Chapter 19
“You ever going to get around to finishing the tile I started for you in Rob’s rental?” Steve still had the Tsarina’s cookies, popped one in his mouth.
“That shit’ll kill you,” said Owen.
“So maybe I’ll light a smoke instead.”
It was so early the sun was only a bright thread on the eastern horizon, yet the heat was already sweaty, and Owen could feel how red the back of his neck was getting. Redneck. The word occurred and dragged him back to the Alberta Unsolved forum. Last night, after Third Eye 20/20 challenged him to just ‘ask the Nikoslavs’, a peppering of indignation had followed:
Avenger911: Good way to get yourself hurt.
DevilMadeMeDoIt was a little less subtle. Yeah. Cause I WANT my livestock and crops to all die.
Only Grace02 remained grafted to reason: Our vic Galinko was more likely to kill your cattle and wheat than the Nikoslavs would be.
She (or at least to Owen she seemed like a she) was leapt on at once:
You saying it was a GOOD THING that Galinko got hung & gutted??!?! and No one deserves that, Grace02. Check yr priorities.
The way Grace02 replied reminded Owen of a cop: I check facts, not priorities. Three men went out that night, two men came home. One’s catatonic in a care home now, the other hasn’t been sober since.
Then ThirdEye20/20 chimed in and Owen choked.
So what DID those three little piggies get up to that night?
Three Little Pigs. A fairytale reference. Now, like last night, he went cold despite the sun.
Steve glanced at him, still crunching cookies. “You gonna keep standin’ there with your thumb up your ass, or—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shook himself, then raised his nail gun, fastened a wall stud in place. Then another. And another. More, until a queue formed between him and Steve. “Hey,” he said, after the zing-thwack of their guns created a lulling rhythm. “You ever hear a rumor that old Vince Haslom killed someone?”
A lit cig was now clamped in the corner of Steve’s mouth. He managed a “Yeah” around it.
Master of understatement. “And? Who was it?”
Steve sucked a drag then plucked the smoke from his mouth. “Some environmentalist in the oilfield. Disappeared after a conflict with the old bastard.”
“Ever found?”
“Nope.”
“Know his name?”
Steve flicked the dead smoke over the ledge of the platform, squinted into the sun. “Something bohunk.”
“Jesus, Steve!”
“Well it was. Rob told me once, but I forget.” He stooped, fished through the sack of Tsarina’s cookies.
Vices. Owen shook his head, and Steve said “What I do remember is how it scared the shit out of Rob, that his old man could actually be capable of that.” He grunted. “Like it’s a surprise. Remember that raging old prick? Always bitching and sniping. Face as red as a well-slapped ass.”
“That hasn’t been slapped enough,” chimed a voice.
They turned and Sabrina Haslom wore atypical business attire and her signature grin. “You must be talking about my charming old man.”
Jesus. Owen grimaced. How much had she heard? “He-uh-he was quite a guy.” This, neutrally.
“He was a cruel old fuck,” she returned amiably. “And I was so glad when he died I went out immediately, chose the tombstone myself.”
Steve snorted a laugh and Owen stared, half transfixed, half shocked.
Sabrina leaned on a stud. “What do you want to know about him?”
He debated, then—“He kill a guy out in Alberta?”
“Probably. Why? Want to drag him out of the grave and slap a set of handcuffs on his skeleton? I’ll sign the exhumation order today.”
Holy Christ. There was hatred, and then there was hatred. “Know the name of the guy he offed?”
“Not off the top. But I used to back when it amused me to collect a roster of Vince Haslom’s Evil Deeds.”
“Something bohunk, though, right?” asked Steve.
“Yeah,” she said, and Owen wondered if either of them remembered that their friend the Tsarina was someone they’d call bohunk too.
“Most people from that area are Ukrainian,” said Sabrina.
“Or Czech,” he replied. “Like our newcomers, the Nikoslavs. You know Natasha’s from Echo Creek where your company is?”
“Where my company drills,” she corrected. “Haslom Explorations is based in the city of Edmonton and no, I didn’t know Natasha was from there.”
“Quite a coincidence,” he remarked.
Her cold eyes trained on him. “Whatcha getting’ at, Badass?”
He shrugged, all million watt smile.
“Huh,” she said. “Where was that grin back when I wanted to screw your socks off in high school?”
He felt himself blush, couldn’t help it.
She eyeballed him. “Ever hear the saying ‘be nice ’cause everyone’s fighting a war’, or whatever the hell that heart-puddling meme is on places like Facebook?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.” ’Course he had.
“Yeah, well now you’ve heard it for sure. So be nice, Badass. I’m watchin’ you.” She looked at Steve. “Where’s my bro? I have some stuff he needs to sign.”
