The room carried the slight smell of lavender, and that scent grew ever stronger as he approached the bathroom. Even there, candles and mythological figurines held sway. Hannibal gave the bathroom the onceover, but he expected to find what he was looking for in the bedroom.
Drawers creaked like old knee joints when he pulled them open. He wished he hadn’t known Mrs. Petrova as he flipped through her most personal clothing items, but he had no choice. Important personal papers could be concealed anyplace. Music boxes and jewelry boxes added up to a dozen good hiding places and Hannibal checked them all, surprised at how little jewelry of value he found. Then there were the knickknacks, some of which held hidden compartments.
Finally, he got down to the nesting dolls. A wooden woman’s top half lifted off to reveal a different woman inside. Inside that woman hid yet another different woman. Just like real life, Hannibal thought. It was inside the third one that he found tightly rolled papers. The top page was what he was looking for: a handwritten note in a scroll-heavy feminine hand, addressed to Nikita and signed by Anastasiya. Unfortunately, those two names were all he could read. The rest of the writing was in Cyrillic characters, so he couldn’t verify the content. Not that it mattered. The fact that Raisa felt the need to hide the note told him all he needed to know.
Two sheets down he came to a prize he didn’t expect. This letter was in English, and it was addressed to Raisa. The letterhead, first in Arabic, then in French, and finally in English, was that of the Arab Bank of Morocco. For a business letter it was long and wordy, which Hannibal assumed was what happened when you translated Middle Eastern business language into English.
Music boxes proved useful to pin down the edges of the letters. Once they were secured on the dresser, Hannibal pulled out his cell phone. After only three false starts he managed to photograph the documents. Then he rolled them up, replaced them in their hand-carved hiding place, and carried it out to the front door. The air had turned brisk while he was inside. He found Rissik sitting at the table where Hannibal had first met Yakov Sidorov. Hannibal stood beside Raisa’s chair, but decided not to sit down.
“I told you not to take anything,” Rissik said.
“I’m just bringing this to you.” Hannibal removed the top half of the wooden woman, revealing the rolled papers. “There might be a valuable clue to the murder in here.”
“Really?” Rissik said, accepting the doll. “Something that points to motive?”
“I think so. There’s a note to Nikita from a woman named Anastasiya Sidorov. It’s in Russian so I can’t tell you what it says, but based on what Raisa Petrova told me, I expect it’s a love letter. Now, if Raisa confronted the other woman, or threatened to tell her husband…”
Rissik nodded. “Yeah, that could speak to motive. Thanks for the lead. And hey, it looks like there was an adult daughter. Any idea how we can contact her?”
“Afraid not, Chief,” Hannibal said. “But if I hear anything about her, I’ll let you know.”
By the time Hannibal got back to his office, Ivanovich had emptied the last bottle of vodka and it was too late to order more. Not that Hannibal minded. Coffee was much more to his taste right then. He brewed a fresh pot while he filled Ivanovich in on his final visit to the Petrova house.
“You don’t really think Anastasiya Sidorov would murder Raisa Petrova, do you?” Ivanovich asked, slouching into the chair and sipping his coffee.
“Not really,” Hannibal said, fishing an electric wire out of a desk drawer. “Raisa found that letter before Nikita died. Why would she wait until now to confront Anastasiya? Besides, she didn’t even try to get around to the front door. She died trying to get to the rental house. Did she think she might find help there? Or was she trying to point us toward her killer?”
“So, you finally see the light. The shooter was Gana.”
“Maybe,” Hannibal said, fumbling to plug a cord into his cell phone. “At least I might see a reason for it now.”
Ivanovich moved to stand behind Hannibal, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. “What do you have there?”
“It’s a letter from a bank. The Arab Bank of Morocco to be exact. The same bank Gana transferred a quarter million dollars out of.”
“It looks as if the bank was sending her periodic payments,” Ivanovich said, scanning the letter and records Hannibal also photographed. “Gana?”
“I rather doubt the bank will name the accountholder,” Hannibal said. “But these documents make it pretty clear that she wasn’t authorized to do anything with the account.”
