Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

“If you believe it is relevant information,” said Karpo.

“Interesting information but probably not relevant. I would tentatively conclude that Sergei was a vegetarian. You might ask some of his colleagues or his family. I am curious. It might or might not mean anything.”

“We will ask,” said Karpo.

“Well,” said Paulinin, looking at the open skull on his table. “In addition to the brain injury, he has had two broken ribs in his life, but they are not recent. I would conjecture that the ribs were broken about the same time he developed the tumor or whatever it was that was surgically removed from his brain. That is about all that is pathologically interesting. His killer left no blood of his or her own at the scene, as far as I can tell at this point. The hammer, however, is a bit more interesting. The murderer wiped the handle on Sergei’s laboratory coat. How do I know? Because there is a smudge of blood from the handle at the bottom of the coat where there is no splattering of blood from Sergei’s wounds. The killer either flung the hammer, holding on to the bloody head of the hammer to which clung bits of brain, into the corner, protecting it from prints with the coat, which would be very awkward and make it difficult to throw that far, or the killer let it fall to the floor. Most people would choose not to do that. In addition, the head of the hammer did not appear to have been handled. Skull and brain fragments, not to mention blood drops, seem reasonably intact.”

“Then what?” asked Zelach.

“The murderer,” said Paulinin, standing short but erect in the pose of a lecturer, “simply dropped the hammer and kicked it into the corner. A very close examination of the floor yielded very small scratches from the hammer as it slid along, leaving tiny fragments of brain, blood, and bone too far from the body to have been there as a result of the attack. So what do we learn from this?”

Zelach had no idea.

“The murderer may have stepped on these traces of blood, brain, and bone,” said Karpo. “The solution to your murder lies in a pair of tufli, ‘shoes.’”

“You are nearly perfect, Emil Karpo, very nearly perfect,” said Paulinin with delight. “Only Porfiry Petrovich himself approaches you. Our killer certainly washed or got rid of clothing, but being Russian and seeing no significant trace of anything on his shoe, he would, at most, merely have wiped it as a precaution. Maybe not even that. I prefer it if he did wipe it. The game is only good if there is a challenge.”

“As always, Paulinin, you have been vyeelyeekahlyehpnah, ‘magnificent,’” said Karpo.

“Only from you would I find such praise meaningful,” said Paulinin, looking at Zelach, who nodded, praying that they could now get out of this dungeon. “One more observation. Our friend here was slovenly, probably very slovenly. His fingernails are uneven, bitten. There are signs of old dirt under those fingernails. The trousers he was wearing were badly in need of cleaning. His socks had holes and there was a significant hole in one pocket. In the other he had accumulated four pens, three paper clips, some keys on a ring, coins, and lint. I would guess that his home and work space are a mess.”

Zelach avoided looking around the cluttered room. The word mess would be inadequate to describe what he knew and didn’t know was around him.

“Lunch Friday,” said Karpo.

“And a game of chess?”

“Certainly, a game of chess.”

“We are talking about the life of Tolstoy. We are talking about an announced major screening at the Cannes Film Festival, at festivals all over the world. We are talking about an international cast and the brightest, most creative young Russian film director. We are talking about Cinema Russia Production Company, my life.”

The man making this small speech was pacing back and forth, smoking, looking at Elena Timofeyeva and Sasha Tkach, who were seated on wooden chairs facing him.

The room was clean but smelled of smoke, stale smoke. There was a conference table, one end of which was covered with scripts, mail, and papers with an overfull ashtray nearby. The end of the table where this clutter resided served as the desk of the man who was pacing and rambling.

His name was Yuri Kriskov. Sometimes he used the v. Other times he ended his name with the older ff and became Kriskoff. It all depended on his audience. Everything depended on his audience.

Yuri Kriskov was reasonably well known. He was not quite famous. He was a movie producer. His job, at which he had been mildly successful before the fall of the Soviet Union, was now busy and lucrative. Yuri had once been a businessman with connections in the government, some of which he still retained. He was fifty-two years old, of average height and weight, with a full head of dark hair which he carefully touched up each morning to keep the gray away. Yuri had two children by his current wife, Vera, his third, who had starred in his first film, Strange Snow. Yuri also had a young mistress. The mistress was primarily for show. Yuri had almost no sex drive, a fact about which his wives had frequently complained. Yuri’s passion was reserved for movies.

“Where was I?” he asked, looking at Elena.

“The Cannes Film Festival,” she said.

“Yes, the Cannes Film Festival.”

“May we summarize what you have told us so far?” Elena asked.

“If you wish,” Yuri said, sitting at his end of the table and searching for another cigarette.

Sasha looked at his watch. They had been in this room for almost an hour and he knew that Elena would and could summarize the whole situation in a few minutes.

“You were called at home at approximately three in the morning. A man said that he had the negative of your Tolstoy film and he wanted two million American dollars for it or he would destroy the negative and kill you. You told him he was crazy and hung up. He called again and told you to go check, that he would call you back in two days. That means tomorrow?”

“I think so. I think it must. He didn’t call this morning,” said Yuri, searching for the package of cigarettes now lost somewhere under the papers on the table. “He wants the money tomorrow.”

“You got dressed,” Elena continued, “called your editor, came to your office, where your editor met you to tell you that the negative was indeed missing, that the cabinet in which it was being kept had been broken into. You then made a call and discovered that the backup negative …”

“Of inferior quality because it is a copy,” Yuri said impatiently.

“Of inferior quality,” Elena continued, “was also missing. The film cost approximately thirty-six million American dollars to make, that’s a million dollars more than The Barber of Siberia, making your film about the life of Tolstoy the most expensive movie ever made in Russia and …”

“But that’s not the point,” Yuri said, standing and pointing his cigarette at the two detectives. “It took us two years to make that movie. The world expects it, awaits it. Our film industry is trying to earn worldwide respect. If we don’t have the film, and quickly, our country, our government, I will be humiliated, ridiculed, laughed at. Our government doesn’t want this. I don’t want this and our backers do not want it.”

“Your backers?” said Sasha.

Yuri sat again.

“They are not important in this discussion other than the fact that they want the movie finished and shown. They want awards. I don’t think they would simply be satisfied to get their money back.”

“You can go to them for the two million,” Sasha said. “If you have to give it to the thief, we can track him or them down and get the money back.”