26: SÉANCE WITH THE BABA YAGA SET

THE ROOM RUSTLED with the furious scratching of pen on paper. David bent over his desk, right hand scribbling. The tendons in his wrist twisted ever-tighter, begging for reprieve. He finished his jottings with a final flourish and tossed the pen aside. His arm muscles sighed. He probed a thumb into the bony groove at the back of his wrist and massaged the tender meat there. The figures were rough, the lettering chicken-scratch, but it was all there. He ran his tongue over his parched lips, and signalled Walter over with a flap of his hand.

“What you got, Davey?”

“I went through the case files over the past couple of years, looking at arrests for drug dealing, prostitution, assaults, the usual scumbaggery. I took all that, plus all the stuff’s been going on over the past few months, and I put together a timeline.” David motioned to the paper, which depicted a long rightward-facing arrow. Lines leading to notes or doodles branched off its length. He tapped the leftmost side. “Luka Volchyin seems like a bit player at first. His name doesn’t get much traffic. But comb close enough, and something seems off. Like here, last February. Ted Bailey pulls in a couple of guys caught slinging dope out near the Sundown Lounge. Guys are bush league, and they roll over like puppies, tell Bailey they’re selling for a mid-level guy called Lucky Luke. The Downer’s Ballaro territory, so Bailey figures they’re cooking up some bullshit, but the guys stick to the story, say they’ll testify, whatever they gotta do.”

“Yeah? Then what? They clam up?”

“Then nothing. No follow-up. One of the guys gets picked up on a possession charge six months later, no connection. The other guy’s gone.”

Walter sucked the curly tip of his moustache. “You talk to Bailey about it?”

“Yeah. He looks at me kinda fuzzy, says he sort of remembers. The whole thing fell apart before it got to trial. I push, but all I get’s more waffling.”

A frown creased Walter’s face. “You think Bailey’s bought?”

David laughed. “A bought cop would have a better story up his sleeve than that. There’s a million smarter ways to graft, if that’s what you’re into, and Bailey’s no dummy. What’s more, this same thing happens more than once. Each time, a couple of toughs mention Lucky Luke, and the trail goes quiet. That’s when I realise that for the last year and a half, this guy’s been selling coke, dope, escorts, all on Ballaro territory. And getting away with it. Look.” He traced the men along the arrow, stopping six inches from its tip. “All this time, with impunity. No retaliations. No messages. I checked hospital and police records for all the guys who got brought in selling for Luka. A few got arrested for dumb shit outside the game, but no one’s thumbs got broken, no one took a tumble over the Falls in a burlap sack.”

“Ah, come on,” said Walter. “There must’ve been something.”

“Nothing that worked. You remember the case back in April, three mooks dead in a room at the Regency Inn?”

“Tainted coke. Simmons caught it, got ruled accidental death.”

“But not ‘til the lab results came back,” corrected David. “We still did some nosing around, right?”

“Sure.”

David reached across his desk and grabbed a black notepad. “I read back over my notes on the case. I talked to some friends of the deceased, looking for motives, clues, the usual. Asked a bunch of them what three bambinos might’ve been doing in a hotel room together, considering all three of them had houses in town. I got the usual runaround, guys clamming up. A few suggested they were having a little party, which makes sense, given the coke. But one guy tells me they were talking about a problem they needed to deal with. Some guy stepping on their toes, whom they needed to teach a lesson. A guy called Lucky Luke.”

Walter blinked once, the sound of it audible in the office stillness. “You serious?”

In reply, David handed Walter the notepad, flipped to the appropriate page. Walter ran a thumb over the jottings, as if convinced they were some kind of illusion. “Why the hell’d you never say anything about it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it.”

Walter scrunched his eyes. “What you mean, you don’t remember? You just told me about it.”

