Raging Heat

“This is my work. How I pay my way,” he said. “In St. Petersburg, I left medical academy knowing to be doctor of medicine, yes? But when I come to United States, the, what is it…? The criteria…for doctor license not so easy. In Russia, I would have own clinic. Coming here to be with my wife, surprise. I drive cab or work this. Someday I take board exams and have practice in Brighton Beach.”

“So you aren’t technically a doctor,” said Feller, and Ivan’s eyes started darting again. She jumped in.

“Which makes your service to friends who can’t afford doctors so admirable.” She paused while he took out a cigarette and then put it back in his pocket. “Is that how the man in this picture came to you?”

Gogol recounted the late-night call from the bartender, all the details matching up with Feller’s source. “So I dress and get my satchel to drive to the bar where this man, Fabian, is in the back kitchen. He is in pain and not well.”

Heat asked, “How severe was the wound?” Feller had taken a cue and taken a seat beside the desk to observe.

“The wound itself not life threat. He had stopped own bleeding with compression like this.” Ivan held both palms to his rib cage and pressed. “But skin is very thin at ribs and many nerve endings radiate from spine. Very painful.”

“What kind of bullet was it?” And then she added with anticipation, “Did you keep it?”

“Was no bullet. The wound slice like a cut. Slice, not puncture, you see?” Feeling more in control of things, he tore a blank off a Klaus’s Auto gummed pad and drew an anterior outline of an upper torso. To her surprise, his sketch was precise and expert, neater than some drawings she had seen in autopsy files. He added a slash where the bullet struck Beauvais.

“A graze.”

“That is it, graze. But close to heart. Was lucky man.”

For a while, anyway, she thought. “Did you talk at all?”

“Da. His accent make hard, but yes,” he said in his own variant of English.

“Did he say who shot him?”

Both detectives studied him as he shifted in the seat. “No.” Then Ivan fixed his stare on his little drawing and he fussed with it, smoothing down the page with the side of one hand. The silence unnerved him and he filled it.

“All he tell me was earlier that night somewhere in Hamptons.”

“Did he tell you exactly where?”

“Mm, no.”

“In a bar, a house, in the street?”

“I do not know this.”

Feller joined in. “What town?” All he got was a shrug from the Russian before he went back to fiddling with his sketch, which he then slid to Heat as an offering.

“Help me understand,” she said. “Did he not see who shot him, or did he not say?”

“I did not ask him so many questions as you ask. This is best, I think.”

It struck Nikki that she was getting about as far with him as she had with Alicia Delamater’s lawyer on the drive over. Same obfuscation, the difference being the fear she sensed from Ivan Gogol. Was it his own nature or was it the plight of the immigrant to be ever wary, careful beyond measure? Or was he hiding something? “I want you to know that you can share anything with us without worry.”

In response, he stood. “I must go back to work. I have carburetors to deliver.”

One last try. “Fabian Beauvais was murdered. Whoever did that is still out there.” Nikki watched that sink in as she gave him her business card. “If you remember anything more, call me anytime, day or night. I will help you.” She smiled but he broke eye contact and left the room.

When Heat and Feller stepped out onto the sidewalk, Ivan was waiting by their cars. “When I finished stitching his wound, this Fabian left but came back in. He said there was a car and he waited for it to go. He was very scared. He said he wanted to tell me who did this in case something happened to him. And now you say something did?”

Nikki knew better than to speak and fracture this man’s delicate moment of truth. He took a long moment to gather his courage before his leap.

But he took it.

“He said it was a powerful man. And he is. Because I have seen him on the TV. Mr. Keith Gilbert.”

To be honest with herself, Heat had no idea yet how getting shot by Keith Gilbert had anything to do with Fabian Beauvais’s eventual — and more lethal — plummet from a high altitude into the planetarium. But she did have enough experience in homicide to know a few things. Two attempts on Beauvais (one of which was successful), plus the torture death of his fiancée, plus a wad of hidden cash, plus the ransacking of an upscale apartment in a home invasion smelled strongly of a cover-up and conspiracy. And something Heat also knew from experience: The thing about a conspiracy is that there’s always someone behind it. Someone with power. The sum of all that math told her it was time to bring in the prime suspect.