A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “You watch too many American television police shows.”

  “I watch none of them,” said Vera.

  Albina moved across the room, teapot now at her side. Vera considered moving quickly to the door. The woman with the teapot was much bigger than Vera and, besides, she had been a boxer. Vera had entered the apartment looking for further information. She had talked herself into finding a murderer.

  “Do you plan to kill me?” asked Vera.

  “Plan? I have no plan. I do not want to go to prison. Not for killing that bag of lying, cheating filth. I do not wish to hurt you. I do not wish to hurt Ivan. I followed them to that room, called Ivan, and told him to hurry to the hotel room. Then I heard the sounds inside. They were not screams of ecstasy. The door was open and they were in the middle of the room. He was beating her with his fists. He did not even notice my presence. I picked up the vase or whatever it was, hit him. He let her go. She crumpled to the ground as if her bones had turned to water. I hit him three or four times and then I punched him in the face. I do not know how many times.”

  “Maybe you can convince the police and a judge that you lost your mind for a …”

  Albina was shaking her head “no.”

  “I knew what I was doing.”

  “Soon the police will check the DNA even without my asking them to. Then you will have to answer for two murders. And what will you do with my body?”

  “Get something to wrap you in and carry you out of here tonight.”

  Albina towered over her guest with a look of great sadness.

  “I will scream.”

  “Few will hear and those few will not respond. You are not in a luxury high-rise building, not even a fully respectable Stalin concrete tower.”

  Vera looked around for something with which to fight back. Nothing was close enough to get to before the larger woman could beat her to death with teapot or fist.

  It was at this point that Albina raised the pot high. Vera held her arms over her face and tried to rise with no plan but to get to the door. But the blow did not come. Slowly, cautiously, Vera lowered her arms.

  “I cannot do it,” said Albina, looking at the pot in her hand. “Can I get you some tea? A glass of wine?”

  “Tea will be fine,” said Vera.

  Albina nodded and moved back to the kitchen, her voice now coming to her visitor as if she were in a cave.

  “Where was I? Oh yes. He did not even notice I was there.” I picked up something, I do not remember what, and hit him in the side of the head. I hit him hard. I watched the blood come as he turned his head to look at me. There was so much blood. I had seen a great deal of blood when I was a boxer, but this was different. This was Fedot. I would say he was astonished. It came to me that he had sinned and now knelt before me in prayer. Do you take sugar?”

  “Yes,” said Vera.

  “I waited for someone to come and count him out. A fight without a winner.”

  Albina Babinski returned and continued.

  “The pot is on. It does not take long.”

  Once again she sat across from her guest. This time Albina folded her hands in her lap. Was her makeup giving way? Vera thought so. The two women were quiet for a while.

  “I met Fedot Babinski in Gomel; that is in—”

  “Belarus,” Vera added.

  “Yes. I was working in a hair salon. I went to see the fights one night. Fedot was in the main event. He won. After the fight I went for a drink with my friend. Fedot came in. I was not as you see me now. I was considered to be a beauty of sorts. Maybe I can go back to hairstyling if I am not hanged.”

  A high-pitched whistle came from the kitchen. There was time enough to get up and run to the door when Albina rose, but Vera simply continued to sit.

  Minutes later, the tea was on a trivet on the table and the two women were silently drinking.

  “Fedot taught me to fight. I did well, far better than he. He enjoyed the additional money but complained about my ability. Gradually, he wore me down and I stopped boxing while he continued to both box and be the Giant’s sparring mate. He also continued to bing-bang every willing woman of even passing good looks. I complained, but it did no good. Oh, I am sorry. I do have some cookies to offer you.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Albina’s head turned as if on command and she looked at the television sitting on top of a table across the room.

  “I watch a lot of television,” she said. “I spend most of my days looking at that little screen and waiting, waiting for him. I cheated on him just once, three years ago. A young boxer with a fine body and a nose already flattened. I cheated once and felt guilty. Fedot Babinski cheated often and felt no regret.”

  “Perhaps you could argue that you were trying to save the woman. After all, she was beaten to death by him.”

  “I hit him two or three times with whatever I had in my hand and then I pummeled him with my fists.”

  “You could have followed him to the hotel intending to confront him, but you came upon him killing the woman.”

  Albina poured the tea and considered her options.

  “That is exactly what did happen,” she said. “But I was not there to save her.”

  “I suggest you call a lawyer and then turn yourself in to the police. I assume you are full of regret for what you have done.”

  “No,” said Albina with a very small smile. “Are you sure you will not have some cookies?”

  Ivan Medivkin, a man of considerable height, strength, and weight, was subdued, cuffed, and seated in the interrogation room with the two detectives.

  “When I get up, I will get free and kill whoever beat Fedot Babinski after I get him to confess.”

  Iosef sat in a wooden chair. He tugged his shirt from under his arms. He knew he was sweating in the room that reeked of the smell of human bodies.

  “I do not think much of your plan, Ivan Medivkin,” said Iosef. “You proclaim your innocence and plan a murder.”

  “Not a murder. An execution,” Ivan amended.

