He glanced around the table at his crew. One face was more than familiar. He had finally talked his old DataTEK colleague, Rebecca Chapman, into joining him at the growing Intelligent Security Ltd. He had started the company when he had left DataTEK after his debacle with the Carpet Killer, which had brought David into his life—his mind shied away from thoughts of David. It wasn’t going to do him any good to dwell on that right now. He would have to deal with David later, once he could think straight. Right now he had a business to run.
He nodded at Becky. Beside her sat the Frenchman, Geissel, who everyone called Dr. Seuss or just Doctor. He was their Information Security Manager, and he was in charge of protecting Microchip Interface Technologies’ data from all threats. One of Jantz’s secretaries glided into the room to distribute the lunch Chris had ordered earlier. Silently she passed out cutlery, napkins, cups and plates of steaming offerings from a local bistro.
They broke off to eat, but in typical IT fashion they kept talking shop. IT people never left their work at the office.
Chris was especially interested in the latest news from the Jericho Group, the Open source organization that was changing the paradigm of how businesses managed their data and kept it safe from inside and outside threats.
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But though the food was exceptional and the conversation everything he could have wanted, Chris felt restless. His mind kept going back to the last time he had seen David, and the short conversation he’d had with Jairo. Had he been too rash in his decision to cut David out of his life without once talking to him? Was he being fair? David had admitted what Jairo and he had done, which in hindsight wasn’t very much. He hadn’t bedded the guy after all. Only wanted to. Which was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as a real physical encounter. And if Jairo was the initiator, then why was he trusting him to tell the truth about what he and David were doing? Maybe he was using this schism to get between the two lovers. Well, it was working. Was he making it too easy to isolate David and make him even more vulnerable to his admittedly good-looking partner, who clearly had some serious intentions on David? Now that he thought about it, Jairo had made tracks to tell Chris that David had disposed of the flowers he sent. Why was that? He was hardly just being “helpful.”
No, the guy was being a nasty bitch. Why hadn’t Chris seen that before?
Belatedly he grew aware that his name was being called. He shook himself out of his funk and found Becky and the Doctor watching him, confused. He flushed and smiled.
“Ah, sorry. Wool-gathering. Where were we?”
“I was just saying since Dr. Jantz is so concerned with network penetration that I’ve devised a honeypot to deflect any probes into the inner network,” the Doctor said, his slight French accent giving his voice a musical slant that normally Chris would find sexy as hell. Right now it was just distracting.
“My focus is going to be on safe-guarding the data as opposed to the entry ports. Right now we’re securing the terminal devices. That will be a major effort, even given the use of Linux on back and front ends.”
Chris nodded. “Good. Send me the latest on that and I can get it to Dr. Jantz for his weekly partner meeting. Anything else?” He looked at Becky who shook her dark head. The Doctor gathered up his laptop and BlackBerry and left. Becky hung around.
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“Everything okay, Chris? You seemed preoccupied there for a bit. You usually don’t get so distracted in a business meeting.”
“No, everything’s okay.”
“You don’t lie worth a shit.”
“Thanks, Beck. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She shrugged. “Well, my shoulder’s always there if you need to lean on something. I always had good ears.”
“Thanks,” Chris said and this time he meant it. He might have confided in her, she’d been around since before he met David, but his mind was still in too much of a stew to make sense of it all, and he knew he’d only confuse her if he tried to tell her what was going on. “Let’s get to work on those final SAN configurations. I want to verify the collection of virtual desktops that Jantz ordered. Afterwards we can run our initial tests and hopefully give it a green light by the end of the week.”
They piled the dirty dishes and garbage on the tray the secretary had left behind and headed to the secure server room.
There they found the Doctor hunched over a laptop he was using to remotely connect to one of his servers.
Chris and Becky headed over to where the SAN racks were located. Both of them pulled out their own laptops and logged into the network. The next four hours were spent in the kind of semi-daze Chris always experienced when he was immersed in the virtual world of networked computers. He was glad to go where there was no room for David or his worrisome habits.
