After Yekaterina

by K. L. Abrahamson

  “So, who was your victim?”

  Kazakov glanced at Khan, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. He had already trusted this stranger with so much.

  It was telling as well that Khan knew this Eric Clinton well enough to judge.

  But who else was there? The evidence was too broad and too vague and yet something he had seen niggled in the back of his brain.

  Biting back a groan from the pain, he returned to his chair across the table and sank down. The first floor of the library was quiet with just a few voices coming from students who had taken possession of the far corner and the drone of the check-out kiosks out front. “When we first found him, we thought he was simply a homeless man. Investigation indicated that his name was Collin Archer, but he may have been far more than a manager at AngloTec.”

  Clinton ran his fingers around the rim of the small machine. “A spy, you mean. This is the data machine of a spy.”

  Kazakov nodded and checked over his shoulder. “He also had this. Can you tell us what it is?” He hauled out the small plastic stick and placed it on the desk in its baggie. Let it carry the answer to Maria’s murder—to all the murders.

  Collin eyed it. “What is it?”

  “No idea.”

  Clinton picked up the bag. “You ever seen anything like this?” he said to Khan.

  The M.E. shook his head thoughtfully, but then hid gaze brightened. “May I see it?”

  Clinton gave it to him and Khan turned the device over in his hands. “I’m almost sure of it…” He looked at Kazakov. “If you read my report, you saw the bit about the odd flap of skin I found on the victim.”

  “It was on Archer’s left side—a small flap of skin about two inches long and an inch wide,” Kazakov said.

  Khan nodded and held up the small rectangle in the bag. “I think it just might fit, don’t you?” He shook his head. “If we were still at my office we could check.”

  Kazakov and Clinton bent closer to look at the device. It was virtually the same size as the small flap of skin.

  “But what is this thing?” Clinton took the baggy back to examine the device.

  “It fits into the side of the data machine,” Kazakov said.

  “What?” Clinton and Khan rounded on him. Kazakov nodded and wished for his bed. His knees felt like rubber and his vision was like murky glass.

  “When I found it, I realized it had prongs that fit into a socket on the side of the machine.”

  Khan pulled the small device from the baggie and Clinton plugged the little device in.

  The screen shivered. The machine beeped and then the screen went dark again.

  Clinton’s fingers danced over the keys once more and this time a different list came up. Two items, both with names that meant nothing to Kazakov. He shook his head but Clinton sat back, satisfied, then leaned forward and touched another key.

  The screen cleared again, this time bringing up a new list of items.

  “Your device carries other information.” He tapped the little rectangular device. “With this kind of technology, your man could have been transferring intelligence to his associates almost unnoticed. It wouldn’t take much. A drop in a coat pocket. A handshake. A hug. The information could exchange hands. By the look of this list, a lot of it, too.”

  “Or a man could transport such a device across borders in the flap of skin and then place it in his coat pocket for someone else to retrieve,” Kazakov said, realizing that he had the information he needed.

  “I’m going to leave this with you to keep safe,” he said, heaving himself up and heading for the entrance beyond the bookshelves.

  “What are you doing? You’re in no condition to be going anywhere.” Khan came around the table as if to stop him. “Besides, you’re my ride.”

  Kazakov shook his head. “Clinton will have to get you back to the hospital. I’m going to arrest Archer’s killer.”

  Chapter 13

  The Perseus’s seat was sticky with old blood as he pulled into the curb in the late afternoon, but that couldn’t be helped. At least Khan’s bandage held—or Kazakov thought it did, but he wasn’t going to check. Pain throbbed like a fist grinding into his side and the vehicle’s heated cab smelled like iron and old meat.

  All too bad. So was the cold that ate into his hands and feet and sent shivers through him even though the Perseus’s heater chugged warmth.

  Across the street the Red Veil sat peacefully, its white façade glowing in the growing dusk and the swirl of the new dusting of snow. Soon the lights in the lower windows would come on and the Ziln limousines would begin to arrive for the evening. The streetlights flicked on in the gathering gloom and he should do what he had come for while he still had the momentum of arrival.

