The Sin Collector

MASHA

The two of them were perched on a low windowsill in the stairwell of Masha’s building. Her notebook was open on her lap, and she was completely happy.

Just the day previous, Masha had thought she would never be able to go back to Petrovka, not after that bucket of scorn Andrey had dumped on her in the café. The pain she felt had finally made her understand that she was head over heels in love with this denim-clad detective with the everyday blue eyes.

But that meant nothing, she had told herself. Her own stupid feelings weren’t important. The only thing that mattered was the killer roaming Moscow, seeing Heavenly Jerusalem everywhere he looked. She had almost managed to convince herself. But then when she’d seen Andrey outside her building, her heart had seemed to beat everywhere in her body at once. And then, when they’d kissed, first standing there outside, then sitting on the bench, long enough for their eyes to go cloudy and their lips to be rubbed raw… And then when he’d pulled her head gently down onto his shoulder, and they’d sat there side by side…

The downstairs neighbor had finally broken things up when he came out to walk his enormous Newfoundland. The dog adored Masha and had no idea he should be discreet. The abashed neighbor had tried to pull the beast away, purposefully averting his eyes, but Masha had laughed and petted the dog’s shaggy head. Neither of them had felt like talking about the murderer, but they knew they had to, so they’d decided to hold an impromptu work meeting there at the third-floor window.

“So you like dogs?” Andrey had asked as they’d climbed the stairs.

“I love them,” Masha said. “Why?”

“I have one for you to meet. Name of Marilyn Monroe.”

“A girl?”

“No, a boy. And cocky, too. You’ll have to take a tough line with him when you, um, come see my place.” And he’d smiled such a bashful, happy smile that Masha had felt like kissing him again, but she’d decided to control herself.

“So. I figured out the numbers,” she now told him, flipping to the new chart. “And surprise, surprise, it’s totally medieval. It turns out there’s an Orthodox text called The Torments, or St. Theodora’s Journey Through the Tollhouses. Remember how Kenty mentioned that the concept of purgatory was only accepted by Catholics?”

Andrey rolled his eyes, and Masha poked him in the ribs.

“Stop it! This is important for understanding the criminal’s mind. It turns out that these tollhouses are the only way for Orthodox Christians to atone for their sins.”

“How’s that?” asked Andrey.

“At each tollhouse, the soul is tried for everything it ever did, said, and thought. Finally, it gets sentenced either to heaven or to hell. Here, look.” She handed Andrey the notebook. “It all fits! These Torments are our Sin Collector’s manual, and Moscow is his New Jerusalem, where no sinful souls should be allowed to live! He’s already up to the fifteenth tollhouse. Read this.”

“‘We passed the fifteenth Torment: Magic, Sorcery, Poisoning, and the Summoning of Demons.’”

“That’s Adelaide, the psychic eaten by ants!”

“Super,” Andrey said glumly. “How many are left?”

“Five,” Masha answered quietly.