Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  Sasha said something in Russian to the nurse. The nurse said something back and waved the syringe emphatically. Brittany refused to put down her stool.

  Sasha said, "She says, the shot, it is for tetanus, if you were cut by some metal."

  “Tell her I got a tetanus shot two years ago, when I fell down during practice and another kid skated over my hand and sliced it open. Those things are good for ten years."

  Sasha dutifully translated. The nurse tried to press her point.

  "No!" Brittany barked, and jabbed the stool at her again, lion-tamer style.

  Sasha, without saying a word, reached over, yanked it out of her hand and put it behind his back. For a moment, Brittany looked like she was about to make a lunge for it. But the expression on Sasha's face suggested he wouldn't advise it.

  The nurse said a few more things only Sasha understood, but, in the end, she left the three of them alone and exited the room. Bex could only imagine what stories she'd be telling her family over dinner about crazy Americans.

  “Thanks," Brittany told Sasha, perfunctorily. Then launched straight back into talking about herself. "Can you believe they put me on the same ambulance as Galina? I mean, I'm the victim here, and I had to stare at that ugly, Ronald McDonald mug of hers the whole way over."

  "Why did you even call an ambulance?" Bex asked. "You don't seem that badly hurt. And you've certainly made your opinion about Russian hospitals crystal-clear."

  "I didn't call the ambulance. I think someone from the arena did. Galina was lying on the floor, clutching her stomach, all moaning and groaning. Oh, look, look at me, I'm hurt, boo-hoo, pity me, let me win, since that's the only way I'm ever going to. She's such a faker. I didn't even hit her that hard. There's hardly anything in my bag to do damage with. I wasn't going to let her hog the spotlight and get the sympathy. When the ambulance came, I told the paramedics they had to take me, too. Fair is fair."

  Bex asked, "I thought I told you to put her skates back where you got them."

  "I did! I did it right after you took off chasing Gary Gold. They were back in her bag; she'd have never known the difference. If that creepy Shura guy hadn't told her. I guess he saw me taking the skates out. Or putting them back in, either one. I bet he's got a peephole drilled into the girl's changing room, or something. He told Galina I took her skates. Though I don't know what the big deal is—I put them back, didn't I? Didn't do anything to them; though I could have, you know. I totally could have, like, dug nicks in her blades and let her break her stupid neck landing one of those, 'Oh, I think I'm so much better than everyone else quadruple jumps.'"

  "Did you try to apologize?" Bex asked.

  "I didn't get a chance! Little bitch right-hooked me the second I stepped out of the changing room. She smacked my face, she pulled my hair, and that bastard, Shura, just stood there, laughing at me. He was the nearest guy there, and he didn't try to stop her or anything. He just watched and laughed. And then he called me 'American shit.' Can you believe it? Where does he get off? Dude is a glorified janitor and he's calling me names! Besides, I'm on the Russian team. I'm Russian. Why doesn't anybody get that? I'm just as good as they are. Why does everyone hate me so much?"

  And then, Brittany Monroe, Russian National Champion, did the last thing Bex ever expected. She burst into tears.

  Bex and Sasha got Brittany calmed down and into a taxi returning her to the hotel before they ventured back inside the hospital. They stepped over the cat who was now chasing a loose bit of plastic foam down the hall, and went looking for Galina. They found her still lying on the same stretcher she'd come in on. That stretcher was parked outside an examination room. The examination room was open. If they were so inclined, all three of them could have peeked inside and observed the attending doctor press his stethoscope against a wheezing, elderly woman's chest. As she sat wearily on the examining table. Completely topless and facing the door.

  Apparently, Bex was the only member of the group who found this peculiar.

  She looked down at Galina. The elfin girl had a few scratches on her face, as well as on her forearms. She had both arms wrapped around her stomach, elbows jutting up towards the ceiling. She didn't look so much in pain, as pissed off

  She too began talking the instant she spied Bex and Sasha. The torrent of Russian flooded them both, then bounced off Bex's ears like a vending-machine rubber ball.