Wednesday, 2:15 PM, Northeast Community Police Station, San
Fernando Road, Los Angeles
David and Jairo met outside the interview room and waited for Mikalenko and his lawyer to show up. Once inside David set up the recorder and started the session with everyone’s name and the date and location. Then he casually slid the list of LUDS across the table. Fishburn picked it up.
“What is this?”
“A list of all your client’s calls from the cell phone recovered from a shallow grave in Griffith Park. A grave, I might add, that contained a total of four bodies.”
“Four—”
Fishburn put his hand on Mikalenko’s bulging arm. “I have told you not to speak.”
“But the cellular—”
“Is not your concern. Leave it. Make them prove you used it and that you dealt with those people.” He indicated the LUD
list. “We give them nothing, understand?”
Mikalenko subsided into his seat, seething.
David noticed the once robust man was already showing the prison pallor of long term inmates. He knew Mikalenko hadn’t been incarcerated long enough to produce the effect naturally, so it must be stress. Was Mikalenko coming unglued? David pressed his advantage.
“I’ll ask one more time, do you know Doctor Jozef Sevchuk?”
“And I’m telling you no!”
David met Fishburn’s gaze. “I think you might want to talk your client into telling the truth. We have corroborating
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witnesses that state that not only did your client know Jozef Sevchuk, but that he employed the doctor’s services for his captive women.”
Fishburn leaned over and whispered fiercely into Mikalenko’s ears. Mikalenko flushed with rage. Finally Fishburn turned back to David.
“He says he will tell you about the girls, but he still insists he didn’t kill them.”
“Then maybe he knows who did.” David was watching, Mikalenko when he said that, and saw his eyes widen imperceptibly, until he shuttered them again. “Tell him I want full disclosure.”
“He wants to know what kind of deal he can get.”
“That’s not up to me, you know that. The DA will need to be involved on that end.”
Fishburn relayed that to Mikalenko in more whispers.
Mikalenko squared his shoulders and met David’s cool gaze. He bore no guilt in his eyes. Only guile. David knew he was trying to figure out what he could get from this.
“Then I wish to speak to your DA,” he said.
David nodded and stood up. “I’ll see if I can get her to come over.”
“Her?” Mikalenko sneered. “I do not deal with women.”
“You’ll deal with whoever is sent to talk to you. Better tell your client, counselor, that he doesn’t call the shots here.”
More hurried whispering, then a much chastened Mikalenko nodded.
“He’ll cooperate with your DA, whoever it is.” Fishburn traded another look with Mikalenko. “But we will say nothing else until we meet with this person.”
“Fair enough, but if your client clams up, then all bets are off. We have more than that to go on, so tell him not to think he can weasel out of talking.”
“Bring your DA and we will talk,” Mikalenko said, his eyes cold and hostile.
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Jairo took Mikalenko back to lockup. When he returned to the squad room, he dropped into his chair. “Well, was that good or bad? Will he talk?”
“He’ll talk. Whether he’ll say anything of real value...” David shrugged. “But we don’t stop here. I need you to follow up on the Avenues angle. I’ll talk to the doctor again. There are big gaping holes in this whole thing. I want to do some back and fill before we meet Mickey again with the DA.”
“I got a couple of people to talk to,” Jairo said. “I’ll try to set up a meet.”
“Yeah, well, be careful.”
“Aw, I didn’t know you cared.”
David just glared at him. He turned away from Jairo and picked up his phone. He put a call in to Konstatinov’s watch commander and requested the young man for another day.
After he hung up the forensic botanist called to report on what he had found in the skeletonized woman’s shroud.
“I found traces of a commercial fertilizer, as well as plant debris from several cultivars and some
Eucalyptus globulus,
blue gum Eucalyptus leaves.”
“So nothing like what you’d expect to find in Griffith Park?”
David asked. He tried to remember if that section of the park had any of the drought resistant Eucalyptus trees, transplanted from Australia in the nineteenth century.
“Depends on what area of Griffith you’re talking about.”
Scientists. They could never give a definitive yes or no.
