A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Different hammer,” the scientist continued. “Different power. Different hand. These two were struck by someone left-handed. Your others were all murdered by a right-handed killer, except for the two of which I told you already.”

  “He is even further from his goal than he thought,” said Rostnikov.

  “His goal?” asked Paulinin as he probed into the dead woman’s stomach, which he had opened with a steel scalpel.

  “To kill more people than any other Russian ever has.”

  “In that case, I will delve more deeply,” said Paulinin, his fingers searching the cavity he had opened.

  “Do that. And call me when you have something.”

  “You already have an idea,” Paulinin said, using his free hand to turn the head of the man so it was facing straight up, eyes open.

  “Perhaps,” said Rostnikov.

  There was no direct flight from Moscow to London. Iris would have to spend two hours in the Frankfurt airport. She had experienced such waits before. She had a book with her, Notes on a Scandal, but she was sure that she would be unable to read. She had begun writing her story before the plane took off.

  Iris Templeton welcomed the distraction of her laptop even more than that of the book she was reading. Iris Templeton had a secret. She had a deadly fear of flying. Given the choice, she would never fly again, but she did not have the choice and she did not want anyone to know her fear was kept in control with pills, hypnosis, alcohol, and meditation. She always flew first-class and always sat in an aisle seat. She limited herself to one drink a flight, regardless of how long the flight. Her preferred drink was a premium straight brandy. She loved the taste of brandy.

  Iris did not have to stand when the woman moved past her to the window seat. There was plenty of legroom. The woman was slightly heavyset, well-groomed, business suit and briefcase with laptop computer. The woman smiled. Good teeth.

  “Elizabeth Croning,” she said, reaching over to shake hands.

  “Iris Templeton.”

  Iris was in no mood for new friends or idle conversation. She removed her novel from her briefcase, inserted the fragile airline plugs in her ears, and adjusted the volume. It was something classical, possibly German, and too sweet for her taste but all right for holding off conversation.

  She removed her laptop from its sleeve and waited for the gate to open like a Thoroughbred and for the fear to be smothered by the bright light of ideas and music.

  From where he sat, he could just see her arm resting.

  He had almost missed the flight. The call had come when he was on his way home. He had immediately caught a cab, gone to the airport, showed his passport and his identification, and hurried to the gate at the final call for takeoff.

  There had just been time to pick up a travel bag at the airport.

  He had been told that he would be supplied with a very compact weapon in lockers when he got to Frankfurt and London. He would not have to carry a weapon onto the plane. He had been told that Iris Templeton had a two-hour layover in Frankfurt. He had been told what he had to do. He would do it.

  He had an aisle seat next to a black man in a gray suit and matching tie. The black man gave the late-arriving passenger as much room as he could and concentrated on the notebook full of lists of numbers.

  The man who had arrived late did not look away for more than a few seconds. There was reason to believe someone else was on this plane watching Iris Templeton. Before it was over, he fully expected to know who that was and what he should do.

  “Well?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Iosef shrugged. He had hoped Elena would answer the question, but it looked as if there was to be a stalemate.

  They sat on the edge of the bed in front of the window. Iosef’s apartment was small, hardly an apartment at all, one tiny room with a bed near the window and a sink in the corner with a single-burner stove top next to a small refrigerator with a microwave atop it. There was also the luxury of a toilet and shower right next to it with just enough room to stand.

  Sara had done her best to make the room comfortable for her son, and she had done a good job.

  It was the place where he and Elena could be alone.

  It was the place where they now had to decide if they were to marry the next day.

  “Do you really want to?” she asked.

  “Yes, I wish to marry you. I wish to spend as many of my days as possible with you next to me laughing, frowning, humming, and I wish you to have a daughter with me, one who looks like you, and I wish to have a son with you, one who looks more like you than me, and I wish to begin this journey soon.”

  “Tomorrow? You are sure?” she asked, not looking at him.

  “Everything is ready. It is as good a day as any and better than most.”

  “I sense,” she said, “a lack of enthusiasm.”

  “You sense the nervousness of any normal bridegroom. And you? Are you not on less than sturdy legs?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile, looking at him. “But I will not fall.”

  He leaned over, kissed her gently, and felt her arms tighten around his neck as they rolled back on the bed with Iosef on top.

  “We had best call your mother and tell her,” whispered Elena.

  “We have something else to take care of first,” he said, reaching down to unbutton her blouse.

  Rostnikov did not hear the first knock at the door. He was asleep in the chair he had placed by the window from which he could cause unease in Aleksandr Chenko.

  With the second knock, Rostnikov called out, “I am coming.”

  And come he did, rumbling to the door, urging his mechanical leg to cooperate with his good right one.

  He went to the door, right hand in his pocket, where he had tucked in a small, efficient seven-shot Nagant revolver.

  “I brought you something,” said Aleksandr Chenko as the Chief Inspector opened the door.

  Chenko held out a bottle.

  “Nitin wine,” said Rostnikov. “Perhaps we can have some later.”

  Then Aleksandr took a tarnished pocket watch from his pocket and handed it to Rostnikov, who held it in the palm of his left hand as he stepped back. Right hand still in his pocket, he motioned to the chair opposite the one he had been sitting in for the past two days. Chenko sat, a smile on his face, teeth showing.

