Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  Sasha said, "Here are his personal things. This may to help, yes?"

  Bex had been so busy pondering the philosophical implications of a dead man's boxers, she'd managed to miss that lying propped up against the suitcase was a smaller, leather bound case, the size of a legal-sized envelope, but thicker. It seemed to contain several small jewelry-sized boxes, as well as a thick wad of papers. In Bex's extensive, crime-solving experience, a thick wad of papers beat underwear and socks for relevancy any day of the week.

  She grabbed the case and plopped down on the bed. Sasha plopped down next to her, looking over Bex's shoulder, his chin brushing her sweater, the slight stubble there raking it audibly. A few hours earlier, when she had thought he was younger than her, he'd sat this close to her in the cab, and Bex had barely noticed he was there—he might have been just another piece of the shabby black leather they were both trying not to stick to. Now that she knew he was actually her own age and not the naive kid she'd been comfortable with, the proximity suddenly seemed too... proximal.

  "Ahem," Bex said. She shrugged to get away from him, hopefully without it looking like she was shrugging to get away from him, and dove into the case. She pulled out a stack of papers, some stapled, some paper-clipped, and attempted to sort them by category. She found several billing slips for lessons, along with receipts and his rink's private ice schedule for the next month. Bex put those items behind her. When she did so, her hand accidentally brushed Sasha's, who was reaching for them at the same time as Bex was discarding them. Bex withdrew her hand quickly. Hopefully without, you know, looking like she was withdrawing it quickly.

  The next group of documents was all photocopies. There were several copies of Igor's American passport, his naturalization papers, his U.S. tax records, the lease to his Connecticut condominium, an electric bill, plus a notarized letter from his congressman, testifying to Igor Marchenko's good citizenship and legal residency. The man may have smiled for the cameras that greeted him at the Moscow airport, but he was obviously not as confident about being allowed to leave as he appeared. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may have been almost fifteen years gone, but Igor Marchenko wasn't willing to bet his life that they'd given up all of their strong-arm tactics. If the Russians tried to keep him by force, Igor was obviously ready to fight back with a mountain of American paperwork. Bex was surprised he hadn't toted along a red, white, and blue flag to wave.

  Oh. Wait. She spoke too soon. There it was.

  She opened one of the ring-sized, velvet jewelry boxes to find a pair of American flag cufflinks. A second box revealed a "USA" tie clip. A third held the 2005 skating team's official pin (featuring a flag—natch—wrapped around a skate), and the fourth a 1977 U.S. World Figure Skating Team pin.

  "Nineteen-seventy-seven." Bex double-checked his paperwork to make sure. "That was the year he defected. This must be from his first World Team." She picked up the shiny 2005 pin, comparing it to the well-worn, 28-year-old one. "His first team, and his last one. That's pretty sad."

  But Sasha didn't seem to be listening to her wax philosophical. While she'd been pondering the finite nature of

  man, he'd reached into the bottom of Igor's case and pulled out what, from the back, appeared to be a cashier's check. Naturally, when he did so, his proximity to her shoulder and/or hand decreased. Which was good. Right?

  Sasha stared quizzically at the rectangular strip of paper in his hand. Slowly, he said, "Igor Marchenko, he is the coach of Jordan, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "And Amanda Reilly, she is the mother of Lian?"

  Bex's heart began to beat faster as she temporarily (really, it was only temporary) forgot her manners and grabbed the cashier's check out of Sasha's hand. She scanned the signature line. And finished Sasha's thought for him. "Why then, is Igor Marchenko in possession of a check made out in his name and signed by Lian Reilly's mother?"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Do you know what this means?" Bex asked excitedly.

  "No!" Sasha said, with equal enthusiasm.

  "Me, neither!" She took a deep breath, crossed her legs, Indian-style, to fit more comfortably on the bed, and calmed down. "But, it's got to mean something, right?”

  "Of course, yes."

  Bex cocked her head to one side and considered his cheerful, enthusiastic visage. "You're just patronizing me, aren't you?'

