Murder Under Cover (32 page)

Recently, Shiva had come into possession of information so inflammatory that its disclosure could embarrass and topple the Russian government. She’d worked with Galina, the Ukrainian agent, before, so she devised a scheme to sell the volatile information to Galina and rake in millions.

Knowing the Ukrainians were positioning themselves to barter a new oil deal with Russia, Shiva knew Galina’s people would want to get their hands on the information. Shiva figured she’d make enough money to retire to an island off the coast of India and live in splendor for the rest of her life.

She placed all the particulars—racy phone call transcripts between high-level married diplomats, incriminating e-mail, texts, and a number of documents—onto a tiny flash drive that she stuck inside a miniature brass elephant, and then she sewed the brass doodad into the old scarf. She called Galina and asked for four million dollars in exchange for details of when the flash drive would be carried into the United States via her daughter, Robin.

The money was deposited into her account while Robin was visiting her. Talk about convenient timing. Robin shuddered when she heard that.

But once Robin got back to San Francisco, things went very wrong. It seemed to Galina that either the Russians or the Americans were thwarting the Ukrainians at every turn. Alex, who’d been Galina’s superior as well as her part-time lover, was dead now. Galina had managed to track down the big Russian man, and when he admitted to killing Alex, she shot him. Then she dropped him off in front of Brooklyn’s apartment, where she knew Robin was staying. She hoped the police would accuse Robin of killing the man, but didn’t realize that Robin was already out of the city.

Shiva had admitted that Galina wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but the young operative had her uses. But then Galina contacted Shiva in Varanasi to complain about the screwups. She was furious that Alex had been killed and blamed Robin. She accused Robin of paying the Russian to kill Alex as a way to double-cross her mother.

That was when Shiva decided she’d better get on a plane to the Bay Area and take charge of the operation. While she was there, she would spend time consoling her daughter, Robin. And, if necessary, she would rough up a few of her friends.

Three days later, after Pookie went home and some of the dust had settled on what I’d taken to calling the Kama Sutra Caper, the three of us, Derek, Robin, and I, drove back to Dharma. On the phone, Mom had whispered that Guru Bob had asked her to perform a banishment ceremony, but she wasn’t sure she had the heart to do it in front of Robin. I suggested we wait and gauge the state of Robin’s
prakriti
, or mind-body-soul constitution, before deciding.

Sitting in my parents’ living room, we shared the sordid details of the downfall of Shiva Quinn with Mom and Dad, Austin, Gabriel, and Guru Bob. Austin sat on the love seat holding Robin as close to him as he could get her.

I found myself focusing on my brother again. It was as though he had truly grown up while I wasn’t looking. Yes, I’d always known he was good-looking, but a sister tended to forget a brother’s mere cuteness in the face of age-old sibling rivalries. But watching him now with Robin and seeing the way he gazed at her and laughed with her, I couldn’t be happier that they had finally found each other.

He was a wonderful man—and lucky, too, because Robin was a delightful, talented woman with a fantastic sense of humor and a wide-open heart. The fact that her own mother had never recognized Robin’s amazing qualities was Shiva’s loss—and one more big black eye for her, as far as I was concerned.

I was going to get weepy in a minute if I didn’t shake off those thoughts. Glancing around the room, I could see the stress and confusion in everyone’s eyes. Except Gabriel’s. Nothing seemed to surprise Gabriel, including the pain of betrayal.

It was Guru Bob whose reactions wrenched my heart the most. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen him express negativity. Ever. But watching him now, I could see anger and great sadness mar his features as the details of Shiva’s duplicity emerged.

We had Derek’s Interpol friends to thank for filling in a number of blanks in Shiva’s story. For instance, the big man who died in my home was Yuri Borkov, a Russian operative who had received a tip early on that there was highly embarrassing information on the market that could disgrace people at the top levels of the Russian government. He’d had no choice but to follow every lead.

