Dangerous Evidence

4

It was not difficult to locate the scene of the incident amid the residential block of cookie-cutter apartment buildings. Elena Petelina parked her car and made her way to the onlookers gathered at the police tape. The police tape had been stretched in a square plot abutting the wall of the sixteen-story building. Zooming off on his motorcycle, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Ustinov, the forensic expert, had of course beaten the detective to the scene. His large curly head could be seen fussing over a silver Skoda, upon which lay the body of a young woman.

Homicide had christened Mikhail Ustinov with the nickname “the Tadpole.” He was now occupied with taking photographs and dictating his observations to a detective named Egorov, who had arrived to the scene of the incident from the local police precinct.

“Deceased is a young female, aged 20—23. Height approximately 5’5”. Hair color is black, wavy and shoulder-length.” The expert’s fingers, sheathed in latex gloves, pried open the eyelids of the dead woman. “Eye color is hazel, nose is straight, mouth is medium-sized, lips are puffy. The deceased is wearing a leather jacket with a fox-fur lining. I’m not going too fast, am I?”

Egorov placed the folder with the report on the car’s trunk so he could write better and nodded for the Tadpole to go on.

Elena Petelina examined the dead woman. Having a teenage daughter of her own, she always reacted emotionally to the deaths of young women. The outer garments concealed the inevitable internal damage, but the deathblow had most likely been the back of the woman’s head striking the hood. It had been so violent that bruising had formed on the girl’s face.

Elena looked up to the edge of the roof and tried to imagine the horrid fall. Doing so was vital. Indulging her emotions at the scene of the crime – before anything of substance had been established and any evidence had been gathered – stimulated Elena’s intuition. More than once, the detective had found that her initial impressions served as a constructive impetus to her subsequent investigation. Being able to picture the scene of the crime, remember its attendant smells and sounds, would help her later as she sat working in her office.

Having made a note of her impressions, Petelina stepped away from the car and looked around for Captain Marat Valeyev. Following her recent fight with her ex-husband, she wanted a reliable man by her side. Before she could catch sight of Valeyev, however, she came across his partner Ivan Mayorov. The tall and powerfully-built senior lieutenant was doing his best to restrain a gaunt and irate man of fifty in a polyester jacket and an old-fashioned ushanka hat.

“Detective Petelina!” the operative called to her. “Here is an eyewitness.”

Encountering a strict look from the detective, the man settled down enough for Vanya to release him.

“Who are you?” asked Petelina.

“I am the father. That’s my daughter, Katya Grebenkina.”

Elena’s felt her chest constrict. Interviewing a parent beside the body of their child was a sadistic undertaking. However, as the case in question could be a murder, these first few hours would be invaluable to catching the perpetrator. Consequently, tact was not something she could afford.

“I can understand your present state of mind, but if you would like to help us…” It occurred to Elena that she could channel the man’s wrath to a productive purpose. “If someone murdered her, we have to catch the criminal immediately. Could you tell me how this happened?”

“We met here. Katya ran back into the lobby and then – ”

“Please state your name and try to be more detailed in your account.”

“My name is Igor Vasilevich Grebenkin. I came to Moscow just today from Saratov. I called Katya the moment I got off the train. She gave me this address, so I came here.”

“Did Katya reside in this building?”

“I believe so.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“I separated from her mother when Katya was just a newborn,” Grebenkin explained. “We were living in the town of Grayvoron back then, not far from the military base. I was in the army. Then they transferred me to Transbaikal. We weren’t married, so I had to go on my own. I was young and stupid – I didn’t even write. Ended up married to someone else, just not for long. We didn’t have kids. After I got out of the army, I settled down in Saratov. This past year, Katya found me herself – over the Internet somehow.”

“She wrote to you?”

“She came and visited! From then on I became a different person. I started to feel like I wasn’t alone in the world. We made plans to meet in Moscow today. I arrived and… well…”

“What did you talk about when you saw her today?”

“We didn’t have time to talk about anything at all. I gave her a ring with a topaz. Katya put it on, smiled and told me that she had a surprise for me. Then she ran back into the building and then…”

“A surprise? That’s the word she used?”

“Yes, ‘a major surprise.’” Grebenkin sunk into himself even further. “I don’t understand a single thing. Could she really have meant..? Tell me, damn it, what the hell happened here?!”

“Calm down please. We will figure everything out. Did Katya harbor any grudge against you?”

“Grudge?”

“As I understood it, you abandoned her when she was still little and never once tried to find out anything about her.”

“What are you implying? You think she did this because of me? I came here to help her!”

“How much time, would you say, elapsed between her running into the building and her fall?”

“How would I know?” Grebenkin snapped. “I didn’t have my stopwatch out!”

“Alright, we’ll come back to that later. Where is her mother at the moment?”

