She looked genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know any Crespo…” If that’s all she didn’t know, what she knew could fill a book. “As for what is arriving on the freighter,” she continued, “the manifest says Finnish lumber.”
“And what do you say?”
She smiled enigmatically. “I will answer your questions if you will answer mine.”
I nodded.
“What is on the freighter is the most valuable collection of artwork ever assembled in one place. Ever! It is from the Hermitage and other museums in Russia. My job was inventory control in Helsinki. Today, Kharchenko gave me the bills of lading showing what arrived here. An exact match, the paintings, the jewelry, the historic artifacts. No pilferage, no damage. I always did my job well, except when Yagamata stole a little something here and there, and I had no control over that.” She looked toward the island. The sound of children singing drifted across the lake. “Tell me about Mr. Crespo.”
“He used to hand out towels in a locker room, and lately he’d been working in a warehouse owned by Yagamata. First he gets charged with murdering a Russian named Smorodinsky, then-”
“Who?” She spilled a drop of her blood-red drink.
“Another guy who worked for Yagamata. Smorod-”
“Vladimir or Nikolai?” she asked. Her voice cracked.
“Vladimir.”
She sighed and bit her lower lip. Across the bay, I heard what sounded like accordion music.
“Is it a sin,” she asked softly, “for me to be happy that a good and decent man is dead?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nikolai is my lover. He works for Yagamata in St. Petersburg. Or at least, he did. He is with us, now. Vladimir is his older brother.”
“I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry for Vladimir. I’m glad it wasn’t your-”
“Exactly. It is a tragedy, but not really mine.” On the island, hundreds of people gathered around the pyramid of trees. Excited shouts of children mixed with the music. “You think Kharchenko killed your friend?”
“I saw him there. At least I think I did. Yagamata has gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like Crespo killed Vladimir. When Crespo was about to tell who did, he was shot.”
She looked across the water, shimmering silver and black in the moonlight. She seemed to be considering how much to say. When she spoke, it was quietly, almost to herself. “Yagamata must have killed Vlad to protect the operation, and if he did, Nikki is in great danger, too.”
“Where is Nikolai now?”
“On his way here. He should be in Miami Beach tomorrow.”
Everybody’s coming to town, I thought. No wonder Foley wanted me out of the way.
“Nikki wanted to stop the thefts,” she said, “and when that became impossible, to gather the evidence against those responsible. I must alert Nikki to the danger, but I do not know where he will be staying. He is so afraid of telephones. There is a Russian saying, ‘Never trust anyone but your pillow.’ That is Nikki, so very suspicious. All he said was he would find me when he got to the place of the fish.”
“The fish? Like a dock, a boat?”
“Or a hotel. Are there any hotels named after fish?”
“I don’t think we have a Hotel Herring, but I’ll look into it.”
On the island, an orange torch flared at the foot of the bonfire. A second later, the trees caught fire, and the flames slowly worked their way to the top. The scent of scorched pine carried across the calm water.
“Eva-Lisa, tell me what’s going on. Everything.”
“How do I know you don’t work for Yagamata now?”
“Me?”
“The last time I saw the two of you, it was lunchtime aboard the Yugen, and you were eating his caviar. Doesn’t he pay your legal fees, too?”
“Look, I was trying to save somebody’s ass. Francisco Crespo was a guy who never amounted to much, but he didn’t deserve to die. He saved my life once, and I had a chance to return the favor but muffed it. Today you were playing post office with the man who put two bullets in him. I’m the guy they’re trying to frame for the murder. I need to bring Kharchenko in. There are witnesses who got a look at his face. Put him in a lineup, and maybe I could get him indicted for murder. Especially if I can show a link between the two deaths.”
“Meaning what?”
“Motive. To know why Crespo was killed, I need to know why Smorodinsky was killed. You’ve got to tell me what Yagamata and the brothers Smorodinsky were up to.”
She kept her eyes on the island. “You really do not know, do you?”
“All I know is that my government is trying to stop the theft of art treasures from Russia. Something about our protecting the reformers from being embarrassed.”
She laughed. “Who told you that?”
“Robert Foley. He’s with the-”
“CIA. I did not think Mr. Foley had such a delicious sense of irony.”
“I don’t get it.”
I hadn’t finished my first one, but she topped off the glass with the potent drink and gave herself one, too. “There is something very sweet about you,” she said, softly. Before I could thank her, she added a footnote. “But something so naive, too. Our job is not to stop the thefts.”
“No?”
“Of course not, Mr. Lassiter. We are the thieves.”
I had put away two more glasses of the red stuff when Eva-Lisa told me she would cut the vaihtaa if I would chop the wood. She grabbed a machete and disappeared into the overgrowth at the side of the house, while I contented myself swinging a short-handled hatchet at some birch logs that had never hurt anybody. I luxuriated in the weight of the hatchet, the stretch in the muscles of my arm and back with each swing, the satisfying thwack of steel on wood. I chopped enough to keep the Haavikko clan toasty all winter, at least a Florida winter. A few moments later, Eva-Lisa walked out of a stand of pop ash trees. She was carrying a handful of leafy branches, maybe three feet long.
She came up to me, shook the leaves in my face, and smiled. “It is a shame the white birch tree doesn’t grow here. Its branches have just the right amount of give for the vaihtaa.”
I looked at her, not fully understanding.
“You’d be surprised how some gentle switching can heat you up.”
Actually, I didn’t think I would be surprised at all.
I carried the wood into the sauna. The interior was light pine, sparkling clean. An anteroom contained a shower, wooden pegs in the wall to hold our clothes, white fluffy towels, and benches I carved from ash trees. I found some old newspaper for kindling and a box of foot-long matches. The fire began slowly, the dry wood crackling with flames under a pile of gray volcanic rocks. Eva-Lisa filled a bucket with cool water and brought it into the sauna, closing the door tightly, letting the heat build, while we sat in the adjacent changing room. Another bucket contained bottles of Finnish beer, olut, on ice. A horse frolicked on the label. The beer was for later. Good, the coach always told us to replace our bodily fluids.
We sat on a bench studying each other. She started unbuttoning her blouse. “Do you believe the naked body is beautiful?”
“I have a suspicion yours is, but mine has railroad track scars across both knees, a crosshatch over my rotator cuff, and one toenail that’s permanently purple from turf toe.”
“In America, they believe we have sex in the sauna,” she said evenly.
“Oh?”
She had slipped out of the blouse and loosened the web belt on her khaki shorts. “But we don’t.”
“No?”
She let the shorts slide down her long legs, kicked them off in a graceful motion, and hung them on a wooden peg with her blouse. “No, it is far too hot. Besides, the sauna is a spiritual place. The heat will cleanse the body and the mind.” She unfastened her bra and tossed it aside, her creamy breasts tumbling free. She stepped out of her panties and smiled at me.
I could feel the warmth from the other side of the pine walls. At least, I think that’s where it came from. In a moment, my clothing was crumbled in a corner of the room. I was ready to partake of the heat. I wasn’t sure about my body, but just then, my mind needed a good cleansing.