Russian Roulette hj-5

by Austin S. Camacho

  In front of the poster, Rissik leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head.

  “So my old murder case has spawned not one but two follow-up cases, eh?”

  “Well, either that or this is one damned unlucky family,” Hannibal said.

  “I’m betting you’ve got a theory.”

  “Natch, Chief.” Hannibal stood up and handed over the group photo, pointing out the man in the center. “This guy. Boris Tolstaya. I like him for the original murder. The one that’s officially a suicide.”

  Rissik accepted the picture, staring at his new target. “Enlighten me. Motive?”

  “Take your pick,” Hannibal said. “One scenario says that Nikita Petrova owed this guy a substantial gambling debt. I can substantiate that by at least two eyewitnesses. When he refused to pay, Tolstaya had him thrown off the roof.”

  “Weak but workable. You don’t usually kill a guy who holds your marker, you want to hurt him and scare him. But maybe something went wrong. Next?”

  “Try this,” Hannibal said. “The daughter, Viktoriya, says Tolstaya wanted to take her on a trip to some exotic Africa country. She was up for it, but Daddy refused. Maybe Tolstaya wanted her bad and when Nikita put the chill on the idea, he went off his nut.”

  “That’s weak too,” Rissik said, “but together they might add up to a reason to find this guy for questioning.”

  “I figure that could spin into a reason for the wife’s death too,” Hannibal said. “Not sure about the husband, Gana, AKA Roberts, but maybe when I get a positive fix on who he really is I can tie it all up. Right now, I’m not even sure what country he’s from.”

  “He’s a foreigner, right?”

  “One way or the other,” Hannibal said. “Gana is from Algeria. Roberts is from Liberia. Will the real African immigrant please stand up?”

  “Have you checked with the embassies?”

  “Orson, they won’t tell me shit. I have no official government status. I’m not even a cop. Or have you forgotten that fact?”

  “You ain’t, but I am.” Rissik smiled and pushed a button on his intercom. “Hey, Gert, could you stop in here a sec?” Then to Hannibal, he said, “As far as I’m concerned, any resident foreigner using an alias could be a terrorist. You got any other leads on this guy?”

  Hannibal thought for a second about giving up everything he had to Rissik. It was uncomfortable, but he couldn’t come up with one good reason not to.

  “A girl in the Howard registration office told me he transferred in from UVA’s history department. If she’s right, maybe they can be the tie breaker on where this guy really came from.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Rissik said.

  A few seconds later, a brunette of indeterminate age in a gray suit with the skirt hanging three inches below her knees paced in. She was a little heavy, but well proportioned and would have seemed tall if not for the sensible shoes. She stopped in front of Rissik’s desk so precisely that Hannibal half expected her to go to parade rest.

  “It’s a multipart assignment,” Rissik said. Gert flipped open a notebook and held a pen at the ready. Rissik pushed the photo forward across his desk. “First, scan this photograph in. Separate out the man in the middle and the man standing behind him, and enhance them as much as you can.” He placed a sheet of notepaper on top of the photo.

  “That top name is the guy in front. Check the usual databases and see what we can find on him. The next two names both belong to the guy in back. Fax his photograph and the names to these two embassies and see if anybody can tell us for sure who he is and where he came from. Then send his face and names to the University of Virginia registrar and see if they can find me a professor who had this guy in class. He’d have been a history major. That’s it. Any questions?”

  “No sir. I’m good,” she said.

  Gert did an almost military about-face and hurried off to complete her assignment. Hannibal’s eyes tracked her out the door, but he said nothing. When he turned back, Rissik raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as if asking if Hannibal had a question. He did, but he would not ask anything about Gert.

  “So, do we know anything about Raisa’s murder? Forensic evidence maybe, or a substantial clue?”

  “Not much you could work with,” Rissik said, “but there was one point of interest. The murder weapon was unusual.”

  “Really?” Hannibal said. “I figured a small caliber automatic, like a. 22.”

  Rissik shook his head. “Even smaller and faster. Our guys say it was a. 17-caliber bullet that poked that hole in Mrs. Petrova.”

  “Seventeen?” Hannibal slid to the edge of his chair. “That’s mostly a rifle round, but this was done in the house at handgun range. I think Ruger chambers an automatic for that caliber. And I think Smith and Wesson has a revolver, but these guns are for popping squirrels or target matches, not murders. Unless…I guess a head shot would do the job.”

  “Yeah these things would poke through the skull but probably not exit,” Rissik said. “Make a hell of a mess rattling around in there too. Really quite logical for in-city assassinations.”

  Hannibal nodded. “Yeah, except in this case the shooter went for center mass.”

  “That tells me this perp didn’t know what he was doing,” Rissik said.

  “And that’s part of what makes me want to reject the whole mob murder scenario. Besides, there are plenty of people who could have personal motivations for her death.”

  Rissik’s intercom buzzed. “Sir, I have a Dr. Van Buren on the line. He’s head of the history department, University of Virginia.”

  “Put him through,” Rissik said. “I’ll leave it on speaker for my guest.” After hearing the right set of clicks Rissik said hello and introduced himself.