Steve pointed and she left, but as she strode away, her back to them, she called “Nice, Badass.”
Owen stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry in the direction of her ass, feeling like a chastened twelve year old, back on the school bus again.
***
“Natasha Nikoslav has enchanted your husband and sister-in-law,” he told Jessalyn later. They were just outside Hope, on their way to Vancouver.
She gripped the wheel. “Enchanted,” she said. “How very fairytale of you, Officer Brophy.” She took a swift chug from a travel mug in the console. “Believe me, I was all over my husband for how enchanted he was by your Tsarina.”
“And?”
“And I got a lecture on trust and fidelity—then got scolded for conspiring with you to make her as uncomfortable as possible.”
So Rob was more astute than those big old choir boy eyes said he was. “And you said…?”
“Nothing. Just grabbed my keys and took off, drove around town for two hours, trying to clear my head.”
“You didn’t just tell him about the Facebook page and Sleeping Beauty?”
“I told you: he—”
“—worries. Right.” And she guarded him like a miniature Doberman. He regarded her. “Tell me this: do you protect him like you do because of his Dad?”
A blur of green whipped past the window, and several kilometers soared by, until—“It hurt him.” This, softly, as she stared out the windshield. “I met Robbie because C.C. came out here on the hunt for his Dad.”
He’d put that much together.
“Back in the 80’s Vince Haslom murdered some guy out in Alberta. C.C. knew but could never make it stick.”
“That murder took place near the Nikoslav’s hometown. You know that?”
Her eyes grew big.
“I’m trying to tie a connection between whoever old Vince allegedly killed and our new friends who’ve set their bullshit shop up here. You know the name of the guy Vince killed? The internet had lots to say about how your Dad used a psychic—so much they forgot the poor vic.”
She shook her head. “C.C. never told me and I never asked, because the less Robbie knew, the better. The whole thing gave him an ulcer when he found out.”
“Which was….?”
“About ten years ago when C.C. first came out here to B.C. I tagged along ’cause I was eighteen and a starving artist, still had to live off my Daddy.” She grinned, wry. “And if that didn’t make me enough of a pain in the ass, then I married his nemesis’ son.”
They shared a grimace, then she laughed. “Don’t worry—C.C. never bought into any ‘sins of the father’ garbage.”
“Lucky Rob. Why’d the Lieutenant wait so many years to try to nail Haslom, anyway?”
“Ah, that was strategy, Owen, not laziness. Vince was dying and C.C. knew it. So in true compassionate cop style, he was hoping to wring out a deathbed confession.”
“That’s cold, sister.”
“That’s cops, cop.”
“Jesus. We’re not all that heartless.”
“I don’t think any of you are heartless. In fact you’re all heart. That’s why you learn to play to your audience.” She frowned. “And sometimes forget how not to.”
Then ended up in rehab. Then prison. Then—
“—the graveyard,” said Jessalyn and he startled. She snapped her fingers in his face. “Hey! You weren’t even listening.”
Jesus. She was just like a bratty little sister. “I already have two of you,” he said. “Quit acting like number three.”
Her little forehead was crunched. “I said I saw Natasha coming out of the graveyard when I was driving last night.”
A visual seized him as Jessalyn downshifted into Hope: the Tsarina, hurrying out of the graveyard, fancy dress fluttering, as breathless as she was.
“She was crying,” Jessalyn added, soft.
“What?” His imagined version of her had been crying too.
“And I wanted to stop, but…”
But she didn’t trust her. Neither did he. Still…
Still, the longer he thought, the more vivid her image became; bare shoulders pearly with sweat sheen and shining under streetlights as she raced back to the cottage from the cemetery, clear across town. Who visited a graveyard in the dark? Especially in a strange town?
In his mind’s eye her face was striped with wet and she stood in inexplicable rainfall. No. Not rainfall. Tears. His chest contracted and he wondered—how sad and scared would someone feel if an entire town threw rocks at them? And hadn’t he done the same last night, verbally baiting and trapping her? He’d caused her big, golden eyes to widen in fear.
He tried to scrub the image from his mind all the rest of the way to Vancouver.
It remained.
He tried picturing Sondra as he climbed into bed.
Didn’t happen.
An uneasy sleep filled with dreams of strange catcalls and piggy-eyed, triumphant faces engulfed him. So did rain. A deluge of rain. Enough to drown in, and within it the Tsarina was frozen, immobile. “Run, Natasha,” he called, for her big, sunrise eyes were terrified. Then she pleaded, just she had in the gallery.
“Help me. Owen, please. Help me.”
