After Yekaterina

by K. L. Abrahamson

  Khan stalked toward the office door where he pulled on a heavy coat and a traditional tall Kygyz fur hat that Kzakov had never seen him wear before.

  “I didn’t ask for you to be involved,” Kazakov said.

  “And for that my wife and children thank you, but I fear it may already be too late.”

  Kazakov crossed to him. “What’s going on, Khan? We’ve worked well together all these years. You’re the one man I trust.”

  Khan met his gaze, then sadly shook his head. “The world changes, old friend. Everything does, and you seem to be the only one who does not see it.” He pulled the door open and left, trudging down the hall toward the entrance.

  Kazakov watched him go. He knew the world changed; he just wondered what it was changing into and how to make sure the change was for the better. He turned sadly back to Maria, who was still sitting.

  Not better when he lost a friend.

  “He’s a worthy man. How did you get to him?”

  Her faint, enchanting scent stuck in his nose reminding him of something sweet, perhaps from the happier times of his childhood. He hooked his hip over the side of the desk. She had stuffed her hair inside the hat so that, with her height, until you saw her face, she might almost pass as a man.

  “I went to the old Islamic town. Given what I had learned inside the Red Veil, I thought that place might be safer. An old woman took pity on me because of the snow and she took me to her son. Apparently, word of a foreigner in their midst travels quickly. The next thing I knew I was bundled into a black van and transported here to wait for you.” She brushed a nonexistent hair back off her face with an elegant white hand.

  She smiled up at him, lighting those honey eyes like sunlight through a brown bottle.

  “You waited for me at Yekaterina Park.”

  The smile brightened. “I did. But you left me there.” Her gaze met his matter-of-factly.

  “You disappeared. I couldn’t find you.”

  He shook his head and rounded the desk, its bulk more comfortable between them though her hands looked so soft. He settled into Khan’s chair.

  “Why did you leave the Red Veil?” he asked, lacing his fingers before him on the file Khan had left. He would look at it later.

  She blew out a sigh. “After you left, Frau Zelinka called me downstairs to find out what you’d wanted. I told her what I’d told you—almost nothing at all, I’m sorry to say.” Her hands shook and she looked like she wanted to smoke. “You see, there was more to it. I am sure I know who the dead man was.”

  She lifted her chin like a smoker and met his gaze. “I mentioned him this morning—yesterday morning—the one called Collin. Collin Archer he said his name was. He had been to visit me three times in the past three months. Before that, for about six months he had come once a month. He was about five feet ten and slim, with the broken veins of a drinker—which is odd given every time he came to see me he only drank water. He was a nicer man than most. He liked to talk about the world and actually made me use the book knowledge that I had instead of simply being someone to fuck.”

  She looked at him sideways—to see if he was shocked at her language? Still not beyond a whore’s games, then.

  “Collin visited the night before last. He seemed distracted when we were together. I’d seen him talking to Prae when I came down the stairs to him. At the time, I thought she only offered him refreshments. Now I am not so sure. You see, after we were done it was quite late.” She eyed him again as if for a reaction. “The house was quiet and I let him out of my room. He said I need not escort him down the stairs—it made him feel ungentlemanly forcing a lady out of her boudoir.”

  She smiled and brushed again at that absent hair. He found himself wondering once more what her hand would feel like on his skin.

  “I stayed in the room but then realized that he had left a scarf behind. I left my room and went to the stairs but something made me stop—a thump, a gurgle—I can’t be sure, but all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I tiptoed back to my room. I thought that was the end of it, but after you left, Prae came back to my room. She went to my window and looked out. She asked me, “How could you know if it was Collin?” and suddenly I felt like it was a warning. I thought of what I’d heard the night before and I was sure. I knew I had to get out of there or I was going to disappear or at least be found dead somewhere. So I ran.”

  Her faint perfume overlaid the dry heat of the building’s radiator. He leaned back in the chair and swiveled it sideways but watched carefully from the side. “That does not seem like a lot to throw your—career—away? Barely a suspicion, really. I don’t understand why you would fear for your life.”

