by Alina Adams
"Accent."
Here lies Rebecca Levy, dumbest girl in the land of the free.
A tall man with an accent... "Did he have red hair?"
"Yes."
Duh, Bex, what might be a logical way for Sergei to get his hands on Silvana's receipt? Like, maybe he was with her when she bought her candies, etc….?
"You said she was yelling at him? Do you know about what?"
"Something."
"Can you be more specific?"
"She yelled, 'Don't you threaten me.' Yeah. 'Don't you threaten me,' that's what she said. Also, 'It's done. If the ISU asks, I'll tell them exactly what happened. I told you I would.'"
Bex had been to quite a few hotel boutiques. She'd never felt the urge to kiss the clerk before. She felt that urge now. She suppressed it.
"One more question."
"Yeah?"
"After Silvana paid for her things, which way did she go?"
"Where do they all go? Arena."
"Did the man go with her?"
"Yeah."
"Still yelling?"
"Never stopped yelling."
Time to review: Silvana Potenza and a threatening, tall, redheaded, Russian-accented Sergei exited the hotel boutique and headed toward the arena. A half hour later she was dead, and Sergei, despite Xenia's insistence to the contrary, never made it to the practice. Instead, he hurried back to the hotel and phoned a law firm, with whom he chatted for a good ten minutes. It did not take ten minutes to say, "Wrong number." Also, at some point after they left the hotel, the signed receipt for Silvana's merchandise ended up in Sergei's pocket, the law firm's number scribbled on its back.
Okay, the time for review was now over.
It was now time to talk to Sergei.
Again.
A knock on his hotel room door produced no answer. Neither did a second one. After a moment, Bex let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding and admitted to herself that she was relieved. Mathematically speaking, the odds of her getting out alive from a potential killer's room obviously decreased every time she confronted one. No need to push it.
A search of the competitors' lounge also came up empty, although Bex did catch a glimpse of Patty and Erin breaking bread (or a plate of salad, in Erin's case) alongside Jasper. When he spotted her across the room, he raised his arm and waved. Patty did the same, then promptly turned away and pretended to be fascinated by her breadstick, lest Bex decide to walk over and actually take Patty up on her promise of an interview with Erin.
Luckily for Patty, Bex had other matters on her mind. Sergei wasn't in his room, and he wasn't in the competitors' lounge.
There was only one other place he could be.
Bex headed for the parking lot.
O course, he was there. Sergei, plus all the male members of the Russian figure skating team—three singles skaters, three pairs skaters, three ice dancers—two more Russian coaches, a federation flunky, and—surprise, surprise—even Igor Marchenko. Only one thing could get all these men— two of whom hated each other since they first competed at the age of six, two of whom used to sleep together and now hated each other, and one who'd slept with all four of the above and so spread his hate around evenly—into a hotel parking lot in the middle of the most important championship of the season: a pickup soccer game.
And not just any game, mind you. As far as Bex could tell, this game was perennially ongoing, having started during the first Grand Prix competition in September and continuing wherever and whenever at least four of the combatants met. Bex had seen them play in a parking garage in Ontario, Canada, a schoolyard in Paris, France, and an open field in Beijing, China. Now, it was apparently a parking lot in San Francisco's turn to host this alternate world cup/celebrity death match spectacle. Bex wondered who was winning. And then, watching a skater who only two days ago gave Bex an interview swearing that his teammates were his very best friends in the world viciously head-butt that same teammate in an attempt to send him crashing into a parked car, Bex wondered if the score really mattered. Obviously, this was a game wherein he who inflicts the most pain, wins.
Due to his size, or maybe due to the fact that, as far as Bex knew, he held no particular grudge against anyone else, Sergei was playing goalie.
The goal was two cars, parked one space over from each other. A blue Toyota Corolla and a green station wagon. Neither one looked as if a soccer ball through the windshield would be welcome. But, then again, not a single player looked as if he really cared.
