A Whisper to the Living ir-16

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “That is where I left him,” Agrinkov insisted.

  Zelach was staring at the battered nose of the manager, the badge of pugilistic honor. The image of the old Chinese man moving in slow motion near the single barren tree came to Zelach. He wondered if this man had ever tried tai chi.

  “We can arrest you for assisting in the hiding of a fugitive,” said Iosef.

  “What good would that do?” asked Agrinkov.

  “None, other than to let the world know that not only is your meal ticket wanted in association with a particularly unpleasant murder but that you too are wanted in connection with the crime. It might make it very difficult for you to continue to function as a manager.”

  “The public will thank me.”

  Iosef knew Agrinkov was right, but the policeman pressed on.

  “He is just postponing the inevitable,” said Iosef.

  “Aren’t we all?” said Agrinkov.

  Agrinkov shook his head, unfolded his arms, and slapped his calloused hands against his thighs.

  “I tell you I do not know where he is. He did not ask to be taken to a hotel. He asked to be taken to a Metro station and. .”

  “Compound of the Union of the Return,” said Zelach.

  Both of the other men looked at him.

  “In your office where we were this morning,” said Zelach, “there are photographs on the wall. One was of a training camp in Saslov. You were smiling and so were Artyom Gorodeyov, the head of the Union of the Return, and Deputy Russian Minister Borodin. His arm was around your shoulder. The Union of the Return compound is no more than two hours from Moscow.”

  Iosef smiled.

  “I could be wrong,” said Zelach. “I probably am.”

  “But maybe you are not,” said Iosef, who turned his head to Agrinkov, who was rubbing his thumbs against his fingers nervously. “I think you are not.”

  “I have told you nothing,” said the manager.

  “You have told us everything,” said Iosef. “We are going to this compound to get Medivkin and you are going with us.”

  Iosef motioned for Agrinkov to move ahead of him. Were the former boxer to put up a fight, Iosef, though certainly strong, and Zelach, a zealous combatant, would probably be no match for him. For an instant Iosef wondered if his partner might possess some strange martial-arts moves in slow motion that would subdue even the strongest of men. Little that Zelach could do would surprise Iosef.

  “Artyom Gorodeyov will not easily give up someone under his protection,” warned Agrinkov as he moved ahead of them.

  “Then it will be his mistake. Move.”

  Iosef did not want to draw his gun, but he would have if the man in front of them showed any signs of resistance. Iosef Rostnikov, unlike his father, had a very short temper, which he strove, usually with adequate success, to keep under control, but he would not actually fire his weapon on an unarmed suspect.

  Zelach shuffled at the rear. The image of the slow-moving Chinese man under the light rain returned and Zelach had an almost uncontrollable urge to call his mother to see if she was all right.

  Emil Karpo had been slowly taking notes as he went through the building in which Aleksandr Chenko lived. Karpo had spoken to twenty-two tenants, all of whom, with the exception of an older blind couple, answered his questions with some degree of nervousness. They were anxious to rid their apartments of this pale specter of a policeman who stood erect, asked questions slowly, listened carefully, and watched them without blinking.

  From most of those to whom he spoke he learned little or nothing. Few people, even those who lived on the same floor, remembered Chenko at all. Those who had encountered him said he was a pleasant young man who smiled when he passed and seemed pleased to see them when they encountered him at work at the nearby Volga Supermarket II. Most important, Karpo found that the blind woman, Kesenia Ivanovna, who was sixty-two years old and on a pension from the Moscow sewage authority, knew the histories of almost all her neighbors.

  Aleksandr Chenko, she told Karpo as her husband sat nodding in agreement and confirmation, had suffered a rejection about six years ago. A young woman had told him that she planned to marry another man, an acquaintance of Chenko’s. In fact, Chenko had moved into this building just to be near the young woman.

  “Tragedy,” said the blind woman, looking at a blank blue-white wall. “The man she was to marry had a tragic fall from his apartment window and the young woman disappeared.”

  “Her name?”

  “I do not remember,” the woman said.

