The Sin Collector

ANDREY

“I think it’s time to get down to the facts,” said Andrey, thoroughly irritated by being talked at about medieval architecture.

“You’re just like our Masha,” said Innokenty, shaking his head. “I’m simply trying to explain that there is an actual system behind all of this.”

“You want the facts?” asked Masha. “Look.” She tapped with one trimly manicured fingernail at the cross on Red Square. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you, this concentration of murders around one of the best-guarded architectural landmarks in the country? Actually, not murders, but bodies. Somebody worked hard to leave the mutilated corpses of his victims right there, on or near the square. This cross here at Lobnoye Mesto, in front of St. Basil’s? That’s the arm they found last winter. And this one is Kutafya Tower, where they found the drunk called Kolyan. Here, right at the Kremlin wall, is where they fished out Yelnik’s body the other day.”

“So what?” Andrey interrupted. “We don’t know anything about that arm. Nobody’s even found a body.”

“So you think the arm’s owner might be alive?” Innokenty quipped. “Listen, Yakovlev, the very center of the plan for a New Jerusalem was the Kremlin. More specifically, Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral. In Ivan the Terrible’s time, they even called the cathedral ‘Jerusalem.’ In the Book of Revelation, John the Prophet says that there is no temple in Heavenly Jerusalem, only a holy altar. So St. Basil’s Cathedral was meant as the altar for the enormous open-air temple of Red Square.”

“Andrey,” said Masha, looking at him almost pleadingly. “It’s all supposed to map onto Jerusalem. Lobnoye Mesto, the old public execution site, is supposed to stand for Golgotha, where Christ was crucified. Kutafya Tower is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Moskva, where they found Yelnik, stands in for the Jordan River.”

Andrey scowled and pointed to the other bank of the river, where there were three crosses marked on the map.

“Those are the three people killed along the Bersenevskaya waterfront,” Masha explained.

“In Zamoskvorechye,” Innokenty added. “Literally, that’s ‘the other side of the river.’ In the seventeenth century, they built a hundred and forty-four fountains there, to represent the one hundred forty-four thousand believers in John’s Revelation. Here, on either side of the river, there’s a symbol for the Tree of Life, in the form of the terraced gardens of the Kremlin and the Tsar’s Gardens, or the Tsaritsyn Meadow,” he continued, practically singing as he warmed to his subject. “The famous icon painter Nikita Pavlovets depicted the scene—”

Innokenty suddenly broke off when his foot received a kick under the table. He gave it a surreptitious rub. Masha smiled and picked up the topic as if nothing had happened.

“Do you remember when the wife of the governor of Tyumen Province was killed and chopped into four pieces?”

“Sure,” said Andrey. “They found her out at the Kolomenskoye estate.”

“Right.” Masha nodded. “In the actual Jerusalem, directly east of Gethsemane and the Golden Gate, there’s an octagonal tower built at the spot of the Ascension of Christ, the Chapel of the Ascension.”

Innokenty nodded, too, and went on. “But in Moscow, the line from Spasskaya Tower, our Golden Gate, to Tsaritsyn Meadow, our Gethsemane, runs north to south rather than east to west. If you continue along that axis, it runs straight to the Church of the Ascension at Kolomenskoye.”

“Which is also an octagonal chapel with a steeple. And even though the distances aren’t the same in Moscow as in Jerusalem, centuries ago the church at Kolomenskoye was perfectly visible from the Kremlin.”

Their food came. Andrey had ordered some sort of pasta, and he immediately dove in. Innokenty tried a few times to make conversation, but neither Masha nor the busily chewing captain helped him out. When the waiter brought coffee, Andrey turned to Masha with a question.

“So is that all?”

“No,” Masha hurried to answer. “There’s also the architect. He died in a strange way, plus he was left in an apartment on Lenivka Street—”

“What about Lenivka Street? Make it quick, okay?”

“It’s right by the Pushkin Museum. When you line up the maps of the two cities, that corresponds with the Jaffa Gate.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it for now. But I’m sure I haven’t found everything yet. There are other strange murders, we just need to match them up with—”

“Intern Karavay.” Andrey scowled. “You’re a real serial-killer fanatic, aren’t you? Do you get a little excited over these guys? You’re seeing them everywhere you look. Real detectives don’t arrange real life to fit a theory. It’s the other way around.

“Let me ask you something very elementary. Why these people, exactly? If this is a serial killer, how is he choosing his victims? A governor’s wife, an old drunk, an architect, and a hitman? There’s something about serial killers you ought to know, seeing as you’re such an expert. They all have some signature, a modus operandi. Where’s yours?”

Nobody spoke.

“Executions,” said Innokenty, finally. “Each one was killed in a way people used to be executed in the Middle Ages. The governor’s wife was quartered, Yelnik was drowned under the ice, the drunk was subjected to a kind of water torture, and those others had their tongues cut out.”

“Pretty flimsy,” said Andrey, not deigning to look at him.

Then he stood up, grabbed his denim jacket from the back of the chair, took out a couple of banknotes, and tossed them carelessly onto the table.

“One more thing, Intern Karavay. If this is the work of a serial killer, those numbers must mean something. So I’m sure you have an explanation?” He waited for a few seconds, then gave each of them a wry look and nodded. “See you around.” And he walked out of the restaurant.

Andrey felt great. He had finally given the perfect speech, even if it wasn’t in Anyutin’s office. There were just three flaws to his perfect exit. First, there was something compelling about that crazy theory. Second, his dramatic gesture with the money would cost him and Marilyn Monroe a week’s worth of provisions.

And third, Masha Karavay was a surprisingly good match for that pretty-faced jackass in the suit. For some reason, that really bothered him.