CHAPTER
ONE
Monday February 6th – 8:48 A.M. – Washington
Heights
Highbridge Park
As Detective Kelli Storm approached the yellow crime tape,
the fresh snow crunching under her shoes, she waved at her partner, Eric Ryder,
and wondered how he had managed to beat her to the scene. She ducked under the
tape, surveyed the area and walked over to him.
The park was covered in a white blanket of pristine snow,
undisturbed except for the ground at her feet, where several sets of footprints
led up to and away from the Cadillac CTS.
She nodded and smiled at Eric, who was standing on the passenger side, and he smiled
back. “I’ll take the driver’s side,” she said as she retrieved a pair of gloves
from her pocket.
The victim was sitting behind the wheel, the back of his head
blown out and a Ruger 9mm lying in the seat next to him. It had all the
markings of a suicide, with one problem. Where there should have been blood
spatter, there was a void. The passenger seat was clean except for a few stray
drops along the inside edge.
“Pretty messy in there,” Eric said as he bent down and
looked inside. “Christ, is that brain matter on the headliner?”
She leaned in to see what he was talking about and nodded. “Yeah,
and it looks like some of his skull too,” she said and winced as she pulled on
the second glove. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
She reached in and pulled the man’s coat back, found the
inside pocket and pulled his wallet out. She stood back up, opened the wallet
and removed the man’s driver’s license. “Alexi Polachev, Brighton Beach address.
Wonder what he was doing up here in Washington Heights, besides getting a bullet
through his brain.”
Eric popped up on the passenger side, holding a small scrap
of paper, an odd look on his face. “Uh, Kelli,” he said stretching his arm out
across the roof. “Why would this guy have your name and address?”
“What are you talking about?” She took the paper from him,
looked at it and then looked at the corpse, shaking her head. “No idea. I’ve
never seen this guy before today.”
“That’s weird. This guy comes over here, kills himself and
has your name and address on him. What the hell is going on, Kelli?”
“You think he killed himself? You saw the back of his head,
right? Did you check the passenger seat?”
Eric shook his head, bent down and looked inside, then back
at Kelli. “It’s clean.”
“There should be blood spatter on that seat. Instead, we
have a void. No, this guy had company.”
“Crap, why didn’t I see that?”
“Don’t worry about it. The question is, why was this guy
looking for me and what did he want? Someone went to a lot of trouble to make this
look like a suicide. He’s got my name and home address with him, and he’s found
dead in Washington Heights. So what the fuck is going on?”
“A hit maybe? You know, this guy could have been sent by
anyone, even the Colombians. What do you think?”
Kelli shrugged. “Right now it’s anyone’s guess. Could be the
Russians, could be the Colombians. God knows I’ve pissed a lot of people off in
the past few years. The question remains though, was he the target,” she said,
pointing at the corpse, “or do I need to start looking over my shoulder again?”
“Well, you know I’ve got your back, except that this time
I’m going to shoot before I yell for the son of a bitch to drop his weapon.”
“Yeah, and end up trading that beautiful wife for a prison
cell. I don’t think so, Eric. Let’s just get back to the Squad and run this
guy,” she said as she looked back down at the body. “At least his troubles are
over.”
Monday February 6th – 10:05 A.M. – Washington Heights
33rd Precinct Detective Unit
Kelli tapped away at the keyboard and waited for the
computer to catch up. Shit, you’d think
they’d get us a faster line. After a few seconds, the display flashed and
the record for her victim, Alexi Polachev, came on the screen. He wasn’t
exactly a model citizen, but then, according to his rap sheet, he wasn’t a
hardened criminal either. He had several misdemeanors listed, mostly assault
charges, and in the majority of those cases, the victims had dropped the
charges.
There was one charge that caught her eye, a comparatively
recent offense. Two and a half years prior he had been picked up for possession
of cocaine, more than five-hundred grams, a Class D Felony. According to his information,
he had served his sentence at Green, in Upstate New York. A chill ran down her
back and she involuntarily shivered. She reached down, opened the right bottom
drawer and pulled out an older file.
Skimming through the pages, she found what she was looking
for and felt a tingle on back of her neck. She stared at the page for a moment
and then looked back at the screen. Anthony Santoro, along with James Wattley,
had both served time at Green, and both around the same time as Alexi.
Santoro was the man behind the kidnapping of her mother and
Wattley actually abducted her. It had taken everything she had to get her
mother back, including calling up her ex-husband Kevin, which was the last
thing she had wanted to do, at the time. Looking back on it, it was probably
one of her better decisions.
