Skating on Thin Ice (15 page)

Mort had given the landlord strict instructions not to allow anyone upstairs and had posted an officer there until the lock could be changed in case anyone else had a key to the skater’s home. Unless Mort received alternative instructions, he assumed someone in Alexei’s family would want his personal effects packed up and shipped back to Russia, but that step would await the autopsy results and any subsequent investigation.

“Did you speak with the doc this morning?” Mort asked as we looked around the apartment.

“Only briefly,” I replied as I peeked into each of the kitchen cupboards. The apartment came supplied with dishware and pots and pans, all neatly stowed away. I wondered if Alexei ever used them. The refrigerator was almost empty except for a half-full six-pack of beer and a few containers of yogurt.

“Too bad about the dinner,” Mort said, opening the desk drawer and pulling out an album. “I was really looking forward to that stew.”

“Seth said it was delicious.”

“Did he really eat it after it sat out all that time?” he asked as he flipped through the pages.

“I asked the same question. He said my comment about the recipe improving with age made him think there wouldn’t be any danger.”

“It was too hot to put in the refrigerator before we left, but it must’ve been a good four or five hours before the doc got back home, maybe longer. I don’t know that I would have eaten it.”

I moved into the living area and perused Alexei’s bookshelves. “Seth blames me for leaving the pot on the stove. If I hadn’t suggested we accompany you to the rink, the dish would have been eaten at the proper time and temperature. He said he figured if he got sick, it was my fault.”

“What did you answer to that?”

“I told him I wouldn’t be made responsible for his reckless behavior, and he said ‘ditto.’ ”

“Ditto?” Mort looked at me quizzically. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He thinks I’m behaving irresponsibly by skating again,” I said. “He predicted all sorts of injuries I’m likely to acquire. After I fell and conked my head, he told me that if I really want to do myself in, I ought to take up hockey. He even said he knows a good dentist to see when I knock out my front teeth.”

Mort chuckled. “That’s quite a picture, you playing hockey.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I have no plans to play hockey, but it might be worth suiting up just to see the expression on Seth’s face when I step onto the ice in a helmet and pads.”

“I’d like to see that, too.”

“I’ll think about it. At any rate, Seth didn’t get sick from the dinner, lucky for him. He refrigerated the rest of the casserole. I told him he took a greater chance than I did getting on the ice.” I reached up and pulled down a package from Alexei’s shelf.

“What’s that you have there?”

“I’m not sure.” I opened the cardboard carton to find a fabric-covered box inside.

“Anything of interest?”

“Just a souvenir from Charles Department Store,” I said, lifting out a glass Christmas ornament in the shape of a globe with a gold star where Cabot Cove would be.

“How do you know it’s from Charles?”

“They have a sale on holiday ornaments. I saw these on display the other evening. Besides, Alexei left the label on the box.”

“Looks like he had quite a collection of souvenirs,” Mort said, eyeing the bookcase. “I didn’t figure Russians to be sentimental.”

“I’m sure they’re as sentimental as anyone else,” I said.

“Think so? They always seem to me, at least the ones I see on TV, as cold.”

“If they’re cold, it might be the Russian winters,” I said.

“Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

I smiled and continued to look over other items on the shelves, which included glass figurines, a kaleidoscope, a shot glass, a deck of cards, a tin of Boston mints, a pair of buffalo-nickel cuff links, and a New England Patriots snow globe. It seemed a strange assortment for a twenty-five-year-old man to have bought, and I voiced my thought.

“Maybe he planned to bring them home as gifts,” Mort said.

“Or maybe he changed his mind and wanted to be able to return them,” I said. “They’re all still in their original packaging with the price tags on.” I picked up the snow globe and shook it. “Of course, there’s another possible explanation,” I said, setting it down and watching the flurry of confetti swirl over the team logo and goalpost.

“Oh,” Mort said. “You think he might’ve had sticky fingers?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “The other day at Nudd’s I saw him retrieve a piece of scrimshaw from his pocket and return it to a shelf.”

“No kidding? I’d better check to see if there’s been any recent report of shoplifting.”

He held up the book he’d been perusing. “Take a look at this,” he said.

“An actual photo album,” I said. “How nice. Most young people today just post their pictures online.”

“This album sure isn’t new,” Mort said. “Looks like a family album he brought with him from Russia.”

It was as much a scrapbook as a photo album, with pictures of Alexei, both on and off the ice. In one boyhood photo he was flanked by two men, one of them possibly his father. In another, he sat on a sofa with a blond lady who must have been his mother, the resemblance was so strong. In addition there were articles featuring him from Russian newspapers and magazines, ticket stubs, program pages, and other memorabilia. There were several photos of him with different girls. One showed Alexei and Irina skating together as teenagers. From their smiles, it was clear that they hadn’t always fought with each other.

“I didn’t know he’d been here in the States before,” Mort said. “Did you?” He handed me a yellowed clipping in English that had been tucked into the back of the album. It showed Alexei as a ten-year-old on skates and was captioned:

“I just learned that myself,” I said. “Irina, his former partner, mentioned that he’d come here as a child to visit a cousin. She said that’s why his English was better than hers.”

“Did she say how long he stayed in the States?”

“No, but this would seem to indicate that it was longer than a short visit. I imagine he had to have belonged to the skating club if he was participating in its winter show.”

“Maybe this guy was a relative,” Mort said, putting down the first clipping and picking up another, an obituary:

“His name isn’t here,” I said, “but if Alexei was a distant relative, a cousin perhaps, he wouldn’t have been mentioned among the survivors.”

