Voice low, he said, “We can help you in more detail if we can understand the parameters of your investigation.”
“Yeah,” Holgersen said, moving his gum from one side of his mouth to the other. “Like, maybe we has theories that don’t quite add up, but if we knew more, ka-ching, the bits an’ pieces that might not be in them case files you’re getting—they suddenly slots into place.”
Bowditch’s mouth twitched. His eyes narrowed. “If the implication is that you’re withholding evidence, theories, I must—”
“The withholding of evidence,” Maddocks said, slowly, coolly, his gaze lasering Bowditch, “is probably what cost Sophia Tarasov’s life.”
Silence slammed thick into the room. Bowditch cleared his throat. “That’s—”
“There are other barcode girls out there, am I correct? Tattooed sex workers your team knows about?” Maddocks said with another quick glance at Flint. “Here on North American soil. And they’ve come to harm at the hands of the Russian mob, right? Did any of them have their tongues excised? Perhaps when they tried to help law enforcement?”
Silence.
“You both knew exactly what kind of danger Sophia Tarasov and the other five barcode survivors were in,” Maddocks said crisply. “Instead of informing the MVPD when we were first put into contact with you, which would have dramatically altered our security protocol for those young women, you arranged this meeting”—he wagged his hand between them—“to come and see what we had while you put in motion the requisite legal steps to assume jurisdiction of our case.” He paused. Thunder rumbled in the low fog outside. Rain lashed afresh against the darkening windows, in which they were beginning to see their own reflections. “And before you could even get here, Tarasov was murdered. In what appears to be a mob hit.” Another beat of silence. “You killed her—you killed that young woman—and I can make a case for it.”
Eden cleared her throat. She tapped the back of her pen rapidly on the table. Bowditch glowered at Maddocks, hot spots rising in the skin along his cheekbones.
“Possibly your task force has an appetite for collateral damage in order to catch bigger international fish,” Flint said quietly. “But we don’t.”
“We had a duty to Tarasov,” Maddocks added. “And we remain committed to seeing justice done for the local Victoria women who were hurt or murdered in connection with the Bacchanalian Club. We need local offenders successfully prosecuted for local crimes perpetrated in connection with that club. And to meet these objectives, we need to keep working on this investigation from a local angle.”
Silence pressed heavy and simmering over the room.
“What do you want?” Bowditch said finally, his face dark, eyes narrow.
“Full cooperation. Same as you want.”
Flint leaned forward. “We’d like inclusion on your task force.”
Bowditch’s mouth opened. He glanced at Eden.
“It’s out of the question,” Eden said.
Maddocks reached down and shut his laptop. The image on the screen died. “Thank you for your time, Officers,” he said. “We have nothing further to discuss.” He started to leave the room. Holgersen pushed his chair back.
“We have legitimate jurisdiction over this case,” Eden snapped, coming to her feet, her eyes shooting sparks. “You will suffer the—”
Maddocks spun to face her. “Take it up with whatever body you wish,” he said calmly. “I’ll be happy to outline to whomever how the MVPD was undermined in the protection of Sophia Tarasov.” He pulled open the glass door. Flint remained seated. He was letting Maddocks set himself up to take the brunt of any retaliatory measures that might now boomerang their way, as had been agreed prior to the meeting. Maddocks was more than happy to suck it up. He’d hit a wall. With his kid, his marriage, his job. Angie. His leaking old boat. Caring for Jack-O. The posttraumatic effects of nearly losing Ginny in the Baptist takedown. And he was allowing it all to zero in on Sophia Tarasov. She was the last little straw. The image of her pale, thin body—that gaunt, brave face with its tongue cut out because she’d spoken to him . . . It was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He was furious with these two cops at the table. And if he couldn’t hold on to a family, a wife—if he couldn’t be a good enough father or make a romantic relationship work with a woman he was coming to love—he sure as hell could fight for the Sophia Tarasovs out there.
CHAPTER 32
Angie left the station building at 5:00 p.m. on the nose, urgency rustling beneath her skin like a trapped live thing. She’d have to make up for her late start this morning on another day. The blog post would have to wait until Monday, too, because she’d spent the latter part of the afternoon reading the information Stacey Warrington had provided her on Milo Belkin’s arrest along with his trial transcript. She was wired on what she’d found.
Belkin had been arrested in Vancouver’s east side in 1993—twenty-five years ago—when Vancouver police acting on a tip had stopped a white commercial cube truck in which Belkin was traveling with three other males. A gun battle had ensued. A VPD cop took a .45 slug in the skull and died en route to the hospital. A ricocheting .22 bullet had struck an innocent bystander in his lower back, rendering him a paraplegic. Belkin—who’d been shooting a 9-millimeter handgun at the scene—was arrested with a man named Semyon Zagorsky—who’d been firing a .22 pistol. The two other male accomplices had fled toward an unidentified black Chevrolet van that had drawn up behind the side street where the shoot-out was occurring. The two men escaped the scene in that Chevrolet van.
Inside the white cube truck in which Belkin had been traveling was a flower delivery. Stashed among the flowers, cops found 50.5 kilograms of cocaine, 14.1 kilos of heroin, and 6 kilos of hashish. The drugs were estimated to have had a street value of almost $9 million.
Angie now knew why Voight had saved those two newspaper articles. According to those old clippings, five years after the drug bust and shoot-out, a Colt .45 had been found in the glove compartment of a burned-out black Chevrolet van in a railyard.
Voight had suspected the burned-out Chevy van and Colt .45 were linked to the Milo Belkin shoot-out and drug bust with its getaway van and the .45 slug that killed the VPD officer. Voight must have also suspected Belkin and his accomplices were somehow linked to the 1986 cradle case with its getaway van.
Had that Colt .45 found inside the gutted van been the weapon fired outside Saint Peter’s Hospital that Christmas Eve? Had the two men escaped with Angie’s mother and twin in that black Chevy van? Had one of the men been Milo Belkin?