Authors: Sam Eastland
Pekkala dropped a coin into his palm.
The caretaker folded the coin into his fist and smiled. Men like these had a reputation for being the most enthusiastic informants in the city. It was a running joke that more people had been sent to Siberia for failing to tip caretakers on their birthdays than ever went away for crimes against the state.
“Maximov is here,” said the manager at the garage, a broad-faced man with thick black hair and a mustache gone yellowy-gray. “At least half of him is.”
“What do you mean?” asked Kirov.
“All we ever see of him is his legs. The rest of him is always under the hood of his car. Whenever he’s not on the job, you’ll find him working on that machine.”
The two investigators walked through the garage, whose floor was dingy black from years of spilled motor oil soaked into the concrete, and emerged into a graveyard of old motor parts, the husks of stripped-down cars, cracked tires driven bald, and the cobra-like hoods of transmissions ripped from their engine compartments.
At the far end, just as the manager had said, stood half of
Maximov. He was naked to the waist and stooped over the engine of Nagorski’s car. The hood angled above him like the jaws of a huge animal, and Pekkala was reminded of stories he’d heard about crocodiles which opened their mouths to let little birds clean their teeth.
“Maximov,” said Pekkala.
At the mention of his name, Maximov spun around. He squinted into the bright light, but it was a moment before he recognized Pekkala. “Inspector,” he said. “What brings you here?”
“I have been thinking about something you said to me the other day.”
“It seems to me that I said many things,” replied Maximov, wiping an oily rag along the fuel relay hoses which curved like the arcs of seagull wings from the gray steel of the cylinder head.
“One thing in particular sticks in my mind. You said that you had not been able to defend Nagorski on the day he was killed, but I’m wondering if he might have been able to defend himself. Isn’t it true that Nagorski never went anywhere without a gun?”
“And where did you hear that, Pekkala?” Maximov worked the cloth in under his nails, digging out the dirt.
“From Professor Zalka.”
“Zalka! That troublemaker? Where did you dig that bastard up?”
“Did Nagorski carry a gun or not?” asked Pekkala. A coldness had entered his voice.
“Yes, he had a gun,” admitted Maximov. “Some German thing called a PPK.”
“What caliber weapon is that?” asked Pekkala.
“It’s a 7.62,” replied Maximov.
Kirov leaned over to Pekkala and whispered, “The cartridge we found in the pit was a 7.62.”
“What’s this all about?” asked Maximov.
“On the day I brought Nagorski in for questioning,” said
Kirov, “he handed you a gun before he left the restaurant. Was that the PPK you just mentioned?”
“That’s right. He gave it to me for safekeeping. He was afraid it would be confiscated if you put him under arrest.”
“Where is that gun now?”
Maximov laughed and turned to face his interrogator. “Let me ask you this. That day in the restaurant, did you see what he was eating?”
“Yes,” replied Kirov. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“And did you see what I was eating?”
“A salad, I think. A small salad.”
“Exactly!” Maximov’s voice had risen to a shout. “Twice a week, Nagorski went to Chicherin’s place for lunch and I had to sit there with him, because no one else would, not even his wife, and he didn’t like to eat alone. But he wouldn’t think to buy me lunch. I had to pay for it myself, and of course I can’t afford Chicherin’s prices. The cost of that one salad is more than I spend on all my food on an average day. And half the time Nagorski didn’t even pay for what he ate. Now do you think a man like that would hand over something as expensive as an imported German gun and not ask for it back the first chance that he got?”
“Answer the question,” said Pekkala. “Did you return Nagorski’s gun to him or not?”
“After you had finished questioning Nagorski, he called and ordered me to meet him outside the Lubyanka. And the first words he spoke when he got inside the car were, ‘Give me back my gun.’ And that’s exactly what I did.” Angrily, Maximov threw the dirty rag onto the engine. “I know what you’re asking me, Inspector. I know where your questions are going. It may be my fault Nagorski is dead, because I wasn’t there to help him when he needed me. If you want to arrest me for that, go ahead. But there’s something you two don’t seem to understand, which is that my
responsibility was not just to Colonel Nagorski. It was to his wife and Konstantin as well. I tried to be a father to that boy when his own father was nowhere to be found, and no matter how poorly the colonel treated me, I would never have done anything to hurt him, because of what it would have done to the rest of his family.”
