Murder Under Cover (10 page)

As he’d promised, Derek returned home a few minutes after the cops arrived and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. Despite my best intentions, I’d been anxious to have him be present while the police were here. I simply wasn’t at the top of my game this time around, probably because it was Robin who was the chief suspect. The situation shook me, and I found myself depending on Derek to run interference. He didn’t seem to mind at all, but my dependence on him was starting to annoy me. Damsels in distress could get boring really fast.

I offered the inspectors coffee and they both accepted, so everyone hung out around the kitchen bar while the coffee brewed.

“Derek thought you might be handing the case over to the Department of Homeland Security,” I said.

“I may have spoken too soon,” Lee admitted. “Our guy might not have been here illegally, like the feds first thought. According to Ms. Tully here, he attended school at Berkeley, so he might’ve been in the U.S. ever since. We’re still checking records. Depending on his status, we may keep the case or we may have to pass it along.”

“Does that happen a lot, where you trade off cases with the DHS?”

“Once in a while.” She leaned a hip against the edge of the bar. “DHS covers a lot of ground. Lately, we’ve mostly been trading off immigration cases with ICE.”

I nodded knowingly as I pulled five mugs from the cupboard. I watched
Law & Order
, so I knew that ICE was Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Coffee’s ready.”

“Great,” Inspector Lee said. “Should help me stay awake a while longer.”

As I poured the coffee, Robin cleared her throat self-consciously. “So, Derek says they did find drugs in my system.”

Lee turned to her. “Yes.”

“So I’m . . . cleared? You’re not going to arrest me?”

Inspector Lee looked at her for a long second or three. “That remains to be seen.”

Robin blinked. “Do you need more information? Is there anything—”

“Yeah, what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Derek stepped into the kitchen and placed his arm casually around my shoulder. I knew why. He was getting ready to hold me back in case I tried to lunge over the bar and claw Inspector Lee’s eyes out. There was no way in hell she was arresting Robin.

“Inspector, please explain,” Derek said.

Lee shot Derek a defensive glare. “Just because she was on drugs doesn’t mean she didn’t kill the guy.”

“And ransack her own apartment while she was at it?” he said. “Highly improbable.”

Robin slid down onto the nearest barstool, gulping convulsively.

“This is crazy.” I was livid. What the hell was wrong with Inspector Lee?

Derek shot me a warning glance.

“I’m sorry, but it is,” I said.

Derek turned to Jaglom. “Nathan?”

“Come on, Jan,” Jaglom cajoled his partner. “These are good people. Dial it down.”

After a few tense seconds of a staring match between the two, Inspector Lee muttered, “Hell, I need a cigarette.” We all watched as she walked across the living room to the wall of windows, where she stared out at my narrow view of the bay.

Jaglom leaned in. “She’s been wearing the patch lately to help her quit smoking, so sometimes she goes a little . . .” He pointed to his head and circled his finger as if to say she was going nuts.

If this had been about only me, I might’ve been more sympathetic to her problems. After all, I liked Janice Lee. I really did. She was a good cop. Usually. But right now, she was screwing with Robin’s emotions, and I was ready to beat her with a stick.

I banked my anger, poured coffee into the mugs, and passed them out. Then I walked over to Inspector Lee and handed a mug to her.

She took it and sipped silently. After a moment, she gritted her teeth and, still staring out the window, said, “Sorry. My mom’s in the hospital, I’ve got an idiot for a brother, and all I want is a cigarette.”

I nodded, acknowledging the apology. “Sorry about your mom.”

“They cut a few feet out of her colon yesterday and they’re still running tests. There’s an outside chance she’ll be okay.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She shook her head in confusion or disbelief; I couldn’t tell which. “They’re hoping it’s diverticulitis. We’re afraid it’s cancer. They’re the experts, so maybe it’ll turn out fine. But can I tell you the worst part of all this? It’s seeing my mom in that hospital bed, looking so weak and sick. I mean, my mom is a tigress. I hate seeing her like that. It’s rough, you know?”

“Sure. It’s scary.”

“It sucks, is what it is.”

“Getting old ain’t for sissies,” I said.

