Chapter Eight
Pretty straightforward,” said Lukowski. “He was shot in the head at very close range. Cheap .22 pistol.” That morning, Lukowski and his partner MacNab, both Seattle homicide detectives, had gone to the Smethursts’ soon after the body had been discovered. Caroline Smethurst had been, naturally, pretty hysterical, and there was a big dog jumping up on everyone, and a spoiled-brat kid, and eventually the husband Gary arrived from work. The Smethursts explained that the last time the car had not been in their garage and was unattended had been the night before, when the couple had been at Alba, having an aborted anniversary dinner.
Now, the two detectives were on night shift in their joint cubicle eating a quick takeout teriyaki chicken, and Lukowski was bringing MacNab, who had spent the afternoon in court on the witness stand, up to speed on the coroner’s report.
Lukowski, tall and thin, with prematurely gray hair, and wearing a dark suit, picked carefully through the meal with wooden chopsticks, avoiding the rice. He had gained five pounds this month, and he was trying to cut down on carbs. MacNab, shorter, rounder, and older, with thinning hair and an orange-looking sports jacket, had stirred his portion together with his plastic fork and was leaning over the little cardboard serving dish and shoveling it in in a workmanlike manner. “What can they tell us about him before he got shot?” asked MacNab.
“Well-nourished Caucasian male. About sixty-five. A lot of gold dental work. They think it might not have been done in this country. A couple of nasty scars on the torso. Look like they might have been made with a knife. A while ago. Smoker. Clogged arteries. And he’d packed away a lot of booze by the time he got killed. His liver looked like Swiss cheese.”
“Doesn’t fit any of the missing persons we checked out,” said MacNab. Recently disappeared local white males had included an elderly man who had wandered away from a nursing home, a vegan college student who had told friends he intended to go into the wilderness and live off the land, and a thirty-seven-year-old self-employed housepainter who was getting leaned on for ten thousand dollars’ worth of back child support payments. “It might be hard to ID him.”
Lukowski handed over some glossy color photos. “Maybe it won’t,” he said. “The guy was covered in tattoos. But we’ll start with releasing an artist’s sketch to the media.”
MacNab took a look at the shots. “That’s some pretty ugly ink,” he commented. Indeed, the blue tattoos looked smudgy. “Look at this. A couple of kitty-cats and a rose. And a couple of stars on his knees.”
“Keep going,” said Lukowski.
MacNab riffled through the shots. A couple of menacing floating eyes, barbed wire, a dagger.
“I don’t care how many guys have tattoos these days,” said MacNab. “It just doesn’t seem like a manly thing to do—decorate yourself like that.” He frowned and reexamined the floating eyes. “This looks kinda familiar.” MacNab started tapping away at his computer.
“Hey,” he said. “I was right. Those are classic Russian mafia tattoos. It says so right here on Wikipedia.”
“Maybe Auto Theft knows who this guy is,” said Lukowski. “Russians love to steal cars. Maybe they end up shooting each other, too.”
“Try the auto guys up in Everett, too,” said MacNab. “They got a ton of Russian chop-shops up there.”
Lukowski looked down at the valet tag on his desk, the one that had been placed on Smethurst’s key chain at Alba. “But let’s make sure Smethurst is totally cleared. I can’t imagine for a minute he’s got anything to do with this, but let’s cross him off the list right away.”
“Any word yet if the bullet in tattoo guy’s forehead matches the ones that shot up Duckworth’s car?” asked MacNab. “It’s pretty weird—a body and a shooting the same night in the same place.”
“I talked to Debbie Myers in Crimes Against Persons. She’s working that Duckworth case. They got the bullet out of the valet who took it for Duckworth. She says they’re still digging bullets out of the vehicle.”
MacNab nodded. “Anything on the suitcase?”
“No tags or airline baggage-handling barcodes or anything. The suitcase is a pretty ordinary Samsonite suitcase. Black nylon. Macy’s sells about a jillion of them.”
