Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [59]
What was the chief of Criminal Investigation doing with Jaak? Why was Penyagin at the Lenin’s Path Collective Farm? If it was a payoff, since when did generals collect in person? Arkady resisted the temptation to kick him back into the pit. Instead, he peeled open Penyagin’s jacket to remove the dead man’s internal passport, Ministry pass and Party card. Inside the vinyl book that held the card a list of phone numbers was pressed against the image of Lenin’s damp cheek.
The car keys in Penyagin’s pocket unlocked the Moskvitch in the garage. Under the dashboard shelf was a briefcase stuffed with the pasteboard-and-ribbon folders of Soviet officialdom: Ministry directives and memoranda, raw reports and “correct analyses,” two oranges and a ham wrapped in a copy of the Tass news digest For Official Use Only.
Arkady locked the briefcase and car, wiped his prints from the car door, replaced the keys in Penyagin’s pants and radioed from his own car for help. He returned to Jaak and emptied the detective’s pockets of keys. Two were house keys, a third was large and looked as if it had been fashioned to open a castle door. The Volvo keys were probably still in the car. Whoever put it in the pit had probably just set the car in Drive.
He walked around Jaak. Was this worth it? His entire body stung. He found himself in front of the fire, which blazed away, cartons roaring, ignoring the rain. He remembered Rudy’s words: “legal anywhere else in the world.” Kim had led them on. Jaak had come close. For what? Things were no better; they were worse. A flaming carton tumbled from the top of the pyramid, a rolling cube lit inside and out. It crashed, split and sputtered on a tide of Russian shit. “Some things never change”; Rudy had said that, too.
Arkady upended a bucket and let the water flow over his head, chest and back. Waiting for his radio call to be answered, he had built a fire in the hearth of the butchering house using cardboard and coal. Now the yard was lit like a circus with a generator truck, lamps, tow truck, fire engine and two forensic wagons, and animated by the silhouettes of Ministry troops racing back and forth in combat gear. But the only person in the butchering house with Arkady was Rodionov, the city prosecutor, who kept to the shadow beside the door. As the fire in the hearth shifted, the pig on the hook took on a restless aspect. Water spread in rays from Arkady’s feet, the runoff following the blood grooves of the floor.
“Kim and the Chechens are obviously working together,” Rodionov said. “It seems clear to me that poor Penyagin was abducted and brought here, shot either before or after he arrived, and then the detective was murdered afterwards. You agree?”
“Oh, I understand Kim killing Jaak,” Arkady said. “But why would anyone go to the bother of shooting the chief of Criminal Investigation?”
“You’ve answered your own question. Naturally they’d want to remove someone as dangerous as Penyagin.”
“Penyagin? Dangerous?”
“Some respect, please.” Rodionov glanced at the doorway.
Arkady walked to the butcher block, where a towel lay over the cast-off plain clothes that had been brought from the prosecutor’s office. His shoes and jacket were beside them. As far as he was concerned, his own clothes could be burned. He started to towel off.
“Why are there Ministry troops out here? Where’s the regular militia?”
Rodionov said, “Remember, we’re outside Moscow. We got the men who were available.”
“They certainly got here quickly, and they look like they’re available to go to war. Is there something I’m not aware of?”
“No,” Rodionov said.
“I’d like to add this to the Rosen investigation.”
“Definitely not. The killing of Penyagin is an assault on the entire structure of justice. I’m not going to tell the Central Committee that we added General Penyagin to the investigation of a common speculator. I can’t