“Forgive me, but are you accusing someone of murder, Mrs. Parker?”
Somehow that was the question that brought the woman out of her funk, and she turned back to them, dried her wet cheeks with the backs of both hands, and became all business, and real quickly, too, as if her five minutes of grief were enough, already. Weird lady, no doubt about it.
“Yes, I am. That’s exactly what I’m doing. They did it. I know they did. They have threatened to do it, over and over and over, ever since I left him and came out here.”
“And he is?”
“Ivan Petrov. I suspect you’ve heard of him.”
Oh, terrific, and damn it to hell, too. Claire had heard of Ivan Petrov, all right. He was the purported godfather of the East St. Louis mob, and the defendant in many a deadly criminal case, which happened more often than not. Whatever followed now was going to be sticky and complicated and dangerous, all right. “Are you sure you want to accuse him of murder, ma’am?”
“It wasn’t just murder. It was an execution. Ivan ordered it done. You can bet on that. He wouldn’t dirty his own hands, but he was behind it. He just wants to drag me back there into that filthy hellhole he calls a compound.”
Holy crap. Doubled. Maybe even tripled. Claire tried to remember everything she had heard about Petrov. She had heard the name lots of times before but not much else about the man. Just that he was known for slitting throats from ear to ear on anybody who crossed him. Word was he did it himself to instill fear. “Do you have proof that Ivan Petrov harmed your husband, Mrs. Parker?”
She released a cold and humorless laugh. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. But you’ve just made a very serious accusation that we will need to follow up on. Can you tell us anything else?”
“Paulie and I ran off together several years ago, just tried to disappear. I stay up here, alone, and wait for him to come home from those god-awful, terrible fight shows. But that’s what Paulie loves to do, that’s how he makes his money, and that’s how we got this place. Ivan’s cousin gave me some money when I left him without a cent to my name, God bless her. She told me that she knew how it was to be trapped inside his compound with no freedom at all. It was her velvet box, she always said. And it was for me, too. That is exactly what it was.”
All very interesting, true, but it didn’t tell Claire much. “I’m afraid that you’ll have to come downtown and identify the body. Are you up to that, Mrs. Parker?”
She stood up, stared down at them, almost accusingly, and then she resumed her place at the windows with her back to them. She had on spiked white heels with no hosiery, just those ultra-white legs. “Tell me what they did to him. Did Paulie have to suffer?”
Claire hesitated. Bud shook his head, adamantly. He did not want that vulnerable girl to know; she was teetering on the edge of going to pieces anyway. But she had to know the truth, there was no way around it. “He was brutally beaten. His body was found at the bottom of a cliff in Ha Ha Tonka State Park. Near the Castle ruins. We’re not sure how long he has been dead.”
“Was there a gunshot wound to the back of his head?” Blythe Parker asked Claire without turning around, and then she quickly covered her mouth with her hand as if feeling sick.
“No. The medical examiner believes he was beaten to death.”
“His throat wasn’t slit, either? You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then it wasn’t my ex-husband himself. That’s his calling card, and he’s proud of it. He brags about it. Says his knives are handmade and so sharp that it just takes one swipe of the blade to rupture a man’s gullet.”
Now that was a sharp knife, all right. However, all Blythe Parker’s deadly words were spoken calmly and casually, as if family-perpetrated dagger murders were as commonplace as Saturday barbeques. Death and blood and gore. No big deal. We’re the Petrovs. We’ve been there, done that.
Blythe said, “Well, Ivan’s always been resourceful. Just so his victim ends up dead. The end justifies the means, that’s his motto. He did this, trust me.”
Claire wasn’t willing to take Blythe’s word for it. There were lots of other questions, and Claire needed to ask them. “Paulie Parker was a cage fighter. From what I understand, that’s a very rough business. I suspect he was beaten up before, maybe had some bones broken. Could he have suffered fatal injuries from a cage fight?”
“He was too good for that to happen. He usually wins his matches. And he promised me. He put his hand on my grandmother’s white Bible, and swore that he’d stop any fight in which he felt outclassed. That he’d call default and get out of the cage and walk away. I told him I’d leave him if he ever came back as bludgeoned up as he did that first time. He nearly died. It was in the beginning before they had the rules they have now. It happened up at the farm where he was born. His brothers and daddy and lots of other men fight up there. Just for the fun of it. God, you should’ve seen how he looked that first time he came home from there. I thought he was already dead when his brothers carried him in.”
And now he really was dead. “Do you know anybody else who might want to harm him? One of those people who fight up around that farm, maybe?”
