television, showing a futuristic military video game paused in midaction. Something was blowing up but Annja wasn’t sure what it was.
She stood behind Bart with her hands in her jacket pockets and didn’t say anything. Although a police investigation wasn’t something she regularly took part in, she’d seen plenty on television, and she’d watched Bart in action a few times. She felt safe, and she was definitely curious.
The two Russians were obviously related and it showed in their features—the same eyes, the same facial structure. One of them was thin and lupine-faced and maybe twenty, wearing a concert T-shirt, and the other looked slightly older and was beefed up and overweight, like a martial arts fighter who’d been hitting the borscht and beer too often. The younger guy had long dark hair and a spotty beard while the older one was shaven bald and wore a dark beard with lime-green tints.
Based on the look of their apartment, and the stench, and their lackadaisical nature, both of them were delinquents and probably a total waste of time.
“You know your rights?” Bart looked impressed.
The younger brother nodded and fist bumped his brother. They waggled their fingers like the fist bump had caused an explosion. “You bet we do, bro. We know our rights back and front, and you can’t just arrest us.”
“What would I arrest you for?”
“Nothing, bro.” The young one wiped his hands in front of him like he was cleaning a slate. “We ain’t done nothing. The police chick outside—” he pointed through the door, indicating the hallway “—she said she just wanted to ask us some questions. Next thing we know, bro, here you are.”
“You mean Officer Falcone said she wanted to ask you questions?” Bart asked.
“I didn’t get her name, bro. Maybe that was it.” His eyelids hung heavily and he moved too loosely to be completely sober. “It was that police chick out there.”
“Call her Officer Falcone. She won’t be happy with ‘police chick.’ Trust me.”
“Officer Police Chick called you down here, bro? That’s what you said, right? That’s why you’re here?”
Annja didn’t know how Bart kept his composure. She was getting frustrated just listening, unable to get the memory of the murdered man out of her mind. Bart sighed in annoyed acceptance. “Yes. She did.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
The guy wrapped his arms around himself. “She said my uncle got killed.”
“Great-uncle,” the brother said quietly. “You forget, Maurice was our great-uncle on Ma’s side. Her mother’s brother.”
“Okay, then, our great-uncle. Only, if you ask me, he isn’t so great. He’s just this old guy. Kind of bossy. Too bossy. Likes to tell people what to do.” He looked at Bart. “That true, bro? Somebody killed our great-uncle?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You sure? ’Cause he was kinda old. Coulda just died.”
“He didn’t just die.”
“Maybe he killed himself.”
“No. That didn’t happen.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You got me.”
“I just have a few questions I’d like to ask,” Bart said.
“I’m through answering questions. Through talking about my great-uncle, too. You can’t arrest us, so you gotta go.” He pointed to the door. “I’m revoking your apartment privileges.”
Bart took out his cell phone, poked it for a second, then showed it to the younger man, revealing the mug shot there. “Demyan Koltsov. Is that you?”
The guy straightened up then, squinted and shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it?”
“Well, I can arrest you on suspicion of being Demyan Koltsov, take you downtown to fingerprint you and verify that, yes, in fact, you are Demyan Koltsov, and then lock you up.”
“Lock me up?” Demyan’s eyes widened. “For what, bro? I didn’t have nothing to do with that old man getting killed!”
“For lying to a detective in the performance of his duty, for starters. It also says here that Demyan Koltsov is wanted for FTA regarding a weed bust.”
Demyan waved that off. “Those are bogus charges, bro. I was entrapped. And that failure-to-appear rap? I told the judge I couldn’t be there that day, bro. I had a doctor’s appointment. Had a note and everything.”
“I’m not interested in an FTA. That’s not my business. I want to talk about your great-uncle.” Bart put his phone away. “So either you talk to me about Maurice Benyovszky here, or I cuff you and take you downtown to deal with that FTA. We can talk about your great-uncle while you’re getting booked.”
Demyan looked at his brother. “Can you get me out of jail, Yegor?”
The older brother frowned and shook his head. “I don’t have any money. Why you come asking for money from me when you know I ain’t got any? You’ll just have to stay in jail until I find out if Ma has any money. And if she will bail you out.” He lowered his voice into a whisper. “You didn’t pay her back for bailing you out on that weed bust.”
Demyan sighed like he was the most put-upon man on the planet. “This ain’t my night, bro. My girl’s two-timing me with her ex. I lost my part-time job at the pizza place—”
“I don’t think you can say you lost that job when you never showed up for a shift,” Yegor said.
Demyan pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Man, they texted me and told me I was fired.” He shook his head sadly. “That would have been a sweet job. I’d have been driving around, delivering pizza, everybody glad to see me.”
Yegor clapped his brother on the shoulder with a big hand. “You don’t have a car. The car you had was my car, and it got impounded, remember?”
“Hey.” Bart’s voice turned sharp, a pure cop tone that made both of the younger men focus on him instantly. “Either we talk about what I want to talk about or I’m taking you in.”
Yegor shot Bart a look of sad surprise. “Me? Why you arrest me?”
Bart nodded at Demyan. “Him I got on the FTA. You I got for outstanding traffic warrants. Now, are we going to talk?”
“Sure, sure.” Demyan smiled and nodded. “I hereby invite you back into our apartment. We’ll talk about anything you want.”
“You said you worked for your uncle?”
“We did. Me and Yegor. On account of my mom, she’s Uncle Maurice’s niece or something?” Demyan looked at Yegor.
Yegor thought about it and nodded. “Yeah. Her mom is sister to Uncle Maurice, so we’re great-nephews. I think that’s how it works.”
“Anyway,” Demyan said, “we got this job from the old guy on account he don’t know how to do computers. Me and Yegor, we know computers. Know video games. All the tech. Uncle Maurice went into business for himself, started buying stuff from storage places. Things that people run off and leave on account they can’t pay the rent on the storage no more?”
Bart nodded.
“People run off and leave some weird stuff, bro. I’m telling you. Me and Yegor, we’ve pulled stuff outta some of them storage units you’d think come from Mars. Had this one guy was sewing different parts of dead animals together. Saw where he’d put a bat head and wings on a cat, bro. That was messed up.”
Bart started to take a note, but Annja shook her head.
“It’s called rogue taxidermy,” she said. “Probably not