An Immigrant

AN IMMIGRANT

CRIME NOVEL

ROXANA NASTASE

SCARLET LEAF

TORONTO, ONTARIO

2018

© 2018 by ROXANA NASTASE

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, with the exception of a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

All characters in this book are fictive, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Scarlet Leaf Publishing House has allowed this work to remain exactly as the author intended.

PUBLISHED BY SCARLET LEAF

To my mother

She always enjoys my writing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 – CARVED LIKE A THANKSGIVING TURKEY

CHAPTER 2 – FATE LOVES A GOOD JOKE

CHAPTER 3 – SOMETIMES GOD SMILES AT YOU

CHAPTER 4 – THE RECKONNING

CHAPTER 5 – AXEL IS CURIOUS

CHAPTER 6 – ONE PLAYER IS KICKED OUT OF THE GAME

CHAPTER 7 – SURPRISES ABOUND

CHAPTER 8 – NITTY - GRITTY POLICE WORK

CHAPTER 9 – EVERY BULLET HAS ITS BILLET

CHAPTER 10 – AN AWKWARD MORNING

CHAPTER 11 – AT A SNAIL’S PACE

CHAPTER 12 – BATTLE OF WILLS ON ALL FRONTS

CHAPTER 13 – DISCONTENT AT A CRIME SCENE

CHAPTER 14 – THEORY AND REALITY

CHAPTER 15 – TRUTHS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

CHAPTER 16 – ONE ATTEMPTED MURDER AND ONE KILL

CHAPTER 17 – AWE AND TRUCE

CHAPTER 18 - WHEN ONE VALUES THEIR SKIN

CHAPTER 19 – GRAVE THOUGHTS FOR A CRUISE

CHAPTER 20 – WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

NOTE REGARDING TORONTO MUSIC GARDEN

BONUS - GRETA GARBO CAKE RECIPE

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY

BOOKS BY ROXANA NASTASE

CHAPTER 1 – CARVED LIKE A THANKSGIVING TURKEY

‘Bad move, Victor boy,’ Victor thought, glancing around him with his blue, sharp eyes, searching the surrounding shadows.

Unease whirled inside his chest, and he rubbed his fingers unconsciously. He was itching for a cigarette and in a bad way. He had decided to quit, but his resolve was challenged once more. His job didn’t make quitting easy.

He had a bad feeling. It had been bothering him since he accepted the rendezvous with the so-called informant in the Music Garden. His eyes swept the grove again.

‘Not a smart spot for a clandestine meeting,’ he mused, looking around with apprehension. ‘Especially not so close to midnight and at the Sarabande,’ Victor shook his head, displeased with his lack of foresight. ‘I should have insisted to meet at the Prelude or Minuets,’ he repeated for the tenth time that day.

The Sarabande, majestic in daylight, looked gloomy at night. The anemic moonlight, barely penetrating the thick and heavy clouds, didn’t help at all.

The weather man had announced rain, but Victor had stopped counting on his accuracy for a long time. The weather channel had been announcing thunderstorms for the last three days.

Victor still had to see a rain drop or hear the thunder. Following one of the hottest summers on record, that late September was scorching, and he would have welcomed a little rain.

Victor leaned on the closest tree and patted his pocket, where he had stashed a recorder. He knew his source wouldn’t have liked to know he intended to record his accounting, but Victor couldn’t care less. He paid for that information, and if he paid, he understood to take full advantage and use it as he found fit.

Restless, he kept his eyes and ears open. He knew his impatience to solve the case had made him overlook some elementary cautious measures. Now, he had to compensate, if he wanted to keep his hide intact.

‘One mistake, one step closer to the grave. Things won’t always go your way, Victor boy,’ he thought. ‘I’m far too old for taking such stupid risks. Heck, I’m far too old for this crap,’ he chided himself, just one second before he heard a crack somewhere on the right.

He had just turned his head toward the noise when a strong arm shoved a knife into his back. Victor groaned and fell to the ground like a log. A strapping man, over six feet tall, and around 220 pounds, his fall felt like a small earthquake. 

‘Now, I’m done,’ he thought, his brain on fire, pain churning in his belly and chest. ‘Carved, just like a Thanksgiving turkey,’ he observed with bitterness.

His fingers knotted in the leaves on the ground. He felt grateful when the sound of receding steps reached his ears. At least no one was pressed to finish him off on the spot. Then, he passed out.

LEAH BURROWED MORE into Axel, as if she wanted to steal his heat, although it was warm enough, even with the balcony door open. His arms surrounded her, and his head rested on top of hers. Axel’s lips brushed absently over her hair now and then.

She felt comfortable, cherished and, quite strangely, protected. ‘What the heck! I don’t need protection, do I?’ she wondered, a slight feminist streak showing its head.

Leah had lost count of the evenings and nights she had spent with Axel. Days had turned into weeks and weeks into months. Well, about two or three months, give or take a week or two.

The movie on TV didn’t hold Leah’s interest, but Axel’s scent and heat did. She closed her eyes, breathed him in, just content to be in his arms.

Axel’s thoughts didn’t overwhelm her mind. Now, she found that restful. In the beginning, that bothered her, but not for long.

It was quite a change of pace not to pick on random thoughts from someone she dated. More often than not, those thoughts had had the gift to sour her mood.

With Axel, the unknown exhilarated her. She had to guess what he wanted. She didn’t know what he thought when he looked at her. That kept her on her toes, and she became more attuned to him.

Despite the action on the TV screen and the explosions blazing through the speakers, Leah fell asleep in Axel’s arms, her head on his chest. Her fingers burrowed beneath his shirt, as if she wanted to get closer, and Axel grinned, leaning back to see her face.

