Читать книгу Penny Criminal Case - Alexander Cherenov - Страница 8

On the nature of the work “among the object”, Starkov could have a complete idea even “on the distant approaches” to the Petrov’s office. The characteristic “aw, aw, aw!” was already flowing in a continuous stream, interrupted occasionally by no less characteristic sounds of dull beats, “of course, even remotely having no similarity with non-procedural methods of interrogation”.

The picture, which Starkov opened behind the door, that opened a little earlier, for some reason did not strike the imagination: all in tears and snot, with disheveled red hairs, Petin was actively “subjected to explanatory work among himself” from two sides: Lieutenant Colonel Petrov and Captain Andrey. But everything was “grand, noble”, without deviant assault. Continuous cuffs from Captain, who was standing behind the “client”, fit into the norm fully and corresponded to the “local customs”.

True, a purple-faced Petrov so energetically leaned towards the “object of work”, that he almost rested against his physiognomy, while trying to keep his distance, so as not to catch someone from aggressive acne.

“Will you talk, you bastard?!”

The “creative process” was interrupted by the appearance of Starkov. Petrov slowly moved away from the object, and, turning to Alex, negatively moved his head from side to side.

“I think, Boris, we must give the suspect time to think about his difficult position… almost hopeless…”

Starkov “made a proposal” deliberately in a loud voice, obviously not so much for the lieutenant colonel, as for Petin, who was choked up in snot. Clever Petrov not only did not begin to ask again in surprise, but did not even use a “surprised” shoulder to demonstrate a lack of understanding.

“Captain, take… this… to the camera. Let him sit there and think.”

When the door behind the “object” and the guard closed, Petrov immediately, but very slowly, headed for the tiny rest room behind the commanding chair, where there was a sofa, a refrigerator and even a wash basin. Thrusting his head under the tap and snorting noisily, he freshened up with cold water and rubbed vigorously with a dry towel. Then he removed a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator, and, without asking Starkov’s wishes, he poured it into two tall glasses of thin glass.

Clutching glasses with Starkov, Petrov swallowed mineral water. Then, noisily puffing and belching, he slowly looked at Starkov.

“Well, what is in the dining room today?”

“Have I been there?”

The lieutenant colonel blew his lips in surprise.

“And what did you do?!”

“I gave the task to Lapin about the school. Marat has already sent Koval there.”

“It’s reasonable,” the lieutenant colonel approved. “It is possible, that the ‘legs’ of this case grow from school.”

“Well, maybe not of the case, but of the version – for sure.”

Starkov slowly sips “finalized” the glass.

“It is possible, that this pimply jerk has a past, albeit of a ‘school bottling’. He probably ‘loves’ girls for the fact, that they ‘love’ him ‘even more’. Conflicts of ‘mutual misunderstanding’ are not excluded… But…”

Starkov shook his head doubtfully.

“You think we waste time with him?!” Petrov joined energetically, immediately determined with the continuation of the insidious “but”.

“It seems so. No, it is necessary to work out ‘in full’, of course. You, bro, put your ‘cop’ into his cell.”

“This has already been done,” Petrov frowned.

They paused.

“What have you gained?” Starkov interrupted pause.

The face of the lieutenant colonel immediately “snapped of vinegar”.

“Nothing interesting.” He shook his hand irritably. “This jerk says that when he came back from school, he stained his sneakers with mud… sneakers, they say, were new, so he decided to ‘wash’ them. Then he allegedly hung sneakers on a fence around the house… well, to dry it.”

“Does he hints, that they were stolen?”

Starkov, as if deliberating, shrugged vaguely.

“The version, of course, is shaky, but theoretically… And what about the comb?”

“It was stolen also!”

Petrov added anger and crimson to the “vinegar” on the face.

“Under what circumstances?”

“He says, that his comb… well, because of this comb, many boys in the class were jealous. And, so, allegedly, when he was on physical education, someone ‘took away’ the comb from the locker room.”

Petrov shook his head and, with a frown, “aimed” at Starkov.

“What do you think?”