  She went still as if she’d joined the ranks of cadavers in this dead place. Then she stood up abruptly. “I thank you for coming, detektiv. I am sorry to have wasted your time.”

  Stiff shouldered, she swung out the office door and marched toward the exit. He scrambled out of the chair and sprinted to catch up. He caught her hand. Her skin was softer than he’d imagined. “I don’t doubt your story, Maria.” He stopped her from pulling away. “I just don’t understand why he would be killed in the Red Veil. Can you explain it to me?”

  “Why should I? You are just like all the rest. All the men who think they’re better than me.”

  He released her hand and stepped away. “It may surprise you, but that is not how I feel at all. You—puzzle me—and I am a man who lives always with puzzles. I think there must be other things happening at the Red Veil that have concerned you, for you are an intelligent woman. I need to know everything.” He thought for a moment of the tingling that had filled him when he’d spotted Boris Bure on the stairs to the Red Veil. “There may be a link between the Red Veil and a pair of murders that I have been ordered not to investigate. I want to know why. I want to know whether Collin Archer’s murder is somehow connected.”

  Her lovely face frowned as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked him up and down. “Then perhaps we can help each other to understand what happened—to Collin and to your other victims.” Turning on her heel, she returned to the office. “I will help you.”

  He settled behind the desk again and pulled Khan’s original manila envelope from his coat breast pocket and pulled out the photo of the dead man. “Is this Collin?” he asked as he slid the photo across to her on the desktop.

  She did not touch it, simply leaned forward from the edge of her chair to study the face in the image. “It is him. Strange how the lack of life leaves a man… empty. Soulless. Something that was, will never be again.” She touched the photo then, gently, as if it was a fragile flower. “I remember when I was a child. Abruzza—the destroyed village—she looked the same way.”

  Sighing, she sat back in her chair. “Of course, better like this than a living man without a soul. I have known a few of those. It is the empty eyes that betray them.”

  She glanced at him as if checking. She looked sad and tired, but there were too many things he had to know. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was almost six in the morning. The M.E.’s staff would be arriving soon. Khalil Khan would return as well, and Kazakov knew the M.E. would not appreciate finding Kazakov still here.

  “I need you to tell me everything you know about Collin Archer, but not here. We need to get you some place that they won’t look for you.” He stood up and flipped open the file on Khan’s desk, scanning down past the things he already knew. But the file was not the originals; Khan had copied everything for him as if he knew they might not have such a chance again. Thank you, old friend. You’ve taken risk enough.

  He flipped the file closed and, with it in hand, led Maria to the morgue entrance, opened the door, and peered out into the gray of early dawn. The snow had stopped falling but the clouds streaming overhead from the Tian Shan and Fergana Mountains said that more was on the way, even though they had already received more than they usually received in November. Nodding at her to follow, he flipped the lock on th
e door and waded out into the snow, leading her to the car. Their path was clear in the snow and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Whoever arrived would see that someone had been here when no one should have been. He held the passenger door for Maria and then made a point of walking over their path a few times to make it less obvious how many people had been here. Then he climbed in beside Maria and started the car.

  For an old beast of a vehicle, the engine roared to life and he only needed to rock the sedan once to get it plowing through the snowdrift that had settled around it. They crunched and rumbled out of the parking lot and into the street. They were the only traffic, which was a concern, for anyone with two eyes could follow them. He needed to get them amongst other vehicles so that their trail would be, if not lost, at least less clear.

  “Tell me about Collin Archer,” he asked as he steered slowly toward downtown New Moscow seeking more traffic. The architecture grew more modern, the bungalow-style housing and Islamic quarter abandoned in showy glass and steel that surrounded the huge plaza where the ornate eight-hundred-foot-long façade of the Winter Palace was pasted on a vast bunker of government offices. Facing it was the garish façade of Saint Basil’s cathedral. Like Maria’s comment about Collin’s body, the cadaver of the ancient palace and church now seemed soulless, the originals long ago remade by the defiling Ottomans.

