It was for the sense of belonging that I loved being on the job, because of the other guys, the noises in the station house, the late-night drinking sessions, the weddings and funerals, people like my friend, Hank Provone over on Staten Island who had made me part of his family. No matter how brutal things got, no matter what shit I saw or stepped into-and this included the criminals and the cops-I wanted in.
The subway train shunted into the station I was looking for, I got out and found my way to Valentina’s shelter, her orphanage. When I saw it, saw the little cross that had been hung on the wall in the vestibule, something in my gut told me this was where it had all started.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“She was like a saint,” said the tiny woman at the shelter when I asked about Valentina. “She gave us money, clothes, food, diapers for the babies. She found jobs for the young women we rescued from train stations, and the girls whose parents pimped them out for small change, girls of twelve and thirteen, would you like some coffee, please?” added the woman who introduced herself as Elisabetta Anton.
Her small smooth face was surrounded by fine white hair. Her age was hard to tell. Her English was exquisite. On her office desk was an iPod with small speakers. From it came the Beatles. “Norwegian Wood” was on, turned very low.
“A present from Valentina,” she said. “She knew when I was a girl, long ago, the Beatles meant everything to me and they were banned for so long. I’m sorry, I was thinking about her. I like to think about her. The news was so devastating it was hard to believe, but I was not surprised.”
Orphanage Number Six, as it had been in Soviet times, was a free-standing building with a ramshackle playground next to it. The concrete walls outside were stained with water. It still served children, Elisabetta told me, but some rooms had been converted to house older girls who needed shelter. In them, she showed me the desks, a pair of beds with blue spreads, posters of pop stars.
The building had been scrubbed endlessly, there were colorful pictures on the walls done by the kids, but there was a dank sour smell was there, as if it literally came out of the walls.
In Elisabetta’s office was a framed photograph of a little girl. It was Luda, the child Val had tried once to adopt.
Elisabetta offered coffee again and I refused, and sat down opposite her at her pine desk. She put a pack of Russian cigarettes on the desk followed by a small box of chocolates.
“Please,” she said.
“Not surprised, you said?”
“When I heard, I thought to myself, he did this to her. They did this.”
“Who?”
“One moment,” said Elisabetta. She closed the door and lowered her voice. “I know what happened,” she said. “I know. I said to her, my darling girl, please be careful, please go slowly. But Valentina was an innocent, you see. She didn’t understand about greed. Or money. She simply didn’t get it,” Elisabetta added. “We had begun taking in girls of ten, eleven, twelve, who were working in the train stations as prostitutes, there is a lot of money in Moscow now, and while the girls used to go to Western Europe and America, there is more money here. It had become big business and there are big, how would you say it? Big players. In business. In the government. I said to her, Valentina, you must not talk about certain people. But she didn’t hear me. She was, after all, an American girl. Is somebody there?” she called out, and half rose from her seat. Nobody answered.
“Who were you expecting?”
She turned up the volume. “Eleanor Rigby” played.
“I don’t know,” Elisabetta said. “Since Valentina’s death, there have been people dropping by for no reason in particular, you see. She took everyone on. She criticized everyone and everything she didn’t like, she picked up the phone and called government officials. Worst, she spoke to journalists. This can get you killed. She made friends with a woman who wrote about the abuse of children and girls, and the money and the connections with the government. Let me show you some of the girls, her girls,” said Elisabetta, taking a binder and opening it, turning the pages, showing me the pictures.
I stopped her. From my pocket, I took the picture of Masha Panchuk.
“Yes,” said Elisabetta, “she was one of ours. Her name was Maria. She was a Ukrainian girl who ran away from home and was found by her uncle who put her to work. Valentina got her out of the country and to London. I don’t think she was sixteen years old.” Turning pages in the binder, Elisabetta found the girl’s picture, a sad beautiful girl, photographed by Val.
“What did they call Maria?”
“We called her Masha.”
It had started here. In this shelter, on a crummy backstreet in Moscow.
“Masha’s last name, it was Panchuk?”
“Not then. Only after she married a fellow named Zim Panchuk. You knew her?”
I told Elisabetta about Masha’s death.
“My God,” she said.
“I think she was killed in Val’s place, she had a purse Val had given her with her name in it, and when they realized it was the wrong girl, they went after Valentina.”
Elisabetta put her small chin on one hand and smoked with the other.
“Who did it?”
“You knew her father?”
“Of course. Anatoly Anatolyevich, he gave us money. He came here a few times, he was so jolly with the little children, and he sang for them, and brought them presents, usually food so exotic they had never seen it. They thought he was Father Christmas,” she said. “He did whatever Valentina asked. In the last few months, I believe, she spent most of her time working on our behalf. I felt she had become obsessed.”
“You said she made friends with a journalist?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Please, tell me.”
“It’s dangerous,” she said. “They kill journalists.”
“They killed Valentina,” I said. “I need help.”
“I’ll see,” she said. “But now there are babies who need feeding. I must go.”
“I’m a policeman. In the United States. Valentina’s father is my best friend, she was my friend.” I leaned over the desk.
From a drawer, Elisabetta took a photograph and sat gazing at it. “She was such a special girl,” she said. “She was pure.”
“Valentina?”
“Yes, her soul was pure,” she said, and handed it to me. In the picture were Val and Grisha, his arm around her.
“You knew him?”
She nodded.
“What did you think?”
“I met him quite a while ago, not long after Val started helping us. She wanted everybody to love him, the way it always is when you first fall in love. Recently she had stopped talking about him. I didn’t pry. Once, she said just that he didn’t believe in the things she believed in anymore.”
“I see,” I said. I had heard it before. Valentina had fallen hard for Grisha at first. Later, she backed away, then broke it off. For this, I thought, most of all for this, he killed her.
Elisabetta got up to leave.
“Have you seen him?” I said.
She turned from the door.
“Yes.”
“When?”