“As soon as Katya graduated, her mom found some Greek guy on the Internet and ran off with him. I guess she reckoned that her parental duties had come to an end.”

“You did the same quite a bit earlier,” the detective couldn’t help needle Grebenkin.

She had decided that she had asked enough questions for their first interview. It would be better to give the witness some time to calm down.

Marat Valeyev emerged from the building’s entrance and noticed the delicate figure of the woman he loved.

“It’s good of you to come, Lena.”

“If this is a suicide, I won’t be much help.”

“Well, listen to this: Exactly forty days ago another woman jumped off that same roof onto this same exact car. That was written off as a suicide, but here we have an identical incident. One and the same. What are the chances? I called you because I know how much you enjoy puzzling cases like this.”

“At the moment, I wish it was cake that I enjoyed so much,” Petelina said pensively, mulling over the unexpected news.

“Sweets are the nemesis of a shapely waist. You know how I love to embrace you there – ”

“Will you cut that out!” Elena slapped away Marat’s impertinent hand. “We’re at a possible crime scene. What did you find out anyway?”

“I went up to the roof. Found a purse up there and a bottle.”

Valeyev held up two evidence bags containing a little black purse and a half-drunk bottle of brandy.

“Have you studied them closely?”

“No.”

“Give them to the Tadpole.”

The senior detective and the operative returned to Misha Ustinov, the forensic expert. The medical technicians had just taken the body away. A glossy puddle of blood remained on the dented hood of the silver car. The color of blood depends on the surface it’s on. On the ground it looks brown. Here, however, it had the same scarlet color that older women, in search of a partner, apply to their lips.

“Find anything, Misha?” asked Petelina.

“Nothing major at the moment, Detective Petelina. I did gather some materials for further tests though.” The Tadpole deposited several evidence bags into his backpack. “I discovered this photo in the pocket of the deceased.”

Elena took the photograph. Incessant reminders of the frailty of life were yet another hidden cost in her line of work. An hour ago this young woman had her entire life ahead of her – and looked like this. An hour later, her tepid broken body lay ensconced in a plastic body bag on its way to the morgue.

The photograph, taken in the winter, showed Katya Grebenkina with her father. The wind had picked up the girl’s hair and she, a prudent smile on her face, was trying to tuck one of the unruly locks back under her knit hat. Igor Grebenkin, whose receding hairline had abandoned parts of his scalp to glint in the sunlight, was half-turned, watching his daughter intently.

“This is for you, Tadpole – a present from the roof.” Marat Valeyev placed the evidence bags containing the purse and the bottle of brandy onto the trunk of the Skoda.

“You went up there without me?” the forensic expert became annoyed. “If you wiped out any shoeprints – ”

“What shoeprints? The roof’s covered in puddles. Anyway, a couple local cops went up there with me and witnessed me gather this evidence.”

Peeking into the purse, Petelina noticed a passport.

“Grebenkina, Ekaterina. Twenty-one years old. Registered resident of the town of Grayvoron in Belgorod Region,” the detective read turning through the passport pages. “At least there’s no question about her identity.”

“No question about our main suspect either.” Misha Ustinov fished out a pack of cigarettes and flashed the warning label with a large bold inscription. “‘SMOKING KILLS!’ Looks like this case is closed, Detective Petelina.”

“What a clown you are,” Valeyev shook his head.

Petelina spied a folded piece of paper tucked inside the passport’s dust jacket. She pulled it out but didn’t find the time to unfold it because, at that very moment, an enraged man began trying to make his way to the car, pushing and squeezing through the throng of police in his way.

“Owner of the car,” clarified Egorov in reply to the detective’s questioning glance.

“Let him through,” Petelina ordered.

“Who’s going to pay for this? I just had her fixed!” the man clamored. “A month ago it was another bitch. They want to drive me into the poorhouse!”

“Calm down please. Have you seen this woman before?”

“I’ve seen this whore here a billion times! They’ve got a whorehouse up there in the fourth unit.”

“What whorehouse? Are you saying the dead girl was a prostitute?”

“Of course! That other one last month was her friend. What do they have against my car?”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare insult my Katya!” Igor Grebenkin began trying to get at the car’s owner. Vanya Mayorov, who was about ready to knock the irate man flat on his back, held him back by his jacket’s hem.

“Ah! So she was yours! You can pay then!”

From personal experience, Elena Petelina knew that men, like children, could be jolted from their tantrums by an abrupt change of topic.

“When is the last time it rained here?” she asked the wranglers in a very serious tone.

“I just got here from Saratov,” Grebenkin remembered after a short pause.

“Rain? It was snowing here a week ago,” mumbled the Skoda’s owner.

“Excellent,” Petelina praised the two stumped men. “Could you recall now please which one of you approached the girl first?”

