Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery (8 page)

His eyes fell on me, zeroing in on my cameras, and a little jolt of electricity zinged down my spine. I returned his stare and gave him a dutiful smile since he was, after all, paying my salary tonight. Someone called my name, or I thought so, and I looked away. When I turned back, Vasiliev and Lara were gone. Behind me guests began pouring in through the main entrance, filling the Rotunda and overflowing into the sculpture galleries. Before long the voices reverberating off the vaulted ceilings became an indistinct, echoing roar, like the sound of the ocean inside a seashell.

I forgot about Arkady Vasiliev and his stony stare and got to work.

*

Ali found me in the Rotunda after Katya Gordon had finished her talk and guests were slowly beginning to file through the exhibit. “Luke wants to know if you need anything, whether you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.” We retreated to a spot between two enormous black marble columns where we could people-watch from the sidelines. “How’s he doing?”

“Luke? Great. He could talk you into posing standing on your head or even naked, if he wanted to. He’s real good with people.”

“I noticed.”

I’d watched him earlier, his knack for making his subjects relax, putting them at ease until they forgot he was holding a camera and began acting naturally. Changing angles as he laughed and joked, waiting patiently until he nailed the shots we were expected to get, and then diving in to try something different, more creative.

Ali leaned against one of the columns. Tonight we’d all worn black: Luke in a smart-looking Armani suit and open-neck shirt that made him look James Bondish, me in silk palazzo pants, a lace-and-silk sleeveless top, and a beaded cashmere shrug I’d bought in Paris, and Ali in a low-cut concoction straight off the cover of a 1950s pulp novel where some red-lipped sultry-eyed dame vamped below the caption “She Always Gets Her Man.” We’d both pulled our hair back in ponytails—my reason was practical, to keep it off my face while I was working, but Ali had curled her hair and wore pretty tortoiseshell combs that only added to her sexy, flirty look.

“Do you know if Senator Hathaway has arrived yet?” I asked her. “I saw his wife but not him.”

“Moses told Luke that Hathaway’s going to be late because the Senate’s still in session.”

“That could be good news. Maybe he’ll miss Ambassador Orlov. Whom I saw a few minutes ago, by the way. He looks like he ate something that gave him heartburn.”

“I’ll tell you what’s giving him heartburn,” Ali said. “Arkady Vasiliev. Not feeling the love when those two are standing next to each other. You can tell Orlov’s in a real snit to be playing second fiddle to Vasiliev. The more he drinks the louder he gets.”

“How much has he had to drink?”

“Enough to float an ocean liner, that’s how much,” she said. “Speaking of ocean liners, I met Lara Gordon. Can you imagine what it’s like to be the girlfriend of a guy as rich as Vasiliev? He owns seven houses and three yachts. Not even yachts. They really are ocean liners. They flew over here in his Airbus. It’s like a flying palace.”

She sounded wistful.

“Hey, he owns the houses and boats and jet,” I said. “She’s just using them until he moves on to the next girlfriend. He left his wife, you know. And kids.”

“How can you be so unromantic?”

“Easy. There’s a difference between love and lust. And there’s no guarantee her fairy tale will have a happy ending.”

“You think he doesn’t love her?”

“I don’t know. He probably does today. But she’s young enough to be his daughter. And I think someone like Arkady Vasiliev believes everything and everyone is expendable.”

“He does seem sort of like a mafioso kind of guy, doesn’t he?” She started humming the theme from
The Godfather
under her breath.

I shushed her and we both started to giggle.

“Well, I could see him committing murder if someone got on his bad side.” Ali grabbed onto the column and peeked at Vasiliev. As she swung around, she knocked into a waiter carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres. He lost his footing and the tray and dishes sounded like crashing cymbals as everything hit the marble floor. The noise caused a momentary lull in the conversation as heads swiveled to see what had happened and then the buzz started up again.

Ali’s hand flew to her mouth. “What a klutz I am . . . I’m so sorry.”

The waiter gave Ali a perfunctory smile and mumbled “It’s okay” as a barrel-chested bartender who had been serving drinks at a bar in the Constitution Avenue lobby came over to help retrieve skewers of grilled scallops, dishes of wasabi, and sesame-encrusted crab cakes.

