A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries) Read online

  “Are you hungry?” Karpo asked the cat, telling himself he was not talking to the cat but to himself.

  Karpo rose and moved to the refrigerator.

  Karpo had stopped on his way home, telling himself he was purchasing the three cans of sardines in water for a lunch meal.

  Emil Karpo took out a can, opened it, and tapped the sardines out onto a white saucer with a soft tap-tap. Then he moved back to his desk and pressed the button that brought the computer back to life. When the machine was purring, not unlike the cat, he punched in his access code and watched the screen fill with folders.

  He worked till the clock in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen told him it was two in the morning. He was no more tired than he had been when he first sat down, but he put his notebooks back on the shelves and turned off the computer.

  When he turned, the cat was curled atop his dresser asleep. Karpo took his toothbrush, tooth powder, and plastic container with his soap inside, plus a towel, opened his door, and closed it tightly behind him, after which he plucked a single hair from his head and placed it against a small invisible gummy dot on the door. If someone was to enter the room, the movement of the hair would betray them. It was a ritual Karpo followed whenever he left the room for whatever reason.

  He walked with even paces to the washroom at the end of the corridor. There was no one inside. He washed, brushed his teeth, and shaved.

  When he returned to his room, the cat was still sleeping on the dresser. Karpo stripped and put on a solid black T-shirt and boxer shorts. In the morning, when he rose, he would take a shower and shave again. He would do this in four hours, before anyone else on the floor was awake except for Adamski, who worked in the fish market. When Adamski had moved into the building almost eight years ago, he had run into the detective in the washroom well before the sun rose. Adamski had gone back to his room. He had never made the same mistake again.

  A breeze kicked the shade. Karpo lifted the shade. He would be up while darkness still reigned. Karpo turned off the light next to his bed and lay atop the neatly tucked-in blanket.

  Seconds after he lay down with his eyes open, the insight had come. The Maniac had made a mistake. Most humans would need to rise and make a note of their discovery or run the risk of losing it. Karpo had no such worry. The morning was soon enough to check his finding and to tell Rostnikov.

  “Spakoynay nochi, good night,” he said aloud, realizing less than a second later that he had actually spoken to the cat.

  The cat did not reply. Seconds later Emil Karpo was asleep.

  “It is almost midnight,” Ivan Medivkin said when Vera Korstov entered her apartment.

  “Yes,” she said, placing her red mesh grocery bag on the table. “I have been talking to people, searching for whoever killed your wife and Fedot Babinski.”

  She took off her coat, hung it on the hook on the wall between the kitchen area and the front door. She had been gone for eleven hours, yet to Ivan she looked as if she had just arisen. He knew the look, the flow of adrenaline when he met people in the ring who thought they could get past the giant’s paws. Surely the huge man must be slow, easy to hit. Surely they were wrong and paid for it, as they would with Vera.

  “What have you found?”

  “Four outstanding suspects about whom I would like to ask you some questions.”

  “These are … ?”

  “Two women who were involved with Babinski and two men who were, apparently, involved with your wife.”

  “With Lena? She would never—”

  He stopped himself, realizing not only that she would do it but also that she had done it with Babinski. Why not with others?

  “I brought vegetables and eggs,” Vera said. “Would you like an omelet?”

  “No, yes, not now. In the morning maybe. You know how to find these people?”

  “I do. I spoke to them, Ivan Ivanovich,” said Vera, taking the few things she had purchased and putting them away in the kitchen. “Phone numbers, addresses.”

  “And you think one of them killed my Lena?”

  “And your Fedot Babinski. Yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Ivan, I know people. I have learned to smell fear, anger, regret. I would wager much of what I own that one of them is a murderer. I am going to have bread and gooseberry jam. You sure you do not want any?”

  “I will have some.”

  “Good, and coffee.”

  Vera moved to the small kitchen area where she could prepare the food and see him as they continued to speak.

  “Were you all right here?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, getting up and looking around the room.

  “I will pass what I know on to the police anonymously, and perhaps they will dig a bit more and pick out the murderer from among those on our list. Then you shall be free again.”

  “I want to get some sleep,” he said.

  “We shall eat our bread and jam and you may go into the bedroom and sleep.”

  “Yes,” he said, rubbing his closed eyes with thumb and finger.

  “May I ask you a question?” she asked from the kitchen.

  “Anything,” he said, folding his huge hands on the table.

  “Would you like company in bed?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” he said, accepting knife and platter.

  She placed a plate of sliced brown bread and a large jar of jam on the table.

  It was at this point that, without understanding why, he had decided to follow through on the enterprise that to this point had only been a vague thought.

  If it worked, Ivan Medivkin might soon be either a free man or in prison. He wondered which it would be and then, when he had finished three slices of bread and jam, he thanked Vera and went into her bedroom, where, despite the undersized bed, he fell asleep less than two minutes later.

  5

  The Widow in White

  “What do you see?” asked Paulinin.

  The look on his face, Iosef Rostnikov decided, was that of either a madman or someone under the influence of a chemical substance. Paulinin needed a shave. Paulinin needed some sleep. Paulinin probably needed something to eat. Without his laboratory coat, Paulinin looked decidedly thin.

