The Sin Collector

MASHA

Masha was sitting on her bedroom floor in the empty apartment, listening over and over to her and Kenty’s interviews. Books were heaped around her bed, stacked up on the chair, covering every inch of her desk. She was too tired to read, so now she was listening, thinking there must be something in their intonation, in the pauses between their words, in the subtle modulations of their voices, that could reveal a secret. A clue that would give her insight into those damn numbers written in blood, carved into skin, shaved into scalps. A broken medal. Bracelets on a dead wrist. Masha could almost hear the killer who collected sins whispering just over her shoulder: Seven, eight, nine, ten… Ready or not, here I come!

She shook her heavy head like a horse trying to scare off a fly and rewound the tape to the first recording.

“But I don’t think Slava ever had a real girlfriend before me. He wasn’t all that attractive, really. He was a joker. Skinny, kind of a wimp. I don’t have, like, a maternal instinct when it comes to men—”

Masha looked up at the photograph on the wall. Her father looked down at her with his usual calm warmth.

“It’s been another year, Papa,” Masha whispered. “And I still haven’t figured it out. What use am I? I’ve been trying so hard.”

At twelve, Masha had put her dolls away, and started playing with maniacs and monsters instead. The young Masha had a ninety-six-page lined notebook, but it wasn’t for song lyrics, or photos of pop stars, or dried flowers. It did not contain friendship oaths or names of cute boys from school. No, not quite.

Instead, it had a sketch of Gilles de Rais. He was the world’s first convicted serial killer, a comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc, and the inspiration for Bluebeard. He tortured and killed over one hundred forty children in his medieval castle. Then there was a reproduction of a lovely watercolor of Darya Saltykova wearing a lace bonnet. She was a pious widow with a fondness for using hot curling irons to batter her serfs. She also had a picture of Ted Bundy, the American serial killer who raped, tortured, and killed women from 1974 to 1978—and who practically made serial killers fashionable—and the darling young David Berkowitz, who operated from 1976 to 1977.

The Soviets were all there, too—Chikatilo, Slivko, and Golovkin—notable for just how ordinary they looked. She had newspaper clippings, printouts from web pages, carefully notated tables classifying mental pathologies, analyses of criminal profiles, and excerpts from the memoirs of FBI agents who specialized in catching serial killers. The excerpts Masha had copied out herself, point by point, when she was fourteen. (1) Think of yourself as a hunter. (2) Become a psychologist to discover how your victim thinks. (3) Craft the perfect plan to lure the victim onto safe ground. (4) The hunter cannot afford to make mistakes.

And there were pages and pages of quotes. Quotes from Chikatilo’s interrogation. Quotes from Robert Ressler, the real-life detective who people say inspired The Silence of the Lambs. Quotes by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, whose groundbreaking Psychopathia Sexualis was published in 1886. There were even quotes from Sherlock Holmes, which were comparatively lighthearted in this company. Her favorite line was “Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.”

Two theories. There had been two theories about her father’s death. The first, and most likely, was that it was a contract killing. Fyodor Karavay had a brilliance and sense of humor that allowed him to emerge triumphant from even the most complicated trials. There are always a few star lawyers in any legal sky, but the elder Karavay was undoubtedly the brightest of them all. He was known to quote Shakespeare fluently when defending a jealous husband. He hauled antique statues into court to demonstrate the angles at which a victim might or might not have been stabbed. He educated the judges, he confounded them, he made them laugh. But most of all, Karavay taught them to question their assumption that they’d always support the prosecution. He taught them judicial ethics. And they learned from him.

Once university students started to sit in on Karavay’s trials, Masha’s father had felt emboldened to take on a different category of cases. Karavay began representing journalists accused of slander, families whose children had been attacked by skinheads, and ministry officials accused of espionage.

Karavay had his enemies, certainly, and there were any number of people who might have had him killed out of simple spite. That kind of murder, halfheartedly disguised as a robbery gone wrong, was a very popular way out of sticky situations for a certain class of powerful people at the time. Masha had eavesdropped outside the kitchen door while Nick-Nick tried to explain to her mother that, even if they could catch the person who’d stabbed her husband three times, they’d probably never ID the man who’d ordered the hit. It was typical for hitmen not to know who they were working for—that way, they couldn’t rat anyone out, which the cops didn’t mind one bit. Why would they want to dig too deep into the schemes brewed up by local bigshots? It was a dead end.

