“Show me where you were and the position she was in when she blew you,” I say.
He gets up and moves to a spot beside the bed, across from the closet. “I stood here.” He moves his hands to where her head had been. “And she knelt here. The whole thing lasted for maybe ten minutes.”
“And then what?”
“Then she went to the bathroom, I guess to wash her mouth out.”
I shake my head at his stupidity and point at the hole in the closet door. “She positioned you so that she could make a video through there.” I open the door and show him the stool. “That’s where the camera was.”
He sits on the bed again and buries his face in his hands.
“You’re known to have had sex with Iisa Filippov. Linda and Iisa look alike. She placed herself so that, with her back to the camera, no one could tell the difference between them. She went to the bathroom to spit out your come and save it, to have a sample of your semen and DNA, damning proof of your affair with Iisa, should it be required.”
He looks up at me, haggard. His mouth spasms. “How do we fix this?”
I kneel down and stare into his face. I’ve seldom seen a man look so broken. “When you tell me why they framed you, maybe I can answer that question.”
He forces himself to focus. “As you said, I had sex with Iisa and Linda. Cuckolding Filippov twice must have driven him to murder and revenge.”
Jyri needs a moment to come to grips with a situation that could destroy him. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I say.
He follows me. I find an ashtray and we sit at the table. I shake Marlboros out of my pack for both of us. We smoke and let a few moments pass in silence.
“You’re being evasive,” I say. “Stop hedging and tell me the truth. All of it. Otherwise, I can’t help you.”
He nods, steels himself. Coming in here and realizing what has been done to him was a hard jolt, but he’s a tough bastard. I watch him recover by degrees. It doesn’t take long.
“I don’t know the particulars about Filippov’s relationships with his wife and Linda,” he says, “but I can tell you about his business affairs… and a few other things.”
“Tell.”
“Filippov wanted to expand his construction business. He wanted government contracts for big projects. He spread a lot of money around in order to get them.”
“You’re saying he bribed government officials.”
“Correct.”
“Which ones?”
“At this point, their names are inconsequential. I’ll tell you later if the need arises. He spent a lot of money on bribes and was dissatisfied with the results. The reason he came to the party on the night his wife was murdered was to express that dissatisfaction in strong terms.”
“And the result was?”
“None. He was told that he’ll get what he gets, when he gets it.”
“And the ‘few other things’ you mentioned?”
“I wasn’t the only one to have sex with both Iisa and Linda. There are four of us-officeholders-that I know of. There could be more.”
“So, in addition to bribing you with money, he was pimping out his wife and mistress to get these contracts.”
“In retrospect, it appears so.”
I sit back and take a second to put the pieces together. “My guess is that Filippov and Linda set up the others the same way they did you. Filippov more than likely acquired sex videos and DNA samples from all the corrupt politicians who took his money and fucked his wife. You fucked him as well, pushed him too far.”
“But why kill his wife?” Jyri asks.