The match on the field was vicious, with players sliding and slamming and high-kicking with the same intensity they brought to their performances on the ice. Briefly, Bex wished that all the nay sayers who claimed that figure skaters weren't real athletes could take a gander at the sheer physicality of this supposedly friendly game. Sweat gleamed off muscles toned by decades of intense work, as the most complicated of forward/back/foot/knee/head/foot-again kicks were knocked off in single, fluid movements. There was no doubt about it: these were men who would have excelled in any sport they picked. They just happened to pick figure skating, and the viewing public was all the luckier for it.
But, then again, Bex was here to ferret out a killer, so maybe she shouldn't be passing out public service medals quite yet.
Sticking to what she could only guess were the designated outskirts of the parking lot turned playing field, Bex ducked her head between her shoulder blades and held her research binder to the side like a shield as she slowly and in fear for her life from an errant soccer ball inched toward Sergei. She stopped when she reached the far side of the Toyota and leaned over the hood, hissing, "Sergei!"
He turned his head briefly, noted who was hissing, then instantly turned his attention back to the game. Even though, as goalie, his job seemed to consist solely of stopping any ball that dared to fly in between the cars, Sergei insisted on hopping up and down, shifting from side to side like a manic aerobic instructor, his arms up and extended, fingers flexing, ready to catch even when the ball was all the way on the other end of the field.
"Hello!" He boomed in that Beatles-trained accent of his.
"I need to talk to you." Bex looked over her shoulder to check if anyone could overhear them. Luckily, in the middle of battle, no one could care less.
"Listening," he offered and craned his neck for a better view of the action, still hopping.
"It's kind of private."
"And I am rather busy at the moment."
Bex tried to turn her latest set of lemons into lemonade. She'd been afraid of confronting Sergei alone. They certainly weren't alone now. Besides, she doubted he would kill her in the middle of a soccer game. It might cause him to miss a goal.
She asked, "Why didn't you tell me you saw Silvana the morning she died?"
Anyone not watching closely might have missed the rhythm break in his hopping. But Bex happened to be watching very closely. And she knew an ex-skater like Sergei would never skip a beat unless he was somewhat rattled.
He didn't turn to look at her when he lied, "I did not see her."
"Really?"
"Really." Another hop. "Well, perhaps in the elevator or something like this. In the morning. I cannot remember everyone I may have seen in the elevator or in the corridor."
"The man in the hotel boutique says you came in with Silvana. He says you were yelling at her and threatening her when you found out she planned to testify in front of the ISU."
"It was not I." This time, he didn't even break stride. Like any professional athlete, he'd adjusted his rhythm to the situation.
"The clerk said it was a tall man who spoke with a Russian accent."
"Not I," Sergei repeated. "Perhaps the clerk is mistaken. Tall means different things for different people. And a Russian accent—are you certain that he did not hear a Polish accent? Or maybe Czech? They sound very much alike, do you not think?"
Boy, this guy was good. Bex almost would have believed it, except... "Silvana Potenza signed a credit
card receipt for her purchases. You gave me that receipt when you handed me that phone number back in your hotel room."
The hopping finally stopped. He even tore his eyes away from the game long enough to look at Bex. He said, almost more to himself than to her, "I had forgotten."
"Forgotten what?"
"The phone number, she wrote it down on the back of her receipt. I had forgotten."
Actually, Bex was relieved to hear it. She would have hated it if Sergei had deliberately given her the incriminating slip of paper, meaning for her to figure something profound out, and she'd totally missed it.
"So you did see Silvana."
"Yes." He sounded like the last few drops out of an arid gardening hose.
"And you threatened her."
"I did not threaten Silvana." Sergei's hands fell by his sides, and he squinted into the distance, no longer following the game, but still avoiding Bex's eyes.
She said, "Look, Sergei, I know English isn't your first language, so let me define the word threaten for you. I don't think it comes up a lot as part of "Love Me Do."
"Nor did the word, patronize, Miss Levy, but I recognize what it means, also."