“Is there a second theory, then?” Mama had asked, her voice flat and dull, and little Masha had pressed her ear to the door so hard it hurt.

“Well…” Nick-Nick had probably waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s a silly one. Not really worth considering. Over the past five years, there have been a handful of murders around Moscow with similar types of wounds inflicted. Petrovka is exploring the idea of a serial killer.”

Masha remembered the silence that had fallen on the other side of that door. Then she’d heard the sound of a stool being hastily pushed back and a drinking glass falling over. The syrupy smell of the Valocordin Mama was taking for her nerves had seeped out from under the door.

Months later, Masha had asked Nick-Nick a question. He was still stopping by regularly at that point, trying and failing to get Natasha to talk to him. He and Masha always ended up playing chess instead.

“How do you catch a serial killer?”

Nick-Nick had peered at Masha from under his eyebrows. “It’s not easy. Serial killers are not so much a criminal-justice problem as an anthropological one.” When he’d seen the perplexed expression on Masha’s face, he’d smiled. “That means we don’t really understand how a person can take pleasure in killing. In most cases, serial killers are mentally competent, and they lead seemingly normal lives. They go to work, love their wives, raise their children… Why, then? One fine day—or night, or morning—why does a model family man put down his crossword puzzle and go out to murder someone? And if we can’t figure out why, then how are we going to find him? What clues would we have? Detectives also have another important challenge: How can they anticipate the killer’s next victim, pick them out of millions of ordinary people?”

That was the first step down a long road. That was the day Masha found purpose. From the two possible explanations of her father’s murder, she’d picked the second, less likely option. Contract killings, back in the late 1990s, were too ordinary. If it were a serial killer, though, that was strange, exceptional, and—according to Sir Conan Doyle—there was hope of finding the killer after all! She just needed to understand him. That understanding would help Masha finally banish the terror and grief that kept waking her up at night in a cold sweat. Every time it happened, she was relieved to realize she’d only been dreaming, until she remembered that her nightmare was all too real.

Masha finally tore her gaze away from her father’s portrait. She stood up, gathered all the library books in an enormous shopping bag, grabbed the key to her stepfather’s car, and headed for the front door. Suddenly, she turned and ran back to her bedroom to check an address on the computer. She heard her phone ringing, but she ignored it. There was someone who could help her! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

A thunderstorm was rolling in. The birds had fallen silent in anticipation, the old trees stretched upward as if preparing for battle, and the light-yellow hospital building in the depths of the park almost glowed in contrast with the darkness moving in from the south. Masha dashed through the humid air into the lobby, where an air conditioner hummed quietly.

“I’d like to see Professor Gluzman,” she told the receptionist.

“Do you have an appointment?” the girl asked sternly.

“No.”

The girl dialed a number, listened for a second, and then hung up.

“I’m afraid Professor Gluzman cannot see anyone right now.”

“I must see him,” Masha told her firmly. She pulled her Petrovka credentials out of her bag and gave the receptionist a strict look. The woman frowned, and Masha cringed a little at throwing her weight around like this.

“I’ll call someone to escort you,” the girl said drily.

A nurse silently led Masha to Gluzman’s room. Masha never would have been able to find the right door herself in that endless corridor, as white and featureless as a hallway in some sci-fi thriller. The nurse knocked. When a voice inside told them to come in, she stepped aside and let Masha enter. Inside, the room was dimly lit. Gluzman’s lap was draped with a blanket, and he was wearing pajamas. He sat facing the window, continuously smoothing the blanket over his knees, apparently bewitched by the scene outside. The rain had not yet started falling, but the wind had picked up, sending the summertime dust spinning.

“Good afternoon,” Masha said, closing the door quietly behind her. Gluzman turned to face her, and she jumped in fright. The professor’s eyes looked completely empty, and terrifying.

“Hi!” he said, and smiled ghoulishly, showing his snow-white dentures.

Masha had to force herself to smile back. Did this transfigured Gluzman even recognize her?

