A Whisper to the Living

5

“What do you see?” asked Paulinin.

The look on his face, Iosef Rostnikov decided, was that of either a madman or someone under the influence of a chemical substance. Paulinin needed a shave. Paulinin needed some sleep. Paulinin probably needed something to eat. Without his laboratory coat, Paulinin looked decidedly thin.

Zelach and Iosef looked down at the corpses of the man and the woman who were facing them with their eyes closed.

“Like two people who have been beaten to death,” said Iosef.

“Yes, yes, certainly yes,” said the scientist with a smile. “But what about the wounds?”

Zelach, never happy to be in this dungeon of alternatively sweet and acrid odors, said, “Their faces are purple and swollen.”

“And?” Paulinin urged.

“The woman has been beaten more severely,” said Iosef. “Broken cheek and nose. One punch to the face. Right here.”

He reached over and touched the rubbery cheek of the corpse of the woman.

“All of the damage is to the right side of the damsel’s face,” said Paulinin. “Now look at him. Go on; go on.”

Iosef and Zelach looked again.

“The woman was killed by someone left-handed. It took the killer only two quick punches. One to the face. One to the neck. Whereas the man was hit at least four times, with the heaviest blows from a right hand.”

“So,” said Iosef, “we have two murderers.”

“Yes,” said Paulinin. “Two people who are able to strike with great power, one left-handed and one right-handed.”

“How tall?” asked Zelach.

Akardy Zelach seldom spoke in Paulinin’s laboratory. Zelach’s goal was to leave the large, cluttered room and its smells and visions as soon as possible. Speaking, asking questions, only prolonged the visit.

Paulinin and Iosef looked at Zelach as if he had suddenly appeared from nowhere. This was the second time he had spoken.

“That is a good question,” said the scientist. “Judging from the angle of the blows, I would say the person who killed the woman was taller than she and the person who killed the man was about his height, unless of course. .”

“What?” asked Iosef.

“Unless our victim here was on the floor when he was struck,” said Paulinin. “Have I answered your question, Inspector Zelach?”

“Yes.”

“And how is your mother?”

Zelach had spoken of his mother only once to Paulinin, and that had been several years ago. At that time Zelach had mentioned that his mother had great trouble breathing and that state doctors were doing little for her.

“The same,” Zelach said, and then amended his comment to, “not so well.”

“Wait,” said Paulinin, holding up a hand and disappearing into dark shadows and narrow paths.

Iosef was looking down at the bodies now, examining them closely. In a few seconds, Paulinin emerged, carrying a small, brown bottle.

“Here, give one of these pills to your mother in the morning and one at night before she goes to bed,” Paulinin said. “And, under your promise that she has no thoughts of suicide, tell no one where you got this. It is quite illegal.”

Zelach took the pills, said nothing but nodded his thanks.

“There is something you have not shared with us,” said Iosef, facing the scientist.

“There is,” said Paulinin. “I wanted to finish a few more tests to be certain, but I am reasonably certain that I know who killed the woman.”

“Would you give them to your mother if she were ill?” asked Zelach.

They were walking swiftly toward a crackling concrete-box apartment building. The something that fell from the sky was neither rain nor snow but a kind of penetrating gray slush that was peculiar to Moscow.

“My mother is ill. As you know, quite ill,” said Iosef. “I would offer her something that Paulinin handed me, but he has not offered such a thing to me.”

Zelach nodded. He could feel the brown bottle in his pocket, hear the pills tinkling against the brown glass.

They had entered dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Stalin-era buildings like this over the years. Dark stairwells that echoed sharply with each step and smelled of tobacco, food, and the sweat of a thousand bodies.

Zelach carried a small Chinese-made flashlight for situations like this. There was, however, enough light in this sagging building to see the numbers on the doors.

Iosef knocked. He knocked again. He knocked a third time. They heard a shuffling on the other side of the door, and Iosef, in his deepest and most commanding voice, said, “Police.”

“I am not at home,” came the voice of a woman.

“Open the door,” said Iosef. “We are here to talk to you about your husband’s death.”

“I am expecting a visitor,” the woman said. “Very soon.”

“You have a visitor,” said Iosef. “The police.”

There was no sound from within for at least fifteen seconds.

“All right, but be quick. I am expecting a visitor.”

The door opened and a large woman stood before them, her hair a wild, untamed dance of fading blond tips and stringy brown stalks, her face a mask of almost grotesque makeup. She wore a white nightdress that she held closed across her breasts.