“We need to check it,” Starkov didn’t even bother to think. “That’s why we need information from school… Although…”

Starkov chewed his lips, with doubt on his face.

“It may well be, that this pimple invented the story with a comb for the ‘excuse’. He could lose his comb easily at the scene of the murder…”

“And I have the same opinion!” Petrov caught fire immediately.

Starkov twitched his cheek condescendingly.

“Don’t get excited, bro. Listen first. I’m not saying that a comb, lost or abandoned at a crime scene, is proof that this jerk is murderer. Even if we prove the loss of a comb in the right place, we cannot draw the necessary conclusion from this.”

Petrov moved his eyebrows displeasedly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“He could lose his comb there before the time of the murder, and after. For example, knowing, that the girl is always looking for the cat-reveler in the same place, he could watch her out there to clarify the relationship, but he was late: someone had already found out his relationship with her before him. The jerk got scared, of course, fled the crime scene and lost the comb!”

The lieutenant colonel sighed sadly and shook his head slowly.

“You are right, bro. It could well have been… And what remains for us?”

“And what remains for us?”?”

Starkov did not become “artistically”, a la Sherlock Holmes, to think using tobacco and a proud profile.

“Well, first of all, we will work out Petin Jr to the end.”

He raised the little finger of his right hand.

“Then we have a couple of cigarette butts… By the way, does this jerk smoke?”

“I did not ask!” Petrov wrinkled face irritated. “There was no time: I beat out the confession…”

“Okay, we will find out. Farther…”

Starkov bent the second finger.

“We have a button, that looks like a police one. So, here…”

“Wait, bro!” the lieutenant colonel interrupted him energetically, picking up the phone from the levers jerkingly. Twisting the disc, he began to nervously stamp around the apparatus. “Major Bessonov? Lt. Col. Petrov bothers you!.. Nothing… your prayers!.. Listen, bro, I immediately – to the point: you ‘threatened’ us to work out a button… well, that – on the killings in the wasteland!.. Worked out? Well, ‘report’!. . What?!..”

For some time, the lieutenant colonel was standing as a pillar, staring blankly somewhere past a telephone into a wall, on which “there were no patterns and no flowers grew”. Then, jerking off the stupor, he “returned” to the conversation.

“Give him immediately here, bro!.. What does it mean: ‘He will come himself’? ! No, bro, you provide him with a ‘personal carriage’, but put your guard, so that your ‘guardian of the law’ will not run away from custody! I ask you, as a friend!.. Well, that is another thing! We are waiting for the ‘guest’ with impatience! By!”

Putting the receiver on the levers, he slowly turned to Starkov. The expression of confusion has managed already to replace the enthusiasm of a second prescription on his face.

“Jesus Christ, what a mess! What things we have here, bro!..”

“Don’t waste time, bro!” Starkov could not resist.

“The button belongs to the fool-lieutenant!”

“Ivanov?!”

Now it was Starkov’s turn to work his eyebrows in amazement.

“I could imagine anyone in this role – only not him!”

Alex was amazed for a short time: after a few seconds, astonishment had already surrendered to the authorities of doubt.

“No, it is excluded! This is from the field of unscientific fiction, bro! He is not even a cretin, he is an idiot, moreover, clinical idiot! I will never believe, that he may be interested in women – in any capacity: as a woman, as a carrier of wealth, as an object of irritation! Although… I noticed his look once…”

“That’s it!” Petrov caught fire once again. “No wonder they say that ‘in still waters run deep!’ Well, here is another ‘live’ version!”

Petrov rubbed his palm on his palm vigorously.

“Now this son of a bitch will be delivered to us – and we will start to work him out until Petin confesses to murder! Thank God, there is a choice now – we will define someone for the role of the murderer! We will ‘bring this dish to readiness’ necessarily!”

“Okay…”

Starks patted his nose with his finger almost embarrassed.

“I wanted to leave you: there in the prosecutor’s office I have a couple of witnesses on one rape… but if such a thing…”

“Stay with me, bro,” Petrov patted his shoulder vigorously, “it won’t be boring!”

