The Sin Collector

MASHA

Masha took a visual survey of the men Anyutin had assigned to help them. They had a team now, the Sin Collector Investigative Group, but Masha still hadn’t shaken her fear that these skeptical detectives would laugh her out of the office. So she’d asked Andrey to brief them on Heavenly Jerusalem. As he laid it out, all the crazy details somehow fell into place, and nobody so much as raised a doubting eyebrow. Some of the men even took notes, which made Masha a little embarrassed. It scared her, too. It was as if, before the name was official, before they had this team dedicated to hunting him down, the Sin Collector had existed solely in Masha’s imagination, regardless of his all-too-real crimes. Like a vampire, or the Abominable Snowman, Masha thought. If one person sees Bigfoot, they’re nuts. But when a big group of serious men at Petrovka take out their legal pads, it’s the real deal.

“I believe,” Andrey was saying, “that we need to go back to the first victims. If even one of them knew the suspect personally, they might have inspired the whole series of killings. Let’s look more closely at Dobroslav Ovechkin. His father was a preacher at the Old Believer church at Basmanny. And the story of the tollhouses, as I’m sure you know”—Andrey smirked, because he was pretty sure nobody in the room had ever heard of it—“is an Old Believer text. They’re zealots. You’ve heard the stories.” Andrey paused, catching Masha’s wry look.

“And now,” Andrey continued, gesturing grandly like a ringmaster announcing the next act, “Intern Maria Karavay will brief us about her profiling of the suspect.”

Masha clutched her notes nervously. Her voice shook a bit as she spoke.

“I’m passing around copies of a table with geographical locations corresponding to these murders. We have an outside consultant working on this for us, a historian. He’s listed locations we’ve already identified with certainty and other sites with potential, too, because we may have missed a few victims, and we also have to assume our suspect plans to keep killing. The second page contains some information that might help us understand the suspect. He is a serial killer, apparently highly organized. As you know, this type is characterized by their self-control. They have a clear plan for stalking and seducing their victims.”

Masha paused and swallowed. The detectives were still listening attentively.

“If a plan breaks down, this killer is capable of putting off his crime for another day. He acts in socially appropriate ways. He’s likely to live with a partner, but in his domestic life, he may be unstable or violent. Geographically, he’s mobile. He follows the news. He returns to the scene of the crime to check on the progress the police are making. He probably drives a big car that he uses to move bodies.”

She stopped to catch her breath and steal a look at Andrey. He was standing against a wall, looking at her with undisguised tenderness and a pride that was almost paternal. Masha barely restrained herself from grinning back at him. Instead, she looked over the rest of the men sitting before her.

“I’d like to talk over every point of this profile with you. You might see something we missed.”

“Is this really supposed to help?” A young man stood up. “Gerasimov,” he introduced himself. “Who cares about the homicidal triad or whatever it’s called? What difference does it make whether the guy wet the bed as a child? Seriously, that’s just intellectual masturbation. It’s a bunch of foreign baloney.”

Andrey had already straightened up to come to Masha’s defense, but she beat him to the punch.

“If the psychological model is a match, it will help us identify the perpetrator, and even if it doesn’t, it can at least help us strike some suspects off the list. Think of how many people the police arrested on false leads before they caught Chikatilo.”

“Our own researchers don’t think profiling is a bad idea, and you wouldn’t talk to them like that,” a gray-haired detective added, frowning at the young man. “Go on, miss.”

“The Sin Collector is a maniacal missionary.” Masha looked around the room again. “He chooses his victims carefully, because for him, it’s not the murder itself that’s important, but the message it sends to humankind. So. Let’s start with general personality characteristics. What can you add, based on how these incidents occurred?”

“He’s pedantic,” Andrey said, starting them off.

Masha thanked him with her eyes.

“Elaborate executions like these require all sorts of preparation, so he must he highly organized, as you said,” the gray-haired detective chimed in.

“He takes charge at the scene of his crimes, because he’s frustrated with his life?” added Fomin, a freckled red-haired guy to his left.

“No,” Masha objected. “This isn’t frustration. It’s more like control. Control over sin and retribution for sins.”

“Like he’s playing God?”

“No,” said Masha, shaking her head. “He doesn’t see himself as God. He’s playing a demon, a toll collector. So he doesn’t think he’s free of sin himself.” Masha suddenly fell silent. She met Andrey’s gaze and could tell he was having the same thought.

“Maybe he’s done time?” Andrey suggested. “Is that where he gets his insider knowledge of law enforcement? Plus, he knows Yelnik, and he’s cruel.”

Masha nodded. She would need to think that over some more, play with it in her head. She went on.

“Now, what about habits? Skills? Any ideas?”

“He probably keeps his house and his car superclean. Sterile. Because he’s so hung up on cleanliness and purity, in every sense,” suggested Gerasimov.

Masha nodded, surprised that the young man had come around so quickly. “I agree.”

Now other members of the group were offering ideas.

“He knows police work inside and out, seeing as he never leaves tracks.”

“He’s strong. Otherwise how could he have quartered that woman?”

“He’s probably middle aged, say between forty and fifty-five. Confident, knowledgeable. People trust him.”

“Where does he live?” asked Masha, then answered her own question. “He’s got a very clear kill radius, the old Bely Gorod fortress walls, which is the Boulevard Ring Road today. He only leaves bodies there, in the middle of downtown. But as you all know, his choice of victims and crime scenes is based on the religious pattern we’ve identified, not convenience. Still, seeing how well he knows the area, it seems to me that our suspect lives and probably works downtown.”

“What about education?” Andrey reminded her.

“Definitely a higher degree. Above-average intelligence. As for profession”—Masha cast a glance at her notes—“his job probably involves decision-making, something where he can be confident that he never makes mistakes. There are several occupations that would give him a feeling of absolute power…”

“A teacher!” called Gerasimov, like the troublemaker in the back of the classroom.

“Physicist or mathematician.”

“No, a historian!”

“Maybe a doctor?” suggested Fomin. “A surgeon! He knows how to dismember people.”

“A crusty old general who doesn’t know the meaning of love and is used to making everyone else follow orders.”

Andrey raised a hand to settle them down. “I think there’s a good probability that he works in criminal justice or defense.”

The men looked doubtful. And frightened. “One of us? For real?” they murmured.

“He got to the governor’s wife too easily, and other powerful people, too,” said Andrey, almost as if he were talking to himself. “We don’t have enough clues. Actually, we don’t have any. Everything is circumstantial. Maybe he has a blue car. Maybe he has a high voice.”

“About that, I don’t think he does,” said Masha, frowning. “I think he’s reciting things from the tollhouse story to his victims before they die. But that’s part of his signature. When he’s in the middle of the ritual, he might feel like another person. Or,” she corrected herself, “a demon. And if he thinks that demons whine and howl, that means he’d naturally make his own voice higher, too.”