  Was this how the old couple sat night after night talking, reading, falling into a literary slumber?

  Chenko was dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and a black sweater. He sat awkwardly.

  “I can offer you either tea or coffee the temperature of this room,” said the policeman.

  “Perhaps a glass of the wine I brought.”

  “Later.”

  “Yes,” Chenko said, folding his hands in his lap and looking out the window at the darkened window of his own apartment.

  “You look uncomfortable,” said Rostnikov. “Would you prefer we go for a walk?”

  “No, this is fine.”

  The younger man was not obviously armed. He had never used a gun in his compilation of the dead, and Rostnikov was reasonably certain he would not begin now. Nevertheless, Rostnikov sat in a position from which he could easily reach the revolver in his pocket.

  “You know why I am here?” said Chenko, leaning forward.

  “To confess,” said Rostnikov, now examining the watch Chenko had handed him. On the back of the watch was some kind of badly scratched engraved writing that Rostnikov could not read.

  “It says: ‘S.M.K. TO E.L.P.’ ”

  “Who are they?” asked Rostnikov.

  “I do not know. The man from whom I got it was named Taras Ignakov,” said Chenko, still smiling. “You have questions. Go ahead. I will give you answers.”

  “Where did you get this watch?”

  “From the pocket of a man with a dirty curly black beard, only one tooth, and yellow eyes.”

  “You took it,” Rostnikov prompted him.

  “From the
pocket of a dead man.”

  “And … ?”

  The deep breath was long and quite mournful before Chenko replied.

  “Oh yes, I killed him. I think he was my sixty-first. You have not yet found his body?”

  “No.”

  “When possible, I obtain their names and memorize them. And I always honor them by taking something from their pockets if there is anything to take. I have a hidden box filled with rings, watches, coins, even shoelaces.”

  “Why?”

  “At first I did it to be recognized and feared. Then I realized that swinging the hammer and listening to a cracking skull and a final sigh gave me a sense of great power. It is better than sex.”

  At this point Chenko reached behind his back and lifted from his belt a claw hammer, which he placed in his lap.

  “I was not asking why you kill. I asked why did you memorize their names? Why did you take souvenirs of your crimes? Do you want to remember what you did and who you did it to?”

  Rostnikov shifted his weight to be better able to reach and retrieve the gun in his pocket.

  “Yes,” said Chenko. “That too.”

  “Normal people do not want to remember when they commit murder. Mafia members do not want to remember. Robbers who kill do not want to remember.”

  “And what is your point?” asked Chenko.

  “You are sick.”

  “Can I be cured?” Chenko said with a smile.

  “I do not think so,” said Rostnikov.

  “Nor do I. You want me to confess because I feel guilty? I feel no guilt. None at all.”

  “You like killing.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you are not in prison you will kill again, and you may even do it in prison. You should be isolated in a cell for the remainder of your life. And I think you know I am right.”

  “You could just kill me. I know you have a gun in your pocket,” said Chenko. “Or maybe I could kill you. I can leap from this chair and dig the claws of my hammer deep into your skull before you can get out your gun. Even if you manage to get it out and shoot me, I think with my lunge I could still watch my hammer strike.”

  “Let us hope the moment does not arrive when we must test your theory,” said Rostnikov, looking almost sleepy. “Have you ever killed someone who was facing you?”

  “No, but I will if I must. I wish to have a large and open trial at which I can tell what I have done. Can I have that, policeman, or do you plan to just kill me?”

  “I have not yet decided,” said Rostnikov. “I wanted to have this conversation first.”

  Chenko clicked his teeth together softly and said, “Look at my numbers. Am I not the maddest of all?”

  “You are.”

  “Will I stun the psychologists and psychiatrists who examine me in prison?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Yes, they will probe my life, ask questions about my childhood, my mother and father, and discover nothing. Why do you want to help me?”

  “What have I said that makes you think I want to help you?” Rostnikov said.

  “Do you have handcuffs with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will put them on my wrists and take me away.”

  “It will all end in a whisper.”

  “No,” said Chenko, rising, hammer in his right hand.

  “First place the hammer on the ground,” Rostnikov said with a series of grunts as he rose with the revolver now aimed at the chest of Aleksandr Chenko.

  Chenko ignored him and said, “People live with the constant fear of death. They, the old, fear its coming. With this hammer, I release them quickly so that they will fear no more. Do you fear death, policeman?”

  He asked stepping forward, hammer now rising.

  “I do,” said Rostnikov. “But that does not matter. Put down the hammer, Aleksandr Chenko.”

  The door of the apartment flew open. There was a sudden storm of gunfire. Rostnikov distinctly heard a ping as a bullet hit a spot of metal on his leg. The bottle of Nitin wine exploded, its contents spraying upon the falling body of Aleksandr Chenko.

  Rostnikov was certain that he felt one bullet hit him and then another one. He could see Aleksandr Chenko, spattered with wine and bullets, fall backward over the chair, the hammer spinning around in the air and breaking free through the window, sending a brief rain of shards of glass flying atop both the policeman and the serial killer.