“Dr. Gluzman,” she began cautiously. “I’m Masha, Innokenty’s friend.” He nodded. “Last time we were here, we talked about Heavenly Jerusalem. Do you remember? You were right. He truly is killing people he thinks are sinners in places connected with the City of Heaven. But I can’t figure out what pattern he’s following. Until I understand his numbering system, we won’t be able to catch him.” She stopped, waiting for the professor’s response.

Gluzman suddenly leered at her, and he beckoned her closer with one finger. Masha cautiously stepped forward and bent over him. She heard a quiet giggle.

“I wonder…” The professor’s whisper tickled her ear. “What sort of sexual fantasies do you think Inno-centi has about you?”

Masha jumped back. “Dr. Gluzman, Innokenty and I have been friends since we were little!”

Gluzman cackled again, leaning back in his wheelchair. “Oh, of course, a childhood friendship! That blameless little flower, which often conceals a monstrosity!” Gluzman’s eyes were no longer empty. Instead there was madness boiling up behind them, gathering force. Masha tried to retreat to the door, but he rolled himself forward, slowly but steadily, still holding her gaze and cackling frightfully.

“And what sort of fantasies do you have, my lady?” His voice sounded smooth, almost gentle. “Or has your generation suffered a castration of the imagination? No elementary logic, no intellect!” Gluzman’s voice was rising. “I’ve never seen anyone so stupid!” he shouted.

But Masha was shoving the door open, and there were nurses and aides rushing in—they must have been standing outside at the ready. They probably have security cameras everywhere, Masha thought, feeling at a strange distance from events, as though this were all a bad dream.

She watched the medical staff restrain Gluzman. A nurse tried to guide a needle into his vein while the professor worked his way up to a howl, never taking his terrible gaze off of her.

“The Torments!” Gluzman was shouting.

And Masha, as if awakening from her dream, finally bolted out of the room and ran down the hall.

“The Torments!” he wailed after her. “Wallow not in fornication, but rather pay the tolls for your sins!”

Though her hands were shaking badly, Masha managed to unlock the car. She slammed the door and sat there awhile, trying to catch her breath as the first rumblings of thunder heralded rain that soon drummed on her roof and windows. Masha closed her eyes. Gluzman was the second man in twenty-four hours to call her an idiot. That must be some kind of record, she thought. They were probably right. And her boss had called her sick—he was probably right about that, too. But maybe it took a sick person to understand a serial killer. Masha could imagine things that Andrey’s mentally healthy, experienced detective brain simply could not. She could take an excursion down the dark paths of another person’s madness, and search him out there, even if she ended up in the room next to Gluzman’s as a result. She had to do this. She had no choice. Otherwise, all her suffering over Papa’s death would have been in vain.

Calmer now, Masha pulled her hair into a ponytail and sped off through the driving summer rain. If she had turned around, she would have seen Gluzman silhouetted in the window, swaddled like a baby, sadly watching her go.

Masha’s turn came, and she handed the reference librarian her request slips.

“I’d like to see everything you have on medieval Russian literature, especially the source texts themselves.”

The librarian looked up at her. “The originals have to stay in the reading room.”

“That’s fine.”

The librarian nodded. “What about schismatic texts? Do those interest you?”

“Probably,” said Masha, uncertainly. “Of course, they’re out of date now.”

“Well, all medieval texts are ‘out of date,’ aren’t they?” noted the librarian. “But before the revolution, those Old Believers made up thirty percent of the population. They’re still around today.”

Masha lifted her tired eyes. “Really? I always thought they were history.”

The librarian snorted.

“I’ll take those, too, please,” Masha said.

She found a place to sit alongside some scholarly looking women with old-fashioned hairdos, and settled in for a long wait. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and Masha’s head jerked—she’d nodded off. The librarian was stacking a pile of books on the table. Zachariasz Kopysteński’s Book on Faith. A Book of Hours. And there were more… Masha signed for them mechanically, and the librarian walked away, shooting her one last pitying look. She must have taken Masha for a beleaguered graduate student. Masha wiped her eyes determinedly and read the title of the first book in the pile.

Was she still sleeping? The reading room seemed to spin under her feet.