“Maybe. Or some of the other fighters. He said that some of them are jealous. And some of them are just cretins, animals, savage and stupid and obsessed with beating on people. I don’t understand it. I never did understand it.” She sighed, long and drawn out and helpless. “He wins a lot. He’s that good. They don’t like that. And he makes good money on the circuit. That’s how he supports me. He’s an honest man, a good man. He works hard. He bought this place for me.”
She was still in present tense. She hadn’t accepted it yet. “Has Paulie received threats that you know of?”
Blythe shrugged a delicate shoulder. Claire could see how her collarbone stuck out of flesh that seemed almost transparent. She had to be anorexic, had to be, bulimic, at the very least, and her skin had never been uncovered out in the sun, either, believe it. The albino thing was getting more and more probable. “But he wouldn’t tell me if he got threats. He’s always protective of me, always worried that my family or my ex-husband would come and force me back into that compound. He put in a lot of security devices so that I could call the police if they came for me while he was gone.” She stopped, and sighed deeply. “He was fighting all the time and trying to earn enough money for us to get out of the country. He wanted to live in Peru. Somewhere far away like that and out of the sphere of Petrov influences. Ivan finagled around until he could legally take my children away. He thought that would make me stay there with him. I haven’t seen my sons since I left the compound. Either one of them.” She stopped, appeared to be steeling herself, sorrow taking over her delicate features.
“I’m sorry.” Claire knew how it felt to lose a child, but she couldn’t let herself think about Zach. Not ever. She still couldn’t bear to remember him, even the sweet little day-to-day memories, even after all the years that had passed. But he was there, still an adorable blond-haired, blue-eyed toddler, hidden away inside her heart, always. Sometimes she missed him so much that she wanted to put her gun to her head and pull the trigger. She took a deep and cleansing breath, banishing thoughts of her beautiful little baby boy behind the wall in her heart where she kept him safe in a way that she hadn’t been able to do in real life. She sat still a moment, forcing him down, and then she tried to gather her thoughts on the job at hand.
Thankfully, Bud chose that moment to take over the interview, God love him. “Can you give us any names? Anybody that you think might have done this, other than your ex-husband? Among the fighters? Anybody who’s capable of beating him in such a brutal way? Or from up there around that farm?”
“Malachi was the most belligerent, but Paulie said he was mainly bluster and that they were friends outside the ring. It never seemed that way to me, though. Malachi’s got some brothers who fight, too. One’s supposed to be a real badass, but apparently he retired or quit or something. Nobody’s ever seen him, not that I know of.”
“Malachi who?”
“Malachi Fitch.” She hesitated briefly, seeming to be considering her next words. “You haven’t heard about the Fitches yet? Well, let me tell you. They are all crazy. One-hundred-percent certifiable. Believe me, I know.”
“Anybody else who might want to harm your husband?”
“Any of them, I guess. They were all jealous of Paulie’s titles. He won most of the time, but he paid a price. In pain and broken bones, but he still could beat them all. And legitimately. He would never have thrown a match.”
Broken bones was right
, Claire thought. This woman was in for a horrible sight down at the morgue. She hoped that Buckeye would keep the battered body covered at the identification viewing. This case had already turned into a nightmare, and it was only Day Two. One thing she did not want to do was go calling on the Petrov compound, aka Gangsta Land, over in East St. Louis, but she was going to have to, damn it.
Claire took the interview reins again. “Do you have a way down to the sheriff’s office, Mrs. Parker? Or would you like for us to take you with us? I’m afraid that you’ll have to identify the body. We will be available to take you down there right now, or at any time you wish. All you have to do is call us.”
Blythe’s swallow went down hard. “Thank you, but I can drive myself. I need time to . . . prepare myself. Is that all right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just give us a definite time and we’ll make the arrangements for the viewing. Here’s my card. You can call me at that number any time that you feel you’re ready. Or any time you feel the need to talk about what happened to your husband.”
Blythe looked away from them again, out the windows at the darkening sky, and was silent for a moment. “I will call you tomorrow, if that’s all right.” She looked back at Claire. Claire nodded. Then Blythe said, “Will all of this have to be in the St. Louis newspapers, detectives?”
“We’re trying to keep it under wraps. The media’s preoccupation with the bad weather should help us do that. I can’t promise you that they won’t get wind of it eventually. But we’ll try our best. I promise you that.”
“Thank you. I know that you can find your way out. I need some time alone now. I’m sure you understand.”
After that, she left them where they sat, walking swiftly down through the silent house, her white stiletto heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floors until the staccato sounds finally faded away. Claire and Bud stared at each other.