  "Of course, yes." Sasha agreed. Still cheerful. Still enthusiastic. Still smiling. Bex wondered if she was being deliberately charmed as effectively as the elderly floor-matron of a few moments earlier. Back then, Sasha's purpose had been to secure their entry to Marchenko's room. But what could his current purpose be? Because, certainly, there had to be a purpose. People just didn't go around charming Bex for no reason.

  "I think we need to speak to Amanda Reilly," Bex decided. She realized she had just triumphantly declared the obvious. But it still felt good to have a plan.

  "Let us go and find her!" Sasha matched Bex tone for tone. He bounced off the bed and offered her his elbow, as if heading towards a formal dinner.

  Bex took it. Feeling silly. And kind of charmed.

  Drat.

  Amanda Reilly, however, was nowhere to be found. Bex and Sasha checked the arena. They checked the hotel. Finally, Bex had a brainstorm and checked with a harried 24/7 production assistant in the makeshift 24/7 production office.

  Rather than shipping a fully equipped, American satellite truck to Russia and incurring the gigantic expense of such an endeavor, 24/7 had taken a risk and rented a local news truck, hoping it could get the job done for less cost. After less than thirty seconds inside said truck, they all quickly realized that it could not get the job done. And not just because the interior reeked of vodka, borsht, and a culture that did not believe in deodorant. That they presumably could have all gotten used to. The larger problem was that in this particular production trailer, there were no chairs. Not by the monitors. Not by the desks. Not in the editing bay. They could tell there had once been chairs. The ragged maws from where they'd been ripped out were still visible (and sharp— how come their Russian/English dictionaries didn't include, "Please, may I have a tetanus shot?").

  "Where are the chairs?" Gil had asked the local man who'd provided them with these top-of-the-line vehicles.

  "We do not sit in Russia," the local man helpfully explained with an absolutely straight face. While sitting.

  Well, unfortunately, in the United States of America, sitting was, like, one of their favorite things. Even the penny-pinching Gil had to agree with that. So the satellite truck was scrapped in favor of squatting inside the arena's underground offices. Unfortunately, instead of the long, narrow space offered by a good production trailer, they were stuck with a half dozen tiny, windowless rooms. That also smelled of vodka and borsht. Gil took the largest cell, and the rest were assigned by seniority. Bex got nothing, because, according to Gil, "You should be out in the arena, getting us information. Besides, I just heard somewhere that they don't sit in Russia. You don't want to offend anyone."

  The production assistants got no offices, either. Their job was to scamper from one room to another, fetching the (self-)important producers whatever they wanted, preferably before they even knew they wanted it. At 24/7, if a production assistant was not moving, he was presumed to be goofing off. Which was why getting one to stop and respond to a question was notoriously difficult. Like in a 1980s Atari game with a frog trying to cross the road, Bex had to literally lurk at the edge of the dim hallway, watching the P.A.s zooming by in every direction, before spotting one she believed small enough and slow enough that Bex decided yeah, she could take her. She jumped out into traffic to block the girl's path with her body.

  After the perfunctory shriek, the PA., who was juggling a milk crate full of Beta tapes, confirmed Bex's hunch that Lian and her mother were out wandering the streets of Moscow while a 24/7 camera crew and producer lapped up every touristy moment.

  "Where did they go?" Bex asked.

>   "I'm not sure." The girl lost her grip on the milk crate, sending tapes sprawling to the ground. Bex crouched down to help her clean. And to continue her interrogation. The P.A. recalled, "We wanted to shoot the usual. You know, Saint Basil's, Red Square, Lenin's Tomb, Russia One-O-One. Stuff that when people look at it, they go, oh, yeah, that's Moscow. But Mrs. Reilly was concerned that, because Lian was Chinese, if they posed in Red Square, it would suggest a tacit endorsement of Communism in China." The P. A. stopped what she was doing, looking at Bex as if she'd just heard her own words for the first time. "That's nuts. I mean, isn't it?'

  Bex knew how she felt. Spending any amount of time around either skating or television people also made her doubt her own judgment. When everyone around you thought the insane was reasonable, it tended to play funny tricks with your mind.