Oooh, sarcasm. Well, good. Bex was comfortable with sarcasm. It made her feel on more solid ground, no matter what the language.
"Do you want to tell me what happened, or should I take the clerk's story and the receipt straight to the police?"
"Silvana gave me that receipt."
"Why? Were you going to reimburse her? Is that what all the shouting was about? Expense reports?"
"Do you want to talk?" Sergei snapped. "Or maybe attempt to listen?"
'Tell me something I can believe."
"Yes, I did see Silvana this morning."
'Tell me something I can believe that I don't already know."
He sighed, darted to the right when the ball appeared to be heading in his direction, then straightened up again when the game moved away into a huddle of flailing arms and legs.
"I was heading out for the practice, when I saw Silvana in the hotel boutique. I went in to address her."
"About what?"
"Xenia."
"Okay, one more time, Sergei, tell me something that isn't obvious."
"I asked Silvana a question: if ISU holds a hearing about Xenia and Erin and the gold medal like her Web site requests, will she answer to them?"
"What did she say?"
"She said that she would."
"Okay, Scooby Snack for honesty on that one."
Sergei looked at her queerly. Bex remembered too late that Scooby-Doo didn't often come up in the Beatles oeuvre, either.
She followed up, "You didn't want Silvana to talk to the ISU?"
"I did! Absolutely, I did. Yes, I very much wanted Silvana to talk. Thursday night, I begged Silvana to answer the questions for the press. I begged her to tell them we did not cheat, Xenia won the competition fairly."
"Well, if you didn't cheat, why didn't she want to tell the press that?"
"Silvana, she is—she was a very difficult woman."
Bex believed it. In all her years of mystery reading, she had yet to stumble—literarily speaking—upon a corpse whom someone hadn't considered difficult. Being difficult, after all, was what most often landed one in their corpseish state.
"How was she difficult?"
"Her standards, they were very high. Even when she gave you a first-place ordinal, Silvana's marks would be always the lowest on the panel. She is very particular. I remember, when we still skated our compulsory figures in competition, Silvana, she would get down on her hands and knees and touch the tracings with her fingers."
"Silvana got down on her hands and knees?" That was a bit hard to imagine.
"Silvana, she was younger then. And also thinner."
"Ah."
"Yes. She has very strong code of ethics. She believes what she believes, and no one can change her mind."
"But wouldn't you think a woman like that would want her name cleared, then?"
"Silvana believed that to answer questions suggests that she is not certain in her position. She said to me, "If I dig—dig—what is that word in English that sounds like dig, but means to answer?"
"Dignify?"
"Yes! Dignify! Yes, that is her word. She said to me, "If I dignify their questions, then I am suggesting they have rights to ask it in the first place. They have no evidence against me for any wrongdoing, and yet they arrest and try and judge me in the newspapers and on television. I will not speak in my defense to them, because there is nothing legitimate to defend."
"But she was willing to speak to the ISU?"
"Silvana was very proper. If her ISU asks her to speak, she will speak the truth. Silvana said to me, "The ISU, they have right to question me. Media does not."
"And you swear she would have told them that she didn't cheat."
"I know she did not cheat."
"Still, it's awfully convenient for you and Xenia. Now, Silvana can't testify either way."
Sergei asked, "Did you call the number I gave you?"
"Yes. It's a law firm. But you didn't tell me the name of the person you spoke to, so they didn't know how to direct my call."
"His name is Eugene Varshavsky. He is a lawyer. He speaks Russian."
"A criminal lawyer."
"No." Sergei set his restless hands on his hips and actually turned to face Bex for the first time. "Why is it you think I would call a criminal lawyer?"
"Well, Silvana's murder does come to mind…."
The hands went up in the air, exasperated. "How many times must I tell you this? I did not kill Silvana. I have no reason to kill Silvana. I need her to defend Xenia. I am a victim, too. Xenia and me. We are victims of American media."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she'd heard this song before from his prize pupil.
Bex asked, "So what kind of lawyer is this Russian-speaking guy?"
