The Silent Sisters (Charles Jenkins #3)(42)

What he liked, especially since Lada’s death, was being kept busy and active. If he was going to be forced into a retirement he did not want, he would go his way, with a perfect record. To do that he needed to locate this man, Charles Jenkins, and find out what had actually happened.

And he would.

Maybe not as fast as some, but he didn’t fancy himself the hare anyway. He was the turtle. Slow and steady. He’d close this file.

He always did.





18


Velikaya Estate

Novorizhskoye, Russia

Mily Karlov waited patiently in Yekaterina Velikaya’s garden, holding a laptop computer. Her father had never showed any interest in the plants and the flowers. As with most things, Alexei Velikaya paid someone to take care of the garden. Yekaterina’s love of flowers came from her mother, who had spent hours planting and pruning and consulting with some of Moscow’s more prominent master gardeners. The gardens had been highlighted in countless magazines and newspaper articles and had won multiple awards.

Yekaterina ended all of that.

She would never allow her gardens to be featured in any magazine or newspaper articles. She did not garden for the accolades or the prestige. She gardened for the peace and the solitude. Yekaterina was an unwilling celebrity. She had never just been Yekaterina. She had been Alexei Velikaya’s daughter, constantly surrounded by bodyguards whenever she left the compound to do anything: visit a friend, go to a birthday party, attend school. She never knew real life as a child. As an adult, she rarely went out to dinner, rarely attended social functions, not even for the charities to which she gave lavishly. The garden was the one outdoor place she could go on her own, where she could find solitude amid her Beauty of Moscow lilacs, roses, chrysanthemums, and orchids.

Mily respected her privacy—particularly given what had happened to her father and grandfather and now, perhaps, to her son. Was it also a government bullet this third time, a not-so-subtle message, perhaps, to keep Yekaterina in her place? She was head of the most powerful crime family in Moscow, and her business acumen only increased her wealth and her power each year. Was this a shot across the bow, a warning, or something else entirely?

Mily had no doubt about one thing. Yekaterina would find out.

With his help.

Mily had done what she had asked, what he had always done. He had gathered information, and he had spun it to reflect the best interests of the family. Guns and bullets could kill, but information could destroy. You controlled information two ways. One was to pay for it. The other was far less expensive but required far more effort. The Yakimanka bartender took the first option. Mily figured he would, given the condition of the bar. If called as a witness, he would recall Eldar and Pavil Ismailov arriving to play pool in his bar with the prostitute, but claim the prostitute left on her own, or that he did not see her go out the back door with the two men. The investigator, Arkhip Mishkin, would dispute this, but what evidence did he have to do so? The CCTV video of the alley would have supported Mishkin, but no longer. And the medical examiner’s report would fit nicely into the story Yekaterina wished to portray. The prostitute and Pavil would also not support him.

The only wild card was the third man and, therefore, who could get to him first.

Mily turned at the sound of footsteps crunching the red gravel. Yekaterina approached with her eyes turned to her meticulous flower beds. Though it was dusk, the garden was well lit. Yekaterina carried a bucket of gardening tools and several plastic flats with sprouting plants nourished in one of her hothouses. She walked to a patch of plants that had died, knelt, and slipped on gardening gloves.

“What did you learn?” She pulled up the dead plants and shook the soil from their roots.

Mily recounted all that he had done. The prostitute, Pavil Ismailov, the CCTV tape and the medical examiner’s report, the bartender’s recollection. As he spoke, Yekaterina pulled several plants from their plastic containers and placed them in holes she had dug in the soil. Mily handed her the watering jug.

“The only loose end is this third man,” Mily concluded.

“What do you know about him?”

“The bartender described him as big. Almost two meters and 100 to 105 kilograms. He wore a leather coat, but the bartender said he was well built. Gray hair, mottled skin. The bartender said he would guess early to midsixties.”

She turned her head and looked up at Mily, as he thought she might. “And he took down Pavil and Eldar? Show me the video?” She sat back on her calves and removed her gloves, offering Mily her hand. He helped her to her feet.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to just tell you what happened, Comare?”

She shook her head. “Play it.”

Mily flipped open the laptop and hit the “Play” button on the keyboard. He handed her the computer.

Yekaterina did not use a computer—not a desktop nor a laptop. She did not use an iPad or a cellular phone. She did not use technology. It was too easily hacked, especially by the government. She learned from her father to conduct all her business orally and with a firm handshake. Her papers for her legitimate businesses were kept in a sealed, fireproof vault in the basement. The house had been fitted with devices to disrupt and jam directional microphones, as were her cars. Her business was her business. No one else’s.

Mily stepped back to provide her with privacy.

“Did the bartender say whether Eldar or Pavil had been abusive to the prostitute inside the bar?”