Penny Criminal Case

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…”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Starkov returned to the prosecutor’s office, but as soon as he managed to cross the threshold of the office, the telephone rang.

“This is Petrov, bro. Come back soon: Koval returned from school, and information passed ‘on the bottom’ also.”

Starkov, frustrated, hit his fist on the table.

“Let me have lunch, Boris. There is a pancake store around the corner… damn, well, you know…”

“Lunch together with us!” the tube banged indisputable tone. “Today there is a very good lunch here: borsch, meatballs with mashed potatoes with milk, compote of dried fruits. The discount is one hundred percent for everything! Well, and alcohol, we find, of course! We are waiting for you!”

Twenty minutes later, instead of the standard ten, due to the “buzzing” legs, Starkov opened the door to Petrov’s office once again.

“I’m sorry, bro, but me without you – like without hands!” Petrov obeyed immediately. “And don’t worry about the dining room: they will bring our lunch here! But first, let’s finish the program of the day!”

Starkov wearily sat down on a chair.

“Boris, the first point immediately: what information is ‘on the bottom’?”

The lieutenant colonel winked at Starkov conspiratorially.

“We have something! Our man, after all, ‘unwound’ the boy. Well, this is not a sincere confession, of course, but, so to speak…”

“Do not hurt, bro!”

Petrov jerked himself up to Starkov, almost buried his face in his face.

“The boy confessed that the school regularly scoffed at him, and, not so much the boys, how many girls. Well, did you see this jerk?”

Starkov nodded his head.

“Here you go. He was freed from physical education ‘for outstanding sporting achievements’: he could not even run a hundred meters, he came last, after all the girls. On physical education, he always sat on a bench against the wall and ‘heard’ " insults, with which he was presented during the whole lesson. Kotova tried to insult him especially.”

Petrov grinned.

“The girl had a pretty face, a beautiful figure, an arrogant character. Petin got more from her than anybody else. This is an ‘iron’ motive!”

Petrov stared at Starkov with his gaze: he was looking for signs of approval, but he did not find it.

“Do not be distracted, bro,” Starkov winced wearily. “Got more than anyone else”. And?”

The lieutenant colonel snoozed offendedly: he did not expect such a reaction to his deduction.

“Okay… Once, when Petin, who was already pissed off because of insults…”

“The soul of the poet could not bear the shame of petty offenses”?”

“Something like this… So, one day, after the lessons, Petin decided to build muscle. He sneaked into an empty gym, hooked on the crossbar on the horizontal bar… and hung like a sausage! Here he was caught…”

“In flagranti delicti,” Starkov couldn’t restrain again.

“What?” the lieutenant colonel was honest.

“At the crime scene” – this is Latin.”

“Well, I am talking about this,” Petrov returned to the image. “Petin thought he was alone, but he was wrong. This Kotova and girlfriends tracked him down, and when he hung, she jumped out from the ‘ladies’ dressing room and… What do you think was next?”

“Called to thinkers,” Ivanov, with a weary reproach, was “noted” at Trofimenko.

“And why should I think if you yourself tell me everything?”

“Why are you insulting me?” the lieutenant colonel grunted sadly. But after a moment there was no trace of his grief on his face. “They pulled off his leotards and underwear!”

“And they didn’t find anything under his underpants?” Starkov “guessed” with a grin.

“Exactly!” Petrov almost roared with delight. “His penis turned out to be…”

“No more acorn?” Starkov guessed again.

“Precisely, bro!”

Colonel was bursting with delight. It was felt, that the information did not just give him “aesthetic pleasure”: it fit nicely into his “iron” version.

“The girls began to laugh, and Kotova said bluntly, that he had nothing to do on a woman with such a ‘good’! So she said directly: he has nothing to do on the woman, because there is nothing! Do you imagine it?!”

“Go on, go on,” Starkov “imagined”.

“The boy got so angry, that he promised to kill her, but before that, show her ‘how he has nothing to do with the woman’!”