  “Hannah,” said the old man.

  “Yes, Hannah,” the woman agreed.

  “Hannah. .?”

  Both of his hosts shook their heads to indicate that they did not know.

  “His name, the dead man who fell from his window-,” the blind man began.

  “Or jumped in grief,” said the woman.

  “But he died before she was missing,” said the man.

  “That is right,” the woman agreed.

  Rostnikov caught up with Karpo on the third floor of the apartment building as he came out of the apartment being shared by three friends in their forties from Novosibersk who all worked as custom brick shapers for the dozens of new construction projects around the city. The trio had appeared quite guilty, but of what Karpo did not know or care. They knew nothing of Aleksandr Chenko.

  “Luck?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Some,” said Karpo, who spoke softly of the missing girl and the dead young fiancé.

  “I have a job for us both,” said Rostnikov.

  As they went down the stairs slowly, the Chief Inspector told Karpo what he planned to do. Karpo knew better than to express his lack of enthusiasm for the plan. Too often plans of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov made little sense to Karpo, but just as often they met with success.

  “Aleksandr Chenko,” said Rostnikov shortly after shaking the hand of Aloyosha Tarasov in the latter’s office.

  “Coffee?” asked Tarasov with a smile that gladly revealed even, white teeth.

  The MVD Major was in a civilian suit with a striking purple-and-black tie. His steel blue short-shorn hair was brushed back. Rostnikov was reminded of the American actor Viggo Mortensen.

  “No, thank you,” said Rostnikov, taking a seat across the desk.

  “I was about to leave,” said Tarasov. “Since you have taken over the Maniac case, I now have time for leisure activities.”

  Those “activities,” as Rostnikov knew, were centered on eligible and ineligible women of ages ranging from twenty-two to forty-five. Tarasov believed that his pursuit of beauty was implicitly condoned by Prime Minister Putin himself, who was reputed to keep company with women half his age. At least Aloyosha Tarasov was not married, as the Prime Minister was. Major Tarasov had removed his wife from the scene years ago. He felt no guilt over having thrown her out of their apartment window. Everyone dies, he told himself. It is just a matter of when.

  “Now, Porfiry Petrovich, what can I do for you?”

  “Aleksandr Chenko,” Rostnikov repeated, resisting the urge to scratch madly at the line where the stump of his real leg met the nesting cup of his false extension.

  “Who is that?”

  Rostnikov paused. There were several ways to go about this, each reeking of potential danger.

  “A possible suspect in the Bitsevsky Park murders.”

  “So soon?” said Tarasov. “Congratulations.”

  “He was questioned by you and held for sixteen hours before being released,” said Rostnikov.

  “We arrested so many that-”

  “This one is different.”

  “So?”

  “I would like whatever files you have on Chenko. There was nothing about him in the material you gave us.”

  “I will look tomorrow and get back-”

  “Tonight would be much better,” said Rostnikov.

  “Porfiry Petrovich,” Tarasov said with a smile. “You should spend more time at things you enjoy. What
do you enjoy, my friend?”

  “My wife, son, two little neighbor girls, plumbing, working with weights, and American detective novels. I also derive satisfaction from my job.”

  Tarasov’s smile disappeared. The Chief Inspector who sat across from him was not joking.

  “Plumbing?”

  “Yes. Did you enjoy spending time with your wife before she died?”

  “Of course,” said Tarasov, now wary.

  “I understand she fell or jumped from a window.”

  “Yes.”

  “The window was closed. She went through the glass and out onto the street. She could easily have opened the window before she jumped, but she chose to leap through a glass window that she could not with certainty penetrate.”

  Tarasov’s smile broadened with mock cooperation as he said, “It is puzzling, isn’t it? I will see if I can find any file on this Chenko.”

  When Tarasov left the room, Rostnikov immediately began to massage the end of his leg. If he scratched any harder, he knew, the itching would be even worse. He checked his watch. Almost four. He would go to Petrovka, see the Yak, and probably have time to get home for dinner and to talk to his wife. He would have just enough time to work out with the weights stored under the cabinet in the living room and work on the mystery of the backed-up drain in the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Bortkin.