Here was another connection to Miguel Garcia, a dead man,
killed in a Brooklyn Heights warehouse by DEA Special Agent Gregory Larsen.
Killed before he could pull the trigger of his own gun, a gun aimed at her. The
question now was what did Alexi Polachev and these two men have in common, what
was their connection? And why did Polachev have her name and home address with
him, and who killed him?
“What’s the matter, Kelli?”
She had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t noticed Eric
standing next to her desk. Shaking off her thoughts, she tossed the file onto
her desk and turned the monitor off. “Just thinking about our victim from this
morning. The guy had a record, but that’s no surprise, since it also looks like
he was working for a Russian brotherhood out of Brighton Beach.”
“Really? The guy was a mobster,” he said, furrowing his
brow.
Kelli let out a small laugh. “Well, I don’t think they call
themselves that, but this guy did work for some lowlifes. Pretty nasty bunch
over there, or so I’ve heard. I never had the privilege of meeting any of them
myself.”
Eric sat on the corner of her desk and crossed his arms. “So
how do you know so much about these guys?”
“My first partner in the Squad, Ron Williams, was stationed with the 60th
Precinct when he joined and spent three years patrolling that area. He got to
know the neighborhoods and the people, even picked up some Russian while there.
When I got bumped up and assigned here, we became partners and we got
close, as partners do.” She sighed and lowered her head.
Eric stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
Kelli nodded and looked up at him. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s
just talking about him, and then I flash back to the day he died, and I know
that there was nothing I could do.”
Eric slowly nodded and frowned. “I know what that feels
like. Shit, when you got shot and we all thought you were dead…”
Kelli stood, put a hand on each of his shoulders and looked
into his eyes. “I know it had to be hard, but you understand why we had to do
it, right? If Garcia had thought his man had missed, who knows what might have
happened.”
“Still, you could have at least let me in on the ruse. Hell,
I was at the funeral, looking at the casket, the oversized portrait. It was all
I could do to keep from running up to the front and opening the casket to bitch
you out for getting yourself killed.”
“And if Garcia had decided to grab you, what then? You have
to know I hated every minute of it. I wanted to tell you, but the boss wanted
to keep it under wraps. The fewer people who knew, the less likely the chances
of a leak.”
“I get it, but it doesn’t mean I liked it.”
She punched him in the arm and tried to smile. “Hey, come
on. It’s all past now, and I promise you, the next time I get shot and have to
play dead, you’ll the first to know.”
He half smiled “Oh yeah, that makes me feel so much better.”
Monday February 6th – 11:30 A.M. – New York City
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
Kelli pushed through the double doors, with Eric close
behind, and walked into the autopsy room. The M.E., Jack Hastings, was leaning
over their victim holding a Stryker saw, the blade whirring, and he was just
about to cut into the skull. She called out to him, but the noise coming from it
drowned her out. She called out again, louder this time.
He looked in her direction and powered it down. “Well,
well, Detective Storm. It’s been a while since you’ve graced us with your
presence,” he said as he placed the saw on the autopsy table and flipped up his
face shield. “I suppose you’re here about this poor man.”
“Yeah, Jack, I know it’s been a few months, but you know how
it is. What can you tell me about our guy here?” She walked up next to the
table, looked down at the body, then at Jack. “Other than the obvious.”
He shrugged. “Can’t tell you much more than what you already
know. Entry wound under the chin, exit wound back of the head, quick death.
Other than that, I just started the autopsy, and the tox screen and trace just
got sent off to the lab. I’ll call you when I get the results,” he said as he
looked at Eric, then back at Kelli. “You two have any other leads on this?”
“Kelli thinks this guy was involved with the Russian mafia,”
Eric volunteered. “Right?”
“It’s a theory. The guy did have ties to them, and he spent
time Upstate. Which by itself doesn’t mean anything. Come on, let’s take a ride
over to Brighton Beach and see if we can dig up someone who knew this guy.” She
started for the door, stopped and looked back at Jack. “Give me a call as soon
as you have something for us, Jack.”
“First thing,” he said as he flipped his face shield back
down and turned toward the autopsy table. “You just try to stay off my table,
Detective,” he called out as he powered up the saw.
Eric gave Kelli a puzzled look and she shook her
head. “Inside joke,” she said and pushed through the doors. “Jack has a sick
sense of humor. I think it comes with the job.”
