Murder Under Cover

Chapter 7

As soon as Inspector Lee agreed to come by later for a glass of wine, she groaned and admitted she couldn’t socialize while Robin was officially a suspect. But she took a rain check on the assumption that we wouldn’t always be surrounded by dead bodies and suspicious circumstances. I considered it a good first step to friendship.

While I’d been doing what I could to schmooze Inspector Lee into a better mood so she wouldn’t drag Robin off to jail, Derek and Robin were obtaining the real scoop from Inspector Jaglom. They gave me the whole story later as I loaded all the coffee mugs into the dishwasher.

The police had managed to track down Alex’s apartment in the Richmond District, thanks to the information Robin had given them yesterday. Specifically, his name, Alexei Mikhail Pavlenko.

Jaglom reported that whoever had trashed Robin’s apartment and killed Alex had also trashed Alex’s apartment.

“How can they tell it was the same guy?” I asked.

Derek handed me another mug. “The search was systematic and thorough. Nothing was destroyed, exactly, but things were upturned or tossed on the floor.”

“Boy, first they kill the guy, then turn his place upside down. Seems rude, doesn’t it?”

“To say the least,” Robin agreed.

“But while the police were sifting through Alex’s property,” Derek said, “one of his neighbors showed up and inquired as to what had happened. When the fellow found out Alex had been killed, he jogged back to his apartment and came back with something Inspector Jaglom found rather interesting.”

“What was it?”

“A small strongbox,” he said. “Alex had given it to him and asked him to keep it in a safe place.”

I halted in mid-dishwasher loading. “Oh, my God, do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” Robin said. “He must’ve known he was in danger.”

“Exactly,” Derek remarked. “Which means he knowingly put you in danger.”

I exchanged a meaningful glance with Robin, who frowned. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“Well, you should,” I said, squeezing her shoulder in sympathy. “It’ll keep you angry and alive.”

If Alex weren’t already dead, I’d have killed him myself. He could have gotten Robin murdered. The thought of that made me want to hug my best friend and kick a dead man.

“Did Jaglom tell you what they found in the box?” I asked.

Derek leaned against the post at the edge of the kitchen. “Various personal papers. And his passport.”

“And?”

“He was indeed Ukrainian,” Derek said.

Robin leaned against the sink. “And Inspector Lee was totally pissed off about it.”

“Why?”

Derek explained that there was a turf war bubbling up among the Russian, Ukrainian, and Georgian neighborhoods of the Outer Richmond. This was the area of the city north of Golden Gate Park that included Lincoln Park and the beautiful Palace of the Legion of Honor. The Richmond extended all the way out to the Great Highway that ran along the beach. It was as well known for its influx of Eastern European immigrants as it was for the heavy blanket of fog that seemed to swallow it up most days around three o’clock.

Jaglom had confided that Inspector Lee had a low opinion of any kind of ethnic turf wars after living through a decade of Chinatown gang warfare in the eighties.

“Oh, come on.” I looked at Derek skeptically. “They don’t really think this was as simple as Robin being caught in a battle between rival gang members, do they?”

“It’s absurd,” Robin said. “He wasn’t a gang member.”

“Russian Mafia?” I suggested.

Her back straightened as she shot me a look of distaste. “No way.”

“Sweetie, you knew him one night. For all you know he could have been the president of the Russian Mafia.”

“I would have known,” Robin insisted stubbornly. “Besides, he’s Ukrainian, not Russian. And not Mafia.”

“Oo-kay.” I backed off. When Robin got that look in her eye, I knew she wouldn’t be changing her mind anytime soon.

I glanced at Derek, who was tracking my movements as I pulled a bottle of Malbec from the shelf and found the wine opener in the drawer. Holding up the bottle, I said, “It’s not too early, is it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Good. We need something to counteract all that caffeine we just ingested.”

“I hope it helps,” Robin muttered. “I’m stressed out.”

“You and me both.” I pulled glasses from the shelf while Derek took over the job of opening the wine bottle.

“What were we talking about?” I asked.

