Cold As Ice: Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 3) Read online

  “You said you weren’t NYPD.”

  “I’ll explain anything you want later. Listen to me. A man is about to die. You need to get EMTs moving now. And blood. Bring blood.”

  “What type?”

  “I have no clue. Whatever you got, everything you got, bring it. Now!”

  The phone slid off my shoulder, hit the ice, and slid a few feet from me. I hoped and prayed she got that. Legally she has no choice but to act. The only way I could have held onto the phone any longer was to have let go of his severed airway. It was a miracle I held onto the phone as long as I did.

  This guy was dying and I only had one set of hands. What next? Was help on the way? Was he even still alive? I took a gulp of air. It burned going into my lungs but I calmed down and got back to working on trying to save a life. It had taken too long to get to B: Breathing. How long since his last connected breath? A minute? Probably longer.

  I leaned forward and began to blow softly between his blue lips. I heard a hiss of air escape out a gap in the mangled trachea I was trying to hold together. I lifted my head from his mouth. I looked down at the gory mess at his throat and pressed the two white pieces together a little tighter. But I didn’t want to squeeze the carotid artery and cut off the blood supply to his brain. I bent back down to his face and blew three more times. I could still hear air escape but it wasn’t as loud. Some air was getting through. That’s as good as I could do.

  I started to shiver. Hard. Not good. The adrenaline was wearing off. I couldn’t keep doing this. I suddenly heard a glorious sound; sirens from several directions. They were heading my way. I was heartened. I knew I could keep going until they arrived.

  I was overdue to check what was happening with C: Circulation. He had lost so much blood already. I couldn’t see anything coming from what was once a gurgling fountain. Had he bled out? I know a little about exsanguination from a case I worked—the serial killer. I still don’t know how anyone can get comfortable with the coppery smell of the gooey substance that keeps us alive. My fingers were going numb and getting clumsy again. I couldn’t feel a pulse. But I lowered my head and saw there was just enough trickle to assume—to pray— his heart was still pumping blood.

  The gooey, freezing puddle beside us said he didn’t have much left in his body to donate at the blood drive. Just focus and stay positive, I told myself. Help is on the way. Keep working. I blew into his lips again, trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding. If I pressed too hard on the jugular I’d cut his airflow—and I was barely keeping the trachea held together as it was.

  The sirens were closer. Please hurry.

  I kept my thumbs and pointer fingers on the trachea. I worked my pinky and ring fingers of both hands up and down each side of his neck. I was sure I felt a pulse this time. The exterior jugulars are on each side of the neck so I pressed in. I lowered my lips to his and continued to breathe for him. I thought, if this guy has AIDS or Ebola or another communicable disease, I’ve got it.

  Some people question whether I can do one thing at a time. Apparently I can do three things at the same time.

  I thought about my ruined Christmas presents and immediately felt guilty for wondering if the NYPD or some other city agency would reimburse me for my blood-soaked outdoor running gear I only got to wear one time.

  Sirens were wailing closer and closer. I just had to keep going another minute or two.

  What if I hadn’t run this morning? I don’t like to blame God for my stupid decisions, but is it possible, on this occasion, He sent me out to save a life?

  Focus. Push the ends of the tube together. Press in where you think a pulse should be. Breathe into his lungs. Repeat. Stop thinking.

  I felt the icy cold return like a sledgehammer. I told myself to breath. I was near the point of fainting when I heard the rush of footsteps and knew the cavalry had arrived.

  Pasha Boyarov looked into her pleading, terrified eyes. She knew nothing but someone had to pay. He raised a fist as she sobbed and whimpered.

  “Careful, Pasha,” Vladimir Zheglov, his right-hand man said. “We need her. The best way to catch a bear is with a pot of honey.”

  You wanted it all, Pasha thought to himself, barely able to contain his rage and hold the punch.

  Spittle flew from his mouth as he leaned forward, eye-to-eye with Ilsa.

