Secret Target

12

Captain Valeyev put some clothes in a bag and explained what he was doing to the janitor.

«These constitute material evidence, which I am hereby confiscating.»

«Completely?»

«Completely completely.»

The Tajik janitor nodded enthusiastically and suggested the boss take some more things. He understood now that his date with his motherland had been put on hold and was grateful to the kind boss for his wise decision. Valeyev handed the bag to Mayorov and the two operatives left the basement.

In the courtyard, the captain noticed Dmitry Maltsev hurrying by.

«What a welcome surprise!» Valeyev exclaimed. «It’s good to see you back in the free world!»

Maltsev twitched as if he had stumbled against an invisible barrier.

«I was released,» he muttered.

«Verily, the drunk tank overfloweth. Thy return shall be most welcome.»

«Well I don’t normally drink so much… That was kind of an accident.» Maltsev waved his hand in resignation and asked, «What about Inna, my wife? Where is she? She isn’t answering her phone.»

«Kindly direct all your inquiries to the detective.»

«Is she under arrest?»

«Are you deaf? Ask the detective!»

«Yes, of course,» Maltsev checked himself and pointed at the driveway uncertainly. «May I go up? To my apartment?»

«If you’ve got your keys, go for it.»

«But isn’t the… well.. you know, in there…?»

«They’re doing the autopsy at the morgue. It’s more comfy there. I’m sure you understand. In fact, I know you do because I heard that you’ve dealt with this kind of thing before – like when you went hunting that one time.»

Maltsev’s eyes flashed with a spark of rage. The man deflated and turned away. His stooping figure, its sour face, dragged off toward the front entrance.

«And where are we off to?» asked Mayorov.

«To the car, Vanya, to the car.» Valeyev gave his partner a soft push, weighing whether he should tell Petelina about his meeting with the janitor in person or by phone.

Detective Petelina’s head was running in circles. What was Maltseva talking about? Where was she getting this stuff?

A gunshot

 instead of a blow?

A handgun

 instead of a cleaver?

A she

 instead of a he? Drivel – plain and simple. Everything had happened completely differently.

«Go on,» Dr. Krasin whispered to Elena. His expression, however, lacked its former conviction.

Elena discarded all tact and stated directly

«Mrs. Maltseva, last night you did not shoot anyone.» Elena discarded all tact and asserted directly. «Instead, you struck a man with a cleaver!»

«No. I shot a woman with a gun.»

«What woman?»

«The woman in the red car.»

«What car?»

«A red Volvo.»

«You were at home last night.»

«I was in Aprelevka, waiting for her.»

«In Aprelevka?» Elena shook her head helplessly. «Okay, let’s say you really were there. Where then exactly?»

«At 24 Dorozhnaya Street.»

«Are you sure?»

«Yes. There was a sign on the fence that said „24.“»

«And who was it that you shot?»

«The blonde, but she dyes her hair.»

«A bleached blonde? How fascinating! Tell me, how did it all happen?»

«She drove up and got out of her red car. She began to open the green gates. I walked right up to her and shot her in the head. Then, she fell.»

«Where did you get the gun?»

«It’s my dad’s gun. He was in the army.»

«And where is the gun now?»

«I dropped it back there. I didn’t need it anymore.»

«At what time did all this happen?»

«After six. I checked my watch while I was waiting.»

«So according to you, you lay in wait for a woman in order to murder her?»

«I shot her and she fell.»

«What happened then?»

«I got in my car and went home. I thought everything over several times. I was wearing sunglasses so that no one could recognize me. I threw them in the trash. I also threw away the coat and gloves. Did I do it right?»

«What was the woman’s name?»

«I don’t know.»

«You killed a complete stranger?!»

«She was a bad person.»

«Had you met her before?»

«No.»

«Then why did you shoot her?»

Inna clenched her fists and began to batter the table’s edge.

«She’s a whore. A bitch. She doesn’t have the right to live. She humiliated a child. I had to kill her.»

Inna Maltseva was convulsing hysterically. Dr. Krasin quickly moved the detective aside and began counting backwards to bring the patient out of her trance.

When Maltseva had been taken away, Petelina got into the psychiatrist’s face.

«Your hypnosis is utter crap.»

