Death Of A Russian Priest

SIX

The four men who met Rostnikov and Karpo on the platform of the Arkush train station were a somber lot. The little man with a smile of pain on his face, which Rostnikov soon learned was perpetual, introduced himself as Dmitri Dmitriovich, the mayor of Arkush. His white hair was parted in the middle and he wore a heavy, ancient dark gray wool suit that appeared to be at least a size too big. When Rostnikov took the extended hand, he felt a slight tremor, the first stages of some palsy or a reaction to the events of the past two days.

Next to introduce himself was Misha Gonsk, who had been the local MVD directorate. He was an overweight man in his late forties who wore a brown uniform and struggled to hold in his ample stomach. Evidently unsure whether he should shake hands or salute, he settled for standing at attention, closing his eyes for an instant, and bowing his head almost imperceptibly to the two visitors.

As the other two men stepped forward to be introduced, Emil Karpo made notes in his black book. The mayor was disconcerted.

“Why … I know it is not my place to ask … but why are you taking our names? We are not … this is …”

When Karpo did not so much as pause in his note taking, the mayor shrugged, touched his hair to be sure that it was still symmetrical, and looked at the two remaining members of the delegation. One of them, a tall man of about fifty, had the strong arms and slouched shoulders of a farmer.

“My name is Petrov, Vadim Petrov. I was Communist party representative of the Arkush council. Now … who knows?” He faced both policemen squarely and shook hands with a firmness that impressed Rostnikov. “Our mayor is understandably nervous,” Petrov explained. “Crime is unknown in our community.”

“Not exactly unknown, Petrov,” the policeman, Gonsk, asserted. “In the twenty years I have had the responsibility of enforcing the law in Arkush, there have been many crimes, all of which have been immediately investigated and reported to Moscow. Only last week-and our mayor will confirm this-there was a theft in the marketplace-tomatoes. And last month the toilet seats were taken from the party hall. Two seats.”

“Grave offenses,” Petrov said dryly. “But now we have a murder. Let me finish the introductions and take you for some tea. This is Peotor Merhum, the son of Father Merhum.”

Peotor Merhum, solid and handsome with blond hair and a fair complexion, was a sullen young man who did not offer his hand. He barely nodded.

Petrov, who had clearly taken over leadership of the small band from the bewildered mayor, led the group past the brick ticket booth of the train station to a sidewalk. “There is no point in taking a car,” he said. “Arkush is too small. Tea is waiting for us at the party hall.”

“From which,” Peotor Merhum added bitterly, “the infamous and important toilet seats were taken. Perhaps in your spare time you can help our town protector”-he glanced at Misha Gonsk-“to find the culprit.”

“Peotor is our town cynic,” Petrov explained.

“He is distraught about his father’s-” the mayor began, but Peotor Merhum cut him off.

“I am not distraught. Father Vasili Merhum was father to everyone but his son. It is no secret that I was less than dutiful. Why should we present a lie which the police will recognize the moment they talk to any man, woman, or child in Arkush?”

They were moving slowly because of Rostnikov’s leg, but Peotor kept stepping out ahead. The ample-bellied Gonsk kept pace with Rostnikov. Karpo dropped back a bit to follow and observe. All of the passengers who had gotten off the train had moved ahead of them.

“They are going to the church,” the mayor explained. “Services for Father Merhum this afternoon. A bishop is in Arkush to conduct the service. A bishop.”

They passed small ancient houses of wood and stone along me cobbled street. It struck Rostnikov that he had gotten off me train and stepped into the past. The street curved to the right and into the town’s main square where the buildings were no more than two stories high. Behind the buildings to his right was a small forest of brown-and-gray treetops over which he could see the four golden towers of the church.

In the center of the square stood a pedestal. There was nothing on it.

“Lenin,” said Vadim Petrov, the party chairman. “Vandals knocked it over during the first days of madness.”

“A crime our protector of toilets failed to mention,” Peotor Merhum said derisively.