***
Jesssalyn’s show was in an upscale atrium in West Van, and he wished he’d at least worn a tie. Why hadn’t she told him to wear a tie? Why hadn’t he thought of it himself? His jeans and shirt made him look like he’d just crawled over from the Downtown East Side, and the concierge puckered disapprovingly until Jessalyn said “Security.”
He was glad now, that Rob was paying him, and parked upon a chair in the corner where he could keep an eye on anyone who so much as lingered in front of Elayna, front-and-center amid Jessalyn’s Painted Ladies.
Many did. Every patron was either an expensive suit or haute couture, different ethnicities but all the same faces—either pretentious enthusiasm or affected boredom, nothing in between. Jessalyn played dutiful artiste with them all while a brisk woman he assumed was her agent hustled her from one set of deep pockets to another.
She’d text him if anything made her twitch, so he sat with his phone on his knee while the show dragged out around him, sedate to the point of narcolepsy. He drifted, dreams immediately replaying in his head. “Run, Natasha!” He’d shouted until he was hoarse, and why the hell did she just stand there? Even after rocks began pelting from every direction.
“Tsarina! RUN!”
She remained and he leapt forward, arms out to shield her. Too late. As she slipped to the ground her sunrise eyes fluttered shut. Face became slack. “Sleeping beauty,” he whispered, then fell to his knees at her side. “Wake up!” He tried unknitting her fingers, stiff and folded over her chest, just like the Facebook picture.
He blinked now, shaking the memory away and knowing it was irrational to feel angry for how she’d just stood there. Even more irrational to want to somehow get hold of her now, confirm she was okay. His phone hummed and startled him. Jessalyn: Guy to my left just outbid the gallery for my Painted Ladies.
Here we go. The guy in question was someone he supposed would be labelled as handsome; hair expensively coiffed. A suit that didn’t know the meaning of ‘off the rack’. A chiseled face with just enough beard to be (quote) ‘sexy’ (end quote). Skin possibly Mediterranean, maybe Latino, and Owen raised his phone casually as if squinting at the screen, snapped a picture then rose.
His cell pinged again. Dude directly in front of Calling in Light just outbid Rico Suave.
Okay. He eyeballed the new guy. Some would say dignified, Sabrina Haslom would say the guy’s face looked like it could use an iron. He took another picture then eased over with the gathering crowd, all infused with gossipy chatter over a bidding war. Then a third voice laid out a new price. Owen looked.
A voluptuous redhead and her bid choked him. He took her pic too, yet noted how her gaze was aimed at Rico Suave, not the paintings. Then another woman, hair silver in a way that made you suspect a stylist, not age, crafted the color, called out a bid, her number trumping all—and her eyes also affixed on Mr. Suave, the lust there palpable.
Jesus. These women weren’t bidding on art. They were vying to bang boots with Suave. That’s richies, he imagined Sondra saying with a disinterested shrug. People like this had never enthralled her. But he stared at them all. Which would make the next move?
The redhead spoke, all eyes and smile at Suave.
Then Silver Dollar raised her, and Owen watched a triumphant smile tease her lips as Suave narrowed his eyes, frustrated. Just take her to the cloak room, man, and the paintings are yours without all this grandstanding. He glanced at Jessalyn. What was this like for her, the bids being more about Suave’s dick than her art?
Her little face was a thundercloud knot.
Then Wrinkle-Face called out a figure that silenced them all. “Although, I’ll negotiate with anyone who wants someone other than her,” he added, and pointed to Elayna.
Oh, really? Owen cocked a brow then cringed when Jessalyn shouted “No!”
All eyes turned to the artist, and he tried silencing her with a killing look. She ignored him. “These…” She stood as tall as her height would allow, and Owen wondered if she wished she’d worn heels the way he wished he had a damn tie. “They’re a collection. The spirit of these women is that they’re all together. I won’t entertain a bid that parses them out.”
Her agent hissed, but every other face said The artist has spoken. Owen tucked his tongue in his cheek and read the bidders, eyes on Wrinkles, who looked chiefly pissed that he couldn’t swing a deal for Elayna.
Then the redhead purred a new number, Silver Dollar followed, and Rico Suave finally decided to enter their expensive ménage à trois.
“Quite the process, isn’t it, Officer Brophy?”
Owen turned.
Years had dusted silver into Lieutenant Cory Chandler’s carrot curls, but he still had the amiable grin that crinkled his eyes at the corners. “My son-in-law told me I’d have someone other than wealthy widows to rub shoulders with here.”
Owen shook his hand. “Sir,” he said.
Chandler waved this off. “Cory,” he said. “Or C.C. These days I don’t answer to much more.” Again the grin. “Rob said Jessalyn was worried about getting ripped off. Thanks for coming along to keep an eye, but really—what the hell are they paying her agent for?” His face puckered, and in the moment he didn’t look anything like Owen’s old teaching lieutenant, instead looked to be just what he was—a worried dad.