“All right, Maximov,” said Pekkala. “Let’s assume you gave him back the gun. Was Zalka correct when he said Nagorski never went anywhere without it?”
“As far as I know, that’s the truth,” answered Maximov. “Why are you asking me this?”
“The gun wasn’t on Nagorski’s body when we found him.”
“It might have fallen out of his pocket. It’s probably still lying in the mud.”
“The pit was searched,” said Kirov. “No gun was found.”
“Don’t you see?” Maximov reached up, hooked his fingers over the end of the car hood, and brought it down with a crash. “This is all Zalka’s doing! He’s just trying to stir things up. Even though the colonel is dead, Zalka’s still jealous of the man.”
“There was one other thing he told us, Maximov. He said you were once an assassin for the Tsar.”
“Zalka can go to hell,” growled Maximov.
“Is it true?”
“What if it is?” he snapped. “We’ve all done things we wouldn’t mind forgetting.”
“And Nagorski knew about this when he hired you to be his bodyguard?”
“Of course he did,” said Maximov. “That’s the reason he hired me. If you want to stop a man from killing you, the best thing to do is find a killer of your own.”
“And you have no idea where Nagorski’s gun could be now?” asked Pekkala.
Maximov grabbed his shirt, which was lying on top of an
empty fuel drum. He pulled it over his head. His big hands struggled with the little mother-of-pearl buttons. “I have no idea, Inspector. Unless it’s in the pocket of the man who murdered Nagorski, you’ll probably find it at his house.”
“All right,” said Pekkala. “I’ll search the Nagorski residence later today. Until that gun turns up, Maximov, you are the last one known to have had it in his possession. You understand what that means?”
“I do,” replied the bodyguard. “It means that unless you find that gun, I’m probably going to end up taking the blame for a murder I did not commit.” He turned to Kirov. “That ought to make you happy, Major. You’ve been looking for an excuse to arrest me ever since the day Nagorski was killed. So why don’t you just go ahead?” He thrust out his arms, hands placed side by side, palms up, ready for the handcuffs. “Whatever happened, or didn’t happen, you’ll bend the truth to fit your version of events.”
Kirov stepped towards him, red in the face with anger. “You realize I could arrest you for what you just said?”
“Which proves my point!” shouted Maximov.
“Enough!” barked Pekkala. “Both of you! Just stay where we can find you, Maximov.”
P
EKKALA WENT BY HIMSELF TO THE
N
AGORSKI HOUSE
. T
HE SAME
guard let him in at the entrance gate of the facility.
Before turning down the road which led to Nagorski’s dacha, Pekkala stopped his car outside the main facility building. Inside, he found Gorenko sitting on a bullet-riddled oil drum, thumbing through a magazine. The scientist’s shoes were off and his bare feet rested in the sand which had poured out of the barrel.
When he saw Pekkala, Gorenko looked up and smiled. “Hello, Inspector!”
“No work today?” asked Pekkala.
“Work is done!” replied Gorenko. “Only two hours ago, a man arrived to transport our prototype T-34 to the factory at Stalingrad.”
“I didn’t realize that the prototype was ready.”
“It’s close enough. It’s like I said, Inspector. There’s a difference between excellence and perfection. There will always be more things to do, but Moscow obviously felt it was time to begin mass production.”
“How did Ushinsky take it?”
“He hasn’t come in yet. Being the perfectionist that he is, I doubt he will be very pleased. If he starts talking crazy again, I’ll send him straight to you, Inspector, and you can sort him out.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Pekkala. “In the meantime, Professor, the reason I’m here is that I’m trying to find out about a gun belonging to Colonel Nagorski. It was a small pistol of German manufacture. Apparently he carried it with him all the time.”
“I know it,” said Gorenko. “He didn’t have a holster for the thing, so he used to keep the gun in the pocket of his tunic, rattling around with his spare change.”
“Do you know where it came from? Where he got it?”
