Woman Chased by Crows

by Marc Strange

She played a minor triad, gave a bitter smile. “A fan perhaps?”

  “His name was,” Stacy consulted her notebook, “Nimchuk.” She looked directly at Anya, gauging her reaction. “Viktor Nimchuk.” She saw the woman’s shoulders sag, her left hand flattened on the piano keys to produce a dissonant chord that hung in the air, unresolved.

  Her voice, when finally she spoke, was a weary whisper. “Then that is the last of them,” she said.

  “The last of who?” Stacy asked.

  “The little band of smugglers,” Anya said. “There were four. Viktor and Sergei and Vassili and Ludmilla, who were involved with each other for a long time.” She looked up. “And me,” she said. “Sometimes.”

  “You?”

  “Once in a while I brought something in, took something out. Nothing important.”

  “You were a smuggler?”

  “No, Detective. I was a dancer.” She hit the keys, both hands, fingers splayed like blunt hammers. A booming major chord echoed for a moment. “I was destined to be a dancer as soon as my mother examined my arches. My mother wanted to dance, but she had flat feet. You know when you apply to the ballet school, the Vaganova, they measure everything. My arches were perfect. In the womb I was stamped.”

  “The other four, the smugglers.” Stacy wanted to keep her on the subject.

  “In some cultures smuggling is an honourable profession, do you know?”

  “What did they smuggle?”

  “Out of Russia? Cheap stuff, some fakes, ikons, furs, nothing of historical importance, nothing of great value, a few hundred here, a thousand there. A little more, a little less, depending.”

  “And in?”

  “Dollars. American dollars. Mostly. It was not uncommon.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Viktor got lucky, or he thought so. He stole something very big. He stole it from an even bigger thief.”

  “What was it?”

  “A big piece, covered in gems. Worth a lot of money, too much money for little gypsy smugglers, but Viktor did not know how much it was worth when he stole it.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “They broke it into pieces, sold it over the years. It never gave them what they hoped it would.”

  “How about you? Did you get any of the jewels?”

  Anya spread her arms. “All I have is what you see around you. Some fading photographs, a tea kettle, a rented piano.”

  “It’s all gone?”

  “Viktor had the last of it. If they killed him, they have whatever he had left.”

  “If who killed him?”

  “Who knows? He was dealing with some bad people over the years. He thought he was so clever. Bad people from Montreal, from the United States, receivers of stolen jewels.”

  “You have any names, any descriptions, anything you can help me with?”

  “I stayed away from him, Detective. As far as I could. I did not want any part of it. I did not want to defect, I was ready to rejoin the Kirov. I was ready to take back the career that was rightfully mine. Because of Viktor I had to run.”

  “But why, if you had no part in it?”

  “Sometimes the niceties of a situation can be lost on people. You know what I mean? The people Viktor stole from were not nice people. They would not make the distinction.”

  The policewoman left her card, asked if Anya had plans to leave the city. Anya thought that was funny, but she didn’t laugh. “If I decide to go anywhere, Detective, I will inform you,” she said. “My whereabouts are never secret for long.” After locking the door, she went to the window to see if anyone was taking note of the woman’s departure. Nothing. Of course he would not be seen. Being invisible was not hard. Staying invisible was the difficult part. Was it not, Viktor?

  Ah Viktor. You should have been the first to go. It would have saved so much trouble if you had been killed. During one of your little Montreal excursions perhaps. That might have made things simpler. Or best of all, back in Moscow, the day you bought the suitcase from that junkie friend of yours. If they had caught you right away, none of this would have happened. Caught you and killed you on the spot. Pretty Ludi would still be alive, sewing costumes, fussing over feathers and sequins. And Vassi would still be alive, painting forest scenery, fussing over pretty Ludmilla. And Sergei? What about you, Sergei? Are you out there? Sitting in a parked car, pretending to drink coffee in the café across the street? You have done pretty well for yourself, haven’t you?

  Viktor said, “Sergei, you can’t go back, you will be shot if you go back.” And what did you say, Sergei? You said, “No, you will be shot, you little piece of shit. Your life is worth nothing any more. I will tell them what you did, and they will send someone, and they will find you, all of you.”

  And they did send someone. Didn’t they, Sergei? They sent you.

  Orwell’s wife never called him at work, except for emergencies, and never simply to chastise him, that was an indulgence she reserved for suppertime, but he had just been severely castigated (unfairly, he was certain) for his part in the latest domestic drama. The wedding was off.

  His first emotion had been umbrage. “How can it be my fault?”

  “I said not to push,” Erika began (he could see her shaking her finger), “but you pushed anyway, you are always pushing.”

  That was an exaggeration, he was certain. “I didn’t push, I offered, we offered, a piece of land for them to build a house on.” He stood, as if to address a courtroom. “Was that a crime?”

  “Did you even ask your daughter, privately, first, if it was such a good idea? No. Not you. You have to stand up at the dinner table and make a big announcement like Orwell the Beneficent that you want Patty and her intended, whose name you can barely remember . . .”

