Masha was lying with her face to the wall. She wasn’t asleep, and neither was her mother. But they weren’t talking, either. Natasha’s eyes were swollen from crying, and when Andrey came in and said hello, she gave him a look that made his blood run cold. He put a hand on Masha’s shoulder, and she turned over, slowly, and attempted a smile.
“Any news?” she asked.
Andrey glanced over at Natasha’s bed. Without a word, the older woman stood up and quietly left the room.
“I know who it is, Masha,” Andrey told her, even though he hadn’t been sure, on the drive over, that he wanted to tell her the whole story.
“You know?” Masha sat up a little on her pillows.
“Take it easy. You don’t want to get worked up,” he said, then immediately regretted the cliché.
Masha’s brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “I’m not sick, Andrey. I can handle it. If you found out who it is, and you’re planning on doing anything without me, I’ll never forgive you. Got it? I have to be there to help you catch him. Because of Katya, and my stepfather”—tears shone in her eyes—“and Kenty.”
“All right,” said Andrey. “Get dressed. We’re getting out of town.”
“Where to?” Masha asked, pulling on her fleece.
“Your friend Katyshev’s dacha.”
Masha frowned. “How did you know Nick-Nick has a—”
“I guessed,” Andrey said, smiling sadly.
“But I don’t know where it is! The last time we went was before Papa died. I remember there’s a little brook, and a forest, but I don’t remember the name of the train station or anything.”
“The village of Narino, off the Kaluga Highway. House number twelve, I think. It is across from the woods, you’re right about that.”
Masha and Andrey turned around. Natasha stood in the doorway, pale as her white nightgown and terry-cloth robe.
“Mama.” Masha sounded unsure.
But Natasha was looking Andrey straight in the eye. “Go. Go right now, before it gets dark.”
They made good time on their way out of Moscow, but Masha said nothing, staring straight ahead.
“Why?” she finally asked, once Andrey had left the city limits.
“Ever since your stepfather died, and ever since Katya, I’ve been asking myself one question: Why you?” Andrey began. “Why was he weaving his web around you, specifically, and why did he seem to be performing for you? As if he were showing off for you or something. Didn’t you ever wonder the same thing?”
“Well,” said Masha, slowly. “I thought it was because I have a sense for how he operates.”
“All that sensing is a load of crap, Masha. It’s metaphysics, fortune-telling.” Andrey sounded angry. “I can’t believe we didn’t see it right after your stepfather died! He knew it was you who had spotted him. Nobody but you had made the connection between those murders. You had teased out his motive, you had connected the crime scenes with Heavenly Jerusalem, you had unearthed St. Theodora’s Journey Through the Tollhouses. You did all that, Masha!”
“Innokenty helped,” she said quietly.
“Stop it!” He slammed one hand against the steering wheel, trying to control himself. He was really angry, but not at Masha.
“Fine,” she said. “So what?”
“So you became extremely interesting to the murderer!”
Masha’s face went pale, and she turned toward the window.
“I’ve known that for a while now. Just yesterday I told you that all this is my fault.”
“You’re such an idiot!” Andrey couldn’t help it. “You’re so smart, but you’re such an idiot! Think! Who knew that you were the one who connected the murders with Heavenly Jerusalem?”
“Lots of people. Please don’t yell.”
Andrey took a couple of deep breaths, and gripped the wheel harder. “I’m sorry. Damn it! The solution was right there in front of us this whole time, and we were stumbling around like blind kittens, distracted by all our fancy theories. Lots of people? Not that many, Masha.” He glanced over at her. Masha was still looking out her window at the parade of country cottages strung along the road. “Remember? Our investigative team didn’t know who first discovered what. Only five people actually knew for sure. You, me—”
“Innokenty, Anyutin . . . and Nick-Nick.”
“Right, Masha. Your friend Nick-Nick. Chief Prosecutor Katyshev, who took an interest in this case from the very beginning. Katyshev, who straight-out told Anyutin, last time we met, that maybe we should let the killer finish what he started!”
