Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

Paulinin took the dead man’s temperature, touched his ankles, took samples of blood and liquid feces, and examined the body as best he could. Finally, he closed the tackle box, picked it up, and moved toward Rostnikov.

“You know what Kaminskov or Pashinski or one of the other dolts who call themselves pathologists would say?”

“No.”

“They would say your young man had a stroke and a seizure,” said Paulinin. “It would all be over. They wouldn’t have looked for the small puncture in his lower back, even though the hole, grant you it is very small, went right through his shirt. All the symptoms of a massive stroke and seizure, and in one sense they would be right, but the cause of the stroke and seizure they would miss. I will need to talk to the young man in my laboratory.”

“Murdered,” said Rostnikov, who had fully expected this finding.

“Just as clearly as the other one I looked at this morning with his head crushed by a hammer,” said Paulinin. “And I could tell you more, much more about the killer, if the ground were not so trampled by the usual idiots. The ground is perfect, perfect for prints, but … look at it. It looks as if a World Cup game has been played here.”

“Thank you for coming, Paulinin,” said Rostnikov.

“Uhh,” said Paulinin, looking back at the body. “You can bring him to Petrovka now, down to my laboratory. Don’t let the idiots clean him. I don’t care how he smells. He comes as he is. I will clean him when it is right. I will apologize to him for the indignities he is suffering and will have to suffer further. I have, as you know, learned to talk gently to the dead.”

“I have observed,” said Rostnikov. “I’ll have you driven back to Petrovka.”

“Good. My lunch is waiting.”

When Paulinin was gone, Rostnikov waved to his son and Iosef walked over to him.

“What do we conclude from this?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.

“That three cosmonauts were on that mission,” said Iosef. “Two are dead and one is missing.”

“And?”

“Three cosmonauts relieved them,” said Iosef. “Perhaps we should talk to them about what they saw and heard, since Mikhail Stoltz appears unwilling or unable to provide answers.”

“So you are convinced that Tsimion Vladovka’s disappearance and the murder of Vladimir Kinotskin are connected to the Mir flight,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes.”

“I am inclined to agree. Then perhaps we should move quickly before someone tells us that this murder belongs to MVD and not to our office.”

“Or before the Yak tells us to mind our business.”

Rostnikov touched his son’s arm and nodded his head. “Come, let us break the bad news to Stoltz, though I feel it will not come as a great surprise. Are you hungry?”

Iosef looked at the body. “No. We had cheeseburgers only an hour or so ago, remember?”

“Then later, perhaps. Your mother made me sandwiches. I wonder what it must be like to be weightless in a metal sphere circling in silence,” said Rostnikov, looking at the body and then at the sky as they walked away from the scene. “It must be difficult to remind oneself that one is not dreaming, floating, awake but asleep.”

“‘A giant will come in the darkness under a cloud,’” said Iosef as they reached the street and stamped their feet to remove some of the mud.

“Lermontov?” asked Rostnikov, looking back at the scene of death behind them and at the gawking, silent little crowd.

Iosef nodded. “More or less.”

“Go on,” said Rostnikov.

“‘You will know him and the sword he carries,’” Iosef continued. “‘Your doom has come. You beg and weep. He laughs. And then he will stop laughing and will be a sight of horror, a sight as black as his cloak and eyes.’ Shall I go on?”

“No,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “That is enough.”

“The curse of having been in the theater,” said Iosef. “One thinks of lines, passages, monologues, the poetry of Lermontov usually distorted by one’s needs and memory. Lermontov was only twenty-seven when he died in a duel. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“According to the papers in his wallet, Vladimir Kinotskin was twenty-seven when he died today,” said Iosef.

“Perhaps he was making a pilgrimage.”

“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd behind them.

A man in the crowd, one of several carrying umbrellas, watched not the dead man and those now moving the corpse into a black plastic bag but the two detectives who talked on the street. The man was lean, well dressed, and looked foreign, perhaps English or Dutch. His eyes were quite blue. That morning he had nicked himself shaving. His hand went up to the healing wound, and as the detectives walked away, the man with the umbrella moved through the small crowd to follow them at a very safe and professional distance.

Karpo had been unable to find Rostnikov, who was, at the moment he called, out watching Paulinin examining the body of the dead cosmonaut. And so Emil Karpo took it upon himself to make the decision. Not only did he take the shoes of all those who had signed in to work when Sergei Bolskanov had, but those of all the people in the building. Everyone in the building except the police were walking around in stockinged feet.

“Dignity is lost but comfort may offer compensation,” said Karpo.

Zelach nodded and blinked. He had not only rounded up all the shoes, which were contained in three cardboard boxes at the front door of the center, but he had obtained the addresses of everyone and, starting with the sign-ins, was about to go to each house and collect every pair of shoes he could find.

“Emil Karpo,” he said, standing in the doorway, looking down at the boxes, “what if the murderer has thrown the shoes away?”

“Unlikely but possible. It makes no difference.”

“It will take days,” said Zelach.

“I have ordered a car and driver with the approval of Director Yaklovev, to whom I have just spoken. The driver will help you. If you move quickly you can get to all thirty-seven locations before six.”

“They will have to go home barefoot in any case,” said Zelach.

“I will send an officer out to buy thirty-seven pairs of very cheap sandals,” said Karpo. “Now, I think you should begin your collection.”

Zelach adjusted his glasses. They had begun to hurt just behind the right ear but he was afraid to fool with the thin wire. There was no chance now that he would get to the lunch on his desk in the damp brown bag.

When Zelach had left, Karpo motioned to one of the two uniformed men. “No one comes in. No one goes out.”

The officer, who was twenty-three, very large and undertrained, knew the Vampire by reputation. He said nothing as he stood before the door. Even if Putin himself or the mayor of Moscow would appear, the officer, whose name was Dimitri, would not let him pass. He had no intention of using the Kalishnikov rifle in his hands on anyone of real importance and he was confident that he could handle most who tried to pass him, but he decided instantly that faced with the possibility of failure he would either have to shoot himself or the person who was giving him trouble. He could not imagine telling Inspector Karpo that he had failed.

Nadia Spectorski caught up with Karpo in the hall. She was clearly excited, breathing quickly.

“Where is the other officer?”

“Akardy Zelach?”

“Yes, I must speak to him,” she said.

“Whatever you might wish to tell him, you can tell me. I am the senior officer.”

“This is not about Sergei’s murder,” she said. “It is far more important.”

“More important?” asked Karpo, wondering if the barefoot woman before him had gone mad.