“It was the note that brought it back. When I think really hard, I can sort of recall it, but the whole thing’s sort of . . . slippery. I’ve usually got a good head for this stuff. but I dropped the ball here completely, just like Bailey. And it wasn’t just us two.” David took another notebook out of his back pocket. He flipped it open to a page marked with a sticky tab and jabbed the paper with his finger. The words Lucky Luke were written and underlined, the handwriting unmistakably Walter’s. “Sorry for snooping on you, buddy. But I had a hunch.”

Walter took his notepad back and gripped it in both hands, as if struggling to hold it aloft. His lips worked soundlessly behind his moustache.

“Well, what the hell you make of a thing like that?” Walter fixed his notepad with the sour stare he normally reserved for his most recalcitrant interrogation subjects.

“The general trend continues until August, when Stanford Acres burns to the ground. After that, no mention of Luka whatsoever. He vanishes. Then the Ballaro murders.”

“I still don’t see the connection, Davey. So Volchyin fucks off. So what? His granny just bought it—assuming she is his granny.”

“She is.” David waved his hand at another folder. “I dug out the obituary. Survived by a single grandchild, one Luka Volchyin.”

“Damn near twenty people died in that fire. What makes you think granny Volchyin was the target?”

“A hunch. And this.” David slid a photocopy of the Stanford Acres floor plan over to Walter. He pointed to a small room halfway down the eastern wing of the building. “This was Sonya Volchyin’s room, number 113. Can you guess what was directly beneath it?”

 Walter’s tongue circled his lips. Though they were parched, the action left them no damper than they’d been before. “The utility closet,” he said. It was no question, but David nodded all the same.

“I did some digging on granny,” said David. “Asked a few old folks who survived the fire. Turns out she had a bit of a reputation. Sharp mind, but didn’t talk much. Read books with funny titles. Didn’t make friends. Kept a lot of strange herbs, ointments, that sort of stuff around her room.”

“Sounds like just about every old bag I’ve ever met in my life.”

“I’m not talking Gold Bond powder here. Granted, these are secondhand accounts, but they were pretty consistent. More than one person suggested she was into witchcraft.”

“You’re not breaking out the tinfoil hats on me, are you?” Walter asked. He absently fingered a spot on his chest, tracing the perpendicular contours of a small crucifix hanging around his neck.

“Please. I sure as hell don’t think anybody was hexed here. It’s just a new angle, a little window into Volchyin’s head. What I think we’ve got is someone really sly, the sort of guy who knows how to clean his tracks. Someone with a serious fascination with the occult, either because he legitimately believes in it or because it’s a convenient prop for him.”

“All because grandma liked to play with Ouija boards, huh?”

“It’s not just grandma. Think back to the murders. Can you recall anything connecting them, apart from the victims?”

“A shitload of paperwork?”

“A full moon. Two brutal murders a month apart, each targeting a Ballaro, each taking place on the night of a full moon. There’s a message there, and we aren’t the only ones picking up on it. Remember the book on Ballaro’s mantel? Remember the silver knife?”

Walter rubbed his eyes. “This is beyond fucked.”

“Tell me about it.” David walked over to the coffee machine and began brewing a fresh pot. “I’ve started making a list of possible sources in the region. Occult bookstores, Wiccan meet-up groups, that sort of thing. See if any of them know anything about Volchyins senior or junior.”

“Those should be some fun interviews.”

David stuck his tongue out. “If it gets me Volchyin, I’ll even submit to a palm reading. I don’t know what weird voodoo this guy’s into, but I very much want to have a long chat with him.”

“So that’s your plan, huh? Séance with the Baba Yaga set?”

“For the next two days, at least. We’ll get a chance to test my little theory then. If it doesn’t pan out, I might drop it.”

Dark liquid trickled from the coffee machine’s reservoir. David watched the carafe fill drip by drip, his fingers performing a rolling tap on the table.

“Why, what’s in two days?” Walter asked.

When the first cupful of coffee appeared, David switched out the carafe with a spare cup and poured the contents into his mug. He took a sip of the bitter liquid, grimacing with pleasure.

“The next full moon.”