“Tell me about it. Pisses me off.”

I finally turned and looked at her. “Is there anything I can do?”

After a swift, searching glance at me, she said, “You’re kidding, right? You were ready to tear the skin off my face a minute ago, and now you’re offering help and consolation?”

“Hey, I have a soft spot for you.” I patted the top of my head.

She chuckled.

“I shouldn’t have gotten in your face,” I said, “but it’s my best friend you’re screwing with.”

“I get that.” She nodded, took a sip of coffee, and stared out the window again. “She’s lucky to have you in her corner.”

“I tell her that all the time.”

Lee snorted. “Bet you do.”

She finished off her coffee and handed me the mug. “By the way. Your version of ‘in my face,’ Wainwright?”

“Yeah?”

“Lame. Really lame.”

I laughed. “We’re going to be sitting around drinking wine later. Why don’t you come over after you clock out?”

She tried for a sneer but her eyes betrayed her interest. “You gonna be swilling that sissy white zinfandel crap?”

It was my turn to make a face. “Okay, now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

As soon as Inspector Lee agreed to come by later for a glass of wine, she groaned and admitted she couldn’t socialize while Robin was officially a suspect. But she took a rain check on the assumption that we wouldn’t always be surrounded by dead bodies and suspicious circumstances. I considered it a good first step to friendship.

While I’d been doing what I could to schmooze Inspector Lee into a better mood so she wouldn’t drag Robin off to jail, Derek and Robin were obtaining the real scoop from Inspector Jaglom. They gave me the whole story later as I loaded all the coffee mugs into the dishwasher.

The police had managed to track down Alex’s apartment in the Richmond District, thanks to the information Robin had given them yesterday. Specifically, his name, Alexei Mikhail Pavlenko.

Jaglom reported that whoever had trashed Robin’s apartment and killed Alex had also trashed Alex’s apartment.

“How can they tell it was the same guy?” I asked.

Derek handed me another mug. “The search was systematic and thorough. Nothing was destroyed, exactly, but things were upturned or tossed on the floor.”

“Boy, first they kill the guy, then turn his place upside down. Seems rude, doesn’t it?”

“To say the least,” Robin agreed.

“But while the police were sifting through Alex’s property,” Derek said, “one of his neighbors showed up and inquired as to what had happened. When the fellow found out Alex had been killed, he jogged back to his apartment and came back with something Inspector Jaglom found rather interesting.”

“What was it?”

“A small strongbox,” he said. “Alex had given it to him and asked him to keep it in a safe place.”

I halted in mid–dishwasher loading. “Oh, my God, do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” Robin said. “He must’ve known he was in danger.”

“Exactly,” Derek remarked. “Which means he knowingly put you in danger.”

I exchanged a meaningful glance with Robin, who frowned. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“Well, you should,” I said, squeezing her shoulder in sympathy. “It’ll keep you angry and alive.”

If Alex weren’t already dead, I’d have killed him myself. He could have gotten Robin murdered. The thought of that made me want to hug my best friend and kick a dead man.

“Did Jaglom tell you what they found in the box?” I asked.

Derek leaned against the post at the edge of the kitchen. “Various personal papers. And his passport.”

“And?”

“He was indeed Ukrainian,” Derek said.

Robin leaned against the sink. “And Inspector Lee was totally pissed off about it.”

“Why?”

Derek explained that there was a turf war bubbling up among the Russian, Ukrainian, and Georgian neighborhoods of the Outer Richmond. This was the area of the city north of Golden Gate Park that included Lincoln Park and the beautiful Palace of the Legion of Honor. The Richmond extended all the way out to the Great Highway that ran along the beach. It was as well known for its influx of Eastern European immigrants as it was for the heavy blanket of fog that seemed to swallow it up most days around three o’clock.

Jaglom had confided that Inspector Lee had a low opinion of any kind of ethnic turf wars after living through a decade of Chinatown gang warfare in the eighties.

“Oh, come on.” I looked at Derek skeptically. “They don’t really think this was as simple as Robin being caught in a battle between rival gang members, do they?”

“It’s absurd,” Robin said. “He wasn’t a gang member.”

