Vito turned around and looked at the old man. “Maybe. I’m stuck somewhere else for a while, waiting…” A thought struck. “Sophie, do you speak Russian?”
“Yes.”
“Very well or just the cuss words?”
“Very well,” she said cautiously. “Why?”
“Can you come to the Huntington Library?” He gave her the address. “I’ll explain when you get here. Bye.” He hung up and called Liz and updated her.
“You got another free consultant,” Liz chuckled. “You realize everyone is going to expect you to do this from now on. You’re never going to get any budget money again.”
“Technically, Sophie counts as the same consultant,” he said dryly. “Tell the team I’ll be there when I can, but it’ll be after six. Also, can you have Katherine print a photo of the brand on the Sanders kid’s cheek? I’ll bring Sophie in when she’s done here to look at it. She’s already seen one body. I don’t want her to have to go to the morgue.”
“Will do. Hey, I heard back from Interpol. We may have a hit.”
Vito straightened. “Great. Who?”
“I’m waiting on a fax with a picture. Hopefully I’ll have it when you get here. I’ll keep everyone on standby for the six o’clock debrief.”
“Thanks, Liz.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wednesday, January 17, 5:20
P.M.
Sophie was breathing hard as she rushed into the library. Vito was across the lobby, talking with a woman in a dark sweater. He looked up and smiled and her heart shot off like a rocket. She managed to cross the lobby with some decorum, when she really wanted to launch herself into his arms and take up where they’d left off that morning.
From the flash of his dark eyes, he was thinking the same thing. “So, what’s the big mystery?” she asked with what she hoped wasn’t the dazzled smile of a teenaged fan-girl.
“I need you to translate for me. Sophie, this is Barbara Mulrine, the librarian here.”
She nodded to the woman. “It’s nice to meet you. What do you need translated?”
Barbara pointed to an old man washing windows. “Him. His name is Yuri Chertov.”
“He’s a witness,” Vito said. “Make sure he knows he’s not in trouble.”
“Okay.” She approached the old man, noticing his hands right away. Oh, no. Still she kept her smile respectful as she switched her brain to Russian. “Hello. I’m Sophie Alexandrovna Johannsen. How are you?”
He looked to Barbara who gave him an encouraging smile. “It’s all right,” she said.
“Do you have an office with a homey sofa or someplace that at least doesn’t look like an interrogation room?” Sophie asked the librarian.
“Marcy, mind the desk for a while. This way.” She led them to the back.
When the four of them were in Barbara’s office, Sophie switched back to Russian. “Let’s sit down,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I have had a long day.”
“As have I. This is my second job. When I have finished here, I will go to a third.”
His Russian was of the higher class. This man was very educated. Sophie could only guess at the path that had brought him to work three menial jobs. “You work hard,” she said, choosing her dialect more carefully. “But hard work is good for the soul.”
“Very good for the soul, Sophie Alexandrovna. I am Yuri Petrovich Chertov. Tell your detective to ask his questions. I will answer to the best of my ability.”
“Ask him if he knew Claire Reynolds,” Vito said when she told him to begin.
The man nodded, his eyes darkening. “Claire was not a good person.”
Sophie relayed it and Vito nodded. “Ask him why not?”
Yuri frowned. “She treated Barbara with disrespect.”
“And you as well, Yuri Petrovich?” Sophie asked him, and his eyes darkened more.
“Yes, but I was not her employer. Barbara is a kind person, very loyal. Claire often took advantage of Barbara’s trust. I once saw her take money from Barbara’s purse. When Claire saw that I’d seen, she threatened to turn me in to the police for the theft.”
As Sophie translated, Barbara’s mouth fell open. “How did she know how to threaten you, and why were you afraid?” Vito asked. “Barbara says you’re here legally.”
Sophie translated Vito’s question, but the librarian’s shock needed none. Yuri looked down at his hands. “Claire had her computer with her and used one of the translation websites to translate her threat. It was a very rough translation, but still I understood. As for fear of the police…” He shrugged. “I take no chances.” He looked at Barbara sadly when Sophie had finished. “I am sorry, Miss Barbara,” he said in English.
Barbara smiled. “It’s all right. It can’t have been much money. I didn’t miss it.”
“Because I replaced it,” Yuri said when Sophie told him what she’d said.
Barbara’s eyes grew moist. “Oh, Yuri. You shouldn’t have done that.”
Vito looked touched as well. “Ask him about the man he spoke with.”
Sophie did. “He was about my age,” Yuri answered. “I am fifty-two.”
Sophie’s eyes widened before she could stop herself. Fifty-two. He looked as old as Anna, who was almost eighty. Sophie’s cheeks heated when his brows lifted. She dropped her eyes. “I am very sorry, Yuri Petrovich. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It is all right. I know I look much older. This man you seek was nearly two meters tall, perhaps one hundred kilos. Thick gray hair that waved. He had robust health.”
Sophie looked at Vito. “About six-four, two-twenty, mid-fifties. Thick gray wavy hair. And… healthy.” She turned back to Yuri, curious. “Why did you notice his health?”
“Because his wife looked ill. Near unto death.”
Vito’s eyes flashed as she relayed that information. He drew two sketches from his folder. Sophie remembered Vito saying his brother Tino had sketched some of the victims’ faces. Sophie knew she was looking at two of the nine victims right now. “Are these the people he saw?” Vito asked.
Yuri awkwardly took the sketches in his gnarled hands. “Yes. Her hair was different. Longer and darker, but the faces are very similar.”
“Ask him when they came in, what they said, and if they gave him their names.”
“They were here before Thanksgiving,” Yuri said when she translated. His smile was wry. “They said quite a lot, but I understood very little. The man did all the talking. The woman sat. He asked about Claire Reynolds. Had I seen her? Did I know her? He had an accent. How do you say…” He said a word Sophie didn’t know.
“Wait.” She pulled her Russian dictionary from her backpack. She found the word, then looked back up at Yuri, puzzled. “He had a dangerous accent?”
“Not dangerous.” Yuri blew a frustrated breath. “He said Yawl. Like… Daisy Duke.”
Sophie blinked, then laughed. “Hazardous. Oh, like the Dukes of Hazzard.”
Yuri nodded, a gleam in his eye. “I saw the movie. You’re far prettier than that Jessica Simpson.”
Sophie smiled. “You’re very kind.” She looked up at Vito. “They were southerners.”
“Did they give their name?”
Yuri frowned. “Yes. It was like D’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers, but with a V. He said his name was Arthur Vartanian, from Georgia. I remembered that clearly because I am also from Georgia.” He lifted an ironic brow. “Small world, is it not?”
One corner of Vito’s mouth lifted as he wrote down the man’s name and the state of Georgia. Yuri’s Georgia was, of course, half a world away, both geographically and philosophically. “A very small world indeed,” she said to Yuri. “Please, pardon my rudeness, but would you tell me what you did in Georgia?”