“Russian mobs,” Robin groused, “and the fact that Alex was not involved with any of that.”

Derek swirled the wine in his glass, sniffed the bouquet, and took a sip. “Despite rumors to the contrary, there is actually very little Russian mob activity in San Francisco.”

“For real?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Robin nodded in satisfaction. “So there. But even if there was, you know, mob activity here, Alex wouldn’t have been involved. He wasn’t that type. He was laidback, social, fun. Not, you know, all… mobby and stuff.”

I tried to bite my tongue, but it went against my nature. “Mobby?”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

I gave her a pass. After all, she wasn’t firing on all cylinders. And maybe it was time to change the subject. “How do you like the wine?”

She stared at the full glass in her hand and realized it hadn’t touched her lips yet. “Guess I should drink some.”

“Yes, you should. Never waste, never worry.”

She took a healthy sip. “God, I love wine.”

“Me, too,” I said, smiling at her.

Derek swirled his wine again and sipped it. After a moment of what I figured was wine contemplation, he put his glass down on the counter. “This suspected turf war the inspector referred to may have more to do with the tensions occurring in the motherland than with anything happening here.”

“Do you think that’s why Alex was killed?” I said, then glanced at Robin. “I don’t mean anything mobrelated, but he might’ve gotten caught up in neighborhood politics. It wouldn’t be the first time politics turned to violence.”

Derek shook his head. “I have no idea, but I can look into it.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Robin insisted.

“Okay. Well, how about pasta and a salad for dinner?”

“That’s something I can believe in.”

I smiled and Derek nodded agreeably. We left it at that impasse and began preparations for dinner.

The next morning, Derek left for work and Robin asked to borrow my computer to check out some tour itineraries. Vinnie stopped by to feed Pookie-thank goodness-and after she left, I decided to spend some quality time studying the Kama Sutra for the first time since Robin brought it over Friday night.

Let me be the first to say that, given all the implications of my growing up in a commune, you’d think I would know more about the erotic aspects of the Kama Sutra. But you’d be wrong. What can I say? It wasn’t that kind of commune. Intellectually, I knew the book was an ancient primer on moral behavior and etiquette in marriage, as well as being something like a pictorial guide to sexual ecstasy, but beyond that, I didn’t have a clue.

As I opened the book, I wondered if it might be a good idea to stop at a bookstore later that afternoon and pick up a copy of The Kama Sutra for Idiots, just for reference.

I decided to concentrate on the book itself first. I believed the restoration itself would be easy, but the evaluation process would be more difficult. The book had no copyright date, which was not unheard of in a rare, vintage book from another country. But because there was no date to work from, I would have to examine the bindings, the paper, the ink and paint used, the style of the gilding, even the age and origin of the language itself. All of this was essential when appraising a book like this. Which meant I would also need to pick up a good French dictionary with a detailed etymology.

Okay, enough dithering about appraisals and evaluations. I wanted to check out those pictures. I turned the pages carefully to the middle of the book and stared, captivated, at the incredibly detailed and realistic paintings. I couldn’t help but ogle page after page of intricate illustrations of couples engaged in the most erotic sexual poses I’d ever seen. Some positions were so convoluted, I couldn’t figure out how they managed to get into them. Pulleys, maybe?

“What are you doing?”

I jumped about three feet off my chair. “Nothing.”

Robin laughed and circled my chair to see exactly what I was doing. “Oh, right. You were looking at dirty pictures.”

“They’re not dirty.”

“So why did you jump like I caught you doing something bad?”

“You just startled me.” I closed the book and wrapped it carefully in the cloth.

Robin continued chuckling. “Your face is red.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, and laughed as I picked up the book and took it back to its safe nest in my steel-lined hall closet, under the false floor where I locked my most important documents and the rare books I worked on.

“I’m going stir-crazy,” Robin said, following me down the hall.

“Did you get what you wanted off the Internet?”

“Yeah. Now I feel like walking or something.”

“We could walk to South Park for coffee.”

“Sounds great.”

