Alexander Cherenov - Penny Criminal Case

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!”