The Sin Collector (Masha Karavai Detective Series)

by Daria Desombre

  The boiling kettle brought her out of her reverie, tossing its poorly fitted lid. The lid landed with a crash on the wooden floor and rolled around the kitchen. A creaking sound from the bedroom told Masha she had woken Andrey after all. She frowned guiltily. He walked past her, looking adorable in just his jeans, his eyes still half-closed, and Masha couldn’t help reaching out for him, pressing his sleep-warmed body against hers for a second. But Andrey, trying to stifle a yawn, muttered something about having to take a shower before he let anyone get near him. Soon the makeshift outdoor shower was gurgling aggressively on the porch, and she could hear him whooping and hollering like a child.

  Laughing, Masha set the table, putting out almost everything they had brought from the twenty-four-hour supermarket the night before: yogurt, cheese, ham.

  A couple of minutes later, Andrey returned, fully awake now. He kissed her on the cheek and poured some hot water over the grounds in the new Turkish coffee pot. Yesterday, in a weird housekeeping frenzy, they had even bought extra coffee for the future.

  Once the coffee was ready, they sat down at the table. Masha warmed her hands around her mug. Andrey made himself a ham sandwich. They looked at each other awkwardly. Their first breakfast together. Andrey put his sandwich down and reached across the table, palm facing up. Masha smiled and put her hand in his.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Andrey said, with the confidence of someone who has slept well and woken up in a good mood.

  Masha nodded, and urged him back to his bread and ham with her eyes.

  Andrey laughed. “Who do you take me for, Marilyn Monroe?” he asked and took a huge bite, then a swig from his mug.

  “I was thinking,” Masha began, then stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “I was thinking that I was wrong to treat Innokenty that way. I was just so scared. First my stepfather . . .” She gripped her coffee cup a little tighter. “And then they took my mom to the hospital, and Kenty told me about his family, and then all those pictures . . .” She looked up at him. “But none of that means anything, Andrey! I know Kenty inside out. I’d have to be insane to suspect him of murder! Cliché as it may sound, he truly would not harm a fly. Do you believe me?”

  Andrey nodded.

  “I’ve known forever that his family was unusual somehow. But that never mattered. I was too shy to ask about them back then, when we were kids, like, Why are your mom and dad so weird? I bet, if I had asked, he would have told me the truth. But I wasn’t curious enough. I was too obsessed with my own little demons. Then he picked the worst possible day to reveal that secret to me. As for the photographs . . .” Masha lowered her eyes and used her fork to trace a flourish on the tablecloth.

  “Well, it’s pretty clear what they mean,” Andrey said, sighing.

  “Sure,” said Masha, quietly. “I guess I must have known on some level, but I just never wanted to admit it to myself. I was so happy having him as my friend, but from a certain perspective, I was taking advantage of his feelings for me. I—well, to be honest, I’ve been a bad friend. A terrible friend!” Masha looked at Andrey sadly.

  He wiped his mouth and made himself another sandwich. “There’s no point punishing yourself, Masha. Yesterday it was your mom, and today it’s Innokenty. Think about it. There’s no way you could possibly have been a good friend to him. We can’t be a good friend to someone who’s in love with us. Because our friendship will never give them what they really want. So we hurt them, no matter what. But Kenty’s a big boy and he made his own choices about your relationship. He had plenty of chances to tell you he loved you and see how you would have responded, try to win you over or whatever.”

  Masha suddenly giggled. “‘Or whatever,’” she mimicked him. “What do you mean or whatever?”

  “Well,” said Andrey, pulling her by the hand over to his lap. “For example . . .”

  Masha nodded thoughtfully. “Right. We all know how long and hard you courted me.”

  “I’m more interested in the result than in the process,” Andrey whispered in her ear.

  “Uh-huh. Kenty would be horrified if he knew how easy it was.”

  “No, you’re not easy. You’re just—very selective.”

  And with that momentous declaration, Andrey kissed her.

  ANDREY

  Unfortunately, Masha pulled away from him all too quickly. Andrey thought it must be the ham on his breath, but she was thinking of something else.