One by one, Axel had broken down all Leah’s defense walls. It hadn’t been easy. Not for the first time, he wondered if he shouldn’t thank that wacko woman who had stabbed him. Leah had cared for him afterward, and that counted for something.

Axel leaned his chin on the top of Leah’s head once more, and returned his eyes to the movie. Leah amused him. She had chosen a very bloody and noisy film, and yet, she had fallen asleep.

Her even breathing relaxed him and Axel stroked her arm and shoulder with tender touches. His mind wandered away, lulled by the lack of tension.

Suddenly, he gasped and his arms tightened around Leah’s body. She woke up wincing.

What’s wrong, Axel? she asked when her eyes met his fixed gaze.

Axel appeared to stare into space.

What’s wrong? she asked again, and this time, she also shook him for good measure.

Axel blinked and glanced at her. He brushed his fingers on the side of her face.

We have to go now, Leah, he said with sadness.

Go where? she asked, her eyes showing her confusion. What happened?

Someone might die, Axel replied very matter-of-factly.

Leah’s eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise.

Now? she asked in a loud whisper.

Axel just nodded.

CHAPTER 2 – FATE LOVES A GOOD JOKE

THE WEATHER MAN HADN’T been wrong this time. The sky lit with lightning and the downpour belted Victor’s face, half buried in the leaves scattered on the grove’s floor.

With a groan, Victor stirred under the cold rain, and opened his eyes with effort. Aches assaulted him from everywhere. Strange enough, his back felt numb.

‘How accurate. I’ll die under the rain,’ he groused with cynicism, his sight blurry. ‘Full circle, huh?’

Victor remembered his mother’s stories about his birth. He had laid eyes on the world in a small village in Transylvania in late September.

‘Yep, five more days and I’d have celebrated my birthday,’ he scoffed.

It had rained heavily the night he was born. His mother almost hadn’t made it to the new communal hospital. At that time, hospitals were set up in cities, metropolis and counties. The small communal hospital was just a pilot project, and not one very well thought.

The way she said it, Victor hadn’t seemed happy with the surroundings. With intrinsic determination — the same determination that would see him through a lot in his lifetime, the baby had bellowed his discontent.

His wailing had travelled beyond the improvised maternity ward and made the two other nurses on duty wince. He had good lungs.

Little did he know at the time that his name would go down in the history book of the small cluster of villages. He became a celebrity on his own — the first baby born in the new hospital, built at the foot of the mountain.

‘Is this the crap, people think about when they conk out?’ Victor wondered, flexing his fingers, just to make sure he was still alive.

Then, Victor shook his head. It wasn’t like him just to give up.  He was a man of action.

He tried to move and fire blazed through his entire body. He tightened his teeth, and a long hiss escaped through his lips. 

‘I need a moment only,’ he surmised, when the pain subsided. ‘Then, I will surely move,’ he groused with determination.

If he wasn’t anything else, Victor was a determined man. When he made a decision, he followed through to the bitter end. He decided he would live, so he would.

He closed his eyes and fisted his hands. He would take a moment to rest and try again later. Meanwhile, he had time to ponder on his life.

He hadn’t had the time for that for the last twenty-two years. What, with the university, and then, immigration... A lifetime...

He was due a serious thinking. It wasn’t as if he could move and do something else right then.

Victor’s life had followed a predictable path for the first eighteen years. Victor wasn’t very studious, but he had street smarts, and a good memory to go with that.

He would talk his way out of anything. If he had to lie, he didn’t shy away, but lied with such a serene face and conviction that people believed everything he said.

In class, teachers avoided asking him questions. They did ask him questions at first, but they learned their lesson.

He had a special gift — he talked fast and in circles. He would confuse everyone, including the teachers. No one knew the correct answer afterward.

Not few teachers found themselves looking into text books after discussing a topic with him. They doubted their own knowledge.

Anyway, it wasn’t like they could make him repeat the year. The policy was clear — no child left behind.

So, Victor graduated year after year and most of the time, with good marks. Not because he worked hard. Yet, if he came to class, he soaked up information like a sponge. That helped him to get admitted into high-school, as well.

During the winter of his thirteenth year, things changed, at least at the surface. The change came with the boom of the revolution. New possibilities arose.

The shift between socialism and capitalism began, and Victor sensed that the latter could make or burry a man. He had seen enough movies on that fantastic invention that populated his last two years — the video player. He had a clear idea about what was going on in the world.

He had his eyes and heart on possible businesses, but he had forgotten one thing — he also had a very strong-minded mother. He had taken after her, above all.

As most people living in the country and farming the land, Maria Dobrota dreamed of having her son graduate from university. She desired a diploma for him.

In the words of her fellows, she wanted him to become a gentleman. Not because she was ashamed of her work, but because it was hard and back-breaking work and she wanted better for her only son.

She refused to listen to any of his teachers’ words, who advised her to send him to a trade school because high-school was expensive. The boy would have had to go and live in the county capital, and that meant a lot of money for residence and meals.

She fought them when her Victor finished grade school and went to junior high-school, and she fought them when he passed his admission exams for superior high-school.

She was more than ready to fight them again now, and she decided to pay for private tutoring, just to have her son become an engineer. The sound of the word made her giddy with pride.

‘Oh, mother, mother,’ Victor thought with tenderness. She had always seen the best in him and nudged him to be someone.

Victor had tried to change her mind. He explained to her that times had changed and an engineer wouldn’t have had the same prestige as a businessman, but his mother was unmovable.

Maria Dobrota knew nothing of that businessman stuff. What she knew was that her cousin’s son was an engineer and everyone respected him, even though they didn’t know what exactly he was doing.

She wanted her son to enjoy the same respect. She daydreamed about talking to people about her son, the engineer, with pride.

Victor didn’t stand a chance. He was saddled with a university professor