  Iris Templeton put on a clean white blouse and a comfortable blue cotton skirt. She straightened her skirt and stood up. Then there was a knock at the door. She almost asked who it was when Sasha, gun in hand, emerged from the bathroom and motioned for her to be quiet and move to the bathroom as he walked slowly to the door and slowly opened it as the knocking continued. During the night, Sasha had changed rooms, moved into the room directly across from that of Iris Templeton, but he had awakened at her side.

  Sasha threw the door open. In front of him now at the threshold stood a very muscular man with a shaved head and another man, a thin man with very white hair.

  “Breakfast?” said the man with white hair.

  He sounded cheerful, cheerful enough that Sasha hesitated, but only for an instant, only long enough to see the guns suddenly appear in the intruders’ hands.

  “Come in,” said Sasha, dropping to the floor. The two men came in firing at the bed and looking toward the bathroom. Then Elena came out of the room across the hall behind them firing her weapon. Sasha did the same. The noise was familiar but not welcome to the two men in the doorway. Then both intruders fired, the white-haired one at Elena, the bald one at Sasha.

  At this point, Elena stepped back and three SWAT-uniformed policemen armed with automatic weapons came out from behind her. The bald man dropped his gun and went to his knees.

  The white-haired man dashed toward the open doors of the elevator at the end of the corridor. He had propped the doors open with a small wedge of wood so that he and the bald man could get away quickly after they killed Iris Templeton.

  The man hobbled, grunting, leaving a trail of blood on the gray carpet. Sasha went after him. The man had a foot in the door of the elevator when Sasha landed on his back. The man twisted his hand behind him and fired his weapon. Sasha tore the gun from his hand, battered his face against the floor, and rolled onto his back.

  “Are you all right?” asked Elena, who stood o
ver Sasha as he moved over onto his back, from which vantage point he could see a small, old chandelier.

  “I am,” he said. “Iris Templeton?”

  “Unhurt. She crawled to the bathroom when the shooting began. The two men with guns were remarkably poor shots.”

  “Just like in an American movie.”

  Sasha was fascinated by the dozens of lights in the small chandelier in the ceiling directly above him.

  A pair of policemen in protective wear hurried down the corridor dragging the bald prisoner, who looked back over his shoulder at Sasha.

  “I think they will both live,” said Elena. “I will have them put into separate small cells.”

  “The older one, make him comfortable. The bald one, give him some food and water and something to drink… .”

  “I know,” said Elena.

  They would play the two men against each other. Maybe Chief Inspector Rostnikov would take care of that part of this. If they were lucky, one of them might turn Pavel Petrov in and with the tape from Sergei Bresnechov, Tyrone, they might be able to arrest Petrov.

  Over Elena’s shoulder appeared the face of Iris Templeton.

  “Are you shot?” she asked the fallen detective.

  “No,” Sasha said. “I just want to lie here for a while. I like the view.”

  12

  In Which a Serial Killer Copes with a Surprise

  Had his father ever come home sober from the furniture factory where he worked? He must have, but Aleks could not remember such a time. He was certain that his background must be known to the police. He was certain a dolt of an officer had or would come to the conclusion, with the help of a no-nothing psychologist, that in killing the alcoholic old men in the park Aleks was killing his father. Aleks did not want to kill his father. He was alive, still working, and quite available if Aleks wanted to kill him.

  Perhaps Aleks could take this opportunity to lull the policeman into a nighttime stroll in the park from which only Aleks would return.

  Aleksandr Chenko decided to take a walk. His apartment had begun to feel like a tight suit his parents had made him wear for a parade at the Kremlin. He had been eight years old and he was too short to see much of anything, though he could hear the grinding of tanks and the claps of marching boots. Aleks remembered the tight and itching suit and the fact that he had wet his pants. He had not told his parents, and when he got home he had hurried to the bathroom, stripped himself naked, and stepped into the shower. The shower had been cold. It was always cold. He ran it on his penis and between his legs where the redness itched.

  Aleks’s father had shouted at him when he came out, called him a fool while his mother just shook her head and looked at the pile of clothes her son brought out.

  Perhaps it would be a good idea to kill his father.

  13

  What Does a Monster Dream?

  “Once more I tell you, I do not know who killed your boxer, but I do know it was not your giant,” said Paulinin. “He was there, but DNA insists on another wielder of the weapon.”

  “You are sure?”

  There was a long pause and then Paulinin said, “When have you known me to speak without certainty?” He hung up before Iosef could say more.

  Then Iosef said, “Who do you know who did not like Fedot Babinski?”

  “His wife,” said Zelach. “Her knuckles.”

  “Knuckles?” asked Ivan.

  At the entrance gate of Petrovka stood a young man who held on to the fence’s iron bars and shifted from one leg to the other. He had told the guards whom he wanted to see, though he did not know the man’s name. The young man did know from Elena that she worked in the Office of Special Investigations. Therefore, he had asked for the boss of that department.

  “What do you want?” asked the guard, who looked remarkably like one of the men who read the news on Russia Today television.

  The guard stayed well back when he asked the question and waited for an answer.