A worried dad who’d been lied to about why he’d tagged along. Dammit, he’d knock Rob and Jessalyn’s heads together before this was all through. Their do-gooding was tromping on everything. “Never hurts to have another set of eyes,” he said as Jessalyn’s agent announced: “We have a phone bid.”
Several gasps slipped through the room as she announced the figure and “Holy shit,” he whistled, but Cory Chandler had tilted his head, a wistful look affixed to one portrait.
“Funny,” he said. “I always thought she was worth more than that.”
Ouch. Owen grimaced, then assessed the other bidders. Suave was out according to a disgusted sweep of his hands. Wrinkles too looked more puckered than ever. Silver Dollar and the redhead eyed each other up, each wondering if the other would trump the telephone.
Neither did.
His cell buzzed. Jessalyn again. Is that Jakob Nikoslav at the back of the room?!
He whipped ’round. A sea of affluence had begun to mill out, the bidding war over and the free wine all gone. He scanned them—which one was Nikoslav?—and typed Describe.
“Everything all right?” murmured Chandler.
Owen held up a finger as Jessalyn replied Dark suit, wine tie, black hair, beard. Good looking. Deadly eyes.
Deadly eyes? Only an artist—or a woman—would say ‘deadly eyes’.
There! A tall guy with a wide set of shoulders and dark hair was moving away. Or…was it the charcoal suit and the fellow with the beard (and the nose. Jesus. That was good looking?).
“Owen?” said Cory Chandler.
Nikoslav—whichever one he was—was gone, and how the hell could he chase him in this crowd? And for what? He’d end up getting himself arrested by that uptight concierge. He put his phone away. Be damned if he’d be the one to keep lying to Chandler, either, especially when the Lieutenant had once investigated in the Tsarina’s Echo Creek. “Jakob Nikoslav,” he said. “That’s who’s created our concerns. Jessalyn thought she spotted him.”
Cory’s brow knit, politely quizzical.
Bullshit.
It had taken the mere space of a second, but a thread of shock Owen recognized had seized Chandler’s face. He knows Nikoslav. Or, at the very least, knew something about him.
“Jakob Nikoslav,” echoed Cory. “He a thief?”
You tell me, Lieutenant. His cell zinged, an email alert. “’Scuse,” he said, grateful for a moment to formulate a reply. He swiped the screen. An email from Alberta Unsolved. Last night he’d left a question for ThirdEye20/20 after the recurring dream about the Tsarina had finally left him sleepless. It had been in response to the glib ‘Someone should just ask the Nikoslavs’, and he’d said: “What would YOU ask them, ThirdEye?”
ThirdEye20/20: I would ask them how many times THEY have been gutted, Night Crawler.
He inhaled, sharp, and could hear that cop: “No one’s thrown a rock at her in months.”
“Gentlemen.” Jessalyn interrupted and hoisted up, kissed her dad on the cheek.
“Big sale, kid,” he said.
No kidding. She’d just sold the Painted Ladies for more than six months of his old wage. What the hell was Rob fretting over the cost of living for?
“Gallery overhead,” she said to her Dad. “Can you believe that whole damn building needs a new roof?”
Ah. Perspective. Hadn’t Sab just said that everyone was fighting a battle?
Cory said “And just like that, she’s sold.” He looked beyond them, at Elayna.
“My interpretation of her is sold,” Jessalyn corrected, then turned to Owen. “What did you think of my bidders?”
“Well…” How much to reveal in front of Cory? “I think I’ve never had Rico Suave’s gift with the ladies.”
Her eyes bulbed, an expression that made him laugh. “I couldn’t believe that,” she said.
“Neither could he. Your agent get the name of the old Wrinkle-Puss who wanted—” A glance at Cory. “—who only wanted one canvas?”
“No, I did,” she said smartly, and handed him a business card.
He read, but the name meant nothing. He’d need to dig alongside finding out who Vincent Haslom had buried out in Alberta. Also—“Who was your high bidder?” he asked.
“’Scuse me a minute,” said Cory, and left them as the portrait of his wife was about to be cloaked.
“I told him we should just meet for dinner after,” Jessalyn murmured, watching.
“He wanted to see you shine.”
“Think so?” The corner of her mouth kicked up. “Maybe he just wanted to see her one last time.”
That was a land mine he did not want to detonate. “The high bidder?” he said again.
“A company, not a person,” she answered. “Sounds like an organization all about visual arts.”
He raised his brow, beckoning for more.
“Someplace called Third Eye 20/20.”
©bonnie randall 2005