Red Ink (2 page)

2

T
he Moscow River twists through the center of the city like a nocturnal reptile, its frozen skin shimmering in the moonlight. Centered between two bridges that link it to the Kremlin, the House on the Embankment has the look of an impenetrable fortress. Tonight, its drab facade is ablaze with light from the flashers of militia vans blocking the approach road.

The taxi deposits me at a wooden barricade where uniformed policemen stand, emitting streams of blue-gray breath that match the color of their trench coats.

“Press,” I announce over the crackle of radios.

A sergeant blinds me with his flashlight. A flick of his wrist shifts the beam from my eyes to my chest in search of credentials. “No press card?”

“I’m free-lance.”

“Sorry, no unauthorized personnel.”

Before I can protest, a brilliant flash cuts silhouettes out of the darkness behind him—a fleeting glimpse of uniformed men gathered around a car. The photographer’s strobe flashes again, taunting me.

“Who’s in charge here?”

“Senior Investigator Shevchenko.”

Shevchenko? I may get my wish. Valery Shevchenko is a
senior
homicide
investigator. “Ah, we go way back. Tell him Nikolai Katkov’s here, will you?”

Another flash erupts. This time from within the car. The passenger window looks like it’s been hit by a rotten tomato. The grisly image sets crimson circles whirling in the darkness.

“Look, if I don’t get this story, I’ll write that the militia suppressed it. It’s your call, Sergeant—” I’m making a show of checking his name tag when headlights sweep the area and a Moskvitch sedan coasts to a stop. The door opens and Valery Shevchenko’s narrow face thrusts upward into the cold air.

I once teased him that he shares his surname with a famous poet who advocated Ukrainian independence from Russia, and a high-ranking U.N. diplomat who defected to the United States. He winced, and replied that if not for such misfortune, he’d be
Chief
Investigator Shevchenko by now. My sources tell me it’s because he’s too good to waste on administrative work and isn’t enough of a bastard. I’m counting on the latter.

“What do you want, Katkov?” he growls impatiently.

“A little cooperation would be nice.”

“Something tells me you’ve already had some.”

“Come on, Shevchenko. I’m trying to earn a living.”

He scowls, then turns to the sergeant who opens the barricade. “Good work. We can’t have unaccredited reporters running loose at crime scenes, can we?” Shevchenko starts forward, then pauses. “Certainly not without supervision.” He motions me to follow, then charges across the parking area past the massive building where curious faces press against frosty windows. A shaft of light rakes his face, accentuating the lines and deepening the hollows. He looks weary.

The militiamen guarding the car step aside as Shevchenko approaches and leans into the Volga with his flashlight. The beam moves from the open driver’s door, to the ignition, where the keys still dangle, then on to the windshield, passenger window, and roof liner that are spattered with blood, bits of tissue, and gray matter. He backs out slowly, pausing to sort through the items in a sack on the passenger seat—Western cigarettes, razor blades, blank audio cassettes among them—then crouches to examine a splotch of blood on the ground below the door, from which a reddish brown smear arcs across the pavement. It leads Shevchenko to the far side of a concrete wall where the beam from his flashlight finds a man’s corpse: fully clothed,
on its back, head twisted sharply to the right, resting in a glassy pool of crimson ice that encircles it like a halo.

Shevchenko crouches studying the details. The hole in the left cheek is cratered and scorched, indicating a large-caliber pistol fired at close range. The eyes are open and shifted hard right, as if staring in shock at the gaping wound on the side of the skull. The tailored topcoat and sport jacket are thrown open, exposing a freshly laundered white shirt and silk tie.

Shevchenko stands and slowly drifts back toward the car puzzling something out. “The killer is waiting in the darkness—rushes forward—opens the door—and fires,” he whispers in bursts, acting out the moves with precise gestures. “Then, instead of fleeing, pulls the body from the car and drags it behind the wall. . . . He lets it trail off. The militiamen nod like a pack of loyal dogs. Shevchenko asks himself, “Why?”

My heart sinks. The obvious answer isn’t one rich in political intrigue. “Care to venture a guess?” I ask, pencil poised to jot down: Motive, robbery.

“No. You?”

He knows what I want and is getting some perverse pleasure out of making me sink my own ship. “Well, he probably didn’t want to be spotted going through the poor fellow’s pockets.”