  “Gary. Gary. Gary.”

  “. . . that you wish to bestow . . .”

  “I never used the word bestow.”

  “. . . upon them a generous parcel of ten acres for their wedding present.”

  “Hell’s bells, it’s better than a waffle iron.” He was starting to get steamed. This attack was most unwarranted.

  “That’s not a present. That’s an obligation.”

  “Don’t you want her to have it?”

  “Now you are being offensive. What she wants, not what you want.”

  “Of course, that goes without saying.”

  “The day you go anywhere without saying, I will phone the newspapers.”

  With that she had hung up, leaving Orwell staring with unfocused eyes at the aerial map of Newry County on the far wall. From where he stood he was sure he could make out a pulsing red spot where his farmhouse lay.

  “Chief?”

  “Yes, Dorrie?” he said wearily.

  “Detective Crean is here.”

  “Oh good.” He rubbed a hand across his face and dome. “Police work. Yes, right, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Get her in here.”

  The door opened. “A minute, Chief?”

  “I’m all ears. One of them scorched.” He pointed at a chair. “Anything turn up about Delisle’s missing piece?”

  “Not yet. But a Sergeant Hurst, Peel Division, says the guy who was shot down on the Queensway — Saturday night, not last week — a Viktor Nimchuk, was most likely shot with a .357 Smith.”

  “Oh my goodness.”

  “But they don’t have a good bullet.”

  Orwell shook his head. “My my.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, hauling out her notebook. “And that ain’t the half of it.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Interviewed the dance teacher. She tells me that Nimchuk was mixed up in some kind of smuggling deal back in ’81, when they defected. He stole some jewels in Russia, and people have been trying to get them back ever since.”

  “Since
1981?”

  “She says they were pretty famous jewels.”

  “They’d have to be, wouldn’t they? Thirty years. These jewels still around?”

  “According to her they’re all gone now. Nimchuk had whatever was left. He was the last one standing.”

  “Last of how many?”

  “She says four. She wasn’t one of them, she said, but she was tarred with the same brush. They had a regular little thing going when they went on tour and once in a while she took part in it.”

  “Okay, so back in ’81, four dancers . . .”

  “They weren’t all dancers, Chief.”

  “. . . all right, four members of a ballet company, five if you count her, smuggled some jewels into the country . . .”

  “A famous necklace or something. They broke it up and sold the individual stones.”

  “And Nimchuk was one of them.”

  “He was the main guy, the one who did the actual stealing. The others sort of got caught in the net.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “I’ve got the names, Chief.” She checked her notebook, pronounced the names carefully. “Ludmilla Dolgushin, Sergei Siziva, Vassili Abramov, Viktor Nimchuk.” She looked up. “They’ll be in my report, Chief.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve started a search, see if anything pops up about the other three. She figures they’re dead, but she didn’t have anything definite — dates, places. They might not have even been using those names. I’ll go back at her tomorrow, start pinning her down on specifics.”

  “You think she’s hiding things?”

  “Definitely. And I think she’s scared. She’s acting like she figures she’s next.”

  “Why, if the jewels are all gone?”

  “Couple of possibles, I guess. The whole thing is a big fairy tale. Or if there aren’t any jewels left, it’s just payback for whoever was involved . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or they aren’t all gone, there’s still some of it lying around somewhere, and they think she has it.”

  “She say who they were, Detective?”

  Stacy turned a page. “Besides the Russian assassins who’ve been chasing her for thirty years? Let’s see. There’s a Louie Grova, a pawnbroker who used to be in Montreal, now he’s in Toronto. I checked him out. Not a hundred percent clean but nothing violent. Arrested for receiving but charges stayed. His brother’s a diamond merchant in Montreal, Martin Grova. No record. The brothers had a falling out some years back.”

  “About jewels?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Lot of people after her.”

  “Oh yeah, and let’s not forget Konstantin Chernenko, president of the Soviet Union.” She closed the notebook. “He’s long-dead, but the dance teacher assured me that his reach extends beyond the grave.” Stacy waggled her fingertips. “Booga-booga,” she said.

  Orwell shook his head in wonder. “How about you, Detective? You buying any of that?”

  “She’s persuasive. But delusional people can be very convincing.”

  “So which is it, Detective. Is she delusional? Or is she in danger?”

  “Hard to say, sir. She has a record — paranoid about people following her, trying to kill her — file goes way back. Toronto cops had her down as a loon.”

  “That’s what our friend Delisle said. Except we now have at least one verifiable corpse connected to this business.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So maybe she’s not completely loony.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Strikes me our friend wasn’t entirely candid about his reasons for being in town, was he? Maybe he was hunting jewels, too.” His desk phone rang. “Yes, Dorrie? Jesus Murphy, it’s about goddamn time!” He hung up. “Metro just brought Harold back,” he said.

  “About goddamn time,” said Stacy.

