The cops took us to the police station and we gave our statements. We stayed there deep into the night, repeating our stories over and over again. I gave them De Vroom’s number and told them to call their counterpart in Amsterdam to learn about Iskra’s murder and share news of its resolution. I also told them to tell De Vroom that Sarah Dumont had born witness to Romanov’s confession to his own daughter’s murder.
Eventually, De Vroom asked to speak with me.
“I told you the killer was a Russian,” he said.
“When you busted in on Romanov and me in Iskra’s apartment,” I said, “you knew we were there because you were following him. He was a suspect, wasn’t he?”
“Everyone who knew her was a suspect. We knew she was scared of someone, probably someone close to her.”
“Why did you warn me that my investigation could be dangerous? It happened after you ran the license plate and found the SUV was registered to Sarah Dumont.”
“Yeah,” De Vroom said. “I checked with Bruges police. They said she had connections.”
“What kind of connections?”
“They didn’t give me details. They just said she had juice. I pressed them but they refused to talk about it. Just told me to tread very, very carefully. So I did. And suggested you do the same. Lucky for us you didn’t.”
Throughout the night, I saw Simmy on his mobile phone time and again. With each successive call, his expression grew less tense, his carriage became more settled. When the cops finally released us, he looked like the man I’d grown fond of over a year ago, a gentleman and a scoundrel, simultaneously contented yet in search of his next quest.
The cops kept the gray Mercedes as evidence in the case. They let us take the black one. As the bodyguards walked over to the parking lot to retrieve it, Simmy and I waited by the station door.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were attacked?” he said. “When was this? Where was this? Exactly what did the men look like?”
“Forget it. It was part of the job. They didn’t hurt me. They just threatened me. If I can’t take care of myself under duress, I shouldn’t be taking these kind of cases.”
“You should have told me.”
I didn’t answer him.
“You should have told me just as I should have told you I was having Iskra Romanova’s office watched when you arrived.”
“Okay,” I said. “In the future, we’ll be more open with each other. How’s that?”
After a purse of the lips, his expression softened as though that had appeased him. “You exceeded all expectations,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“That may be true but you can certainly try,” I said.
His lips curled up a bit, which was another good sign he’d regained his emotional equilibrium.
“The important thing is that Sarah Dumont is safe and it’s all over,” I said.
“You solved the murder, but it’s not quite over for us,” Simmy said. “I need you to do one more little thing for me. It is the simplest, smallest favor a man could ask for.”
I started to ask him what exactly he wanted me to do but the car arrived and one of the bodyguard got out to open the door. As we slipped into the backseats, I realized this assignment wasn’t over from my perspective, either. I wanted to understand why Simmy had been willing to sacrifice himself for Sarah Dumont. I wanted to understand their connection and what it was about this case that I’d been missing from the beginning.
“When we get to Amsterdam, we’ll pick up your things at the hotel and head straight for the airport,” Simmy said.
“We will?” I said.
Simmy didn’t answer. Instead he looked thoughtfully out the window.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“We’re taking you home, of course, and making one quick stop along the way.”
“And I presume this stop is where you need me to do you this simplest, smallest favor a man could ask for.”
Simmy bowed his head in affirmation. “And even though it’s the simplest favor imaginable, I’m throwing in a special bonus if you help me. It’s something you desire at the current moment more than anything imaginable.”
“You’re telling me what I desire? This is some serious role reversal, Simmy. What is it?”
“Thai food. I’m having Amsterdam’s best—from the Thai House—delivered to my plane.”
My mouth watered.
“You know me too well,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
We drove from Bruges to Amsterdam, slogged our way through the morning rush hour, and got back to my hotel mid-morning. I dozed in the car to some hypnotic classical music by the Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.
When I woke up, Simmy told me a story that the famous Borodin String Quartet once went to the composer’s house to play his String Quarter No. 8 to get some criticism. Shostakovich had written the symphony after being diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig disease. The quartet’s performance evoked the composer’s inspiration so beautifully that he sat through the performance weeping with his head in his hands. When they were finished, the musicians took their instruments and snuck out of his home without saying or hearing a word.
After I packed and checked out, we drove to the airport and took off on Simmy’s Lineage 1000E. It was a penthouse in the sky with five cabin zones, each opulently appointed with furnishing and electronics. My favorite was the master suite, complete with bathroom ensuite and walk-in shower, which Simmy let me use in complete privacy. When I finished dressing and emerged, a Thai feast was waiting for me in the dining room.
Two sultry Russian cabin attendants served us tom yam soup, pad thai, king prawns in coconut curry and lemon leaves, and duck with ginger and black mushrooms. Simmy and I were both famished so we ate in silence. I told myself to enjoy the food and contain my curiosity about this favor he wanted me to do for him, and his connection to Sarah Dumont. It was, in fact, the latter that fascinated me the most. My instincts told me to be careful. This was the kind of revelation best made voluntarily, though a good investigator could always coax a subject into revealing what she wanted to learn.
