Penny Criminal Case. Alexander Cherenov

“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