Chapter 17
Natasha Nikoslav would make the world’s shittiest poker player. Every expression crossing her face was a wide open door that reminded him of the lonely kid cast in a movie, the one who was always shown staring through a window, watching other kids play.
Still, he tried using her unease to he and Jessalyn’s advantage—Jack the discomfort, jack the fear—shocked when it made him feel like a dick, being deliberately curt and indifferent.
Like when Rob offered her something to drink. She quickly refused any booze, but those strange eyes of hers lit when she spied the pop that had to be there for the spoiled moppet; old school orange and cream soda. Then the moppet had clapped—“You’re sharing mine?”—so besotted her face shone. It was tough not to smile.
Yet he didn’t.
“Thank you.” Natasha toasted Robyn’s small, plastic cup. “We’ll be careful not to drink too much, though. All this soda is so sweet it’s like syrup.” She caught his eye then, tried sharing the joke, a reference back to the coffee he’d teased her about in the gallery.
He knew he was being an asshole when he didn’t grin back, and hid a wince when her face crumbled, wondering what she’d done wrong.
Fuck, he hated being a cop.
The realization hit him like a sucker punch and his hand clenched around his tumbler of ice water (no hard stuff for him either; the Undercover Section’s psychologist had been all no-bullshit during his compulsory assessment: “And steer clear of any substances for at least a year. One pulls the trigger for all.”).
So he drank his water, and on his left Sabrina guffawed over something her flouncy husband had said. Beside him Rob grinned, relaxed and enjoying it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d relaxed and enjoyed…anything.
“You don’t want to be the shit of society,” Steve had said, and now he looked ’round the table, coldly aware that he, like the Tsarina, was also outside gazing in. “’Scuse me a minute,” he muttered, and dug out his phone, sought Steve in his list of contacts.
A new text message froze him, again from that unknown number: Can I call u?
He sucked his teeth. By the letter of the law, he and Sondra had been barred from all contact. But since when had either of them ever bothered with the letter—or even the spirit—of the law? He typed When? and, feeling like the entire table knew he was trembling, raised his gaze.
The Tsarina wore her upside down smile and an expression that could almost be construed as compassion. He looked away, annoyed and suddenly longing for Sondra’s razor-like grin, all teeth and mischief and no cryptic agenda.
Yet again he sensed the Tsarina felt slapped. This time, though, he resented it, resented them all, really, and it was with something teetering on desperation that he raised the number for his brother. Shoot some pool tomorrow? You’ll get drunk, I’ll stay sober, and I’ll hand you your ass.
A spate of silence elapsed but within it he could still imagine Steve snort, then: Bring a wad of twenties jumped onto his screen and he grinned, checked to see if Sondra had replied too.
No.
His heart trip-hammered and he jolted when Sabrina knocked him in the ribs. “Textin’ your sweetheart, badass?”
“Yes,” he said simply, and was pleased to throw her off her game.
“Well,” she said, blinking. “No more swapping gum with the likes of you, then.”
He laughed and wasn’t exactly sure why he shot a smug look over to the Tsarina—although maybe it was because she looked so shocked to hear that someone who looked like him actually had a girlfriend.
Steve’s voice scolded from memory. “Try showering.” Okay. Fair enough. Maybe he could drop the cliché look of a narc.
Sabrina said “How ’bout you, Natasha? You on the market, or off?”
“Oh…neither.” The Tsarina clutched the moppet like a human shield. “I’m...not really in the space for a relationship right now.”
“Oho! Now thatsounds like a story.” Sabrina’s grin was all zeal. “We’ll go for beer this week and you’ll tell me all about it.”
The way the Tsarina opened, then closed, her mouth…Owen had never seen anyone so clearly at a loss for what to say. Not that he blamed her. He knocked Sabrina back in the ribs. “I should recruit you as an interrogator.”
“Don’t bother.” She helped herself to more olives. “I’ve always preferred criminals to cops.”
Welcome to the club. He checked his phone again yet noted, from across the table, how speculatively the Tsarina reassessed Sabrina. He eyeballed her. What the hell was her game? Any ideas he landed on slipped through his fingers like he was trying to hold light. Case in point: he and Jessalyn had deliberately trotted her into the studio tonight with the storybooks on full display.