  "Galina, she says that Brittany is crazy lunatic person," Sasha tried to translate, though Galina had yet to stop talking. "She says she should to be arrested and deported. And shot, too."

  "Ask her if she wants to give her side of the story." Gil would demand that, and, even though Bex suspected she already knew what Galina would have to say, she figured she should do things officially, nonetheless.

  "She says that her statement is Brittany Monroe is crazy lunatic person."

  "Anything else?"

  "She should be arrested and deported and—"

  "Shot, yes, I know."

  "No. Galina say she will be content if Brittany only is forbidden from competing in Russian Nationals. This is as good as shooting, she says."

  Bex idly wondered if Gary Gold might have once said the same thing about his own nemesis. And whether, years down the line, he changed his mind and decided, no, you know what, I'd actually rather have him dead, after all.

  "Ask her if she needs anything," Bex offered. She didn't want it to seem like she was taking sides, but while Brittany could always retreat to America for treatment of any lingering injuries that might still come up (or, at the very least, use American dollars to buy herself superior care), Galina, Bex guessed, was at the mercy of this first-rate health facility. And Bex did not want to see her end up as Kitty's supper.

  Sasha translated Bex's query. Galina looked at her suspiciously, shook her head, and rattled off some incomprehensible, yet still dismissive patter.

  "She to says she does not need any help from you. If she is hurt badly, she knows where to get what medicine she needs."

  Bex, recalling what Brittany had screamed in her hysteria about AIDS-infected needles, wished she shared Galina's optimism.

  "Well, is she sure she doesn't want—"

  "Galina says, you do not worry about her. Even if hospital not have the medicine that she needs, she is used to this and she can do like everyone, and use good, people's... no, folk, I think they are called folk, remedies. She says there is a man who sits outside of skating arena who sell medical potions that she buys from all the time, when she needs something for pain or injury or illness."

  Bex froze. She knew the man Galina was talking about. Gary had pointed him out to Bex during their frosty walkabout. But she hadn't made the connection until now. The man outside the arena, the one with the little bottles of colorful potions. He sold folk remedies. Homeopathic medicine.

  Like the kind that had killed Igor Marchenko.

  It didn't matter how fast Bex willed or Sasha pleasantly bribed the cab to return to the arena. No cab could travel back to the time when the Holistic Healing Man Bex was now so desperately seeking was still planted in the cold; several colorful, stacking dolls on one side, shunned Gypsies on the other. Where the heck was that guy? He could sit hawking his wares in the middle of a snowstorm but what, at sundown he turned into a pumpkin? Bex cursed herself for not having made the connection sooner. Obviously, Igor's killer had to get his poison somewhere. Finding out who'd purchased a dose of homeopathic digitalis in the past few days while in the vicinity of the arena sure would help Bex narrow down who might have poured it into Igor Marchenko's gloves.

  She considered going over to cross-examine the Gypsies, who were still sitting in the same spot, but Bex didn't want to tip her hand or reveal her agenda. So, dejected, she planted Sasha outside the arena to keep watch and gave him strict orders to come get her immediately in case Holistic Healing Man returned.

  And then she returned to the 24/7 offices feeling as if the entire day had been a waste. Yes, she now knew a lot mor
e things. But none of them were relevant or even useful. Bex sat down at her designated desklike structure—actually a standing iron board—and proceeded to type up her report about the Galina/Brittany fracas. She tried to make it as dramatic as possible for Gil, to justify her existence as a researcher, yet not so dramatic that, when Francis and Diana added their own gloss of hyperbole, the whole thing began to sound like there had been pistols at dawn and life-threatening injuries involved. Most importantly, Bex tried not to take sides, knowing that 24/7 would do that perfectly well on its own. Brittany, with her Russian citizenship or not, would be painted the heroine, Galina the groundless instigator. Gil insisted that every story needed someone that people could root for, and someone to hiss at. Curious to see if this was a relatively new phenomenon, Bex took a break from writing her report and went on-line. She managed to locate some newspaper accounts from Igor's and Gary's competitive days. She noticed, much to her chagrin, that a similar ethos seemed to have prevailed even thirty years ago. Only this time, the tables were turned, and plucky Russian refugee Igor was deemed the hero, while all-American Gary Gold was the villain (though, to be fair, Gary's being from New York branded him a kind of foreigner even before the Marchenko chronicle came up). All because Gary'd had the audacity to publicly ask why Igor, already the product of free training from the mighty Soviet sports machine, should now receive even more money and resources from the United States Figure Skating Association—money and resources ostensibly raised and donated to train needy American skaters.

