Stuart Kaminsky: Fall of a Cosmonaut

Rostnikov had drawn a very reasonable likeness of a bird in flight. The bird’s right wing was bent at an odd angle, possibly broken, and there was a distinct tear in the bird’s eye as he looked downward, toward the earth, possibly for a place to land.

Rostnikov was eccentric. Igor Yaklovev had been told that before he became director. But Rostnikov was good, very good at his job, and those who worked with him were also good and loyal. That loyalty did not, Yaklovev knew, extend to the director, but he had an agreement with Rostnikov. Rostnikov would be given the assignments and have a free hand. When trouble arose, Yaklovev would do his best to protect Rostnikov and his group. He had proven many times that he would do so. Yaklovev knew that he was only as good as his word. Those he dealt with, friends and enemies, knew that if he declared or promised, the Yak would keep that declaration or promise. There were two conditions to his agreement with Rostnikov. First, Yaklovev would receive all the credit for the difficult cases resolved by the Office of Special Investigation. He would also accept all the responsibility for those not resolved. And so it was important that those cases which no one else wanted, those cases which were dumped on his office because they were politically sensitive or unlikely to be resolved, be dealt with successfully. The second condition was that Rostnikov and the other inspectors ask no questions about the disposal of cases. They were to bring in the information, and the director was to decide on its resolution with no questions asked.

So far, it had worked well. Yaklovev was determined that the system continue to work.

When Akardy Zelach slouched in precisely on time, precisely on the hour, Emil Karpo put down his pen, closed his notebook, and walked past him with only the slightest motion of his head to indicate that Zelach should follow.

Zelach had just enough time to place the bag of lunch his mother had prepared on the desk in his small cubicle. The bag was brown paper. The bag was wet. He didn’t have time to take off his coat as he hurried to keep up with the man in black with whom he had been teamed.

Zelach was forty-one but looked older. His eyesight had been deteriorating and he had been forced to wear glasses. The glasses were round with thin rims of brown. Unfortunately, they did not make him look any more intelligent. At first he had been reluctant to wear the glasses, afraid Chief Inspector Rostnikov or even the Yak would see his poor eyesight as a reason why he should not be a policeman.

Zelach’s mother had gotten him to wear the spectacles by pointing out that if the Office of Special Investigation had a one-legged chief, it would certainly not mind having a nearsighted inspector.

“Where are we going?” asked Zelach as he nearly ran to keep pace with the Vampire.

“Down,” said Karpo.

“Down,” Zelach repeated as they started down the stairs. “Did you see the rain?”

“I heard the storm,” said Karpo.

“They say the roof of the Bolshoi was ripped off, cars were overturned, children picked up and tossed about like … tossed about.”

“Probably gross exaggeration.”

“Probably,” said Zelach as they passed the main floor and headed down. He knew where they were going now. Perhaps he should have brought his wet lunch bag. It was not going to be a pleasant morning.

Two flights below ground level, Karpo walked to a steel door and opened it. Zelach reluctantly followed. The room was large and had the smell of the dead. Zelach knew the smell. He had been a policeman for half of his life. But the laboratory of Paulinin was something different. It was low-ceilinged, large, and cluttered with tables and shelves filled with objects and jars. Inside the jars of liquid floated specimens taken from the recently and sometimes long-dead that Paulinin had examined. Knives, saws, lamps, boxes, machine parts, clothing, table legs, and books-hundreds, maybe thousands of books-were piled on the floor. The room was a death trap if fire should break out, and the only way to the rear of the room where Paulinin now stood over a corpse was through this labyrinth of books, shelves, and objects.

Zelach followed Karpo to the rear of the room, the most lighted area of the dark space. Lights shone down on the white corpse.

Paulinin was concentrating on the hole he had opened in the skull of the bearded, slightly overweight corpse on the table before him. Paulinin’s hair was, as always, wild and his white coat stained with things that Zelach did not wish to think about.

Paulinin looked up and saw Karpo wending his way toward him. “Emil Karpo,” he said with clear pleasure. “And who is … ah, Zelach. Coffee?”

“I think not,” said Karpo. “Not at the moment. We must get to the center by ten.”

“But we are still scheduled for lunch Friday?”

“Yes,” said Karpo.

“Zelach, you are lucky to be working with this man,” Paulinin said, pointing a scalpel at Zelach but not looking up from the corpse. “Very lucky.”

Praise coming from Paulinin was always suspect. It was acknowledged that Paulinin, as good as he might be-and he was very good-was rather mad, and if he did not like you, you were certain to be subjected to undisguised scorn, abuse, or ridicule. Normally, Paulinin reserved his anger for the pathologists “upstairs.”

As good as Paulinin was, there were few in either the procurator’s office or uniformed police divisions who came to him. They preferred second-rate scientists to one who attacked them about amateur work and befouling crime scenes.

“I have been talking to your friend here,” Paulinin said, putting his hand gently on the shoulder of the corpse of Sergei Bolskanov. “He has told me a great deal. The hammer you found was, indeed, the murder weapon. Even one of the idiots called in by the fools upstairs should know that; even Doldinov, the new young one, destined for increasing incompetence and promotion, would know the rest. No, he probably would not.”

“What would he not know?” asked Karpo, standing with Zelach across the table on which the corpse lay, eyes open.

“Ah,” said Paulinin. “Our killer was not particularly powerful. The blows were not deep. Our killer was angry, in a rage, frantic. The blows were many. Our killer was in a state of panic, searching for the brain. There was probably premeditation, an incompetent premeditation. The hammer is not large. It is not the best weapon for someone planning a murder. And Sergei here almost certainly knew his killer.”

“How do you know?” Zelach said before he could stop himself.

Paulinin smiled. He welcomed the question.

“There are no defensive wounds on Sergei’s arms. Someone approached him, raised a hammer, probably one hidden behind his back, hit him twice in the face. Baklunov did not raise his arms, made no move to protect himself. After that he was in no condition to protect himself. He was killed by someone he knew, someone he did not expect to attack him. Someone he didn’t even turn to more than glance at. Someone he didn’t consider a physical threat.”

“What else did he tell you?” asked Karpo, standing with his hands clasped before him at waist level.

In the shadows of the bright light pointed downward, Karpo looked particularly ghostly to Zelach.

“A few whispers, a few whispers,” Paulinin whispered. “Our Sergei’s skull has an old scar beneath the hair, and his brain has a healed lesion where something, probably a tumor, has been removed, perhaps a decade ago or longer. Sergei is suggesting his killer was going after that very spot with the hammer, that very spot. I can’t be sure yet, but it appears to be the case.”

“Did he tell you why?” asked Karpo.

“Not yet, not yet. But if it is so, and I think it is, our murderer knew Bolskanov well, knew his skull hid a vulnerable secret. Would you like to know what he had for his final meal and approximately when he had it?”