“It doesn’t matter if I believe you,” she said.
“It matters to me,” Shemenkov said. He hit himself in the chest with an open right hand. “There is no justice in this country. Not for Russians. Not anymore. They laugh at us. Look at him.” He pointed to Sanchez. “He laughs at me.”
Rostnikov looked at Sanchez. The major did not appear to be amused.
“I don’t mean he is laughing openly, like a Russian,” Shemenkov explained earnestly. “It is inside. They’ve learned to laugh inside. Castro laughs at us to this day. They took our money, our technology, sent fools like me to help them, and they gave us nothing. We thought we were in charge, but they used us.”
Shemenkov started to rise, but Sanchez motioned for him to sit. Shemenkov looked to Rostnikov and Elena for support, saw none, and sat.
“What has this to do with the murder of Maria Fernandez?” asked Rostnikov.
“Background,” explained Shemenkov. “For forty years they took everything and now they want to let us know that we were the fools. They want to … The witnesses against me. All Cubans. All Cubans. Deny that.”
Sanchez shook his head and looked at Rostnikov.
“Tell us what happened, Igor Shemenkov. The night of the death of Maria Fernandez.”
“A Minint conspiracy,” said Shemenkov.
“Minint?” asked Elena.
“Ministry of the Interior,” explained Sanchez, looking at his watch and folding his arms.
Rostnikov shifted his weight, thought for an instant of his wife. This morning in Moscow she had sent the girls to school and gone off to work. He forced himself to look at the creature across from him. Shemenkov sighed and then went on.
“Or maybe the Santería. There was a Santería, the son of a priest or whatever they call them. He bothered Maria, and he threatened me. Or-”
Shemenkov stopped abruptly and sat back.
“I didn’t do it,” Shemenkov repeated. He pressed the palm of his right hand against his forehead.
“Then don’t tell us what you didn’t do. Tell us what you did,” said Rostnikov.
“I dressed,” said Shemenkov, looking at Elena. “I put on my blue shirt with the buttons and …”
“How many buttons?” asked Sanchez.
“How many …? Why do you need to know how many buttons on my shirt?” asked the confused Shemenkov.
“I need to know it as much as Inspector Rostnikov needs to know what color your shirt was or that you got dressed.”
“I’m sorry,” said Shemenkov. “Maria and I had dinner at the Maracas Club. Is that all right?”
Rostnikov nodded, and Sanchez went to sit in the leather chair behind the desk.
“Does he have to be here?” asked Shemenkov, nodding at Sanchez.
“The room is wired for sound,” said Rostnikov. “There is a microphone in the telephone.”
“And one in the table in front of you,” Elena added.
“It is more convenient,” Rostnikov continued, “if Major Sanchez is here so that we can avoid the embarrassment later of pretending that we do not know that he knows what we are saying.”
“I do not understand the police,” said Shemenkov.
“And that is one of the few advantages we have,” said Rostnikov. “You went to dinner at the Maracas. Please do not tell us what you ate.”
“All right,” cried Shemenkov, running both hands through his wispy hair. “All right. We ate, went to the apartment of Carlos Carerra, had some rum, oranges, crackers. Victoria came, drank too much, said stupid things. Carerra’s wife, Angelica, told her to leave. They screamed. Hair pulling. Maria and Carlos got them apart.”
“And you sat watching?” Rostnikov prompted.
“I do not hold rum well,” said Shemenkov. “It is a weakness. They had no vodka.”
“Go on.”
“I … I said some things about Victoria. Perhaps they were a bit …”
“A bit?”
“I called her a drooling lesbian freak.”
“Ah,” said Rostnikov.
“Carlos and Angelica got Victoria into the hall. Maria and I could hear them screaming down the stairs. Then, Maria started in on me. She accused me of being without sensitivity. Remember what I said about her hair? Were those the words of an insensitive man?”
“Dios mio,” groaned Sanchez. He put his hands over his eyes and swiveled half a turn away in his chair.
“She scratched my face,” Shemenkov said. “She had a temper. But I loved her. She loved me. She had life. She made me feel alive. Are you married?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“Well, see. You know. Hasn’t your wife scratched your face? Screamed? Thrown things?”
“No,” said Rostnikov.
“My wife has scratched, thrown things, kicked holes in the wall,” said Sanchez with a deep sigh. “You have a point here?”
“Don’t you see? I had been dead for years before Maria, no life, nothing to look forward to. And she was right. I was insensitive.”
“You just said …” Elena began, but Rostnikov held up a hand to stop her as he nodded to Shemenkov.
“Go on,” said Rostnikov.
“Go on? There is no ‘on’ to go to,” said Shemenkov. “I went into the bathroom to clean my scratches. Maria said she wasn’t through with me. I could hear her mumbling in the living room till I closed the door and turned the water on. When I came out …”
“How long were you in the bathroom?” asked Rostnikov.
“How long? I don’t know. Not long. Not short. More short than long. I didn’t want Maria to leave without me. I went out and there she was, on the green sofa, looks like a dead lizard, the sofa does. Covered with blood. I went to her, touched her, saw the knife, her open eyes. I felt … the panic of an animal. I howled. I wept. Then I heard someone behind me. I picked up the knife. I thought ‘Robbers, Santería,’ but it was them, Carlos, Angelica, Victoria too. Someone screamed. Someone hit me in the face. I don’t know.”
Shemenkov went silent, his eyes focused back in vague time and memory.
“The three witnesses say that they saw him kneeling over the dead woman with a knife in his hand,” said Sanchez. “He turned on them and they thought he was going to attack. Victoria Oliveras kicked Shemenkov in the face.”
“She broke my nose,” wailed Igor Shemenkov. “Look, see here. If you’d have come last week you would have seen only a purple-”
“Your story,” Sanchez prompted. “Remember? Carlos Carerra grabbed the knife. The two of them held our intense amigo here while Angelica called the police.”
“You see?” said Shemenkov.
“See what?” asked Rostnikov.
“Injustice,” said Shemenkov.
“Inspector Timofeyeva and I will go to the apartment,” said Rostnikov. “We will look at it. We will, with the permission and cooperation of the police …”
Rostnikov looked to Sanchez, who nodded.
“… examine the apartment, talk to the witnesses.”
“I am innocent,” said Shemenkov emphatically.
“There is no rear entrance to the apartment,” said Sanchez. “There is only one stairway out of the building. All three witnesses say that no one passed them going up or down the stairs.”
“A neighbor,” said Shemenkov.
Sanchez shook his head.
“There is one other apartment on that floor. There was no one home. The door was locked. That is the top floor.”
“I did not do this,” Shemenkov repeated. “If there were anything left to swear to, I would do it. No God. No Party. I swear on … on …”
“You loved her every hair,” said Sanchez.
“Every hair,” agreed Shemenkov. “I did not kill her.”
“A crowd gathered almost immediately after the murder,” Sanchez went on, a look of distant boredom on his face. “One woman, a flower vendor, was walking by outside. She said she heard a howl of pain from the window. She stopped and stood there till the police came. She says no one came out of the building.”
“Hiding,” said Shemenkov, looking hopefully at Elena. “The killer was hiding until …”
“Building was searched, up, down, everywhere. There is no other way out,” countered Sanchez.