The Tsarina had glanced at them then away without so much as a glimmer of anything—no recognition, no discomfort—in those big, golden eyes. And he’d watched for it, ruthlessly staring until Rob had looked at him funny.
She had never seen those books before.
She had never seen that Facebook profile of the dead Sleeping Beauty, either.
And, according to that Albertan cop, she’d been the one victimized, again and again. People throwing rocks because they were superstitious? Of what? What the hell could one obviously socially awkward woman be doing to generate venom like that? He stared at her, brow jacking when one of her hands rose as if in response, self-consciously covering skin exposed by the fancy dress she wore, one more thing that set her apart: being pitifully overdressed for a casual dinner party. She didn’t have a clue. So what the hell is your story, Tsarina? And who’s this cousin puppeteering your strings?
“Who’s ready for dessert?” Jessalyn asked.
He’d barely tasted—or ate—dinner (carb overload. Way too much fat) and Natasha Nikoslav had taken only slavish portions too. More evidence of her shredded nerves, because anyone who could pack away the potato chips and perogies he’d seen in her shopping cart (and gulp down kid pop, of all things) could eat way more than she’d barely pecked at.
“So many leftovers!” Jessalyn exclaimed. “I knew I should have invited C.C. My dad,” she added, for Natasha, who nodded in what looked like increasingly petrified silence.
He, though, frowned. “Isn’t the Lieutenant still teaching out in Ottawa?”
“Quit out of the clear blue last December,” Jessalyn replied. “Moved back out here, but not to Vestemere this time.”
“Wait. He lived here before?”
“Well, ’course, Owen. How do you think Robbie and I met? But this time C.C. bought a house in Cascadia. He always did prefer it to here.”
“Cascadia?” the Tsarina blurted.
Everyone blinked at her volume.
“I…” She looked mortified. “D-didn’t you mention what a beautiful tourist town it is?” she stared at him, openly pleading, face bone white and hands fretting in a way that was now synonymous with her.
A spear of pity shot through him. “Yeah,” he relented. “Like Jessalyn said: who wants plain little Vestemere when they can have lakeside Cascadia?”
“Amen,” said Sabrina and another voice—Thank you—landed like petals in his ear. He jerked a look to the Tsarina. Had her mouth moved? Surely it had. Still, goosebumps raced the breadth of his shoulders and, as her upside down smile scurried away, his cell hummed. He pulled it out.
The screen said 11
Sondra. Calling at 11. He sent a thumbs up, hoping that was neither too hot nor too cold, and his gut fluttered. What would she say? What would he say? He glanced at the time. 9:32. Christ, let this agony be over.
Yes, please. More petals settling in his ear, and again his eyes shot to the Tsarina.
His view was obscured by Rob, rising to clear dishes. Natasha leapt too, but Rob took her elbow, gently steered her back down. “You’re our guest,” he said quietly. “Just sit.”
Owen squinted. How many times had Rob baled her out tonight? And for what? His old buddy had never been a flirt in the past. In fact, back in high school he’d often said “How the hell do you do that?” when Owen had picked up girls. Yet something about the Tsarina compelled him to play Prince Charming. Because she was beautiful? (which she was, but only in an untouchable, regal sort of way). Or was it that graceful body? Those huge, sunrise eyes? Or maybe all that soft, silvery hair kissing ’round her chin. Or was it—
“Thank you,” she said.
—was it that accent that generated all sorts of mystery?
“Tonight has been lovely,” she added, and panned a look specifically to Sabrina, who raised a tumbler also filled with candy-pink kid-pop.
Owen’s mouth quirked.
“Beer and that back-story this week,” Sabrina replied, and rolled a few more olives off the picked-over appetizer platter, placed them on her dessert plate. “I want to hear all about the rat bastar-er-bad guy.” She amended, and reached out, tucked Robyn’s hair behind her ear.
The little kid literally glowed, fawned over by two blonde queens, one a Joan of Arc warrior, the other a seeming fairytale maiden.
