Polar (Book 2): Polar Day (16 page)
“So what did you think of him?” Danny asked as he juggled steering his car and lighting a cigarette. He opened his window and let the smoke escape out of the car.
Tessa opened her own window, grimacing at the hot air that greeted her. “Damn when are we going to get a break from this heat?”
“I'm thinking September is the best we can hope for at this point. This feels more like a Chicago summer all the time.”
“You know, I think I liked you better when drinking was your vice,” Tessa said, waving her hand in front of her face in a futile attempt to banish the smoke. “This smoking has to stop. Or at least it has to stop when I'm in the car with you.”
Danny took a final long drag on his cigarette and stamped it out in the ashtray underneath the car stereo. “Fine,” he said. “I won't torture you. Now can we talk about Jamie Dzubenko?”
Tessa gratefully closed her window and reached over to turn up the air conditioning. She angled all of the vents she could reach in her direction.
“I think there's definitely something off with him” she said. “I can see why Frank Wainscott thought he started that fire himself.”
Danny angled the air conditioning vents back towards his own seat. “Yeah. It felt like he was just saying what he thinks people say about a tragedy. His affect was flat and I didn't see a single emotion cross his face the whole time we were talking to him.”
“He's a cold fish, no doubt about that.”
“You did get a rise out of him by bringing up Max Fugate though.”
“I thought so too. He was clearly surprised by that.”
Danny turned left on Cushman Street and headed towards the police station. “Of course, we still don't have a damn thing on him.”
“No. But at least we know we got under his skin a bit. Who knows, maybe if he is our guy and we rattled him he'll screw up.”
“That would be nice. But we both know it's wishful thinking. Did you notice anything interesting about his apartment?”
Tessa shrugged. “It was obviously very tidy. And he had what looked like a stockpile of vitamins in his kitchen, did you see those?”
“Those bottles lined up in rows along the counter? Yeah. I guess he's a health nut.”
“Or he's doing some sort of fitness regimen. Maybe training or building up his strength and going overboard on vitamins?”
“Could be,” Danny said. “And if he's a runner himself that could be how he knew Max Fugate's pattern of jogging at Griffin Park. That might be something worth exploring more.”
He turned into the station parking lot and pulled into a spot close to the door. He kept the car running, wanting to sit in the air conditioning as long as possible. Tessa made no move to get out of the car.
“Say he is our guy,” she said. “How the hell is he doing this? How is he starting these fires?”
Danny flirted with the notion of telling her what he really believed but quickly shut that idea down. “I'm gonna go over those magic books and websites with a fine-toothed comb and see how magicians do it. You said it yourself, it's an illusion. Granted, this guy's got Houdini beat all to hell if he's pulling something like this off, but I don't know where else to look right now.”
Tessa stared at the door of the station and willed herself to get out of the car and into the heat. Her will wasn’t strong enough. “You know, I actually think it's getting hotter every damn day. It's like we're living in hell here.”
“Unfortunately I don’t think we’re far from our city turning into a literal hell if we can't find our friendly neighborhood arsonist and stop him. Should we go inside and see what Jack has managed to find out about the latest letter?”
“Want to bet his answer will be not a damn thing?”
“I'd say that's a safe bet. But come on, we can't put it off any longer.”
Danny turned off the ignition and the two detectives stepped out into the heat.
****
Danny would never have wished Tessa harm or sickness, in fact she was probably the last person on earth to whom he would want anything bad to happen. But he still couldn't deny he was relieved when she called him that morning and let him know that she would not be able to accompany him to Anchorage to interview Constance Davenport, the aunt Jamie Dzubenko had gone to live with after the fire that killed his family. Danny had looked into Jamie’s history after Frank Wainscott had mentioned the aunt and learned that less than a year after moving to Anchorage Jamie had returned to Fairbanks, where he spent his teenage years in foster care.
Danny and Tessa had planned to travel to Anchorage this morning to meet Constance Davenport, but a migraine had felled Tessa and she simply couldn't leave her apartment until it subsided. Danny remembered the migraines his mother had suffered from and knew Tessa meant what she said. She wouldn't be in any shape to fly in an airplane, let alone to interview anyone.