“I suppose not. Have you checked out the bedroom yet?”

“My next stop. Are you looking for anything specific, Mort?”

“No. Just getting a feel for his lifestyle in case the doc comes up with bad news. A toxicology report could take weeks to come back. I don’t want to let that much time pass.”

“Are you thinking of keeping this apartment locked until you have the toxicology results?” I asked.

“Not sure I could even if I wanted to. The owner of the house, Mrs. Skow, is already after me to release it so she can rent it out again. And I don’t know what kind of pressure we’ll be under from the Feds. We’re dealing with a foreign citizen, and a pretty famous one, who died under mysterious circumstances. They could come in and seal everything off. I want to get whatever I can before I lose control of the situation.”

Alexei’s bedroom was spare, with little furniture aside from a bed and dresser. No pictures were hung on the walls, which were covered with a maritime-themed wallpaper of small, navy blue boats sailing in vertical stripes. His closet and bureau were packed with clothing, mostly what you would expect a young man to have, in addition to three skating costumes in vividly colored stretch material and adorned with spangles. Only a pile of unopened fan letters on his night table, and a wastebasket full of those he’d already read, held any interest. Mort decided to take both sets of letters back to his office to read, along with the family album.

“See anything else we should take along?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “What strikes me is that there are things that should be here, but that aren’t.”

“Like what, Mrs. F.?”

“There’s no computer on his desk. I would have expected one.”

“Yeah, I would, too. Do you think someone got here before us and took it?”

I bent down to look under the desk. “No. There’s no Internet connection here. I think he must have used his cell phone to get and send messages. Did you find one in his pockets?”

“No, but I’ll ask the techs in case I just missed it.”

“And where are his skates, Mort?”

“Huh?”

“We’ve been all through his apartment, and I haven’t seen a single pair of ice skates. In fact, other than the three costumes hanging in his closet and that album you’re holding, there’s nothing here to indicate Alexei was a world-class figure skater. Where are his skates? I heard him say he never lets them out of his sight.”

“They’re probably still at the rink. They have a locker room.”

“Maybe,” I said. “We can look for them there later. But I still wonder why he wouldn’t keep at least one pair here in his apartment.”

 

“Coffee, Mrs. F.?” Mort asked once we were settled back at police headquarters. “Gladys ordered some Sumatra this time. It’s strong, but I like it.”

“No, thanks, Mort, but you go ahead.”

Mort left me with the letters while he went to get himself a mug of coffee. He returned with a plate of cookies as well. “Maureen baked these to bring to the doc’s, but she burned them,” he said, setting the plate on his desk. “She scraped off the black parts. They’re not bad. I told her they taste like barbecued cookies.”

“Thanks, Mort, but I think I’ll pass.”

We slipped on latex gloves to prevent our fingerprints from contaminating the papers, and spent the next thirty minutes reading Alexei’s fan mail. There were a few letters from children starting skating, but more from older admirers, almost all female, and several bearing Cabot Cove return addresses.

“This one has a Cabot Cove postmark,” I said, slitting an unopened envelope with a dull knife Mort used as a letter opener, “but no return address. It also isn’t signed, but I think I know the reason.”

“Why are you frowning?” Mort asked.

“Evidently not all his mail is from admirers,” I said, scanning the message, which was scrawled in black crayon on the back of a slip of paper torn off a pad of business forms. At the bottom of the form, it said: “Thank you for your business.” The note on the reverse was not as warm. I read it aloud: “ ‘I’ve told you before. Keep your Commie hands off Christine Allen. She’s too good for you. Manhandle her again and you’ll live to regret it.’ ”

I looked up at Mort. “ ‘You’ll live to regret it,’” I repeated. “Sounds like a threat to me.”

“From Cabot Cove?”

“Yes.”

“Better keep that one as evidence.” He held open the plastic bag, and I dropped the message and envelope inside.

The phone rang, and Mort leaned over to see who was calling. “It’s the doc,” he said, pushing a button to turn on the speakerphone. “Hey, Doc. Mrs. F. and I were just talking about you. How was that stew?” He winked at me.

“Best I’ve ever made, if I say so myself.”

“Nicely aged, huh?”

“If you ask politely, I’ll let you have some leftovers. It’s supposed to be better on the second day.”

“Sure you’re not conducting a laboratory experiment in your refrigerator? Seems I heard that old stew is the perfect medium for bacteria.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I? And considering some of the meals I’ve been served in your house, that says a lot.”

“That’s enough, gentlemen,” I said. “Was there a reason for your call, Seth?”

“Yeah, Doc. Got anything new?”

“Mebbe,” Seth said. “Thought you’d want to know that Olshansky’s death was definitely a drowning.”

“That’s kind of the way I had it figured,” Mort said, wincing.

“Does that mean the circumstances surrounding his death are still inconclusive, Seth?” I asked.

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“His fingers and hands. I paid particular attention after you mentioned them, Jessica. There were cuts on the bottom of his fingers, consistent with him pushing up on the grating.”

“So the grating was down when he was in the pit?” Mort put in.

“That appears to be the case.”

“Anything else?”

“Ayuh. The tops of his fingers were badly bruised, the little ones crushed.”

“How would that happen if he’s pressing up from below with his palms?” Mort asked.

“He could have pushed his fingers between the gaps in the metal to get a better grip on the panel,” I replied. “Seth, do you think someone might have stomped on his fingers as he was trying to lift the grating up from underneath?”