun toting bodyguards. Sarvydas was enjoying the scene before him. He checked his jet-black hair in a mirror and adjusted the ponytail that dangled at the back of his neck. He was now in his late fifties, but age hadn’t lessened his vanity. He believed in being at his best, fearing the newer model that was always trying to come up behind him. And when you are the don of the Russian Mafiya, it usually comes up behind you looking to kill.