We threw on jackets and strolled two blocks over to the small city park that was my favorite discovery when I moved to the area. It was a green belt of trees, grass, and a playground one short block long, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of city traffic and surrounded by town houses, local businesses, shops, and restaurants. The coffeehouse stood at the far end of the block. There was one empty table outside, so we grabbed it and sat to enjoy lattes and scones.

“I’m sorry about last night and the whole mob thing,” I said, once I’d taken a few sips of my double-shot latte.

“No, you were just trying to figure things out. I thought about it later, after I went to bed. Sorry. I should’ve been more open to the possibilities.” She shook her head in regret. “I didn’t even know this guy. I don’t know why I was being so defensive.”

I tore off a bit of scone and munched as I thought about it for a moment. “I’d say you were defending yourself as much as him. In your mind you’re thinking that if Alex was a bad guy, then you made a bad decision. But you didn’t. None of this is your fault.”

“Oh, please.” She laughed without humor. “For all I know, he could’ve been a serial killer. Those guys are supposed to be charming, right? Hello, Ted Bundy?”

“True enough.”

“Alex was definitely charming,” she admitted.

“Fine, but he wasn’t a serial killer.”

She sat back in her chair. “He was something.”

“Still doesn’t make it your fault. This isn’t about you picking a bad guy. There’s something bigger going on.”

“Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy, but he was definitely the wrong guy. And, Brooklyn, I brought a guy I didn’t even know into my home.” Her laugh was short and desperate. “My home? I brought him into my bed! What the hell was I thinking?”

“You were thinking that he was cute and fun and sexy and charming and-”

“I should have been smarter about it.”

“I’ll agree with you there. Did you use protection?”

“Of course! I’m not that stupid.”

“Then what else are we supposed to do? Should we have guys fill out questionnaires before we go out with them? Once in a while we meet a nice guy and we take a chance, that’s all.”

She nodded, gripped her latte with both hands, and sipped. “I… I was tired. Jet-lagged. I’d just spent three days with my mother. She makes me crazy, makes me feel… you know, inferior, somehow. She fills a room until there’s no air left for me to breathe. So I guess when some good-looking guy expressed some interest in me, I just… grabbed that attention with both hands, you know?”

I touched her arm. “I know. You can’t keep dwelling on this or you really will go crazy. So please stop beating yourself up over it.”

She rolled her eyes, then smiled tightly. “Okay, I’ll stop.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Good.”

She sighed. “Thank you.”

“I’m not sure why, but you’re welcome.”

“Just for hanging in there with me.” She stared down at her latte as if looking into the past. At that night. She shivered.

“Come on, let’s go back,” I said. “It’s cold out here.”

She stood and zipped up her jacket. “It’s springtime in San Francisco. Of course it’s cold.”

As we strolled up Brannan, I pointed out the new and elegant tower of condos being constructed one block south of us. I wasn’t happy with the high-rise aspect, but any construction was a good sign that the neighborhood was once again vibrant after a year or two of economic uncertainty.

“This is a great area,” Robin said, gazing around.

“Yeah, I was so lucky to find my loft. I really love it around here.”

I lived on the south edge of SoMa, or South of Market, close to Giants Stadium (which my dad loved), with a view of the bay. Yes, you could turn a corner and see the random blighted, burned-out factory or deserted housing project, but that was true of most neighborhoods in the country these days. I tended to avoid those dodgy blocks and stuck close to the fun parts. Overall, this was a lively, happening area. And it was freewayclose to everything else in the Bay Area.

“Maybe I should think about moving over here,” Robin said.

“That would be great,” I said, excited at the thought of her living even closer to me. “We could have so much fun. But, Robin, that’s not something you need to think about right now.”

“I know.” She shivered from the breeze that seemed to be blowing straight off the bay and right up Brannan. “Especially if this street is always a wind tunnel like it is today.”

“Not always, but it’s definitely cold today. Let’s run.”

We scurried up the block, wrapping our arms around ourselves to keep warm.

“Hey,” I said as we slowed down, passing one of my favorite neighborhood Thai restaurants. “We should take you shopping later.”

She eyed me. “You hate shopping.”

