Penny Criminal Case

Penny Criminal Case

Alexander Cherenov

© Alexander Cherenov, 2019

ISBN 978-5-4496-8957-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

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PENNY CRIMINAL CASE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I… I… I… I…”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTIETH

CHAPTER TWENTY FIRST

CHAPTER TWENTY SECOND

CHAPTER TWENTY THIRD

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Starkov twitched his cheek laconically

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVENCHAPTER TWENTY EIGHTCHAPTER TWENTY NINTHCHAPTER THIRTYCHAPTER THIRTY FIRSTCHAPTER THIRTY SECONDCHAPTER THIRTY THIRDCHAPTER THIRTY FOURTHINSTEAD OF EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“Comrade senior investigator! Boss!”

The senior investigator of the Central district prosecutor’s office, Alex Starkov, who was on duty in Uglegorsk, reluctantly opened one eye. Above him, with feigned participation and the same subservience in his face and voice, the head of the responsible duty police department Major Stoller was leaning.

“Alex, “I came to you with a greeting to tell you that the sun had risen!”

Starkov looked at the window “cheerfully”, then looked at the clock.

“Fuck you: it’s two o’clock right now! And, if you came to me “to tell that the sun had risen”, then you are really way-out!

“Get up, get up, Alex! The sun can still take a nap, and you are no longer!”

The Major’s wide face widened into a good-natured smile.

“Only half an hour, as my ass leaned against!” – continued to resist Starkov, already realizing, that “resistance is useless”. “Fear God, you godless sinner!”

“Alex, there is nothing to do – a penny job!”

Starkov raised himself on his elbow and swung his legs from the cot to the floor.

“That’s all: sleep well, so to speak…”

He began to grope his shoes under the cot. Finally, he felt, with a painful grimace on his face, stuck his legs in them, and, groaning, slowly got up.

“Well?”

“The ordinary case, Alex: murder. There is nothing special.”

Continuing the “return to life”, Starkov dejectedly shook his head.

“Ordinary” and “nothing”… Oh, our sins are grave… Where… this “ordinary” and “nothing”?”

“In the Kirov district!” Major added cheerfulness. “So calm down! I’m telling you: a penny job! There is no to do there, in all fairness! You will go… you fool around there a little bit… well, there, the protocol of the inspection… witnesses… all this crap – and you will transfer the material on territoriality in the morning! All right, so here’s the deal! What the hell I teach the genius of the investigation!”

Stoller “knew the statute”: the investigator of the prosecutor’s office on duty in the city carried out primary measures at the scene of the incident, and if this place was not his “place of residence”, he transferred the collected papers to the prosecutor’s office from the area, that had “lucky” to acquire another corpse.

It was supposed to report to the city prosecutor, of course – according to the instructions – but after several cases of stupid red tape, which “successfully damaged” the investigation “without delay”, it was decided to immediately transfer the “waste paper” to territoriality. The task was simplified by the fact that, despite the duty officer of the city, the prosecutor, the investigator of the prosecutor’s office and the local detectives always traveled to their area. It is understandable: they also work on the case, because nobody cares about someone else’s grief! And a “foreign” investigator, most often, just riding his time out, imitating an attack of labor enthusiasm.

Already it became clear to everyone, that the initial (theoretically) stupidity of the city prosecutor and the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate was suddenly confirmed by the harsh practice of investigative life. And how it began: the general meeting of the “investigative asset” of the city, slogans like “Together we will destroy crime in the city!”

But it is not for nothing that they say: “Negotiation – celebration, calculation – consternation”. Truly, well-intentioned, the path, as a rule, is lined up in the wrong direction. The person on duty around the city only “was serving a duty” – and all for the same reason: nobody cares about someone else’s grief! Everyone has “their own rattles”! For the “alien uncle” no one was going to drag the yoke – you never reap your criminal field!

And how this “one for all – and all for one” window dressing harmed the normal work of the on-duty investigator! After all, immediately after the surrender of the duty – angry, tired, and sleepless – you had to go to your place to the area, where your own murders, witnesses and the undetermined number of cases waited for you. No, of course, “according to the regulations”, the duty investigator on the day of delivery of his duty in the city was relieved of work in his area for the whole day, but who will do it instead of him?!