“That’s crazy, Andrey,” Masha objected, her voice hoarse. “He only meant that his own hands are tied, since the justice system—”
“Exactly! Remember our psychological profile. Your profile, again. The killer most likely works in law enforcement, probably served in the military. Katyshev was in the army, wasn’t he?”
Masha nodded without speaking.
“And this sick desire to take justice into his own hands? You told me yourself that’s the hallmark of a maniacal missionary! Who better to judge us all than Mr. Bigshot Prosecutor himself?”
Andrey stopped talking. He took out a cigarette and rolled down his window. He could see Masha out of the corner of his eye, and sensed that she was beginning to believe him.
“And there’s something else. I’ve spent the afternoon going back through all the Sin Collector case files trying to find the link. How does the killer meet his sinners? I still wasn’t sure if it was my boss, Anyutin, or Katyshev. Both of them fit pretty well. Then I realized: all the victims had a run-in with the courts, in one way or another.”
They passed a sign: “Now Entering Narino.”
“Turn right up ahead,” said Masha softly.
Andrey nodded. He made the turn and slowed down.
“Know how I figured out I was on the right track?”
Masha went on looking silently at the country road.
“I remembered the day I went to visit Yelnik’s place in the country. He had Andreyka, the village idiot, working for him. The kid hadn’t seen the killer, just his car. But he said something I didn’t pay attention to at first. On the day he disappeared, Yelnik sent Andreyka away, telling him a friend had come to see him, a very important man Yelnik owed his life to. Now, Masha, can you remember who the prosecutor was at Yelnik’s last trial? The prosecutor who allegedly didn’t have enough evidence to convict?”
They pulled up in front of the very last house on the main road, and Andrey switched off the engine. Masha turned to face him, her chin jutting out stubbornly like a child’s.
“I still don’t believe it. Nick-Nick was my father’s best friend, and he loved my mother.” Masha shoved her door open, then looked back at Andrey. “What if it’s really Anyutin?”
Andrey shook his head. “I checked it out, and it couldn’t have been him. An unidentified visitor rang the doorbell at four thirty, when your stepfather was in that rented apartment for his, um, usually scheduled appointment. But Anyutin was at the office until eight—the logs say so. That’s not a guarantee, I know, so I haven’t told him anything about Katyshev.”
The two of them walked along the edge of the forest. The ground was slippery with fallen leaves and springy with moss underfoot. Andrey took Masha’s hand to steady her. It was damp to the touch, but her face looked calm and focused now, and Andrey was relieved. He knew that giving Masha’s brain some hard work to do would help distract her from other more dismal thoughts. Masha suddenly stopped walking. There in front of them was an old wooden fence, strips of ancient paint hanging off it.
“This is it,” Masha whispered. “Nick-Nick’s dacha. I think the gate is over there.”
They circled the cottage warily. Everything was still. It had been cold enough the past few days that vacationers in the neighboring dachas had gone back to the city, and there weren’t many locals around, either. Just smoke rising from a chimney or two at the other end of the village. Andrey tried to ram th
rough the locked gate with his shoulder, but Masha slipped a thin hand between the boards and opened the latch from the inside. She turned to Andrey.
“Remember what he said? ‘Open up. It’s me!’”
“I remember,” said Andrey. “Your stepdad didn’t know Anyutin, but he did know Nick-Nick. The killer came down from one floor up and rang the doorbell. When your stepdad asked who was there, the killer didn’t even need to say his name. He knew he’d be recognized.”
Masha gulped. “They’re not here. I saw Nick-Nick’s wife today at the hospital. She came to check on my mom. She had a bruise on her arm.” Masha shook her head desperately. “I know serial killers often abuse their families, too, but maybe she just hurt herself somehow? Are you sure it’s him and not Anyutin? I mean,” said Masha, looking at him pleadingly, “Nick-Nick has never been religious. I would have known!”
“Do you want to wait outside?”
