Alexander Cherenov - Penny Criminal Case

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…”