“He?” Shevchenko taunts, surprising me. “Have you detected something that rules out a woman?”

“No. It was just a figure of speech. You have reason to suspect it was?”

He smirks, still toying with me; or so I suspect until he shifts his flashlight to the victim’s left wrist. A metallic glint appears. “Sergeant.”

The sergeant crouches to the body, pushes up the shirt cuff, and removes a gold wristwatch. He slips it into an evidence envelope and follows it with a wedding band; then he checks the victim’s pockets, taking a fold of rubles from one and a leather wallet from another, handing the latter to Shevchenko.

“Well, I guess robbery wasn’t ‘her’ motive,” I joke, delighted the intrigue remains.

“Vladimir Vorontsov,” Shevchenko says, scanning the victim’s driver’s license. “Correction. Vladimir Illiych Vorontsov. I wouldn’t want to be accused of withholding information from the press.” He examines the wallet’s contents, pausing curiously
at a plastic laminated card that he palms before I can get a look at it. “Who found him?”

The sergeant grins. “A puppy. His owner was walking him after dinner. She lives in the same wing as Vorontsov. Said he’s a widower; his daughter and grandchildren moved in with him a few months ago.”

Shevchenko nods and walks toward the building at a brisk pace. “Took in his daughter and grandchildren,” he muses sarcastically as I follow after him. “Evidently, the new government hasn’t solved the housing shortage or divorce rate yet.”

“Evidently, you preferred the old system.”

He shrugs. “I had a life then.”

“A life?”

“Yes, a life. If the KGB was still in business, they’d be handling this and I’d be home with my wife and daughters.”

“Care to guess where
I’d
be?”

He chortles, entertaining visions of the gulag, and starts up the steps to the entrance. “You want a story? This rush to democracy is pushing violent crime through the roof. Six hundred thousand more incidents this year than last. Write about that. Just don’t forget to mention the Party always claimed it went hand-in-hand with capitalism.”

“Come on. It contradicted their propaganda, so they denied it existed.”

“No. No, this used to be the safest city in the world, Katkov. Everyone was so terrified of the KGB, they toed the line, and you know it.”

“Not everyone.”

“True. There’ll always be a few—dissidents.” He spits it out like an expletive, and puts a shoulder into the massive wooden door.

I haven’t been in these buildings in over twenty-five years, but nothing’s changed. The creak of hinges, the hiss of steam, the orange glow of chandeliers—I’m overwhelmed with familiar sensations as I follow Shevchenko across the lobby into an elevator. The slow-moving lift deposits us in a third-floor vestibule. He steps to a door and presses the buzzer. A petite woman in her early thirties appears. She seems gentle and refined: salon-styled hair, silk blouse, designer suit, clearly a woman of privilege.

“I’m Senior Investigator Shevchenko,” he says, displaying his
militia badge and identification. “This is Mr. Katkov. He’s a journalist. May we come in?”

“Why, is something wrong?”

“Vladimir Vorontsov is your father?”

She nods, her eyes widening apprehensively.

“I’m afraid it’s very bad news.”

The color drains from her face as she leads the way to a living room decorated with elegant European furniture, silk draperies, and Persian rugs. It’s a grand room. Very grand—my entire apartment could easily fit inside it—and very much like the one where I played as a child. I’m so caught up in the memories that a few moments pass before I reach a sitting area at the far end of the room where Shevchenko is briefing her.

“My God,” she wails when he finishes. “Why would anyone do something like that?”

“I’m hoping you can help us find the answer, Mrs.—”

“Churkin. Tanya Churkin,” she replies, overcome with grief. “He was late. I knew something was wrong. I just knew it.”

Shevchenko nods with understanding and directs her to a chair. “You said he was late?”

She nods sadly.

“On returning from where?”

“His lodge meeting. He gets together with his cronies. They drink. Relive old times. You know.”

“And where is this lodge?”

“In Khimki Khovrino near the Sports Palace.”

“Quite a long drive,” Shevchenko observes. “Did your father have any enemies you know of?”

“No. No, he was a good person.”

“No ex-wife, no girlfriends, jilted mistresses, anything like that?”