“How come luggage always seems to be on sale at Macy’s?” said MacNab. “It’s never not on sale.”
Lukowski shrugged. “Beats me. Anyway, it also seems that the gray Audi is covered in prints. So maybe we can get a break from that. There are some really clear ones around the trunk area.”
———
After alighting from the truck a few blocks from Dmytro Zelenko’s circular driveway, Sergei Lagunov tucked his black shirt into his trousers and brushed off the shoulders, lapels, and knees of his suit, then ran a hand over his hair. He hoped there weren’t any leaves or twigs sticking to him.
On the ride over, he had thought about what he would tell Dmytro about his cousin when they met, and what he would omit. One thing he would certainly omit for now was what had happened to Old Pasha. That little episode had given him a keen insight into Volodya’s character. Whatever other shortcomings he may have had, he wasn’t afraid to kill.
Dmytro answered the door with one hand on the collar of a frisky-looking Rottweiler. Sergei hoped the old guy could control this animal better than he controlled his cousin.
“You wanted to see me?” said Sergei.
“Yes. Please come in. But where’s Volodya?”
“I think maybe he’s in jail,” said Sergei, managing to give the impression he was sorry to pass along news of this development but felt it his duty to do so. “He was drunk and the police pulled us over in his car. I wanted to protect him from any serious trouble. He had a gun on him and I took it away with me, and escaped.”
Dmytro nodded. “I see. Where’s the gun now?” he asked.
Sergei smiled. “I got rid of it during my escape. In case I was caught and it was traced to Volodya. I doubt he’s allowed to carry a gun. Didn’t he do some time?”
Dmytro pushed the door closed and locked it.
An elderly female voice called out from somewhere in the house. “Dmytro? Is my ride here?”
Outside, Sergei heard a car pull up.
A pale old woman with her hair arranged in a wispy bun appeared in the foyer. She wore a drab floral-print housedress, and carried a cracked plastic handbag in one hand and a huge Bible with Post-it notes sticking out of it in the other. She wasn’t fresh off the boat, thought Sergei, because she wasn’t wearing a scarf on her head, but that’s about all that had changed. He acknowledged her with a polite nod.
Dmytro spoke briefly to her in Ukrainian, then turned to Sergei. “Go on into the living room and sit down. My mother is going out. Her ride seems to have just arrived. I’ll see her out.”
Sergei looked down at the Rottweiler, and held out his hand. The dog licked it and padded away. Sergei followed it into the living room where another one lay in front of the fireplace. The second animal stared at Sergei with a bored expression, then put its head down on the carpet.
Dmytro bustled back into the room, self-possessed once again. “You want a drink?” He strode over to a well-stocked bar.
“Sure. You got any cognac?”
Dmytro poured himself a shot of vodka and handed a cognac to Sergei in a balloon-shaped glass. “I appreciate your helping out. You’re sure that gun is lost?”
“Absolutely,” said Sergei. “I threw it off a bridge.”
Dmytro pulled out his wallet and handed five hundred-dollar bills to Sergei. “I appreciate it. Quick thinking. Now I want you to do another little job for me. I’m interested in Victor Gelashvili. Tell me everything you know about him.”
Sergei slipped the bills into his pocket right next to Volodya’s pistol. “He used to spend a lot of time in the bar at Donna’s,” said Sergei. “He talked to us a lot. He parked cars there. Then he parked cars at that Italian restaurant, but he still came and hung out with us at Donna’s. His parents are Russian, and he speaks it pretty well. He told us about the kind of cars he was parking there, and I asked him if he’d like to make some money and hooked him up with Volodya. So now he works for Volodya. Like me. His buddy Chip helps him out. They scout cars for us, slap a device on them so we can find them, get the manufacturers’ key codes if they can so we can get dupes made, and we give them a commission on every one that works out.”
“But what do you know about him personally?”
“Hardly anything,” said Sergei. “What do you want to know?” Presumably, Dmytro wanted to know if, as Volodya believed, Vic was helping himself to what belonged to the Zelenko cousins.