Shiva later confessed that she’d been the one who leaked the flash drive information to the Russian. She wanted a kickback from their side as well. And why not? She needed the money. She wasn’t getting any younger, and wealthy men were starting to lose interest in her. When she realized she couldn’t count on her wealthy lovers to keep her in the high life much longer, she took matters into her own hands.

When Robin heard that, it was the last straw. I agreed it was a pathetic, arrogant, and egotistical excuse for doing what she did, but it was the closest Shiva had come to revealing the true motivation for her actions.

“I still can’t believe it,” Robin said, her tone a mix of bewilderment and scathing anger. “I know she didn’t do the killing herself, but she set everything in motion, and a lot of people died just so she could line her own pockets. And I saw her pointing that gun at Jeremy. She was so desperate, who knows if she would’ve gone ahead and used it, just to get her hands on that butt-ugly scarf and the stupid flash drive.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said, “I’m so sorry. I’m having a hard time believing it myself.”

“I know, Becky,” Robin said, and sniffed a few times. “My own mother was a double or triple agent. It’s so bizarre. It’s like I stepped into the Twilight Zone or something. I mean, Shiva was never what you’d call maternal, but still . . . I keep expecting someone to jump out and tell me it’s all been a giant misunderstanding, that she was actually one of the good guys and . . . I never really knew her, obviously.”

And that was Shiva’s fault, not Robin’s, I thought, angry all over again at her mother’s treachery. Robin insisted she’d given up years ago on ever being close to Shiva, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to overcome this major revelation.

The other night, after we’d left the FBI building, Robin had begged to come home with me and Derek. Once again, her own place had a stigma attached to it. Shiva had stayed there. She’d probably searched the place while Robin was sleeping, made phone calls, maybe arranged a murder or two. Robin didn’t have the heart to return there just yet.

While at my house, Robin had spent hours on the phone with Austin, filling him in on the latest news and discussing their future. Later, she told me that Austin wanted her to move to Dharma, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to right away. He had offered to buy her a store or office on the Lane in town, where she could sell her sculptures and operate her small tour company. I was impressed with my brother’s offer; the Lane was currently the cynosure of wine-country chic. Fancy shops, restaurants, and wine bars attracted people from all over the Bay Area and the country.

But along with the offer of a fashionable place to do her work, Austin had offered himself. He wanted to marry her.

Through misty eyes, I had assured her that it all sounded wonderful, and while I would miss having her living so close to me in the city, she would be only an hour’s drive away.

It was a lot for her to think about on top of her mother’s betrayal, so Robin was still debating her next move. Seeing her with Austin today, realizing again how perfect they were together, I had a feeling her decision would come soon.

“But wait. Shiva’s story is not over yet,” I said to the group.

“Then keep going,” Dad said with the air of a man who wanted all the story out in the open so they could deal with it and move on.

“Okay, so guess what.” I looked around the room at everyone’s expectant faces. “It was all bogus.”

“Bogus?” Dad said, his eyes narrowing. “Explain.”

I nodded at Derek to take over, because he told the story so much better than I did. I think the British accent helped.

“It was Shiva’s old friend Rajiv Mizra,” Derek began. “He was the one who set the whole operation in motion in order to snare Shiva in a trap.”

“Wait a minute.” Dad shook his head as though his ears were plugged. “Her friend set her up?”

“Yes.” I sat forward and gave Robin a sympathetic look. “It was all a sting to catch Shiva.”

“Rajiv has always been one of Mom’s oldest and dearest friends in Varanasi,” Robin explained. “But it turns out that he’s really an agent for the Indian government. He’s been watching her for years. But she’s always been so devious, it was impossible to catch her until now.”

“Whoa,” Mom said. “Now, that’s bizarre. This is starting to sound like a bad spy movie.”

Dad stood. “Does anyone want more wine?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, needing a breather. “I’ll help pour.” I pushed myself up off the couch and walked carefully around the room, filling glasses for everyone.

“You’re moving kind of slow, sweetie,” Dad said. “You got a hitch in your get-along?”

