Daria Desombre: The Sin Collector

Masha looked at Innokenty and felt like she no longer recognized him. He seemed to have grown. He was enormous now, and he took up every square inch of the kitchen. And there were things about him buried so deep that Masha had never even suspected.

“Don’t look at me like that! It’s just a branch of Russian Orthodoxy, you know, one with a difficult past. You wouldn’t be staring at me like that if I had told you I was a Protestant! And I’m not even religious! You know that. I’m a historian, first and foremost!”

Masha gulped. “You said your great-grandfather had something to do with building the church on Basmanny?”

Innokenty ran a hand over his face. “Yes. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Some people came to see me. The head of the church, in fact. He asked me to talk to you, to try to convince you that the killer you’re looking for isn’t one of us. He’s worried that the detectives will ruin things for them, that there will be articles in the paper. The Old Believers have only just started growing again, building churches, and people have begun returning home from the US and South America. All of that progress could be stopped by stupid prejudices, gossip, and rumors with no basis in reality.”

“And you agreed?” Masha asked. “You agreed to talk me into dropping it?”

Innokenty smiled morosely. “I told them I’d try, Masha. I didn’t promise anything.”

“Well, great.” Masha’s lips twisted into a frown. “At least you won’t have to break your promise! I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you violating any sacred vows.”

“Masha, please!” said Innokenty, leaning closer to her, but Masha slid back away from him. He hunched back in his chair unhappily. “I have only one thing to say in my defense,” he said. “It’s a historical argument, and it might not seem convincing to you and the detectives, but for me, and for all the Old Believers, it puts the schismatics beyond all suspicion. This Heavenly Jerusalem our Sin Collector is so obsessed with? It’s directly connected to the life and work of Patriarch Nikon, who promoted the idea of Moscow as a second Jerusalem. Nikon wanted to unite all branches of the Orthodox Church under the patriarchate in Moscow, especially the Greek and Ukrainian churches. To that end, among other things, he replaced the Russian two-fingered sign of the cross with the three-fingered sign the Greeks used. He revised the liturgical texts to follow the Greek versions. And you know what happened as a result. Some refused to follow the new rules, there was the schism, and the Old Believers split off from everyone else. For the Old Believers, Nikon and everything that he stood for is the lowest point in our history. Every ideal he worked for is diabolical to them, Masha. He wanted to be like the Catholic Pope, and he even built a new monastery, called New Jerusalem, outside Moscow. Nikon did it all in an attempt to imitate the Vatican. All of that is anathema to us. Believe me, no Old Believer would ever drink from that poisoned cup.” Innokenty lifted his hands, seeming to give up. “I could tell you more, but—”

“I get it.” Masha slipped off her stool. “I need to think about this. Sorry. I really need to get some rest.”

“Sure, sure, of course,” Innokenty said, fussing around her again. “Sorry. I just didn’t want to keep that from you any longer. Forgive me, Masha, I’m not—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll fix up a bed for you in the study.”

He rushed off, but Masha sat still for a minute. Then she made herself put her dirty bowl in the dishwasher and lug the soup pot, still slightly warm, back to the refrigerator. Innokenty reappeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked harried, but Masha didn’t feel sorry for him. She didn’t feel sorry for herself, either.

All she wanted, desperately, was to sleep. When Kenty left her in the study and quietly pulled the door shut behind him, she wasted no time in tossing off her clothes and slipping into a cool forgetfulness there between the crisply ironed sheets. She was asleep in an instant.

Andrey regarded his boss’s blood-red face. Usually when the tyrant was angry, Andrey worried. But today he definitely did not care. No boss man could possibly make him feel any worse than he already did. There was a monster after Masha— his Masha. And he did not know a single way to chase the killer back into the foul, dark pit from which he had emerged. Andrey’s shame was propelling him forward, nagging him onward every time he stopped for half a minute to toss back a sandwich to fuel himself. But the whole race had been pointless. He was running on a treadmill. Every clue led to nothing, and all the suspects were dropping off the track. The police officer resting in his grave. The Old Believers. The military officers, interviewed just yesterday by the guys from his team about whether they had ever worked with Yelnik. There were too many murders, and he had to dig in dozens of different directions, like a mole, hoping to sniff out the slightest lead in this vast field of data. Any clue would be a miracle.

“Of all the fucking things!” Anyutin slammed his enormous fist on the desk. “Did you see this?” He tossed a newspaper down in front of Andrey with the headline “NEW CHIKATILO IN DOWNTOWN MOSCOW!”

Andrey dispassionately ran his eyes over the page, then went back to his own thoughts. If he couldn’t catch the killer, then maybe he’d be able to hide Masha from him? No, he told himself. Hiding her wouldn’t work. The only thing to do would be to keep her by his side, twenty-four hours a day, and maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to protect her. Not that she’d go for that.

The colonel was raging, “Can you imagine what kind of shitstorm is going to come down on me? How long can I feed them stories from the Old Testament?”

“It’s the New Testament,” Andrey corrected him without thinking.

“What the hell is going on?” Anyutin went on menacingly. “Everyone at Petrovka’s a Bible scholar now? Do you think we’re playing pick-up sticks here? Or are you just waiting for him to get through all of his, what are they, tollhouses, and disappear back to hell?” He slammed his fist down on the desk again, and paper flew in all directions. Somebody knocked at the door. “Yes!” Anyutin barked, while he and his subordinate collected the documents strewn across the floor.

“May I come in?” The voice at the door was a calm baritone.

In walked Katyshev. Anyutin’s face went even redder, and he stood up and shook the prosecutor’s hand. Katyshev nodded in Andrey’s direction.

“I was just thinking about you. I was wondering how your investigation is getting along.”

Andrey shook his head tiredly.

“It’s not,” Anyutin answered for him. “The guy’s a ghost.”

“Well,” said Katyshev, settling into a chair with a cold chuckle, “that happens with serial killers, you know. Remember how many people the original Chikatilo got to.” He nodded toward the open newspaper. “And how many of the wrong people were arrested for what he did.”

“Don’t try to make excuses for these so-called detectives,” said Anyutin with a scowl, not even deigning to glance in Andrey’s direction. “The clock is ticking, the bodies are rolling in, and these idiots haven’t gotten one iota closer to solving the case.”

Katyshev crossed his legs and calmly swung one foot back and forth. Andrey noticed how worn out his shoes looked.

“At least your men have figured out the rules of the game, which was no simple feat.” He smiled sadly. “You know, I walk around Moscow myself, sometimes, without even recognizing it. I always wonder what happened to the city of my childhood. All these new nightclubs and strip shows, the abject poverty alongside the Bentleys and the champagne fountains… This suspect of yours doesn’t have to operate under any of our rules or limitations. He slices up, or, I suppose, quarters, people we in law enforcement can’t seem to get our hands on. Like that governor’s wife.”