Daria Desombre: The Sin Collector

The man smiled, baring some poorly made dentures.

“Oh, I’ll be quick. I know your time is valuable. Just one small question,” he said. “I’ve received some information about a series of suicides. Or, I should say, apparent suicides. All the men who killed themselves had been soldiers in Afghanistan. Now, here’s what I figured out.” Was the man in the raincoat’s smile turning into a sneer, or had it always been that way? “I learned that they all had been denied wheelchairs. That same decree—dictated, officially speaking, by the need to conserve resources—also canceled the veterans’ prescription-medicine discounts.”

“I’m not sure I understand your interest in this ministry’s affairs.” Leontiev was trying to remain polite, but on the open face that had been such an asset in his career, a hint of annoyance was visible. “You know as well as I do how much the federal budget has shrunk.”

The man nodded in time with the tapping of his old shoe on the floor, and he went on as if nothing had happened. “However, according to the information I have, at the same time, a new suite of furniture was purchased for your office.” He ran a finger gently over the shining tabletop. “Cherry, is it?”

Leontiev nodded.

“For a little more than five million rubles,” the man continued. “All of this carving work, the bronze and the good leather, it all costs good money, doesn’t it?” He stood up and walked around the table, very close to Leontiev, his voice friendly. “Doesn’t all this expensive garbage give you a rash on the ass?”

“What is the meaning of this?” Leontiev was rising slowly out of his chair, upholstered in that incriminating leather. Standing, he was the same height as this uncouth prosecutor. Suddenly he heard a click. His eyes darted to one side, and there, just an inch from his temple, another eye stared at him, unblinking—the barrel of a pistol. He also saw, for the first time, the eyes of the man in the ragged raincoat. Compared to them, the pistol looked almost kind.

“What are you—?” Leontiev began, but the man ordered him to shut his mouth, and with the easy gesture of a practiced magician, pulled a gag over Leontiev’s head and fastened it tight around his mouth. From the other pocket of his raincoat, the man took a roll of packing tape, which he used to tie Leontiev to his extravagant chair. There was a moment when Leontiev could have broken free. But that pistol… And the prosecutor seemed so sure of himself, not even the slightest bit nervous. Now he laid an ordinary black briefcase on the table. In no more hurry than before, he began taking wooden pegs out of the case, one after another, and he arranged them neatly on the table.

Leontiev thought he must be going mad. The events taking place here in his office, with no particular ceremony, simply did not compute. What could the man need those pegs for? Before Leontiev found an answer, his eyes stopped darting around like a frightened bird’s and he froze. Moving just a little, he rolled closer to the table. The new furniture did not creak, and the carpet concealed the sound. With the sole of one long soft-leather dress shoe, Leontiev felt for the alarm button under the table. There was the usual button that alerted building security, but there was a second one with a direct connection to the police. One more inch, just one more… He coughed a little, to distract the prosecutor from what he was doing, and finally—oh, thank God!—his foot hit the alarm button.

The call came in when they were almost back in the city. Fomin was shouting into the phone that headquarters had gotten an emergency call relaying audio from an important functionary’s office.

“I heard him ranting and raving about something!” Fomin yelled, excited. “A thin voice, like a woman’s, but it wasn’t a woman, and it was—”

“Where?” Andrey asked, cutting him off.

“The army medical office, on Znamenka Street. There’s an entrance on the Boulevard Ring.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“We’re driving over now, Captain. We’ll be there in five minutes, ten tops. It’s rush hour, you should see the fucking traffic.”

“That was part of his plan,” Andrey said quietly. “Fine, go ahead, do what you can.”

“What was he ranting about?” Masha asked Fomin. She had not missed one shouted word of the phone conversation.

“They sent me the recording,” Fomin said. “I’ll play it, you can listen.”

Andrey switched to speakerphone. At first, all they could hear was a muffled moaning.

“He gagged him,” Masha whispered.

Then there was a terrible voice, high and thin, chanting, “Here we were met by the evil spirits of the last and twentieth Torment, the station of Heartlessness and Cruelty. Cruel are the tormentors of this place, and their prince is terrible, dry and depressed of countenance. Even if a man performs the most outstanding deeds, mortifies himself by fasting, prays ceaselessly, and guards and keeps the purity of his body, if he has been merciless, then from this station he is cast down into the abyss of hell and will receive no mercy in all eternity. I sentence you, sinner, to a hasty descent into hell, by impalement.”

“Did you hear that?” It was Fomin’s voice on the line again. “Creepy, right? Okay, we’re here.”

“Stay on the line,” Andrey told him. He groped under his seat for his police lights, and without slowing down reached out the window and shoved them into place on the roof of the car. They could move faster now, but their progress was still slow, monstrously slow. Meanwhile, Fomin provided them with terse narration.

“We’re here, boss. We’re surrounding the entrance. We’re inside. We’re splitting up, one group on the stairs, the other on the elevator.”

Masha sat next to Andrey, on the edge of her seat. They could hear the pounding footsteps, then a fire-escape door opening with a creak, then more footsteps, and a pause. There was the crash of a door getting blasted open, and then—silence.

“Fomin! Are you okay?” Andrey shouted. “What do you see?”

“Oh my God,” Fomin breathed into the phone. “I’m here. We’re all okay. But this guy—”

“Ask him to describe it,” Masha whispered.

“Uhhh,” Fomin began. “There’s a man sitting in a chair. The chair’s on the table, like a monument or something. There’s, uhhh, stakes sticking out of his ribs. Like a fucking bloody porcupine, for God’s sake.”

There was a sudden burst of shouting, and Fomin’s voice filled the whole car.

“He’s alive! Get him down, he’s alive!”

Masha and Andrey sat transfixed. At the other end, they could hear chaos, chairs crashing to the floor.

“No,” someone else said. “His body was just spasming before death. Get the forensics guys over here.”

Fomin spoke up. “That’s it. He’s dead.”

“Fomin. Listen to me.” Andrey was speaking slowly, knowing that poor Fomin must be in shock. “Go down to the reception desk. Look at the list of visitors the dead man had this afternoon. Look to see when they came and when they left. Hurry! I’ll still be on the line.”

He asked Masha to use her phone to call Anyutin.

“Colonel, sir,” said Masha, her voice shaking. “We know who the Sin Collector is. It’s Nikolay Nikolayevich Katyshev.”

Anyutin coughed carefully. “Intern Karavay, forgive me, but are you feeling all right?”

But Andrey had already grabbed her phone.

“Colonel, we were at his dacha. We found everything. Maps, torture tools. There’s no doubt it’s him. I don’t have time to explain more. We’ve just found a new body. I need you to spread the word, okay? Alert all the traffic checkpoints, send SWAT teams to his home address and to his dacha.”