Antonio flounced out of his chair, bowed to the Tsarina.
Jesus. Another character.
“Anytime you are ready, Cara, your chariot awaits.”
Aha. An opening. Owen cleared his throat. “Don’t you two live out of town?” He feigned confusion. “I can take Ms. Nikoslav back into Vestemere with me.”
The Tsarina’s sunshine gaze became big. “I…oh…”
“That okay?” On came his billion-watt smile, yet inside…Tell me no. Was it the cop in him talking, or the part of him that hated cops talking? Either way—What I’m doing isn’t okay, Tsarina. I’ve acted like a prick to you all night. So tell me no. Make any excuse not to let me take you home.
“O-of course.” She inclined her head, all decorum and manners.
Fuck. He caught Jessalyn’s eye, perturbed to see she looked pleased. He should be pleased too and yet…where was all that adrenaline he’d once felt when he’d worked undercover?
And what the hell was with all this guilt?
***
Gravel growled under tires on their way back to Vestemere, the only sound till at last he spoke around the vee that could go east to Rob’s new development, or west back into town. “That little girl sure thought you were some sort of celebrity,” he remarked.
A smile as faint as the dashboard light found her mouth. “She’s so sweet. I…” A glance. “I don’t have much experience with children. Do you?
Okay. So this was making conversation. He shrugged. “I’ve actually lost count of how many nieces and nephews I have.” Which also made him feel like a dick, come to think of it.
“That sounds lovely,” she said. “Having them, I mean, not forgetting them. I mean…oh, damn.” Her gaze rapidly stole away, out her window, and he got the sense she wanted to stomp a frustrated foot. “That sounded judging,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Fret-fret-fret, fingers knitting this way and that. “’S’okay.” He lifted a shoulder. “I probably should keep better track of them. They might need to bust me out of a nursing home someday.” He tried a smile.
She did too, but it was diluted by her enormous eyes, luminescent and uncertain in the dashboard darkness.
He cocked his head. “Those were some disturbing portraits in the studio,” he tossed out.
“Yes,” she replied.
Agreeing, but just to be polite. He pursed his lips. “Especially Jessalyn’s mother.”
“Yes,” she echoed.
Jessalyn hadn’t labelled any of the portraits as her mother. Not tonight. So…was the Tsarina still being polite? Or… “What was her name again? Edith? Eileen?”
“Elayna.”
Oh, Ms. Nikoslav. You are a shitty poker player. He pulled into town and with one glance he could tell her wide eyes knew what she’d just done.
“Oh!” She grabbed the dash as they dipped over a rut on her street.
Shit! Right where he’d written Ma-HAY-lo in the grime, on top of that cop’s preachy Bible verse.
“Sorry.” She swiped the dust from her palms. “Th-that startled me.”
Oh, for…he needed to end this. To show his hand. She was shaking so bad her damn seat vibrated. “Ms. Nikoslav—” He pulled up to her curb.
She popped the door, hopped out. “Thank you for the ride.” All the words ran together and she tried glancing at him—so polite!—but her gaze barely grazed his phone in the console. “And good luck—er—I mean good night! Good night,” she repeated and fled up the sidewalk, skirt fluttering in a way that reminded him of a surrendering flag.
He watched her. “Tsarina, what the hell sort of trouble are you in?” He’d been about to ask her. To offer to help her.
“No one’s thrown a rock at her in months” haunted his ear all the way home where his computer screen waited, a dead blue glow on the kitchen table. He flopped down, checked the time (under an hour till Sondra. He made sure his phone was fully juiced), then awakened a site he’d unearthed as per that stiff-necked cop’s edict: “Google Echo Creek Suicide”:
Alberta Unsolved
His request to join the forum had been accepted late this afternoon (username Night Crawler—who else could he be?), and now he was an active member of a subcategory group that was, indeed, called Echo Creek Suicide.
A long list of chatter was queued up under the heading, the first bullet entered by a user called Avenger911: How does someone hang themselves AND cut their own stomach open?
DevilMadeMeDoIt replied: Possible to maybe cut 1/2-way thru, but evisarated????
