Fairstein, Linda - Silent Mercy

Each leg felt heavier as I pulled up, step after step, to go forward. Then, as I mounted the rising dunes, the dry sand crumbled beneath my moccasins and filled them like an hourglass turned upside down.

Mike had reached the top before I did. He waited for me to pull up beside him. We were still sheathed in silence and could only see a few feet ahead.

“What’s that?” he asked, and pointed.

A low picket fence — maybe two feet high, painted dark green, as it always had been — was just ahead of us.

“The graveyard,” I said. “Or what’s left of it.”

“There’s your plague pit, then,” Mike whispered.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Mike grabbed my arm and held a finger to his mouth to shush me. “Hear it?”

I waited for the current to draw the waves back into the bay. Then I was able to hear a noise wafting through the dense mist. A whimpering sound, muffled now, not clear and shrill like the scream that split the night sky a few minutes earlier.

Mike pointed again, toward the south end of the picket fence and started to walk in that direction. He had drawn his weapon — the Glock 19 that was the duty gun of choice for most of the NYPD.

Now he was moving at a snail’s pace, as was I behind him. He was trying to bypass every twig, every bramble that might snap when stepped on. I walked in the damp imprint of his large steps.

We inched along and seemed to be drawing closer to the whimpering woman.

Another step and Mike stood still. I looked down and saw, at the very place his toes were, a cement block — a row of them side by side, actually — then a gaping black hole ahead. It looked like a deep foundation — the only remains of an old building.

He tapped the flashlight in his rear pocket, and I pulled it out. He braced himself and held both arms straight ahead, nodding at me to shine the light into the darkened space that had been dug into the ground so very long ago.

Fyodor Zukov was directly below us, standing over the body of Chastity Grant. She was gagged now — probably after her penetrating scream — and bound as well, hands and feet. I could see the red fabric — aerial silk — that her captor had used to restrain her.

Next to her head on the dirt floor — nestled on top of a large duffel bag — was a long-handled ax, the kind of tool that had been used to sever the neck of Naomi Gersh.

Zukov was holding an implement of some kind. He had clearly been waiting for us, as Mike had expected. As soon as the light hit him, he prodded Chat in the neck with the sharp end of his stick and she emitted another ungodly sound.

“Drop it, Zukov,” Mike said. “Drop the bullhook or I shoot.”

I hadn’t recognized it as a bullhook, the vicious steel-tipped instrument used to goad elephants, the inhumane device some circus trainers favored to push and yank deep into the animal’s sensitive flesh to control its movements.

Mike took aim to fire, but Zukov’s hands — though weaker, perhaps — were still faster than Mike’s. He swiveled and raised the curved handle of his bizarre weapon, hooking it around Mike’s left ankle and dragging him over the cement block, down into the hole.

I heard Mike hit bottom with a thud. I shined the light on him and could see that the fall had dislodged the Glock from his hand.

Zukov stabbed at Mike’s back as he tried to struggle to his feet.

“I prefer to call it a shepherd’s crook,” the killer said, referring to the C-curve handle that indeed resembled the staff used by priests and bishops. How ironic that the cruel circus tool was also a symbol of Christ’s ministry. “The Gospel of John, chapter ten, verse eleven. ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.’ ”

Mike got to his knees and Zukov thrust the bullhook into his back again.

“I’m not afraid to lay down my life, Ms. Cooper, like Christ did for all of us,” Zukov said, looking up at me. He obviously knew who I was from his courtroom visit. “How about you? Are you ready to die?”

“GET out of here, Coop!” Mike yelled to me. I assumed that he hadn’t gotten to his feet immediately to take on Zukov because he’d hurt his leg — maybe the ankle that had been so badly injured a year ago. “Get as far away as you can till the Coast Guard arrives.”

“They’ll be too late,” Zukov said. “Whenever it is they get here, they’ll be late.”

I was way too tired to think clearly. Running wasn’t an option. I didn’t know whether to stay where I was until the crazed killer decided which of his victims to go for first, or to lower myself into the old foundation and try to find Mike’s gun.

“You must be one of the detectives, aren’t you?” he said to Mike. “I have to hand it to you. I never thought you’d find us on Penikese. I figured I’d have some time to get to know Reverend Grant more intimately.”