“We can’t go in without a warrant,” Masha said, but Andrey had already walked up to the door, raised one hand, and magically summoned up a hidden key. In one ordinary twist of the wrist, he unlocked the door. It swung open with a creak, and Masha followed Andrey inside.
MASHA
The first thing she saw was an icon. It had its own honored place in one corner, as tradition dictated. Masha jumped and exchanged a glance with Andrey, who was nice enough to say nothing. As she looked around, memories crowded in. Memories from her childhood, from the days she hadn’t yet been poisoned by her father’s death.
There, at that table, they had sat together cleaning mushrooms they’d found in the woods. Irina had taught her to string the right kind of mushroom on a thick white thread, which they would hang over the round stove like a Christmas garland to dry. And there on that veranda, Mama had laughed while she and Nick-Nick washed the lunch dishes in a tub. In the old rocking chair, Papa had stretched out his legs and talked with Irina, who was always stitching away at something, mending or knitting, and listening uneasily to Natasha’s laughter pouring in from the veranda, which Fyodor never seemed to notice. The memories were so vivid that Masha almost forgot why they had come. She looked at the row of folded-up cots on the veranda and ran a hand over the worn lacquer of the old buffet. It held ceramic knick-knacks, probably heirlooms from Irina’s parents. A little boy in ice skates. A little girl with skis. She thought she could even remember Irina saying how much she loved those little pieces of bourgeois charm, kitschy as they were. Mama hadn’t understood, of course.
A loud scraping noise shook her out of her reverie. It was Andrey, moving the heavy table aside and lifting the cheerful little striped rug. Underneath was the trap door leading down to the cellar. Masha nodded. She remembered the cellar, too. As a girl, she had helped Irina carry jars of pickled mushrooms and jam down there.
Down they went, into a room that stank of mold and neglect. Masha’s foot knocked against an empty jar, which clattered away in the darkness. Andrey pulled a cord, and a dim, swinging light bulb illuminated the room. The walls were lined with racks of shelves, which in Masha’s childhood had been full of provisions for the winter, sacks of potatoes, and apples. Now all that decorated those shelves were rows of large, empty jars. There were gaps in the rows, like missing teeth.
“I thought—I was sure, actually, that the cellar was bigger than this.” Masha’s voice echoed strangely in the neglected, dusty place.
“Everything looks big when we’re kids,” Andrey answered glumly.
“I wonder why Nick-Nick’s wife quit gardening.” She ran a finger thoughtfully over one of the dusty jars. “She used to get so excited about her jams and pickles! They don’t have kids, you know, and—”
“Shhhhh!”
Andrey was rapping his knuckles on the back of one of the racks of shelves.
“You’re right. This cellar really is a lot bigger than it looks. Come help me.”
Together, the two of them began taking jars off the shelves. When the rack was completely empty, Andrey gave it a tug, first in one direction, then the other. All of a sudden it gave way with a groan and swung slowly away. The sickly light bulb only illuminated a few inches into the space hidden on the other side of that shelf, a room that did not look dusty at all.
Andrey told her to wait, and Masha obeyed. She didn’t want to see what was in there. She yearned for knowledge, as her father used to say, like a sunflower reaching for the sun, but she also realized that she had reached a certain boundary, a limit. And that boundary was drawn right there, where this uncertain light met the deep blackness on the other side of the cellar. Andrey took out a flashlight and walked in, and Masha sat down on an old overturned bucket to wait, struggling to keep her eyes fixed on her dusty fingers.
For a while, the flashlight danced over a hastily whitewashed wall, but then Andrey found another switch, a far brighter light poured down, and a brilliant new world emerged from the darkness, ruled by a remorseless truth. Masha felt left behind in the dark. In that other world, she could see things on the walls. An enormous map of old Moscow hung next to a map of Jerusalem. Next to that was a modern-day map with red flags neatly pinned onto it. Masha gulped. She had one of those, too, and hers had pins in just the same places. She saw the eyepiece of a video camera. Did he observe his victims through that lens? There was a massive professional-grade refrigerator where, apparently, Yelnik had spent half a year. Some carpentry tools. Masha remembered, with a start, how her mother used to urge her father to be more like Nick-Nick, who was a real handyman. But you, Fyodor! You couldn’t hammer a nail into the kitchen wall! Farther back, there was a simple, solid workbench. Masha didn’t need to get any closer to see that it was covered with dark stains.
