A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  On television just the night before, he had witnessed a weeping woman who had survived a car crash on the Outer Ring. Five had died, including an infant. The weeping woman had sobbed, “Thank God I am still alive.”

  And, Aleksandr had thought, thank God I killed those others. Maybe I should kill a baby or a young boy who is on the way home from school. Maybe it would be the boy I saw seated on a park bench talking to the one-legged policeman. Talking about what? About me?

  Stop, he told himself. Control your thoughts. Cope. Do I ignore him? Do I acknowledge him with a smile and go about my business?

  It was a test of wills. It was a game Aleksandr could play and win. The policeman thought he could drive Aleksandr to confession. He would not confess. It would be the policeman who would give up and go home.

  Aleksandr cleaned the last of his dinner dishes and finished preparing for bed. He took a long time, far longer than he usually would. He put on a fresh T-shirt and blue briefs and when he was finished turned out all the lights.

  In the protection of darkness, he put his back against the wall and slowly made his way to the window. At the wall, he went down on hands and knees. At the corner of the window, he parted the curtain slightly and looked out.

  Chief Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov was looking directly at him. There was a look of what appeared to be great sadness on the face of the policeman.

  In the apartment from which Rostnikov had gently removed the old couple who lived in it, Rostnikov considered what Aleksandr Chenko might do.

  A major difficulty and also a blessing was that Chenko would probably not commit another murder with a policeman peering into his apartment and, in all likelihood, following him when he left. He would probably not kill, but Rostnikov could not be entirely certain. Maybe Chenko would decide to kill Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. It was a distinct possibility.

  Chenko would find it difficult to avoid acknowledging Rostnikov’s presence, not if he wanted to maintain the charade that he was innocent. He had awaited a smile, a wave, a look of amusement or curiosity on Rostnikov’s face. There was none, nothing but that face of sadness.

  Rostnikov could see nothing in the near total darkness in the rooms. He kept looking, waiting for a fuss of curtain or the full face of bravado. It took a few minutes, but the vigil proved worthwhile. Rostnikov saw the curtain on the right move slightly. He turned his attention to the curtain and fixed his eyes at the spot from which Chenko would probably look.

  Rostnikov was right. The curtain rustled.

  Tyrone was feeling decidedly unwell.

  He had trod bare of foot and bleeding to the apartment of Dr. Simotva, two blocks away. Dr. Simotva worked on a strictly cash basis and asked no questions, which, oddly enough, made people want to talk to him.

  Tyrone’s cheek had been cleaned, treated, and stitched. Dr. Simotva had offered to give the young man a more than ample injection of morphine, but Tyrone had rejected it. Tyrone wanted to be awake for what he had to do. And so he had withstood the pain. Normally he would have welcomed any drug that would dull or eliminate the pain, but not on this night.

  “You are now a work of art,” Dr. Simotva said, standing back to admire his work.

  The doctor was forty-nine years old, a short, ash-bearded man with a rapidly receding hairline. He thought he looked quite dapper. The world did not agree.

  The basin next to the chair in which Tyrone sat was heaped with bloody hand towels.

  “I have an old pair of shoes that I think might fit you,” said Dr. Simotva. “Socks too and maybe a shirt. I have several I do not wear. I do not even know why I keep them.”

  “Thank you,” said Tyrone.

  Dr. Simotva smiled benevolently. Socks, shoes, and shirt would be added to the bill his patient was about to receive.

  “Take these,” the doctor said handing Tyrone a small plastic bottle of pills, “every four to six hours for the pain. It is not morphine, but it may suit you.”

  Tyrone pocketed the bottle and touched the small tape in his pocket with his fingers. He stood on weak legs and asked, “What do I owe you?”

  “Fifty euros.”

  “I will be back with it before the night is through.”

  “Now would be a better time.”

  “I have only twelve euros and I need them. I will give you a hundred euros when I return.”

  Dr. Simotva considered the offer. After all, what could he do about it now, remove the stitches and throw the boy into the street?

  “I know where you live,” the doctor said.

  Tyrone nodded, not mentioning that the apartment in which he had lived no longer existed.

  “I have business associates who can come for you should you not pay what you owe. They would not be gentle.”

  No less gentle than the two men who had beaten him and destroyed his equipment and the apartment, thought Tyrone, who tried not to imagine what his mother might think when she returned to nothing. He and his mother had little to do with each other. Their paths seldom passed. There was no joy in their encounters. She would smile sadly and go her way, and he would smile back and go his. He had not been a wanted baby. His mother had planned a career as an office manager, but the unexpected birth had led her to a life of being nothing more than a waitress.

  “I understand,” said Tyrone. “They would not be gentle.”

  “Good. I will get you shoes and clothes.”

  “And a cap to cover the bandage,” said Tyrone. “I have just the thing, an orange Netherlands cap from the 2004 Olympics,” said Dr. Simotva.

  When Dr. Simotva left the room, Tyrone pulled out his cell phone, pulled up his list of recent calls, and punched in the number of the Zaray Hotel. When the night clerk answered, Tyrone asked to be connected to the room of Iris Templeton.

