Martin Smith: Stalin’s Ghost

“Started like a honeymoon.” Urman grinned.

Isakov said, “It appears that they could drink vodka faster than they could make it.”

“At the end they were fighting over the last drop of alcohol in the house. Both so drunk they can barely stand. He starts hitting her…”

“Apparently one thing led to another.”

“She slices him between the sixth and seventh vertebrae and right through the spinal cord. Instantaneous!”

The cleaver had been dusted with gray powder and the ghostly print of a palm and fingers was wrapped around the handle.

“Does he have a name?” Arkady asked.

“Kuznetsov,” said Isakov. Selecting a professional tone, he commiserated with Arkady. “So you got stuck with Stalin’s ghost.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Chasing a phantom through the Metro? Urman and I prefer ordinary cases with real bodies.”

“Well, I envy you.” Which hardly told the whole story, but Arkady thought he was controlling his bitterness fairly well. He stole a glance at the clock: 4:56. His watch said 5:05. “I had a question about the phantom, as you put it. I was wondering, did either of you search the subway platform?”

“No.”

“Open any maintenance gates or doors?”

“No.”

“Why did you let the platform conductor leave the station?” It came out more brusquely than Arkady had intended.

“That’s more than one question. Because the conductor didn’t see anything.” Isakov was patient. “People who weren’t crazy, we let go.”

“What else, besides seeing Stalin, did they say or do that was crazy?”

Urman said, “Seeing Stalin, that’s crazy enough.”

“Did you get the number of the car?”

“Number?”

“Every car in the Metro has a four-digit number. I’d like to see that car. Did you get the name of the driver of the train?”

Isakov was categorical. “We were ordered to ride the last car, whatever its number was, and observe. We were not told what to watch for or at which station or to get the driver’s name. When we pulled into the Chistye Prudy stop we saw nothing and heard nothing unusual until people started to shout. I don’t know who shouted first. As instructed, we separated the positive witnesses from the rest of the passengers and held them until we were called out on this case.”

The forensic team announced that they were finished with the kitchen and moving to the bathroom, where shiny surfaces beckoned.

Arkady waited until the techs had passed before saying, “Your report was a little sketchy.”

“The prosecutor didn’t want an official report,” Isakov said.

Urman was puzzled. “Why all the fucking questions? We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”

Don’t complicate things, Arkady told himself. This wasn’t his case. Get out of the apartment.

A whimper sounded from another room.

“Who is that?”

“It’s the wife.”

“She’s here?”

“In the bedroom. Take a look, but watch where you step.”

Arkady went down a hall littered with newspapers, pizza boxes and KFC tubs to a bedroom where the squalor was deep enough it seemed to float. A redheaded woman in a housedress was handcuffed to the bed. She rose out of an alcoholic stupor, legs and arms spread, hands in plastic bags. An array of blood spots covered the front of her dress. Arkady pushed up her sleeves. Her flesh was slack but by a comparison of forearms she was right-handed.

“How do you feel?”

“They took the dragon.”

“They took what?”

“It’s our dragon.”

“You have a dragon?”

The mental effort was too much and she sank back into incoherence.

He returned to the kitchen.

“Someone took her dragon.”

“We heard it was elephants,” Urman said.

“Why is she still here?”

Isakov said, “Waiting for an ambulance. She already confessed. We hoped she could reenact the crime for the video camera.”

“She should be seen by a doctor and in a cell. Save the housedress. How long have you two been detectives in Moscow?”

“A year.” Urman had lost his good humor.

“You moved over to detective level direct from the Black Berets? From Hostage Rescue to Criminal Investigation?”

“Maybe they bent the rules for Captain Isakov,” Urman said. “Why the fuss? We have a murder and a confession. It’s two plus two, right?”

“With one swing. She must have had a steady hand,” Arkady said.

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Do you mind?” Arkady stepped behind the dead man for a different perspective. One arm still stretched out for the glass. Without touching, Arkady studied the wrist for bruising from, say, being clamped down by a stronger man while a blow was struck.

Urman said, “I’ve heard about you, Renko. People say you like to stick your dick in. We didn’t have time for people like you in the Black Berets. Second guessers. What are you looking for now?”

“Resistance.”

“To what? Do you see any bruises?”

“Did you try a UV scan?”

“What is this shit?”

“Marat.” Isakov shook his head. “Marat, the investigator is only asking questions born of experience. There’s no reason to be taking it personally. He’s not.” He asked as if making sure, “You’re not taking this personally are you, Renko?”

“No.”

Isakov didn’t smile, but he did seem amused. “Now, Renko, you’ll have to excuse us if we work our own case our own way. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Why were you so certain the glass held vodka? Did you just assume it?”

There was still some in the glass. Urman dipped his first and middle fingers and licked them. He dipped the fingers a second time and offered them to Arkady. “You can suck them if you want.”

Arkady ignored Urman and asked Isakov, “So you’re satisfied what you have here is an ordinary domestic homicide due to vodka, snow and cabin fever?”

“And love,” Isakov said. “The wife says she loved him. Most dangerous words in the world.”

“So you think love leads to murder,” Arkady said.

“Let’s hope not.”

Snow packed on the windshield. At five minutes before the Metro doors opened, Arkady didn’t have time to stop and brush the wipers clear, but he decided that as long as he followed taillights he was on the right side of the road and headed into Three Stations, as everyone called Komsomol Square for the railroad stations gathered there. Traffic lights swung, lenses packed with red and green snow. Leningrad Station’s Italian pomp, Yaroslavsky Station’s golden crown, Kazan Station’s oriental gate: the windshield wipers smeared them together.

Arkady left his car in a snow drift in front of Kazan Station. A few passengers had already come out to search for taxis. Most arrivals streamed next door toward the Metro: oilmen from the Urals, businessmen from Kazan, a ballet troupe returning home, day trippers with caviar to trade, families with small children and huge suitcases, commuters and budget tourists following a dim path of half-smothered streetlamps. They hurried in the steam of their breath, hats pulled low, bags and packages tightly clutched, perhaps more eager to leave than arrive someplace else. Snow had driven away the usual pimps and Gypsies and wholesome country women who sold their poisonous homemade brew and drunks who gathered empty vodka bottles to pay for new. A hazardous undertaking. The year before, five bottle scavengers had their throats slit in and around Three Stations. For bottles. Until the Metro doors opened, people would be pressed against a dead end in the dark. There were militia officers assigned to outdoor posts; they were inside the train station checking tickets and fighting Chechen terrorism where it was warm.