“Was she secretive by nature?”
“She had a personal life. She would disappear for a week at a time and never say where she’d been. An unpredictable lady. I think it was her unpredictability that kept her alive. And she never revealed her sources, but we were watching the news and saw this body wash up on the beach in Kaliningrad. She insisted on going to the scene.”
“What was his name?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“How did she know him?”
“According to Tatiana, they met at a book event in Zurich. He was interpreting for one of the other authors. Of course, once he knew who she was, he tried to impress her and let her know that he had inside information about criminal activities in Moscow and Kaliningrad. The police didn’t even make a pretense of an investigation of his death. They just hauled him off. It was local kids that found his notebook in the sea grass. The little ghouls sold it to Tatiana. Five hundred rubles for a notebook of puzzles. Only the joke’s on us. It’s completely useless.” Obolensky unlocked a desk drawer and took out a reporter’s spiral notebook.
“What is it?”
“Tatiana said they were the interpreter’s notes.”
“Notes about what?”
“You tell me. Tatiana kept it secret. It was going to be the capper of her career. She was headed for sainthood. Instead, here comes the Kremlin’s smear campaign. She was a subverter of youth, an agent of the West, a wanton woman. They throw mud at you even as they kill you; that’s the way they work.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“ ‘They’ are those persons in the Kremlin who determine whether a journalist is digging too deep or reaching too high. The persons who like to say that only a coffin corrects a hunchback.”
“Where is Tatiana’s dog?”
“Polo? With Maxim, the last I heard. Renko, why is it you still sound like an investigator?”
“Habit.” Arkady looked idly around the office. A cactus on the windowsill looked shriveled and defeated. “What happened to Tatiana’s manuscript?”
“It disappeared. She was going to give me a rough draft the day she died. All I have is this notebook.”
“May I see?”
Obolensky laughed. “Take a look.”
Arkady turned to the first page. Second, third, and his confusion only grew. It was drawings. It was arrows, boxes, teardrops, fish, a cat and more, as if someone had poured out the contents of a typographer’s box and tossed in gnostic symbols, dollar signs, stick figures and, most improbably, “Natalya Goncharova,” the name of the unfaithful wife for whom the poet Pushkin lost his life.
“What does it mean?” Arkady asked.
“Who knows?” Obolensky took back the notebook and returned it to the drawer. “Sorry, I’m saving it for the writer I’ve assigned to do a follow-up article on Tatiana.”
“After the attack on the demonstration I thought you stopped making waves.”
“We did, we did. Nonetheless, we have a reporter who’s eager to try. How can I deny her?”
“Who?”
“Anya. It’s her big chance, don’t you think?”
• • •
Arkady’s car was just out of the repair shop, and now that he had it back, he was as edgy as a parent. Every vehicle was within a millimeter of another’s skin. Other drivers made no eye contact and gave no quarter.
Victor gloated. “It’s like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but in slow motion. It’s good to see your car again. A bit macho for my taste, if you know what I mean.”
“I can only guess.”
“The problem is the precinct commander says that since Tatiana Petrovna’s death was clearly a suicide, there is no basis for further investigation. That means no depositions, no subpoenas and no lawyers. The body’s disappeared. The commander has turned me down. So we have overfulfilled our quota of nothing. Where are we going?”
“To see our witness.”
“The neighbor? Svetlana?”
“I told you, she heard screams.”
“Okay, let’s say you have approval for an investigation-which you don’t, but never mind-did she actually see anything? Was she under the influence of any drugs? Could she swear to the time? Was she with a customer? This is some witness.”
“We’ll need more, I agree.”
“More?”
“We should talk to all Tatiana’s colleagues and friends to understand her state of mind. Also, she was investigating a death in Kaliningrad. She had a dozen battles going on.”
“Arkady-”
“And she seems to have held up an expensive real estate development.”
“Arkady, I hate to say this, but the case is closed. The investigation is over. Not only that, it does look like suicide. She came home alone, locked the door, and jumped off the balcony. Alone. She trusted no one, and under the circumstances, that made a lot of sense. It’s as if the whole city was out to get her. They drove her to it.”
“She entrusted her apartment key to her neighbor.”
“Unfortunately, a mental case. It’s time for you to get back on your feet, but on a real homicide. Without a body there is no case. We’ll start slowly with aggravated assault and work our way up. Or, on a personal level, why not find out who stomped you? I made some calls about the demonstration while you were lazing about in bed.”
“And?”
“Half the people you say were in the demonstration deny that they were ever there. The only two who really support the accusation are Anya and Obolensky, but that sells magazines, doesn’t it?”
“What about Maxim Dal? He rescued us.”
“Gone to ground. To hear anyone but Anya, Obolensky and you, there was no demonstration. It’s like that old adage about a tree falling in the forest; if nobody hears it, was there a sound?”
“What if it falls on you?”
• • •
As they slogged up the six stories to Svetlana’s apartment, Victor wheezed and said, “You know, I really missed you while you were laid up. Now I’m not so sure.”
Taped to Tatiana’s door was a receipt for the “occupant” from the Curonian Renaissance Corporation for the contents of the apartment, which could be retrieved within a month upon payment of a storage fee. After thirty days, the contents would be disposed of.
The door opened at a touch.
Tatiana’s apartment had been swept clean. Furniture, electronics, even carpets had been removed. Books, photographs, music were gone. Every footfall echoed in rooms that were pools of late-afternoon light and motes in motion.
“A Renaissance Corporation? That sounds nice,” Arkady said. “I think of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bernini.”
Victor said, “I think of the Borgias. So, we’ve got no witness, no corpse and now no scene of the crime.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll tell you what we do have.” Victor sniffed the air as they stepped back into the hall. “Cats.”
There were five cats in Svetlana’s apartment. They hadn’t been fed or had their box changed for at least a day, and they swarmed around Victor while he poured milk into a saucer. Victor, oddly enough, was a cat person. An admirer not of fluffy Persian cats or exotic Siamese, but of feral survivors of the street. Did they eat songbirds? Let them. Victor’s favorite birds were crows.