  “This is Eric Van Buren,” the tiny speaker said. “I am very short on time, Detective, but I understand you need information about a former student of mine in relation to an investigation?”

  “Yes,” Rissik said, “I appreciate you calling back so fast.”

  “The dean kind of encouraged my cooperation,” Van Buren said.

  “Yes, well I’ll try to keep this brief. I hope the photo we faxed you is clear. We’re having a little difficulty finding background on this man because he has apparently changed his name and personal history. Did you know him as Dani Gana from Algerian, or Gartee Roberts from Liberia?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Van Buren said, and Hannibal sat forward on his chair. “I’d have to say neither. I remember this young man; he was an excellent student. But I knew him as Hamed Barek and he had come to this country from Morocco.”

  26

  Orson Rissik let several seconds of silence pass after he disconnected the telephone call. Hannibal wondered if their thoughts were the same. He was considering that 97 percent of all crimes had simple solutions. They were acts of passion or greed, generally committed on impulse without much thought or planning. Occasionally one would come along that showed some cunning on the part of the perpetrator, a professional criminal who thought he had figured a way to beat the system. And then there was that one case in a hundred that was genuinely convoluted, usually because one evil person had tried to outsmart another evil person and had somehow ended up involving a third. This was beginning to look like one of those.

  The intercom buzzed again, shaking them both out of their wandering thoughts. This time Rissik picked up the handset and held it to his ear. Hannibal smiled. If it was unrelated police business, he didn’t really want to know anyway. But when Rissik hung up and stared at him he figured the news was connected to their shared case.

  “Our luck is turning, Jones,” Rissik said. “We might have a lead on the Tolstaya girl.”

  “You found Queenie?”

  “No, and we never would if that was all the name we had,” Rissik said. “But after you gave us Renata Tolstaya we had something solid to chase. Her maiden name turns out to be Mikhailov, she is from DC, and her mother still lives in the area. We even ha
ve an address.”

  Hannibal slid to the edge of his seat. “You know her daughter would run home if she had nowhere else to go. Mom’s seen her for sure. You bringing her in?”

  “I don’t think so.” Rissik shook his head. “There’s a minor record, and hints of more mob connections. But they’re just hints, and we got nothing we could charge her with. Besides, she’s part of a culture that tends to be pretty uncomfortable with authority figures, you know? Honestly, I don’t think she’ll talk. At least, not to a cop.”

  He left the comment hanging in the air until Hannibal rose to the bait. “Sure, Chief, I’ll be glad to help out. Let’s ride over there and see what the lady might be willing to share.”

  Rissik was not the kind of man to talk when talk wasn’t necessary. That’s why Hannibal was following the Honda Civic for a few minutes before he realized that Rissik wasn’t headed toward the District, and a few more before he knew they were Maryland bound. They drove north on I-95 and in a little more than an hour they pulled up in front of an unimpressive apartment building in Baltimore.

  Hannibal thought that Baltimore had an even larger African American population than The District, but there were pockets of resistance. They parked in one, a little area surrounding the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church around the corner on East Fairmount Avenue. It was a street of older brick buildings with big windows and narrow stoops. Black iron fences stood guard in front of the houses, the kind with spearhead points on top. A hand pulled a curtain aside to watch him when he walked up to Rissik’s car. Rissik rolled down his window. Hannibal leaned on the roof of the Civic.

  “You didn’t say she lived in Baltimore.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “So did you clear this with your Baltimore counterparts?”

  “Clear what?” Rissik asked. “I’m not even here. You’re pursuing your own investigation, aren’t you?”

  Hannibal nodded. “Yeah, I guess I’m on my own. But if I turn up any good leads that could point to Viktoriya’s whereabouts…”

  “You can count on full police support,” Rissik said. “She’s a material witness who might be able to shed light on three murders and one serious assault. Now go do what you need to do.”

  As he walked up the steps to the front door, Hannibal was not sure what that was. Should he offer to help this woman’s daughter? Threaten her with legal action? Was this to be an interrogation? Or would he gain more with sympathy and a soft tone?

  The woman who responded to his knock nearly gave him a jolt of deja vu. In the time it took her to ask, “Can I help you?” the feeling changed to a peek into Renata Tolstaya’s future. This woman’s hair was the same fiery red, except that the quarter inch closest to her scalp was mousy brown. The cobwebs spreading from the corners of her eyes told her apparent age, as did her slightly stooped posture. Her lipstick matched her hair but was uneven on her lower lip. She had the same robust figure as her daughter, but while her waist was only a little thicker her bust and hips had swelled to almost cartoon proportions. In a housecoat and mule slippers she was surely everything Queenie feared growing into.

  “Mrs. Mikhailov?” he asked, not feeling right using her first name. “My name is Hannibal Jones and I’m here trying to help your daughter, Renata.”

  “Renata? Is she all right?” Mrs. Mikhailov’s eyes flared with fear, then settled back into their natural lethargy.

  “I’m not sure,” Hannibal said. “I think some bad men may be after her.”

  “Are you the police?”

  “No ma’am. I was working with her husband, but he’s been hurt and I’m just a little worried about her. May I come in?”