“They came out of someone’s garden?”
“There’s a high probability.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Anything unique about the cultivars?”
It was probably too much to hope they were some rare, just released variety.
“Nothing, I’m afraid. These varietals could probably be found in every garden center in the state.”
“Thanks, Doctor. If I get a sample, I’ll get you to look it over for a match.”
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“Any time, Detective.”
Konstatinov was there within half an hour, like he’d been waiting for the call.
David grabbed his jacket. “We’re going to talk to the doctor again. See if we can shake anything else loose.”
Konstatinov nodded, his face alight with eagerness. David could almost hear the sirens going off in his head. He was a real cop. Doing real cop work.
“We will just fall in?”
“Drop in? Yeah, put the element of surprise in our court.”
Konstatinov’s grin was contagious. “Most excellent.”
“So let’s get our most excellent asses out to Hollywood.”
Dr. Sevchuk was just finishing up with his last patient, a very pregnant blonde who happily waddled out of the examining room, to be met by a florid-faced man, several years her senior.
He solicitously helped her out the door. Sevchuk didn’t see them as he came out of the room and crossed to the receptionist. She must have told him they were there because he spun around, his face blanching.
For a guy who was so innocent, he showed a lot of guilt.
David wasn’t leaving until he found out why.
“Doctor, we just have a few more questions.”
“I am a busy man, officer—”
“That’s okay, we won’t be long.”
David and Konstatinov flanked the short man and guided him into his office. Konstatinov shut the door behind them.
Neither of them sat, towering over the sweating Ukrainian.
“Y-yes, how can I help you? I am about helping the police.”
“Good, then this should be easy,” David said. He leaned toward the stoop-shouldered doctor. “When you last saw either Halyna or Zuzanna, did either of them seem apprehensive?”
“I do not understand—”
“Scared. Nervous.”
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Konstatinov spat a few words at the doctor, who grew more agitated. “Nervous? No, not at all—”
“Don’t lie to me, Doctor. It will come out and it will look bad for you. You could be charged with an accessory to murder.”
“M-murder! That is insane. I am a doctor, not a murderer!”
“Then tell us what happened.”
Sevchuk sighed and his already small frame seemed to shrink into itself. He finally spoke at length and Konstatinov translated. “He says, ‘Halyna was the first to come to me with her fears.’ At first he dismissed her as just being a silly, pregnant woman, but after a while he had to wonder if she wasn’t right.”
“And what were her fears?” David pressed.
“She feared that Mikalenko was going to do something with the baby. In fact she was sure of it.”
“Did she say what she suspected he was going to do?”
Konstatinov listened carefully to the doctor’s voluminous answer and nodded. “She was afraid he was going to take their babies away. He’s very insistent that she said ‘they.’“
“So she knew his designs encompassed all the women and their upcoming births. So if she was afraid, why didn’t she try to get away from him?”
“He says she told him that Mikalenko watched them like a bird—I think he means hawk. They were never let out of the house and he was around a lot more then, like he knew something was up. Plus, no more men came around.”
“I guess selling babies is a lot more lucrative than prostitution. Besides one of the johns might have been too sympathetic to the new mother. Mikalenko couldn’t have that.”
David stared hard at the doctor, who was sweating profusely now. “Did either she or Mikalenko say where the babies would be born? It hardly seems likely they’d do it in a hospital. Too many people who might help the women. Some nurse might have seen something hinky and called a cop, or a social worker.”
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“I think Halyna said he had arranged for a mid-wife to assist the women...” But when Sevchuk spoke he refused to meet David’s eyes.
David knew the man was lying. He took a step closer, his face less than a foot from Sevchuk’s. “Stop bullshitting me, Doctor. You were going to deliver the babies, weren’t you?
You, and maybe your receptionist.”
“No!” David leaned so close his hot breath fanned Sevchuk’s flushed face. He began to speak again in Ukrainian.
Konstatinov translated. “Yes! He say he pay me ten thousand dollars for all three women. That all I had to do was make sure they were safe and their babies healthy.”