“It’s eviscerated, moron,” Owen muttered, and wondered how many of these online gumshoes knew how often real cops cruised these sites, hunting for posters who seemed to know more about cases than had ever been revealed to the public, often adopting usernames and joining in discussion just like he had before he’d left for dinner. Suspects???? he’d asked, adding all the question marks to sound just as histrionic and eager as the rest of them.
Answers now waited beneath his query, a tidy row:
Avenger101: Hey, Night Crawler! IMHO Local family into witchcraft did it.
DevilMadeMeDoIt: Greetings, Night Crawler. NOT witchcraft. Satan worship. Ask any local.
Like that Bible-thumping cop? “I’ll pass,” Owen murmured, and kept reading.
Grace02: Welcome, Night Crawler. No devils, no witches. Local family just into their ethnicity like EVERY OTHER FAMILY out in the boonies, all Slavic home-cooking and healing with old-fashioned mustard plasters and homemade fraises.
“And massages?” Brow quirking, he read more of Grace02
As for suspects, the vic ran with a whole posse of hooligans who liked torturing cats and terrorizing farmers with cattle mutilations. Strong chance the hanging/gutting was just grandstanding gone bad, but agreed—NOT a suicide.
Not a suicide. His gaze wandered back to ‘terrorized’.“No one’s thrown a rock at her in months,” he quoted grimly, then sat back. “Why’d they stop, Tsarina? Why’d they hurt you at all, but also—why’d they stop?” He scrolled back up the screen. Hanged and gutted? Jesus. What the hell did any of this have to do with Hasloms—or with fairytales, for that matter? “More like horror novels,” he muttered, and clicked on Echo Creek, Alberta, a blue link in the Alberta Unsolved forum.
It re-routed to a Wiki page with a short, generic description of a hamlet comprised of—“Four hundred people?” he sputtered on a laugh. Vestemere must feel like Vancouver to the Tsarina. He read the short list of ‘Local Businesses’, saw Head to Heal listed right under—“Full stop,” he breathed.
Haslom Explorations.
Tongue clucking, he clicked the link. A website filled the screen:
Haslom Explorations, formed in 1979, is a subsidiary oil company operating beneath our flagship corporation, Haslom Enterprises, founded by Vincent Haslom of Vestemere, British Columbia, Canada.
Vince Haslom, Rob and Sabrina’s old man. He’d died shortly after Owen had completed his first year as a cadet, one more funeral he had not come home for. Chewing his tongue, he clicked on the name.
A raft of links came up. He picked ‘Business Insider’ at the top.
Vincent Haslom raised eyebrows in the business world when, upon his death, he left the bulk of his estate to an oil exploration company he founded in eastern Alberta. This, opposed to naming either of his two surviving children, Robert and Sabrina, in his will. Sabrina Danini (nee Haslom) would go on to contest said will and ascertain 51% of the shares comprising not only Haslom Explorations, but also the larger Haslom Enterprises. Currently, Ms. Danini presides as CEO of the company.
“Ha! Go, Sab.” Owen grinned but wondered—what tiny infraction or ripple of defiance had caused Sir Vincent of the House of Haslom, (as Steve had always called him) to have a temper tantrum big enough to slice his own kids from his will? “Hope you spun in your grave when it wasn’t even your son, but your lowly daughter who trumped you in the end, you disapproving old bastard.” His grin became a full-blown smile. Sabrina Danini, scoring a coup d'état.
And landing a subsidiary company, Haslom Explorations, in the Tsarina’s home town.
His grin trickled away and he tracked back to 51%. Haslom Explorations, Haslom Enterprises. Wealth upon wealth. And had he not just speculated about motive with Jessalyn yesterday? “Sex or money,” he’d said, and here was money. A whole vault of money. He sat back, satisfied. To hell with superstition and hokum and definitely to hell with that messed-up cop who should probably be pounding a pulpit somewhere instead of wearing a badge. Dollar signs always won out, and now a new question emerged: how were the Nikoslavs linked to Haslom Explorations and its millions of dollars in oil revenue? ’Cause they damn sure had to be.
