Red Ink by Greg Dinallo Read Free Book Online Page B

mile from here as the crow flies; but the railroad tracks and Ring Road triple the distance. Yesterday’s icy drizzle has turned into stinging sleet. There isn’t a cab in sight. I hunch down into my parka and head south toward Uspenskiy, a narrow street behind the Hotel Minsk that winds east toward Petrovka.
    About a half hour later, I’m at No. 38. I’m not sure whether it’s because Shevchenko put my name on the list of approved visitors, or the red-cheeked sentry is anxious to return to hisshack, but I’m cleared through the gate without incident. A sergeant at the desk in the lobby explains Shevchenko isn’t in yet and directs me to a waiting area.
    I shake the sleet from my parka, light a cigarette, and begin pacing. The revolving door spits out a steady stream of shivering employees. I’m grinding my fifth Ducat into the terrazzo when Shevchenko arrives. He spots me out of the corner of his eye and makes a beeline for the corridor that leads to the elevators.
    “Investigator Shevchenko?!” I call out, vaulting a low partition to intercept him.
    “Katkov, please.”
    “I thought we had a deal?!” I protest, purposely raising my voice. Everyone within earshot reacts. He stops and looks around uncomfortably. “Well?!” I prompt in a tense whisper.
    “Had is the operative word,” he replies through clenched teeth, directing me into an anteroom off the lobby. “I had something at stake too, remember?”
    “Until somebody promised you more!”
    “Not true. I’m as pissed off as you are, Katkov. This was the best shot at chief I’ve ever had.” He slaps his briefcase on the table and goes about removing his trench coat.
    “Come on. Who got to you?”
    “Nobody. This reporter from Pravda was here when Vorontsov’s daughter showed up to ID her father. He—”
    “I know. His name’s Drevnya. You should have told him to take a hike!”
    “And violate his rights?!” Shevchenko exclaims, pretending he’s shocked. “Really, you’re the last person I’d expect to suggest that. Of course, there was a time I could’ve locked him up and thrown away the key. But times have changed. Haven’t they?”
    “I don’t think Vera Fedorenko would agree. Do you?!”
    “Fedorenko . . . Fedorenko,” he repeats, needling me. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Was there something else you—”
    “Pravda ’s obit said Vorontsov’s valuables were stolen. You and I both know they weren’t. Now, I want to know, what was?”
    His jaw sets and his eyes sharpen with a warning. “Off the record.”

    An exasperated groan comes from deep inside me. “Off the record.”
    “His medals. He was killed for his medals.”
    “His medals?”
    “Yes, they’re solid gold, highly prestigious, and worth a small fortune on the black market. Somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty million rubles. The killer didn’t want to tear them from Vorontsov’s jacket and risk damaging them. So he—”
    “He?!”
    “Or she,” he concedes indulgently, “dragged the body behind the wall, where, without risk of being seen, they could be removed with care. That piece fits rather neatly now, wouldn’t you say?”
    “What about the time discrepancy? That fits rather neatly now, too?”
    “Perfectly. Vorontsov didn’t spend an hour or two shopping, because he didn’t have to take a number and wait in a queue. He bypassed it completely because he was wearing the right medals.”
    “Come on, that protocol crap went out with the apparatchiks. Nobody gives a damn about medals anymore.”
    “I beg to differ. You’re familiar with the names Krichevsky, Komar, and Usov?”
    “The poor bastards who were killed in Red Square, protesting the coup. Yes, I am. I was there. Where were you? Cheering on the conspirators?”
    “The point is, your buddy Boris-don’t-call-me-an-apparatchik-Yeltsin—free-marketeer and champion of democracy, mind you—awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union to each of them posthumously.”
    “An acceptable lapse in