Her tear-filled eyes flare with indignation. “No. And I don’t like what you’re insinuating,” she snaps, her back straightening in the chair.

“I meant no offense, Mrs. Churkin. Someone shot your father in cold blood. The motive is crucial to tracking down his killer.”

“The answer is still no. He was devoted to my mother. She died about a year ago. He still isn’t over it. I don’t want his good name sullied by you”—she shifts her glare to me—“or anyone else.”

“That’s not why we’re here, Mrs. Churkin, I assure you,” Shevchenko replies.

She nods, her lips tightening into a thin line.

“Now, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt him? Anyone he didn’t get along with?”

“No. He was well liked by everyone.”

“What about his coworkers?” Shevchenko glances at me out of the corner of his eye and produces the laminated card he palmed earlier. “According to this, he was employed at the Interior Ministry.”

My brows twitch with intrigue. Mrs. Churkin’s fall. She nods sadly.

“In what capacity?”

“As a foreign trade representative. He was usually posted abroad to one of our embassies; but lately, he’s been working out of Ministry offices here in Moscow.”

“Did he ever take work home from the office?”

“Sometimes. His things are inside.” She stands and leads the way to a study that overlooks the river. One wall is covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, another with citations and photographs that span a long career in government service: Vorontsov with various heads of state, with generals and dignitaries, with world business leaders, on the fringe of a large group gathered around Brezhnev, with a smaller group that includes Gorbachev and Shevarnadze, with Boris Yeltsin and former U.S. Ambassador Strauss.

Shevchenko crosses to a desk where several neat stacks of papers are aligned. After a perfunctory review, he slips the official-looking documents into a briefcase that he finds next to the desk. “Someone will have to identify the body, Mrs. Churkin. You may do it now, or tomorrow at headquarters. I imagine you’ll want to come by to claim his personal effects.”

The finely tailored woman hesitates, chilled at the thought. “Yes. Yes, I think tomorrow would be better.”

“Should you need to reach me in the meantime . . .” Shevchenko gives her one of his cards with the defunct red star insignia. Then, briefcase in hand, he leads the way from the apartment into the elevator. After the door closes, he pulls a flask from inside his trench coat, thumbs the hinged cap, and takes a long swallow. Vodka may be colorless, odorless, and tasteless, but my senses are undeniably tantalized. Shevchenko
notices my hungry stare. “Long night,” he says, offering me the flask.

“Thanks, no,” I reply, though my throat craves the long, satisfying burn. “But I could use a ride.”

“Sorry. I’m returning to headquarters.”

“That’s what I figured.”

He glares at me as the elevator door opens, then charges through it into the lobby. By the time I catch up, he’s bounding down the steps outside the building.

“Come on, Shevchenko,” I protest as we cross the parking area. “You’ll get home to that little family a lot sooner with some help; not to mention the time you’ll save answering my questions now.”

“Unfortunately, there
are
other reporters in Moscow, Katkov. I’ll still have to answer theirs.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You suggesting I deal with you exclusively?”

“I expected a senior investigator with twenty years on the force would demand it.”

“Twenty-four years.”

“All the more reason. Of course, if what I’ve heard about your itch to make chief is wrong . . .”

He opens the door, tosses the briefcase inside the Moskvitch, and whirls to face me. “I’m up to my ass. I don’t have time to play games. You’ll clear every draft with me prior to publication. You’ll remove anything I find objectionable, anything I want withheld from the public, anything that might threaten to derail the investigation. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Katkov.” He slides behind the wheel, slams the door, and jerks his head, indicating I get in.

The House on the Embankment fades in the mist that hangs over the river. There’s little traffic at this hour, and about fifteen minutes later we’re approaching Militia Headquarters, a crenelated fortress near the Hermitage Gardens. The uniformed sentry at the entrance to No. 38 Petrovka recognizes Shevchenko and raises the gate arm, allowing the sedan to enter without stopping. Six stories of dark brown sandstone tower over a treeless courtyard paved with cobblestones. It’s a forbidding presence.

The senior investigator’s office is on the fourth floor, deep in a maze of depressing corridors. Gray-green walls, poor lighting,
a small, rain-spattered window, and a scarred desk, on which Shevchenko drops Vorontsov’s briefcase, do little to change the mood.