His cell hummed and he jumped. 11:11. Sondra. He scooped it up, unable to—childishly, he knew—even look at the screen. “Hey,” he said, more breathless than he liked.
“Hey,” said Rob.
Owen slumped back in his chair, eyed the clock again. 11:12. “What’s up?” he asked, too sharp, yet…she’d said eleven. Get off my damn phone, Old Man.
“Message left on Jessie’s cell from an unknown number,” said Rob. “Voice all raspy, like a 90 year old pot smoker.”
Owen’s lips jerked, an involuntary grin.
“Said ‘See you in Vancouver, Princess.’”
“Meaning our fairytale villain is attending her show in the city?”
“Sounds like. So I have a proposal.”
Owen flinched at how much, in that single sentence, Rob sounded like his ice-veined old man.
“Name a price for how much it will cost me to send you along.”
“Like a bodyguard?”
“Exactly like a bodyguard.”
“Free.” After a lifetime of ignoring him, it was the least he could do.
“Bullshit,” said Rob crisply. “I’ll pay you at least what I pay you per hour to work for me now. I don’t give handouts, Owen, and I don’t expect them, either.”
Jesus. Where had this version of Rob Haslom come from?
The name Vincent Haslom glowed on his computer screen.
“I’ll have Jessie arrange a room for you. We’ll cover all your expenses.”
Including a trip up the coast to Edgewood, Sondra’s rehab? He checked the time again. 11:17. He tapped his foot, but really, there was no way he could have missed her call; he’d have heard the bump on the line. “I…yeah, Old Man. Happy to help.”
“I’ll text the details.” Rob sounded terse. Wrung out. “He worries,” Jessalyn had said, and as Owen hung up he glared at the name Vincent Haslom.
“You the reason Rob’s fretting himself into an early tomb, you cold-hearted old prick?” Not that Rob shouldn’t be worried about the fairytales, but…his gaze lingered on Vincent Haslom. That nasty old bastard had breathed arctic venom, and Owen had seen Rob on the receiving end of it more than once. In fact, he remembered speculating with Steve (privately, never around Rob) that Vince Haslom could probably kill a man and never break a sweat. “Kill a man,” he muttered now, and shrank the screen. “As in hang and gut him?” When had that so-called suicide taken place? Had Haslom still been living and running his own oil company in eastern Alberta? He revived Alberta Unsolved and Echo Creek Suicide.The armchair detectives had meticulously recorded all dates, but dammit! When had Haslom died? He surfed the internet—and slumped. “Nope.” Vincent Haslom had been poking up daisies for years by the time the suicide happened, but…
But when he’d plugged in murder + Vincent Haslom, an older article, archived from a 1980’s newspaper appeared upon internet eternity. “Well, holy shit,” he said.
Detective Corporal Cory Chandler investigates missing Haslom Explorations oilfield exec, draws criticism for calling in psychic
The article went on to describe how a Haslom employee suspected of defrauding the company had vanished out on the Alberta prairie. Old Vince Haslom claimed no clue as to where the missing person was, but had been quoted as saying: “Yet I’m pleased that my company bank balance will no longer be breached.”
“Jesus, what a prick.” Owen re-read the short piece. Cory Chandler—who’d been a lieutenant by the time he’d met him, (and went by C.C. to his daughter, Jessalyn), had to have been desperate to call in a psychic. “Poor bastard.” Owen had worked with other cops who’d called upon psychics when a misper was gone and there were no leads in sight. The hopelessness was always palpable at that point, and no one dared disbelieve that maybe, just maybe, the psychic would actually be able to deliver.
And sometimes they did.
An uneasy tremor seized his spine and he glanced at the clock. 12:21. His shoulders sank. No Sondra. No follow-through. Typical addict. He turned back to the computer—had C.C.’s psychic found that misper? Or had it been a miss and had Chandler become obsessed, like some cops did, with nailing Vince Haslom? Was that why he’d originally moved out here?
And how the hell had he felt when his daughter fell for Rob, the son of his modern-day Moriarty?
His cell buzzed, startling him. Sondra’s unknown number. “Hey,” he answered, no longer nervous. “Funny how my clock doesn’t say eleven.”
