Alexander Cherenov - Penny Criminal Case

“Do you see this thing in my hands?”

The youngster, from somewhere below, gazed with caution at the “strange object”.

“I see.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Instead of answering, the youngster shook his head.

“Do you want to know?” the lieutenant colonel continued to approach him.

This time the answer was silence: the “object” had not yet decided, which answer would be less painful for him.

“But I will still say,” Petrov smiled somehow not kindly. “This is a rubber hose, but not simple, but filled with sand. Do you know why? And in order for people like you, then did not run to the forensic doctors for a certificate of injury! That’s because this thing leaves no traces! But what kind of ‘unforgettable sensations’ it gives, you cannot even imagine!”

The state of the “object” could already be defined by the words “neither is alive, nor is dead”. But the lieutenant colonel of this “intermediate state” was clearly not enough.

“Don’t you believe me?”

This is a tricky question: “I do not believe.” – “Then get it!”, “I believe.” – “Then confess!” The youngster gave an answer with his head – vertically: he ventured to “believe”. The lieutenant colonel slightly “passed back”: both in the sense of an onslaught, and simply moved one step back.

“Then answer: is it your comb?”

“W-what comb?”

Without looking back at Starkov, Petrov sent a palm over his shoulder, into which Alex promptly put the comb. Petin Jr. glanced at the comb and dropped his head.

“It’s my comb…”

“And the sneakers? Yours?”

Sneakers from Czechoslovakia were immediately offered to the “object”. Starkov raised an eyebrow in surprise: it doesn’t matter who got it, but the guys didn’t lose all the time in vain.

Petin glanced fearfully at the sneakers.

“Mine… probably…”

“What about this crap?”

Petrov stuck a plaster cast from the track right under his nose.

“Is it also yours?”

“What is it?” youngster flinched.

“It’s your sneaker, which was noted at the scene of the murder! The expertise has already proved that it is yours! Answer me, son of a bitch: did you kill?”

Petin convulsively shook his head, but he was prevented from completing the process by a rubber hose, that had passed impressively along his back.

“Aw!”

“It’s not ‘ay!’, but only the very beginning!”

“Mister policeman, I did not kill!” Petin whimpered.

“Still lying, you bastard! If you didn’t kill, how did your comb and the traces of your sneakers end up at the scene of the murder? Answer me!”

The hose was again the stimulating response. But the answer turned out to be the same, however, “in double volume”:

“Aw, aw!”

Petrov turned to Starkov.

“Bro, do you want… how to say this?”

“Do I want to see the sightseeing of the district department of internal affairs?” Starkov came to the rescue with a grin.

“Yes!”

Starkov shrugged.

“Well… I think half an hour is enough for me… I will give you as well… and to him…”

As soon as Alex closed the door, he heard three times from the office… no, not “hurray!”: “Aw, aw, aw!” Starkov, who had already set the direction to the dining room for the footsteps, suddenly stopped, silently moved his lips with a pensive look for a few moments, and turning abruptly, he headed in the opposite direction.

In the opposite side was the office of the head of CID (criminal investigation department), Major Lapin. The major, like all real detectives, who did not tolerate bureaucracy, gnashing his teeth, poured over the papers.

“Well, what, bro,” he instantly and even readily broke away from the papers, “did this son of a bitch confess?”

“Not yet. And I doubt…”

Wincing painfully, Starkov patted the earlobe. Lapin puzzled his lips in surprise.

“You think, that it’s not him?”

“God knows,” Starkov shrugged uncertainly. “He is shy for this business… Bro, have you sent a man to check his entourage yet?”

“We have already checked!”

Lapin even jumped up from the table.

“We got sneakers… and so on!”

“Have you been to school?”

The major turned his eyes away.

“Bro… we did not have time… But don’t worry: I will send a detective right now!”

“Do it, bro,” Starkov nodded approvingly. Let him ask the schoolchildren, if this youngster was pestering the girls, and how did they reject him? I am interested in Kotova most of all.”

“We’ll do it, bro!”

The major had already pressed the dial key. A few seconds later they responded from that end.

“Senior Lieutenant Koval. I have not had time to finish the report, sir. If you give me…”

“I’m not giving it!” Lapin “worked on the interception energetically”. “You will finish it later, and now run to the school! Ask if Petin molested the girls? Particular emphasis will be on Kotova: maybe, he harassed her. Pimply youngsters – they are all the same!”

“I’m already running, comrade major!”

Lapin pressed the key with his finger with force, and turned to Starkov with the air of a winner.

“Abgemaht, bro! Requests? Questions?”

Instead of answering, Starkov silently extended his hand to him and left the office.

On the nature of the work “among the object”, Starkov could have a complete idea even “on the distant approaches” to the Petrov’s office. The characteristic “aw, aw, aw!” was already flowing in a continuous stream, interrupted occasionally by no less characteristic sounds of dull beats, “of course, even remotely having no similarity with non-procedural methods of interrogation”.

The picture, which Starkov opened behind the door, that opened a little earlier, for some reason did not strike the imagination: all in tears and snot, with disheveled red hairs, Petin was actively “subjected to explanatory work among himself” from two sides: Lieutenant Colonel Petrov and Captain Andrey. But everything was “grand, noble”, without deviant assault. Continuous cuffs from Captain, who was standing behind the “client”, fit into the norm fully and corresponded to the “local customs”.

True, a purple-faced Petrov so energetically leaned towards the “object of work”, that he almost rested against his physiognomy, while trying to keep his distance, so as not to catch someone from aggressive acne.

“Will you talk, you bastard?!”

The “creative process” was interrupted by the appearance of Starkov. Petrov slowly moved away from the object, and, turning to Alex, negatively moved his head from side to side.

“I think, Boris, we must give the suspect time to think about his difficult position… almost hopeless…”

Starkov “made a proposal” deliberately in a loud voice, obviously not so much for the lieutenant colonel, as for Petin, who was choked up in snot. Clever Petrov not only did not begin to ask again in surprise, but did not even use a “surprised” shoulder to demonstrate a lack of understanding.

“Captain, take… this… to the camera. Let him sit there and think.”

When the door behind the “object” and the guard closed, Petrov immediately, but very slowly, headed for the tiny rest room behind the commanding chair, where there was a sofa, a refrigerator and even a wash basin. Thrusting his head under the tap and snorting noisily, he freshened up with cold water and rubbed vigorously with a dry towel. Then he removed a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator, and, without asking Starkov’s wishes, he poured it into two tall glasses of thin glass.