“But you need clothes to wear.”

“True. We’ll go someplace cheap and get some sweats. It’s not like I have anything to dress up for.”

“That works for me.”

She made a face. “I guess I should try to find out when I can move back to my place.” She didn’t sound happy at the idea, and who could blame her? On the other hand, she did have to reclaim her home or she’d never feel safe anywhere again. Not that I would ever push her to leave.

“We can call the police when we get home,” I said. “But you know you can stay with me as long as you want.”

“Thanks, but I’m starting to feel like a third wheel.”

“No, you’re not.”

She smiled. “It would be different if you and Derek were an old married couple, but you’ve just begun a new relationship. My being there has got to be cutting into your personal romance time.”

“Not so much,” I said, grinning. “You don’t need to worry about us. We’re doing just fine.”

She glanced at me sideways and wiggled her eyebrows. “Really? Care to share the details?”

I refused to blush. “No. But much to my surprise, everything’s going really well with us.”

“Good. You deserve a wonderful man in your life.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, laughing.

“But still, I shouldn’t stay there much longer.”

“You’re going to make me mad if you keep saying that.”

“Okay, I’ll shut up.”

“If you really don’t want to stay with me, we could drive you up to Dharma for a few days.”

She looked puzzled at the suggestion. “If I want to go to Dharma, I can jump in my car and go.”

“Yeah, but this way, we could keep you company. It might be hard to drive all that way alone.” Truthfully, I was afraid a long drive like that would give Robin too much time to focus on the nightmare of what had happened and to start punishing herself again. “We can drive you up, stay for dinner, then drive back. You can give us a call anytime and we’ll come pick you up.”

“Listen to you, saying ‘us’ and ‘we.’ It’s very cute.”

Now I was blushing, but I ignored the sensation. “So, what do you say?”

“I wouldn’t have my car,” she argued. “It would be weird.”

“You know you can borrow anyone’s car up there.” I waved the thought away, realizing that Robin would never go for it. She liked to be in charge of her comings and goings, hated borrowing anything. It was a matter of control, and I could totally relate. Being stranded in Dharma at the whim of whoever was in charge of picking her up would make her nuts.

“Never mind,” I said. “It was a silly idea. You’re too independent to want to be anywhere without your own car. I’d feel the same way.”

“Thanks for the offer, though.”

“You’re welcome.” We stopped at the light at Third Street and an idea occurred to me. “But if you did go up there for a few days, I could take care of getting your apartment cleaned up for you. You could relax, get a massage, hang out with friends, then come back to a sparkling clean apartment. What do you think?”

She didn’t say anything, but her lips were twisted in thought. Finally she looked at me. “I would hate to leave that up to you.”

“You’d really hate it, or you’d just feel bad about it?”

“I’d feel really bad about it.”

“Okay, then it’s settled.” I nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

“That’s crazy. You don’t have time to do that for me.”

I met her gaze. “Do you trust me?”

Scowling, she muttered, “I guess.”

I laughed. “And would you do it for me?”

“Of course.” She didn’t have to think about it.

“There you go.”

The light changed and we crossed Third just as a woman on the other side of the street began screaming in some foreign language I couldn’t name. I didn’t think much of it, as I’d become inured to the occasional deranged rantings of homeless people as they walked down the street. But curiosity won out, and Robin and I turned to see what the problem was.

The dark-haired woman was young and fairly attractive in jeans and a camel jacket. She didn’t appear to be hurt, just livid. She pointed with urgency in our direction as she continued screeching. Looking both ways up and down Brannan, she caught a break in traffic and started running across the street.

“Jeez,” Robin muttered, glancing around. “She’s ready to kill someone.”

I looked around for the target of her wrath and noticed a heavyset woman dressed in black pants, black trench coat, head scarf, and dark glasses, standing in front of my building. Was the other woman yelling at her?

As the screaming woman from across the street got closer, the trench-coated woman took off running up the block and disappeared around the corner.

What was that all about? She looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t have time to worry, because at that moment, the screaming woman rushed onto the sidewalk, stormed right up to Robin, and punched her in the face.