“He says he has uncle in Tbilisi. A vor. Do you believe this?”
Sergei shrugged. He wasn’t expecting this. “There are a lot of them in Georgia. Hard men.”
Dmytro nodded. “I know before you came here, you lived in Brighton Beach.”
Actually, Sergei had lived in Long Beach, California, but that wasn’t the story he’d told Volodya. He’d also hinted to Volodya that he was part of a witness protection program, but not because he’d ratted out anyone from his own organization. He had, he explained, sent some Italian mafiosi to prison for messing with the Russians.
“That’s right. But I don’t want that to get around. It’s a delicate situation.”
“Yes, I understand completely,” said Dmytro. “I was wondering if you were able to find out some way, or if perhaps you had heard something. He said it was his father’s brother, so the man’s name would be Gelashvili. And his first name was Ivan. His son Gleb is also involved.”
Sergei looked doubtful. “I can maybe find out for you. But there are quite a few Gelashvilis in Georgia. You said from Tbilisi?”
Just then, Dmytro’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked down. “Bah!” he said. “The county jail!” A second later, he began shouting in Ukrainian. As a Russian speaker, Sergei understood enough to get the gist. Dmytro cursed Volodya out, said he should never have called, and refused to make bail for him. ”My stupid fucking cousin,” said Dmytro with an exasperated look.
“You must be worried about him,” said Sergei.
———
It was quarter to two in the real world, but in the bar at Alba the clock already said two to give the staff time to clear out everyone by legal closing time. The foodie conventioneers were apparently closing the bar, judging by the cluster of Hertz, Budget, Alamo, and Avis key chains on the board, so Tyler expected them all to come out at the same time, any minute now.
Sure enough, they swarmed out together a few minutes later, all chatty and bouncy after hours of eating and drinking.
“I hope you enjoyed your evening here at Ristorante Alba,” said Tyler with as much conviction as he could muster. He sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed his evening here, wondering the whole time if the valet area would get shot up again. And the tips weren’t that great. Foodies saved their generosity for inside the restaurant so they could suck up to the wait staff. And they usually weren’t out on dates trying to impress women.
“Oh my God, we sure did!” said one effusive female foodie with a New York accent. “We got to meet Chef Torcelli and everything! We got a tour of the kitchen!”
Chef Torcelli? Tyler was startled. That was Flavia’s name. She must be married to the owner. That explained why she seemed to be running the place. So maybe she didn’t want to be Mrs. Duckworth after all. Or maybe she did. Maybe the chef was just a first husband.
“Everyone knows Piedmont is the new Tuscany,” said her companion, a lady with a purple hat. “But what’s so exciting is how they’re taking it to a whole new level here.” She was digging in her purse looking in vain for her ticket. “I know it’s in here somewhere.” She paused her search briefly to describe to Tyler what she had eaten. “We started with a really simple carpaccio—”
Tyler cut her off. “I’m glad you had a great time,” he said, resisting the temptation to tell her about the excellent chicken burrito from the food truck down the street he’d had earlier.
“And Flavia is so sweet!” said the first woman. “And so brave! Opening up right away after that terrible tragedy. We wanted to come and show our support and they really appreciated it.”
“That’s great,” said Tyler. “Why don’t you step to the side and find that ticket, while I help someone else.” Flavia hardly struck him as sweet. And how brave did you have to be inside the restaurant. He was the one in the line of fire.
He turned to the large bearded man who was next in line. “Ford Escape SUV, right?” he said, taking his ticket and handing it to another valet. This guy had come in with about a half dozen people, so as soon as he got them packed into their vehicle and on the road he’d have cleared out half of them.
After the last car left, he organized his tips, putting all the bills face up with the heads in the same direction and sorting them by denomination. Tyler was astonished to find a roll of six fifties in there. Apparently, the gray Audi guy who’d come in earlier to ask him not to rat him out to his wife had slipped him three hundred bucks.