“Fun” had to wait no less than an hour: everything happens quickly only in a fairy tale. But no matter how long they continue, will eventually be stopped: at the end of an hour of waiting, the duty officer called and said, that the district police officer Ivanov had been delivered. In the meantime, he was led into the office, Captain Andrew managed to get ahead of them with information about what our agent in the cell cannot please anything: Petin only whines, that he is not guilty of anything.

“Our ‘snitch’ says,” Andrey lowered his glance guiltily, “that this ‘nothingness’ does not look like a murderer.”

“Let him work on! Petrov wrinkled huge forehead displeasurely. “We spend such money on this public, and no benefit from them! Go and tell him: if he fails, I will punish him! I will leave him not only “without sweet”: without pants!”

Andrey, who never crossed the threshold and leaked only with his head, considered it best to instantly melt in the doorway.

“Oh, boy!” Petrov “approved” vigorously. “Like a sieve from a dog tail” – so you seem to say, bro?”

“Not me: Ostap Bender.”

At this moment there was a knock at the door. Petrov raised his eyebrows ominously: he did not want the appearance of any of the subordinates. But the “disapproving informer” turned out to be a guide from the Kirov district department of internal affairs, who brought lieutenant Ivanov.

“I was asked to give you papers, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”

The attendant handed Petrov several sheets of paper, that were fastened with a paper clip.

“Allow me to go, comrade lieutenant colonel?”

“Go,” Petrov waved his hand absently, completely absorbed in Ivanov’s review. Having surveyed the latter, he turned to Starkov with a cheerful grin and shook his head, as if to say: “You were right, but I did not believe it!”

Ivanov did not change himself in the constancy of the image. He stood looking down at the freshly painted floor, so awkward, lanky, thin, with the green snot, which traditionally fell out of his nostrils, which he tried in vain to put in place.

“What a handsome guy!” Petrov laughed. “And where is the button?”

The button, which was absent on the cuff of the left sleeve, was only “designated” by scraps of thread sticking out of the fabric. The answer to the lieutenant colonel was another silent attempt to “work out” green snot.

Petrov took Ivanov by the sleeve and turned the “face” towards Starkov.

“What do you say, bro?”

“What can I say?” Starkov scoffed, removing a shaped metal button from a plastic bag. “Even apply is not necessary, if for the order only…”

Starkov “took over the baton” of the sleeve from Petrov and set the button in place. The place and the button turned out to be “blood relatives”. The ends of the dangling threads are so perfectly suited to each other, that the lieutenant colonel did not keep the triumphant grin.

“Yes, there is no need for any expertise: exactly the same!”

“No, bro, expertise is needed – for order,” Starkov opposed gently. “But what a good fellow our brave lieutenant is! What is it you still have not bothered to sew a button, at least some? Then you would answer all claims: I know nothing! What, bro? What is the reason: laziness or hope for the Russian ‘maybe’?”

Starkov could not stand it and laughed.

“Boris, for the first time in my life I see a suspect, who has not even tried to cover his tracks!”

Having laughed to tears, Starkov took advantage of a not quite fresh handkerchief, more often used for its intended purpose (for the nose), and returned “seriousness” to the face.

“Where is the button, Ivanov?”

The policeman even tried to wrinkle his forehead, but it did not help revive the memory. Then he engaged his shoulders – in the form of an uncertain shrug.

“I do not know… it come off…”

“Well, we see it.”

Through the stifling laughter, Starkov barely pressed seriousness on his face.

“Where did it come off exactly? And how did this button end up in the hand of a murdered girl?”

This time lieutenant answered in a more familiar way: he sniffed and shook his nozzle.

“Oh, boy!” Starkov shook his head, gleaming with his eyes mischievously. “By the way, Boris, let’s see what papers our ‘Kirov friends’ sent us.”

Petrov, a great “lover” of messing around with papers – like any real detective – readily reassigned this event – along with the documents – to Starkov. Alex quickly ran through the text – it did not have long: the accompanying document of Major Bessonov was packed into ten lines, and the explanatory text of Ivanov even did not reach this “record”.

