The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(22)

“Yes, of course.” Arkhip followed, then stopped and stepped back to the bartender. “One more question. You said the decedent was shot. How do you know this?”

The owner looked exasperated. “Because I heard the shot.”

“When you opened the door, did you see the man from the booth holding a gun?”

“Well . . . No.”

“You did not.”

“But . . . I mean I heard the gunshot, and when I opened the door Eldar was leaning against the man. Can I surmise it?”

“Certainly.” Until a good attorney tore him apart on a witness stand. Arkhip folded the cover of his spiral notebook and shoved it and his pencil back into his pocket. “You’ve been very helpful. The officer will come back and take you to Petrovka to give a statement,” he said, referring to the Criminal Investigation Department in Building 38 on Petrovka Street.

“I cannot go home?” the owner said.

“No,” Arkhip said. He turned to the officer. “The body, please.”

The officer stepped to the door at the back of the bar. Arkhip followed. As he passed the booth where the bartender had indicated the third man had sat, a still-full beer bottle remained on the table, and a crime scene investigator awaited instructions. “Make sure you secure that bottle. I want it analyzed for fingerprints and possible DNA.”

“Yes, Senior Investigator.”

Arkhip followed the officer outside. The body lay on the ground beneath a white sheet. Personnel from the medical examiner’s office huddled around it. Garbage cans near the door had been upended and piles of garbage scattered. He noticed half a pool cue on the ground. He looked for the other half and found it a good fifteen feet away. There had been a fight.

“The second pool cue,” he said.

“What’s that?” the uniformed officer asked.

“The rack on the wall is missing two cues. One was on the table. This is the second cue.”

“Okay. The body—”

“There was an altercation here.”

“Apparently.”

Arkhip spoke to the officer’s partner in the alley. “I want pictures, thorough pictures of this alley.” He pointed at the windows in the buildings surrounding the alley. “Have patrol officers canvass the people living in the apartments around this alley to determine if anyone saw or heard anything. Also have someone determine what prostitutes work this area. I want to talk to the woman who was here. Isabella.”

“Yes, Senior Investigator Mishkin,” the officer said.

Arkhip turned and looked up at the light stanchions and telephone poles. Atop a light stanchion across the street from the bar was one of Moscow’s facial recognition cameras, with four different lenses, one aimed directly at the alley. “And get me the number of that light stanchion,” Arkhip called out to the officer.

He turned to the first officer on scene. “You indicated some urgency with my seeing the body?”

“Yes.” The officer stepped to the side of the body beneath the sheet. The medical examiner handed Arkhip latex gloves, which he snapped on before squatting. The medical examiner pulled back the sheet. He had already bagged the victim’s hands to preserve any blood or bits of flesh he might have under his fingernails from the altercation. Arkhip pulled the sheet lower to view the bullet wound. A hole was just to the right of the left shoulder blade. The bullet had struck the heart, no doubt. His death instantaneous. However, the puncture hole in the shirt was round, with minimal bleeding. This was most definitely an entry wound, not an exit wound. The bartender said he saw the decedent leaning against the unknown third man but he did not see a gun. With good reason. It seemed unlikely the man shot the decedent.

“Turn him over,” Arkhip said to the two men from the medical examiner’s office. They did so, confirming what Arkhip had surmised. The exit wound was larger, more jagged, with a lot more blood. “Hmm.” He stood.

“Senior Investigator Mishkin?” the officer said. “We have confirmed the decedent’s identity.”

“Did you?” When the officer did not continue, Arkhip said, “Let’s not hide it.”

“This is Eldar Velikaya.”

“Velikaya. How do I know that name?”

“He is the son of Yekaterina Velikaya. The grandson of Alexei Velikaya.”

“The gangster.”

“Mafiya,” the officer said.

“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?” Arkhip said. “This changes everything.”





8


Yakimanka District

Moscow, Russia

Jenkins stepped into an alley that smelled of rotting garbage and urine, though that was not his focus. His focus was his appearance, and what had just happened. The bartender had opened the door to the alley. He saw the punk, shot, leaning against Jenkins. He had concluded, wrongly, but certainly understandably, that Jenkins had gone into the alley and shot the punk. The bartender could not have seen the punk’s companion, Pavil, behind the open door.

He removed his leather jacket, ripped off his bloodstained shirt, and tossed it into a garbage bin, then put back on his jacket and zipped it closed. His mind spun. He should have walked away. Every instinct in his body told him he should have walked away from the situation, but every instinct wasn’t as strong as that one pang of his conscience that wouldn’t let him watch another human being be so brazenly degraded. He could not stand by as the woman was beaten and abused. It didn’t matter that she was a prostitute. If anything, it made it all the more imperative that she be treated with sympathy. She certainly did not deserve to be mistreated by a two-bit punk.