  It had come to him as they discussed the small data holder. According to Maria, Archer had shown no interest in sex, but he had gone through the motions as if it was an expectation. But what he had done at each visit was spend time in the dining room listening to the other patrons talking. Those people might change, but there was a constant in his visits beyond his trysts with Maria, who was perfect for him because she was not prone to gossip like the other girls. What better place to pass off his data than a place where it was automatic that all patrons relinquish their coat?

  He climbed out of the Perseus and felt his stitches pull. At least the pain had died down to a throbbing ache like a vice crushing his side. Better than the screaming pain it had been. Thankfully, his legs felt solid enough—for the moment.

  Unfortunately, his coat and clothing were still crusty with dried blood, but that wasn’t going to stop him from what needed to be done. He just wished he knew how Archer’s spying linked back to Semetai and Yekaterina’s deaths. Was Bure perhaps an unwitting source of the information Archer was trading? Did something in Bure’s past allow him to be blackmailed? If Semetai had overheard an exchange of information…

  He started up the Red Veil’s daunting flight of stairs using the railing as support. By the time he reached the red door he was puffing and he took a moment, peering out into the growing dark where the swirl of flakes was becoming a white veil across the park. The Red Veil and the White—both masked so much darkness. He used the knocker once on the door and once more it pulled open revealing the delicate oriental flower with the secret smile: Prae.

  Her eyes widened as she recognized him and then the smile faded away, but not the secrets. Her gaze still held those. Gone were the offer to take his coat and the gentle subservient bow of the head.

  “What do you want?” she said. “Frau Zelinka is indisposed.”

  He stepped past her into the hall, though she tried to block his way. She was dressed in demure scarlet silk with a collar high around her neck and a bodice and skirt that sheathed her body like a blade. Her black hair was coiled in ropes high on her head.

  “And if I asked to see Maria, would she be indisposed, too? How about Collin Archer, Prae?”

  Her gaze flickered for a moment, but then her chin lifted. “Frau Zelinka doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  He grinned down at her. “Amazingly, this time I want to talk to you, Prae. You see, I know what’s been going on here. I know what Collin Archer was.”

  “He was a patron. That is all.”

  “Not all, Prae. He was a spy and a courier. He brought the data to you and you took it from his pocket each time he came and probably passed it to someone else each time.”

  Her impassive expression turned to a glare. “I don’t have time for this. Clients are coming.”

  Kazakov grabbed her arm and dragged her into the parlor just off the foyer. It was an opulent room rich with burgundy and dark blue carpets and brocade furniture. Gossamer burgundy veils concealed the corners and oriental incense conveyed the sense that he had stepped into another time and place. An idealized Silk Road, perhaps. A man could imagine himself as Marco Polo, a man of the cold western world experiencing the pleasures of the east for the first time.

  “You will
tell me who you work for. Who ordered Archer’s death? I know he was a spy. I suspect he double-crossed you.”

  She jerked away. “You know nothing!”

  “So tell me.” He crossed his arms, but blocked her escape from the room.

  “I’ll tell you nothing.”

  Behind him the front door burst open. Kazakov spun around. The unwelcome figures of Antonov and Alenin zeroed in on Kazakov as he fumbled for his weapon. Loss of blood slowed him down. They beat him to their guns and advanced into the room. He should have known. Should have expected. And there was nothing he could do. Barring using Prae as a human shield, they were two and he was one and they were ready for him. Slowly he raised his hands.

  Prae stepped past him to Antonov’s side.

  “Good. You’re here.” Her voice changed, becoming stronger, and sharp edged. “I told you to get rid of him, and yet he shows up here. What do I pay you for? Do you know what jeopardy everything is in?”

  From a simpering apprentice whore, her expression changed and he realized just how wrong he had been. “You run the Red Veil. Frau Zelinka—she’s your front, your puppet!”