  “He was—a cold man. Many who came to me were. It was as if the sex were obligatory or a physical expression of power. He was strange, both pale and not. He did not like to take off his clothes, preferring to take me from behind while still dressed.”

  He glanced at her and she sat stone-faced as gradually traffic increased on half-plowed roads. He drove them around until he was satisfied they weren’t being followed and then turned them toward the hills. Did he dare take Maria back to his dacha or should he find another place? At the moment, he could not think of an alternative that could provide as much safety. Besides, he needed Maria close so that he could mine her information. He turned onto Suvarov toward home.

  “He often spoke of England—its green fields and tall trees and how he missed them. He was good at languages, too. He spoke English and German and Russian and once we were passing Prae and she was talking to another Thai girl. I don’t know what they were saying, but I think Collin did for he shook his head as if he knew what they were talking about.”

  “What was he wearing the last time you saw him?” he asked as the central part of the city was left behind.

  “Dark gray wool trousers—expensive looking. A camel-colored Kashmir sweater. A scarf to match and his coat was navy wool, cut closer to the body than most men’s. It made him look taller, I think. I think that was important to him.”

  Frowning, she looked out the window as they left the downtown, skirted the Islamic old city, and entered the wilderness of suburban sprawl. “Where are we going?”

  “Some place safe,” Kazakov said, keeping his eyes on the road, for the unplowed snow made the driving treacherous. “What more can you remember about the man?”

  She thought for a few minutes. “He was a loner. He never came with friends, unlike the others from the Anglo-German Embassy. The others often asked for English girls—I guess they missed home—but he never did. When other English were at the Red Veil, he wanted nothing to do with them.” She frowned. “When I think of it now, it is strange. It didn’t feel so at the time. Perhaps my memory fails me.”

  She turned to him. “Perhaps I am unreliable?”

  At that he did glance at her serious face. “Somehow, I doubt it.” He looked back to the road. The houses were ending and ahead the world was a field of white turned gray by the heavy clouds. On the slopes above them the land undulated with narrow stream channels. There, hidden among the trees above one such channel, was his home. But the road through the field of white was cut by a set of deep ruts. Someone had driven this way before him. Beyond Agafya Ryabkov’s place and his dacha, there were few other hardy souls who lived up here all year. Most of those homes were owned by wealthy people who had winterized larger, more expensive homes than his. Perhaps they had driven into town for work early this morning.

  His uneasiness turned to concern when he reached his turn and the tire tracks turned ahead of him. He slowed to a stop.

  “What is the problem?” Maria asked.

  Kazakov inhaled. “I’m not sure whether there is a problem or not, but someone is here.” He put the vehicle in park. “Stay here.”

  Cautiously, he climbed out of the car. The snow sifted down around him. The cold froze his cheeks and he was thankful that he’d thought to bring his old hat.

  Keeping to the edge of the trees, he followed the tracks up his laneway. The snow lay less deep under the trees and the other tire tracks were clear, as was the black police sedan sitting by his front door.

  He stood there, considering. Rostoff took kickbacks from the New Moscow brothels, but Kazakov couldn’t believe that the man he knew would countenance murder. Though Kazakov had a sinking feeling about the evidence displayed in the dacha, police weren’t going to hurt Maria. In fact, depending on who was here, they might be of assistance in protecting a witness.

  Still… He would proceed with caution. Besides, where else was there to go?

  He returned to the car and climbed in. “There are police at my house. I suspect that they will want to talk about another case—one that does not involve you. Stay out of any conversation about it. Depending on the situation they may be able to help us, but when we arrive we will say that you are my mother’s sister’s daughter. Her name is Alina and she comes from Kokand. Do you understand? Do not talk unless they ask you a question.”