  Tarasov returned with a folder that he gave to Rostnikov, who placed it on his lap.

  “Those are copies of everything about our interrogation and findings concerning Aleksandr Chenko.”

  “You interrogated Chenko personally,” Rostnikov said, opening the file and lifting a printed sheet so that he could better see it.

  “Yes, now I remember.”

  “He is difficult to forget.”

  “I really must be going,” said Tarasov. “Why don’t you take the file and-”

  “It is thick for the file of a man who was never truly suspected.”

  “No thicker than several of the others,” said Tarasov. “If you will just-”

  “I will be quick as a fox pouncing on a skittish rabbit,” said Rostnikov, running his eyes across the pages.

  Tarasov leaned back against the wall and took a cigarette from his pocket. He watched Rostnikov and smoked and waited.

  After about five minutes, Rostnikov closed the file and rose.

  “Chenko approached you when you came to look at the park,” said Rostnikov.

  “I do not remember. There were so many suspects.”

  “He approached you and wanted to talk to you, to tell you about his theories concerned with the murders. You told him to leave.”

  “He is an annoying, bitter man,” said Tarasov.

  “Like me?”

  “You are very annoying, but you do not appear to be bitter.”

  “In your investigation, did you come across the last name of a missing young woman named Hannah?” asked Rostnikov. “I see nothing about it in the file, but I have not looked closely enough perhaps. And if she is not in here, I will find her.”

  The Major was not smiling.

  “Chenko was questioned about six years ago about the disappearance of the girl,” said Tarasov. “He was released.”

  “And the young man, the girl’s fiancé?”

  “An accidental death.”

  “Fell from a window accidentally,” said Rostnikov. “Like your wife.”

  No more need be said. The ghost of Tarasov’s wife stood in the corner.

  “Perhaps we will talk again soon,” said Rostnikov, leaving the office.

  Pankov was mopping his forehead with an already moist handkerchief when Rostnikov entered the outer office of the Yak. The little man behind the desk stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket. He was certain Rostnikov had seen him, had added a mental note of evidence to his already substantial collection about the existence of Pankov’s fear.

  “You have arrived early,” said Pankov.

  “I ran all the way,” said Rostnikov, stepping forward in his awkward gait, a file folder in his hand.

  Pankov’s smile came out as a nervous tic. He picked up the phone from his desk and punched in the Yak’s number, hoping that he was not disturbing the Colonel. The Yak had never really chastised or punished Pankov for errors small or great, but he lived in perpetual dread of the moment when the Yak entered a state of fury.

  “Chief Inspector Rostnikov is here,” Pankov announced.

  He moved the phone several inches away from his ear lest the Yak send a threatening sound. The Yak smoothly told his frightened assistant to send in the Chief Inspector.

  “You may go in.”

  Rostnikov shifted the file folder to his left hand and moved to the inner office door as Pankov set the phone back gently in the cradle on his desk.

  Rostnikov’s mind held momentarily to the question of handkerchiefs as he opened the Yak’s door. No one used handkerchiefs anymore, at least no one Rostnikov knew, except for Pankov. Had the man an aversion to paper tissues? How did he clean the handkerchiefs? In a washing machine? In the kitchen sink? Did he strip to his underwear to iron them as he stood before the television watching and listening to the late news?

  The Yak, head shaven, imperially slim in a dark blue suit with a pale blue tie, sat not behind his desk but at the conference table to Rostnikov’s right. There was nothing on the shining table except a pad of white paper and a fine-point pen at a place opposite the Yak. For an instant, Rostnikov imagined Pankov furiously using his handkerchief to coax out the nearly perfect finish on the table.

  Rostnikov placed the folder he had brought on the table and sat with the white pad and pen in front of him. Porfiry Petrovich was certain that the conversation would be recorded and, given the nature of what he was about to impart, was reasonably certain that most, if not all, would be edited and deleted.