“I did,” said Grebenkin dully.

“Misha, deal with him. And you, sir plaintiff,” Petelina took the car owner by the elbow, “show us where the girl’s apartment is please.”

“It’s the entrance to the fourth unit over there, apartment number 180. I already tried to get damages from them. Waste of time!” The unhappy man jerked his arm away.

“A police officer will take your statement.”

Petelina handed the auto enthusiast over to Detective Egorov. She and the operatives headed for the fourth entrance. As they were entering the building, she remembered the paper she had found in the passport. She unfolded it. The page, which looked to have been ripped out of a notebook, was covered with uneven lines of the same sentence: “Boris is a jerk. Boris is a jerk. Boris is a jerk…”

A banal suicide caused by unrequited love, flashed through the detective’s mind.

In the meantime, back at the scene of the incident, Mikhail Ustinov had offered Grebenkin some chewing gum.

“For the nerves. It’s supposed to help.” He waited until Grebenkin stated chewing mechanically and asked, “Could you recall please what position you found the body in?”

“The head was here. Katya had long hair. I pushed it back to make sure that…” Grebenkin frowned as he looked at the bloody spot, then spit out the gum and pleaded, “I’ll show you on another car.”

“As you wish,” Ustinov agreed and, once the man had turned his back, retrieved the discarded gum.

5

Marat Valeyev was about to ring the doorbell to apartment No. 180.

“Hold on!” Petelina stopped him. She flashed the keys she had found in the girl’s purse. “Let’s see if these work.”

The key slid smoothly into the lock and turned twice. The detective opened the door and hung back while the operatives, guns drawn, entered before her.

“Katya, is that you?” A woman’s voice came from a nearby room.

Valeyev pushed its door, scanned the room through his iron sights and lowered his sidearm.

“Whoa,” came the silent exclamation.

A young woman in a satin gown with a dragon print was sitting on an ample bed which took up most of the room. She had been painting her nails. Her eyes and mouth gaped in surprise, while her splayed fingers remained suspended before her chest. Elena Petelina was compelled to agree with the bit of male wisdom that observed that the most helpless moments in a woman’s life occur while her nail polish is drying.

Elena flashed her badge and introduced herself.

“Senior Detective Elena Pavlovna Petelina, Investigative Committee. Anyone else in the apartment?”

The girl shook her head. While the operatives began looking over the apartment, Petelina decided to have a seat beside the woman.

“You like bright colors?”

“The clients do.”

“So you admit that you’re engaged in prostitution here?”

“Oh please. I just fall in love easily.” The woman smiled sardonically having recovered from her initial shock.

“Today it’s one, tomorrow it’s another.”

“I’m a hopeless romantic.” The woman fanned her wrists to dry the nails faster.

“Prostitution does not concern me.”

“Awesome. “Cause you cops have screwed me half to death with all your raids. So what do you want?”

“What’s your name?”

“Lisa. Elizaveta Malyshko.”

“When’s the last time you saw Katya Grebenkina?”

“Why, she’s upstairs on the roof waiting for me this very moment.”

Petelina walked over to the window and peeked through the stiff curtain. The window looked out on the street instead of the courtyard where Katya Grebenkina had fallen. Lisa got up as well. Elena looked her over: black spiraling hair tucked into a bun, black eyes, alluring lips, a nice figure, a naïve face but a certain sexuality in her movements that would have no trouble lighting the fuse of male desire.

“What’s happening on the roof?”

“We’re going to commemorate our girlfriend. It’s been forty days since Stella threw herself off the roof. The three of us lived together.”

“How did you get roof access?”

“We got the engineer to give us a key. It’s a good place to have a smoke. And if some stalker starts creeping around, you can go down another stairwell and out another entrance.”

“Do the creeps often stalk you?”

“It happens. Birdless Boris takes care of those.”

“Boris?” Petelina recalled the dead woman’s note cursing a Boris. “Is that your pimp?”

“He prefers the term ‘manager,’ the goat!”

“What’s with the ‘Birdless’ part? Does he have a last name?”

“He’s called ‘Birdless’ because he’s missing his middle finger. His last name is Manuylov, I think. He’s the manager of a modeling agency called Gentle Lily. It’s just a front that brings in a stream of dumb girls for him to work over.”

“Was he here today?”

“So it’s him you’re looking for? Why didn’t you say so? I can give you his number.” Lisa reached for the pink cell phone on the dresser and looked up the number. “Boris was here earlier. Paranoid as ever – afraid that we’ll hide his cut from him. After last night, I was only half-awake, but I heard him cussing up a storm, the goat. It was Katya’s turn to deal with him.”

“And? What happened after that?”

“Katya reminded me that it was time to commemorate Stella. We spent almost a year living together.”

