The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

CHAPTER 17

I called De Vroom and told him I had valuable information pertinent to his investigation of Iskra’s murder. That was not a lie. That my discoveries concerned him and his alleged relationship with Iskra didn’t render them any less relevant. De Vroom insisted I meet with him right away even though it was his day off.

As I headed for our rendezvous, I experienced doubts about my personal safety for the first time. I’d been nervous when the police had slapped the cuffs on me and locked me in a cell, but I’d never feared my life was at risk. The prospect of dealing with a cop that was anything less than one hundred percent scrupulous, however, left me believing that I should be legitimately shaken up. But I wasn’t, and that in turn, is what really shook me up. Deep down, I knew I should have been more reluctant to pursue my investigation but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

The mitigating factor to my concern was De Vroom’s choice of venues. He couldn’t have proposed a safer place to meet excluding the United States Embassy and Simmy’s armored yacht. That included the police station, since I was no longer entirely certain I could trust the damn Dutch cops.

The Cupcake Whisperer doubled as a cake store that also offered lessons in baking. Among their curricula were family-oriented sessions including one for cupcake decoration. I waited for De Vroom outside the gingerbread-like building, studying the scene through the front window. A swarm of mothers surrounded a room full of enchanted children, frosting and candies all over the place. Among the mothers sat one solitary and disturbingly handsome police detective, flanked by identical twin daughters in pink dresses.

I wasn’t any good at guessing little kids’ ages. All I knew for certain was that they were young enough to be totally adorable and not nearly old enough to fathom what one human being was capable of doing to another.

I texted De Vroom to glance out the window, and enjoyed watching him read my message, knowing that he was about to glance my way any second. But he didn’t, cool and handsome bastard that he was. Instead, he read the note and strolled over to a sweet-looking mother and exchanged a few words with her. The mother glanced at De Vroom’s girls as though he’d asked her to watch over them and nodded with a dazzling smile thrown in to-boot. As he headed toward the door, the woman sauntered over to the girls and chatted with them about their cupcakes. The woman and De Vroom’s children’s warm facial expressions and relaxed mannerisms suggested they knew each other. Given the woman’s classic beauty, I wasn’t surprised De Vroom was acquainted with her.

He arrived looking formidable and alluring at the same time.

“I thought I told you to leave Amsterdam,” he said.

“For my own safety,” I said. “And you were very thoughtful when you said it, as though you cared about me.”

“I do care about you. It’s my job to care about all people in Amsterdam, including the tourists. But you’re still here, which makes me wonder if you care about yourself.”

“I care about my job more than I care about myself. That’s what’s known as being a professional.”

“No,” De Vroom said. “That’s what’s known as being an American. Can we go for a walk? Before my girls start wondering if I’m interviewing new mommies for them. And for the record, that’s their choice of language.”

We strolled along the sidewalk on the shady side of the road. Cars passed us at a brisk pace. There was no one walking within earshot but a few pedestrians could be seen on both sides of the street. I took comfort from my observation that we weren’t alone.

“Where’s their real mommy?” I said.

“She’s dead,” De Vroom said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh my God,” I said under my breath, without even thinking, horrified by my presumptuousness and stupidity. “I’m so sorry, Detective.”

“The name is Erik.”

I’d just assumed he was divorced. He was an attractive man with an incredibly stressful job. He and his twin girls were a magnet for the bevy of Dutch beauties at the cupcake place. If he’d been married before but wasn’t married anymore, he had to be divorced. He was too young to be a widower.

Except he wasn’t. Anyone old enough to be married was old enough to have buried a spouse. No one knew than better than I did.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Eric.”

I wondered if she’d died from an illness, or an unfortunate accident of some kind.

De Vroom was a detective. He didn’t need me to ask the question to know what I was thinking.

“Malaysia Airlines flight seventeen,” he said.

I was even more stunned than when he’d told me his wife was dead. I’d mentioned the airplane tragedy at the police station to convince him I could help him gather intelligence about Iskra’s murder from Amsterdam’s Russian community. During our conversation, De Vroom had remained mute. I thought he’d stayed mum in the spirit of the negotiation we were conducting about the terms of my release from custody. It had never occurred to me that he’d suffered a personal loss in the tragedy.

“Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur,” he said, repeating the words I’d spoken to him. “One of those two-hundred and eighty-three passengers that the Russians killed was my wife. She was a vice president for an agricultural technology company on a business trip to Malaysia. She’d struck a deal with the country to advise them on stepping up their agricultural production. Vegetable seedlings—that was her specialty.”

“Now I feel terrible that I ever brought it up… that flight… when we first met…”

“You mean when you were in jail?”

I spied a grin on his face and smiled to be agreeable and out of sheer relief that we were laughing about something.

“Right,” I said.

“How could you have known? Don’t worry about it. You said you have some new information. Let’s have it.”

“I met with George Romanov—”

“So you are working for the family.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that assertion.”

“If you want to learn to deny, no better teacher than a Russian—”

“And he told me that he was certain—that he had irrefutable evidence that Iskra had a client who took a particular interest in her.”

“I know all about that client,” De Vroom said. “And so do you. She drives a Porsche Macan and lives in Bruges. I’ve met with Sarah Dumont and spoken with her. She cooperated fully and she’s not a suspect. Have you met her?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“She’s innocent where the murder is concerned, though in all other matters I doubt that description applies.”

“We obviously met the same woman. So if you agree she’s innocent in Iskra’s murder, how could Romanov have told you something about her that you think is so important?”

“He didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He told me about another one of her clients that was even more infatuated with her.”

“Another woman?”

“I suspect there were other women,” I said.

“Well, that was her business, right? So which one was it that Romanov said was obsessed with her? Who was she? What was her name?”