“Look at this.” Andrey walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out one thin volume. St. Theodora’s Journey. He opened the fridge. “It’s switched off, but it’s definitely the right size,” he said, and pulled out something that looked like an aquarium.
“What is that?” Masha asked, her voice trembling, still not getting up off her bucket.
“Maybe some kind of incubator?” Andrey turned the glass box over carefully in his hands. “To hold—”
“Ants.” Masha finished his sentence in a whisper. “Let’s get out of here!”
Andrey picked up a metal-tipped whip, and put it down again.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”
He had raised his hand to turn off the light when Masha stood up and called, “Wait!”
Trying not to look around, she marched across the room and, in one quick swipe, ripped the map with the red pins off the wall. It rolled up in her hands.
“Now let’s go,” she said. But halfway up the stairs, she couldn’t resist looking back at the black hole where the secret hideout had been. So that’s where you were, she told herself. Heavenly Jerusalem. Right here in this dark basement, for Nick-Nick—her Nick-Nick!—the light had shone down from on high and the angels had sung in chorus. Oh my God . . . She stumbled up the last few steps, ran out of the house, leaned over the railing of the porch, and threw up. Then Masha sat on the steps for a long while, gasping in the frosty air, while Andrey kept an arm wrapped around her shoulders, trying to fend off the trembling that wracked her body.
When they got in the car, Masha had almost stopped shaking. She looked silently at the map rolled up in her lap. Andrey called Petrovka and told them to send some forensics experts out to the dacha. He decided to leave the front door, and the entrance to the cellar, wide open. He also asked Fomin to stop by and see if Katyshev was in his office. He turned out not to be, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Masha called his home number. Irina answered and said her husband wasn’t at home. After a pause, she asked, “And how’s your mom?”
So Masha got stuck updating Irina on her mother’s progress and her own, trying hard not to ask any sort of question that might tip her off. She listened submissively to Irina’s worried advice. (“You need to get more rest, Mashenka! At least eight hours of sleep a ni
ght, try some mint tea or chamomile.”) It was enough to make Masha think that she, and the whole world, had finally lost their minds. Masha made herself glance in the rearview mirror at the forest disappearing behind them in the early dusk. There was only one person she knew who was crazy—though of course he must not think so.
When their conversation was wrapping up, Masha asked casually, “Do you two go to your dacha much anymore?”
For a second, she thought the call might have been disconnected. But then Irina answered, her voice sad.
“You know, we never go at all anymore. He doesn’t have the time, and it’s no fun when it’s just me. And Nikolay says the house is falling apart, and he never gets around to fixing it up, because he spends all his energy bringing his bad guys to justice.” She laughed, awkwardly, and Masha shuddered at what an apt description that was.
“Well, Mashenka! Tell your mother I said hello, and get well soon,” Irina said, and they hung up.
“So,” said Andrey, “that means Katyshev isn’t anywhere. Do you think he knows we’ve fingered him?”
“I don’t know,” said Masha. “But I think so,” she added, more confidently.
Andrey gave her a worried look. “If he knows we’re on his trail, he might try to run.”
Masha shook her head. “No. If he knows we’re on his trail, he’ll try to finish what he set out to do.”
“Are you sure?” asked Andrey, glancing over at her.
Masha laughed sadly. “Positive. I know Nick-Nick. He’s very conscientious.”
THE SIN COLLECTOR
He still had time. He had done the calculations many times over. He didn’t trust taking the car—there could always be a traffic jam—and he didn’t feel like going underground to take the metro. Instead, he walked the Boulevard Ring Road, and when it came down to it, he had earned this walk.
The Sin Collector (Masha Karavai Detective Series) Page 27