“Yes,” Ivanovich said, pointing to the screen. “And this letter seems to be the bank officially telling her that the account is now empty, so no more payments will be forthcoming.”
“Right. If this account did belong to Dani Gana, then it looks as though Raisa may have effectively sold her daughter to Gana for a monthly stipend. If that theory holds, then Raisa might not have been too pleased when the money ran out. Suppose she threatened to tell the girl the truth?”
Ivanovich slapped his palm down on the desk. “He killed her to keep Viktoriya from learning his filthy secret. Now we must find her, to make sure she knows why her mother let this animal marry her.”
“We?”
“You have got to find them,” Ivanovich said, his fists clenched and shaking with rage. “Find her and get her to safety. Then I will take care of Dani Gana myself.”
“Look, I do think she needs to know the truth, but…”
“I am not trying to blackmail you,” Ivanovich said, palms forward and brows raised. “Please, let me hire you. I will pay you. In fact, I had planned to pay you anyway when our business was over. I have a good deal of money saved up, money I hoped one day to use to give Viktoriya a good life.”
Hannibal read the documents on his screen more closely to avoid Ivanovich’s eyes. “Look, Aleksandr, I’m worried about the girl too, and I will help you find her and Gana if I can find any leads to their whereabouts. But I won’t set up a guy for you to take him out. We clear?”
After a deep, heavy sigh, Ivanovich said, “I understand. The important thing is to save Viktoriya from this monster.”
“It looks like she was getting about five grand a month until last month,” Hannibal said. “Nice pay for doing nothing, but not exactly wealth untold. Hard to believe a woman with old-school values would give up her only child for this.”
“Who knows how badly she needed the money,” Ivanovich said, resting a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “I didn’t know this man Tolstaya, but I know that Nikita gambled with him. Constantly. He may have been in a great deal of debt to the man.”
“Enough to kill him for?”
“Maybe,” Ivanovich said, “but dead men don’t pay up. More likely Nikita killed himself, but to a man like Tolstaya that would not make the debt go away. He would take away everything the surviving wife had and if that did not pay off the debt, he would demand more.”
Hannibal sat back, resting his elbow on the arm of his chair and his chin in his hand. “Sure would like to question that guy. But I’ve got no idea where he is. And I don’t know if anybody knows where Dani Gana took off to with his new bride.”
The ring of the desk phone surprised them both. Hannibal glanced at his watch, confirming that it was awfully late for someone to be calling. After eleven, he would normally let the machine take it. But right then, he wanted to know who had something important enough to call him about at that hour. When he answered the phone, the speaker was surprised to hear him.
“Hannibal?” Rissik asked. “What are you doing in your office at this time of night? I intended to just leave a message.”
“You can’t have a break in the murder already,” Hannibal said. “Besides, it isn’t even your case.”
“Not about the murder. Your other matter.”
Hannibal had to think a moment. “Oh, the car. They found the car?”
“Yeah, I just got the call,” Rissik said. “They found th
e car, kind of smashed up. And they found the owner. He’s kind of smashed up too. They took him to Georgetown University Hospital and I guess they decided to keep him.”
19
Sunday
Like writers and artists, detectives often do their most important work when they appear to be doing nothing. Hannibal knew he looked idle, sitting there in the morning sun, staring down at his desk. His desk was almost covered by pictures taken from Ivanovich’s album. The photo featuring Boris Tolstaya was front and center, with other pictures taken in the Russia House surrounding it. All the pretty ladies were in their evening gowns and the men in suits or, in Dani Gana’s case, a tuxedo. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, and he knew that the answer lay someplace in those photographs.
Ivanovich sat a steaming mug of coffee beside the photos. The aroma told Hannibal that his houseguest had found the Hawaiian kona beans. After a sip, he let the nutty, woody flavor linger on his tongue before swallowing.
“Do you intend to visit Cochran in the hospital?” Ivanovich asked. He had slept on the guest bed in the room beyond the office again. Both men seemed to know they were in this together until it was finished, one way or another.