  “I have approved five days’ leave for both your son and Elena Timofeyeva for their wedding and honeymoon.”

  “Thank you,” said Rostnikov.

  “That is provided their departure will not stop the progress of ongoing investigations.”

  The Yak fixed his eyes on those of Rostnikov, who picked up the pen and began taking notes.

  “If need be, Inspector Karpo can assist Inspector Zelach in the pursuit of the boxer and Inspector Tkach can continue his mission of protecting the British journalist with the assistance of two assigned people from the uniformed division.”

  Rostnikov wrote a single word in small block letters, “Yalta,” and put a dark box about it to remind himself to confirm the honeymoon arrangements.

  “Zelach and Tkach,” Yaklovev said. “The former does not and never has impressed me, and the latter continues to appear to be unstable.”

  “I trust them both,” said Rostnikov, starting to draw a square with a circle inside touching the top, bottom, and both sides of the square.

  That was what the Yak wanted on record and what Porfiry Petrovich was quite willing to give.

  “You will be coming to the wedding?” asked Rostnikov.

  The Yak shifted his weight in the chair. The invitation had been a surprise to him, as it had been to Rostnikov. Porfiry Petrovich could not remember ever having seen the Colonel uneasy. Now Rostnikov expected an excuse or a lie or a simple “no.”

  “Yes.”

  Rostnikov expected the wedding gathering would consist of, as other such weddings did, hours of eating, noise, and drinking. Rostnikov could not imagine this officious man at any informal function.

  “It will be an honor,” said Rostnikov. “And, of course, I will when I leave remind Pankov that he has agreed to come.”

  The box with the word “Yalta” inside was now upon the head of stick figure of a man with a crude hammer in one hand and a can marked “Soup” in the other. The man was standing on a compact disc. Yes. Rostnikov owned a compact disc player given to him by his son. Gradually, slowly, Rostnikov’s collection of cassette tapes was being replaced with CDs of his favorites-Dinah Washington
, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, the Basie band, and Italian opera.

  The Yak sat silently waiting for the reason his Chief Inspector had asked them to meet. In response to the unasked question, Rostnikov stood, but not completely, and pushed the file folder in front of the Colonel, who opened it.

  “One year ago Major Aloyosha Tarasov, who was then in charge of the investigation of the Bitsevsky Park murders, allowed a very suspicious suspect to walk free after being held for sixteen hours and interrogated.”

  “A very suspicious suspect?” asked the Yak, reaching into his inner jacket pocket to extract a pair of glasses and perch them on his nose.

  “The suspect was and continues to be almost certainly the murderer,” said Rostnikov.

  The Yak read quickly, turning pages in the file, pausing once to say, “Aleksandr Chenko?”

  Rostnikov nodded “yes” and added, “Notes on the interrogation of Chenko are reasonably conclusive, but the interrogator stopped just short of extracting a confession.”

  “The interrogator was. .?”

  “Major Tarasov.”

  “And General Misovenski knew this?”

  “His initials are on the last page.”

  “Why did they let Chenko go and why did they not destroy this file?”

  “Aleksandr Chenko claims to be the nephew of the Prime Minister,” said Rostnikov.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Internet family tree. Emil Karpo found it. There is a Chenko on the Putin family tree.”

  The Yak was shaking his head in understanding.

  “And you are sure this Aleksandr Chenko is one of the family on that tree?”

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “I think he may be taking advantage of a coincidental name.”

  “Misovenski and Tarasov were taking no chances. They did not want to embarrass the Prime Minister by exposing his nephew as one of the worst serial killers in the history of Russia.”

  “Almost certainly the worst,” said Rostnikov.

  “This cover-up goes all the way up to Putin?”

  “I do not think so,” said Rostnikov.

  “And so they dropped the case on us.”

  “Yes.”

  “So we would be almost certain to find the murderer and we, not they, would be responsible for embarrassing the Prime Minister,” said the Yak softly, contemplating aloud. “If our suspect is indeed his nephew.”