Alfaro didn’t fight me when I asked if a change-of-address card had been filed for 532 Eagle Street. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, ‘and I’ll check it out.’
The minute stretched into five, during which time Linde asked, politely, if he might tell me a joke. I refused the offer, not out of resentment, but because I wanted to see if he could be provoked. He wasn’t.
When Alfaro returned, she was shaking hear head. ‘Sorry,’ she told us, ‘no one’s been in to have the mail forwarded. Mail to that address is still being delivered.’
Linde waited until we were back on the street, then asked, ‘What do you make of that, Harry?’
‘You’re asking why we didn’t find mail at Domestic Solutions?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Mobility.’
‘You wanna explain? Or you just wanna bust my chops?’
I smiled. The priest had blown me off, despite my brilliantly constructed interview, and time was marching on. I was pissed, not least because I’d yet to formulate a Plan B, and I was taking it out on Hansen.
‘My best guess, Aslan conducts Domestic Solutions’ business on a cell phone and his workers are paid directly by their employers. Maybe there’s a bank account somewhere, a place to deposit the checks, but it’s more likely that the checks are cashed and the money handed over to Aslan. That would allow him to pick up on a minute’s notice without leaving a paper trail, and without jeopardizing his business interests. Which is exactly what he did.’
‘But why kill Barsakov? Why not just send him away? That would eliminate any connection between Aslan and your vic.’
‘Maybe he asked Barsakov to flee and Barsakov refused. Maybe there’s a reason why Barsakov can’t return to Russia. Maybe Aslan punished Barsakov for not getting the victim in the water, despite Clyde Kelly’s appearance. I don’t know how close you read the file, but Kelly didn’t call nine-one-one for several hours, so Barsakov had plenty of time to finish the job. Instead, he panicked and left the victim where she was. Two weeks later, as a direct result, I show up and drag Barsakov away on a trumped-up charge. Aslan couldn’t have been real happy about that. He had to figure, if Barsakov panicked once, he’d panic again.’
I went on to tell Linde what I knew about Domestic Solutions and its employees and their children, repeating much of what Dominick Capra told me.
‘Aslan has to separate himself from those women,’ I insisted. ‘He has no other choice. First, there are potential charges of involuntary servitude out there. Then there’s the issue of what these women know about Jane’s murder. I have good reason to believe that Jane was killed at work, but I have no way to find her employer. The other women could fill that gap and many others. They have to go.’
With nothing better to do, Linde and I decided to drive back to Domestic Solutions, to sit on the building in the hope that somebody would show up. We were on route when Lieutenant Millard hailed us on the radio.
‘You might wanna check out a van fire on Kent Avenue and South Fifth Street, if you remember that intersection. According to the uniforms on the scene, the blaze was deliberately set.’
Although the fire was out, the Econoline was still pouring smoke when I pulled up behind a Fire Department pumper. The van itself was a charred shell, its interior, front and back, utterly destroyed. But the license plate was still attached to the rear bumper, and still readable.
‘I ran the tags,’ one of the uniformed officers on the scene told me a few minutes later. ‘The vehicle is registered to a company called Domestic Solutions.’
I thanked him for the information, just as if I didn’t already know it, before I led my new partner off to the side and explained that we were standing less than two hundred yards from where the body of Jane Doe was originally discovered. Then I took him on a tour of South Fifth Street, down to the mound of rubble. The pothole was still there and the taller weeds still flattened, but someone had gotten to the chain link fence, prying it away from its supports. It was now possible to squeeze through and approach the East River.
I did just that, but I didn’t stop at the river. Instead, I climbed onto the rickety pier behind the Gambrelli warehouse, then walked its length, stepping carefully over broken boards and exposed nails, until I was left gazing out over the waters of the East River. The tide was pulling hard toward the harbor and the surface of the river was deeply furrowed by the five-knot current. Around the footings of the Williamsburg Bridge, patches of white-water threw up a dancing spray that caught the angled rays of the evening sun. Linde was standing next to me, his silky-straight hair fluttering in a steady breeze that smelled of all the lives and deaths concealed beneath the gray waters before us.
‘This is where Jane was meant to go,’ I explained. ‘Good-bye and good riddance.’
‘For whatever it’s worth,’ Linde said, ‘I hear you.’
‘That’s good, Hansen, because there are quite a few things that need doing, and I think you’re the kinda guy who can get them done.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ he answered, ‘I’m your fella. What’d you have in mind?’
I turned from the river and began to make my way back to the Caprice. ‘I want you to track all the evidence taken from the Eagle Street scene, the blood, the tire impressions, any fingerprints that turn up, any trace evidence found on Barsakov’s clothing or his body. And I want you to secure Domestic Solutions’ phone records. Personally, I don’t think they’ll help us, but we gotta look’
‘Is that it?’ Linde was grinning.
‘No. Find out the name of Barsakov’s lawyer and give him a call. See if you can track Barsakov’s movements after he left the Nine-Two. And one more thing. I want the name of Aslan Khalid’s sponsor, Konstantine Barsakov’s, too. They couldn’t have gotten into the country legally without sponsors. Now, your boss has the juice to get the names, Hansen. Let him make a personal phone call.’
I lapsed into silence as we picked our way between the fire department and police vehicles surrounding the Econoline. There was nothing to be gained by talking to the fire marshals, or to anyone else. The fire had begun in the van’s interior, which could not have happened unless it was deliberately set.
‘You understand,’ I said as I started the Caprice, ‘I’m counting on you to expedite these matters.’
He nodded once, then broke into a huge grin, revealing a pair of deep grooves in either cheek. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘stop me if you’ve heard this one. Ole is sitting in his back yard one Sunday, in a religious mood after coming back from church. So he looks up at the sky and asks God why He made Lena so soft and round and cuddly. “I did that so you’d love her,” a voice rumbles from on high. For a moment, Ole is overcome with awe, but he finally says, “Then why, Lord, did you have to make her so stupid?” A second later, God’s voice again rings in Ole’s ears. “I made her dumb, Ole,” God explains, “so she’d love you.”’
Hansen told the joke well, rendering Ole’s dialogue in a thick, Scandinavian accent, but I didn’t laugh. I didn’t have to. Linde was roaring with delight. He didn’t need my help.
New York was enjoying a second day of sunny skies and cool temperatures when I pulled to a stop in front of Blessed Virgin on the following morning. My intention was to take another shot at Father Stan, playing up the institutional aspect of the confessional seal. There’s nothing in the gospels, I would argue, about secrecy, or even the ritual of confession. The confessional seal comes not from Jesus, but from men whose greater aim was to preserve the Church. Surely, God’s judgment is more sophisticated, less absolute. How could it not be so when the great Commandments, themselves, are open to interpretation? The fifth commandment says, Thou shalt not kill. The seventh says, Thou shalt not steal. There’s no wiggle room in either one, yet the Catholic Church finds killing and stealing, under certain conditions, to be without sin.