“Boris? Stupid boy, but he knows the mine. Yes, he can do it. Are you going in there?”
“I think so.”
“Watch out for the ghost girl. If you hear her sing and you see her, your chances of being found dead are very good.”
“It is a risk I will take.”
“My bullet.”
“I will get it for you.”
“When is he coming home?” asked Nina.
Since her sister was two years older, Nina expected Laura to have answers to all of her questions, and she usually did.
“Soon,” said Laura.
The girls were facing each other under the blanket on the makeshift bed on the floor. They were whispering in the darkness punctuated only by the light from the lampposts beyond the kitchen window.
“What is soon?”
“Three days,” Laura said with confidence and no certain knowledge.
“What is he doing? Is he shooting someone bad?”
“No. The creepy man does the killing.”
“I like him,” said Nina. “I do not think he is creepy.”
“I do not think he is either, but other people do.”
“Sarah and Grandmother Galina?”
“I do not know.”
“I shall ask them. Will Porfiry Petrovich bring us anything from Siberia?”
“There is nothing to bring from Siberia,” said Laura. “There is nothing there but snow and reindeer.”
“When he comes back, he will fix Mrs. Dudenya’s pipes.”
“Yes,” said Laura. “When I grow up, I shall be a plumber.”
“When I grow up,” said Nina, “I will be a policeman.”
“Here is the list,” said Fyodor Rostnikov, handing a printed sheet to Porfiry Petrovich.
They were seated on white folding chairs outside the apartment complex facing the mine, which was closed. It was a crime scene.
Porfiry Petrovich wore his lined overcoat and a black wool watch cap. Fyodor Andreiovich wore a dark blue pea coat and a black fur hat. In the summer, the temperature could reach ninety degrees Fahrenheit for a few days, but in the winter, which was approaching, the temperature averaged negative fifty-six degrees Fahrenheit. At the moment the temperature hovered somewhere around thirty degrees Fahrenheit, which meant that they both considered this a balmy day, nearly perfect for enjoying the afternoon.
Beyond the thick wall of trees that stretched as far to the left and right as Rostnikov could see were mountains and the Vitim River and Lake Baykal, the world’s deepest lake. The city of Irkutsk was somewhere out there.
Porfiry Petrovich looked down at the short list of names Fyodor had given him. They were the names of all senior employees of the mining company who were allowed to enter the mine during the six-hour off shift, which was always between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. In addition to the Devochka Council members, there were two resident mining engineers. It was a short list made even shorter by the murder of board member Anatoliy Lebedev.
“As you will see if you go to the mine. .”
“I will go to the mine,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“As you will see,” Fyodor went on, “there is a steel night fence which covers the only mine entrance. The door in the fence can only be opened with key cards.”
Fyodor reached into the pocket of his jacket and extracted two large naval oranges. He handed one to Porfiry Petrovich who nodded his thanks.
“And who provides these cards?” Rostnikov asked as he carefully began to peel the orange. It was firm and ripe. He brought it to his nose to smell. The world was suddenly engulfed in an orange miasma.
“I do,” said Fyodor.
“And where were you on the shifts when the Canadian and Lebedev were killed?”
Fyodor allowed himself a knowing, if small, smile.
“Home, which, you will see when you come for dinner tonight, is over there: Building Two, ground floor. My children were sleeping. My wife and I went to bed just before midnight. I awoke in the morning at five-thirty as I always do.”
“And your wife is a light sleeper?” asked Rostnikov.
This time Fyodor did allow himself a laugh, almost choking as he said, “She sleeps a sleep that would challenge a roomful of narcoleptics. Nothing wakes her.”
Both men had a lap of orange peels and a ready orb of fruit. They had both separated the oranges into segments and were eating slowly.
“So I am the prime suspect?”
“One of several,” said Porfiry Petrovich, holding up the list and letting his eyes follow the slow walk of a man on the path to the mine.
The list was now covered with sticky fingertip tabs of orange. When he called Sarah later, he would tell her of the nearly perfect orange he had eaten in Siberia.
“During Lebedev’s murder, I will now confess, I was with the person I thought might be the murderer of the Canadian,” Fyodor said after a long pause. “I engaged him in conversation, tried to get him drunk, and wasted a night. It was I who got drunk.”
“His name?”
“Your weight lifting partner Viktor Panin. I did not go to the mine. You can ask Viktor.”
“And Viktor did not go to the mine?” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“He didn’t even stop once to piss. The man must have a bladder as big as the giant Tunguska meteor hole near Podkamennaya. I do not know if he killed the Canadian, but he definitely did not kill poor Lebedev. We are having shashlyk for dinner in your honor. Come hungry.”
It was Porfiry Petrovich’s turn to smile.
“I shall arrive with a suitable appetite.”
“Igor Sturnicki, one of the two engineers on your list, was in Barnaul visiting relatives. The other engineer, Mikhail Kline, was in the hospital with a broken leg.”
“Could he walk on the leg?”
“It was and is in a cast from hip to ankle. It would be difficult to hobble to and into the mine to hide and commit a murder.”
“You are sure the leg is broken?”
“A mine truck tipped on it. He will walk with a limp when he does walk again, which may not be for a long time.”
“That leaves the rest of the council members,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“Yes. As you see, there are three more, our Chairman Yevgeniy Zuyev. .”
Rostnikov remembered the thin, nervous man whose right eye seemed to wander while the left was fixed firmly on whatever object it was aimed toward.
“Magda Kaminskaya. .”
Who, Rostnikov recalled, was short and overweight, with a definite wheezing problem.
“And Stepan Orlov. .”
The image of a broad-shouldered man in need of a shave came to mind.
“Stepan, I’m afraid, is my candidate,” said Fyodor.
“Why?”
“By a process of elimination,” Fyodor said. “There is no one left to consider.”
“Why have I not spoken to Stepan Orlov?”
“Because he has locked himself in his laboratory and put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.”
“He does this often?”
“I have known him to do it.”
“And what does he do in the laboratory?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.
“He is a microbiologist. He is supposed to be examining all evidence of insects, rats, and odd microbial-level life in the mines.”
“And what has he found?”
“Among other things a species of blind white rats that have survived for hundreds of years in total darkness. He is a decent enough man when he is on the trail of some living creature, but when he has nothing under the microscope or scalpel, he is a surly creature at best.”
“Anything else about him I should know before I knock at his laboratory door?”
“Only that he has enormously powerful arms and hands. We had an arm-wrestling competition last year. He finished second only to Viktor, and for a few moments it looked as if he might win.”
“So he is your choice?”
“Yes, but Yevgeniy Zuyev is still possible.”
“Orlov is your choice then?”
“Have you a better one?” Fyodor asked, wondering who he might have in mind.