She could have been any age from twenty to sixty, her face a round red-dappled apple with two quite beautiful blue eyes that seemed to have trouble focusing. She was clearly drunk at ten in the morning.

“I’ve had a few drinks,” she acknowledged, correctly reading the look on their faces. “My husband just died. But you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Iosef.

“Come in,” she said.

They entered and she closed the door.

They stood in a chaos of pillows, filled ashtrays, clothes piled on a brown sagging sofa, glasses, and two bottles on a small table.

She pushed a pillow out of the way on the sofa and sat heavily looking around when she was firmly in place.

“The cat, do you see the. . no, never mind. The cat is dead. I plan to get a new cat and some new clothes with the money.”

“Money?” asked Iosef.

Albina Babinski looked up, in an apparent moment of searching for sobriety to deal with her error.

“A friend owes me money,” she said. “What do you want to know about Fedot? You want the names of his women too?”

“Too?” Iosef repeated as Zelach looked around the apartment without turning his head.

“I do not keep secrets well,” she said, running a hand through her jungle of hair. “I am of too honest a nature.”

Zelach moved to a low table against the wall on which were scattered cups, magazines, filled ashtrays, and a dozen or so small framed photographs. He picked up one of the photographs.

“Leave those alone, Cossack,” the woman shouted at Zelach, who replaced the photograph.

“Someone has paid you to give him the names of women with whom your husband had affairs?” asked Iosef, ignoring the outburst.

“How did you know?” Albina Babinski asked, her hand coming down to partially reveal one full pink right breast.

Zelach could not keep himself from looking.

“You just told us. Who is he?” asked Iosef, apparently paying no attention to the naked breast.

“She, it is a woman. Do I keep the money?”

“When is she coming?”

“By ten o’clock,” she said, reaching for one of the bottles on the nearby table and examining the glasses to determine which one was the least dirty.

Zelach looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to ten.

“What is the woman’s name?”

“Vera something. She is a reporter for something, I think. I do not care about her name, just her money. Fedot Babinski has left me nothing but anguish and wasted years. I will need to go back to work again, but not at my old profession.”

“Tell us the names of the women,” said Iosef, who nodded at Zelach, who, in turn, took out his notebook and began writing the names as Albina Babinski struggled to remember them.

“I think that is all,” she said after finishing the recitation of names and a not-small glass of vodka.

She had leaned over in the course of giving her information. The tops of both of her breasts now showed, right to the nipples. She suddenly looked up and caught Zelach’s eyes looking at her. He averted his eyes, but it was too late.

“You like what you see, shy policeman?” she asked.

“Cover yourself,” said Iosef patiently.

“What did you see?” she asked, pulling the nightgown closed again.

“A small but distinct surgical scar on your right breast,” said Zelach. “And another on your left. You have had small growths removed from both. There is a white spot just above the nipple of your left breast, indicating that you may have another growth there that needs attention.”

Albina Babinski’s mouth opened. She looked at Iosef, who had no intention of helping her. She had asked the question. Iosef was familiar with such bursts of observation from Akardy Zelach.

Before more could be said, there was a knock at the door. Zelach checked his watch. It was two minutes to ten.

They both woke up with the first light of dawn.

Iris Templeton reached out with her right hand and touched the chest of Sasha Tkach, who lay on his back atop the blanket. Then she moved her fingers down to his stomach, almost tickling, till she felt the curled hair between his legs and his ready member pointing straight toward the ceiling. She rolled over on top of him, looking down at his sad eyes, and eased him into her. She continued with small, steady strokes, which prompted him deeper and ever deeper. She breathed heavily, reaching down to press her thumb across his lips and into his mouth. Now she was frenzied and moving dizzily, her hair swirling, her voice uttering something in English Sasha did not understand, but he understood her need and met it. He sighed. She moaned as they suddenly stopped and met at the same moment.

They remained in that position till he slowly wilted. Then Iris rolled over and lay back on the bed in her room at the Zaray Hotel.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You are very good, you know,” she said.

He did not answer, so Iris continued with, “Your body was hungry, but your thoughts were far away. Are you married?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And your wife is. .?”

“In Kiev with our two children. She left me.”

“Why?”

“Because of mornings like this,” he said. “My clothes. .?”

“I laid them out for you,” she said. “They are unwrinkled.”

“I need to shave,” he said.

“I have extra disposable razors.”

“Elena Timofeyeva will be calling me soon,” he said, sitting up.