“I was going to; it was in my report,” Misha Gonsk said quickly, looking back at Karpo to see if he had noted this omission.

“He isn’t sure of your politics yet,” Peotor Merhum said. “Our Misha is a survivor. He puts both hands in his mouth and holds up all ten fingers to decide which way the wind is blowing.”

“We are a close-knit and supportive community,” said Petrov, “a big family, as you can see.”

Peotor shrugged.

“How old are you, Peotor Merhum?” Rostnikov asked.

Since these were the policeman’s first words, the four men of the village studied him carefully to determine the meaning of this question.

“That is of no …” Peotor began, looked at Petrov, shrugged, and continued, “thirty-one. Why? What difference does that make?”

“In the presence of their fathers or the ghosts of their fathers, many men are forever children,” Rostnikov said.

“Is that an insult?” Peotor said.

They had stopped in front of a three-story, gray wooden building, evidently the party hall.

“An observation,” said Rostnikov. “Would you like another one?”

“No,” said Peotor.

“Go ahead, Inspector,” said Petrov the farmer, his eyes on Peotor Merhum.

“I have frequently seen grief expressed as guilt and anger. It is my experience that it should be recognized, acknowledged, and tolerated to the extent that it does not interfere with the life that must go on.”

“He’s telling you to stop behaving like a child, Peotor,” Petrov explained.

“I understood, I’m not a fool,” Peotor Merhum shot back.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the mayor said nervously. “We are on the street. People can …Let’s go inside, inside.”

They made their way through the first door to an overly warm room furnished with a table and seven chairs. The room looked and smelled like Communist party meeting halls Rostnikov had been in from Yalta to Siberia.

Everyone but Emil Karpo hung his coat on a rack just inside the door. On the table, the kind that folds in the middle and has black painted legs, were cups and a plate of large pyeechyeh’yah, cookies. They all sat down, and an old woman and a boy who must have been watching from another room came hurrying in with boiling pots of tea.

The walk from the station had not been terribly long, but after the train ride in which Rostnikov had moved very little, the distance had taken a toll on his leg. He resisted the urge to massage it.

Rostnikov looked at the blond boy who served the tea. Normally children and adults found it difficult to keep from looking at Emil Karpo. This boy, however, was watching Peotor Merhum with a mixture of emotions that Rostnikov had difficulty reading-fear, concern, grief. Peotor Merhum did not look up.

“We have prepared rooms for you here in the hall,” Petrov said. “I’m certain you will find them comfortable. There is no hotel in town. It is said that Trotsky spent two nights here.”

“A comforting thought,” said Rostnikov, accepting a cookie from the plate offered to him by Misha Gonsk, who then took three for himself.

“Given the madness of our times,” said Petrov, “it may well be that Trotsky will soon be reinstated as a hero of the early revolution, his picture on walls. We are in need of new gods now that the old ones have been broken.”

“I’ve had nothing to eat all day,” Gonsk jumped in. “Much too busy with the … I’ll take you to the scene of the … whenever you like.”

“Inspector Karpo will be remaining here overnight. I must get back to Moscow. You will take him to the location of the crime and I will remain here and talk to each of you individually.”

The cookies were good, and Rostnikov had two more. The conversation ceased for a few minutes, except for requests to pass the teapot, until it was revived by Rostnikov.

“There are a few others I would also like to talk to. Is there another priest in town?”

“Not on a regular basis,” Misha Gonsk said quickly, “but since Father Merhum was so well known, many priests, especially young ones, came from time to time. There are quite a few here now, for the funeral services. And the bishop. Did we mention the bishop?”

“I mentioned the bishop,” the mayor said with obvious irritation.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“And there are newspaper reporters. Pravda itself,” Gonsk said.

“And,” the mayor added with undisguised pride, “a television crew from the nine o’clock news, ‘Vremya.’”

Karpo, who had taken neither tea nor cookies, was taking notes.