“Russian Mafia?” I suggested.

Her back straightened as she shot me a look of distaste. “No way.”

“Sweetie, you knew him one night. For all you know he could have been the president of the Russian Mafia.”

“I would have known,” Robin insisted stubbornly. “Besides, he’s Ukrainian, not Russian. And not Mafia.”

“Oo-kay.” I backed off. When Robin got that look in her eye, I knew she wouldn’t be changing her mind anytime soon.

I glanced at Derek, who was tracking my movements as I pulled a bottle of Malbec from the shelf and found the wine opener in the drawer. Holding up the bottle, I said, “It’s not too early, is it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Good. We need something to counteract all that caffeine we just ingested.”

“I hope it helps,” Robin muttered. “I’m stressed out.”

“You and me both.” I pulled glasses from the shelf while Derek took over the job of opening the wine bottle.

“What were we talking about?” I asked.

“Russian mobs,” Robin groused, “and the fact that Alex was not involved with any of that.”

Derek swirled the wine in his glass, sniffed the bouquet, and took a sip. “Despite rumors to the contrary, there is actually very little Russian mob activity in San Francisco.”

“For real?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Robin nodded in satisfaction. “So there. But even if there was, you know,
mob
activity here, Alex wouldn’t have been involved. He wasn’t that type. He was laidback, social, fun. Not, you know, all . . .
mobby
and stuff.”

I tried to bite my tongue, but it went against my nature. “Mobby?”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

I gave her a pass. After all, she wasn’t firing on all cylinders. And maybe it was time to change the subject. “How do you like the wine?”

She stared at the full glass in her hand and realized it hadn’t touched her lips yet. “Guess I should drink some.”

“Yes, you should. Never waste, never worry.”

She took a healthy sip. “God, I love wine.”

“Me, too,” I said, smiling at her.

Derek swirled his wine again and sipped it. After a moment of what I figured was wine contemplation, he put his glass down on the counter. “This suspected turf war the inspector referred to may have more to do with the tensions occurring in the motherland than with anything happening here.”

“Do you think that’s why Alex was killed?” I said, then glanced at Robin. “I don’t mean anything
mob
related, but he might’ve gotten caught up in neighborhood politics. It wouldn’t be the first time politics turned to violence.”

Derek shook his head. “I have no idea, but I can look into it.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Robin insisted.

“Okay. Well, how about pasta and a salad for dinner?”

“That’s something I can believe in.”

I smiled and Derek nodded agreeably. We left it at that impasse and began preparations for dinner.

 

The next morning, Derek left for work and Robin asked to borrow my computer to check out some tour itineraries. Vinnie stopped by to feed Pookie—thank goodness—and after she left, I decided to spend some quality time studying the Kama Sutra for the first time since Robin brought it over Friday night.

Let me be the first to say that, given all the implications of my growing up in a commune, you’d think I would know more about the erotic aspects of the Kama Sutra. But you’d be wrong. What can I say? It wasn’t that kind of commune. Intellectually, I knew the book was an ancient primer on moral behavior and etiquette in marriage, as well as being something like a pictorial guide to sexual ecstasy, but beyond that, I didn’t have a clue.

As I opened the book, I wondered if it might be a good idea to stop at a bookstore later that afternoon and pick up a copy of
The Kama Sutra for Idiots
, just for reference.

I decided to concentrate on the book itself first. I believed the restoration itself would be easy, but the evaluation process would be more difficult. The book had no copyright date, which was not unheard of in a rare, vintage book from another country. But because there was no date to work from, I would have to examine the bindings, the paper, the ink and paint used, the style of the gilding, even the age and origin of the language itself. All of this was essential when appraising a book like this. Which meant I would also need to pick up a good French dictionary with a detailed etymology.

Okay, enough dithering about appraisals and evaluations. I wanted to check out those pictures. I turned the pages carefully to the middle of the book and stared, captivated, at the incredibly detailed and realistic paintings. I couldn’t help but ogle page after page of intricate illustrations of couples engaged in the most erotic sexual poses I’d ever seen. Some positions were so convoluted, I couldn’t figure out how they managed to get into them. Pulleys, maybe?