I was relieved that, for once, I didn’t have to feel guilty about my aches and pains. “That guy Rajiv pushed me off the steps and I fell on the blacktop. I’m still a little achy.”

Dad froze; then his hand tightened around the bottle’s neck. “For that alone he should serve twenty to life.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Derek continued the story. “Rajiv used various channels to feed the fraudulent information to Shiva, then gave her the means to smuggle it all into the United States. Namely, the book, the Kama Sutra. He knew her well enough to know that the very subject matter would intrigue Shiva. He also knew that Robin visited her mother at least once a year, so he’d been monitoring her activity and had timed everything to her arrival.”

“Don’t I feel special?” Robin said, shaking her head in disgust. Austin squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Unfortunately,” Derek said, “while Rajiv informed some top officials in the Ukrainian state department that he was running a sting operation, he didn’t inform the Russians. He cared only that Shiva would eventually act on the information she got, and when she did, he would make his move.”

“Wow,” Dad said, scratching his head. “Becky, this isn’t a movie. It’s more like a Ken Follett novel.”

Derek smiled. “Shiva’s contact was Galina, because they’d worked together before. She suggested to Galina that the Ukrainians might use the information to barter a better oil deal with Russia. In a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, the sting information never filtered down to Galina and Alex, and those two never told their superiors what they planned to do. Mainly because they were promised a kickback from Shiva if they retrieved the flash drive in record time.”

“Amateurs,” Gabriel muttered.

“They probably thought they’d get a big bonus for capturing the information,” I surmised. “But instead, they both died gruesome deaths.”

“For nothing,” Robin said grimly. “I should blame Rajiv for their deaths, since he started the ball rolling, but I don’t. I blame my mother. She was at the center of it all. She lied to everyone from day one, and the worst part is, she did it for money. Why? She had plenty of money, but she wanted more. She could’ve killed Jeremy! I’ll never forgive her for that.”

Guru Bob, sitting in the chair next to Robin, reached out and took her hand in his. “Forgiveness will remove the weight of guilt from your shoulders, gracious. Allow me to suggest that you learn to forgive, but do not ever forget. Do not forget her lies. Do not forget her true nature. Do not forget that her beauty cloaked the snake within. That is the lesson I will have to take with me, as well. For I, too, and all of us were deceived by the woman.”

Robin gripped his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have a lovely heart,” he said. “You have done nothing wrong, gracious, and I want you to remember that always.” Then he smiled at her so sweetly that I felt tears spring to my eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

After a solemn moment, Derek picked up the story. “Shiva had told Yuri Borkov, the Russian, about the flash drive hidden in the scarf. And since Robin was staying with Brooklyn, he broke in to search for it. He didn’t get very far before we returned and he had to run.”

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if he found the Kama Sutra,” I said. “But thank God he didn’t.”

The book was now in the safe hands of Ian McCullough and the Covington Library. Ian assured me that Minka had been fired—again—so I would finish my work on the Kama Sutra in one of their on-site workshops.

Rajiv had received a slap on the wrist for his part in the fiasco. He’d shot both Jeremy and Shiva, but he said he’d meant only to scare Shiva into backing down. He also insisted he’d grabbed Robin only to make her mother toe the line.

Rajiv had been so guilt ridden by the outcome of his sting that I was able to coerce him into donating the Kama Sutra to the Covington Library. He would receive credit as the donor, of course, and I would receive credit for discovering the book’s connection to Jean-Pierre de Garme, royal bookbinder to the French court of Louis XVI. A small win-win in a sea of tragic losses.

“Indeed, it was a good thing Yuri didn’t find the book,” Derek said. “But his day got worse when he was unknowingly spotted by little Tyler, Brooklyn’s neighbor. Once the police got a workable sketch from Tyler’s description, Galina was able to use a connection she had inside the police department to track down Yuri. Based on Shiva’s admissions, we believe Galina is the one who killed Yuri, because he admitted to her that he killed Alex.”

“So who killed the young one, Stanislav?” Dad asked.

Derek leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “We don’t know. My money is on Rajiv, but I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”