  “If I find you are holding back . . . if I find there is anything you aren’t telling us, I will kill you with my bare hands. Do you understand?”

  She nodded her head yes, trying to avoid the cold black reptilian eyes that were boring into her.

  “He always comes home after work. I swear. I don’t know where he is. He’s told me nothing.”

  Pasha spun, grabbed a wooden chair, and smashed it against his desk. He beat the chair until only a splintered club was in his hand.

  He looked at Vladimir, who looked back at him impassively. If I go down, Pasha thought, at least I know I have Vlad at my side. The only man Pasha considered more deadly than himself was his lifelong friend, Vlad.

  Less than one hour earlier a door to multiplied power and wealth stood open to him, only to have a bumbling bear kick it shut. There had to be a way to kick it back open. Doors are made to be destroyed. He had been doing that most of his life.

  7

  I HAVE NEEDED time to shut the world out. I have needed to think about what happened, as painful as the experience itself was, and as painful as it is to relive it, which I have, every moment of every day spent here.

  It could be worse. The Metropolitan Correction Center in downtown Chicago is a modern prison. The architects have thought of everything it seems, even giving me a room with a view. The window is seven feet high, but alas, only five inches wide. But even if it were wider and the glass wasn’t too thick to break, it wouldn’t offer any hope for escape. I’m on the 27th floor.

  But I’ve been able to look through that slit in the wall at the possibility of freedom, even as I have been forced to face up to my mistakes. Yes, I now realize they were my mistakes. I own them. I have risen above the hubris that put me here. What happened was not bad luck or the work of others. I allowed it to happen. I was not true to my code. I fell short of the perfection that I thought I had attained—and perhaps had—but let slip away due to carelessness.

  I’m not one for religion, but it’s true, pride precedes the fall.

  It is only through brutal self-examination and honesty that I can begin to write the story of my life again.

  Detective Conner. Dear Kristen. I confess I underestimated you. I own that, too. You were my only mistake in seven years of living life in full. I wrote and directed all of my encounters—until you.

  Why you? Even if neither of us understands the bond I felt—that I discovered—the moment I first set eyes on you, just know that my response to you is the ultimate compliment you have ever been paid. Consider it grace; something you don’t deserve. You are flawed. But my eyes, my mind, still can’t turn from you. I should have recognized this; embraced this; and pursued this reality. My mistake was to keep you at a distance. I will move quicker and directly next time. Be assured of that.

  No, you wouldn’t understand our bond, for I don’t understand it myself. We only met face-to-face one time, a painful encounter for both of us, but devastating for me.

  The FBI profiler continues to visit me often, praying to me for the words she longs to hear. Dr. Leslie Van Guten is one of those people who love to prove they are the smartest person in the room. But not my room. She is so easy to read. She dreams of being famous for analyzing me and writing about her discoveries. I can see her gazing at the awards on her wall and her picture on magazine covers. She is cold, arrogant, and persistent. She let something slip that I doubt she remembers. It has offered me a glimmer of hope. I must use her arrogance if I am to reengage with the world, free from constraints. She will be of use to me. I will tease her with a gift of my thoughts—just enough for one paper or article to show her masters that her time with me
is not in vain.

  I’ve asked for an attorney. Such worthless societal parasites. But I must stay positive. I will need him too.

  But ultimately it’s you who will save me, Detective Kristen Conner. The thought of being with you as it was supposed to be keeps me going. You will die for what you’ve done, but not until you see those you love die at my hand. Only then will I grant you escape from the world—the Hell—I will create for you.

  Thank you, Kristen. The thought of you is enough to keep me going.

  8

  THE FACT THAT I was running in zero-degree weather huddled over a man who was bleeding out made me an immediate suspect. I was walked up the hill and led into a van with no inside door handles for questioning. It was so toasty it hurt. I felt prickly, itching jabs as my fingers and toes partially thawed. But I wasn’t complaining—until I warmed up enough that the jabs turned to icy stabs.