I gasped and tried to grab hold of the woman, but she knocked Robin down to the sidewalk, then jumped on top of her. It was surreal. She was pummeling Robin, slapping and beating her in the head and face as she babbled and cried in some foreign language.

Robin yelled back as she swatted at her attacker, trying to push her away while also trying to protect her face. I managed to grab the woman by one shoulder and arm and yank her back, so she turned and slapped me. Robin got to her knees and grabbed hold of the crazed woman by both arms so she couldn’t swing out and hit either of us. Robin struggled to a standing position, yanking the woman up with her and away from striking distance.

“You keel him, you beech!” the woman screamed in English as she wiggled and squirmed to get away. “You keeller! You keel Alexei!”

“What the hell?” Robin cried, struggling to keep a grip on both her arms. “I didn’t kill him!”

The woman slammed her foot down on Robin’s, causing Robin to release the wildcat and swear loudly as she hopped around.

Crazy Lady was stretching her arm back to slug Robin again when I grabbed hold of that arm and clutched it tightly in mine. Robin snatched her other arm, and between the two of us we got her under control for the moment.

She kept repeating something in her language. It sounded like, “Date-eh it-eh om you! Date-eh it-eh om you!” Something like that. It was hard to understand, since she was belting it out at the top of her lungs.

“Can you hold her?” I yelled, and reached onehanded into my purse for my phone. “I’m calling the police.”

“Hurry.”

“Nooo!” the woman screeched, and ripped one arm away from Robin’s grip. “Keeller!”

“Jesus, shut up!” Robin shouted.

True to California life, people were staring at us, but not stopping. Heck, in this neighborhood they probably thought we were doing a street performance.

She whipped her arm away from my grasp and turned to slug Robin again. I came from behind and shoved my knees into the backs of her legs, causing her knees to buckle. Robin pushed her down to the ground and sat on her back, straddling her so she couldn’t escape. But she bucked and rolled, making it look like Robin was riding one of those mechanical bulls.

“Call the police!” Robin shouted.

“Already got them,” I said, and rattled off my address to the 911 dispatcher.

The crazy cow kept trying to buck Robin off her. She tried swinging her arms around to smack Robin, but it was useless.

I noticed Robin’s eye was beginning to swell badly. Her strength was ebbing.

I heard sirens. “Police are on their way.”

That news caused the woman to bellow and rear up again, so I sank down and sat on her legs to keep her from kicking. Together Robin and I managed to hold her down.

But the woman wasn’t finished. She swung her elbow back and connected with Robin’s thigh. Robin howled in pain but didn’t give an inch.

Robin was usually the nicest human being on the face of the planet, but she’d had a hard week and wasn’t willing to be pushed anymore. She grabbed a thick clump of the woman’s hair and yanked at it. “Chill out or die, bitch.”

Over an hour later, Robin lay on my living room couch, her left eye swollen closed and most of her cheek dark red and bruised. She was holding a bag of frozen peas to her face and whimpering only a little. I knew I had bruises, too, but nothing compared to Robin’s. Her face would turn black and blue and purple over the next twenty-four hours, and it wasn’t going to be pretty for a week or so.

I walked to the kitchen sink and filled a plastic bag with ice and wrapped it in a soft cloth. When I laid it on the other side of her poor face she grimaced, then whispered, “It’s too cold.”

“That’s why we call it ice.”

“Funny,” Robin murmured.

“We want the swelling to go down, sweetie,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry it hurts.”

“Me, too.”

“We’ll only leave it on for about ten minutes at a time.”

She gave a determined nod. “I can take it for ten minutes.”

“We shouldn’t have gone outside,” I lamented. “You wouldn’t be hurt if I hadn’t insisted on getting out of here for a while.”

“Who knew she was watching the place? Freakazoid.” She groaned. “Hurts to talk.”

“Then stop talking.”

“You wish,” she murmured, but then settled into the couch and let the ice pack do its healing.