  She turned a haughty expression on him. “That slut’s only good for enticing fools like you and Rostoff. Let him think we are just a whorehouse paying our bribes. I have the business sense. I have the loyalty. Unlike that hún dàn, Archer, after all the money spent on him.”

  “He betrayed you.”

  “All the years of building a web of connections across Asia and he planned to sell out to them—the Ottomans.” Her hands curled into fists. “He became too much like the Anglo-Germans.”

  “It was you who made him look like them, sound like them.”

  “Think like them, too, apparently. Duplicitous bastard. I should have known when I saw him with Enver Pasha.”

  “So you had Archer killed. Maybe by your friends, here.” He nodded at his fellow detectives, wondering how they had fallen so far. Was it only the money? He’d never have thought it possible of Antonov, who now stirred uneasily where he stood.

  She just looked at him. “I am not a fool, Detektiv. I might play one, but I will not provide an admission to you.”

  She looked at Antonov and Alenin, nodded, and ducked around Kazakov to disappear down the hallway. Both detectives were stone-faced. Then Antonov nodded. Alenin remained inscrutable.

  “Alexander Kazakov,” Antonov said, but his voice hitched as if he did not like his predicament. “You are under arrest for the murder of a prostitute named Maria di Maria.”

  “You expect me to simply surrender to you due to some trumped up evidence?” Kazakov asked. He doubted whether he’d ever see the station. It was far more likely that these two would drive him to some quiet spot and take care of a problem.

  “Strong evidence.” Anontov said, with something akin to regret in his voice. “A fur hat with your name in it left at the scene.”

  “Of course. Get rid of me officially and you don’t need to kill me. Anything I say will be discredited and you can bury me in Fergana’s darkest prison. Tell me, just how long have you been working for the Chinese?”

  Antonov wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “At least we’re doing something to help our country. I don’t do everything they want. Just the things that will help Fergana resist the bastard Ottomans,” Alenin said. “But then you wouldn’t understand something as great as taking a stand. Of doing what’s necessary to help the greater good. Some people just have to die, sometimes. But you’re too bloody impressed with your own reputation as the detective who solves everything. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone—even after Antonov warned you.”

  A swirl of evidence coalesced in Kazakov’s brain and he swayed for a moment at what it meant. “You were there. You were the two men with Archer who chased down Semetai Manas. You helped kill him.”

  Antonov shrugged. “Archer wasn’t sure if the kid overheard anything, but then months later he started making threats to important people. Seems he was determined to marry the girl. We couldn’t afford to have information leaking out. And then there was the fact that he killed the girl.”

  Kazakov staggered. It couldn’t be true. Semetai had loved Yekaterina. There was no reason to kill her.

  Unless there was.

  All the figures of the investigation swirled around him and his legs felt weak trying to wade through them.

  Antonov caught his shoulder and shoved him into the veil-draped wall. “Sorry, old friend.”

  Alenin patted him down and confiscated his pistol.

  Then Antonov grabbed his hands and twisted them behind his back. From the hallway beyond the parlor came the sound of voices swirling down from the upstairs. Prae must be holding them there until the situation was dealt with and Kazakov was gone. Metal cuffs imprisoned his wrists and he was shoved out of the room and out of the door.

  “You should have listened,” Antonov murmured.

  Kazakov almost fell down the long flight of stairs, but his captors must have taken pity on him. Somehow his wobbly legs got him to the street.

  They shoved him in the back of a police vehicle and climbed in. The engine roared to life as he pondered Semetai Manas and what could make him take the life of Yekaterina. The lad had loved her enough to abandon his family’s traditional ways. It didn’t make sense. But then nothing made sense in this case. Nothing was as it seemed.

  A woozy sense of disorientation flowed over him as the car cruised through the streets. It was like a circus parade and he was the prize lion caged for all to see. Surprisingly, instead of taking him to a quiet spot for execution, they pulled into the politseyshiy garage, parked, and hauled him out of the vehicle and up the elevator, half dragging him into the squad room. It was surprisingly busy, with two witnesses giving statements at desks and detectives pecking at their typewriters. Young Pavel Chelomeyev froze as he exited the coffee room, two cups of coffee in his hands.