«I wouldn’t say so. And, in your heart of hearts, you do not really think so either. I did everything right. Inna could not have lied under hypnosis. To the contrary, she had to recollect whatever she had blocked out of her memory.»

«She recollected enough nonsense to send my head spinning!»

«I was just trying to help, Detective Petelina.»

«Well, you did quite enough. Thank you for all the extra work.» The detective was gradually regaining her cool. «Do you realize that I am required to corroborate any confession? Even one that’s utter drivel?»

«And what if Inna is telling the truth?»

«Two murders in one day?»

«You should hear some of the stuff I’ve come across in my clinical practice. Like this one time – »

«Please go, Dr. Krasin. I will sign your release; just go.» Elena rapped her fingers on the voice recorder. «I’ve had it up to here with this whole story.»

«As you wish, Detective Petelina.» Krasin put on his mackintosh. «If you need any further assistance with Inna, I will be at your service.»

Recalling the suspect’s troublesome testimony, Elena began massaging her temples and agreed with the psychiatrist, «I’m afraid to say it, but I have a feeling that we’ll meet again.»

13

What to do with the woman’s delirious ravings? Put them on the back burner or check out the details right away?

Detective Petelina preferred to be proactive. From a professional perspective, she had just received new information and now needed to corroborate Inna Maltseva’s testimony. Her hand cultivated mindless ornaments on a sheet of paper.

«Detective Petelina, this is Captain Valeyev reporting!» Valeyev’s cheerful voice through the phone extracted Petelina from her reverie.

Elena glanced at her drawing. The cleaver was distinctly visible among the delicate penciled lines, while the gun’s outline was only vaguely discernible. Elena circled both items, then crossed them out angrily and threw the crumpled paper into the trashcan.

God only knew what was going on. The suspect had confessed and in so doing, all the witness statements, as well as the gathered evidence, had been provided with their logical conclusion. What else did a detective need to consider this case closed? But of course Inna Maltseva had confessed to an entirely different crime: A woman had been killed, instead of a man! The murder took place on a street in Aprelevka, instead of in an apartment in Moscow! The murder weapon was a handgun, instead of a cleaver!

After such unexpected testimony, Petelina was compelled to undertake certain investigative measures to corroborate or repudiate the murder confession. She had already received a part of the necessary data. It had forced her to think very hard. At the moment, Elena was waiting for the final and most important piece of the puzzle.

«It’s hard to find a black cat in a dark room. Especially, if it’s not in the room to begin with,» Valeyev joked.

Elena could hear him smile.

«What are you talking about, Marat?»

«About the not so simple assignment you gave me.»

«Success?» Elena perked up recalling the missing coat. A forensic analysis of micro-fine particles on the clothes could throw this convoluted case wide open. What could be there? Traces of gunpowder? Drops of Anton Maltsev’s blood? Both?

«Success.»

«Well, bring it to the lab ASAP!»

«What? The janitor?»

«What does the janitor have to do with it? I’m talking about Maltseva’s coat.»

«We only found the janitor. The coat… There is no coat.»

«Marat, are you messing with me? I’ve been sick of your dumb jokes since we were in school.»

«I’m sorry Lena, I really was talking about the janitor.»

«Oh god.»

«We didn’t discover the coat in question,» the operative confessed and instantly began looking for an excuse. «There probably never was one to begin with!»

«Why are you so certain?»

«We asked the janitor. Who else could have taken the coat out of the trash? It was either him or the bums. But, the janitor doesn’t work in the evening. And the bums make their rounds during the day, when it’s light out. However, Mrs. Maltseva claims that she threw the coat away when it had just gotten dark. If that were the case, we would have found the coat that same evening. Think about it yourself, Lena, who’s going to go digging around in the trash? Only field ops. And even then, just the ones that have the dreaded Noose for a supervisor.»

The detective ignored this little jibe. If the case required it, she’d send them to the bottom of the ocean. In fact, that too had happened before. And not just once. Our dear criminal friends often like to toss material evidence into deep waters, hoping that that’ll be that. Luckily, Misha Ustinov has a lovely device that can render the ocean floor in stark detail.

Elena’s hand twirled the pencil over a summary of yesterday’s incidents in Aprelevka. The section dealing with murders and severe bodily injuries was heavily underlined.

«So there is no coat,» concluded Elena.