“What do they write?” Petrov looked over Starkov’s shoulder, unable to endure a long pause.

“Rehabilitation,” Starks grinned. “Our… either the suspect, or the defendant… in short, the loss of this very button was found during the parade, right at the time when, according to the testimony of the neighbors, the future murdered girl was seen in the courtyard of her own house. Alive still, of course.”

“This is alibi,” Petrov shook his head sadly.

“Yes, bro. Major Bessonov, who conducted the parade, made a remark to our ‘hero’ and sent him to sew a button.”

“And?” Petrov showed sluggish interest.

“And that’s all!“Starkov laughed. “No buttons, no lieutenant!”

Petrov could already hold back and grabbed Ivanov – no longer by the sleeve, but by the throat.

“Why didn’t you sew a button, you motherfucker?!”

Wheezing, either from excitement, or from suffocation, the policeman suddenly became generous with a whole monologue, if, of course, these few words could be elevated to the dignity of a monologue.

“So… it is… well, when I… when I… took the needle already – and then the call to the service area… a household fight… right on the waste ground… here.”

Petrov turned to Starkov with a question in his eyes – and Alex “approved” the testimony of the district police officer.

“Bessonov writes that Ivanov really went to the service area due to the fight between young hooligans. He even managed to make the protocol there.”

Petrov let go of the district policeman’s throat and sank into a chair with a heavy sigh.

“What a beautiful version was it: real jam!”

Starkov went to the phone.

“Do you mind, bro?”

The lieutenant colonel waved his hand wearily. Starkov scrolled the number quickly.

“Major Bessonov? Starkov bother you. We have dealt with your lieutenant, bro… Yes, a complete alibi… No, we will carry out an examination, of course. So you give him a new button, please.”

Starkov broke down and laughed.

“So I informed you: we let him go… No, let him get on foot!.. Good luck, bro!”

Starkov returned the receiver to the apparatus and turned to Ivanov.

“Get out of here, you son of a bitch!”

Ivanov stumbled a little more on the spot, tried unsuccessfully to tighten his snot, then sighed, muttered something like “goodbye” and, hunched over, went out the door.

Looking at him from behind, Petrov “accompanied” the district police officer with “a few kind words” for a few more minutes, but then he could not stand it:

“No, bro, we let him go in vain… so early!”

“Sorry?” Starkov did not lie.

“How did the button end up in the girl’s hand?”

Starkov laughed.

“Was you going to find out from him?”

Petrov shrugged uncertainly.

“Well… in general… But somehow, after all, it was there?”

“In hand or in the wasteland?”

“Both!”

Starkov thought for a moment.

“Well, as for the wasteland… There is only one option: this ‘little fool’ is still a policeman, albeit a bad one. And he visits the wasteland once a day, at least. He has a small area, and he loves to walk. And since he is a slob…”

“Got it,” Petrov frowned once again, and right there he “turned into a fighting cock”. “How did the button end up in the girl’s hand, eh?”

Starkov first went away to the side, and then “moved to the ceiling”.

“Well, I think, that our girl did not die immediately, and while the murderer was strangling her, she clutched in agony for everything, that came under her hands. A button could well have been caught – unless, of course, this one… Ivanov has dropped it there… if he dropped it…”

Starkov frowned under the bewildered look of Petrov.

“There is another option, bro…”

“What?” Petrov guarded.

“Someone put this button in her hand, most likely, the murderer himself.”

The lieutenant colonel frowned.

“Leads us on a false trail?”

“Or he laughs at us, trying to confuse in a pile of assorted evidence. And if our ‘fortune telling on the coffee grounds’ is true, then this means, that Ivanov did not lose button – it was stolen from him… for us especially.”

Similar in content views of Starkov and Petrov met and did not diverge anymore.

“Yes, bro: in this case, we will not soon get to know him… if ever we meet…”

With difficulty, as if stuck, Starkov tore his backside from the tabletop, on which he had settled down even during a conversation with Bessonov.

“It seems, my friend Boris, that with this case we are in full ass…”