  For his reasonable questions, Gary was designated green-eyed and petty by the media. Reporter after reporter wrote how obviously and visibly jealous Gary was that Igor had snuck in and won the title Gary selfishly assumed would be just given to him, like a coronation. (They pretty much ignored the fact that Gary had won said title fair and square the previous year. Considering it took him four years in senior men's competition to make it onto the podium, Bex doubted Gary expected anything to just be handed to him.) By the time the 1970s press corps was done, they’d made it seem as if Gary were a pretentious klutz who could barely balance atop a pair of skates.

  The Worst Skater Ever

  But a story had to be told and a mythos created. So Igor was good, Gary was bad, no questions asked. It interested Bex to note that, in stories written fifteen, even twenty years after the initial rivalry had faded from public consciousness, sports reporters who couldn't have been around when it all started still picked up on old gossip. When writing about Lian Reilly versus Jordan Ares, for example, they dragged out the same chestnuts about Gary's inferiority complex where Igor Marchenko was concerned and his supposed obsession with one day, finally "beating" the Russian. Any way he could.

  And speaking of Lian Reilly... that reminded Bex. She had gotten so distracted with Brittany and Galina and Holistic Healing Man that she had nearly forgotten that, on the last exciting episode of "Who Iced Our Coach?" she'd left Amanda claiming the check Bex found in Igor's possession was payment for the Russian secretly coaching Lian. But, so far, Bex only had Amanda's word for that. It would be nice to get a little confirmation.

  A notice on the assignment board indicated that a camera crew was currently out with Lian Reilly and her mother, filming America's wannabe sweetheart as she attended the world famous Bolshoi Ballet.

  Bex had always wanted to see the Bolshoi Ballet.

  Well, at least she did now.

  She popped her latest research report into Gil's in-box, grateful that he was away from his own ironing board and thus not available to ask Bex questions that could be answered simply by reading the report, and headed outside to check on Sasha's vigil.

  After determining that no news, in this case, was no news, Bex took pity on her poor runner—it was his first day in big-time, professional television, after all—and told Sasha he could go home. She would handle the rest of the evening's work on her own.

  To Bex's surprise, he looked somewhat disappointed by her dismissal. Bex was about to ask him why. After all, she asked everyone else personal details about their lives. It was her job, wasn't it? So why should Sasha be any different?

  Except that, for some reason, he was. Bex didn't refrain from asking Sasha anything personal out of respect for his privacy. Rather, she refrained because she knew Sasha would give her an honest answer. And she just was not ready to know or understand him any better right now. The absent mother, the drunk father, the orphanage, his dreams of media success, all those details were already too personal, too... real. Bex thrived better in the land of glib. The land where one's biggest crisis was a loose sequin falling off a costume and snagging a skate blade. Where even knockdown, drag-out fistfights were triggered by a hunger for medals and not actual, you know... hunger.

  "Good night to you, then," Sasha said as politely as he'd said everything else that day. There was nothing in his words that should or could have triggered even a moment of guilt. And yet, Bex felt really guilty.

  "Sasha—"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you—are you—are you, you know, are you okay?" Now what the hell did that mean? Even Bex didn't know what she was trying to say, much less what she'd actually said.

  "I am fine," he asserted. "I will to see you tomorrow. Good night, Bex."

  "Good night, Sasha."