After we ate our soup and shared the pad thai appetizer, Simmy drank beer from his frosted glass and exhaled with satisfaction.
“Ah, that’s good, isn’t it?” he said. “Nothing like cold beer to quench a man’s thirst. Except, of course, when it’s information he’s thirsting for.”
“Information?” I couldn’t believe he was asking of me what I wanted from him. “What do I know that you don’t know?”
“How you solved the damn case. Obviously.”
I’d been so focused on what I wanted to find out, I’d forgotten all about my client’s inevitable curiosity.
“It wasn’t one piece of evidence,” I said. “It was several of them. They were there all the time, right in front of me. I just needed time to put them in the proper order and see their connections.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The first thing I look for is a catalyst. If I’m investigating a change in a company’s fortunes, trying to figure out how it fell into dire straits, I start by finding the catalyst. The catalyst is usually some company, industry or economic event that changes the normal course of business. It might be something legitimate, like competition, or something criminal, like fraud.”
“And what was the catalyst for Iskra’s death?” Simmy said.
“Her affair with Sarah Dumont. Or, more precisely, her lesbian affair.”
“How did you know it wasn’t when she became a window girl?”
“Because Iskra had been working a window in De Wallen for months before she got so scared of someone she hired the Turk to walk her home at night. The timing of when she hired protection coincided with when Sasha saw Sarah Dumont coming out of her office disguised as a man. Sasha ambushed her in her own apartment, lost his cool, and told her she was a lesbian whore.”
“And this put the fear of God into her?”
; “No. Sasha, as the Romanovs were fond of saying, ‘was Sasha.’ He couldn’t put the fear of God into a mouse. The only person who could put the fear of God into her was her father. It took only one lunch for me to see he was fueled by hate. And there was nothing and no one he hated more than a homosexual. Well, except maybe for an American …”
“But,” Simmy said, in a tortured voice, “she was his daughter.”
“Not in his eyes. Not once she had sexual relations with a woman. You know the statistics about Russian attitudes toward gays. And Romanov’s wife, Maria, reminded me of something very important regarding her husband.”
“What was that?”
“Once a Chekhist, always a Chekhist. And Chekhists think they’re above the law. In fact, not only do they think they’re above the law, they think they’re above everyone.”
Simmy had never been a Chekhist. He had no background in Russian politics or the secret police, but many of his competitors did, and the politicians who greased the gears of his corporate vehicle were lifetime Chekhists. No one more so than his buddy, Valery Putler.
“How did Romanov find out his daughter was having an affair with Sarah Dumont?” Simmy said.
“Sasha told him. He was his lap dog, the son he never had, though hardly the warrior-type he dreamed of. Sasha knew Romanov would be livid. He knew the father would punish the daughter. He wanted Iskra to be punished. Did he know Romanov was going to kill her ? It’s possible. Maybe Sasha loved her so much he fell into a blind rage. But my guess is not. Romanov probably lured him under the pretense of giving Iskra a stern lecture, and once his motives became clear it was too late. Sasha would have been too weak to stop Romanov. Too weak physically, way too weak mentally.”
“But how did you know Sasha told Romanov? How did you know they were accomplices?”
“The watch,” I said. “Sasha told me the Penerai he was wearing belonged to his father, who died about six years ago. But when Maria Romanova showed me a family picture taken a recently, there it was around a man’s wrist. But it wasn’t Sasha’s wrist. It was George Romanov’s.”
“Romanov gave Sasha the watch. As what,” Simmy said. His elbows rested on the table, hands folded in the air. “A gift of thanks? A bribe for his silence? A token of their ever-lasting friendship now that they’d killed the girl they’d loved their whole lives?”
“All of the above.”
Simmy continued staring at me without emotion, but I could sense dismay, disgust, and anger emanating from his side of the table. His emotions were to be expected, I thought. He was a father.
We dug into the prawns and the duck. One of the attendants brought a second round of Singha beers. Simmy poured lager into my glass.
“I was impressed with Sarah Dumont,” Simmy said. “I thought she handled herself admirably. What did you think?”
There it was. My opportunity had arrived.
“I don’t think she handled herself admirably,” I said.
Simmy’s eyebrows shot up.
“She handled herself beyond admirably. She was the leg-sweeping, ice-in-her-veins, ‘I’ll settle the argument, bitch-goddess of the afternoon. Are you kidding me?”
Simmy didn’t react to my description. He was back to hiding his emotions, I thought. In the case of Sarah Dumont, that meant there were emotions to hide. A flicker of pride in his eyes increased my suspicion.
“She’s clearly had training in self-defense,” Simmy said. “A successful young woman on her own, you have to admire her for learning how to take care of herself.”
“Is that a guess, or is this something you know for a fact?”
Simmy frowned. “That she’s successful and on her own?”
“No. That she’s had training in self-defense.”