“Perhaps we will talk to one or two of them later. And the nun, Sister …?”

“Nina,” said the mayor, who started to cross himself, looked around the table, and stopped with his hand almost to his heart. The hand went quickly to his lap.

“I should like to see her. And anyone in the town named Oleg.”

“Yes,” said Gonsk, coming to life. “I anticipated this request. We have seven Olegs. One of them is four months old. Another is six. Six years. His father … but that is not important. That leaves five, including Oleg Boshisi, who is possibly the oldest-no, the second oldest person in town. Oleg is ninety-one. Dlyana Gremonovaya is ninety-four. The other three are Oleg Brotsch, the baker. He baked these cookies-”

“Very tasty,” said Rostnikov.

“Uh, and then,” Gonsk went on, squinting at a crumpled piece of paper he had extracted from his pocket. The paper looked like the torn corner of a newspaper. “Then, let me see …”

“Oleg Brotsch’s son, who is also Oleg. He is fifteen,” said Petrov, his hands folded on the table.

“Sixteen,” Gonsk countered.

“Sixteen,” Petrov responded. “I am corrected. He is sixteen and feebleminded. He needs his mother’s help to fart.”

“Oleg Grogaiganov is some kind of businessman. He travels.”

“Is he in Arkush now?”

“Yes.”

“And the last Oleg?” Rostnikov added.

“Oleg Pninov,” said Misha Gonsk, returning the paper to his pocket.

“Pninov is the last of a proud line,” Peotor Merhum said. “Town drunks running back for generations. We have several town drunks and a trio of village idiots, though some would say we have even more. Inbreeding does it.”

“We will talk to them all,” said Rostnikov, without looking at Peotor Merhum.

“Even the baby and the child?” asked Gonsk.

“Their parents.”

“The father, the baby’s father, is in Siberia. He’s an engineer working on-” Gonsk said.

“Use your good judgment, comrade,” Rostnikov said. “And one more request, please turn the heat down in this room. Now, if we are finished with this welcome refreshment, I would like to talk to Inspector Karpo privately for a few moments.”

The murderer rose with the others, looked at Rostnikov, and started for the door. It had gone reasonably well. He could think of no error he had made that would give him away. He had played his part with the skill bred of years of practice.

He would watch, listen, and be prepared to act if the two from Moscow began to approach the truth. How he would act was not yet certain, but he had killed once. It could be no harder a second time.

It is illegal to beg in Moscow, but in the subway stations one frequently encounters ragged Gypsy children with their heads almost shorn and their hands out in supplication. They furrow their young brows in transparent mock agony, which covers a bravado beneath which is the real layer of agony.

The Gypsy children, usually carrying even smaller Gypsy children, made Sasha Tkach uneasy. Most Muscovites simply pretended they were not there, though occasionally an older man or woman would scold the begging children. Sasha vacillated between giving them a few kopeks and striding past them as if they did not exist. It depended on his mood. Today his mood was running wild. He handed a little girl a ten-kopek coin and plunged his hands into his pockets.

“We’ll take the purple line to the Dzerzhinsky station and then the red line to Universitet,” he said.

“The green line to Marx Prospekt is faster,” Elena said, “more direct.”

“You are not in charge,” he said as people flowed around them. “I am in charge. I am the senior officer.” He tapped his chest and looked in her eyes.

“The green line is faster,” Elena said. “But suit yourself.”

Sasha looked at the people flowing by, a pair of sailors, shoppers with half-full bags, a mother and child, hand in hand, each eating something that might have been a cucumber. “All right, the green line,” he said softly. “It is a small issue. When a big one comes, we do as I say.”

Elena shook her head. This was her fifth day with this madman. She was not sure she could tolerate another, but what recourse did she have? To complain about her partner after less than a week? It was difficult enough being one of the few women in investigation without being one who immediately complained. Short of physical abuse, she would have to tolerate this sexist.

