The Sin Collector

ANDREY

Andrey sat hunched over his computer, trying to figure out what sort of association the name Katya Ferzina was triggering in his subconscious. Danovich, the officer at the next desk, was talking about how this Katya Ferzina had died a couple of days ago in someone else’s car, in a crash right in the center of Moscow, and a weird crash, too. Instead of running into a mammoth SUV being driven just as badly by some other woman driver like you’d expect, Katya had driven headlong into the concrete barrier surrounding a construction project at the Rusich Centre Bank. Plus, the officers at the scene had found evidence that suggested this was no accident, but rather an elaborate assassination. But who would have gone to such lengths to assassinate young Ms. Ferzina? And where the hell had he heard that name before?

He tried typing her name. Looking at it on the screen didn’t trigger anything, so he must not have seen the name in print. He must have heard someone mention it. But who? Andrey couldn’t concentrate. All he could do was sit there and whisper, trying out different intonations. “Katya? Katya Ferzina? Katya! FER-zina! Goddammit.”

“Where’s your intern?” Danovich asked, looking over at the neat, empty half of the desk, which presented a sharp contrast to Andrey’s chaotic domain. Masha Karavay maintained impeccable order.

Andrey jumped. There, the memory had finally surfaced, and shot through him like the pain from a sore tooth. Masha had said the name on the phone, two days ago. Her friend Katya had died and she needed some time off to help with the funeral. Andrey remembered how uncomfortable her voice had made him, sounding strange and somehow dead.

“Hey,” he said, jumping up from his chair. “Who owned that car your Katya Ferzina crashed in?”

Danovich glanced at him in surprise, but he flipped through his file.

“N.S. Karavay,” he read. Then it hit him. “Karavay. The intern?”

Andrey nodded. His face had gone stiff and cold. Those weren’t Masha’s initials, but the car must belong to her family. And Masha’s friend had been murdered. And the only case Masha Karavay was involved in was Heavenly Jerusalem. No reason to worry, he told himself. No reason to worry!

“Let me have that file,” he barked, and with one more look at Andrey’s distraught face, Danovich handed it over. Andrey scoured every page until he found the statement by Rita Ferzina, mother of the deceased. Ferzina said that her daughter had been wearing somebody else’s clothes. And, she said, those clothes came from the same place as the car. They all belonged to the victim’s oldest friend, Maria Karavay. Masha!

“Andrey! Andrey!” Danovich had been tugging on his sleeve for a while now, but Andrey hadn’t noticed. “Maybe you should warn her, just in case?”

“Obviously I’m going to warn her,” Andrey growled, and shivered in the sudden cold draft blowing up from inside his mind. Could it possibly be a coincidence? Andrey believed in accidents of fate, but he hated them. Especially this kind. Especially when it came to Masha. He ripped his jacket off the back of his chair. “Right now.”