  When I reached for my fanny pack to pull out my detective shield, I was ordered to stop and was promptly cuffed. That got me wide awake and my blood started to boil. Five minutes later I was able to get an officer to fish through the crowded pack and pull out my badge. The cuffs came off quickly. My anger was turning to steam but I kept my cool. I get in enough trouble with CPD for my temper, why make enemies with the NYPD?

  After the uniform left to find a detective, I asked a techie who stuck his head in the back of the van the million-dollar question: “Is he going to make it?”

  “Is who going to make it?” he asked.

  “The guy I was giving CPR to. Who do you think I was asking about?”

  “Make it? What are you talking about?”

  “Did he live?” I nearly hollered.

  I didn’t call the techie what went through my mind. I thought I was doing so much better with my temper.

  “Not unless his name is Lazarus. He’s dead.”

  “On the way to the hospital?”

  “No. He was dead when we got to you.”

  Okay. So maybe I didn’t feel a pulse. I wonder how long I blew air into the broken airway of a dead man?

  I’m a homicide detective. I’ve seen death. It’s never pleasant. Sometimes it’s horrific. I was at the murder scene where a twelve-yearold was beaten to death by kids his own age. I heard his mother scream to God for it not to be so. That case—that moment—will never go away. Neither will this one.

  I followed in my dad’s footsteps and became a Chicago policeman. He warned me before my first day at CPD Academy that sometimes you have to forget what you just saw with your own two eyes and move on. Compartmentalization. I understand the word in my head. I do compartmentalize. I think everyone does. But sometimes the dividers let things slip through.

  Someone has to deal with bad people. You don’t wallow in mud without getting muddy. You just hope a hot shower can get you clean enough to interact positively with the people you love.

  My dad got shot on the job. I still wonder what he was thinking before he breathed his last. He knew I would be the first one to reach him. He set it up that way. Was I supposed to take that as a compliment?

  I don’t understand what he did but I still agree with him on compartmentalization. Some things have to be left behind and forgotten as much as possible. His death is one of those things—even if finding the man who shot him isn’t. I carry this with me every day even if I don’t like to talk about it. People want me to open up and discuss my feelings. But what’s the point? What happened, happened. Dead is dead.

  Life requires that we move on. Some things have to be locked away. That’s what my dad said and I’m sticking with it.

  9

  NAZAR KUBLANOV, MEDVED, the Bear, drove across the Brooklyn Bridge and pulled up to a 24-hour convenience store. He stared straight ahead, the engine idling roughly. Not the route he was supposed to be on to take the silver-haired man to an unmarked warehouse in Queens. Not the place he was supposed to be. He looked at his cheap cellphone. Eleven missed calls. The number was blocked but he knew who was calling.

  Pasha. A legend in the bratva for his brutality combined with a businessman’s style. He could beat a man to death for breakfast and then change into a tailored suit for lunch at a fancy restaurant, all smiles and charm. He would be Pakhan one day.

  Med replayed all that had happened. He went on his shift at eleven the night before. It was a slow night because of winter storm conditions. That didn’t keep everyone inside. He picked up a few fares. Tips were decent. Then business fell off. He sat in a line of cabs outside the only throbbing, crowded club in the Meat Packing District. No one was in a hurry to leave. He got bored. He sipped vodka. He might have dozed off a few minutes. A little after three o’clock, Pasha called him. A first. Not someone who worked for Pasha, but the man himself.

  Medved was over thirty but was still the lowest-level street soldier. He got called from time to time to apply some muscle when a shop owner got behind on insurance payments, but nothing more. Not since his time on Riker Island. That’s when he started drinking all day and all night long. His age and his position were a bad combination. It meant he wasn’t going anywhere in the bratva. He’d get table scraps, but he was far from the real money that guys younger than him were now making.

  He knew his days with Ilsa were numbered. She looked too good. She had loyally waited for him to get out of Riker, but no way would she stick around with the man he had become.

