14 - Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Author:Stuart M. Kaminsky [Kaminsky, Stuart M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _rt_yes, Crime, Fiction, International Mystery & Crime, Mystery & Detective, onlib, Police Procedural, Political, USSR, __NB_fixed
ISBN: 9781453273500
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-09-19T20:56:00+00:00

Chapter Two

Rich man leave your wealthiness

Wanderer, your solemn dress

Seafarer, the sea’s caress

Beowulf, your angriness

Time to take a second guess

Time to make a pact with death

Trans-Siberian Express

“IT IS A BAD idea,” Elena Timofeyeva said. She had almost used the word stupid instead of bad but had caught herself in time. She was standing in the doorway of the apartment she shared with her Aunt Anna. Her right boot was resisting her efforts to make it take leave of her foot.

She looked up at Iosef Rostnikov, who had both of his boots off and had entered the apartment.

“You want help with that?” he asked.

“No.” she said, and with an awkward effort and a mighty pull the boot came off, taking the long woollen sock with it. She almost fell. Perhaps her diet plan needed reconsideration.

Anna Timofeyeva sat in her comfortable chair near the only window in the room. She had been looking into the snow-covered courtyard in the first light of dawn. The children bound for school had not yet made tracks across the field of white that came up to the level of the seats of the benches circling the center of the covered concrete square.

Her cat, Baku, had been sitting on her lap. When her niece and Iosef had opened the door, the cat had lazily leaped to the floor and gone over to sniff at them.

Anna had never been bitter over her tragedy, the heart attacks which forced her to retire as procurator of Moscow before she was fifty-five. Anna had worked her way up from assembly-line worker to Communist Party leader for her factory, to regional assistant procurator, to her final position in Moscow. She had regularly put in fifteen-hour days, frequently worked days at a time fueled by duty, coffee, thick soups, and sandwiches of fatty meat.

The Soviet Union had prided itself on the equality of women. Movies, newspapers, posters showed women as leaders, workers, soldiers, the equal of men. The truth, as she had learned early in life, was the exact opposite. Women were considered inferior, and often those put in token positions of authority were chosen because of their party loyalty and a nonthreatening lack of intellect. Anna Timofeyeva had been a notable exception. She had taken pride in her achievement, but she had taken enormous satisfaction in her work.

And then, so suddenly, it was all over. The brown uniform that she had worn for sixteen years was traded for bulky skirts and sweaters; the large office for a small one-bedroom apartment.

Anna had never married, had never shown or had any interest in men as anything but people for whom she worked or who worked for her. She showed no greater interest in women as friends, companions, confidants, or lovers. She had tried sex with two men and one not particularly pretty but quite slim woman many years earlier. None of the three encounters had given her any satisfaction.

And so Anna sat in her apartment, read, and welcomed the company of her niece, which she would soon be losing when Elena and Iosef married.

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