  "It is nuts," Bex reassured. She picked up two Beta tapes and tossed them into the milk crate. She noticed that one tape had a yellow sticker on the side with the red magic-marker scrawl, "Marchenko—Early Worlds Footage."

  Bex asked, "Gil is still planning on doing the Marchenko piece?”

  "Oh, yeah. He thinks the murder will make a great button."

  A button on a feature was considered the perfect ending to the story—one line or image to summarize everything that had gone before. How nice of Igor Marchenko—or, actually, his killer—to provide Gil with a moment of video nirvana.

  "We're going to start cutting Marchenko's piece today. I guess, if we had to, we could leave it unfinished till the weekend show. But, honestly, Bex, see, it would make it a lot easier for me if you could have the murderer figured out by maybe tomorrow—tops? I'm really swamped here, and if I knew which exact footage I needed in advance, like, if we had the killer already on tape, it would make my life a lot easier."

  Bex looked at her for a good, long while. She considered many different answers. None of them seemed quite right. She finally said, "I'll see what I can do."

  "Great."

  "Yeah. Listen," Bex straightened up. "Do you have any idea when Amanda and Lian are scheduled to be back?'

  "I guess as soon as they find a spot that doesn't make Amanda think it looks like Lian condones Communism. That's also, you know, pretty."

  Oh, wonderful. That could be any time between now and... much later than now. In case it wasn't obvious, Bex was not a big fan of spinning her wheels. When she got it into her mind that something needed to be done, she insisted it needed to be done—with all due respect to Gil Cahill's pet phrase—"now, now, now!" Granted, that was primarily because, if Bex did not do something right away, she was likely to forget about it as soon as the next "now, now, now!" situation reared its head. But the point still remained. Bex had decreed she needed to speak to Amanda Reilly. Therefore Amanda Reilly should be available to her immediately.

  "And where do you think that might be?" Bex pressed, as if upping the insistency of her tone might wring the P.A. into producing an answer she had no way of knowing.

  "I have no way of knowing that," the RA. confirmed.

  Up until that point, Sasha had been standing by unobtrusively. He was very good at that. He didn't so much blend into the proverbial woodwork, as into thin air. He was there. Of course, he was there; anybody could see that. And yet, like the waiter in a fancy restaurant or the grocery-store clerk ringing up orange juice and bananas before whom most people continued having extremely personal conversations that they'd never dream of revealing in front of anyone else, Sasha possessed that aura of appearing so involved in something else, that he wouldn't dream of eavesdropping on you. That is until, out of the blue, he piped up and demonstrated how that wasn't the case at all.

  "Excuse me." Sasha cleared his throat and aimed that dazzling smile of his at the P.A. Coincidentally, Bex found herself thinking: You know, I've never really liked this P.A. Even though this is our first complete conversation ever. He continued, "Excuse me, but I am Moscow native. Perhaps, if you would to give myself a mobile telephone number of the cameraperson who is with Mrs. Reilly, I can to call them and make suggestions for pretty places where they may shoot. That are not Communist."

  Bex wanted to kiss him.

  Because of his cleverness in coming up with a plan that would put them in contact with Lian Reilly, of course.

  "Sounds cool. I'll get you the number," the P.A. said.

  When she turned around to grab the cell phone contact sheet off Gil's desk, Bex pivoted to face Sasha, grinning madly and mentally jumping up and down. He winked at her in return.

  "We are good team?" he whispered.

  "We are good team," Bex swore.

  "Here you go." The P.A. used the tip of her nail to indicate a multi-digit number four lines from the bottom. She turned to Sasha, "Thanks for your help, man."

  "It is no problem." He half-bowed gallantly, and smiled as she walked away.

  Yup. It was official. Bex really did not like that P.A.

  She pulled out her cell phone and promptly dialed the necessary numbers. Only to receive an automated message informing her that the party she was seeking was out of zone. Well, how the heck was that helpful?

  "My idea, not so good?" Sasha asked.

  "Your idea good," Bex reassured. "Your country's phone system, not so great."

  "I am sorry."

  "It's okay. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and wait for them to come back. I've got other stuff to do, anyway, I guess. The two Russian girls are practicing at the arena right now. I suppose I should head over there and confirm their program elements, so we don't have an announcing fiasco during the live broadcast."

