Chapter 24 Jo
Jo
Tuesday
When Jo walked into the Marigold Café, she did not immediately see Andrei Petrov, even though the dining room was almost empty.
It was three in the afternoon, the dead hour between lunch and dinner, when the kitchen could finally catch a break, and the only other table was occupied by an elderly couple lingering over their servings of pie.
Then Jo spotted the young man sitting in the corner booth, slouched behind the divider, as though trying to stay out of sight.
Only when she approached did Andrei raise his head, but he didn’t speak, just gave her a silent nod.
As Jo slid onto the bench across from him, he shot a furtive glance at the door, as if to confirm that no one had followed her.
“What’s going on, Andrei?” said Jo. “Why are we meeting here?”
“Because they watch me,” he said softly, and he burrowed deeper into the booth. “All the time, they watch me.”
“Who’s watching you?”
“Everyone. They think I am spy.” Andrei raised his head, and Jo saw exhaustion in his face. The dark circles beneath his eyes looked like bruises on his pale skin. “I am not spy. You know this.”
“To be honest, Andrei, I really don’t know that.”
“But you must know. And Hannah knows, but she is gone.” He cast a nervous glance around the dining room. “Now police ask me questions, too many questions. I need you to say I do nothing wrong.”
“I’m not sure they’ll listen to me, Andrei.”
“No one else helps me.” His voice broke and he folded into himself, as if wanting to vanish. The couple at the other table were now looking at him, not with obvious hostility, simply curiosity. But when you felt a whole community watching you, it was easy to imagine malice in their eyes.
He repeated, softly: “No one else,” and dropped his head in his hands.
“What, exactly, have the police said to you?” Jo asked.
“They think I lie, to get visa.”
“Who said this?”
“Government police.”
“You mean the FBI? Did you lie?”
“No!” He looked at her. “Everything I say is truth, I promise. You tell them this. Please, you tell them.”
As if it mattered what she said to the FBI. She was a small fish in a pond where the really big fish, from all the alphabet agencies, were now in charge. But here was Andrei, looking at her with pleading eyes. Innocent eyes. Or so it seemed to Jo.
She nodded. “I’ll talk to them.”
The hotel ballroom of the Cod Cove Resort was now the beating heart of the Maslov murder investigation.
There were so many desks and computers and personnel crowded into the room that Jo did not immediately spot Agent Minnihan.
Then she glimpsed his head of red hair poking up among a circle of men, all of them wearing civilian clothes.
Feds. She crossed the room to join their group.
“Agent Minnihan, may I have a word?” she asked.
He turned and frowned at her, as if trying to remember where they’d met.
“Jo Thibodeau,” she said.
“Oh, right. Did you ever locate Ingrid Slocum?”
“No, sir. But I’m not here about her.”
“Because I really do need to interview the woman.” He turned to his colleagues and said to them, “This is the local chief of police.” Whose name he hadn’t remembered. Was Jo really that forgettable?
“Can we step outside and talk?” she said. “It’s about Andrei Petrov.”
“What about him?”
“I just spoke with him.”
“Why?”
“He called me. He’s upset, scared. I’d like to know what’s going on.”
Minnihan exchanged irritated looks with the other men and sighed. “All right,” he said. “Let’s step outside.”
They left the ballroom and walked out onto the hotel veranda.
On this sparkling autumn day, the resort would normally be filled with guests lounging in the rocking chairs, or cruising around in golf carts on the manicured lawn.
But the resort was now a major crime scene, and there were probably more investigators than tourists walking its grounds.
“You shouldn’t be talking to Andrei Petrov,” he said. “This is not your investigation.”
“This is my town.”
“We’d prefer you not get involved at all. It could complicate things. Why are you talking to him?”
“I told you, he’s the one who called me.”
“Why?”
“He thinks you people are railroading him. You and the state police and all those men in the ballroom. Do you seriously think he did it? Does he look like he could kill two people?”
Minnihan stared across the lawn, avoiding her gaze. “It’s a theory.”
“That a twenty-year-old kid did it?”
“Do you need a list of all the twenty-year-olds who’ve committed murder?”
“But this twenty-year-old?”
“Chief Thibodeau, I’m sure you’re a fine police officer, but Purity is a very small town. These deaths have international ramifications. We’re talking national security, espionage. Things you’re not familiar with.”
I know more than you realize. “Maybe I’m just a police officer. But I’m pretty sure that boy didn’t kill anyone.”
“Consider the facts. Andrei Petrov served Maslov in the restaurant. He brought him a bowl of soup and a cup of tea.”
“And did you find traces of polonium in the restaurant? In the kitchen, or on any of the dishes?”
A pause. “No. But those dishes could have been disposed of.”
“So you don’t have anything on this boy. You don’t know where or when Maslov ingested the poison. For all you know, someone could have slipped it in his drink on the plane coming here.”
“Why does this matter so much to you?”
“It matters because if you arrest the wrong person, you’re leaving me stuck with a problem. The real killer. Are you looking at other suspects?”
“For your information, we did look at who sat next to Maslov on the plane. We’re now going through the entire list of conference attendees and speakers, as well as the employees here, particularly the ones on temporary visas.
Most of the foreign workers are from Jamaica and Mexico.
Andrei Petrov is the only one from Eastern Europe. ”
“And that makes him a Russian spy?”
“Here’s another thing to consider. The Stone Coast Conference announced their list of speakers on February second. On February fourth, Andrei submitted his visa application and applied for the job here. The timing is interesting, don’t you think?”
“That’s when hotels start hiring summer staff.”
“How about this fact. Just before he traveled here, he made a brief stop in Moscow, ostensibly to visit a cousin. Or was there another reason for that detour to Moscow? Say, to pick up a vial of polonium.”
“That still doesn’t convince me.”
“A brick here, a brick there, and you begin to build a case. That’s where we are. Building a case.”
“Or are you getting distracted from someone you should be looking at?”
“Anyone in mind? Come up with a name, and we’ll be happy to consider it. In the meantime, I still need to talk to Ingrid Slocum. Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“She’s the only member of the conference committee we haven’t been able to interview. That’s starting to seem significant.”
“I’m sure she’s a busy woman.”
“What about her husband? I think his name is Lloyd? He flew off to Amsterdam Sunday night, on a ticket he’d booked just one day earlier. A rather impulsive trip.”
Jo stared back at him. This was the first she’d heard about Lloyd’s sudden departure.
“If you do hear from the Slocums—either one of them—you’ll let me know?” said Minnihan.
“Yes, sir,” she said, still stunned by the news about Lloyd.
Minnihan eyed her for a moment. “As for Andrei Petrov, here’s a word of advice. Don’t believe everything you hear.”