Fyodor Zukov had indeed confused Faith Grant with her sister, whom she so closely resembled. Chastity may have been the black sheep of her hometown, but when she showed up at the Christmas performance of Ursula Hewitt’s play — surrounded by the other ordained women — he made the mistake of targeting her. Her changed appearance from the December evening when she had gone goth — and now the striking resemblance between the sisters with Chat’s natural hair color and style restored — had caused Zukov to kidnap the wrong sibling.

“She’s not a minister,” I said, trying to keep an eye on Zukov while using the light to look for Mike’s gun.

“You know, Ms. Cooper, she’s told me that over and over. But I’ve done my research well. I’ve been to the seminary and I’ve talked to her friends, and I don’t think I’ve made a mistake. She has offended God and she must be silenced for that.”

Now Zukov was using the long, pointed end of the bullhook to poke around for the Glock too. I could see that Mike was spread out on his belly, inching himself forward like a reptile. He must have had some sense where the pistol had landed.

“Stay as calm as you can, Chat,” I said. “Every police department in the northeast knows you’re here. Faith sent us to find you, and we’re going to get you out of here.”

“Don’t play games with me!” Zukov shouted, waving the bullhook wildly overhead. “I know who this woman is.”

I could hear her racked sobs from beneath the silk ties that covered Chat’s mouth.

“The Reverend Grant — the minister — is at her seminary in New York. Don’t make this any worse for yourself, Fyodor. You can let—”

“They’re not ministers,” he said, watching Mike carefully but yelling in my direction, as though the wind carried his message across the seas. He looked every bit the madman as he preached to me. “None of these foolish women are ministers. They should all be silenced by the church. Silenced by me, before I die.”

“The woman you’re holding is not—”

“Priests and ministers are linked to the person of the incarnate Christ. The Father begets the Son.” Fyodor Zukov was raving now. “The priest presides at the altar and says what Christ said, does what Christ did. In that moment and in that ministry, he is Christ. And Jesus Christ was a man.”

Mike was using the distraction of this maniacal sermon to edge himself forward.

“Tell her the truth, Ms. Cooper,” Zukov said, switching gears to a soft whisper of a voice. “No one will find any of us here. Not in time.”

Somehow, while he’d been ranting, Zukov caught Mike’s movement, and swung suddenly around, kicking his right leg up in a wide arc that took dead aim at Mike’s head.

I screamed and Mike ducked, but the martial-arts training combined with the grace and balance of Zukov’s circus artistry was in full display.

“How’s your sambo?” Mike called out, taunting the devil himself.

It looked like Zukov was waiting for Mike to lead him to the gun before he struck a deadly blow with the sharp point of the bullhook.

“I fight for Christ, Detective. That’s why you’ll be so easy to kill.”

“If you thought the Reverend Portland would be your decoy, Fyodor,” I said, hoping to get his attention, “you were wrong.”

He looked away from Mike and up at me, surprised that we knew as much as we did.

“It’s Oksana who told us about you,” I said, starting to walk around the base of the foundation. I wanted to know how Fyodor thought he would get himself out of this deep hole. “Oksana who told us about your time at Penikese.”

“Oksana would never give me up!” he shouted.

I had sidetracked him completely from his two captives. He was enraged by his sister’s betrayal, baying at me as I continued to prowl above him.

Three-quarters of the way around the rectangular ditch I came upon his solution. Zukov had tied a strip of aerial silk — a bright blue length of fabric, the color of the piece that had been found on Naomi’s body — to the base of a huge boulder a few feet away from the hole. He had secured the other end of it to a corner of one of the cement blocks. He would be able to lift himself out with very little effort, after he disposed of Chastity Grant.

“How else do you think we knew about Penikese?” I asked, stepping over the silk and continuing to stalk the perimeter. “How else would we know you’d been banished here, sent away to school instead of jail?”

Zukov was following my movements, ready to take out his unhappiness about Oksana on me, or whoever was closest to him. It gave Mike the chance to continue his crawl. It allowed me time to think about what action to take.

