Stuart Kaminsky - A Whisper to the Living

On the way out, the Yak almost bumped into eleven-year-old Laura, who looked up at him and stopped laughing. Once outside, the Yak climbed into the waiting black police car at the curb. Pankov followed. The Yak had work to do.

With the departure of Colonel Yaklovev, the party got even louder and the vodka began to flow even more freely.

Zelach was next to leave, with a bag of food Lydia Tkach had prepared for his mother. He shook the hands of bride and groom. Iosef held Zelach’s hand a bit longer than he would hold others. Iosef smiled and Akardy returned the smile. When he touched Elena’s hand, he felt again that she held something back. She seemed to sense that he knew her secret. She gave him a reassuring touch on the arm.

Emil Karpo stepped through the dwindling crowd, shook the hands of Porfiry Petrovich, Sara, Elena, and Iosef, and left without a word. The departure of the ghostly figure in black further emboldened the remaining guests to consume even more vodka. More bottles were brought out. The empty ones were carried clinking to the cartons from which they had come.

A few of the now-drunken neighbors had to be politely urged to return to their apartments by Sara and Porfiry Petrovich. That left only Maya, Sasha, their children, and Lydia, in addition to Galina and her granddaughters. Maya had risen from the sofa to join her mother-in-law, Galina, and Sara in cleaning up, which they did with efficiency. Sasha watched his wife for signs of her intent to stay or go back to Kiev. He could detect nothing. He prided himself on his ability to see the small signs of intent in suspects. It was an ability he could not exercise on his wife. The children, a plate of food in each lap, sat on the floor of the now nearly empty living room.

The bride and groom moved to the bedroom to be alone before leaving for a four-day honeymoon in Yalta.

“Sit,” she said, gently ordering Iosef to his parents’ bed.

He obeyed and she paced nervously, touching the unfamiliar ring on her finger.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I should have told you this before we were married.”

“You mean about the baby?” he said, looking up at her.

She stopped fidgeting and pacing and met his eyes.

“You know.”

“I am a detective,” he said with a grin.

“And?”

“A girl would be nice. So would a boy.”

“My aunt knows,” she said.

“Do you want to tell your parents?”

“Certainly.”

He stood now. She moved into his arms with a sigh of great relief.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

The couple thanked Iosef’s mother and father when there was no one else in the apartment and the door finally closed. At that point, Elena told Sara and Porfiry Petrovich that they were going to be grandparents.

Only oneinvited guest did not show up for the wedding party.

On the night before the wedding, Paulinin slept on the cot in his laboratory within a dozen feet of the two corpses laid out gently on two slabs. One was a male. The other a female. Both were covered by gray-blue sheets, the man’s just above his waist, the woman’s up to her neck. They were two corpses seemingly unrelated except for their means of death. She was forty-two, well dressed, well proportioned, decidedly handsome, and decidedly peaceful in death. He was an alcoholic of perhaps sixty years of age, underweight, ill clothed. If the killer had not selected him, he would have been destined to die within the year from a final rebellion of his organs.

Paulinin had slept five hours. When he rose, he had completely forgotten the wedding. Buoyed by hot coffee and the ever-present laboratory smells, he was prepared to talk to the dead. The white mug had blue printing on the side saying: “Police Target Champion 1987.”

Paulinin fired at no targets. The mug had been given to him years ago, though he could not remember by whom. He chose to ignore the three dark brown ring stains inside the mug as he drank.

And then he made his phone call.

“Paulinin,” answered Porfiry Petrovich after the third ring. “Do you know what time it is?”

“No.”

“And you do not care?”

“No. I have information.”

“I am listening.”

“I dreamt that my two latest guests told me something,” he said.

Rostnikov could hear Vivaldi playing in the background.

“Both of them have deep trauma to the back of the head caused probably by a hammer, a clean new one, which gave up tiny shining metal chips,” Paulinin said. “The wounds are not as deep as any caused by the Maniac. The corpses were simply dropped in the woods off of a pathway. All the other corpses were laid out in repose, on their sides with hands as pillows. Two hairs from atop the body of the man were DNA tested. They belonged to you. However, another bitten-off fingernail proved not to be from the dead Aleksandr Chenko.”

Paulinin was unable to resist the urge to gently touch the cheek of the dead woman.

“Get some sleep, Paulinin.”

“I have. Stop by in the morning with Karpo for pastries, coffee, and to discuss the situation. You bring the pastries.”

“We will be there,” said Rostnikov, although he could, if pressed, make a list of perhaps one hundred places he would rather be. His hope was that the scientist would make some effort to clean the autopsy tables and wash whatever dishes, cups, and forks they might be using. Rostnikov knew, however, that his wishes would be in vain. It might well be better to bring paper plates and napkins.

“Who?” asked Sara at his side dreamily.

“Paulinin,” answered Rostnikov, reaching for his pants.

“Not those,” she said. “They have a bullet hole in the leg.”

He grunted, rose, and reached for his artificial leg.

“Time?” she asked.

“After dawn,” he said, continuing to dress.

“Your shoulder?”

“Feels fine.”

“Porfiry Petrovich, you could have, should have, died.”

He had talked his way out of the hospital with the promise of seeing Sara’s cousin the next day. There was the wedding of his only child, his only son, to attend. Leon had rewarded him with large round yellow pain pills, which he had been using generously.

“Yes,” he said. “But. .”

“ ‘Yes, but,’ ” she said. “Be careful.”

“I am only going to visit the dead and talk to Paulinin.”

“That does not reassure me,” said Sara, starting to rise.

“Sleep,” he said, now standing and buttoning a clean white shirt.

“I cannot,” she said. “Wait. I will get you something to eat. Kasha and some of the pork from last night.”

“Why not? I must call Emil Karpo.”

“You really think the wedding went well?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very well.

“We are going to have grandchildren,” he said, now heading for the cubbyhole bathroom/shower.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

There was something in that final “yes” that made Rostnikov pause and turn to look at his wife, whose eyes were fixed on a slipper in her hand halfway to her foot, hovering in wait as if for some great something she knew would never come.

As he shaved, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov vowed to buy his wife colorful flowers, to take her out to dinner at her favorite restaurant, and to hold her for a very long time in his arms before they went to sleep that night.

They would talk about babies.

As itturned out, two of the copycat killers were a husband and wife working together, he to hold, she to strike. She was a night supervisor at a supermarket not unlike the one at which Aleksandr Chenko had worked. The husband was the head of the meat department. They had been married two years, and the tales of violent serial murder had entered their imaginations and moved them sexually. Murder together proved to be a powerful aphrodisiac.