And the authorities first cut down this day-off to four hours, and then completely abolished it: “the state pays you such a huge amount of money, and you will be idle?” (“A huge amount of money huge money” is one hundred and thirty rubles a month for a novice investigator for a round-the-clock working day, without weekends and holidays! Is this not a “plunder of the working people”? !

“The locals are already there,” Stoller as if overheard the thoughts of Starkov. “All of them: the prosecutor, the investigator, and the detectives. Our operational team is waiting for you in the ‘UAZ’. You will pick up the forensic expert on the way – and that’s all!”

Stoller’s face radiated enthusiasm. It was easy to understand him: the man had less than seven hours before the shift of duty – and less than six months before retirement. Therefore, he tried not to stick out with punishable initiatives, but quietly sit out their twenty-four hours, so just as calmly return the ass to this chair in three days. The man had already “served his time” by as detective, a district police officer, even an investigator of the district department of internal affairs, and now he was not eager to perform feats in praise of public order. The solid belly, that has grown in the last three years, was a clear proof of that.

Already holding the doorknob, Starkov glanced at his watch.

“Hmm, leep is no longer possible…”

His words were “the bitter truth”: the duty was not set from the very beginning, when immediately after coming on duty he already served the first customer-hangman. Then the dead people went in a jamb, and by midnight there were already half a dozen of them. The first and only time Starkov managed to lean his back on the cot only at one in the morning, and after half an hour, Major Stoller had already “pleased” him with the prospect of another trip to the scene of the incident…

In the old “UAZ”, which was kept only by the enthusiasm of the chauffeur in matters of “taxing colleagues” with spare parts and gasoline, the entire small team has already gathered. The senior detective of the City Department of Internal Affairs, Captain Rubin, and the expert-criminalist, Major Pavlovsky, are located in the backseat. The place next to the driver according to tradition was given to the duty investigator of the prosecutor’s office.

“Good morning”, sir!” Rubin laughed. “Long time no see: probably, half an hour too, how! You, probably, miss the corpses already!”

“It’s “funny,” Starkov didn’t smile. “Well, let’s go for the “ripper!”

Investigators and detectives sometimes called forensic doctors as “rippers”. There were, of course, other “options” – even abusive, but these “nicknames” were received by either” favorite” experts, or, on the contrary, “unloved ones”.

It was about ten minutes to go to the forensic medicine bureau during the daytime: you had to stand at traffic lights more. Now, at night, the “yellow eye” gave a “green light”, the road was clear, “dead”, only occasionally “animated” by a lone taxi. Therefore, we arrived in five minutes. The medical examiner Tarsky was already waiting for the group on the porch at the entrance to the bureau.

“I am glad to see everyone… again,” he grunted in response to Rubin’s feigned-sympathetic grin. Rubin was already pushing Pavlovsky in the back, making room for Tarsky’s fat ass.

“Let’s go,” Starkov waved his hand, frowningly browed. Shuddering with all the elderly guts, moaning and groaning pitifully, the car, as if trying to be strong both for itself and the road, carefully drove away from the porch…

CHAPTER TWO

The place, where the operation group arrived, did not belong to prestigious areas. Uglegorsk, even being a regional center, did not belong to the prestigious cities, despite the glorious nickname of “one of the main stokers of the country”. The city grew on coal and due to coal. This determined the specifics of everything, including the buildings: huts of barrack type grew like mushrooms toadstools in the immediate vicinity of the mines.

Over time, already away from the mines and even at a considerable distance from them, luxurious “Stalinist” houses and “social and cultural facilities” began to be built in the city, which had already begun to remotely resemble such one. Boulevards, avenues, flower beds, and even barrels of kvass and beer began to appear in the wild desert.

But the original “neighborhoods” remained almost intact, except that they slightly “refreshed” the facade. The city stretched over an area of almost a thousand square kilometers, but most of this thousand was occupied by wastelands, from which coal was already taken out and which for this reason had sank considerably, covered with a thick layer of salt and thickets of bitter wormwood, which only could grow on this dead land.