“Doesn’t matter that you can’t call her from here. She’s in jail. She was locked up as an accessory to murder tonight.”

“You’re lying!” he screamed at me.

“I don’t have any reason to lie, Fyodor. Oksana was arrested when the train stopped in Providence. Would you have silenced her too? Is that your plan? To silence anyone who has offended you?”

“I’d never hurt Oksana. Those who need to be silenced are the ones who offend God!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Pariahs and outcasts, is that it?”

Mike was sitting up now, his back against the wall. I guessed he was close to his gun, ready to take on Zukov, although ten feet of darkness separated them and I knew he couldn’t see a human target clearly in the blackness of the hole.

“And lepers, right?” Mike added.

Zukov spun on a dime. He was ready to charge at Mike.

“Don’t you know doctors can treat your condition?” I called out to him. “The doctors at Bellevue can help you. You don’t have to die, Fyodor.”

He turned again to look at me, wondering, I thought, whether I was worth chasing down.

Now it was Mike speaking. “The Gospel According to Mark. ‘And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ ”

Fyodor Zukov seemed transfixed as Mike recited text from the gospel.

“‘And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.’ ”

“Don’t mock me, Detective. It’s too late for that too. Don’t you dare mock me.”

Zukov extended his arm with the bullhook, aiming for Mike’s head. But Mike dodged the sharp tip and came up with the gun in his right hand. He fired once and I heard the bullet ricochet off the wall.

Zukov laughed and readied his weapon, like a javelin, for another charge at Mike, who had braced himself against the foundation as he tried to get to his feet.

The killer lunged again. The tip of his weapon dug into the wall, catching the sleeve of Mike’s jacket and pinning him in place, just as his foot caught Mike directly in the gut.

“Coop!” he called out from the darkened pit. “Hang tough. Catch this and you’re out of here.”

Mike pitched something out of the hole. In the few seconds the object was airborne, I realized it had to be the Glock. He couldn’t loosen his arm sleeve from the bullhook to take aim, but he had flipped the light pistol up over his head in my direction. Mike knew he was no match for Zukov’s killer instincts, and ridding himself of the deadly weapon would eliminate giving it up to the skilled fighter.

There was no way for me to grab the Glock as it sailed over my head like a small missile. It must have landed on nearby rocks, clattering against them as it dropped.

“Run, Coop!” he shouted at me again.

“No, Mike. No. I’m not going,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong. “You’re trapped.”

It sounded as though Zukov had kicked again. There was a loud thud and an ungodly sound from Mike’s throat.

“Get the gun and shoot this bastard, will you?”

“Are you pinned to the wall?”

“No more,” he said, sounding weak and exhausted. He must have ripped his jacket loose from the point of the bullhook. “Beat it.”

Then I heard the resurgence of Chat Grant’s desperate sobs, and the beginnings of a fistfight between Mike and Zukov. I knew I had no choice but to find the loaded gun and use it.

I beamed the flashlight down the slope behind me.

There was a dense tangle of brush and shrubs, and about ten feet beyond that, something flat that looked like a granite step. It was the only visible surface that would have produced the noise made when the gun fell to the ground.

The grunts and pounding sounds of Mike and Zukov hitting each other propelled me toward the large stone even faster. When I reached it, stood on it, and looked down, I could see it was just the top piece in a staircase of at least fifteen steps. They were dug deep into the ground, most of the lower ones covered by rotting wooden beams that framed the sides.

Now all was silent again. There was no noise coming from the old foundation and I got no answer when I called Mike’s name.

I took a few steps in, then hesitated, staring into the blackness beneath me and smelling the dank odor from within the belly of this obsolete seaside structure. Even a quick glance showed it to be more formally crafted than the old laundry building that was simply scooped out of the Penikese dirt. It must have been the remains of the mansion that my brothers had explored as kids.

I looked back over my shoulder. Of course the pit had gone quiet. Fyodor Zukov’s body was outlined against the low-hanging clouds. He had grabbed on to the strip of blue aerial silk that he’d hung between the boulder and the concrete slab from down below with his long fingers, and he was climbing out of his lair, swinging himself up with all the grace and agility of his craft, in order to come in search of Mike’s gun — and me.