«Nor gloves, nor glasses,» the captain joined in enthusiastically. «We went through the janitor’s trove. He’s a collector of every half-decent thing that gets thrown out. I even picked out a children’s coat and some tiny overalls for myself.»

«Why? What do you need them for?»

«Well…» Marat hesitated.

Elena recalled why he had been thrown out of the city’s organized crime division. Operative Nikita Dobrokhotov had perished as a consequence of Valeyev’s actions. Internal Affairs had spent three months investigating Marat. It was only due to a general’s intercession that Valeyev managed to remain in the service at all. That was how he ended up in Petelina’s district.

«Nikita Dobrokhotov has a kid,» Elena guessed.

«Two.»

«How old?»

«The girl’s starting fourth grade. The boy’s going to be five soon. The overalls are for him. They’re very nice actually.»

«Eh, Marat, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I have so many of Nastya’s old clothes from when she was younger.»

«Look Lena, this is kind of a personal matter. Don’t tell anyone, okay..?»

«What nonsense! I don’t want to hear another word. „A personal matter!“ I’ll get the clothes ready for you and you’ll come by to pick them up. As for the ones you got from the janitor, take them to the dry cleaners first.»

«That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.»

«Well, therein lies the difference between women and men.»

«There are other difference too,» the captain humbly submitted.

«Let’s stick to work, Captain Valeyev.» Elena reached for a printout from the State Traffic Inspectorate database and circled a license plate number with her pencil. «You didn’t find the coat, but I found the car.»

«What car?» asked the operative surprised.

«The Volvo. A red one, as luck would have it.»

«You’re getting a new car?»

«It belongs to a woman who was born a brunette but prefers to be a blonde.»

«Lena, I’m not following.»

Misha Ustinov came flying into the detective’s office. Petelina put the phone down and switched her attention to the expert. Her eyes burned with anticipation.

«Well?»

«I’ve figure it out, Detective Petelina, all of it! I’ve already made the call. You know what they told me?»

Petelina greedily listened to his brief report. Her worst fears had been confirmed. She snatched up the phone and yelled, «Valeyev, get over here this instant!»

14

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.

«Should we look around for witnesses?» asked Vanya.

«The hell do you want with witnesses?» Valeyev jerked the tarp off in one sharp motion, revealing a black mound of fresh earth. The captain shook off the water that had gotten on his hands. «What we need is a shovel, not witnesses.»

«Maybe we should report to Detective Petelina first. Let her…» the senior lieutenant stumbled onto the captain’s accusatory look and shut up.

«Why don’t you call Galya Nesterova too? You and I can have a pleasant smoke while they do our jobs.»

«I’m just going by the book. Clearly the corpse is here. The earth is loose. Buried yesterday.»

«You know, I think maybe you can’t see the forest for the trees. Have you ever seen black earth like this anywhere around Moscow?»

Vanya shrugged his shoulders.

«Did it rain yesterday?» Valeyev pressed on.

«Hasn’t rained a drop in three days.»

«There you have it. And yet, there was some pooled water in the tarp’s folds. And it was covered with withered leaves.»

Valeyev snapped off a branch and used it to poke the black mound. The branch entered the earth easily but stopped at something hard at ground level. The captain prodded the mound from every side and threw the branch away.

«This is just potting soil for a vegetable garden. It was put here a while ago and covered with plastic to keep the weeds out.»

«Where should we look for the body now?»

«You forgot about the house. That’s the best option for the murderer. Neighbors might be able to see into the yard. But this way, you shoot her, get her keys and drag the body into the house.»

«Maltseva couldn’t have managed that on her own.»

«Who said she acted alone? In this line of work, best always assume the worst.» Valeyev nodded in the direction of the house. «Here’s the plan. I’ll get the door, while you cover me through the window.»

The operatives stomped along the grass to the house and split up. Mayorov turned the corner. The curtains were drawn. The operative looked into the first window from his great height. The living room was empty. The next window showed the living room from a different angle. He could see the door to the entryway. For a moment, Vanya thought he caught a slight motion among the pane’s tessellated reflections, as if someone had darted past quickly and quietly.

On the other side of the house, Marat Valeyev ascended the stairs and tried the door. To his surprise, it was unlocked. And not only that but, when he pulled, the door swung toward him with such ease that it was