Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

“Ah,” she had said. “Then you have followed our findings and publications.”

“No,” said Karpo, “but I am aware of the field of study.”

“And you are skeptical?” she asked.

“I am skeptical about all things,” Karpo said.

“Well, perhaps you should see some of the films of our experiments,” she said, arms still folded.

“Perhaps,” Karpo said.

“We are scientists, Inspector, not mystics. We objectively examine telepathy, prophecy, and above all dreams and psychokinesis, the ability to move objects with the mind alone.”

“I am aware of your studies,” Karpo said. “This room?”

“Measures electrical and magnetic changes in subjects engaged in experiments,” she said. “We are not the largest center in Russia for the study of psi phenomena. That is in St. Petersburg at the university, but our work is critical and quite different. And, I might add, underfunded. We used to receive our primary budget from the government, but now we have been forced to seek outside support through our Psychic Research Foundation. We even get money from Americans and the Japanese.”

“The room where the murder took place,” said Karpo.

Nadia Spectorski nodded and moved down the hall, now passing numbered white doors, and stopped in front of room 27.

“Here,” she said.

“The dead man, Sergei Bolskanov, what was his area of specialization?”

“Telekinesis, dream states, several things,” she said, opening the door and reaching in to turn on the fluorescent lights, which tinkled to life. The room was clean and relatively empty. A table sat in the middle of the room, a small table with a white top. There were chairs facing each other across the table and, in the wall to the right, a large mirror.

“Sergei Bolskanov was a brilliant physiologist,” she said. “His experiments, more than twenty years of them with every kind of person, children, politburo members, catatonics, self-proclaimed psychics, cosmonauts, were conducted in this room, filmed through that one-way mirror. They were simple experiments but controlled. The floor, for example, was specially installed and insulated. It floats on designed material so that there are no external vibrations. Objects would be placed on the table. Sometimes Bolskanov would be in the room. Sometimes he would not. Various small objects of widely different material would be placed on the table. The subject would be connected to nonintrusive wires to monitor his or her breathing and physiological responses.”

“Objects,” said Karpo.

“Oh,” said Nadia, pursing her lips, “blocks of wood, glasses of water, toys, books, individual sheets of paper, batteries, the list was long. The results impressive.”

“Tools? A hammer perhaps?”

“The one that was used to kill him? Perhaps. He experimented with hundreds of objects.”

“Could the camera have been running when Sergei Bolskanov was murdered?” asked Karpo.

“I checked. The director of the center, Andrei Vanga, checked. It was not.”

“I would like a list of everyone who was here when Bolskanov was murdered,” said Karpo.

“That should be no problem,” she said. “I’ll show you the sign-in book, which includes the time people checked in and the time they checked out. I have already examined it. There were only five of us, including Sergei. It was late at night.”

“You were here,” said Karpo.

“I was.”

“And?”

“I was in my office downstairs. It is down the corridor away from the entrance. I saw and heard nothing. Even if I were standing directly outside this room, I would have heard and seen nothing. No sound escapes. That is true of all the laboratories.”

Karpo looked around the room slowly and at the mirror. Zelach did the same but saw nothing of interest, and though he did not speak, he felt uneasy in the room. Normally he felt nothing particular, even when he was at a bloody crime scene in which more than one mutilated body was still lying. But this room made him decidedly uncomfortable.

“And your work?” asked Karpo, walking out of the room.

“Psychic probability and telepathy,” she said. “I studied in England. My degree is from Moscow State University in psychological studies and anatomy.”

“And you are not married?” Karpo said.

Nadia Spectorski took off her glasses and cocked her head to one side to examine the gaunt creature in black.

“I am not examining the possibility of a relationship,” Karpo explained. “I am trying to obtain information.”

“So that you can construct a series of possible scenarios, imagine the murder?” she asked.

“I have no imagination,” Karpo said flatly. “I collect and analyze information. If the situation requires what you call imagination, I consult with my superior, Chief Inspector Rostnikov, who has a large imagination. Now, I would like to see the sign-in book and interview everyone who was here at the time of the murder. My colleague will then interview everyone in the employ of this facility who was not present.”

“Certainly,” she said. “Are we finished in here?”

“Yes,” said Karpo. “The room next to this one, the one in which we can look through that mirror into this one.”

Nadia Spectorski nodded, opened the door, and led them to the adjacent room.

“Why were you chosen to take us on this tour?” Karpo said. “You are not the director or even the assistant director.”

“I volunteered,” she said. “Sergei was not a well-liked man. To call him gruff, unpleasant, and secretive would be to minimize the extent of his clear and open dislike of the human race. I was probably the only one who had anything like a relationship with him, and that was simply cordial. Even Sergei needed someone with whom to discuss his ideas.”

“He was not married,” Karpo said.

“He was not.”

Nadia Spectorski entered the second room but did not turn on the light. Through the mirrored window, they could see the scene of the murder. Nadia had intentionally left the light on. To one side of the mirror, on a tripod, stood a video camera.

“I should like to see the last tapes he made,” Karpo said.

“That is no problem,” she said. “However, the timing mechanism indicates that nothing has been recorded for several days.”

“Still, I wish to see it.”

“Easy enough,” she said, opening the camera with a push of a button. “Here.”

She handed the tape to Karpo, who placed it in his pocket. “And now I should like to talk to the others,” he said.

“Before we do that,” she said, leading the way back into the corridor and closing the door, “would you indulge me in a quick and simple experiment? It will take only a few minutes of your time. I have never worked with policemen before.”

“Experiment?” asked Karpo.

“A deck of cards. It is something I do. Right down the corridor. I am being cooperative and will continue to be so. I could make your investigation difficult, though I have no reason to do so. Indulge me. It is something I do with all visitors.”

Zelach shifted uneasily and considered speaking but decided against it.

“Ten minutes,” said Karpo.

“And since I am obviously a suspect because I was here, you can also observe how I work and see if it yields anything about me you might be able to use.”

Two minutes later they were in a room not much different from the laboratory of Sergei Bolskanov. This room was smaller, with no mirror. It was completely empty except for the table with four chairs. Nadia Spectorski sat on one side, the detectives on the other, facing her. She held something small in her lap and with her free hand passed a deck of cards to Emil Karpo. As they proceeded, she took notes on a lined pad on the table to her right.