  Estelle Macklin presided over the Dockerty Public Library like a dowager empress, imperious and chilly until newcomers had established their custom and assured her of their respect for the printed word. She had nothing against properly modulated conversation, but could not abide books put back in the wrong place. It was a rule of the library that research material be left on the table so that her staff could do the job properly. Once Orwell, attempting to be helpful, had inserted a Chagall catalogue on a shelf of photography books and had received a stern lecture for his troubles. Estelle had been head librarian since the place was built and fully intended to see out her days within its well-ordered confines. By now she was used to having Chief Brennan drop in on his lunch hour. He had begun the habit out of a desire to learn some basic Dockerty history, but lately his visits had become more of a diversion from the irritations of his day, allowing him a hushed half hour or so to wander the quiet stacks in search of nothing in particular. His foraging in scholarly pastures also kept him from visiting the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Szechuan Garden in the East Mall.

  “Mrs. Macklin, what do you know about Russian history?”

  “I know where to find it.”

  “Recent Russian history. Say, 1980 through 1984.”

  “Have a seat, Chief. I’ll get you some light reading.”

  Orwell took his favourite chair around the corner and out of sight.

  “What you need should be in here,” said Mrs. Macklin, when she returned with enough reading matter to keep him busy for a year.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I probably won’t get to the bottom of this today.”

  “Leave them out when you’ve finished.”

  “Of course.”

  Mrs. Macklin left him to his research. He had to wade through Stalin versus Trotsky to the Warsaw Pact before he got to the basic information he was looking for. In late 1982, Leonid Brezhnev died after almost thirty years at the head of a regime noted for its corruption. He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, former head of the KGB. Andropov hadn’t lasted long in office. It was said that he “ruled from his hospital bed.” He died of “kidney failure,” but the presence of quotation marks in a scholarly tome suggested to Orwell that there might have been another explanation. Upon Andropov’s death, power fell to his former rival, Konstantin Chernenko, the last of the old guard, born before the Revolution. Chernenko hadn’t lasted long, either. He died in 1985, the cause of death “unspecified” (quotation marks again), although many, if not most, believed that it was cirrhosis. According to one account, upon Chernenko’s death, large bundles of money were found in his desk drawer and in his office safe. Well then.

  “Did you find what you were looking for, Chief?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Macklin. I am now much better informed than I was when I arrived, but I still don’t have a clue what I was looking for, or if I found it.”

  “It’s the searching isn’t it, that gives us pleasure?”

  “I suppose,” he said, without conviction.

  “Could I lend you an umbrella, Chief?”

  “No, thank you. That’s why I wear a big hat.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps you could leave it with the umbrellas when you come in. It does tend to drip.”

  “I was careful,” he said. “Besides, the last time I left a hat like this unattended, someone made off with it.”

  “Can’t imagine why.”

  Georgie Rhem was waiting outside the library, a red-and-blue striped umbrella over his head. “I hear the coconut cream is back on the menu,” he said. He looked remarkably cheerful considering the steady downpour.

  “Oh darn, Georgie,” Orwell said. “I have to pass. I’ve used up my quota of personal time for the day.”

  “Well, there’ll be fresh pies next week, I’m sure.” The two men started across Armoury Park. Despite the disparity in the length of their strides, they matched pace without difficulty. They walked together often. “Got a date for your presentati
on, Stonewall,” said Georgie. “April 25th.”

  “Seems a long way off.”

  “It’s pretty speedy the way things usually go. I don’t think you’ll be the only petitioner.”

  “At least it gives me some time. Haven’t even started gathering all that stuff you say I’m gonna need.”

  “A little bit chaotic over in the Big House?”

  “An interesting couple of days to be sure.”

  “I hear that Harold Ruth was renditioned into the murky depths of the Metro unit’s filing system.”

  “Lordy Lordy,” Orwell said. “Don’t know what they were thinking. ‘Excessive zeal’ is how their boss put it.”

  “Juicy case for a motivated legal beagle.” Georgie twirled his umbrella, spraying rain in Orwell’s face. “So many stumbles and bumbles to play with. My my.”

  Orwell stopped in the middle of the walk and fumbled for a handkerchief. Erika always supplied him with a fresh one before he left home, he just never remembered which pocket he’d put it in. His old friend looked back with a trace of a smile and gave his umbrella a twirl in the opposite direction.

  “Yes, that would be an interesting case for a lawyer,” Orwell said carefully.

  “The thing is,” Georgie started, “what case? Has he been charged? Has he been brought in front of a judge? Have you heard from him? By my watch, he was disappeared for almost seventy-two hours.”

  “He’s here now. OPP have him in custody.”

  “I know. I’m on my way to see him,” Georgie said. He started walking again. “He finally got his phone call.”

  Orwell’s laugh was brief, but genuine. “And he called you.”

  “It’s not like he’s spoiled for choices up here. Barristers who’ve actually done a murder trial, I mean.”

  “When was your last one, Georgie?”

  “I’d have to check my files. I believe the firm had just purchased its first electric typewriter. State of the art it was. Yessir.”

  “I’ll bet you were a big hit with the polka-dot bow tie and the ‘aw shucks’ country lawyer routine.”

  “That I was, my friend, that I was.”