Ali and I started to help, but the bartender, who brought a rag to wipe the floor, waved us away as the waiter picked up the destroyed tray and disappeared.

“Don’t worry,” the bartender said. “At least it wasn’t a tray full of drinks. We’ll take care of it.”

Ali threw me a guilty look and said, “Guess I’d better get back to Luke.”

“Try not to run into anyone else on the way,” I said.

She grinned. “What I’m really hoping is I run into a rich Russian sugar daddy who’ll invite me to live on his ocean liner.”

“Just don’t spill his drink on him.”

Ali winked and flashed me a radiant smile. Then she sashayed into the crowd and was gone.

*

Ali wasn’t the one who found a rich Russian: I was. Rather, he found me. I walked into the Founders’ Room, where a half dozen of the more elderly, fragile guests had taken refuge from the crowds and were sitting on the sofa and club chairs surrounding the fireplace. I was in the midst of photographing a group who were standing under the portrait of Andrew Mellon when a man in a dark suit who’d been shadowing Vasiliev tapped me on the shoulder.

“Mr. Vasiliev would like a word with you,” he said in careful English. “Now, if you please.”

He’d phrased it like an invitation, though I knew it wasn’t.

“Why me?”

“That is for Mr. Vasiliev to say. Follow me.”

I knew where we were going: to the caviar-and-serious-booze conference room. Vasiliev’s bodyguard led me to the cloakroom and knew the secret panel to push that opened the door to the back corridor. As soon as I stepped inside the conference room he closed the door, leaving me alone with Arkady Vasiliev, who sat at the far end of the table speaking staccato Russian into his mobile phone. Vasiliev held up a finger to signal he’d be only a minute and pointed to the caviar and well-stocked bar. I gave him a polite smile and shook my head. No drinking on the job.

I stood, since he hadn’t indicated I should sit, and waited until he finished his conversation. I can’t read or write Russian, but I’d heard Nick speak the language often enough to pick up a few words. Unfortunately I had no idea what Vasiliev was talking about, though it sounded like he was trying to placate someone. He took off his glasses and rubbed his fingers across his forehead as he repeated, “
Nichevo, nichevo.
” An all-purpose word that meant whatever you wanted it to mean: “Don’t worry about it” or “It’s nothing.”

Vasiliev finally ended the conversation and set his phone next to him, folding his hands together and steepling his fingers. “Please take a seat.”

I put my cameras on the table, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat.

“You are Sophie Medina?”

“Yes.”

The boyish cockiness on display when he’d been standing with Lara Gordon in the Rotunda was gone, replaced by a grim-faced businessman. Vasiliev picked up his glasses and put them on. “Also the wife of Nicholas Canning?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?” Asked in a nonthreatening way.

I decided to take him literally. “Taking photographs of your reception. I’m a professional photographer.”

The veneer of courtesy disappeared. “That is not what I meant. You are a professional photographer who only became employed by Mr. Santangelo and Focus Photography last week.”

I wondered how long he planned to keep asking questions when he appeared to know the answers, but I wasn’t going to tell him anything I didn’t have to. “That’s correct.”

“You knew Mr. Santangelo had been hired to work here tonight.”

This time I couldn’t figure out if he actually knew the answer or if he was fishing for information.

“My former boss in London is an old friend of Luke’s. He recommended me for a job at Focus when I decided to move home to Washington,” I said.

Vasiliev sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. His fingers were short and square, the nails manicured, but his hands looked like they had the brute strength to crush things and break them.

“You did not answer the question.”

“I’m a photojournalist, Mr. Vasiliev. I used to work for a news agency that sent me all over the world covering wars, politicians, natural disasters, you name it. No disrespect, but this is pretty tame stuff for me. Perry, my former boss, told me about the Romanov exhibit at the National Gallery and your reception,” I said. “He thought it might make the position at Focus seem more appealing since your . . . since my husband saw the Fabergé eggs at your house in Belgravia not long after you acquired them. You invited him . . . us . . . to a party.”