  Sasha rationalized. He was usually very good at this, though his confidence had been eroding for the better part of a year.

  There was really nothing wrong with being in the bed of the Englishwoman he was guarding. This way he could be at her side twenty-four hours a day, his gun, a Makarov/Shigapov pistol with a twelve-round magazine, within easy reach.

  When they had returned to the hotel earlier that night, they had changed rooms and informed the desk that no one was to acknowledge that Iris Templeton was even in the hotel. The consequences of not complying with the police were enough to get full cooperation.

  Sasha had volunteered to remain with Iris. Elena fully understood what this meant, but she was too tired and had far too much on her mind to object.

  When the phone rang through the darkness, Iris moved out of his arms and reached for it before Sasha could stop her.

  “Yes,” she said to the night clerk, “put him through.”

  She reached over, phone in hand, to push the button that turned on the light above the bed. Sasha was awake now, listening to her side of the conversation.

  “Tyrone … When? … We had an agreement… . I am sorry you have been put through—Two thousand euros is far too much. I can get my editor to approve one thousand… . All right. One thousand, five hundred… . Bring it to me now and I will give you a check… . Yes, I can give you a thousand in cash… . One hour.”

  She hung up and looked at Sasha.

  “You have a very sad face, policeman.”

  “I am a sad policeman,” he said.

  “You had better put on your pants,” she said, climbing out of the bed. She looked incredibly slim and healthy as she moved nude across the room. Sasha tried to compare her to his wife. He found that he was no longer certain what his wife looked like without her clothes on.

  “A sad policeman,” he said to himself as he swung out of the bed.

  11

  The Policeman in the Window

  Aleksandr Chenko had awakened after a fitful night.

  Over the last five years since he had pushed his rival out of a window—he could no longer remember the name of the lean, weak young man—Aleksandr had not had a troubled night of sleep. Ind
eed, he had seemed to sleep more soundly with each drunken, homeless, or surly lout he lured into the park and struck from behind with his hammer. The feel of steel against skull, the shatter of cracking bone, the last sounds without words from each victim had given Aleksandr days and even weeks of near perfect peace. After marking off each attack, he had always returned to his daily ritual, breakfast of hot or cold kasha with a little milk.

  But last night, last night had been different. He had dreamt; the dream had the feel of a nightmare. He had sat on a stone bench in the park across from a man to whom he could assign no face. The chessboard between them had only a few pieces left. Each empty space was trickled by a drop of blood that shimmered with each hand placed on the table.

  “Your move,” the man had said.

  It was quite vivid, even now, in the light of a sunny day.

  “Your move,” the man had said patiently.

  Aleksandr had raised a hand toward his remaining knight when the man said, quite calmly, quite certainly, “With that move you will lose.”

  Aleksandr had withdrawn his hand. He had looked at the board, the remaining pieces, the spots of blood, and none of it had made any sense. He did not know whether he was ahead or behind.

  It was then he had awakened with no doubt that the man across the way, the policeman with one leg, was the man of his dream.

  Aleksandr Chenko needed a plan. It was his move.

  But first he forced himself to shave, shower, and dress before deciding to boldly throw open the curtains to be sure that he had not also dreamt of the policeman he had seen last night.

  As soon as he had opened the curtains, he saw the policeman, cup of steaming coffee or tea in his hand, sitting in the opposite window. The policeman did not look Aleksandr’s way but continued to read, or pretend to read, a paperback in his hand. The policeman was dressed and looked quite awake.

  Should Aleksandr try to get his attention or should he too act as if this were all very normal? He decided to wait out the block of a man across from him. Aleksandr would not crack. The man who had calmly killed more than sixty people was not going to crack. He would not allow the lawyers, judges, newspaper reporters, television news crews to see a broken man. Of course this all depended on whether or not he was going to be arrested. He was determined to hold out. He was determined not to give them what they wanted. Now, if only the policeman with the false leg would understand. Aleksandr did not want forgiveness because he did not feel that he had done anything that needed to be forgiven. But understanding would be acceptable, and it was possible this bulk of a policeman could understand that Aleksandr was not the Bitsevsky Maniac, that calling him a maniac was to dismiss him as simply having acted insanely. Aleksandr knew that he was not insane.

  When he exited his apartment building, the first thing he saw was a bus moving toward the corner. If he hurried, he could catch it and it would bring him to within a few hundred yards of the Volga Supermarket II. Even during heavy rains when he carried an umbrella or deep snow and frigid cold when he had to wear his down jacket and hood, he had not chosen the bus. The park was his.

  But this morning he was tempted by that bus, for the second thing he saw was the policeman sitting across the street in front of the park on the bench that faced the apartment building.

  Aleksandr, pretending he had not seen the policeman, did not hurry toward the bus. He hitched his backpack, in which was packed his lunch of beef soup in a thermos, and crossed the street. He entered the familiar park path certain that he hardly had to hurry to outdistance the policeman.

  When Aleksandr emerged from the park, he saw the one-legged policeman again sitting on a bench, a book in hand. As Aleks moved, he was within ten feet of Rostnikov. No one was in sight but a woman a half block down, her back to the park. The element of surprise was with Aleks. He could kill the policeman here and now during this break in late-morning traffic. The only question was how did the man get here so quickly? Was there a police car lurking, watching? No. This was neither the place nor the time. Aleks decided to acknowledge the policeman.