“Charlie’s gonna shit a brick,” said Bud.
“This’s gonna be a bad one, all right. Talk about poking a hornet’s nest. But we don’t know if the Petrov family is involved yet, not in the actual murder. I don’t think we can rule out the fighters yet. C’mon, we need to fill Charlie in on this mess.”
“Well, I sure as hell dread that little face to face.”
“You and me both,” said Claire.
They took off, drove back to the office pretty much in total silence. Both of them knew this case was getting ready to blow up in their faces, engendering enough headlines to cause a feeding frenzy across the state, if not across the country. Damn, why did trouble always seem to follow her around? Well, at least it wasn’t snowing. Not yet, anyway. And she did have an ace in the hole. Nicholas Black had a couple of underworld connections that nobody knew about except for her and a select few. And if that knowledge of his included the throat-slashing bad boys in St. Louis, he was going to tell her, whether he liked it or not. And he probably wouldn’t like it. Nope, he sure as hell wouldn’t like it, not in the least.
Chapter Six
As Claire had expected, Sheriff Charlie Ramsay did not take the news with a stiff upper lip. In fact, that was the understatement of the century. “Are you shittin’ me? Are you telling me that this case is possibly related to the Petrov family? My God, she’s Ivan Petrov’s ex-wife? Do you two have any idea what kinda stink this is gonna blow up? The feds are gonna want in on this, for God’s sake.”
Claire and Bud nodded slightly but kept their mouths shut. Charlie’s questions were rhetorical, or at least, Claire hoped they were. She sure as the devil didn’t want to explain anything else. Actually, and believe it or not, the sheriff had taken the news much better than she had expected. He had yet to drop even one F-bomb, which was his wont in days gone by, but the day was young and she prepared herself for oncoming sharp and stinging ire. Truth was, however, she was more anxious to have her little tête-a-tête with Black and pick his brain about certain Russian wiseguys going by the name of Petrov. But alas, and after his recent trip to California, he was busy shrinking his patients in the private bungalows at Cedar Bend Lodge, and she was trapped in an office with her irate boss. Not good. Not a bit good. And certainly not a skip down any primrose path, either. She just hoped it all ended soon, and all ended well.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” Charlie stopped, breathless and red-faced in his outrage. He pulled in a deep inhalation and grabbed his trusty pipe off the desktop. She was used to that, too. He always smoked his pipe when he was upset. The
NO SMOKING
signs in the building did not apply to the sheriff. Nobody dared call him on it, either, because all the staff was halfway intelligent. He continued with his regular routine, knocking packed ashes out of the pipe’s bowl into a clean glass ashtray. “Now, listen up. Davis, I want you in Kansas City today, talking to that guy who’s still laid up over there. That Shorty Dunlop fella. Interview him and everybody else in his retinue, if he has one. See if he can provide you with any new information on the other fighters and their relationships with our victim. Somebody must of knocked him around pretty good if he’s still banged up enough to end up in that hospital bed. Maybe some of his buddies took umbrage to that and went after revenge. Also check out the arena over there, or wherever the hell they hold those kinda fights. And contact the KCPD before you do any of it. Got it, Davis? Don’t go off half-cocked and get yourself in trouble up there. And the highways are supposed to be clear now so you can drive. Save the department some money on a plane ticket.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sheriff Ramsay turned his intense gaze upon Claire. He was wearing his bulldog look, the quivering jowls one, the one that indicated snarls and sharp teeth and heavy gnashing. She waited on edge and wondering why she wasn’t assigned to go with Bud. They worked together. She hoped he wasn’t assigning her to a desk, a fate worse than death, in her opinion. She didn’t have to wait long for the answer. “I want you in St. Louis, Morgan. I want you to talk to every dadgum one of those fighters over there, bar none. And their sports agents. And their families. And anybody else they’ve ever spoken to since they were in diapers. I want you to research their backgrounds and see if you can find any connection to the Petrov family.” Charlie stopped there, lit his pipe with a great deal of ritual, and then he sighed heavily. “And I guess you better pay an official visit to Ivan Petrov while you’re there. Find out where he’s been the last week or so. Got all that? And take Nick Black with you, if he’s available to go. I value his input, as you well know. Maybe he’ll offer to use his Learjet and save us the cost of another ticket. Thanks to the blasted snow and ice, our budget is already shot to hell with overtime this year, and it’s only January, for God’s sake.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any questions about anything?”