“It was too late to go up there last night,” Hannibal said, “but yeah, I’ll go talk to him today when I’m sure he’s awake.”
“You do realize that Gana did this.”
Hannibal sighed and looked up from the photos. “Yes, Aleksandr, that is my current theory. I think Gana must have caught Cochran spying on him and beat his face in. Then he probably loaded the man into his own trunk, bound and gagged, and drove the car over to that side street. He probably knew that if it sat there for any length of time, unlocked, someone would steal it. They did. But it didn’t go to a chop shop as he likely expected. Some joy-riding kid took the car, smacked it into a tree, and left it there. Cochran was lucky they found him back there.”
“Is there no evidence of all this?”
“Only my stupid eyes.” When Ivanovich gave him a quizzical look, Hannibal said, “When I went to the house, I heard the girl scream and rushed in. I saw Gana with blood on one hand, and there was blood on the back doorsill. I figure he had just returned.”
“And Viktoriya screamed when she saw him with blood on his hand,” Ivanovich said, finishing the thought. “You were so close but could not know.”
“Yeah, just like with this,” Hannibal said, turning back to the pictures. Ivanovich nodded, pushed the visitor’s chair over by the big front windows, and sat with his coffee. A minute of silence passed before Ivanovich spoke again.
“You know my people were watching your woman very closely.”
“Yes,” Hannibal said, not wanting to explore that subject.
“They saw you watching her that day.”
“I had to see her, Aleksandr,” Hannibal said. “I know you understand that.”
“Yes, I do. Who is the man?”
“What man?” Hannibal asked, trying to keep his focus on the pictures.
“The man she went into that house with. You saw him.”
“Oh. He’s nobody. Just the real estate agent.”
“Really?” Ivanovich asked, sipping his coffee and crossing his legs. “I didn’t think real estate agents took their clients to dinner.”
“Look, that’s just a courtesy.” Hannibal’s head snapped up toward Ivanovich, his eyes blazing. “I’m telling you there’s nothing between them. He’s just the hired help.” He opened his mouth to say more but other thoughts arrested his attention. He turned back to the photos and slapped his palm down on the table.
“Of course,” he said, almost shouting. “They all but told me when I was there. Sit tight, Aleksandr. I’ve got to run to the Russia House. It turns out you were right all along. Dani Gana is nowhere near who he says he is.”
The same man answered the door when Hannibal arrived this time, so getting into the Russia House was no problem. He was surprised to learn that this fellow was called Billy. Before Hannibal could ask, Billy told him that the Sidorovs were not there, and were not expected that day. Yes, Billy had heard about poor Mrs. Petrova and no, no one could believe anyone would want to hurt her. When Hannibal asked to speak to the manager, Billy showed him to a small office that was a good deal more austere than the rest of the establishment. A wide man with bulging forearms growing out of his rolled up sleeves walked around his desk to shake Hannibal’s hand. His jovial, ruddy face was topped with a thatch of hair that had the texture and color of straw.
“I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me Mr…”
“Call me Mike,” the manager said with the slight trace of an accent. “Everyone else does. And any friend of Dr. Sidorov is always an honored guest here.”
Mike sat at his oaken desk with the Tiffany lamp at one side and poured two glasses of a brand of vodka Hannibal didn’t recognize. The label said Turi.
“This is Estonian,” Mike said. “Exceptional clarity and smoothness. Good for the mornings.”
For the mornings? Hannibal thought. They drink it like coffee. When he pulled out the photo, he saw surprise in Mike’s eyes.
“I’ve been looking for one of the men in this picture, and I realized this morning that I’ve been going about it all wrong. The clue has been staring me in the face ever since I came here yesterday. Your man thought I should go to the back entrance.”
“I am so very sorry for that,” Mike said. “He was ignorant and that is not how we are here. I can have him disciplined.”
“No, no,” Hannibal said, raising a palm. “I didn’t say that to complain. It just made me aware that you don’t get too many guests here who are, well, people of color. Do you?”
“Our clientele is mostly Russian nationals and Eastern European immigrants,” Mike said, looking nervous. “We do not discourage any type of person from eating and drinking here. Some just don’t come.”
