A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Even if I did hear something,” Tyrone added quickly, “I could not testify to what I heard. No court would believe me, not with my background.”

  The larger of the two men stepped forward and pushed Tyrone. Tyrone staggered back and almost fell.

  “To which policeman did you give the restored tape?” asked the man with white hair.

  “His name is Sasha Tkach,” said Tyrone.

  The white-haired man nodded. Tyrone felt just a bit safer.

  “And you made copies,” said the white-haired man.

  It was not a question.

  “No,” said Tyrone. “I was asked by the police to make no copies, and I did not have the time.”

  “Oleg?” said the white-haired man.

  The other man shook his head “no.”

  “Oleg does not believe you,” said the white-haired man.

  The slaps came in quick, stinging seconds, two with the open palm of Oleg’s right hand and then two with the back of the man’s right hand. Oleg was wearing a large ring. It cut into Tyrone’s cheek. Tyrone reached out to steady himself on a chair that was not there. He sat backward on the floor with a brittle thump.

  Oleg stood over him. Tyrone tried to think.

  “No copies,” he said. “I swear on the graves and bones of all the saints who have ever lived, on every holy icon that has ever been discovered. I swear.”

  “Empty your pockets,” the white-haired man said.

  Tyrone, cheek bleeding and certainly in need of surgical closure, came to his knees and emptied the contents of his pockets onto the floor. Then Oleg lifted him to his feet and patted him down.

  Agreement passed between the two invaders.

  “Come here. I have something important for you to do,” said the white-haired man.

  Tyrone put a hand to his cheek and shuffled his way to the man, who said, “Do not drip blood on me.”

  The white-haired man took a small spray can from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid of the can and handed it to Oleg, who began spraying its contents generously around the room.

  “Now,” said the white-haired man. “Be thankful you are alive and, as you consider your luck, run through the corridors shouting, ‘The building is on fire.’ ”

  Oleg produced a lighter, turned it on, held it to a piece of paper he tore from a discarded newspaper on the sofa, and set the apartment ablaze.

  The white-haired man and Oleg pulled Tyrone into the hallway and closed the apartment door.

  “You will have a scar,” said the white-haired man. “It will remind you to be careful about working with the police. Now run.”

  Tyrone, hand to his burning cheek, stumbled, then ran awkwardly, calling out, “Fire, fire, fire.”

  When he looked back over his shoulder, the two intruders were gone. He paused for an instant to be certain and then shambled back to his apartment door. The heat from inside threatened the door. Almost everything of his and his mother’s was now gone. His equipment would be useless. Almost everything was gone. Almost.

  He knelt and dug his fingernails into the cover of the electrical outlet near the door. The heat stung his fingers, but the outlet cover popped off, revealing an empty space just large enough for the copy of the tape he had placed there less than half an hour earlier.

  It was a time to panic, but Tyrone did not panic. Instead, he walked slowly out the door past the people who had come out of their apartments to find out whether there was a fire or they were the victims of a drunken joke.

  In bare feet, Tyrone moved to the stairwell, his right hand to his bloody cheek, his left hand clutching the tape.

  10

  The Evidence of Bloody Knuckles

  Sara and Porfiry Petrovich sat in the apartment on Krasnikov Street.

  “It will happen and we will have grandchildren,” said Rostnikov. “And they will grow and ask impossible questions, which we will delight in answering.”

  “And they will be strong and beautiful,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  She had fixed him a bag of food, including a bottle of orange juice and a thermos of coffee, when he told her he would have to work through the night. She wanted to ask if what he was going to do might be dangerous, but she did not. What was the point? Everything he did each day might result in anticipated or unanticipated danger.

  The wedding. How could there be a wedding when the bride, groom, and father of the groom were all involved in solving different violent crimes? How could there be a wedding in which bride and groom feared the loss of their independence?

  Was it too late for them to change their minds? Yes. Things she had already ordered could be kept reasonably fresh at the markets, at least for a few days, but not beyond that. People had been invited and had accepted.