It was midafternoon when they reached the fifteen-story apartment building on Lomonosov Prospekt behind Moscow State University. A police van was parked outside with its light flashing. No one was inside the van and there was no large crowd of the curious, though passersby did glance toward the nearby doorway and into the empty cab of the van.

Sasha Tkach was familiar with the area. On three occasions he had posed as a university student, twice to uncover black marketers and once to help find a murderer. Now he wondered if he could still get away with such a masquerade, a thirty-year-old man with a wife and, soon, two children.

The building was reasonably maintained, which meant that there were no major holes in the walls, and the stairs-there was no elevator-were a year or two from actual decay. Graffiti on the walls had been almost, but not completely, washed away, LET’S ASK ALBANIA FOR FOREIGN AID would remain until the wall was repainted.

“What floor?” Elena asked as they reached the first-floor landing.

“I don’t know,” Sasha said. “They didn’t tell me.”

Footsteps thundered down the stairwell, echoing voices of girls or young women. Sasha and Elena paused as two young women appeared above them. One of the women was dark-haired with very red lips and a little blue beret. The other was tall, thin, and breastless. The women wore identical dark blue coats. Both carried books and both looked at Sasha with interest.

“Grisha Zalinsky,” Elena asked. “You know where his apartment is?”

The girls stopped. The dark-haired one looked at Sasha. “Zalinsky,” she repeated. “Zalinsky.”

“The Jew on eight,” the tall girl said. “The one who had parties.”

“Which apartment on eight?” Elena asked.

“I don’t-” the dark-haired girl said.

“Eight-ten or eight-twelve,” said me tall girl. “Are you with the police? Are they here because of Zalinsky?”

“Yes,” said Elena, moving past the girls and up the stairs. Sasha moved up behind her.

“What has he done?” the dark-haired girl asked. “Black market? Drugs. I’ll bet it’s drugs. There are drugs in this building.”

Neither Sasha nor Elena answered as they continued up and out of sight of the girls.

“The policeman’s pretty,” one of the girls whispered below them.

“He’s married,” said the other.

“How do you know?”

“He looks married.”

The girls laughed and hurried down the stairwell.

I look married, Sasha thought.

Elena hadn’t thought of Sasha as “pretty,” but now that the girl had said it, she thought the description fit him better than “handsome.”

They had no trouble finding the apartment when they reached the eighth floor. The door was partly open. Elena stepped back to allow Sasha to enter first.

They entered a chilly room where two young uniformed officers sat smoking. The corpse of Grisha Zalinsky lay on the floor in front of them. Books were strewn everywhere.

“What do you want?” one of the officers said. “This is a crime area. Are you friends of the victim?”

“I am Deputy Inspector Tkach and this is Deputy Inspector Timofeyeva, and you are contaminating the scene of a murder.”

The two men stood up, one more slowly than the other.

“Stop smoking,” Sasha said. “Put your butts in your pocket. Did you open the window?”

“Yes,” said one of the two, looking toward the window. “The smell.”

“You don’t open windows. You don’t smoke. You don’t touch anything,” Sasha said.

Elena had moved forward and was kneeling next to the body. The face of the young man was badly mauled and bloody. The nose was a flattened mess. His legs were bent back under him.

The two young policemen said nothing.

“Why isn’t someone from medical here?” Sasha demanded.

“We don’t know,” said one officer sullenly. “We called. They said they’d send someone when they could. We’ve been here an hour. That’s why we opened the window.”

“You called on that phone?” Sasha asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you touched anything else?”

The two young men looked at each other.

“No,” they both said, and Sasha read the lie.

“Who reported the crime?”

“Neighbor,” said one of the men. “Heard noises early this morning, about six, told the building supervisor, who checked the apartment and found him.”

“Go knock on doors,” Sasha said. “Ask if anyone saw or heard anything. See if anyone knows any names or can describe people who visited Zalinsky.”