But Danny was glad to be going alone, as now he could interview Constance without worrying about veering into magic if he sensed she was on the same page that he was about Jamie Dzubenko. From the phone conversation he had already had with her, Danny believed that she was. She was afraid of Jamie, that much was clear. Danny had a feeling Constance was afraid because she knew about the magic that ran through her family tree. And she knew it wasn't the kind of magic Tessa thought they were investigating.
He frowned as the low gas indicator sounded on his dashboard and cursed himself for forgetting to fill up the night before. Glancing at the dashboard clock, he was relieved to realize he had plenty of time to get gas now before his flight. The last thing he needed was to forget to fill up when he got back to Fairbanks later this evening and wind up running out of gas on the street. He drove into the Airport Gas & Oil lot and pulled up to the closest pump.
“Detective Fitzpatrick?”
Danny turned towards the sound of a woman’s voice as he pumped his gas. He was surprised to see Maria Treibel, the woman he had saved from Aleksei Nechayev several months earlier.
“Ms. Treibel. How are you?”
The tall and slender woman pushed a strand of blond hair from her pretty face. “I’m fine. And it’s Maria, please.”
“Maria,” Danny said, smiling. “You look great.”
“No doubt much better than the last time you saw me.”
“No doubt. I’m so glad.”
“How are you?” Maria asked. “From what I remember you were hurt too.”
“I’m totally fine. It wasn’t anything serious.”
Maria stared at him with the blue eyes that had looked nearly lifeless when he had last seen her in her hospital bed.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. “I thought about calling you before I left but I didn’t think it was appropriate…”
“Left? You’re going somewhere?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way to the airport, actually.”
“Well I am too. I guess that’s a safe bet considering we’re both at Airport Oil & Gas.”
Maria smiled. “Where are you headed?”
“Just to Anchorage for work. How about you?”
“I’m going to San Francisco. I’m moving there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I got a photography job with San Fran Weekly. And I’m still going to be doing my freelance work.”
“Sounds great. I’ve never been to the famous City by the Bay.”
“I have. I grew up in Sacramento and visited San Francisco many times. I loved it. Not that I have anything against Fairbanks really. But I just couldn’t… I can’t stay here anymore.”
“Because of what happened to you?”
“Because of Aleksei, yes,” Maria said, spitting out the words as if they had been lodged in her throat for far too long. She let out a deep breath and stared out into the passing traffic. “Nate and I aren’t seeing each other anymore. We broke up not long after I got out of the hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Maria shrugged. “It was a long time coming anyway. But there’s nothing to hold me here now. And I just can’t…”
Danny put his hand on Maria’s arm. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I see him everywhere I look. Everywhere I go. I keep thinking he’ll show up again.”
“I don’t believe he will. He’s gone. He’s far away from Alaska now, I’m sure of it.”
“When I try to sleep, I dream about him. I dream that’s he’s captured me again…”
“I’m sorry,” Danny said. “I’ve had nightmares of him too.”
Maria looked up into Danny’s face and an understanding passed between their eyes. “When we were at the hospital you asked me if I had seen anything strange about Aleksei. If I knew there was something different about him.”
“Maria, you don’t have to talk about this.”
“I did,” Maria said, ignoring Danny’s protests. “I knew what you were asking about. I know what he is. You do too, don’t you?”
Danny sighed. “I do,” he said.
“I haven’t told anyone. No one would believe me.”
“I know. I don’t talk about it either.”
Maria broke his gaze and returned to staring at the passing cars. “Thank you for saving my life,” she said.
“I was just doing my job. And several other cops who were doing their jobs saved both of us.”
Maria turned back to him. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be one of the women they’re finding up in the Arctic now. One of those dead bodies frozen up there.”
Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m glad you’re not,” he said.
“I should go now. My flight…”
Danny removed the nozzle from his gas tank and returned it to the pump. “I need to get going too,” he said. “I’m glad I got to see you, Maria. And I hope you make a great life for yourself in San Francisco. You deserve it.”