  When Porfiry Petrovich had kissed her and gone through the door, Galina and her two granddaughters came up from their apartment to keep Sara company.

  “Where is Porfiry Petrovich?” asked the younger granddaughter. “Is he fixing someone’s toilet?”

  “Perhaps,” said Sara.

  Galina had brought vatrushka, sweet cottage cheese–filled pastries, from her work, and the four of them had eaten the pastries with tea and told of their day. Sara had the least to say. She had gone to her treatment earlier in the day, treatment to keep the malignancy from returning. She was reassured once again by her cousin Leon, who was also her doctor, that she was cancer free. The cost of remaining cancer free, however, was an ever-present fatigue, which she fought to keep under control.

  Sara kept from slouching like Zelach or shuffling like her husband or looking blank like Karpo. She had wonderful examples in her life of how not to look. Leon had suggested that she merely remember to walk heel down first and chest up to maintain erect posture and a firm step.

  Sara had reached out and touched the cheek of Galina’s older granddaughter, who smiled through her disappointment. On the one hand, nothing delighted the girl more than serving as Rostnikov’s assistant when he went on an apartment mission, tools in the box in one hand, to repair a fissure or diagnose a change in pressure. Only a complete rupture of ancient piping pleased her more. The younger girl, on the other hand, was particularly taken by Porfiry Petrovich’s nightly ritual of taking his weights out of the cupboard, pushing his bench away from the wall, and lifting. She was convinced that he was the strongest man in the world.

  ______

  They had departed more than two hours ago and now Sara lay on the bed with a night-light on, glasses on her nose. She was trying to read one of her husband’s detective novels in English, but her English simply was not good enough to make the effort even slightly enjoyable. She began to think of the wedding once more.

  The apartment was really too small for the wedding reception, which was to take place after the official sanction of the government wedding bureau. It would have to spill out into the hallway outside their door and probably down the stairs.

  She had wanted to rent the former neighborhood Communist Party Headquarters offices, now a meeting hall for groups of almost all persuasions and perversions. Iosef had said no. He and Elena needed no meeting hall. Sara and Porfiry Petrovich, who had not had a wedding party of their own when they got married, both understood. So all would be crowded into the apartment in which she now lay.

  She would have help. Some of it, like Galina’s, was welcome. Some, like that of Lydia Tkach, was most unwelcome but impossible to reject. The effort of communicating with Sasha’s mother was not worth the small woman’s willing and ever-moving hands, which jumped into service. Anna Timofeyeva had volunteered to help and Sara had said it would be most welcome, though, in fact, Anna Timofeyeva had already survived three heart attacks and seldom left the small apartment in which she lived with her niece Elena.

  There would be no pretense of impressing Igor Yaklovev, who had, to Sara’s surprise, said he would attend. He had never been to the Rostnikov apartment and she had never met him. He would find it small, with old but servi
ceable furniture and marvelous plumbing.

  Sara had tried to go back to work at the Metro Music Shop near the Kremlin. She and Porfiry Petrovich needed the income. She had been unable to handle the eight or nine hours a day on her feet and being almost constantly engaged in conversation, not to mention the need to be always well-groomed, always presentable.

  It was no use. She could not read the English words. She put the book aside and turned off the light. As she did, a wonderful idea came to her, which she vowed to implement in the morning. She was asleep within three minutes.

  In the morning, the wonderful idea was gone.

  “Your wife was killed by Fedot Babinski,” said Iosef. “It is her blood on his hands and knuckles.”

  Ivan Medivkin and Klaus Agrinkov stood silently, absorbing the information. Osip the middleweight was simply bewildered.

  “Fedot killed Lena?” said Agrinkov in disbelief.

  “Of that there is no doubt, according to our laboratory,” said Iosef.

  “Then who killed Babinski?” asked Klaus Agrinkov.

  Eyes turned to Ivan.

  “Your nose is bruised,” said Iosef. “Let us see your knuckles.”

  “His knuckles are always bruised,” said Klaus quickly. “His nose bleeds. Ivan is a boxer. He works out on the bags. His hands bleed and scar and grow harder. Bruised knuckles prove nothing.”