  “Good morning.”

  Rostnikov finished the sentence he was reading and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his right hand.

  “Good morning.”

  “Do you plan to haunt me night and day?”

  Rostnikov did not answer and so Aleks continued with, “Are you trying to get me to say something I will regret? Nyet, no, never mind the question. You will either give up in time or arrest me for something. Meanwhile, I must get to work.”

  “Tell me,” said Rostnikov as Chenko started to step away. “Do you like birds?”

  “Birds?”

  “Yes. When I go to the coast of the sea on vacation, I sit and watch the long-beaked, long-legged white creatures that step with the grace of Bolshoi ballet dancers. And when they soar, it is a thing of great beauty. Do you find anything beautiful?”

  “Beautiful? Perhaps a neatly lined-up and stacked display of some fresh fruit. Oranges, apples, melons. The ones that give out a sweet smell. But vegetables also—”

  He stopped abruptly.

  “What?” asked Rostnikov.

  “What did you do with the old couple whose apartment you sit in?”

  “Moved them out for a while,” answered the policeman.

  The next reasonable question was, “Why?” but since Aleks knew why, the slayer of dozens did not ask.

  Aleks hurried away wondering if the one-legged policeman would emerge during the day, at the end of a display in the produce department, down the aisle of canned soups and canned vegetables, seated on a bench at the end of a checkout aisle.

  Aleks paused a moment to look back at the policeman, who was now in the distance. The man had gone back to reading his book.

  Lydia Tkach did not expect her grandchildren to run to her arms. Lydia knew that her voice was high and shrill and her manner that of a Gulag prison camp commander. Still, they were well behaved and suffered themselves to be hugged. The hug was long and the children were patient.

  “Other room,” said Maya.

  Lydia’s daughter-in-law had changed, and definitely for the better. Her dark beauty had returned. There was confidence in her manner. The small apartment in the heart of Kiev was clean, comfortable looking, and bright.

  Both children headed back across the living room and entered a room at the rear of the apartment.

  “Please sit. I’ll make some coffee.”

  “Maybe in a little while,” said Lydia, who was, reluctantly, wearing the hearing aids her son had purchased for her.

  Maya sat on a modern-looking chair with arms and rested her folded hands in her lap.

  “No,” Maya said.

  “No? You don’t know what I was going to ask,” said Lydia.

  “I do,” said Maya. “The answer is ‘no.’ You will always be welcome in my home because of your grandchildren, but I do not want to hear the reasons why the children and I should go back to Sasha.”

  “I have come far and spent much to talk to you of such things. At least listen. Time me. Ten minutes. No more.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Yes, ten minutes, well, maybe fifteen.”

  “Begin,” said Maya.

  And Lydia did.

  “I am a pest, I know,” said Vera Korstov.

  She had knocked at the door seven times before it opened. In front of her now stood Albina Babinski dressed in tan pants and a buttoned long-sleeve red shirt. For an instant, Vera thought she had knocked at the wrong door, but when the woman spoke, Vera knew she had not. Fully made up, the widow of Fedot Babinski looked almost pretty.

  “I do not intend to contradict you. You are a pest. What do you want?”

  “To find something, someone, to prove Ivan did not murder his wife and your husband.”

  “I told you what I know.” She hesitated, sighed, and held the door open. “Oh, come in.”

  She stepped out of the way and Vera stepped in. Albina closed the d
oor and motioned toward the couch, where Vera sat down. The room had been cleaned.

  “A drink?” Albina asked.

  “Maybe. Yes. I have been running everywhere,” said Vera. “Now I am going back, looking for a small sign.”

  “Fedot was a womanizing devil of no character,” said Albina as she sat in the armchair facing Vera.

  “You used to be a boxer,” said Vera.

  “I used to be a boxer,” Albina confirmed.

  “A good one?”

  “Yes, but there was little market for women boxers in Russia at the time. Is there a point to this question?”

  “Your hands, particularly the left one, are covered in makeup.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. You showed them as little as possible the last time I was here.”

  “Very observant. Do you have some point to make?”

  “Your knuckles are red and raw.”

  “Yes. I have a skin condition. I use a lotion from the Dead Sea. Would you like some tea?”

  “I think you killed your husband,” said Vera.

  Albina Babinski coughed. The cough was followed by a sigh.

  “That he deserved destruction I do not deny,” she said. “That I did the deed I do deny. I’m having tea. You may join me. Or you can simply get the hell out.”

  The latter was said gently and with a smile.

  “I have a word that will prove your crime,” said Vera.

  “Speak it,” said Albina, moving across the room and into a small kitchen from which she continued to address her visitor.

  “DNA,” said Vera, still seated.

  Albina was back in the living room, a blue ceramic teapot in her left hand.

  “I plan to tell the police to check the DNA at the crime scene. I am sure they already have it, but they have had no reason to check it against yours.”

  Albina weighed the ceramic pot and considered what to do.