That surprised him. “You have been to my home?”

“No, I was in Germany covering a G-8 summit that weekend. But Nick went, as I said.”

Vasiliev picked up his phone, turning it over and over while he considered my answer. “Where is your husband, Ms. Medina?”

Nick used to say that it wasn’t lying if you stopped talking when you got to the end of what you knew was true. “I have no idea. His body was never found after he was abducted from our home.”

Vasiliev tossed the phone on the table. It landed with a clatter as he leaned back in his chair. “Of course it wasn’t. How could it be, when he’s still alive?”

Who told him that? Did he
know
—how could he? Or was he baiting me again? It felt as though the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

I chose my words carefully. “I haven’t heard from him since the day he vanished.”

Vasiliev looked incredulous. “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe whatever you like. It’s true.”

He made a clicking sound of disapproval with his tongue. “Come, come, Sophie, don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not.”

“But you know he’s alive, do you not?”

I forced myself to say, “He would have gotten in touch with me.”

Vasiliev studied his manicure. “If it’s true that you haven’t heard from him, perhaps he has no wish to be in touch with you. Maybe he has met someone new, another woman. Or maybe he has simply grown tired of you.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face, a taunt.

I kept my face perfectly composed. “You’re wrong. Not Nick. He would never do something like that. My husband loved me.”

“If he loved you, he would find a way to let you know that he is alive, that he is okay.”

Vasiliev was going to pursue this ruthlessly, wear me down and play mind games that made me doubt Nick’s love and fidelity. As long as I didn’t take his bait, I’d be okay.

“If he’s not alive, he couldn’t get in touch with me, could he? And if he is alive, there was a lot of blood in the car in the mountains, Mr. Vasiliev,” I said. “Maybe he’s sick or injured. There are a lot of reasons why I wouldn’t have heard from him . . . maybe he just can’t.”

“You are a clever woman,” he said. “But I believe you are lying.”

I’d had enough and now I snapped at him. “Mr. Vasiliev, do
you
know that my husband is alive? Do you know where he is? Because if you do, I’d be interested in knowing myself.”

He leaned forward and there was a razor edge of menace in his tone. “I am going to tell you something. If Crowne Energy discovered oil in Abadistan, that oil belongs to
Russia,
do you understand? It is
ours
. That means we need to have all data, all reports concerning what they found, whether it was a producer, what yield they expected. Now that Crowne Energy has abandoned their facility, I want that information.”

The well logs.

Of course he wanted them. He owned Arkneft, the largest oil production company in Russia. As for his patriotic claim that any oil that had been discovered belonged to Russia, what he really meant was:
It’s mine.

“Crowne Energy didn’t abandon their facility.” I held my ground. “The Shaika moved in and disrupted their work, extorted money from my husband and his boss, and intimidated their workers.”

Vasiliev glared at me. “You do not know what you are talking about. Listen to what I am telling you. I will pay for those documents. I will pay well.”

“I don’t know anything about any documents,” I said.

“I doubt that is true.” Vasiliev stood up and I felt the chill emanating from him, and his anger. “But I know your husband does.”

As he walked by me, heading for the door, he leaned down and said, “Do not underestimate me, Sophie, and don’t fool yourself that I believed your little charade just now, either. I will get those logs by whatever means it takes. Right now, I am willing to do it the easy way, so everyone wins. But I am not a patient man. Remember that.”

I didn’t look up or acknowledge him. But I did jump, as I suspect he intended me to do, when he slammed the door on his way out. The noise sounded like a gunshot.

Then silence.

6

I was still sitting at the conference table when the connecting door to Seth’s office opened a crack. A second later it swung completely open and Ali stood there gripping the doorknob with both hands.

She’d heard. By the scared look on her face, she’d heard all of it. If Vasiliev found out she’d been eavesdropping, if he even suspected she’d been in the next room . . .

“Ali,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice, “how long have you been here?”

“Are you okay, Sophie?” she asked. “What was that all about?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Answer my question.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He didn’t know I was here.”

“How much did you hear?”

She shrugged. “Everything. The walls between these rooms are pretty thin.”