Sergey Baksheev - Secret Target

Using a finely sharpened pencil, Detective Petelina doodled an abstract design on a blank sheet of paper. This time, the drawing was coming out all convoluted and scratchy. In the room with her, Marat Valeyev could barely contain his shock as he listened to the recording of Inna Maltseva’s interrogation, while Vanya Mayorov stood leaning against the windowsill and quietly sipped his tea.

«What a business!» the captain exclaimed once the recording had ended. «So this little dormouse knocked off two people? First some lady and then her husband!»

«I checked yesterday’s incidents report for Aprelevka. There’s no record of a murder there.»

«Why would she lie?» Valeyev furrowed his brow.

«Well, for one, to draw out the case.»

«Come on now, career criminals who’ve chalked up four stiffs make up one or two more to throw us off. This lady doesn’t fit the bill.»

«Another option is to incriminate herself and then beat the charges at trial,» the detective suggested.

«Exactly! Maltseva’s just messing with us. She wanted to off her husband but mistook his brother for him. After all, he did show up unexpected and was wearing Dmitry’s bathrobe. Then, when we nabbed her, she decided to come up with another murder.»

«She’s playing the fool,» Ivan agreed. He had been contemplating whether it would be inappropriate of him to dump out the last, cold dregs of tea into the detective’s flower pot.

«Scrambling our brains,» Valeyev echoed.

«If that were the case, I wouldn’t have called you here so urgently.»

«Why, I am up for anything at any moment, like a boy scout.» Valeyev had trouble pulling off a humble smile convincingly.

Elena frowned and looked down at her papers.

«We corroborated a number of details from Inna Maltseva’s statements,» she said.

«Such as?»

«There is in fact a certain Oksana Drozdova residing in Aprelevka. She is 32 and her address is 24 Dorozhnaya Street. Also, she likes to bleach her hair.»

«A blonde.»

«What’s more is Drozdova owns a red Volvo.»

«A blonde with a red ride – nothing farfetched about that,» Vanya proclaimed a bit of worldly wisdom, while secretly relishing the fact that Galya Nesterova wasn’t some painted bimbo, but a real woman with real hair: He liked her close-cropped cut with its short braid and he also reckoned that there wouldn’t be anything weird or creepy in it if he brought her a flower or, say, a cactus to protect her from her PC’s electromagnetic radio waves. He could tell her that he’d brought it from home and had nowhere to put it. Galya would be pleasantly surprised of course. «Do you have an entire orchard at home?» she would ask and he would nod and offer to show it to her. Then, she would come over and—

«Red’s a rare color for a Volvo.» Valeyev’s remark cut short Mayorov fantastical orbit and sent him plummeting down to the detective’s office with all the grace of a descent vehicle on a parachute-less trajectory into the ocean.

«And now for the best part.» Petelina picked up a printout. «Misha Ustinov pulled up Oksana Drozdova’s contact info and sent me her photo. Have a look.»

The detective handed her phone to the operatives.

«She likes her makeup,» surmised Valeyev.

«She’s a blonde,» Mayorov confirmed for no one’s benefit. He was gaining respect for Galya by the minute.

«Oksana Drozdova works for the regional branch of the Housing and Utilities Ministry.

«She’s a clerk.»

«That’s not the main thing though. Ustinov called them up and found out that Ms. Drozdova did not come into work today. She hadn’t given notice and hasn’t answered her cell phone.»

«Another goner! Did the Tadpole check for tickets to St. Petersburg?»

«He did,» Elena replied seriously. «Nothing anywhere. Now it’s your turn to check.»

«What do you want us to do?»

«I want you to go to Aprelevka, Marat. Check out Drozdova’s house.»

«Are we looking for a hidden body?» the operative smirked skeptically.

«The thing of it is that hypnotized people don’t tell lies, Marat.»

Twenty minutes later, the two field operatives were flying down Kievsky Highway. Mayorov was behind the wheel. Marat Valeyev sat beside him, adroitly sending off text messages.

«Talking to Galya Nesterova,» he explained. «She’s really hung up on the whole «now or never’ thing.»

«Why? What’s so special about it?» Vanya grumbled, feigning disinterest.

«Check out what she wrote. „Never or now?“ With a question mark!»

«What’d you say to that?»

«I wrote, „Never put off until tomorrow that which you can do today.“»

«What’d she say to that?»

«She wrote, ‘+100»»

«What’s that supposed to mean?»

«It means she agrees, one hundred percent. So I switched over to numerology too: „2+2=4!“»

«I don’t get it.»

«Galya didn’t either. It’s code for a date.»

«What kind of date?» Vanya grew nervous.

«Two pairs of hands is four. Two pairs of feet is four. And two pairs of eyes consuming each other from desire is also four. And so, four pairs times four pairs, joined in intimate intercourse.»

«Eyes, hands, feet… what’s the fourth pair?»

«Ears, you perv. Ears are the most important part. If a girl’s all ears as you’re whispering your sweet nothings, you can be sure that she’ll be yours.»

«Yours?» terror washed over Vanya.

«The hell are you off to – you unformed major, you? Turn here! You’ll miss the Aprelevka exit!»

The senior lieutenant braked abruptly. Valeyev cursed, opened the atlas and found Dorozhnaya Street. He began to give his partner directions, while the melancholy Mayorov wove through the unfamiliar streets obediently and kept trying to divine whether the whole date code thing was just a joke. The captain did love his jokes, after all.

«Here we are. Twenty-four Dorozhnaya Street,» Valeyev announced cheerfully and shut the atlas.

«The gates are green, just like in Maltseva’s statement,» recalled Vanya. His police brain clicked on, drowning out the whine of jealousy permeating his solid body.

«And open,» noticed Valeyev. «Why do you think that is?»

The operatives entered the yard and found a sedan parked within.

«It’s red,» Mayorov switched to a whisper.

«Wait!» Valeyev stopped his partner in mid-stride.

The captain squatted and picked up a plastic fragment from the cobblestone.

«Look, it’s from a phone. No wonder her cell phone isn’t working.»

Valeyev noticed two small stains on the pavestone, rubbed them with his finger and carefully examined the smudge on his finger.

«Look’s like we have a situation on our hands. This is blood, Vanya. Could be from a pooch that nicked its paw or could be a…» he reached down again and picked up a couple of light hairs. «Well, well, well… Seems to me like these smell like gunpowder. Have a sniff, Vanya.»

Valeyev stood up, while Mayorov inhaled loudly with his nose.

«I can’t tell. I’m no hound.»

«You’re a sleuth, Vanya. An operative, as we like to say. What’s the operative’s motto? „ To contend and to seek – to uncover and bring to justice .“ Wish the Tadpole were here with his satchel.» Marat looked around. «If we keep going at this rate, we’ll stumble across a blonde corpse any second.»

«Where?»

«Well, where would you hide a body?»

The operatives both looked at the lilac bushes in the corner of the yard. The rust-colored leaves had partially fallen, exposing an oblong object covered with a plastic tarp through the bare branches. The operatives exchanged a look and walked around the bush from both sides. The oblong object covered with plastic was shaped like a human body.