  “I have to call Kenty and apologize.” In a kittenlike move, she gave his cheek a pat, and then took her phone out onto the veranda.

  Andrey wondered how he could ever have been jealous of Kenty. Now he just felt sorry for him. He even felt sort of superior, which was really funny when he thought about it. He was finishing his coffee when Masha returned. She looked worried.

  “He’s not answering. Not his cell and not his home phone, either. Where could he be?”

  “Maybe his parents’ place?” Andrey suggested, putting the rest of the food back in the fridge.

  “No,” Masha said, shaking her head thoughtfully. “He never spends the night there.”

  “Hey now,” Andrey said, leading her toward the front door. “Don’t worry too much over him. And don’t get suspicious all over again. Maybe he’s just singing in the shower and didn’t hear the phone ring. Or maybe he got drunk last night to ease the pain, and he’s sleeping, with the phone switched off.”

  “Innokenty, getting drunk?” Masha asked doubtfully.

  “So you admit he sings in the shower, then?” Andrey teased as they climbed into his car. “A Verdi aria in the original Italian, I’ll bet, none of this pop music nonsense!”

  Masha laughed, but sadly. Andrey laid a hand on her knee—this time for reassurance rather than romance.

  “I’m going to drop you at the clinic to visit your mom. Spend as much time with her as you need. Then take a taxi straight to Petrovka, okay? I don’t want you out of arm’s reach.”

  “All right,” Masha answered obediently, and her knee shook a little under his hand. “But you don’t need to worry, I told you—”

  “You told me, and I heard you. The killer’s going after the people you love, not you. I heard that yesterday when you said it in the supermarket, too. So let’s frame it another way: you’ll be protecting me with your presence, okay?”

  “Okay, okay! I’ll stay close by.”

  They stopped by the store again to pick up some juice, Natasha’s favorite crackers, and some flowers. Half an hour later, he dropped her off in front of the clinic.

  Andrey watched Masha walk in, and he spent a moment hoping that the events of the coming day wouldn’t add to her worries. Masha needs a break, he thought as he pulled out of the clinic parking lot. She needed an intermission, or she’d need to be admitted herself. Her heart already ached too much to let her brain make any logical connections. Maybe that was exactly what the Sin Collector was counting on. Maybe he was clobbering her with pain to switch off her mind? Did that mean that regardless of how pointless all their poking around had seemed, they were actually getting close? He hoped Masha could concentrate fully on her daughterly duties for now. A new little idea was dawning in Andrey’s head, and he wanted to check it out right away.

  But the loud ringing of his phone disrupted that train of thought.

  It was Fomin. “Andrey. Looks like we have a new body.”

  “Hang on,” Andrey told him, and swerved sharply to park on the shoulder, ignoring the furious honking that followed. “Are you sure it’s one of ours?”

  “Not positive, but seems like it. Last night, the fire department got called to Victory Park. The blaze was big enough to see from across the city. Then they found a burned corpse, and an ID with the name, uh, hold on . . .” Fomin rustled some papers. “Innokenty Arzhenikov. And since the place was the only one on our table outside the Boulevard Ring Road—Andrey? You still there?”

  “Innokenty?” Andrey asked, his voice hoarse.

  �
�Yeah, you know that name?”

  “Yes, I do. He’s the guy who wrote that table.”

  A short while later, he was back at the clinic. He spent some time sitting in the car, staring dumbly out the window, putting off the moment he would have to tell Masha the terrible news.

  MASHA

  She had just finished talking with Nadya. The doctor, as stern and calm as ever in her white lab coat, had told her that Natasha was in stable condition. She wasn’t eating much and she was sleeping a lot, but that wasn’t surprising, given the sedatives she was on. But there was no need to worry. Nadya smiled then, for the first time.

  “Your mother is a very strong woman, Masha, dear. Believe me. The drugs she’s getting will give her nervous system a break. But she’ll be better soon, and then, terrible as it may sound, she’ll be too busy making funeral arrangements to get bogged down by her own thoughts. So don’t you even think about making those arrangements yourself, all right?”