The two policemen hurried away. Sasha expected nothing from their inquiries. Muscovites were unlikely to volunteer any information that might mean they would have to spend time with the police or, worse, appear in court. But once in a while …

“Have you seen a corpse before?” Sasha asked.

Elena looked up from where she knelt and said, “Cadavers at the institute, an accident victim when I was about twelve, my father. This man was beaten methodically. He was beaten even after he was dead. The bruises on his stomach …Several of his ribs are broken.”

She got up. “I’ll look around.”

The phone was on the table next to the chair in which one of the policemen had been sitting. A phone in a student apartment was unusual. Sasha wondered how Grisha Zalinsky had obtained such a luxury.

Since the two officers had already used the telephone, Sasha didn’t bother going elsewhere to make his call. He dialed the medical investigation office. The dispatcher answered.

“This is Deputy Inspector Tkach. I’m at the apartment of the Zalinsky victim on Lomonosov. When is a doctor coming?”

“Lomonosov? We’ve got no call for Lomonosov,” the woman answered.

It was not uncommon. Out of every five or six calls one got lost. And it was getting worse every day. It was a routine Sasha knew well, but the two young uniformed officers obviously did not. Had Sasha and Elena not arrived, the policemen would probably have been sitting and smoking till their twelve-hour shift ended.

Sasha gave the woman on the phone the address and apartment number and told her how long it had been since the corpse had been discovered. The woman said a medical inspector would be there “soon.”

Sasha hung up the phone and looked around the room. The furniture was all modern, steel and black plastic. He did not care for it. He preferred heavy, brown sofas and chairs. Soft, comfortable furniture.

Along one wall of the one-room apartment were bookcases. A few books still remained on the shelves, but most were on the floor. Two of them rested on the corpse. The titles showed a wide range of interest from history to mathematics. Sasha saw no fiction.

To his right, along the other wall, stood a dresser, also black, with its drawers closed, and a desk, white, from which a single drawer had been removed and turned upside down on the floor. Elena was carefully examining papers, clothes, drawers.

“Anything?” Sasha asked.

“A woman or girl spent time here recently. The drawers smell of perfume. A few pieces of clothing. The woman had expensive clothes. See.”

She held up a pair of black panties. “Paris,” she said. “Not a fake label.”

Elena dropped the panties back into the drawer and moved to the overturned contents of the desk. Sasha looked at the corpse again. He could not have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five.

“Photograph,” Elena said, holding up a square picture that she had extracted from the debris.

Sasha stepped forward to look at it.

“Our princess,” Elena said, holding up the photo of Amira Durahaman and a handsome boy with curly hair. “Zalinsky?”

They both looked at the battered corpse.

“Probably,” Sasha said, tapping the photograph with his finger. “Place look familiar?”

The photograph showed the couple at a table, heads together, smiling, drinks in front of them, people at tables behind them.

“The Nikolai,” she said.

“The Nikolai,” he repeated. “Did the killer find what he was looking for?”

Elena looked at him and smiled. “Yes.”

“And how do you know?”

“The dresser,” she said. “He threw down the books and dumped the desk drawer but didn’t touch the dresser. He found what he was looking for before he got to the dresser.”

“Or someone wants us to think they were looking for something.”

“Back to the Nikolai?” she asked.

“Tonight,” he said. “Where do you think we should go now?”

“If we can get authorization, to the girl’s father. With the photograph of Zalinsky and his daughter,”

“If we seek authorization to approach a foreign diplomat, we may never get it. I suggest we naively assume the right to approach him in an effort to keep him informed of the progress of our investigation. The possibility exists that someone else may be looking for her, someone who has committed a murder.”

“And in fact?” asked Elena.

“What do you think?” asked Sasha.

“He’s a Syrian,” she said. “An Arab official worried about his daughter who may have run away with a Jew. The Syrian is a murder suspect.”

“And so is the daughter,” Sasha added.

“So is the daughter,” Elena agreed.

She was, Sasha admitted to himself, not at all bad for less than a week on the job.