“Stella is the woman who jumped off the roof?”

“Yup. Forty days today. Katya went to get some brandy and told me that she’d wait for me at the same spot, up there on the roof.”

“Did Stella jump off on her own?”

“Stella was from Moldova. She had a funny last name. Stella Sosuksu. So we messed with her: ‘Sucking off men is in your blood,’ we’d tell her. She’d get upset. She fell in love with a grad student from Moscow State University, but he found out about her occupation and told her to get – well – to keep doing what she had been, I guess. Aren’t men assholes?”

“You get all kinds,” replied Petelina noncommittally. “So what happened with Stella?”

“Stella got depressed. The clients started complaining. Boris got pissed. And me and Katya… eh, we should’ve kept a closer eye on her. In this line of work, you’ve got to be a cynical bitch – like Katya.” Lisa blew on her fingers. “Dry enough, I think. It’s time I got dressed. Katya’s waiting.”

Marat Valeyev peeked into the room.

“Lena, there are two more bedrooms here, just like this one. There’s no one here.”

Lisa Malyshko untied her sash dramatically and stuck out her breasts. Only a G-string and sheer stockings covered her naked body.

“Shut the door, you pig! I’m changing in here.”

Elena intercepted Marat’s curious gaze as it slipped down the young woman’s body. How incorrigible were men! Never happy with what they had! Petelina stepped in between Marat and the sassy girl.

“There’s no hurry, Lisa. Katya Grebenkina isn’t waiting for you any longer. She’s dead.”

“What? How?” exclaimed the startled girl.

“The same as Stella Sosuksu. Jumped off the roof.”

“Well, geez!” Lisa sank back onto the bed.

“I’m investigating these incidents. Which of these was Katya’s room? We need to examine her belongings.”

“The door on the right.”

Lisa’s rudeness had melted instantaneously. She remained sitting on her bed, blinking vacantly and looking forlorn, while the operatives worked over the apartment. She answered their questions passively and promised to go to the detective’s office as soon as she was called in. And yet, as soon as the operatives shut the front door behind them, the girl perked up, dashed over to the dresser and began to feverishly gather her things. An escape plan was forming in her mind.

Nothing bright. To hell with the miniskirt. No pins or boots! I have to melt into the crowd. Hair up in a ponytail, no makeup, no trace of sex appeal. What do we have here? Jeans, though embroidered along the back pockets. It’ll have to do. A white sweater with a lips print across the entire front. No matter – no one will see it under the jacket. I’ll throw on this blue down jacket over it – it’ll sparkle in the headlights but ordinary students wear these too. These simple shoes will do for footwear. And remember to grab the knit cap – I can use it to hide my long hair. How do I look? Lisa looked at herself in the mirror on the wall and came away satisfied. No mud duck, but no slut either.

Having finished dressing herself, Lisa grabbed her phone, dialed the number that she had just recently given to the detective, waited for an answer and then quickly blurted, “Boris, Katya’s dead. Jumped off the roof just like Stella. The cops came by, along with a detective. They’re looking for you. Get out!”

Lisa hung up. The pimp instantly called her back, but Lisa popped off the lid, dumped the phone battery and fished out the SIM card. She got a new SIM card from her purse and put it into the phone. The girl cocked her head and shut her eyes.

“What else? What else?” she whispered to herself.

Her memory gave her a hint. She darted to the dresser and found a photo album. She ran to the bathroom. Her little fingers with the newly-painted nails began pulling out photo after photo and flicking the lighter. As the fire consumed the girls’ faces – Katya Grebenkina, Lisa Malyshko and Stella Sosuksu’s – the photos’ singed corners tumbled into the toilet bowl. Having dealt with the last snapshot, Lisa flushed the toilet.

It was time for her to vanish too.

The girl peered into the front door’s eyehole to make sure that no one was waiting outside. Then, she slipped out of the apartment. Instead of calling the elevator, she decided to play it safe and began to descend the stairs as quietly as she could. After she had descended three floors, Lisa stopped and listened. No one. The young woman lifted a loose windowsill and extracted an ordinary envelope from the hiding place underneath it. Having made sure that its contents were in place, she put it in her purse and – now throwing caution to the wind – took off running down the stairs at full speed.

The police had left the courtyard, but the buildings’ residents were still discussing the unhappy event around the damaged car. Lisa paused for a moment and hesitantly glanced at the spot where her two friends had encountered their terrible ends. She did not want to pass near the bloody car. The girl pulled the jacket’s hood tighter over her head and hurried into the opposite direction.

As soon as she turned the corner and felt safer, someone grabbed her from behind. One arm wrapped itself around her belly, while the other painfully compressed her throat in the crook of its elbow. The girl flailed helplessly, unable to scream.