  Zelach and Iosef looked down at the corpses of the man and the woman who were facing them with their eyes closed.

  “Like two people who have been beaten to death,” said Iosef.

  “Yes, yes, certainly yes,” said the scientist with a smile. “But what about the wounds?”

  Zelach, never happy to be in this dungeon of alternatively sweet and acrid odors, said, “Their faces are purple and swollen.”

  “And?” Paulinin urged.

  “The woman has been beaten more severely,” said Iosef. “Broken cheek and nose. One punch to the face. Right here.”

  He reached over and touched the rubbery cheek of the corpse of the woman.

  “All of the damage is to the right side of the damsel’s face,” said Paulinin. “Now look at him. Go on; go on.”

  Iosef and Zelach looked again.

  “The woman was killed by someone left-handed. It took the killer only two quick punches. One to the face. One to the neck. Whereas the man was hit at least four times, with the heaviest blows from a right hand.”

  “So,” said Iosef, “we have two murderers.”

  “Yes,” said Paulinin. “Two people who are able to strike with great power, one left-handed and one right-handed.”

  “How tall?” asked Zelach.

  Akardy Zelach seldom spoke in Paulinin’s laboratory. Zelach’s goal was to leave the large, cluttered room and its smells and visions as soon as possible. Speaking, asking questions, only prolonged the visit.

  Paulinin and Iosef looked at Zelach as if he had suddenly appeared from nowhere. This was the second time he had spoken.

  “That is a good question,” said the scientist. “Judging from the angle of the blows, I would say the person who killed the woman was taller
than she and the person who killed the man was about his height, unless of course …”

  “What?” asked Iosef.

  “Unless our victim here was on the floor when he was struck,” said Paulinin. “Have I answered your question, Inspector Zelach?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how is your mother?”

  Zelach had spoken of his mother only once to Paulinin, and that had been several years ago. At that time Zelach had mentioned that his mother had great trouble breathing and that state doctors were doing little for her.

  “The same,” Zelach said, and then amended his comment to, “not so well.”

  “Wait,” said Paulinin, holding up a hand and disappearing into dark shadows and narrow paths.

  Iosef was looking down at the bodies now, examining them closely. In a few seconds, Paulinin emerged, carrying a small, brown bottle.

  “Here, give one of these pills to your mother in the morning and one at night before she goes to bed,” Paulinin said. “And, under your promise that she has no thoughts of suicide, tell no one where you got this. It is quite illegal.”

  Zelach took the pills, said nothing but nodded his thanks.

  “There is something you have not shared with us,” said Iosef, facing the scientist.

  “There is,” said Paulinin. “I wanted to finish a few more tests to be certain, but I am reasonably certain that I know who killed the woman.”

  “Would you give them to your mother if she were ill?” asked Zelach.

  They were walking swiftly toward a crackling concrete-box apartment building. The something that fell from the sky was neither rain nor snow but a kind of penetrating gray slush that was peculiar to Moscow.

  “My mother is ill. As you know, quite ill,” said Iosef. “I would offer her something that Paulinin handed me, but he has not offered such a thing to me.”

  Zelach nodded. He could feel the brown bottle in his pocket, hear the pills tinkling against the brown glass.

  They had entered dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Stalin-era buildings like this over the years. Dark stairwells that echoed sharply with each step and smelled of tobacco, food, and the sweat of a thousand bodies.

  Zelach carried a small Chinese-made flashlight for situations like this. There was, however, enough light in this sagging building to see the numbers on the doors.

  Iosef knocked. He knocked again. He knocked a third time. They heard a shuffling on the other side of the door, and Iosef, in his deepest and most commanding voice, said, “Police.”

  “I am not at home,” came the voice of a woman.

  “Open the door,” said Iosef. “We are here to talk to you about your husband’s death.”

  “I am expecting a visitor,” the woman said. “Very soon.”

  “You have a visitor,” said Iosef. “The police.”

  There was no sound from within for at least fifteen seconds.

  “All right, but be quick. I am expecting a visitor.”

  The door opened and a large woman stood before them, her hair a wild, untamed dance of fading blond tips and stringy brown stalks, her face a mask of almost grotesque makeup. She wore a white nightdress that she held closed across her breasts.

  She could have been any age from twenty to sixty, her face a round red-dappled apple with two quite beautiful blue eyes that seemed to have trouble focusing. She was clearly drunk at ten in the morning.

  “I’ve had a few drinks,” she acknowledged, correctly reading the look on their faces. “My husband just died. But you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Iosef.

  “Come in,” she said.

  They entered and she closed the door.

  They stood in a chaos of pillows, filled ashtrays, clothes piled on a brown sagging sofa, glasses, and two bottles on a small table.

  She pushed a pillow out of the way on the sofa and sat heavily looking around when she was firmly in place.

  “The cat, do you see the … no, never mind. The cat is dead. I plan to get a new cat and some new clothes with the money.”

  “Money?” asked Iosef.

  Albina Babinski looked up, in an apparent moment of searching for sobriety to deal with her error.

