In Sheep's Clothing

They climbed the stairs and entered the lobby. “I’m ducking into Personnel,” Yanna said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yanna, wait.” He caught her arm, a lump rising in his throat. His voice stayed low. “Sorry about missing the chat last night.”

She blinked twice at him, as if he’d dashed her with a bucket of ice. She gave a furtive look around the lobby. “No problem.” Whirling, she nearly sprinted away from him.

Vicktor stared after her. He was making all sorts of friends this morning.

He took the steps two at a time to his office on the second floor, then threaded his way through a minefield of desks to his office.

Vicktor snorted as he rounded Maxim’s desk, buried somewhere under an avalanche of paper. Yesterday’s teacup soiled a stack of notes and Snickers wrappers littered the floor, but the desk chair remained empty. Annoyance flooded him as he recalled the major’s words. The rookie was slightly difficult to mentor when he never showed up for work. Partners. The word made him cringe. Maxim didn’t have a clue what it meant and Vicktor didn’t have the time or desire to teach him. Vicktor shrugged out of his coat and hung it in his wardrobe.

Grabbing his coffee mug, the one with Mount Hood glinting off the side in gold etching, he scooped in a generous amount of instant coffee, added a spoonful of cream and plugged the samovar in, waiting for it to boil.

He turned on the ancient paperweight they assigned him a month ago, a.k.a. his desktop PC, coaxing it with a few sweet words. While it eased to life, he weeded through his phone messages. Two distraught families from cold cases who would never know what happened to their mafia-connected kids, and a call from Arkady. Filing the other two in the Maxim pile, Vicktor flicked his fingers on Arkady’s note while he dialed his father.

Nickolai caught it on the sixth ring. Vicktor didn’t know if he should be glad or brace himself for the inevitable.

“Slyushaiyu!”

Vicktor forced a cheery tone. He thought he’d make a great undercover cop. “Privyet, Pop. How are you?”

Silence.

“Do you need anything?”

“What would I need? A son who stops by and visits once in a while, maybe?”

Right. Okay. Nickolai had his happy face on today. “I’ll stop by later. Do you need some bread?”

He supposed he should be grateful his father still spoke to him after the accident. The old man hadn’t assigned blame, but he didn’t have to. The Santa Barbara reruns and the constant tapping with his metal cane turned the knife with precision.

Silence crackled through the line. “Pop?”

“Da. Da. Bread is all I need.” He hung up and Vicktor stared at the dead phone.

He was off to a great start this morning. Vicktor kneaded his temple. If his mother were here she’d know what to do. But Antonina had abandoned her men on a snowy night two years ago, and the grief and anger had driven the Shubnikov men apart long before Nickolai’s accident. The Wolf’s bullet had simply pushed them beyond reconciliation.

Steam fogged the room, obscuring the glass windows that separated Vicktor’s office from the rookies on the floor. Vicktor filled his cup and stirred the coffee. It wasn’t Starbucks, which he’d visited more times than he should have in Oregon, but at least it was coffee. Sorta. Okay, it smelled the same.

A cup and a half later, he had read through his e-mail messages and reached for the phone. He hoped Arkady had eaten a full breakfast. He needed the man slightly sluggish when he needled him for information about Evgeny.

“Give us a break! Lakarstin’s body isn’t even cold!”

Nope. Probably had kasha. Even Vicktor would be on edge after a bowl of cold, lumpy mush. “I know, Chief, but what do you know? Tell me, anything.” Please, let him say he was handing the case to the COBRAs. He didn’t want to be caught in the middle of a range war.

Vicktor heard Arkady snuffle, and could almost see him lean back in his tattered desk chair and take a pull on his cigarette. “Well, let’s see what you can do with this, hotshot. His neck was slit.”

“I’m not quite that stupid, thank you. Tell me something new.”

“And he had a wad of paper shoved up his nose.”

“What?”

“You mean you goats in the ‘FezB’ don’t know a mafia hit when you see one?”

“What mafia? That’s not the Russian signature for a hit.”

“It’s a North Korean superstition. They shove the paper up a victim’s nose to keep their spirit from haunting them. Even a rookie would know that.”

Vicktor thumbed his coffee cup handle, ignoring the barb. “What would the North Korean mafia want with a veterinarian?”

Arkady’s chair creaked as the Bulldog shifted his weight. Probably putting out that cigarette.

“That is a good question. Was your buddy into drug smuggling?”

“Now, how would I know that?”

Arkady laughed. Vicktor tensed.

“You said that dog of yours was a bit sluggish…maybe he needed a fix?”

“At Alfred’s age, following a cute poodle just about does him in.”

“Your pal was into some sort of tyomnaya delo, some nasty business, for the mafia to track him down. They were searching for something, too. We found a charred notebook in the garbage can, like he tried to keep something out of their hands.”

Vicktor remembered the orange peels. “Maybe it’s some sort of ledger.”

Vicktor heard the flick of a lighter.

“Are you doing an autopsy?” he asked.

“Cause of death is pretty obvious.”

“Not to the FSB.” As soon as the words left his mouth Vicktor wanted to bang his head on his desk.

A chill blew into Arkady’s voice. “Something you want to tell me?”

Vicktor’s stomach knotted. Why, oh why, couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? “I heard the word mafia and…well, it’s not personal, Chief.”

“Your COBRAs have been banging on my office door all morning. You tell them this is my case and I’ll hand it over if and when I want to.”

“It’s not your jurisdiction anymore.”

“I’ll say what’s my jurisdiction. You just remember, you chose to leave. Nobody forced you out.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

Silence stretched the moment taunt. Then, in a voice so thin Vicktor hardly recognized it, Arkady whispered, “You watch your back over there, Vita.”