“She is a he. And his name is Eric De Vroom.”

De Vroom had steered me toward the building-side of the sidewalk after we started walking, choosing to walk along the street himself. This was standard operating procedure for a European gentleman, protecting the lady from the splash of a tire powering through a puddle or a stray elbow from a bicyclist. At least that’s what my father had taught me. But his position also gave him leverage in case he wanted to permanently shut my mouth by shoving me sideways into an alley, such as the one that was opening up right before me—

We passed the entrance to the alley without incident.

“Romanov misinformed you,” De Vroom said.

“So you deny having a relationship with Iskra?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You don’t deny it?” I said.

“Why would I deny the truth?”

“Now I’m the one who doesn’t understand.”

De Vroom shrugged, not a hint of discomfort, let alone guilt, in his voice or carriage. “I had a relationship with her the way you have one with any professional. But to say I was obsessed with her—that’s ridiculous. It sounds like something an angry father made up. An angry Russian father who’s got a vendetta against the Dutch, especially the detective who hasn’t solved his daughter’s murder.”

I stopped walking because I wanted to make sure I was hearing him correctly. “But you admit you had a professional relationship with her?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“You had sex with her for money.”

“I’m sure that hurts your American ears,” De Vroom said.

“You have no idea.”

“You’re a repressed country with your Christian-Judeo values. Iskra Romanova and I made a series of transactions within the law as consenting adults.”

“Romanov said that it was more than a series of transactions. He said he had it on good authority that you were hanging around her office on your off days.” I glanced at him and thought of his two daughters. “Erik… they said you were stalking her.”

“Good authority? Romanov must have talked to the Turk. He’s actually a good guy but he’s not the smartest man in the city. I might trust him as a bouncer if I owned a bar, but I wouldn’t trust him as my sister’s bodyguard. He only sees what he wants to see.”

“Are you saying you were a mirage and you weren’t really showing up at Iskra’s office at all hours of the day, every day of the week?”

De Vroom appeared more amused than concerned about anything I had just told him.

“Did I show up at random hours? Sure. My schedule, with the job and the kids… it fluctuates. But every day of the week… come on, now. I’m not twenty years old anymore.”

He laughed at himself, without pride, ego or concern that he could be proven to have been involved in Iskra’s murder, or any wrongdoing whatsoever.

“It was a tough time for me,” he said. “We all cope in different ways. For me, she turned out to be a tremendous outlet. She helped me find joy at a time when I was really struggling.”

“You make her sound like a therapist, and based on everything we know, she’s probably the one who needed therapy—”

“There’s this spot at the base of the head of a man’s penis. If you apply a certain amount of continuous pressure there, it results in the most excruciating and joyous tension a man can ever experience—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “I get the picture.”

“If I’d told you I’d taken up handball or military-style morning boot camp, you would have thought that made perfect sense. Am I right?”

“Well…”

“But using sex as a form of therapy—you probably have a moral issue with it.”

“Does the police department not have a moral issue with you being the lead detective on the case given you—”

“Given I what?”

My voice rose. “Given you had a relationship with the victim.”

“A professional relationship. There was nothing personal about it at all. So not only is there no conflict, I have an edge. I knew the victim, a bit about her habits and work place. I am the perfect lead for the case.”

I stood dumbfounded for a moment, and then we resumed walking.

After a few steps, De Vroom appeared thoughtful as he mused out loud. “Iskra Romanova was an artist with a God-given talent.”

“Sure,” I said. “Like Van Gogh.”

“Make fun of it all you like. You and I, we are both on this Earth for a very short time. I’m getting all the pleasure and joy that I can within the confines of what is moral and just. Are you?”

“I’m practicing delayed gratification.”

“Maybe your pleasure is psychological while mine was physical,” De Vroom said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe having Mr. Simeon Simeonovich as your client provides you with the same kind of thrill that I experienced with Iskra.”

My face flushed.

“A limousine picked you up when I released you from jail,” he said. “Our camera caught the reflection of the man in the back seat in the side window when the driver opened the door for you to get inside. I traced the license plate. It belongs to a Danish subsidiary that’s part of the Orel Group, a conglomerate owned by a Russian billionaire. When I found this man’s photo on the internet, it matched the picture of the man in the back seat of the limo.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny my client’s identity.”

“You’re working for a Russian,” he said. “And to the average cop, that would be reason enough not to trust you. But you and I, I think we’re different. I think we’ve developed a certain relationship.”

“Now you’re scaring me, given the nature of some of your relationships… ”

“You and I know we shouldn’t trust each other because it’s our job to question everything and everyone and prepare for the unexpected. But deep down, I think we know we really can trust each other because we share a profound respect for one thing above all else.”

“A properly decorated cupcake?”

“The truth,” De Vroom said.

I had to agree with him. Perhaps I was a fool. Maybe he’d asked me to leave the country when he’d released me from jail so that I wouldn’t investigate the murder. Not that he had any reason to fear me—I was nobody. But given I’d had the audacity to pose as a prostitute and he’d deduced that Simmy was my client, my stirring things up could only cause him problems if he were the murderer.

We took a right. His children appeared in front of the Cake Whisperer straight ahead, holding hands with the statuesque Dutch woman who had been taking care of them.

“So I’m going to tell you the truth,” De Vroom said, “And when you walk away, you’ll know that I’m as certain of it as I am that I love my children. If you ask me why I’m certain of it, I won’t have an answer. I’ll just tell you that’s based on a feeling right here.” He patted his gut with an open palm.

“Okay,” I said. “You have my attention.”

“A Russian committed the murder. The murder took place in their community and was committed by one of them.”

I didn’t pat my gut, nor could I explain why, but I had the exact same feeling.