  “A friend owes me money,” she said. “What do you want to know about Fedot? You want the names of his women too?”

  “Too?” Iosef repeated as Zelach looked around the apartment without turning his head.

  “I do not keep secrets well,” she said, running a hand through her jungle of hair. “I am of too honest a nature.”

  Zelach moved to a low table against the wall on which were scattered cups, magazines, filled ashtrays, and a dozen or so small framed photographs. He picked up one of the photographs.

  “Leave those alone, Cossack,” the woman shouted at Zelach, who replaced the photograph.

  “Someone has paid you to give him the names of women with whom your husband had affairs?” asked Iosef, ignoring the outburst.

  “How did you know?” Albina Babinski asked, her hand coming down to partially reveal one full pink right breast.

  Zelach could not keep himself from looking.

  “You just told us. Who is he?” asked Iosef, apparently paying no attention to the naked breast.

  “She, it is a woman. Do I keep the money?”

  “When is she coming?”

  “By ten o’clock,” she said, reaching for one of the bottles on the nearby table and examining the glasses to determine which one was the least dirty.

  Zelach looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to ten.

  “What is the woman’s name?”

  “Vera something. She is a reporter for something, I think. I do not care about her name, just her money. Fedot Babinski has left me nothing but anguish and wasted years. I will need to go back to work again, but not at my old profession.”

  “Tell us the names of the women,” said Iosef, who nodded at Zelach, who, in turn, took out his notebook and began writing the names as Albina Babinski struggled to remember them.

  “I think that is all,” she said after finishing the recitation of names and a not-small glass of vodka.

  She had leaned over in the course of giving her information. The tops of both of her breasts now showed, right to the nipples. She suddenly looked up and caught Zelach’s eyes looking at her. He averted his eyes, but it was too late.

  “You like what you see, shy policeman?” she asked.

  “Cover yourself,” said Iosef patiently.

  “What did you see?” she asked, pulling the nightgown closed again.

  “A small but distinct surgical scar on your right breast,” said Zelach. “And another on your left. You have had small growths removed from both. There is a white spot just above the nipple of your left breast, indicating that you may have another growth there that needs attention.”

  Albina Babinski’s mouth opened. She looked at Iosef, who had no intention of helping her. She had asked the question. Iosef was familiar with such bursts of observation from Akardy Zelach.

  Before more could be said, there was a knock at the door. Zelach checked his watch. It was two minutes to ten.

  They both woke up with the first light of dawn.

  Iris Templeton reached out with her right hand and touched the chest of Sasha Tkach, who lay on his back atop the blanket. Then she moved her fingers down to his stomach, almost tickling, till she felt the curled hair between his legs and his ready member pointing straight toward the ceiling. She rolled over on top of him, looking down at his sad eyes, and eased him into her. She continued with small, steady strokes, which prompted him deeper and ever deeper. She breathed heavily, reaching down to press her thumb across his lips and into his mouth. Now she was frenzied and moving dizzily, her hair swirling, her voice uttering something in English Sasha did not understand, but he understood her need and met it. He sighed. She moaned as they suddenly stopped and met at the same moment.

  They remained in that position till he slowly wilted. Then Iris rolled ov
er and lay back on the bed in her room at the Zaray Hotel.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You are very good, you know,” she said.

  He did not answer, so Iris continued with, “Your body was hungry, but your thoughts were far away. Are you married?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And your wife is … ?”

  “In Kiev with our two children. She left me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of mornings like this,” he said. “My clothes … ?”

  “I laid them out for you,” she said. “They are unwrinkled.”

  “I need to shave,” he said.

  “I have extra disposable razors.”

  “Elena Timofeyeva will be calling me soon,” he said, sitting up.

  “You would rather she not know that we spent the night together? You could get no closer in your responsibility to protect me.”

  “The Chief Inspector would not approve,” said Sasha, rising. “He would not be surprised, but he would not approve. I need a shower.”

  “May I join you?” Iris said, standing and looking at him.

  He shrugged and said, “Yes, of course.”

  The lack of enthusiasm for the offer was evident to Iris. She was good at seeing through lies and deceptions. He was bad at hiding them. He was afraid she would want more if she stepped in under the warm shower. He was sure he would want more.

  “I think not this time. You have lots of scars. From dissatisfied women?”

  “From criminals,” he said. “The razor … ?”

  “On the shelf above the sink in a plastic container.”

  “You have very smooth skin,” Sasha said, looking at her.

  “You mean for someone my age?”

  “For someone any age.”

  “Thank you. I will order coffee and something to eat. You go shower.”

  He nodded, went into the bathroom, found the razors, and turned on the shower. While he waited for the water to turn warm, he picked up the thin bar of soap on the edge of the sink and looked into the mirror.

  The Sasha Tkach he saw was quite different from the one with whom he had grown up. That Sasha Tkach had the face of a boy, a handsome boy who seemed to draw women of all ages. That boy had fallen in love with and married a beautiful Ukrainian girl named Maya. They had had two children. But he had been unable to control his animal desires. And she had left.