  Pasha’s call represented a big opportunity. Problem was he had been sipping vodka. He couldn’t tell Pasha that and miss out on a chance to show his value to the bratva, the family. So he grabbed a cup of coffee at an all-night Dunkin Donuts and headed for the Dexter. But he lost track of time when he went down into Central Park to pee.

  Now everything was a mess. The question wasn’t promotion and getting back in the action. The question was staying alive.

  His phone rang again. He looked at the flashing number with a dawning sense of dread. It wasn’t blocked. It was Ilsa. Ilsa never got up this early. She worked graveyard shift at a bakery. She had been home less than an hour. She was always asleep by now.

  He hit the green answer button.

  “You okay, konfetka?” he asked quickly.

  “Med,” a gravelly voice responded. “You are there. I was getting worried about you. Very worried. You didn’t show up and you haven’t been answering.”

  It was Pasha Boyarov.

  “I can explain, Pasha.”

  “Good. I hope you can explain things to me and to your lovely wife. Your konfetka. Neither Ilsa nor I are very happy with you right now.”

  “I’ll come explain. Where do I head? The warehouse or my apartment? Just tell me where.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid you would say that.” A pause. “Where is the man? Answer me truthfully. It will make Ilsa and me happy.”

  Med heard Ilsa scream in pain.

  “Pasha, I can explain. He ran. Into the park.”

  “He escaped then?”

  “He fell. Bad. He’s . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who has him? Where is the body?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s at the morgue. Just tell me where to meet you. This has nothing to do with Ilsa.”

  “Do you have the man’s wallet?”

  Med hesitated and then lied, “No, I just take the cash.”

  Pasha sighed. “You found no small sheet of paper with numbers on it?”

  “No, Pasha. Just the cash.”

  “What am I to do with you Med?”

  “Do as you will. Just don’t hurt Ilsa.”

  “Come to the office.”

  “I’m on my way, Pasha.”

  “Good. Be fast. We are on a tight schedule and you have messed it up.”

  “Can I talk to Ilsa?”

  “Of course.”

  Med waited for her voice. But it was Pasha who spoke.

  “You can talk to your konfetka when you get
here.”

  “So tell me again. What were you doing alone in the Park at four in the morning?”

  “Like I told you, I wanted to get a run in before flying back to Chicago.”

  “In zero degree weather? Who does that?”

  Lots of people. Okay, maybe a few people. But either way, I’m not answering this guy. I don’t like his condescending attitude. Of course I’m a cop and nobody likes my attitude when I’m asking the questions either.

  “So you’re a Chicago detective?”

  I’m not covering old ground. Best way to put an end to this repetitive nonsense is to say nothing.

  “I’m just trying to work with you, hon.”

  Hon? What year is this? If that is supposed to be the good cop half of his one-man shtick, it’s pretty pathetic.

  “You checked out,” he says after another long pause. “And based on what I’ve been told I guess I’m supposed to be impressed. You’ve closed some big cases the last couple years. You’re the one who broke the case on that serial killer guy. What’d they call him?”

  I’m not answering. I know he already knows. Some guy with a popular website—the ChiTownBlogger—dubbed our infamous serial killer the Cutter Shark. It was a stupid name but it stuck. I hate that name but we all use it. Some nicknames just stick. This guy is just trying to get a rise out of me. I got a lot of press busting the Cutter. My sister did an exclusive interview with me that probably got her the job offer with WolfNews, a national network headquartered in New York.

  “Still not feeling talkative?”

  “I’m thinking about how I’ve missed my flight and I need to get rebooked on a later one. I’m soaked in blood. I need a shower. I’ve got to get packed. Is that talkative enough?”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “Might as well put all that packing and rebooking stuff out of your mind and just relax. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “I’m due in the bullpen tomorrow morning. My vacation in New York City is over. Let me thank you for a grand finale.”