  “To give him something of great value. It is my civic duty. Tell him it involves the man from Gasprom in whom he is interested.”

  “Wait.”

  The guard moved away, replaced by another guard who looked like a little boy with a big gun.

  Tyrone had done his best to dress respectably, which meant he had to buy new clothes with some of the money he got from the British journalist. He had been given the money in the hallway after he turned over the tape. He did not say it was the only copy, and it was not. In his pocket was another copy.

  Tyrone’s request was brought to the Yak’s assistant, Pankov, who weighed it carefully and moved to the window where he had a partial view of the gate. The young man looked harmless, but who knew these days? Two Chechen suicide bombers had attempted to enter Petrovka in the last three years. Neither had succeeded, but there might always be a first. The young man seemed to be in some pain, but that might be Pankov’s imagination.

  “Wait.”

  Pankov rubbed his palms against the sides of his pants to keep from revealing his perspiring hands. He had worked for Colonel Yaklovev for five years, yet the prospect of entering the office with news that the Yak might not like still terrified Pankov.

  He knocked and was immediately told to enter. Behind the desk directly in front of him sat Igor Yaklovev under a portrait of Lenin that one might be forgiven for thinking was a portrait of the Yak himself.

  “What?”

  “A young man wants to see you,” said Pankov. “He claims to have something you would like to have, related to the man from Gasprom.”

  The Yak pondered the situation for a moment. In his three years as Director of the Office of Special Investigations, no one had ever simply come to the gate seeking him.

  “Have him thoroughly searched, every thread of his clothing and every tooth in his mouth and all the recesses of every orifice of his body.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pankov. “Then should I bring him here?”

  “No,” said the Yak. “Turn him loose naked and tell him never to return.”

  “I—” Pankov began.

  “It is a joke, Pankov,” said the Yak with some exasperation.

  “Oh… .”

  Pankov had never before heard the Yak utter anything that even sounded like a joke.

  “Bring him,” said the Yak, and Pankov hurried out the door.

  Ten minutes later the young man was ushered into the office of Igor Yaklovev.

  “You have been beaten,” the Yak said to the boy who stood before his desk, “beaten by professionals.”

  “By people who wanted to destroy what I have for you,” the young man said.

  The boy was skinny, pigeon breasted. He had made some attempt to pat down his wild hair, but that had only made it worse.

  Tyrone would have liked to sit. Sleep would be even better, but the man who looked like Lenin did not offer him a chair.

  “Your name?”

  “Tyrone.”

  “Your real name.”

  Tyrone hesitated.

  “It would not be difficult to find out what it is without your cooperation.”

  “Sergei Bresnechov.”

  “Sergei Bresnechov, what do you have for me?”

  “A recording of Pavel Petrov gladly confessing to murder.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “It is not on my person,” said Tyrone. “I am not a fool.”

  “What do you want?” asked the Yak.

  “Three thousand euros or one hundred and eighty-five thousand rubles.”

  “I think you want something else in addition to money,” said the Yak.

  “I want to work for you, handle all your electronic needs, you know, listening to your enemies, uncovering secrets they think are hidden on their computers, things like that.”

  “And what would you want to be paid for this service?”

  “We would negotiate it job by job.”

  “Sit.”

  Tyrone sat as if he felt no pain.

  �
�If this recording is authentic,” said the Yak, “we can negotiate your terms. Does anyone else have a copy of this confession?”

  “An English journalist named Iris Templeton thinks she has, but she will discover that she has a blank tape.”

  “She will be very angry when she discovers the truth,” said the Yak.

  “I hope so. Elena Timofeyeva works in your department.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have done a few things for her in the past. I do not think she will like what I have done to the English journalist.”

  The Yak could see the hint of adoration behind the young man’s languid look. Such adoration might well be of value in the future.

  “I will take care of that,” said the Yak. “The recording?”

  “You have the frightened little man outside your office be at bottom of the escalator of the Olegskaya Metro station at exactly ten tomorrow morning.”

  “I have no intention of betraying you,” said the Yak. “It is far easier to simply buy you, but if you wish to play games, I will oblige.”

  Tyrone rose from the chair with some difficulty. His head still ached and dizziness prevailed when he stood.

  “Are you all right?” asked the Yak.

  “Perfectly,” said Tyrone, though he ached from deep bruises on his face, back, and stomach.

  Something came to his mouth and Tyrone was certain that if he spat, it would be bloody.

  “No more games after tomorrow morning,” said the Yak in warning as Tyrone crossed the room and opened the door.

  “None,” he said. “I know how easy it would be for you to find me. I have left a gift to prove my loyalty.”

  “A gift?”

  “Maybe we should call it a good-faith offering. You will know about it soon.”

  “I look forward to it with great anticipation,” the Yak said quite flatly. “And now, work.”

  Tyrone left and Igor Yaklovev folded his hands and said, “Very easy.”

  In the apartment in which Vera Korstov sat talking to Albina Babinski, Vera was trying to get the much larger woman to agree to confess to the murder of her husband. It was proving to be a most difficult task.

  “It was not murder,” said Vera, cup of tea in her lap.