“What is this, Yevgeny?” Pleshkov’s wife asked.
“You heard the young man,” Pleshkov said. “Apparently a German has been murdered.”
“So?” she asked. “What has that to do with you? Germans are murdered in Moscow all the time. Frenchmen are murdered. Finns are murdered. Americans are even murdered. You are not called to Moscow for every murder. What is so diplomatically significant about this German that your presence is immediately required?”
“That is what I intend to find out, my dear,” said Pleshkov, looking not at her but at Iosef.
When they were in the car watching Pleshkov’s wife through the window, the deputy, seated between Zelach and Iosef, said,
“Would you have arrested me had I refused to come?”
“Yes,” said Iosef.
“I see,” said Pleshkov as the car pulled away onto the dirt road.
“I’m sure we can settle this quickly and I can be back at my desk in a few hours, finishing my speech.”
“I don’t know,” said Iosef, looking forward, as was Zelach. “That will be up to Director Yaklovev.”
Pleshkov turned to look back at his wife standing tall, hands clasped in front of her. Ivan Pleshkov suddenly appeared in the doorway of the dacha. They both watched the unmarked police car head toward Moscow.
Pleshkov looked up at the sky. Still no rain. He had never seen anything quite like this in Moscow. The sky had been dark for days.
Thunder crashed. The wind swirled, but it did not rain. Yevgeny Pleshkov did not believe in omens, but he silently cursed the sky and to himself said, Rain, damn you. Rain.
The room was not large and contained relatively little. A bed with a pillow and a green blanket, a small table with two chairs, an electric hot plate, a cabinet that certainly held a few plates and cups, a sink, a battered chest of drawers, and a curtained-off area in a corner.
Raisa Munyakinova should have been in bed after her night of work, but she was dressed and tired when Rostnikov knocked at her door. She did not appear surprised when she opened the door and saw him and Karpo standing before her.
“You know why we are here?” Rostnikov asked gently.
“You have found the killer,” she said. “Come in. Would you like some tea, coffee? I don’t have too much to eat or drink at the moment. I’ve had little time to shop.”
“I’ve already had tea,” said Rostnikov.
“Thank you, no,” said Karpo.
Raisa moved to sit heavily on her small bed.
“It is not the man I described, is it,” she said. “Not the man in the coat.”
“No,” said Rostnikov.
He and Karpo stood before her. She looked up at them, nodding in understanding.
“May I sit?” asked Rostnikov.
She pointed to one of the wooden chairs. Rostnikov sat with some difficulty, holding onto the table to keep from toppling backward. Karpo continued to stand.
“You were on the cleanup crew at the Leningradskaya Hotel last night,” said Rostnikov, looking at Raisa, who showed only a distant blankness. “You work there regularly in addition to doing shifts at several hotels.”
“Yes,” she said.
“In fact, you were working the hotels on the nights when five Tatar and Chechin Mafia men were murdered,” said Rostnikov.
Raisa shrugged.
“We have the records and a newspaper photograph of you carrying your dead son who was killed in a gun battle between the two gangs.”
“I should have protected him with my body,” she said, shaking her head. “I keep seeing it, feeling myself trying to think.”
“There was no man in a coat,” said Rostnikov, “was there?”
Raisa shrugged again and looked up at Karpo. There was no sympathy, no condemnation in the pale face of the policeman.
“No,” she said.
“Would you like to tell us what happened, or shall we keep fishing?” asked Rostnikov. “I fish fairly well, but it helps if the fish cooperates. It is less painful for the fish and the final results are the same.”
Raisa Munyakinova began rocking forward and back, looking at the floor as she spoke.
“I made up the man in the coat and told the night manager of the health club that he was there, and later that he had left. The night manager seems to believe that he saw this man. You want to know why he believes?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“Because I am nobody,” she said. “My son was a nobody. I am a drudge, a woman with no face who cleans men’s hair from toilet seats and mops up vomit and sprays showers that smell of alcohol.
They don’t look at me. They don’t see me. I’m sure the monsters who murdered my little boy forgot about him in minutes, if they ever thought about him at all.”
“Why did you take the body of Valentin Lashkovich to the river and how did you do it?” asked Karpo.
“I knew someday it was possible that a smart policeman would figure out as you have that I was working in each hotel on the night of the executions,” she said. “I wanted to make it look as if he had been killed and dumped in the river, killed somewhere other than the hotel. I’m very strong. The death of my baby made me even stronger. I shot him and he staggered through the door and into the pool. There he died. I pulled his body out of the water and put it in a garbage can, covered it with garbage and a few torn towels, and put the can on a two-wheel lift I knew was in the cleaning supply room. There is an old man named Nikolai at the back door near the loading dock. I am as invisible to him as I am to everyone else. He asked me nothing, even opened the door for me. I told him I was taking the garbage out. I sometimes do that. So did the other women. I hurried, but I did not run. I saw few people on the streets. I dumped the body and the garbage in the river and hurried back. Nikolai didn’t even notice that I had been gone far longer than was needed to dump garbage.”
“The gun?” asked Rostnikov.
Raisa kept rocking.
“The gun,” Rostnikov repeated gently.
“I bought it from a neighbor’s husband,” she said. “I know I paid far too much for it. I didn’t care. He showed me how to use it. He’s a cab driver. He has more guns.”
“Do you know where it is now?”
“I threw it in the gutter on the way home last night.”
“Then you decided you were through killing?” asked Rostnikov.
“I decided I needed a new gun,” she said. “If I go to jail for a hundred years, I will live, and when I get out, I’ll kill every man who was on the street the day my only child was killed. He played the violin. Did you know that?”
“No,” said Rostnikov.
“A little boy who played the violin beautifully,” she said, looking at the impassive Karpo. “Little boys who play the violin should grow up to play in orchestras, concert halls. They should not be shot in the head by monsters who do not even care what they have done. Do they hear music, these monsters?”
“No,” said Karpo.
“No,” repeated the woman. “And now?”
“Now,” said Rostnikov with a sigh as he stood awkwardly. “You come with us to Petrovka. There is a place where you can sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we shall see. Take some things with you.”
Raisa stood up, nodding dumbly. She was standing in front of Emil Karpo, looking into his eyes.
“I did what had to be done,” she said. “You understand?”
“Yes,” said Emil Karpo. “I understand.”
Chapter Twelve
Iosef stood in Director Yaklovev’s outer office. Seated to Iosef ’s right were the soccer coach Oleg Kisolev, Yevgeny Pleshkov, and Yulia Yalutshkin, who sat erect and quite beautifully calm, smoking an American cigarette. Pleshkov, now quite sober, once again the politician, looked at his watch. There were only three chairs in the outer office where Iosef waited with his prisoners. Even had there been another, Iosef would not have sat. He was on the brink of his first real success as an investigator. The suspects were before him. The evidence was inescapable, and though he had no great fondness for the Yak, he did respect his ability, intellect, and ruthlessness. Yaklovev would follow through.