These vacant lots were a link not only between the “Shanghais”, scattered here and there, but also between the “subjects of the administrative-territorial division”. One of these vacancies was now a crime scene.. It was located on the border itself, dividing the territory of the Central and Kirov districts. One side of the wasteland rested in the Central district, the other – in the Kirov one.

“What a beautiful place!” forever resilient Rubin grinned. “I would like to live only here!”

The wasteland was really “pleasing to the eye”, impressing no less horror movie scenery in black and white. There was everything, that was not in the center: domestic and industrial waste in immeasured quantities, numerous dips and bald patches of salt performances, “framing” dumps of rock and even its own lake, which was formed by slime wastewater adjacent to waste treatment plant. The nearest dwelling, which consisted of single-storey houses for two owners and several veteran dugouts from the time of pioneers, was not less than half a kilometer on foot along a loaded track.

A few meters away from our car, there was a respectable – about ten people – a “group of comrades”, who had had time to get acquainted with the “sights” of this death spot earlier. Starkov knew them all, and not for one year: the prosecutor of the Kirov district, the deputy for operational work of the Kirov district department of internal affairs, his deputy – the head of the CID (criminal investigation department), the troika of detectives, the Kirov expert-criminalist, the senior investigator of the Kirov district prosecutor’s office. The “last on the list” was a very colorful local police inspector, with whom Starkov had an “indescribable pleasure” to get to know closely two weeks ago when he was locating the next corpse from among “persons without a certain place of residence”.

These were, so to speak, the “unskilled laborers of the struggle for socialist legality”. Of course, the presence of the law-enforcement “white bone” was also noted – where without it. The “chiefs” were represented by the deputy prosecutor of the region, the head of the investigative department of the regional prosecutor’s office and the head of the criminal investigation department of the regional police department with a couple of their impudent and equally stupid “cops”.

Starkov was not too upset by the presence of the big bosses: they came here “for a tick” and distribution to useless “valuable instructions” from among those, with whom students of the law faculty learn more from forensic textbooks and all the “value” of which is in the positions of the characters, voicing these “valuable instructions”. Starkov knew: in about ten minutes from the demonstration of an official arrogance, these “aces of operational-investigative measures” sped away from here on their personal Volga, and no one would interfere the “laborer” to do their “black” work.

The authorities did not really test the patience of the “hard workers” for long, even “overfulfilling the plan” in terms of the standard of being in place: they did not disappear after ten, but after six minutes. To a large extent, this “efficiency” was facilitated by the appearance of Starkov: this freethinker with fifteen years of experience as an investigator both the regional and city authorities knew too well to try to find out even better.

“Well, the air has become cleaner,” Rubin drew a line under the authorities. “Can we start work, comrade junior counselor of justice?”

Starkov – he is a junior counselor of justice (rank equal to police major) – grinned.

“You offend the aborigines, captain. They are already working. This arrival of ‘leaders’ tore them from the work. Let’s better ask, what they have ‘dug up’ and what they will share with the ‘city bums’.”

“God bless you, Alex, for kindness and affection.”

Major Bessonov, the deputy head for operational work, approached Starkov with an outstretched hand to greet him. Starkov respected this laconic, unpretentious and sensible “cop”, with which they repeatedly intersected in work, while never crossing each other’s paths.

“Hi, Major. Well, what have you got… we got, I wanted to say?”

“You said correctly: we got,” Major didn’t give too much optimism. “All the dubious ‘laurels’ are ours, of the Kirov district. This is what we have.”

Bessonov, with a meager gesture, invited Starkov to meet the main character of this action: a corpse. Starkov silently went to the body, prostrate in the dirt. The body was without signs of clothing and belonged to a girl of fifteen or sixteen years old. It not only stretched in the mud, but it was smeared with mud: it rained at night, and with the pieces of dirt, that had been blown out of the waste ground, the corpse was further processed.