  Maria cocked a brow at him. “Will that not be suspicious if I don’t talk? A normal woman would chatter about her cousin, would she not?”

  “This isn’t a game, Maria.”

  She shook her head. “I am not playing one.”

  He dropped the sedan in gear and drove up the lane to park behind the house. Maria pushed open her door and climbed out, rubbing at the makeup on her face until most of it was smudged as if she’d slept with it on—perhaps on a bus.

  Kazakov retrieved the shovel from the sedan and led the way around the house, a smile pasted on his face.

  “It is beautiful here, after the snow,” Maria/Alina said brightly as they stomped up the steps to the door. “So lovely on the trees. We have not so many in Kokand. So wide open, you know?”

  Kazakov nodded and steeled himself as he pushed open the door. “So who is it who disturbs us on such a fine day?” he said, trying to be stern but friendly.

  The single person in the room stood with his back to the door. Chief Inspector Rostoff apparently studied Kazakov’s evidence wall. When he turned to them, Rostoff’s flushed face was far from smiling.

  Chapter 7

  Kazakov’s heart sank as Rostoff’s furious scowl chilled the dacha even though the man had taken the time to stir a fire to life. In the columns of morning light through the frosty windows, Koshka crouched in the bed’s furthest corner, her pupils dilated, fur fuzzed, and tail twitching unhappily—about as happy as Kazakov felt.

  “Rostoff.” Kazakov tipped his head hello and removed his hat. “To what do I owe this visit?” He made a show of helping Maria/Alina out of her coat and removed his own. Rostoff still wore his and his heavy fur hat. “You recall my cousin Alina from Kokand? She’s here for a visit. I was just in town picking her up. The roads are not good, eh?” He shook his head.

  Rostoff looked from one to the other, his heavy features going through permutations of fury at the fact that someone else was here and he could not simply explode at Kazakov.

  Rostoff bowed his head in polite greeting. “Madam—it could not be Miss?”

  Maria/Alina played her part and actually laughed. “Please. It is Miss because no one will have a strong woman these days.” She shook her head. “Come. We will have tea. Take off your coat. This one must be a better host.” She sniffed w
omanly disdain in Kazakov’s direction.

  Rostoff glanced at the evidence on the wall. “I think not. I must be on my way. I was simply looking for a pencil and paper to leave Detektiv Kazakov a note to call me, but now the note is delivered in person.” He shuffled heavy-footed toward the door. “Join me a moment, Detektiv.” He held open the door and motioned Kazakov outside.

  Obediently, Kazakov stepped out onto the stair. Rostoff pulled the door closed behind them with a nod to Maria/Alina. Then he caught Kazakov’s shoulder and shoved him against the wall. Snow from the roof sifted down over both of them as Rostoff glared.

  Kazakov waited for Rostoff’s fist, but instead of punching Kazakov, Rostoff hauled him in close by the collar.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rostoff growled. “You were told that investigation was over. You were given a task that surely even you could not fuck up, and then I learn that you have taken it upon yourself to waste resources investigating a drunkard’s death. What am I to do with you, Kazakov? Tell me and convince me, because otherwise I know what I am sorely tempted to do.” He let the threat hang chillingly undefined in the air.

  “I thought I was a police detective. I was doing my job.” Kazakov stiffened, holding his anger in check. This was no time to end up on charges for attacking a senior officer, though he was sorely tempted.

  “Yes. Yes. A body. I know.” Rostoff waved his words away as if they meant nothing. “I cannot afford a problem right now,” Rostoff continued. “Nor can you. Least of all you. There is an election coming and there are people who do not want trouble. Do you understand? If you want to keep your job, keep your dacha, keep that ‘cousin’ of yours, I suggest you reconsider your actions. Do you understand?”

  “So, to be clear, you are ordering me not to do my job.”

  Rostoff’s face darkened. He leaned in close. “You listen to me, Detektiv. I am all that stands between you and being tossed out on your ass. Do you understand? Keep me happy and you just might have a job tomorrow.”