“There’re eyes everywhere here, Night Crawler.”
In rehab. A pang of guilt clapped his lips shut.
“You…how are you?”
Tired. Lonely. Confused as fuck. “Still got a pulse.”
“Are you suspended?”
Was she asking? Or wishing? “No. Voluntary leave.” Voluntary resignation, really, but he couldn’t tell her that. It would either give her too much satisfaction or too much guilt and he didn’t want her to feel either. “You protect her.” The psychologist, the one with whom he’d had that mandatory appointment, had made the observation. He’d bristled. “I turned her in, didn’t I? Set her up myself?”
The shrink had reminded him of a little crow, beady dark eyes and no blinking. “Yes,” she said. “But now the guilt burns you alive, Officer Brophy.”
Sondra said “You still in the city?”
“No,” he replied, and perversely wanted to leave it at that. Make her drag more out of him. Instead he cleared his throat. “I’ve…come home for a while.”
“To Vestemere? That’s…Jesus, Owen, really?
What the hell did that mean? That he was soft? Being a baby? He clenched his teeth. “I’m working a case,” he bit off, because dammit if he wanted to be a cop he still could, be.
Unlike her.
“Thought you just said you were on leave.”
“It’s a private matter.”
“So you’re freelancing?”
More judgment and, unlike even the Tsarina had managed earlier, there was no apology in her voice. No self-censure. Just a superior ‘Well that can’t miss’ tone. Christ. Why had he agreed to this call? “For a friend,” he said, that and no more.
He should have known better. “And your friend…he clean?”
Why? Would you want to score dope with him if he wasn’t? “Squeaky.”
“You sure?”
“We can never be sure, Sondra, can we?”
Now there was chastened silence. He liked it. Sat in it until she said, in a small voice “What…uh…what are you investigating?”
“Threats. Vague, but violent.”
“From?”
Good question. “There’s a suspect, but…” But Natasha Nikoslav acted more like a vic than a victimizer.
“But what?” Sondra probed, for like always, she could seize his tone too. Could hear his uncertainty. “What do you know about your perp?”
‘That she’s scared’ was the obvious answer. But…that she’s lonely, was what he thought. He frowned. “She’s mysterious,” he said.
“Ah. A she.”
The jealousy there was so ripe it gave him a visual: the orchard fruit, swollen and falling off the trees in the fall.
“So play her, Brophy.”
Ah, dammit. Here we go.
“Play her like you played me. Use your hands, Owen. That sexy mouth. Use your—”
“You played me too, if I recall.”
Silence. It shrunk into itself, creating a vacuum. Suffocating. His shoulders twitched and he said “It’s not just a her. There’s a him too.”
“A couple? Hard to play them both, Night Crawler.”
No kidding.
“But you’ll find a way. You…you are a good cop, Owen.”
Was he? How could he trust her assessment?
“So you know what to do. Play them. Play them both.”
It was unsettling how much it sounded like an order. “Sondra—”
“Gotta go. Night-watch will be around soon. I’d get my ass tossed for just having a phone, much less talking on it.”
“And you don’t want to get tossed?” Hope ballooned in his belly. She wanted to stay? To get better?
“Do I have a choice?”
The balloon popped and it was his turn to fall into chastened quiet.
“But…it was good to just…to hear you, Owen.”
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Sondra—”
“Gotta go.” The line went dead. He clutched the phone, kneading his temples till his computer screen flashed.
A new line had just been entered beneath his question, Suspects???? on Echo Creek Suicide.
ThirdEye20/20: Instead of making up what you do not know about the Nikoslav family, perhaps one of you brave warriors should find the spine to just ask them what happened.
A dare. His gut knew it, and his neck suddenly crawled with the unmistakable sensation of being watched. He whirled even though he could navigate this kitchen where he’d grown up even if he was blindfolded—and was fully aware that there was no window behind him.
Still.
Palming his nape, he re-read the dare from ThirdEye20/20. ‘Ask them’. “Okay. Challenge accepted,” he rasped, and shut the computer down.
Then he checked all the doors and the windows, made sure they were locked.
©bonnie randall 2005