  Bex took a cab to the Bolshoi Theater. As they rounded a corner, she saw Sasha standing at a bus stop. He was leaning against a lamppost, inhaling a cigarette, blowing out a combination of smoke and cold air, and smiling. Bex told herself there was nothing to feel guilty about. He was obviously fine. She had obviously imagined the wistful tone in his voice when she'd told him to go home. He probably had a whole evening planned, telling his girlfriend all about how crazy those Americans were to work for, and also how stupid Bex was, running around, first inside the arena, then outside, then at the hospital, like a chicken with its head cut off (Bex assumed Russian chickens also experienced such life after death), and not coming up with a single, useful piece of information to help her get to the bottom of Igor's murder. Bex imagined the girlfriend laughing and throwing her long, naturally blond, lustrous hair over her shoulder, while looking all worldly-wise an ... uhm... European. Well, Bex could have had long, blond, lustrous hair, too. If she were actually blond. And didn't get all her personal grooming products from a little wicker basket next to the hotel sink.

  In any case, Bex totally had more important things to do with her time than dwell on her hair. As soon as her cab pulled up in front of the Bolshoi Theater, Bex leapt out and, barely taking any time to admire the soaring, multi-column architecture (hadn't Gary Gold told her you don't get to know a country through its architecture?), waved her 24/7 ID badge at the ticket-taker.

  The ticket-taker was not impressed.

  This actually surprised Bex for a moment. Having spent the last several months of her life exclusively inside locations where a 24/7 ID badge was the equivalent of a free pass anywhere, she had forgotten that there were actually places where—how to put this?—no one cared that she worked for TV.

  Luckily, her working for TV had taught Bex that, in the end, everybody cared about who was paying the bills. And that, if you were connected to anyone paying the bills in any way, you too could pretty much have a free pass to anywhere. So, when the ticket-taker unleashed a barrage of Russian at her, Bex responded with what she gambled might prove the magic word.

  "Shell," she said. "Shell Oil."

  And then, as the piece-de-resistance, she pulled out of her parka pocket an old gasoline receipt, with its logo prominently printed on the front, from a Shell Oil station back in the states.

  Thank goodness Bex had a tendency to stuff all receipts into her pockets in the hope that something might prove tax-deductible some day. And thank goodness that, prior to heading out on her latest recovery mission, Bex had checked out the Bolshoi Theater's website and learned that their newest sponsor for the 229th season was none other than Shell Oil.

  "Oh!" The ticket-taker's eyebrows
shot up and she nodded her head fervently, a phony smile replacing the more sincere frown of a moment before. "Shell Oil!" And she stepped aside to let Bex enter.

  Another piece of research Bex had completed prior to arrival was to check with the 24/7 business office and find out where the seats that they'd purchased for Lian and her mother were located. Turned out the tickets were for a private box, since that would make it easier to shoot Lian soaking in Russian culture.

  Bex ascended the richly carpeted stairs to the mezzanine level, feeling woefully under-dressed. All around her were floor-length gowns, shoulder-length earrings, and cleavage-depth tops. The women wore their hair swept up atop their heads and carried tiny beaded purses with protruding opera glasses, while their men stood by their sides and balanced both their own coats and the requisite minks over one arm, waiting for the coat check to open. The air was so fragrant with flowery perfume and musk perfume and zesty perfume that, by the time Bex got to the top of the stairs, she felt dangerously close to passing out, Dorothy-among-the-Wicked-Witch's-Poppies style.

  Bex pushed open the door to Lian's box and nearly tripped over the cameraman's tripod planted squarely at the entrance.

  "Hey, Bex," he waved. His soundman, squatting on the floor between the seats so as to stay out of frame, did the same. Amanda and Lian, both sitting in the front row and looking down from the mezzanine into the orchestra seats below, turned their heads in unison. Amanda was wearing a long black skirt and a dark blue blouse buttoned up to the neck. Lian, by contrast, was in pale pink silk, her skirt cut above the knee, her top scooped rather daringly low along the bustline, and covered with a row of matching lace. It was an outfit calculated to make her look like a sophisticated seventeen-year-old, but with no existing bust to back up the tease of the scooped neck, it actually had the opposite effect. She looked like Raggedy Ann stealing Barbie's wardrobe.