  Iris Templeton turned her head to the rear as if she were looking for the flight attendant. No one was looking at Iris. At least not at that moment. She considered the woman in a business suit in the window seat next to her. Then there was the dark, good-looking man in business class who spoke perfect Spanish on the airline phone. Perhaps it was the lean, pale man in a black suit whose eyes were turned toward the window. Even if someone was watching her, there was no point in worrying until they were on the ground, which would be very soon.

  Of course she thought that the most likely truth was that no one was watching Iris Templeton. She changed her mind when the plane landed in Frankfurt and she was sitting in the coffee bar with a biscotto and a cup of coffee. She was certain she was being watched, though she recognized no one from the plane. Perhaps Petrov had called ahead, perhaps many things.

  If someone was planning to get the tape of her and Pavel Petrov, they would have to wait until the plane landed in London and luggage had been picked up. Richard Neatly was supposed to meet her at the airport. She had called ahead. Richard was a very good man, but he was short, almost frail, fussy, and a few years past sixty years old and would be no good in a crisis. His heart was in a good place, but he sighed when news readers on the BBC made an error in grammar. She was certain that if he were here now he would, as he had done in the past, remind her that “biscotti” was plural and not singular, but she had never heard anyone order a “biscotto” and she did not intend to be the first.

  Normally, Iris enjoyed nothing more than an almond biscotto. Even a chocolate would do. Any biscotto would help compose her. But not today. She sat. She ate. She drank, but without the enthusiasm she usually savored.

  She was certain the lean man would be on the plane to London. She looked at him. He looked away, not quickly but with the deliberation of someone who had seen enough this time.

  The list of arrivals and departures above her clicked, and her flight to Gatwick appeared.

  She had another hour with the dark man.

  “The power of Christ has saved you, but why?”

  Artyom Gorodeyov had brought his message to the bedside of Ivan Medivkin, who was in no condition to hear it. Vera Korstov at his bedside in the hospital thought it would have been more helpful had Christ intervened a little while earlier.

  Vera was little interested in the question the man with the shaved head and no neck had posed. Though Marx and Lenin were not her gods, at least they were firmly rooted in reality.

  “Why?” asked Vera over the rush of hallway noise through the slightly open door.

  “You are famous,” said Gorodeyov. “You are now a hero. You have the power to impel thousands, maybe even millions, to embrace the Union of the Return.”

  “Which is a political party calling for the return of Stalinist control,” said Vera. “Stalin for Christ.”

  Ivan groaned and tried to roll into a more comfortable position, but the pain in his neck, arm, and shoulder was too much to bear.

  Doctors, nurses, therapists had come, though Ivan was too groggy to fully understand what had happened. He did know that he was not expected to die. He did know that returning to the ring now was a distinct possibility. Only hours ago he had abandoned all hope of boxing again. Now he was a hero.

  “Rest,” Klaus Agrinkov had said. “No hurry. We have impressive offers from all over the world: Kuwait, the United States, Indonesia, everywhere.”

  Ivan reached for Vera’s hand now as Gorodeyov leaned forward and continued his sermon.

  “You owe it to Mother Russia,” whis
pered Gorodeyov.

  Ivan could smell the man’s breath, an unpleasant combination of garlic and breath mint.

  Vera was impressed by the man’s ability to penetrate the imposing protection of the quite visible police in the hallways. The Union of the Return had more power than she had expected, to get through the gauntlet of uniforms.

  “I am tired,” Ivan said.

  The bed was uncomfortable, at least half a foot too short. His feet dangled over just enough to disturb whatever comfort he might hope to find.

  His unwanted visitor reminded Ivan of a soccer ball. He began to smile but failed. Even a smile brought pain.

  “We will talk later,” said Gorodeyov. “You can come to the compound to rest and recover. You will be protected, unbothered.” The visitor’s offer was very appealing to Ivan. He remembered the compound. Were the people that friendly? Was it really that beautiful?

  “Consider it, Ivan Medivkin,” said the man, patting Ivan on the arm.

  The giant was now snoring fitfully.

  The usual crowd at Gatwick stood waiting at the belt for their luggage to rumble by. Since it was just after midnight and many passengers had been traveling for as much as a full day or more from all over the world, the battle for a good space was less frantic than usual. There was almost a dreamy haze of shared understanding.

  Iris had but one bag, green canvas, wheels, made for world travel. She reached between the bustling woman and the lean man from the plane with a “pardon me.” Someone bumped into her and the bustling woman’s hand reached out to grasp the handle of the bag and start to pull it from the grinding belt.

  Iris reached out to stop the woman. Before it was necessary to do battle, the woman loosened her grip and the canvas bag tumbled forward on the belt for another ride.

  Iris turned toward the woman, heard an odd intake of breath, and saw a look of pale anguish on the face of the woman. She seemed about to fall. Iris reached out a hand, but the woman found sudden support from the pale man who immediately and calmly helped the woman to a seat. Many glanced; none moved; the woman seemed to be in safe hands. They all wished her well. They had apartments to get to with telephone messages, cats to feed, beds to drop onto.