The Sin Collector

ANDREY

What a pile of crap, Andrey thought as he snuck an occasional glance at his unwelcome neighbor. Sergey sure had picked the wrong time to be out sick. If he were here, they would have dumped this little brat on somebody else.

They say there’s such a thing as love at first sight. Andrey didn’t think he had ever experienced such a phenomenon. But what he felt now was the exact opposite. There she was, this Maria—Karavay, was it? Even her last name sounded idiotic! Sitting at the desk like she had every right to be there. She was tall, which happened to be in style right now (Andrey didn’t like tall girls on principle—the operating principle, in this case, being his own height). Her hair was straight, her eyes some light color that was hard to define, her nose annoyingly proportionate to her face. He was never going to be able to get any work done with her sitting there irritating him. Everything about her pissed him off! Her face, bare of makeup; her hands, nails cut short, no rings; her black T-shirt, black jeans, and moccasins. She sat there looking at him, and waited. What for? he wondered.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” the girl said. Her voice was soft and serpentine. “I know I must seem like a burden.” Andrey felt himself blush, and his Adam’s apple jumped. “But… do you think you could give me some sort of assignment?”

What is this, kindergarten? Baby needs an assignment? Fine, Andrey thought, and gave her a smile he thought must be laden with meaning.

“You’re not a burden, Intern Karavay. As for an assignment… it should be something to complement your academic research, right?” And he grinned even wider, crocodile-style. “Why don’t we have you collect information, let’s say a statistical report, on all the homicides passed off as accidents over the past two years?”

The girl frowned. “Is that something you really need?”

Andrey sighed and gave her another false smile.

“In the work we do, Intern Karavay, anything at all might come in handy. We can get drunk on water.”

That moment, the telephone rang. It was urgent. The police had found a body downtown. Fished it out of the Moskva River, pretty much directly in front of the Kremlin walls.

“On my way!” Andrey pushed his chair back noisily and grabbed his denim jacket.

The girl looked at him, eyes shining with hope. Obviously, she was already imagining how she might get out of her assignment. Moscow State honor student, my ass. Andrey smirked and pretended not to notice.

He had to park some distance away from the cordoned-off scene and push through the crowd of gawkers. An ambulance was already there to cart away the corpse. They were just waiting for him. Andrey took a look at the body and immediately noted that the victim, a middle-aged man, must have worked out a lot. A prison tattoo on one muscular arm caught his eye: a ring with a snake design.

“He did time,” a young forensic expert confirmed.

Andrey took a couple of pictures on his phone, for his own use, of the man’s arms and the frozen grimace on his face. Then he gave a nod to the men standing off to one side, smoking. While the corpse was being loaded into the vehicle, the man’s head suddenly lolled over, and Andrey caught sight of a number shaved into the hair at the back of his neck: 14.

“Wait!” Andrey hurried over and took another picture. That’s when he noticed two kids, maybe fourteen years old; the girl nestled her face into the boy’s shoulder, and the boy stood there uneasily, his own face white as a sheet.

Witnesses. Unlucky bastards. Andrey sighed. Here they were in the blush of first love, a romantic rendezvous, and out of nowhere, a dead man in the water. What sweet memories they would have.

Then he remembered his own first love and frowned. He would have preferred a dead guy. Andrey walked up to the young couple.

“You found him?”

The boy nodded.

“See anything?”

“No.”

Which was to be expected. Andrey gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile, like some sort of young Commissaire Maigret; took down their phone numbers; and sent them on their way. He watched the boy wrap his arm very sweetly around the girl’s waist. Andrey snorted and walked back to the forensic experts.

“So, find anything?” he asked, even though his gut was already telling him there was nothing there to be found. If the murderer had left any trace, the Moskva River would have washed it away.

That body had been polished smooth as a pebble in the sea.