He washed his hands and headed into the living room where Chris was ensconced in his I-Ching chair. David sat on the sofa.
Sergeant leapt up beside him. Neither of them told him to get down.
“The breeder came by the other day,” Chris said. “She seemed to think Sergeant was fitting right in and didn’t have any more qualms about leaving him here. She wants me to keep in touch. I said I would. She seems to care.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s such a good dog,” David said. At this praise Sergeant lifted his head off David’s knee and smiled at both of them. David laughed. “Definitely spoiled though.”
“Oh yeah, big time.” Chris shifted in the chair to face him.
“Want a beer?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Chris got it and came back. When he slipped back into his seat he faced David, one leg dangling over the edge of the chair.
“So what was it you wanted me to do for you? I’ll help any way I can.”
“The case...” David had never talked about his work with Chris. He found it hard to start. “Ah, you remember the woman who fell onto the freeway in front of your car?”
“Hard to forget.”
“Right. Well, she was involved in a human trafficking case where she and several other women were smuggled into the US
and essentially sold into slavery—meaning prostitution. The man who ran the ring here in L.A was also Ukrainian. We’ve arrested him, but he gave up an American, named Harmon Degrasses. He’s supposed to be staying at the downtown Marriott...”
“And you want me to search him out online? This is a first.”
“I know, and if there was any other way, I wouldn’t ask. But if this guy gets wind of his partner getting busted, he’ll be gone and chances are we’d never find him.”
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“So you really did just come over here for work.”
David could hear the disappointment in Chris’s voice. He wanted nothing more than to take him in his arms and tell him
“No, I came because I love you,” but all he said was, “Yes.”
“I had hoped... I miss you. I know I shouldn’t, not after what you did—” he caught the look on David’s face and amended his statement, “I want to forgive you. I want us to be
us
again. But it’s hard to trust you.”
“I know,” David whispered. He scraped at the label on his beer and couldn’t meet Chris’s eyes. “I am more sorry than you can ever imagine, but I know that’s not good enough right now.
I shouldn’t have come...”
Chris stood up so fast Sergeant jumped to the floor and came over to him. “I don’t want you to go, David.” David brightened. “But I don’t want you to stay, either. You make me hurt with wanting you so much, I can’t think straight, and right now I
need
to think straight.”
David stood and took Chris’s cold hands in his. “Let me feed you dinner, then I’ll go. I know it’s too soon. But I’ll keep coming around until you can think straight and we can talk.
How does that sound?”
“Sounds good.” Chris inhaled. “Smells good, too. If I’d known you could cook like this I’d have made you take your turn years ago.”
“That’s why I never told you.” They both laughed. “I didn’t want to get drafted.”
Chris opened the wine that David had brought while David set the table and portioned out the chicken, potatoes and snap peas he had pan fried in butter. Chris made appreciative noises while he ate. “Probably a good thing you didn’t do this all the time. I’d have been as big as a house.”
“I’d still love you.”
Chris met David’s eyes and his grew unfocused with desire.
David leaned over the table and fed a snap pea to Chris, who chewed on it without tasting anything.
“I should go,” David said softly.
256 P.A. Brown
“Not until I’ve checked out your guy on the computer. Or did you forget?”
“I’m afraid I forget everything around you.”
“Flatterer.”
“Truth.”
David would have pursued the byplay further, but Chris was clearly nervous. He dropped the banter, and followed Chris into his office, taking a seat on the futon behind Chris’s computer desk.
Chris logged into his laptop and called up a web browser opened to Google. He started to enter the name then looked over his shoulder. “How do you spell that?”
David pulled his by now dog-eared notebook out of his jacket pocket and flipped through to the end. He read,
“Harmon Degrasses,” and spelled it the way Mikalenko had.
“Marine,” Chris said. “Shipped out of Camp Pendleton in May seventeen years ago. Re-upped for a third term, this time in Iraq. Decorated twice, the last time with a bronze star for saving the crew of a downed helicopter and getting them all to safety. Ain’t the Internet wonderful? You sure this is the bad guy?”
