The Sin Collector

MASHA

Masha watched her supervisor walk away, bewildered. What a strange person. Every time she started to think he might be a decent guy, he’d storm off without so much as saying good-bye. A total jerk! But still… Masha started climbing the stairs, her mood improving with every step. Andrey had just given her some actual encouragement. He called her theory “good.” Maybe I deserve to be here after all, Captain Yakovlev! And agreeing to let her work with Kenty—that was a miracle.

Now all she had to do was call and deliver the good news. For the next few days, instead of appraising icons, cruising around antiques markets, and hobnobbing with collectors, he would be interviewing a dozen witnesses in murder cases.

“Kenty!” she pleaded as soon as he picked up. “Come save me! I have to interview a whole pile of people, and I can’t do it alone.” There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line. “I know I’ve been abusing you mercilessly, but there’s no one else I can abuse quite like you. It’s only for three or four days.”

“All right, I’ll do it,” Kenty said, laughing. “I was just looking to see if I could cancel my appointments for the rest of the week.”

“Oh, great!” said Masha. “We need to find out exactly what kind of sinners our victims were. I’ll buy us some voice recorders.”

“I have one already, Masha. Just get one for yourself. I’ll come pick you up tomorrow. Right now I can’t talk, I have visitors.”

“Okay, sorry. See you tomorrow.” And Masha hung up with a happy smile. Her real work was about to begin, and she was going do it with Kenty at her side, at a safe distance from her angry boss. What could be better?

The next day Kenty drove up at the appointed time. He found Masha waiting for him on the bench outside, calling all the numbers on her list.

“Hi,” he said. Masha waved and turned her attention back to the phone. Innokenty sat down next to her. She said good-bye to the person she was talking with, then turned to him.

“Okay, check it out. I managed to set up a bunch of meetings for us. I decided it would make sense to start with the first set of mysterious numbers. I’ll take number one. I’m about to go talk with the girlfriend of the guy who was the least mutilated in that basement on Bersenevskaya. He had the T-shirt with the number one written on it. Slava Ovechkin. Meanwhile, you’ll meet with an athlete, a swimmer, at the Olympic Village. He’ll tell you about his teammate: victim number three, Alexander Solyanko. Then I’ve got Tanya Shurupova, best friend of Julia Tomilina, victim number two. After that we need to find Kolyan’s drinking buddies. I wasn’t able to get through to them by phone, obviously. Can you try to find them after you talk to the swimmer?”

Innokenty nodded.

Masha handed him a list of addresses and jumped up. “Let’s go!”