“No, sir,” they singsonged together. Something they’d learned to do through the years. She and Zee Jackson, her temporary partner once upon a recent time down in New Orleans, had gotten pretty good at doing that, too, when answering to Sheriff Russ Friedewald down in Lafourche Parish in Louisiana. Even though she hadn’t spent much time working there, all hell had broken loose on her watch. Murder and mayhem following her south, no doubt.
“Then what are you waitin’ for, and keep me posted on everything, and I mean every single detail, dadgummit. You heard from Mrs. Parker yet? She comin’ down here today?”
“No, sir. I haven’t heard from her. She’s probably working up the nerve to identify the body. She was pretty torn up when we left her.”
“Okay, but wait . . .” He paused, frowned around some, and then continued. “Before you leave the lake, I want the two of you to go over to that resort where they held Parker’s last fight. What was it, the Lake Inn, that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go down there and see what they can tell you. Maybe there was an argument behind the scenes that somebody bore witness to. Doubtful, but sometimes we get lucky. So get goin’.”
After that, he waved them away, like two pesky little moths annoying his green-shaded reading lamp, and they fled his office in a big hurry. They did stop politely and listen to his sweet little munchkin secretary named Madge tell them about her grandkids’ snowman that looked just like Jay Leno, and then they trudged out to the parking lot and climbed into Bud’s Bronco.
Bud fired the ignition and turned up the heater. “Want my opinion? I don’t think Petrov ordered it. I think one, or maybe more, of those fighters messed up Parker. Beat him to death. Payback, probably. They know how to use their fists and break bones. I suspect they know how to use bats and crowbars, too. Judgin’ from the ones I’ve seen fight.”
Claire nodded. “Could be right. But I suspect that Petrov’s thugs are pretty good with bats and pipes and weighted saps, too. Death by Louisville sluggers is more their style. At least, that’s what I hear.” And maybe Black could tell her more. He had proven himself buddy-buddy with a couple of godfathers that she’d had the misfortune to meet up close and personal. Unfortunately. But fortunately, too, because at times it opened doors to her that other law enforcement personnel would have to kick down with a signed warrant and a black-clad SWAT team. Black had never mentioned any mobsters/personal friends that he knew in the St. Louis metropolitan area, but on the other hand, he didn’t discuss his secret association with bad guys all that often. Never, actually. Especially now. All he ever wanted to do now was look through
Brides Magazine
and talk about wedding veils and guest lists and receptions and ask her questions like: So, have you set the date yet or not?
By the time they reached the Lake Inn, a light snowfall was spiraling down to delight the denizens of the lake area. Yeah, as if. As they drove down the hill and onto the cleared tarmac road that led to the front entrance, she decided the hotel had a pretty good layout. Waterfront properties like Black’s huge luxury resort were moneymaking gold mines when they were located right on the shores of Lake of the Ozarks. This one was okay, but not even close to Cedar Bend Lodge in classy digs, primo location, basic grandeur, or any other kind of wow factor. It looked as if it had been around a couple of decades. There was a good deal of lake frontage and what looked like a nine-hole golf course, and in the back she could see a fairly large convention center. There was no giant marina full of speedboats like Cedar Bend had, but it looked like it was doing a brisk business, probably guests left over from attending the recent and bloody cage fight.
Bud pulled up under a wide canopy and parked behind a taxi with a driver loading beat-up brown baggage into the back. No handsome black-and-tan-uniformed valet came running, as was the case at Black’s joint. So nobody was around to complain about them blocking the front door, which was large and made of dark polished wood. To the right of the door, there was a large glass advertising box. It had a poster of the busted-up guy on Buckeye Boyd’s autopsy table. Paulie Parker was posed in the typical boxer stance, fists up in front, legs apart, one in front of the other for balance. She knew that from her old Bobby Blanks kickboxing tapes. He was a fairly nice looking guy when he had been alive, with lots of curly brown hair and a beard cropped close along his jawline. He was wearing bright red trunks and some kind of fancy belt decorated with large gold medallions that made him look cool and like an awesome winner. His gloves were open at the end so that his fingers showed, so he could grab hold of his opponent’s nose and twist it off, no doubt. He was barefoot, and he looked fit and healthy and strong, and not like every bone in his body had been splintered, muscles slack, eyes shut for good. She sighed and tried not to think about Paulie Parker. Or his albino-tinted-white wife.