  “You do not understand,” said Ivan. “When I got the call saying Lena and Fedot were at the hotel, I was here. My hands were taped.”

  “Fedot Babinski killed your wife,” said Iosef.

  They still stood in the same semicircle in the gym, Iosef, Zelach, Ivan the Giant, his manager, Klaus Agrinkov, and Osip, the young boxer with a towel draped around his neck.

  “Fedot Babinski?” asked Ivan, looking at each face for an answer he did not receive.

  “Her blood was on his hands,” said Iosef. “He hit her so hard that he broke a knuckle on his right hand.”

  “Weak knuckles,” said Agrinkov. “That is why his career was over. He had to wear pillow-sized gloves just to spar with Ivan.”

  “Why did he kill her?” asked Ivan.

  “We do not know with any certainty,” said Iosef. “Not yet. A quarrel over something. Tryst gone wrong.”

  “She had a fierce tongue,” said Agrinkov. “And a temper that could sting.”

  Ivan was shaking his head, trying to figure out what he had heard.

  “Our theory,” said Iosef, “is that you came to the hotel room, heard your wife being beaten, entered, and then, seeing her bloody and probably dead, became enraged and beat him to death.”

  “I would have,” said Ivan. “But he was dead when I went into the room.”

  “How did you get into the room?” asked Zelach.

  “The door was unlocked and not completely closed,” said Ivan. “I went in and saw them both there dead. Then I ran and someone tried to stop me.”

  “And you went to the room because someone called and told you to go there?” asked Zelach.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you recognize the caller’s voice?”

  “No. I think it was a man, but I am not certain.”

  If Ivan was telling the truth, it was very likely the caller had killed Babinski. The caller may even have used the telephone in the hotel room. Iosef whispered something to Zelach, who nodded and moved to the gym door.

  “I dressed quickly and did not remove the tape till after… . I did not kill him. I would have, but they were both already dead when I got to the hotel room.”

  “To which you were directed by an anonymous phone call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man or woman?” asked Iosef.

  “I am not certain,” said Ivan.

  “And your bruised and bloody nose?”

  “I tripped and fell when I ran from the hotel room.”

  He was certain what he should do.

  Iosef also believed the Giant, which was why he did not bring forth his gun when Ivan bolted back through the door of the room from which he had entered. Instead of firing, Iosef darted after him. Catching up with Ivan was not a great problem. Stopping him was an insurmountable difficulty.

  Iosef tried. And failed.

  If he had hopes that Agrinkov and the young boxer would help him, such hopes were quickly dashed. In the darkened room, Iosef leaped upon Ivan’s back. Ivan shook his shoulders and threw the policeman against a wooden crate.

  Ivan hurried through the room to the back door that led to the alleyway. Iosef, now in pain, forced himself up and tried to run after the Giant. The consequences and embarrassment of allowing the suspect to escape were too great to contemplate.

  Ivan threw open the door and dashed into the alley with Iosef a few wracking steps behind him. It was a useless pursuit. Perhaps, Iosef thought, I can shoot him in the leg. No, if Ivan Medivkin was innocent, Iosef might well be ending his career and find himself responsible for having done so.

  Once in the alley, Ivan turned to his left. Something hurtled toward him. He was unprepared for the sudden battering ram to his stomach. He went down, sitting awkwardly, and tried to catch his breath. Before he could rise, Iosef was through the door and twisting Ivan’s arms behind him.

  Iosef had witnessed the scene but could not fully appreciate what had happened.

  “Is he injured?” asked Zelach.

  “You knocked the wind out of him,” said Iosef, looking down at the still-seated but now-cuffed Giant.

  Iosef had seen Zelach launch himself headfirst into Ivan an instant after the boxer cleared the door.

  “You were supposed to go to the hotel,” said Iosef, looking through the doorway at Agrinkov and Osip, who were now standing there.

  “I was going to, but then I thought that Medivkin might bolt and that you were alone with him,” said Zelach. “I did not think you would shoot him. I thought the hotel room could wait till we brought Medivkin in.”