  “Got it,” said Masha, remembering her fit of dish scrubbing in Katya’s kitchen.

  “Good girl!” Nadya smiled and gave her a pat on the head. “I’ve already looked in on her today. Don’t just sit next to her while she’s sleeping. Go outside and take a walk, find something to do with yourself.”

  “Okay,” said Masha, and smiled back. But her smile was forced.

  Nadya nodded good-bye and walked off down the corridor, and Masha stood there for a few seconds, watching her go. Then she dialed Kenty’s number again. Again she got his voice mail.

  When she left her mother’s room, Masha caught sight of a familiar figure standing near the nurse’s desk.

  “Irina?” Masha walked over, and the woman turned around. Masha was surprised, as she always was, by her almost sickly thinness.

  “Mashenka!” The woman broke into a smile and reached out to embrace her. “Such sad news, Masha! Your poor mother! Losing Fyodor, and now Yury, too! How is she?”

  “She’s sleeping,” said Masha. “They’re giving her sedatives, and—”

  “Sure, sure,” Irina said, tilting her head to look at her, and Masha saw that she had been crying. “And how are you doing? Holding on all right?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Masha felt the tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Now, now, don’t cry,” Irina said, stroking her shoulder. “Nick-Nick is very proud of you. Did you know that? He thinks you have a real knack for what you do. Just like Fyodor. A gift, if you want to put it that way.”

  That’s when Masha finally broke down. She couldn’t hold it back any longer. She took a breath, intending to say something, explain her sudden tears, but Irina was still stroking her back and whispering, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

  There was something absurd about how it was only then that Masha was able to cry. Not on her mother’s shoulder, and not to Innokenty or Andrey, but there with Nick-Nick’s wife, someone she hadn’t seen for probably ten years. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose into the lace handkerchief Irina offered her.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so tired,” Masha said.

  “Of course, of course!” Irina said again, tucking the handkerchief away in her bag. As she did so, Masha caught sight of a bruise on the woman’s arm. Irina hurried to adjust her dress. “Well, Mashenka, I’ve got to go and visit your mama. Come and see us soon, all right?”

  And she stood up and walked off, with a heavy tread that didn’t match her thin frame, down the hallway toward Masha’s mother’s room.

  Masha decided to take Nadya’s advice about going out for a walk while she waited for Natasha to wake up. She wanted to see her mother, tell her it would be okay, give her a kiss. Then, finally, she would go back to Petrovka. She felt irresistibly pulled to the place, like an addict needing her fix.

  But as soon as she stepped outside she saw Andrey waiting, and then he was walking toward her quickly. Masha felt her heart freeze. The feeling of foreboding was so powerful that she stopped where she stood, not wanting to take a step to meet him. No matter what kind of news Andrey was bringing, she knew she would be much happier in the last few seconds before he opened his mouth.

  “Poklonnaya Hill?” she asked after Andrey had told her about the most recent body.

  “Yes. Moscow’s own ‘Hill of Worshipful Submission,’ where pilgrims traditionally stop before entering a holy city to pray, bow, and—”

  “I know what it is,” Masha interrupted him. “Tollhouse?”

  It was a refrain by now, a call-and-response routine.

  “The nineteenth. Heresy. Deviation from the tenets of the Orthodox faith.”

  “Who?” Masha asked in a whisper.

  “Masha,” he began. “I’m so sorry.”

  But the deep, empty oblivion engulfed her before he could say the name.

  ANDREY

  Andrey barely managed to catch her as she fell. Masha lay in his arms, pale, her eyes rolled back in her head.

  “Hey! Somebody, help!” Andrey shouted.

  Clinic staff rushed toward them with a stretcher, and he stumbled over his words, trying to explain that Masha’s mother was here already, shoving his badge under their noses. He said her mother was a friend of Nadya’s, the name springing from his memory like a ping-pong ball even though Masha had only mentioned it in passing. Thank God, Nadya herself soon ran out, and she slapped Masha on the cheeks, trying to bring her around. Andrey stood there gaping like an idiot, shame pounding in his head like a migraine. He trotted along next to the men carrying her stretcher, which they were now loading into an enormous elevator.