“That’s the thing about this guy,” Hannibal said, laying the photo on Mike’s desk and pointing to Gana. “He’s not a guest, is he?”
“Gary? No. He was tending bar that night.” He looked up and then back down. “It is true that the help are often, as you say, people of color.”
Hannibal brushed Mike’s defensive remarks away with a wave of his hand. “Gary?”
“Well, Gartee was his actual name,” Mike said. “We often give our people nicknames that are more American.”
“Like Billy-and Mike.”
“Yes, just so,” Mike said with a grin.
“Funny,” Hannibal said. “I know this fellow as Dani.”
“Danny?” Mike sat back in his chair and slid thumbs under his suspenders. “I don’t remember anyone calling him that. Only Gary. And I know that Gartee is his real name because I hired him myself.”
“You seem to be the man I should have been talking to all along,” Hannibal said. “Do you know the other people in the photo? This woman, for instance?”
Mike sat back again, this time with his big arms crossed. “Sir, I always try to be helpful, but I do need to know what is your interest in our clients.”
Clearly, questions about the hired help were not an issue, but the paying customers were different. Hannibal looked back at the door, then turned to face Mike and pushed his glasses up tighter on his face.
“Tell me, Mike, do you know Aleksandr Ivanovich?”
Mike’s voice lowered. “I know of him.”
“Well, he is the one who has asked me to look into this matter,” Hannibal said. “He hoped I could take care of this inquiry for him but if it proves necessary, he can come and talk to you himself. Would you prefer that?”
Mike licked his lips, his eyes darting from side to side. His face looked pale in the soft light of the Tiffany lamp. When he spoke, his words were soft. “I don’t think that it will be necessary for him to trouble himself. You and I, we can take care of this.”
“I thought so,” Hannibal said with a broad smile. “Now this woman. I know her as Mrs. Ben Cochra
n.”
“That’s right,” Mike said. “Although at the time this was taken she was living with this man, Boris Tolstaya.”
“I see,” Hannibal said. Mike’s eyes were wide, as if he was eager to answer another question. Hannibal thought he should not leave him feeling unfulfilled. “Looking at this photo, one could get the idea that this Tolstaya was the ring leader. Did he gather these people together? The Sidorovs, the Petrovas?”
Mike swallowed. “I can’t really say who the leader of the ring was. I do know that it was Dr. Sidorov who brought Mr. Petrova and Mr. Tolstaya to the club.”
“So this was Yakov’s posse?” Hannibal asked. Mike looked confused, but the question was rhetorical. “Yeah, but you brought Dani Gana, aka Gartee, to the party. You say you hired him to work here?”
“I like to give students a chance,” Mike said with an emphatic nod. “He was one of the Howard University students who waited tables and tended bar.”
“When did he leave and where did he go?”
“I don’t know where he went,” Mike said, picking up his glass and swallowing half its contents. “I really don’t. But I know when he left. We were talking about it today after we heard the awful news about Mrs. Petrova.”
“Not sure I see the connection,” Hannibal said.
Mike downed the last of his vodka and stared into Hannibal’s eyes. “It was almost spooky. I mean, Nikita Petrova dies. Gary resigns the next day. The day after that, Mr. Tolstaya leaves the city, never to return. Three years later, you come in, asking about the Tolstayas. The same day, Mrs. Petrova dies. And now, the next day, you return, asking about Gary.”
“Yeah,” Hannibal said, looking back down at the photo. “Spooky.”
Howard University sits like a modest houseguest at the northern edge of LeDroit Park, one neighborhood in the District that gives visitors the feeling of stepping into an earlier era of the city’s development. When he lived in New York, Hannibal heard all about Harlem and its renaissance. But when he moved to Washington, he learned that this little neighborhood was the real center of African American intellectual and cultural life until about 1950. This was where black doctors, lawyers, professors and businessmen lived. Many of them taught at Howard. Fifty years later, the area had a bit of a split personality. Parts were badly run down, but younger people who could appreciate the area’s heritage and distinct architecture were moving in to try to revitalize it.
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