  “You were right,” Iosef said.

  The policemen helped the huge boxer to his feet.

  “Ivan did not kill Babinski,” said Agrinkov as the boxer was ushered back into the gymnasium.

  “How do you know this? Did you kill him?” asked Iosef.

  “Me? No, of course not,” said Agrinkov. “No more than Osip killed him.”

  The young boxer was quite confused now.

  “I did not kill Babinski or anyone else,” said Osip.

  “No one thinks you did,” said Agrinkov, touching the young boxer’s shoulder reassuringly.

  “I must try to find the killer of Babinski myself,” said Ivan, starting to breathe almost normally again.

  “Why must it be you who catches the killer?” asked Agrinkov. “The police can handle it.”

  “I do not know,” said Ivan, dropping his shoulders in defeat. “Sometimes … I do not know. I want to know why Fedot killed Lena. I want to know who killed Fedot. I want something, someone I can pound until they talk.”

  “We will find him,” said Iosef.

  Zelach was going to alter Iosef’s words but thought better of it. He needed a bit more evidence before he named the killer of Fedot Babinski.

  “Ivan, no one would blame you for killing him if you walked in on Babinski right after he killed Lena,” said Agrinkov.

  “I did not kill him,” said Ivan Medivkin.

  “I believe you, Ivan Medivkin,” said Agrinkov.

  “Thank you,” said Ivan.

  Ivan repeated his innocence a few minutes later when he was squeezed into the backseat of the marked police car. He repeated it when he was fingerprinted. He repeated it when he was examined by a doctor. He repeated it again when he was placed alone in a cell. He repeated it again when he was allowed a telephone call and spoke to Vera Korstov.

  “I did not kill him. They are not even looking for the real killer.”

  “I know,” Vera said. “I will find out who did this.”

  Iosef whispered something to Zelach, who nodded and shuffled out the doo
r of the gymnasium.

  Iosef had held back one essential piece of information that Paulinin had given him. Babinski had been struck from behind by a heavy object. The blow had cracked his skull, the crack not visible until Paulinin had shaved the dead man’s head, chiseled and sawed his way into the skull, where blood had seeped into the brain of the fallen boxer, killing him almost instantly. Babinski was dead before the first punch crashed into his face.

  Iosef had sent Zelach to bring in the object that had felled Babinski. It had recent fingerprints on it, clear prints that matched nothing they had on file or could access through the computer. The fingerprints were definitely not those of Ivan Medivkin.

  ______

  “What was he doing there?”

  Aleksandr had two possible answers to the question he asked himself.

  One was that the man with the false leg, Chief Inspector Rostnikov, was now certain that Aleksandr was the Bitsevsky Maniac, and was there to make him panic and confess. He wanted to be caught. He had trod dangerously close to the policeman, fascinated by the flame of discovery.

  The other was that the man with the false leg was not there at all. Aleksandr was hallucinating, imagining. It was possible. As vivid as the image of the policeman was in the apartment across from him, it was possible that Aleksandr was creating him.

  When Aleksandr was a child and told his mother stories he made up of killing nightmare creatures with a club, she had attributed his tales to a vivid imagination. She had told him that he might one day write books, possibly books for children. He had battled and slain imaginary enemies from the age of two until … When did it stop? Had it ever stopped?

  If the policeman in the apartment across from him was not real, then how could Aleksandr ever know when something was real and when something was not? No, Aleksandr Chenko would have to assume that he was not going mad. The policeman was there. Did he sit there waiting for a sign of guilt? Well, there would be no sign. Aleksandr felt no guilt. He had murdered many and felt exhilaration, excitement, a sense of accomplishment. All people were but animals. What difference did it make if one or ten or twenty or fifty were slaughtered? They were all doomed anyway, as was he. It felt so good, so sweet, so right, when he struck with a godlike hammer. Few had the courage to play God on earth, to decide who would die and who would live. The role of God suited him. He was certain there was no real God to challenge him.