“That’s what my snitch says. Though if it’s not true, why he’d pull that name out of the hat escapes me.” Something Zuzanna had noted in her journal came back to him. “When did he serve in Iraq?”
Chris let his fingers play over the keyboard, mousing through various hits from an assortment of searches. David, as always, was amazed at the quiet skill he displayed. Chris could be flighty and emotional at times, but in his work he was as methodical as anyone David had ever met. His movements were flawless; he knew how to worm information out of places David didn’t even know existed. David had long ago learned not to underestimate him.
Finally Chris leaned back and rubbed the back of his head.
“Two years in, the last six months in a place called Basra.
Why, what are you thinking?”
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Instead of answering David pulled out his cell phone. “I have to make a phone call.” He saw the way Chris’s eyes narrowed and knew he thought David was calling Jairo. But he couldn’t stop to reassure him. This was too important.
Konstatinov picked up on the second ring. In the background the pitched battle from a TV vied with a child screaming and a dog barking. The sounds were only partly muffled when Konstatinov realized who was calling and left the room or covered the phone.
“Officer Konstatinov. It’s Sergeant Laine.” Chris face cleared up but David’s gut still roiled. Was Chris ever going to trust him again?
“Yes, Detective? I was not expecting to hear from you this night.”
“Well, I didn’t expect to call. Do you still have those notes you transcribed from Zuzanna’s journal?”
“Of course.” Konstatinov sounded wounded that David would think otherwise. “A direct transcript and the translation.”
“Can you go back to the original and see what she tells us about Katrina? You can call me back at this number, it’s my cell.”
“Yes, sir. Immediately.” Konstatinov rang off. David turned back to find Chris still watching him. “A Russian/Ukrainian officer who’s been acting as a translator and cultural interpreter for us.”
“Oh.” Chris had the grace to look embarrassed and look away. David should have let it go, but he couldn’t.
“Do you really think I’m having an affair with every man I meet, Chris? Do you really think so little of me?”
“No! I don’t.. it’s just...” Chris shrugged and looked away, then looked back, his eyes full of pain. “I was hurt. Can you understand that?”
“Yes, I can, and I will tell you I am sorry as long as I live, but
nothing
happened. At least nothing we can’t fix, if you’ll forgive me.”
258 P.A. Brown
Chris sighed. “I know that, in here,” he tapped his head,
“But here,” his chest this time, “it’s another story. I want to believe you, you have no idea how much, but I keep seeing his face. He’s sexy and hot and I can’t help it... Maybe I’m afraid that under the same circumstances I wouldn’t be able to resist and what does that make me?”
In an act of desperation, David got up off the futon and crouched beside Chris’s chair, taking Chris’s cold hands in his.
He rubbed them, both to warm them up, and to feel his skin. “I don’t ever want to hurt you. Ever. Please believe that and trust me. I told you I was getting rid of Jairo,” he lied, praying Chris would never check. “Neither of us will ever have to see him again.” He lowered his voice. He’d make it happen. Somehow.
“Trust me.”
“I-I’m trying. I really am.”
David forced a lightness he didn’t feel into his voice. “That’s all I can ask.” He kissed Chris and stood up. “I should get going now. I need to go see Konstatinov to see what he might have found out about a woman.”
Chris stood too. “Well, you take care. I can look into this guy a little more, if you want.”
David hesitated, knowing that for Chris, “a little more”
would probably entail doing something questionably legal. “I, ah, sure. Just don’t, you know, break any laws.”
Chris threw him a sly grin. “I won’t tell you how I do what I do, how about that?”
Knowing it was the best he’d get from him, David nodded, and he was out the door, and back in his car. On the way back to Northeast, Konstatinov called him back. He pulled over and answered. “Yes?”
“Is Officer Konstatinov. I found the entry Zuzanna wrote about Katrina. She is the woman who lost her husband in Iraq, yes?”