The first thing I’d done once we got inside was call my mother to ask for the best remedies for Robin’s wounds. After getting a full list of items from Mom, along with lots of woo-woo advice to purge Robin’s karma of bad juju, I quickly called Derek to tell him what had happened. He offered to stop at the health food store on his way home to pick up everything Mom recommended.

I read off the list. Sage tea, good for both drinking and soaking with a compress to reduce swelling and heal bruising; vitamin K cream to accelerate healing; arnica to banish bruises; and chunks of fresh whole pineapple, which contained an enzyme that also helped reduce bruising.

Mom also recommended grinding up parsley for its anti-inflammatory properties, but I blew that one off and slipped Robin a couple of ibuprofen instead. And as a bonus, I still had some Vicodin in the medicine cabinet to help knock her out later.

Personally, I’d popped a Xanax as soon as we got inside. I was a nervous wreck.

I expected the whack job who attacked Robin to be behind bars very soon. Earlier, two policemen had arrived on the scene to find Robin and me still squatting on top of her. After taking our statements and the statements of several brave people who’d stepped forward as witnesses, they’d arrested and handcuffed her. She might’ve revealed her full name to the police, but she kept glancing at us, noticing we were listening to her every word, so she would give them only her first name, Galina. All we were able to glean in the short but really fun time we spent with her was that she was a friend-lover?-of Alex’s and clearly blamed Robin for his death.

An ambulance arrived and two paramedics rushed over to check out our battle wounds. Despite her everswelling eye and bruised cheek, Robin refused to go to the hospital and had to sign a waiver to that effect.

As the EMTs packed up their gear, a black Lincoln Town Car cruised by slowly, then stopped on the opposite side of the street. The windows were blacked out, so I couldn’t see inside the car, but I knew instinctively that whoever was sitting there was watching us. It gave me the willies.

Robin noticed the car, too, and so did Galina, who began screaming like a banshee at them. The driver drove off slowly, and Galina, despite being handcuffed, turned around to flash her middle finger at it. I had to give her points for her passion.

The car was too far away for me to make out the license plate number. The driver might’ve been an innocent lookie-loo, but I doubted it, given Galina’s reaction.

I asked the policeman to contact Lee or Jaglom and let them know that they would want to interview Lunatic Galina in connection with Alex’s murder. The one officer got Inspector Lee on the phone right then, and I could hear her barking orders through the officer’s earpiece.

Galina fought the officer who tried to push her gently into the back of the patrol car. So it wasn’t just us; she was angry at everyone. Her anger and passion reminded me of someone else in my life, but my head was so full of strange puzzles and weird facts at the moment, I couldn’t remember who it was.

As I watched both police officers struggle with her, it occurred to me that maybe she was the one who had killed Alex. Maybe she was a jealous lover who’d seen him going out on a date, followed them back to Robin’s place, where she killed him in a rage, and trashed the apartment. Now she was stalking Robin. She might’ve even trashed Alex’s apartment.

Of course, if Galina had killed Alex in a jealous rage, surely she would have killed Robin, too. She didn’t seem like the type to rein in her emotions at a time like that.

So she probably wasn’t Alex’s killer, but she might’ve been the one to ransack Alex’s apartment. Now she was stalking Robin because… she thought Robin killed Alex? Or she thought Robin knew something? Or she thought Robin had something of hers? Or Alex’s? Why?

The jealous-lover scenario worked for me. I just wished I knew what she was yelling in Russian or Ukrainian or whatever language she’d been spewing.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the jealousy angle worked only until I got to the part where Alex had drugged Robin. Why? I played it out a few more times but couldn’t get Galina to fit into the bigger picture, and I wound up back at the beginning of the puzzle.

Really, nothing made sense when combined with the fact that Robin had been drugged by Alex. Maybe I was trying too hard or overlooking something obvious. I couldn’t figure it out, and I found myself rubbing my temple to rid myself of the headache that was cropping up. It was a minor ache compared to Robin’s, though, and as I watched her struggle to find relief in sleep, I vowed to track down the bastard who’d killed Alex and ruined Robin’s life. And I would make him pay.