Maria blinked back tears. She stood on tiptoes and brushed Danny’s cheek with her lips. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Before Danny could respond, she had returned to her car. He watched her pull out of the lot without looking back in his direction.
****
Danny walked up the sidewalk of Constance Davenport’s home, a two story white wood frame house with a large satellite dish on its roof. He rang the doorbell and within seconds a woman opened the door.
“Detective Fitzpatrick?” she asked.
Danny presented her his badge. “In the flesh,” he said. “Are you Constance Davenport?”
“I am.”
Constance opened the door and invited Danny in to the artic entry, a small “in between” room that most houses in Alaska had to separate their front door from their living space. While the room wasn’t necessary in the summer, it was crucial to keeping the rest of the house warm in the winter when the temperature outside was in the single digits or worse.
“If this were the winter I’d ask to take your coat,” Constance said. “But I know you don’t have one today.”
“You’re getting the same heat wave we are, clearly,” Danny said. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”
“It does. I’m actually eager for winter.”
Constance opened the door of the entry and led Danny into the living room of her house. She was a short woman who had probably once been thin but now bore the weight of bearing several children. Her brown hair was pulled into a pony-tail at the nape of her neck.
“Can I offer you something to drink?” she asked.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Have a seat then, please,” Constance said, pointing towards a large and comfortable looking brown leather sofa. She took a seat herself in a matching recliner.
Danny sank into the sofa and was pleased to find it was as comfortable as it appeared. The cramped airplane seat had given his long legs fits in spite of the fact that his flight had barely taken an hour.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” he said.
“I don’t mind. Although I don’t know what I can tell you about my nephew. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“I understand that. But I’m interested in what happened when he stayed here with you after the fire. He didn’t stay too long, did he?”
Constance turned red. “No, he didn’t. But I tried, I really did. You have to understand, I had my own children to think about.”
“Mrs. Davenport, I’m not accusing you of anything, trust me. I’m merely trying to find out what happened. Why did you send Jamie back to Fairbanks?”
Constance stared down at the hands she twisted together in her lap. “I was afraid of him,” she said, her voice barely audible. “God help me, he was my brother’s child and I wanted to care for him but I simply couldn’t.”
“Why were you afraid of him?”
“He wasn’t right. I can’t explain it, but I knew from the day he came to us that there was something wrong with him. I tried to attribute it to grief but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t…” Constance paused and bit her lip. “I didn’t even know the child when he came to live with us. My husband George got a job here in Anchorage when Jamie was only a year old. We always meant to return to Fairbanks but we have four children and when the kids were young things always seemed to get in the way of any plans we made. Plus, a six-hour drive isn’t a picnic with kids and it was too expensive for us all to fly. Robert and I always kept in touch over the phone and through letters but I didn’t know his kids and he didn’t know mine. But of course when we lost him I wanted to take Jamie in. I was devastated at how my brother died. And I couldn’t imagine how that poor boy was going to be able to cope with what had happened to his family. I had to try to help him. I thought he could at least have a family here with us.”
“It didn’t turn out that way, obviously.”
“No, it didn’t. Almost from the moment he arrived, he behaved strangely. I’d hear him in his room chanting in a foreign language. And he never wanted to do anything but read my grandfather’s old book.”
“Did you know what that book was?”
“I did,” Constance said, her face guarded.
“Mrs. Davenport,” Danny said. “I think I know what it was too. You don’t have to be cryptic with me. I won’t think you’re crazy, believe me.”
Constance let out a breath. “It was a magic book,” she said. “Or at least, my grandparents believed it was magic. But my grandmother Lara hated it. She said it had gotten my grandfather killed.”
“Did she say how?”
“No. Just that it happened a long time ago when she was pregnant with my father. She would never talk about it. But she said my grandfather could do magic and there was magic in his family. The book terrified her but she kept it because she said it was all she had left of my grandfather.”
“Did she ever try to use the book?”
“No. She couldn’t even read it. It was in Ukrainian. Ukraine was my grandfather’s home. My grandmother was American and never learned his native language. None of us could read the book.”
“But Jamie could?”