  All discussion stopped and all eyes followed him as he was guided through the desks and shoved into an interview room. The door slammed shut behind him and he was alone. He collapsed into a hard wooden chair at the table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. The air tasted of old sweat and stale fear and he knew that a camera was on him. He closed his eyes, visualizing the evidence he had hung on his wall at the dacha, trying to put the pieces together into a new pattern. How did it go?

  Yekaterina and Semetai’s photos were at the top, their families off to the side. Semetai’s parents, his father looking fierce in a traditional fur hat, his mother faded, eyes downcast. On the other side, Boris and Natania Bure. Beneath the photos of the young people had been Collin Archer’s death photo. He had been, if not responsible, then closely involved with Semetai’s death. Kazakov had considered that he might have been involved in Yekaterina’s death too. Somehow that would have been fitting—a spy for the Ottomans and Chinese destroying the latest in a long string of Yekaterinas.

  But it didn’t fit now. Not if Alenin’s off-hand comment had been true.

  His memory scanned down the rest of the wall. The Red Veil and Frau Zelinka and Prae. He knew who had killed Collin Archer, or at least who had had him killed. Also at the Red Veil were Maria—killed for what they thought she knew about Archer’s death—and the other girls including pale Katya—almost the image of Yekaterina…

  It was like he was swimming in Yekaterinas. A tsarina who had destroyed a nation through her greed. A girl’s notebook that survived a time of great strife and rose above the ashes. A schoolgirl dead in a park bearing her name and a whore whose face was almost the same.

  Too many, and yet. And yet. There was something almost there. Almost aware in his brain. He almost had the connection.

  The interview door burst open and Antonov and Alenin came in bearing a large paper evidence bag and a file that they dumped on the table. Antonov slumped into the chair opposite Kazakov while Alenin released Kazakov’s hands and then retreated, scowling, to slouch his lanky frame against the wall.
Classic interview. Good cop, bad cop.

  Kazakov filed away the tingling sensation of almost awareness and returned Antonov’s fierce regard. It was classic step one: intimidate the suspect. The only problem was that Kazakov had almost as many years on the other side of the table. The fact he sat here today didn’t matter at all. He crossed his arms, waiting.

  Like a staring contest where the winner was the one who didn’t blink, the power here was in silence. Let the Double A team break the silence first.

  Finally, Antonov stirred and flipped open the file, appearing to scan its meager contents. “You know why you are here.”

  “Enlighten me,” Kazakov said.

  Antonov didn’t look up from the file. “A woman’s body was found in the snow in Yekaterina Park. Evidence suggests that you knew her. More evidence suggests that you killed her. Tell us what happened.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I would like an advocate present for the interview? Is that right not enshrined in Fergana’s constitution?” He asked it mildly, as a training officer would ask a recruit. These two knew better and just chose to forget, though their version of the interview would doubtlessly state that such an advocate had been offered and declined.

  “Why would Semetai Manas kill Yekaterina Weber,” Kazakov asked. “Everybody says that he loved her. He was risking everything by going against his faith to be with her.”

  “This isn’t about the death of some teenaged slut. This is about the woman in the park,” Alenin said.

  And the woman in the park was a whore. But why consider the girl a slut? She was in love, yes. In love with a Muslim boy and that would not be popular.

  And she was pregnant.

  Kazakov straightened as Alenin roused himself from his slouch and crossed to the desk. “Don’t play silly bugger with us, Kazakov. We’ve got the evidence we need. We have your hat at the scene where her body was found and I’ll bet forensics will find her fingerprints all over your house.”

  Kazakov only half-heard the evidence. Surely his theory couldn't be right, but there were the newspaper articles. There was the fact that Boris Bure was even now being groomed to assume leadership of the Reformation Party. How it was all linked to the Red Veil he wasn’t sure, but something was there.