A piece of a badly brushed stick was sticking out of the corpse’s vagina.

“What do you think: why?” Bessonov glanced at the stick.

Starkov shrugged.

“There are plenty of options, from murder of revenge to…”

“Only for God’s sake, do not hint at the maniac!” Bessonov folded the arms on his chest appealingly. “This ‘happiness’ we just did not have enough!”

“So in fact, you already have it.”

Bessonov darkened even more.

“Are you hinting at the relationship of those corpses with this?”

“Those corpses” were the four bodies of girls aged 14 to 16 years old, which were found in the Kirov and Soviet areas – two in each.

“I do not hint: I think.”

“What are those dead bodies?” Rubin joined interested. “Why am I not aware?”

“Why should you be aware?” Bessonov looked at him gloomily. Major, being a sanguine person, clearly did not sympathize with choleric Rubin: “he is too fussy!” “These are our dead, not yours. We ourselves ‘lifted’ them – we will carry this cross ourselves.”

“And what is the relationship between them?” Rubin did not lag behind.

“Get off me with your questions!” annoyed, as if from an annoying fly, Bessonov dismissed him, moving away to his “cops”.

“Why is he angry with me?!”

Rubin did not think to be offended himself. Including, for this, Starkov, in contrast to Bessonov, liked this firmly built, with a clear northern tan man. In just four months of work in the city, Rubin managed to “elevate the steppe without demeaning the mountains”: he was respected by ordinary “cops” and bosses, he was neither an intriguer nor a sycophant, he did not humiliate anyone and did not kneel before anyone.

“I really do not know. No, I heard something at operational meetings, of course, but city internal affairs department was not connected. I thought that these were ordinary murders, like in Kirov district, like in Central district, like dirt. What is the relationship?”

Starkov blew his lips thoughtfully.

“At first glance, there is no relationship. There, all four victims have genitals cut out.

“What are you saying!” Rubin shook his head sadly. “And you think that all the killings were committed by one person?”

“It seems so.”

The conclusion was given by the forensic scientist, already working with the body, without even turning his face to Starkov.

“There, the nature of the amputation, the ‘manner of writing’ and the cause of death – all victims were strangled by a noose – are obviously from one comrade. I myself went to those corpses, and made an autopsy – so that you can believe me, captain…”

“The cause of death, you say…”

Starks narrowed his eyes, carefully scanning the neck of the corpse.

“Strangulation furrow is available…”

“I think that here, too, death came from strangling with a noose,” the expert nodded in agreement.

“Ana what about this noose?”

The expert looked around and almost indifferently shrugged.

“I did not come across.”

“Victor!”

Starkov raised his forefinger of his right hand above his head, calling Bessonov for “complicity”.

“Did your guys find a stranglehold… or something similar… a rope, for example?”

Having confined himself to a half-turn, Bessonov negatively waved his head. Starkov returned his eyes to an expert, who interestedly twisted his head around the stick.

“What?”

“May I remove this stick?”

“Go ahead!”

Expert gently pulled the edge of the stick with two fingers. Starkov and Rubin bent over the body. Pulling out the stick, still squatting, Tarsky raised it over his head. The whole lower part of the tree was covered in blood.

“Is it blood?”

“Did you count on sperm – and in the same amount?” Starkov grunted.

The expert held elbow bend on the forehead, trying to wipe the sweat.

“There’s still nothing clear: there was rape, there wasn’t… I’ll take smears from the vagina, though…”

Tarsky twisted his head in doubt, and then spread his thumb and forefinger of his right hand and, from a distance, conditionally measured the length of the bloody mark on the stick.

“Stick stuck in twenty centimeters depth. Is it a hint, or what?”

“On what?” Rubin interested examined the stick with his eyes.

“On the size of penis in a state of erection,” Starkov worked instead of the expert.

Rubin puzzled patted the earlobe.

“And why did not cut these… genitals?”

“Who knows,” Starkov sighed. “Maybe, he decided to diversify the range of services.”

“Or, maybe,” the expert connected, jerking to him, “another person was working here.”

“Another?”

Rubin puzzled brow.