At the front desk, a young and extremely polite teenage girl with enough long and fluffy black hair to stuff a king-size pillow informed them that the person who had arranged the fight was back in the convention center overseeing the workmen who were taking down the cages. And that said supervisor was saddled with the unlikely name of Skippy Wainwright. So they hoofed their way through some long halls in search of Skippy, all of which were carpeted with lots of red swirls and dark green leafy patterns. It was warm as toast inside, so they shed their sock hats, scarves, and gloves, and parkas as they moved along the way and avoided all the folks who were checking out of their rooms, wheeled suitcases and nylon duffel bags in tow. Some of the hotel guests looked like how she assumed fans of brutal cage fighters would look, sporting unkempt graying beards and intricate blue and yellow and red tats in the inevitable redneck and rapper arm-sleeve, look-what-I-did-aren’t-I-tough variety, as well as some painful-looking facial jewelry. She just didn’t get it. Legit boxing wasn’t her cup of tea, either. Maybe after she watched a bout or two of two buff guys going at it nearly naked, then she’d be utterly enthralled. After two seconds contemplating that scenario, she knew better. Nope, she was pretty sure that sort of thing was never gonna ring her bells. Sumo wrestling, either. Less buff that was, true, but still pointless in her book.
At the rear of the first floor, they followed a passageway to a large room where a steaming hot tub flooded ripples of warm water over some fancy fake gray rocks into a large indoor heated swimming pool. The room was lofty and spacious with foggy windows across the back and smelled cloyingly of chlorine and steam and stale complimentary popcorn. Outside, there was an outdoor pool covered with a green vinyl tarp barely visible under a foot or two of snow. They passed a couple of young girls lying under some sunlamps. They smelled like coconut and Maui hotels. Bud grinned at them, and they responded with giggles, sitting up and giving him a better gander of their toned and scarcely covered adolescent bodies. She couldn’t condemn them for their nearly naked state. Black bought her the tiniest little scrap of a yellow string bikini once and loved for her to wear it, at least until he took it off, which was usually a mere matter of seconds. But she wasn’t complaining about that, either. Talk about ringing her bells. Thus was explained the giant diamond ring hidden on the sturdy chain around her neck, to be hastily slipped onto her left ring finger whenever Black was around and raising hell about it.
They took an enclosed, glass-windowed walkway to the convention center and immediately were inundated with the clang of hammers against steel and workmen shouting things like,
Got it, man
or
Hold it tight
or
Hand me that hammer, dumbass
. All of said ruckus echoed up high into the rafters of the nearly empty building. The convention center was one big room with one big cage made out of vinyl-covered chain-link fencing smack dab in the middle, fed by double runways on which the fighters no doubt made their spectacular entrances in hooded silk robes while clasping their hands over their heads. All of it was being dismantled, while other hired hands struggled to remove at least a hundred or so black folding chairs that surrounded it. Claire and Bud headed straight for the guy holding a clipboard and yelling nonstop at the other guys.
“Excuse me, sir,” Claire said when they reached him, not at all sure he deserved that moniker, judging by the way he was hurling profanities hither and fro.
“Yeah? Now what? What the hell do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Claire gazed down at Mr. Skippy. He was a little guy, came to about her chin and real nervous acting despite his X-rated oratory skills. He moved from foot to foot while glaring at them, as if he couldn’t stand still to save his life or had to go to the bathroom really, really bad. He was breathing hard from all his highly dramatic cussing and power trip, poor tiny little dwarf of a guy. Maybe she ought to get him in a headlock so he could calm down and control his breathing. She fought the urge, having learned to be rather calm and collected around imbecilic jerks since her recent sojourn in a three-week coma. Then again, she hadn’t met Skippy Boy until now. He wore an old gray sweatshirt that said
Semper Fi
on the front. Yeah, right. He probably stole it from his hero older brother or his World War II great-grandpa. His denim jeans were well worn, too, and he sported a rather impressive sideways rainbow-shaped scar down his left cheek. Probably a broken beer bottle souvenir from his own fighting days or a girlfriend who didn’t like vulgar words or his Marine gramps who wanted his sweatshirt back. He had long and kinky white-blond hair, really kinky, probably ten on the corkscrew scale, much like the clowns in Stephen King’s scariest books or like her Aunt Helen’s old-fashioned floor mop circa 1952. His face looked a bit battered and worse for the wear, as if it had been hit lots of times in unfriendly fashion. So did his nose.
She held up her shiny deputy badge and gave him a good look at it. “We’re from the Canton County Sheriff’s Department, sir. We have some questions to ask you.”
That got his full-fledged, undying attention. He didn’t curse anymore, either. He must have felt guilty since the first words out of his mouth were: “Hey, we got all the necessary permits for these fights. I got the papers right here. We got it right this time, so why are you hasslin’ us like this?” He held up the clipboard and stabbed a disgruntled forefinger on the writing thereon.