I stared Simmy in the eye, looking for a tell as I waited for his answer. But he gave me neither. Instead, he sipped his beer and ignored my question. I’d done the math in my head a thousand time already. If Simmy was forty-six and Sarah Dumont was twenty-four, he could be her father from a prior relationship. But they could just as easily have been lovers whose paths had crossed at some philanthropic or artistic venue.
“She said some interesting things to me earlier,” I said.
“Did she?” Simmy said.
“When I called to tell her that her life was in danger, she said that no one would dare try to kill her.”
“Hmm. That’s a strange thing to say,” he said. “Maybe you heard her wrong.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe she meant to say that no one had a reason to kill her.”
“And she said she didn’t want the police involved. She said it emphatically.”
“Probably a matter of privacy, especially given that nightmare she lived through in Amsterdam. The home invasion. I’m sure she’s had enough attention and police to last a lifetime.”
Simmy was full of crap. I knew it now, as surely as I knew I’d just lost my appetite for duck, prawns, and carnal knowledge. The questions came to me quickly. I could sense myself going into beast-mode. I was about to interrogate my client. In a minute he would tell me the truth or be revealed to be a no-good, lying Russian dog-of-a-billionaire. It would be the latter, naturally. All men were deceitful shits, why should this one be any different?
“Speaking of getting enough attention,” I said, “I sure got your attention when I told you that the murderer’s next target was Sarah Dumont.”
“And what did you expect? It’s not every day a man is told a murder is about to be committed.”
“I got the distinct impression the target’s identity made all the difference in the world to you.”
Simmy hesitated, as though trying to recall our conversation. “Why do you think that? I don’t remember saying anything that would give you that impression.”
“It’s not what you said, Simmy. It’s what you didn’t say.”
He sighed, his first sign of irritation since we’d arrived. “What didn’t I say?”
“You didn’t say anything. There was dead silence on the line. It was one of those moments were you knew the person on the other end of the line had just had a ‘holy shit’ moment.”
“Fair enough. But be realistic. Your friend calls and speaks of murder … a man may need a moment to compose himself.”
“And there was the proposed trade,” I said, “where you offered yourself as a hostage to Romanov in exchange for Sarah.”
Simmy remained mute.
“Why would you be so concerned about a stranger?” I said. “The answer is, of course, you wouldn’t be. That, in turns, means she isn’t a stranger. Sarah Dumont is someone you know. You confirmed that about ninety seconds ago when you said she’d lived through that nightmare in Amsterdam.”
He continued staring at me without betraying his emotions.
“I never told you Sarah Dumont had lived through a home invasion, Simmy.”
He took a deep breath. When he exhaled, he relaxed his posture. A look of resignation replaced his blank expression.
“Who is Sarah Dumont?” I decided to start with the most painful possibility. “Is she your secret lover, too?”
Simmy leaned on his elbows, folded his hands into prayer position, and brought them to his nose. Then he shook his head.
I sighed with relief on the inside. “Is she your daughter?”
He paused for a moment, then slowly shook his head again.
“Is she a niece or something? Because she sure as heck isn’t a stranger, Simmy. You clearly knew her for some time before all this happened.”
Simmy stared at his beer as though he were carefully choosing his words. Then he unfolded his hands, placed them on the table, and looked me in the eye.
“I didn’t know her for some time before this happened,” he said.
More bullshit. I couldn’t believe it. “That’s a lie, Simmy. How can that possibly—”
“I’ve known her far longer than that. I’ve known her for most of her life.” Simmy stop
ped talking. He looked around to make sure no one was listening.
My heartbeat thumped in my ear.
“I’ve known her for most of her life because she’s the daughter of a friend of mine. And ironically enough, the favor I need you to do for me concerns this friend.”
He motioned for me to lean forward. I did so, and then he did the same. I thought his breath would warm my ear but cabin airflow came on and a cold breeze gave me a shiver instead.
“Sarah Dumont’s father is the President of Russia. She is the illegitimate daughter of my good friend and mentor, Valery Putler.”
CHAPTER 27
The dead girl’s lover was the daughter of the President of Russia. This was the same man who’d perpetuated the persecution of the gay community since taking office. For a moment, I couldn’t shake the irony of the situation, even as the questions came tumbling to my mind, one after another. When I finally recouped my senses enough to speak, I kept my voice at a whisper, to make sure none of the crew or the bodyguards in the adjacent cabin area could hear me.
“Does Sarah Dumont know who her father is?” I said.
“Of course,” Simmy said.
“That explains the arrogance.”
“Arrogance?”
“Aloofness, arrogance, whatever you want to call it. She’s weird, Simmy. Surely you can see that. That comment that no man would dare to kill her, when her father’s identity is a secret. Who says things like that?”
Simmy shrugged.
“And she was strangely homophobic even though she was in a lesbian affair. She said something about having gay friends but not condoning the morality of their relationships. Does her father support her financially?”
The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls Page 19