Petrov was so tired of his own enthusiasm that he had to turn for help to a glass of mineral water. He shared fraternally with Starkov, of course. Having wiped out his wet chin in a popular way – with a sleeve – he could not stand the test of glory and “dressed in triumphant” again.

“That’s where the stick in the ‘hole’, bro! This is what he wanted to show by this – and he showed! That’s how, and most importantly, with what tool he fucked her! I no longer speak for the motive: revenge! This is understandable even to a fool!”

Petrov again moved towards Starkov with the expression on the face of a regular conspirator.

“By the way, the ‘booty’ of Koval fully confirms the fact… well, the incident in the gym and the ‘solemn promise of the young pioneer’. Koval has eight explanatory letters from girls and boys. And besides…”

The kind of conspirator has become “intolerable conspiratorial”.

“… we have something for the father, for Petin senior. They say that the tearful-pimply son complained to dad, and he promised his son, that the bitch will be punished for insulting.”

“Where does this information come from?” Starkov interested narrowed his eyes.

“From Koval, of course!” Petrov spread his hands, surprised by the “inconsistency” of the counterpart.

Starkov grinned.

“Comrade did not understand”: I ask, what objectively confirms the rumors that Koval got at school? “They say” is not proof.”

The lieutenant colonel ceased to radiate a glow and wrinkled his “Leninist” forehead.

“Well, you are welcome to all we have. Do not worry: we will complete the work! The main thing is to make a start!”

“There are no objections to this, bro,” Starkov said in a soft voice. “And by the way, have you already given a task to your subordinates about Petin senior?”

Petrov’s broad face blossomed with a condescending smile.

“You underestimate me, bro! My two detectives are already there! And not for peeping from behind the bushes: as soon as he appears, we will seize him immediately!”

“Okay!”

Starkov sentenced the question with a sonorous slap of the wide palm.

“And now, what: let’s work out a pimply boy?”

Since the text didn’t even resemble the question, it was Petrov, who oriented himself instantly: Starkov was just “putting on a sign”, but the lieutenant colonel was already pressing the dial key.

“Andrey, bring this son of a bitch here!”

Three minutes later, Captain “extremely politely”, just with his hands and feet, pushed Petin Jr. into the office.

Petrov met the appearance of the “object of work” with a wide “good-natured” smile… and with already familiar to him a rubber hose, which the lieutenant colonel laid out on the table immediately after placing the “object” on the chair.

Seeing the “good friend”, the youngster recoiled back in horror, but was immediately returned to his original position with a weighty jab in the back of captain behind him.

“Well, let’s talk?”

Petrov, tapping on the palm of his hand, moved “from point A to point B”. According to the conditions of the school task, the meeting should take place at point C. But life is not a school, and, at least, in this room, the meeting should take place at point B. And, judging by how still on the way there is a smile on the face of the lieutenant colonel from good-natured transferred to the category of bad ones, this meeting did not promise the “object from point B” anything good.

“I warn you at once: my patience is running out, as well as time. And if you test it again, then I will test the strength of this rubber on your back. You can’t imagine, how disappointed I will be, if we don’t reach a mutual understanding.”

Petrov turned to Starkov.

“Comrade senior investigator for particularly important cases!”

“Promoted in rank” – for the benefit of the cause – Starkov instantly filled with theatrical importance.

“I ask you to give me documents, confirming the guilt of citizen Petin in committing a serious crime.”

Starkov put the thin binder into a folder with a hundred blank sheets of paper and with an important look handed the “documents” to the lieutenant colonel.

“Are protocols interrogation of students, teachers and neighbors here?” Petrov continued to play.

“Of course, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” Starkov also corresponded to the image.

“Your sorrowful work will not disappear”: the list of the defendants, especially the mention of the school, clearly shocked the youngster. He dropped his head between his knees: the text was already coming from there.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“Well, everything you want to say, we know even without you,” Petrov winced. “We would like to hear not this, but what you can say, but you don’t want to say, trying to hide it from me and my comrade senior investigator for particularly important matters.