“You would rather she not know that we spent the night together? You could get no closer in your responsibility to protect me.”

“The Chief Inspector would not approve,” said Sasha, rising. “He would not be surprised, but he would not approve. I need a shower.”

“May I join you?” Iris said, standing and looking at him.

He shrugged and said, “Yes, of course.”

The lack of enthusiasm for the offer was evident to Iris. She was good at seeing through lies and deceptions. He was bad at hiding them. He was afraid she would want more if she stepped in under the warm shower. He was sure he would want more.

“I think not this time. You have lots of scars. From dissatisfied women?”

“From criminals,” he said. “The razor. .?”

“On the shelf above the sink in a plastic container.”

“You have very smooth skin,” Sasha said, looking at her.

“You mean for someone my age?”

“For someone any age.”

“Thank you. I will order coffee and something to eat. You go shower.”

He nodded, went into the bathroom, found the razors, and turned on the shower. While he waited for the water to turn warm, he picked up the thin bar of soap on the edge of the sink and looked into the mirror.

The Sasha Tkach he saw was quite different from the one with whom he had grown up. That Sasha Tkach had the face of a boy, a handsome boy who seemed to draw women of all ages. That boy had fallen in love with and married a beautiful Ukrainian girl named Maya. They had had two children. But he had been unable to control his animal desires. And she had left.

Now the Sasha Tkach in the mirror was a man, a handsome man with soulful eyes and no trace of boyishness. That man still held an animal within him. The evidence of that was the Englishwoman in the next room. He had not hesitated to come up here with her, to take off his clothes, to kiss and hold and make love to her and have her make love to him while all the time he thought of Maya and nearly wept believing he would never be able to control the animal within.

Steam covered the mirror and Sasha backed away, knowing that if Iris called he would return to the bed in spite of the hour, in spite of Elena, who would be calling him, in spite of his memories of Maya.

He stepped into the shower. It was too hot. His fair skin would be red for hours. He was tempted to make it even hotter, but instead he cleansed himself and then lathered his face with soap. His beard was light and came off with gentle, even strokes.

When he finished showering, he reached out for the towel on the nearby rack. Iris stood in front of him, still naked, towel in hand.

“Inspector Timofeyeva is on the phone.”

“The room phone?”

“Cell.”

Sasha eased past the smiling Iris, wrapping the towel carelessly around his waist. The phone lay on the bed. He picked it up.

“You did not answer your cell phone,” Elena said.

He detected no hint of reprimand.

“No, I have not turned it on yet.”

He was certain that she knew, and his certainty was confirmed by her question.

“Are you dressed?”

“No,” he said.

“Get dressed and bring Miss Templeton down to the lobby with you. Daniel Volkovich is dead.”

Iris was standing in the doorway of the bathroom meeting his sudden glance. Volkovich, the procurer who had allowed himself to be interviewed by Iris and who had let her into the brothel, was dead.

“What is it?” Iris asked.

“Get dressed quickly and come down. I have another surprise for you and Miss Templeton,” said Elena. She hung up.

Sasha hung up, tossed the towel on the bed, and reached for his underpants, saying, “Daniel Volkovich is dead.”

Iris dressed quickly. When she was finished, she spent a few moments in the bathroom preparing herself, doing her best to quickly brush her hair into a semblance of order.

They left the room together and used the stairs instead of waiting for the indifferent elevator. They found Elena Timofeyeva sitting in the lobby with a pretty young woman who had difficulty holding her cigarette steady between her fingers.

Elena looked at Sasha and Iris as they approached. There was no overt sign of reproach in Elena’s look, but Sasha detected a distinct disapproval.

Elena stood and so did the nervous young woman.

“This is Olga Grinkova,” said Elena. “She went to a police patrol car early this morning. She told her story and was taken to Petrovka, where she was directed to the Office of Special Investigations, where she sat waiting when I arrived. It was Olga who reported the murder of Daniel Volkovich. She is afraid that she too will be murdered.”

The young woman’s eyes were red and moist. Sasha detected an almost imperceptible quiver in her full lower lip. Olga Grinkova’s eyes kept turning toward the lobby door.

“Why is she afraid that she might be killed too?” asked Iris.

“Because,” said Elena, “she talked to you last night.”

Iris looked at the young woman again and said, “Svetlana?”

Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov was well prepared with reading material this morning. He had his usual Eighty-seventh Precinct novel and two newspapers. The skies had stopped dropping various kinds of moisture, leaving only a dark slush that seeped into the shoes of those who failed to take this weather into account.