“Yes, now does Zuzanna say
where
in Iraq?” David held his breath, knowing it was a long shot.
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Konstatinov was couple of seconds getting back to him.
David knew he was rereading the passage he had called about.
“She says Katrina lost her husband in the Iraqi war, during a skirmish in some place called Basra.”
“Bingo,” David said softly.
“This is important?” Konstatinov sounded excited.
“You have no idea. Listen, I’m heading back in to the station. You don’t have to come, I know this is your family time...”
“I will be there. Perhaps half an hour?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Friday 8:45 PM, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando
Road, Los Angeles
David signed out the original notebook that had been found at Leland Way. Already checked over by trace, it was still in a sterile baggy and they would have to wear gloves while reading it. If Konstatinov was insulted that David wanted to check the original instead of his transcription, he never said. He rolled Martinez’s chair around and studied the pages along with David, carefully translating as he went.
“Here,” he said, pointing with a gloved finger at the middle of page that was about half way through the notebook. “Here she writes about Katrina and how she befriended a man after her husband died in Basra. He said he was all about helping her and would bring her to US to find a good job, and a home, for her children. He did not want her to bring her children with her, though, he said ‘he would send for them later.’ He tricked her, no?”
“Yes, it was all lies. He never had any intention of finding legitimate work or bringing any children over. Probably a good thing for Natalya. If her children were here then she would not have been able to slip away so easily, and she truly would have been trapped.” David touched the notebook. “Plus, as long as they were back in the old country, he could use them as insurance. Talk and they come to harm. Does it say anything about who this man Katrina met was? A name? A description?”
“He is American, that much she says. He told her he met her husband in Iraq.” Konstatinov looked up with dawning comprehension. “He knew her husband had died. No doubt if they met, the Ukrainian man would speak of his wife and family back home.”
262 P.A. Brown
“Which implies premeditation. All he had to do was find a Ukrainian partner and he was in business. No name though?”
David hadn’t expected one. What were the odds Katrina would remember the name of a man she only met once. And would Degrasses even use his own name? If the guy was as slick as David suspected, then no, he wouldn’t do anything that might come back to haunt him later.
“No name. Only that he was American, with bright red hair.
She knew he was American before he even spoke to her.
Because of the way he dressed. She had never seen a man wear jewelry before. Especially earrings. She was quite taken with them.”
David tried to remember if Chris’s online search had brought up any photographs of the decorated war hero.
Probably, but he couldn’t remember. He thought briefly of making it an excuse to return to their Cove Avenue home, then dismissed it just as quickly. It would be too easy for him to do the same search. Chris knew that and wouldn’t be fooled for a second about David’s real motives. The only question was whether he would be annoyed or flattered.
Chris seemed to be doing some heavy waffling right now.
He hated what David had done, but he still loved David. It wouldn’t take a lot to make him swing totally to one side or the other, but how stable would that state be? Would David always be second guessing himself and what he said? Or would Chris be trying to catch David out in a lie, or start snooping to see if he was doing something suspicious. And with David’s erratic hours how long before that became an issue? If Chris could never trust him could they really forge a strong alliance again?
To stop his useless speculation David began his own Google search. He found the same pages Chris had called up, and did indeed find several images of a uniformed Degrasses. He was clearly a red head, even with the typical high and tight hair cut of a jarhead. And also visible was a glittering gem in his left ear, something he didn’t think was exactly regulation. In one image he stood at rest, with an assault rifle David didn’t recognize at his side, his eyes staring past the camera with the thousand mile stare of a man seeing something no one else saw. David L.A. BONEYARD
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couldn’t get any kind of read on him. He’d have to meet the guy in person to form an opinion. Hard to do, without alerting him to an LAPD interest. Degrasses was no longer a Marine, having resigned his commission, after his last posting in Iraq, at the rank of Major. If he knew there were dogs on his tail he’d be gone in sixty seconds and finding him would be next to impossible.
His phone rang. It was Jairo.
“I’m meeting with a guy out here in about an hour. You want to tag along?”