– So about the school is not necessary?”

Petin Junior timidly looked out – with eyes only – from somewhere below.

“Is it you – about panties, penis and girlish sneers?”

“Object” shook his head between his knees mournfully.

“No, this is not necessary,” the lieutenant colonel waved idly with his hand. “Better – from the place, where you threatened to ‘kill’ and ‘fuck’. You threatened to do both?”

There was no reaction to this question: not the smartest even in his school, Petin, however, felt where this question led him and where his answer would lead. But he “played with fire”: Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was not “kind investigator”, who confined themselves to testimony, which, in turn, the defendants were ready to give. Petrov professedly confessed the slogan on the theme of the mountain and Mahomet, but he also did not intend to play the “kind investigator” and the “evil investigator”: he was always himself, that is, the “evil investigator”.

“Are you deaf, you son of a bitch?”

The lieutenant colonel is already out of his image and “has returned to himself”

“I asked a question: did you threaten Kotova to kill and fuck her?”

Having clarified, how Petrov’s voice vibrated and how the hose vibrated even more in his hands, Petin immediately “set aside the deaf-mute”.

“Yes… I threatened…”

“So it will be better!” Petrov “become kinder”. “Now tell me, how you carried out your plan?”

“I didn’t carry out.”

Petin did not have time to gaze in the direction of the vibrating hose, because the hose did not vibrate anymore, but did work on the back of a youngster with might and main.

“Aw, aw, aw!”

Petin, nevertheless, had time “pay tribute” to the hose three times.

“But you had the same plan?” Petrov roared, twisting the hose at the very nose of Petin.

“I had,” “object” did not tempt the fate.

“Very well,” The lieutenant colonel approved Petin congenially, and immediately recovered. “That’s very bad, of course, I wanted to say… Well, and what was this plan?”

Petin was “embarrassed”, but not for long: the new “portion of hose” returned to the investigator his image with all his existing duties and absent rights immediately.

“I… wanted to prove to her that my penis… that I…”

“That you have penis too, haven’t you?” Petrov specified with a cheerful smirk.

Petin tried to be embarrassed again, but the sight of the hose made him change his mind.

“Well, yes… That is, that I… well… I am a man…”

“And how did you want to prove it to her?”

The youngster frowned and sighed.

“I wanted to track her in the wasteland… well, where she was found later…”

“And how could you know that she was there?” Starkov connected to the conversation interestedly.

“Their cat constantly runs away there.”

“Got it: next.”

Starkov and Petrov worked almost in unison.

“I wanted… this…”

“Watch her,” Starkov said gently: lieutenant colonel was ready with a “more popular” version.

“Well, yes… then I planned to hit her in the head with brick, and when she faints, undress her and shove in her… in… this…”

“Into the vagina,” Starkov did not change the intellectual in himself, ahead of Petrov, who tried to offer another option.

“Yes: in the cabin.”

This time, Starkov and Petrov were unanimous: they burst out laughing a capello. Not dead girl amused them, of course – there is nothing funny: an ordinary human ignorance amused them.

“Delighted with understanding,” the youngster immediately put his hands on himself.

“But I did not kill her!”

“You didn’t want to kill, but…”

The lieutenant colonel was the first to grab this “thread”.

“No, I did not want to kill!” the youngster began to tear the “thread” resolutely and with tears. “Yes, I waited for her that day, but I did not wait, although I saw their cat there, in the wasteland…”

“This is an interesting movie,” Starkov muttered thoughtfully, from somewhere “from abroad… of himself.” “So, the cat, nevertheless, left ‘to walk by itself’… or ‘it was left’…”

“What are you talking about?” Petrov raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“So… thoughts out loud… Okay, Petin Jr.”

Starkov jerked the seat off the seat.

“You have no alibi – not even one percent. The fact, that you was too loudly indignant about the ‘theft’ of the comb, it could well be work for the public to ‘excuse’. You lost your comb in a wasteland, and then you made up a story with a dressing room.”