“Yes,” replied Gorenko. “It was a gift from a German general named Guderian. Guderian was a tank officer during the war. He wrote a book about tank warfare. Nagorski used to keep it by his bedside. The two of them met when the German army put on a display of armor in ’36. Dignitaries from all over the world were invited to watch. Nagorski was very impressed. He met Guderian when he was there. Obviously, the two of them had plenty in common. Before Nagorski returned home, Guderian gave him that pistol as a gift. Nagorski always said he hoped we’d never have to fight them.”
“Thank you, Professor.” Pekkala walked to the door. Then he turned back to Gorenko. “What will you do now?” he asked.
Gorenko gave him a sad smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “I
suppose this is what it is like when you have children and they grow up and leave the house. You just have to get used to the quiet.”
A few minutes later, Pekkala pulled up to the Nagorski house.
Mrs. Nagorski was sitting on the porch. She wore a short brown corduroy jacket with the same mandarin collar as a Russian soldier’s tunic and a faded pair of blue canvas trousers of the type worn by factory workers. Her hair was covered by a white headscarf, decorated along the edges with red and blue flowers.
She looked as if she’d been expecting someone else.
Pekkala got out of the car and nodded hello. “I am sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Nagorski.”
“I thought you were the guards, come to throw me out of my house.”
“Why would they do that?”
“The question, Inspector, is why wouldn’t they, now that my husband is gone?”
“Well, I have not come to throw you out,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“Then what brings you here?” she asked. “Have you brought me some answers?”
“No,” replied Pekkala, “I have only brought questions for now.”
“Well,” she said, rising to her feet, “you had better come inside and ask them, hadn’t you?”
Once they were inside the dacha, she offered him a place in one of two chairs which faced the fireplace. Wedged under the iron grating was a bundle of twigs wrapped in newspaper, and balanced on the blackened iron bars of the grate stood a tidy pyramid of logs.
“You can light that,” she said, and handed him a box of matches. “I’ll get us something to eat.”
As he struck a match and held it to the edges of the newspaper,
Pekkala watched the blue glow spread and the printed words crumble into darkness.
On the hearth she laid a plate with slices of bread fanned out like a deck of cards. Beside it, she placed a small bowl made of tin which was heaped with flakes of sea salt, like the scales of tiny fish. Then she sat down in the chair beside him.
“Well, Inspector,” she said, “have you learned anything at all since we last spoke?”
Her bluntness did not surprise him, and at this moment Pekkala was grateful for it. He reached down and picked up a piece of bread. He dipped a corner of it in the flakes of salt and took a bite. “I believe that your husband was killed with his own gun.”
“That thing he carried in his pocket?”
“Yes,” he replied with his mouth full, “and I am wondering if you know where it is.”
She shook her head. “He used to put it on the bedside table at night. It was his most prized possession. It’s not there now. He must have had it with him when he died.”
“There’s nowhere else it could be?”
“My husband was precise in his habits, Inspector. The gun was either in his pocket or on that table. He didn’t like not knowing where things were.”
“Did your husband have any meetings scheduled on the day he was killed?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t have told me if he did, unless it meant that he would be coming home late, and he didn’t say anything about that.”
“So he did not talk about his work with you.”
She waved her hand towards the T-34 blueprints plastered across the walls. “It was a combination of him not wanting to talk and me not wanting to listen.”
“When he left here on that day, was he alone?” asked Pekkala.
“Yes.”
“Maximov did not drive him?”
“My husband usually walked to the facility. It had started out sunny, so he set off on foot. It’s only about a twenty-minute walk and the only exercise he ever took.”
“Was there anything unusual about the day?”
“No. We had an argument, but there’s nothing unusual about that.”
“What was it about, this argument?”
“It was Konstantin’s birthday. The argument started when I told my husband that he shouldn’t be spending the whole day at work when he should have stayed home with his son on his birthday. Once we started shouting at each other, Konstantin got up and left the house.”
“And where did your son go?”
“Fishing. That’s where he usually goes to get away from us. He is old enough now that he does not have to tell us where he’s going. I wasn’t worried, and later I saw him out in his boat. That’s where he was when you arrived with Maximov.”
“I assume he can’t go into the forest because of the traps.”
“There are no traps here, only in the woods surrounding the facility. He’s perfectly safe around the house.”