“Apparently. I never understood how because Robert never learned Ukrainian to my knowledge. I asked Jamie about it and he said he taught himself with Russian books and tapes he got from the library. He said the languages were similar enough that he could figure out the Ukrainian text in the book.” Constance shrugged. “It didn’t make much sense but what could I do but take him at his word?”
“What was it that scared you so badly?”
“Well to start, he tried to kill my daughter’s hamster by setting the poor animal on fire. I thought it was some kind of terrible accident but he said he meant to do it. He said he wanted to see what would happen.” Constance shook her head as if still horrified by the memory. “We had to bring the poor thing to the vet to have it euthanized. It was horrible.”
“How did he start that fire?”
“We didn’t know. He didn’t have any matches on him when we found him watching the hamster start to burn. And we didn’t have any lighters in the house; none of us have ever smoked.” Constance paused again and pushed a stray strand of hair from her face. “I took him to a therapist then. I thought it was the result of the trauma of the fire. I was horrified but I tried to look at it as a clear sign that the boy desperately needed help.”
“What happened with the therapist?”
“After the first appointment Jamie said if I made him go back he’d treat me like he did the hamster.”
“He threatened you?”
“Yes. And I don’t know how to explain it, but it was as if the boy turned into some kind of devil right in front of me. His eyes looked so cold, almost lifeless, and he had a grin on his face like he was dying for the chance to make good on his threat.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“I wanted to. And this is where I know I really failed. But he threatened my children too. He said if I didn’t just let him go back to Fairbanks he’d get rid of all of us. He asked me if I wanted my children to meet the same fate his siblings had.”
Danny remained silent as Constance stared out the window of her home. Plump tears rolled down her cheeks.
“He said he never wanted to come live with us and he didn’t want a family. He said he hated his family and he hated all of us,” Constance said. “Jamie said the only one of the Dzubenkos who had been worth anything was my grandfather. He had his book and that was all he wanted of his heritage.”
“So you complied with his wishes? Sent him back to Fairbanks?”
“Yes.” Constance dissolved into tears. “I know I was wrong. I know I should have contacted the police both here and in Fairbanks. But I was so frightened for my family. When he threatened us I was sure that he had murdered my brother. He as much as admitted it with his threats.”
“Did you ever hear anything more from him?”
“No. And I’ll admit that I tried to block the whole incident from my mind. As the years went on it got easier to pretend it hadn’t been as bad as I’d thought back then. That I’d just been struggling with grief over my brother and the stress of having another child added to the household. And I never heard anything bad about Jamie so I just tried to let it go. I told myself that he’d been placed in a foster family that had more experience dealing with children who had been involved in trauma. I hired an investigator to check up on him a few times and the last I heard he had graduated from college and was working at the hospital there in Fairbanks. When I learned about that I convinced myself that he really had just been traumatized back then and he had turned out okay now.” Constance looked at Danny with pleading eyes. “But he's not okay, is he? Has he hurt someone? Is that why you’re here?”
“I can’t say. I’m investigating some homicides and the fire that killed your brother and his family came to our attention.”
“You think Jamie killed people?” Constance asked, begging Danny with her eyes to say no.
“I really can’t say,” Danny said.
“When he looked at me, I thought I understood why my grandmother had been so terrified of those books and my grandfather’s magic. I saw so much evil in Jamie’s eyes.”
Danny nodded. While he knew the woman had been wrong to let a boy she believed to be dangerous go without a word, he also knew something about being confronted with an evil that terrified you down to your soul. He wouldn’t pass judgment.
He fished a business card from his pocket and handed it to his host. “If you think of anything else that went on when Jamie was here with you, please give me a call.” He covered Constance’s shaking hand with his own. “I think I can understand how scared you must have been back then. I’m sorry.”
Constance nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’ll see myself out, ma’am.”
Danny walked out to his rental car and got inside. He could see Constance at her front window, crying as she watched him. He thought of Maria Treibel and the haunted look in her eyes when she talked of Aleksei Nechayev. He remembered the fear he had felt himself when Aleksei had first bared his fangs. Constance Davenport let the curtain fall across her window and disappeared from view. Danny felt nothing but pity.
****