  "Because the announcers who talk, they do not lift their heads from the binders?"

  "I love a man who listens to my ranting," Bex said.

  And then she said nothing at all. Because she couldn't think of anything to follow up her declaration with.

  Sasha, on the other hand, did not seem at all rattled by her declaration of devotion—facetious though it may have been. He simply nodded his head and asked, "Will you be to needing me for this?"

  Bex couldn't think of any reason why she should.

  So, naturally, she said, "Oh, most definitely."

  They arrived at the arena as the Russian competitors, dressed in matching team jackets of red, white, and blue (though with far different implications than all the theme paraphernalia in Marchenko's room), were stretching rink-side, bobbing up and down as they jogged in place and lacing up their custom-made boots in anticipation of taking the ice. Just like in the U.S., where Jordan and Lian were battling to stake their claim on the newly vacant Nationals title after the retirement of World Silver Medallist Erin Simpson, in Russia the concurrent retirement of long-(long!)-time European champion Xenia Trubin had also opened the field to a successor. The two favorites had been invited to take on Jordan and Lian in this no-points, no-stakes, bragging- rights-though-just-barely, made-for-TV competition. Judging from the determined looks on their faces, however, both girls were taking the event as seriously as the final group at the World Championship.

  Contestant number one, Galina Semenova, was fourteen years old, the reigning Junior World Champion. A four-foot-tall redhead with the build of a leprechaun and the face of a chubby-cheeked stacking doll, she could also jump like a top NBA dunker and twirl like a human dreidel. She'd landed a quadruple Toe-Loop to win her Junior World title— and celebrated by spontaneously having her skates dyed gleaming gold—and had been practicing quadruple Salchows in the warm-up of every competition she'd entered. Not that she actually intended to attempt one in her Long program. It was too risky at this point and probably wouldn't even be adequately rewarded. But it helped rattle the other girls on the ice, and that, more often than not, was a good enough consequence. It was an indisputable fact that young, freckle-faced Galina could jump. What was also an indisputable fact was that she couldn't actually skate worth a damn.

  Galina Semenova did not glide, she trudged. Her tracings on the ice were not the graceful lobes a
nd figures from which the sport once got its name, but straight, flat lines, as if made by a Communist-era people's tractor. When obligated, in the course of a well-balanced program, to execute an element that wasn't a jump—say, a spin, or a spiral, or a footwork sequence—Galina's rosy-cheeked, elfin face would narrow until her eyebrows were practically kissing. And then she would bulldoze her way thought the mandatory unpleasantness. The quicker to get back to the jumping.

  Galina's main competition, on the other hand, was a skater who, prior to taking off into the air, actually appeared to sigh with resignation, visibly distressed that someone had insisted on forcing athleticism into what should have been an exclusively lyrical art form. Her style was more balletic, more peaceful, more classically Russian. Which is what made it extra special amusing that this upholder of Russia's centuries-old traditions bore the oh-so-Russian name of Brittany Monroe.

  Seventeen-year-old Brittany had, up until two years earlier, skated for the United States. This made sense, seeing as how she'd been born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. But, unfortunately, her aversion to jumping didn't win her any friends in the American judging circles. She constantly finished out of the top five at the U.S. Nationals, which made her chances of qualifying for the World Team practically nil. So young Brittany did what any elite athlete would when faced with the prospect of not achieving her goals in a timely manner: she cheated. Well, technically, it wasn't really cheating. Brittany simply rummaged around in her family tree and dredged up a maternal grandfather who had been born in Russia before emigrating at the ripe old age of two and a half. She then declared it her lifelong dream to "regain" her Russian citizenship. Once that was done, Brittany entered Russian Nationals where, thanks to the fact that the best female skaters in Russia were traditionally sent to do Pairs or Dance, she was able to make the top three and earn a spot on their World Team. And to think, all Brittany had to do to achieve her goals was give up her American citizenship. Bex idly wondered what Igor Marchenko, who'd endured so much to achieve the opposite, had thought about her flip-flop.