Rostnikov had, thanks to his wife, been well prepared with ankle-high waterproof shoes. The left shoe had proved to be somewhat obstinate. In custom-manufacturing the foot, the craftsmen had made the left foot more than a half size too large. The artificial left foot of all three pairs of shoes that the Chief Inspector owned had been stretched. He kept a special German-made shoe stretcher in the left shoe he planned to wear each morning, but as soon as the device was removed the shoe began to seek its normal shape and size.

Porfiry Petrovich considered forming a self-help group for people with one leg to discuss all the things that the two-footed never thought about. He considered it, but he was certain he would not be forming such a group.

One thing he would have put on the agenda of the first meeting, had he actually proceeded with the idea, was the problem of walking. Now he was walking through Bitsevsky Park, pausing from time to time to search for a bird feeder. He found three among the trees at least fifteen feet from the path. As he walked, the policeman displayed only a slight limp, but he felt a distinct growing ache where his leg had once been. He would have to sit very soon.

People passed him coming and going. He noted but did not acknowledge them. These were people on the way to work as he was. They had no time for pleasantries and barely enough time for small unpleasantries.

There were few morning chess players. They had been greeted with wet benches and tables. The veterans had remembered to bring towels to dry enough space for them to begin their combat. If these veterans recognized those who had not come prepared, they might allow them to use their towels.

Rostnikov had planned to make it as far as the ski slope. There would be no skiing today. The hills would be sponges of cold water with puddles of melting ice.

It was too far and would be too much for his leg. He had not set the slope as a goal because he expected to find anything there. He had no clear objectives. He turned around and headed along the meandering path back to the entrance to the park from which he had come.

As he moved slowly, he encountered a small bridge over the creek and paused to listen to the rushing water. He went to a bench nearby, cleared a spot for himself with some wadded newspaper, and sat facing the water and the trees, most of which were weeks from bearing leaves again.

After listening and watching as people passed and birds began to chirp, cry, and caw, Rostnikov took out his novel and found his place. The book was in English. Porfiry Petrovich could understand written English far better than he could understand English when it was spoken to him or he spoke it. It also helped that this was the third time he had read this particular ragged-edged paperback.

“What are you reading?” asked the man who sat next to Rostnikov after picking up the wadded newspaper and using it to dry a space for himself.

“An American police mystery,” said Rostnikov.

“What is it about?”

“A group of detectives in a mythical city who are trying to catch a serial killer.”

Rostnikov looked at the man, who was neither young nor quite in the middle of life. He had good teeth, a knowing smile, and the face one sees on hundreds of Russian men every day.

“I saw you here yesterday,” the man said. “Over by the chess players.”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “You were on the path walking toward Shavaska Street. You were carrying a grocery bag.”

“Yes,” said the man. “My name is Aleksandr Chenko.” He extended his hand.

Rostnikov took it and said, “I am Chief Inspector Rostnikov of the Office of Special Investigations.”

“May I ask why you spend time here?” asked Aleksandr Chenko.

“Pleasure and business.”

“The Maniac,” said the man knowingly.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“We are all worried about this madman,” said Chenko. “You police have been trying for so long. I hope you catch him soon.”

“We will catch him.”

Aleksandr looked at his conservative black-band Swatch and stood, saying, “I cannot be late for work. Well, we will probably be crossing paths from time to time if you keep coming here. I come this way to get to my work, and when I have time I put some seeds into the bird feeders. You might want to try it. The birds, particularly the pigeons, come right down and perch on your arm if you hold up a palm with a few seeds on it.”

“Your work?”

“My work? Oh, I fill shelves at the Volga Grocery Supermarket on the other side of the park. I am on my way there now. I had better hurry. I don’t want to be late.”

“No.”

“I feel better knowing you are here, Chief Inspector,” said the young man. “Do you play chess?”

“A little.”

“Perhaps we could play a game sometime soon, or are you not allowed to play games while you are on duty?”

“I play games.”

Rostnikov watched as Aleksandr Chenko moved quickly up the path. When Rostnikov was about to lose sight of him behind a bend of bushes, Chenko turned and waved. Rostnikov waved back. When he could no longer see the young man, Rostnikov took out his notebook and pencil and made the following note:

Aleksandr Chenko

Volga Grocery, does it carry Nitin wine? Is there any record of Chenko buying it? Where does he live? Does he drink guava juice?

?

Then Porfiry Petrovich went back to reading his book.