  She teetered on the edge of decision, looking to Hannibal for help. He did so by saying nothing more, just smiling and working at not being threatening in any way. Old Country women were predictable in some ways. She could be defensive, she could even be aggressive when she had to be, but she could not be rude. She had no choice but to invite him in.

  Hannibal was startled by the similarity between this apartment and the home of Mother Washington, the black woman who was a pillar of his own community. As in Mother Washington’s modest house, the passage of time had dulled the paint and faded the wallpaper, but otherwise the apartment was immaculate. All the furniture was overstuffed and reupholstered more than once, in the kind of eclectic decor that comes from collecting pieces one at a time at bargain prices. There was no portrait of Jesus, but a large crucifix dominated one wall in the living room and he could see a similar one in the kitchen.

  “Would you like some tea?” Mrs. Mikhailov asked, falling into her usual hostess role.

  “I appreciate the offer,” Hannibal said, “But I really should make this quick. I think I need to find Renata soon, before whoever went after her husband goes after her. He’s still in the hospital but she hasn’t visited him. That’s why I wonder if she’s OK.”

  Mrs. Mikhailov said, “Well, I haven’t seen her in months.” But her eyes wandered down and to the right, and Hannibal was gratified to meet one person after so many days who was not a born liar.

  “Oh, but I’ll bet you’ve kept her room for her, just in case she comes home.” He walked deeper into the apartment with the woman following him. If she was like most women living alone, the open door led to her own bedroom. The closed door had to be Renata’s room. He walked in before his hostess could object. He was standing in the middle of the room by the time she spoke.

  “You can’t go in there. It’s private,” she said, but it was a weak protest.

  Standing in the center of the room, he looked around slowly. Instead of the expected musty smell of an unused room, he was surprised by a faint smoky odor. Surprised, because the room wasn’t merely neat, it was spotless. Too bad. If Mrs. Mikhailov weren’t such a good housekeeper, small clues wouldn’t be so obvious.

  The ashtray beside the bed had been dumped, but not washed out. The ash at the bottom was not loose but ground in from someone stubbing out a cigarette. The bed was made and the pillow had been fluffed up. Hannibal bent to sniff the pillow. The odor of Renata’s Marlboro or Winston was still there in the pillow. Two stray red hairs clung to the pillowcase. He carefully lifted the longer hair, using his first two fingers as tweezers, and stood up straight. His eyes continued to roam the room.

  “So, she was here last night. Are you saying she didn’t tell you where she was going?”

  When Mrs. Mikhailov stayed silent, Hannibal decided to try the photo on her. He wanted to know if she recognized Dani Gana or Viktoriya, but before he could actually ask anything her face twisted into a mask of hate.

  “It is him. You’re here for that monster, Boris Tolstaya.” Then she turned away as if she was looking for someplace to spit.

  “No ma’am. I don’t know this man. In fact, for all I know he could be the source of the danger. What can you tell me about Boris?”

  Mrs. Mikhailov didn’t look like she was quite ready to trust him, but he had at least found a subject she was willing to talk about. The rage bubbling up out of her was thick and heavy.

  “I can tell you that he is an evil, despicable man. I can tell you that he seduced my poor Renata with money and power and stole her away from Benjamin.”

  “Benjamin? Ben Cochran? I’m sorry, I thought it was the other way around.”

  Mrs. Mikhailov shook her head and looked at her feet. “Benjamin loved her, would do anything for her. But this monster stole her away. Somehow, Benjamin got her back. And now you see the result. Boris has found them, poor Benjamin is in the hospital and Renata has run off in fear. She would not tell me where she was going. She was trying to protect me.”

  Hannibal could understand why Renata would not have told her mother that her return to the man she loved had come about through the turn of a card. And her assumption that Boris had hurt Ben made sense too. If Renata’s plan had worked, there would have been an interesting irony in them getting money from Boris for helping him find Dani who appeared at t
his point to be his traitorous partner. All of that moved Boris up on the list of suspects for any of the murders.

  “Ma’am, if I can’t find Renata maybe I can make things safer for her,” he said. “If you know where I can find Boris Tolstaya, maybe I can convince him to leave her alone.”

  “You would face this man?” she asked, looking into Hannibal’s eyes. “He is powerful and dangerous. You don’t know.”

  “Ma’am, these people don’t scare me. I deal with his kind all the time. Just help me get face to face with him.”

  Hannibal felt as if the entire neighborhood was staring at him as he returned to Rissik’s car, but in fact he knew that only one old woman might be watching through one of the big windows. He got in, but couldn’t stop looking around.

  “So, a lead on Renata Tolstaya?” Rissik asked.

  “Not really, but she did give me some dirt on Boris Tolstaya. Apparently he and his partner, one Ivan Uspensky, own a securities firm and do a lot of money laundering for the Red Mafiya.”

  “Yeah, Boris is a real bad guy,” Rissik said, starting the car. “You ought to steer clear.”

  “You know about this guy?” It was more a demand than a question.

  Rissik was unruffled. “The FBI has an open file on him. He and Renata are under investigation for income tax evasion.”

  “And you didn’t tell me any of this why?”