"Libel." Sergei said definitively. Then added, "Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Or slander. He is either a libel or slander lawyer. Silvana, she explained the difference to me. One is in speech, one is written. Though she also said television is like written."
Bex practically heard the pieces click into place in her head, like a joint cracking. "You were calling a libel lawyer because you wanted to sue on behalf of Xenia."
"Yes. Yes!" A light went on in Sergei's eyes, as if finally Bex had proven not nearly as obtuse as he'd previously feared. "Yes, that is exactly, precisely it. Silvana told me she would not speak to the press. That is why I was so angry with her in the boutique. Finally, she said to me, she said, "I will not speak to the press on your behalf. But they have no evidence to accuse you of cheating. Here is the name of a lawyer I know. He speaks Russian. He can help you. He can sue to make them stop saying those things about you and Xenia."
"And then Silvana wrote the number down…."
"On her receipt, yes. I put it in my pocket, I did not look at it closely."
"The boutique clerk said you two left together, headed for the rink."
"Yes. That is so. But I turned around. I went back to the hotel and called the lawyer."
"And you didn't kill Silvana."
"No, Miss Levy," was the last thing he said before diving for a soccer ball flying in his direction. "I did not kill Silvana."
Bex was clueless. A woman without clues.
No. Scratch that. She had clues. She had two very big clues. She just couldn't make heads or tails of them.
Immediately after leaving Sergei to finish his soccer game, Bex redialed the number written on the back of Silvana's receipt and this time, with a name to request, was immediately transferred to a Russian-accented lawyer who confirmed Sergei's story. Which meant absolutely nothing.
Sergei's story could be one hundred percent true, and he still would have had time to call Silvana Potenza from the arena's pay phone, lure her to the refrigeration room, rig the electricity, and make it back to the hotel in time to t
alk libel and slander and all sorts of other lawyer things.
Except Bex couldn't prove any of it.
And then there was the incriminating E-mail. The one telling Silvana how to rank the skaters in the long program. The one signed Sergei Alemazov. The one Bex still couldn't prove had been sent by him. The one that could have been mailed and printed out any time, both before and after the long program.
Nevertheless, despite her general sense of failure and exhaustion (it was almost dinnertime, and Bex had begun her day at six a.m. after two weeks of equally long days), Bex was nevertheless convinced that the E-mail found in Silvana's purse was the key. If Bex could just prove when it was printed, she would be a long way toward knowing whether the document even could have influenced the judge's decision. After all, if Bex could prove the E-mail was printed after the event, it seemed unlikely that Silvana had been swayed. (Yes, yes, she could have read the E-mail on-line, voted the way it told her to, then printed it out later. But for what purpose? Because she knew she would be killed and wanted to leave some incriminating evidence in her purse? Hey... there was a new theory. Bex made a mental note to come back to it when she was really, totally out of ideas.) And if the E-mail was printed before the competition, well, then, Bex would be no closer to proving who, in fact, had sent it. After all, anyone could forge Sergei's name, and he, of all people, had the least motive to actually do so. But, at least she would have some information to go on.
And so, Bex's search for that elusive printer continued.
She tried staring at the E-mail, staring really, really hard, and trying to channel some sort of spirit out from between the neatly typed letters. Why couldn't this be an old-fashioned typewriter, she wondered. One that was fortuitously missing an e or had a T that didn't cross? Why did all computer printers have to look so uniform? If it weren't for the size difference between American and European paper, Bex would have absolutely nothing to go on.
And if it weren't for leaping to conclusions, Bex might have realized the obvious earlier.
Oh, damn.
Bex studied the E-mail again.
Oh, damn, what if she'd totally missed the boat, here? She'd made the assumption that Silvana's E-mail was printed on European paper because Bex had just spent the past few months wrestling with the stuff. But someone, well, normal, for lack of a better word, someone normal wouldn't have leapt to that conclusion at all. Someone normal would have thought the piece of paper was shorter than usual because its top or bottom had been chopped off.