“You want to say, he is imitator, don’t you? Does he imitate the one who killed those four girls??

“Maybe, he doesn’t imitate,” Tarsky spread his hands. “Maybe, he is an independent criminal. Although, he is the same beast… Let me pack the stick in polyethylene?”

“Okay.”

“That’s right: there may be prints there too!”

“In the movies,” Starks grinned. “Is there any blood on the part, that that did not stick in the vagina?”

The expert did not even conduct a “re-examination”.

“No.”

“Well, and what traces will we find then? This material evidence is not for examination, but for order… By the way, what about the tracks?”

The question was already addressed not to the expert, but to “local comrades”. This time, Bessonov did not “distance himself from half-turns” and immediately approached Starkov.

“Something we have already found, Alex. Here it is.”

A plastic bag, the contents of which consisted of a plastic comb in the form of a naked girl and a plaster cast from some kind of trace, moved into the hands of Starkov.

“What an interesting thing,” Starkov grinned at the sight of the spicy comb. – Is it prison homemade?”

“You make mistake: Czechoslovak, branded.”

“And the cast?”

“This is the cast of sneakers, also Czech production. Most of the letters from the factory stamp have imprinted well, so our expert has already correctly read: ‘Made in Czechoslovakia’. But…”

“Alex, I found something also!”

Tarsky interrupted Bessonov in a voice trembling with excitement.

“What exactly?”

The expert handed Starkov a metal button with scraps of thread.

“Where did you find it?”

“It was clamped in the left palm!”

Tarsky was bursting with excitement and pride for his unexpected “operational talent”.

“I noticed that her hand was clenched almost in a fist. Well, I though… well, sometimes there you find a tuft of torn hair… there, the epidermis… the blood of the criminal. I opened her palm – and now… But I already held it in my hands…”

The guilty expression on the expert’s face immediately splashed onto the back of the celebration.

“Nothing wrong,” Starkov patted him on the shoulder with a good-natured grin. “If you are again about the tracks, then you need not worry: they are found on such items only in the stupid movies… A curious thing… What do you think about it, Victor?”

Bessonov bent over a button for a moment.

“I think it curious only in one sense: from whom is it? And so… The usual button from a police jacket. Not from the main jacket: from everyday form.”

“Yeah, things…”

Starkov thoughtfully processed his chin.

“Only a maniac policeman, and although a jealous policeman, we lacked…”

Slowly, as if in oblivion, he looked at the body and his face stretched out.

“Fuck you: “I did not even notice the elephant!”

“What kind of elephant?” Bessonov “did not drive” honestly.

“Is the victim’s identity established?”

Bessonov suddenly began to turn his head around, as if he had lost someone and could not find it.

“What are you, Victor?”

“Where did the district police inspector go?” the major muttered. “It’s him, who found the corpse… Ivanov! Lieutenant Ivanov!”

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and will find; knock, and will open to you”. Christ was proved to be right once again: in a minute, or even less, from somewhere in the night, from the part of the wasteland, the “borderline” with the Central district, a lanky figure appeared. It was not difficult to recognize the district police district inspector Ivanov in it: there was no other such inconsistent size among those present or in the Department of Internal Affairs staff.

It was a red-haired fellow with a pockmarked face and uncut hairs, always stuck out in all directions from under his uniform cap. How many remarks at the drill he received for “breaking the uniform”, but it was all to no avail!! And, if this district policeman was a person, then only the one, about which they say: “he is still a person!”

Starkov met this character once only, but one meeting was enough for the character to make an impression on the city investigator. The impression was definitely negative, but unforgettable. The second such “handsome” Starkov saw many years ago, when he passed a real urgent in the army.

And this one was “still the same”: silly, slow, lazy and slob. When he had to speak, he was silent. When he had to go, he stood. When he had to think, he instantly acquired a “cow-eyed look” and picked his finger on his nose. He “thought”, in a word. When it was necessary to do it, without exerting any effort, it was only due to the “cow-eyed” that he instantly “sought reserves” in the person of those, who could no longer wait for the “beginning of the process”.