Private Moscow (Private 15)

Victoria studied the label and her face fell. “That’s Karl’s handwriting,” she said.

I hadn’t seen anything written by him in a while, but took Victoria’s assessment on trust.

“Where did this come from?” I asked.

The driver checked a handheld computer. “The package was dropped off on a forty-eight-hour service the day before yesterday at the UPS Store, North Seventh Street, Brooklyn.”

Victoria took the parcel. “It’s addressed to you,” she told me.

“Can I get a signature?” the driver asked, and Ermilita obliged.

“Mo-bot, can you get his details?” I asked, indicating the driver.

“Sure.” She nodded, and Victoria and I moved to a table in the hall.

I studied the parcel. Alongside the UPS labeling was an adhesive label with my name and the Parkers’ address written in cursive. Brown paper, sticky tape, no obvious danger. I peeled back some of the tape and carefully unfolded the flap.

“Why would Karl send you a parcel here?” Victoria asked.

I couldn’t shake the feeling my old friend had known his fate, but supposition and superstition were the enemies of a good detective. I removed the wrapper to reveal a plain cardboard box. No marks or distinguishing features. I lifted the top flap and peered inside.

“What is it?” Mo-bot asked when she joined us.

“A book,” I replied.

I reached inside and picked up a hardback copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It was a well-used, dog-eared copy and I leafed through it to find a borrowing record stuck to the first page. The book came from the Leonard branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and had been lent to Karl Parker two days ago.

“Why

would Karl send you a library book?” Victoria asked.

I stared at Karl’s name in the lending record, wishing I knew the answer to her question.

CHAPTER 19

A SMALL CROWD of ghoulish onlookers watched the forensic operation on Lesnaya Street. They stood behind a cordon patrolled by two Moscow Second Regiment police officers. There was one news crew still at the scene, and the reporter, a grizzled veteran Dinara recognized, was having a cigarette while his camera operator shot B-roll footage. Beyond the cordon a trio of large field lamps had been arranged around the wreckage of the Boston Seafood Grill. A diesel generator hummed nearby and steam rose from the hot lights, which illuminated a horrific scene.

The restaurant’s street frontage had been torn apart and fire had blackened much of the building. Fragments of furniture, chairs, tables, light fittings, chunks of the bar had been blasted into the snow outside, and each broken item had been marked by a small numbered orange flag. There were dozens of them. There hadn’t been any fresh snowfall, which meant Dinara could still see the outlines and indentations where body parts had been scattered by the explosion. She saw the shape of a leg, an arm, and the tiny shapes of fingers. The dismembered limbs had been removed from the scene but each spot was memorialized by a numbered red flag. There were thirty-five.

“What a mess,” Leonid said.

Dinara nodded. Inside the restaurant a team of forensic scientists sifted through debris and wreckage. Dinara and Leonid approached the cordon, close enough to the huge lights for their heat to take the edge off the freezing night.

“See anyone you know?” Dinara asked.

Leonid scanned the faces of four senior Moscow Criminal Investigations Department police officers gathered outside a mobile command unit. Three men and a woman, all in heavy police-issue coats and uniforms.

“Hey,” Leonid said to one of the officers patrolling the cordon. “Tell Rudin that Boykov wants a word.”

The officer crossed the street and spoke to one of the three men, a gray-haired hawkish figure with the two-star epaulets of a lieutenant colonel.

“We worked a few cases together,” Leonid told Dinara. “He’s a pompous ass, but he’s honest.”

The gray-haired lieutenant colonel approached with the female officer who wore the three-star insignia of a full colonel. She had a chubby, chalk-white face and unfriendly black eyes.

“How’s life in the private sector?” Rudin asked in what was an unmistakably mocking tone. His face was pockmarked by old acne scars. “You a billionaire yet?”

“Still working on it,” Leonid replied. “You got a cause?” he asked, nodding toward the restaurant.