  Suddenly, Masha woke up and sobbed. “What’s happening to me?”

  “You fainted,” Nadya said. “You’re under a great deal of stress. Your mother has an empty bed in her room. We’ll put you in there with her for the day, to rest.”

  Andrey swallowed hard and gave Masha’s hand a squeeze. He felt a gentle pressure in response.

  “I’ll be back this afternoon,” Andrey said, his voice hoarse. “What can I bring you?”

  “Nothing.” Masha closed her eyes. “I don’t need anything.”

  “Masha’s best friend died,” he told Nadya when they left the room.

  “Good Lord.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence?”

  “No, it’s not,” Andrey answered, shaking his head. “This is the third murder of someone close to her, all in a row. I think—I think this is a terrible time for her. She’s going to blame herself.”

  “But that’s nonsense!” Nadya objected.

  Andrey smiled morosely, nodded, and walked out of the clinic.

  A very simple idea still had its hooks in him. It hadn’t stopped nagging at him since the evening before. Andrey just needed one day to check it out, or half a day, if everyone would leave him alone. Andrey passed out assignments to each member of the Sin Collector team. He had one guy drive out to the military post where the soldiers had died, he sent one to interview witnesses at the Victory Park fire, and he asked another to do some research on the governor’s wife’s closest associates.

  He could have come up with a hundred other urgent assignments, but they all had the same ultimate goal. He needed to get every member of the group out of the way, get all the secondary problems out of his head. He even ignored a call from Anyutin (blasphemy)! Relieved to find the office empty at last, Andrey locked the door from the inside, yanked the phone cord from the wall, and, in one decisive gesture, swept all the last few months’ worth of papers, business cards, and file folders off the top of his desk. Then he exhaled, and dove into the dossiers on the Sin Collector case that had been delivered to him yesterday. He looked through all of them, right down to the photos of the lacerated hunk of flesh that had previously been Masha’s stepfather.

  Andrey scrutinized each file. He had to tease out the ties that bound the killer to the dead. How had the first victims caught the Sin Collector’s eye? What if Innokenty was right and the Old Believers had nothing to do with it? Actually, the Old
Believers were out of the question now, weren’t they? Innokenty had been burned as a heretic, after all, so the one doing the punishing must be from some other camp. Could Kenty have been in the army? Or under criminal investigation? The killer was obviously no amateur, so somehow, Kenty must have caught the attention of the professionals: Andrey’s own colleagues from defense or law enforcement.

  Garrulous Dobroslav Ovechkin had once been charged with a misdemeanor and gotten off with a suspended sentence. The trial had been half a mile from here at the District Court. Then there was Julia Tomilina, who testified in court against her ex-lover; Alexander Solyanko, who was a party in the case against his competitor over planted drugs; not to mention Kolyan the drunk, who any police station might have hauled in once or twice. Andrey unfastened the top button on his shirt and opened a window. Then again, what if this was another dead end? What if he was wasting time while poor Masha lay in the clinic, sedated?

  But Andrey forced himself to control his yearning to run off somewhere, anywhere, and do something, anything, quickly. He needed to be methodical. In control. He would not look at the clock, just at this dossier, page after page. The architect who got the amnesty. The thief, a repeat offender. Turina and all the countless bribes she took. But wait. Yelnik! The murderer they fished out of the Moskva. What had that hapless kid, that other Andrey, told him back in Yelnik’s village? Andrey froze. He remembered Anyutin’s office, their first conversation about the Sin Collector. And their most recent one.

  All at once, Andrey understood everything. He jumped up and grabbed his coat. He needed to see Masha. But before that, he needed to prove his theory beyond a shadow of a doubt. He went down to the reception desk, handed in his key, and signed his name in the book. He asked to see the sign-out sheets for the day Masha’s stepfather died. There was Anyutin’s name, and next to it a brief signature executed with military precision and the time he’d turned in his keys. Andrey ran out of the building. He noticed he had started to breathe again. Now he could go see Masha.