Penny Criminal Case

Without opening it, Alex twisted the disk of a bulky antediluvian phone, probably of the “Stalin’s bottling”.

“Is it the prosecutor’s office of the Kirov district? I would have a senior investigator Yun.”

“Stop making fun, Alex!” the tube responded with the guilty voice and a very loud bass – one of the few advantages of the Stalinist apparatus. “I would ‘thank’ anyone for such a ‘gift’ myself… But, honestly, Rubin did it all! I have already accepted the case for production, when he decided to work as explorer!”

“I’m calling you on another occasion, Vlad,” Starks smiled.

“I listen to you, bro!”

The voice on that end instantly became optimistic and even joyful. It always happens, when “the cat feels whose meat has eaten”, even if the situation was different from the classic one.

“Bro, those two, who were killed on your ‘sponsored’ territory… well, with the genitals cut off… are they your ‘wealth’?”

“Yeah…”

The enthusiasm in Yun’s voice disappeared as quickly as it appeared. It was felt, that the “wealth” was already pretty “fed up” with the “honored”.

“Do not share?”

“Do you want to combine in one production?” Yun re-revived.

“No,” Starkov laughed, “just asking you to ‘confess’.”

“A-a-a-a…”

And the Kirov senior investigator “died” again. A short pause followed the lingering, sorrowful sigh.

“Well, what can I tell you, bro… ‘Dead case’ is the most suitable words for defining the current state at the current moment.”

“Nothing?” Starkov “delighted” also. “Really?”

Anticipating the answer, Yun additionally “reassured” the counterparty with a secondary woeful sigh. This moment of “mourning ceremony” in itself and in the case ended with a sound, even by telephone, identified as the loud joint work of the nose and handkerchief.

“Well, what can I say…”

“Speak as it is!”

“There is nothing, but corpses, bro. We didn’t even find the genitals cut off…”

“What was cut from the vagina?”

“As stated in the conclusion of the forensic examination, the large and small labia are removed. Surgically.”

“Surgically?”

Starkov’s face immediately acquired an “otherworldly” expression. He even took the phone away from his ear for a few seconds.

“It is interesting.”

– Nothing interesting, bro!”

Even on the phone it was “visible”, as the counterpart on the other end of the line “waved an arm in disgust”.

“At first, we also grabbed this trace: a maniac has to do with medicine.”

“And?”

“No shit!”

Yun’s anger on hopelessness has already “overflowed its banks”.

“In the city there are four clinical hospitals, eight clinics, a hell of a lot of emergency centers – and surgeons work everywhere not in the amount of one piece! And also there are a medical institute with a surgical faculty, an institute of plastic surgery, four morgues with pathologists, a forensic morgue, a medical examiner bureau…”

“Did you include the bureau?”

Starkov was not so much surprised, as he was on his guard: there was something in this “something”.

“From happiness,” Yun grinned into the phone. “And then ‘one familiar uncle’ told me, that the list was incomplete. It turned out, that it is necessary to include here also workers of the meat processing plant, working on cutting carcasses, and butchers from the shops, and their colleagues from the ‘Fish Fridge Refrigerator’, and the criminal element, noted and not noted by the ‘arts’ along this line, and the craftsmen of art craftsmen on bone, on wood – even on metal! And all this is not only in the city, but also in the region!”

The tube sighed wearily.

“It’s good, that we rejected immediately the version of the guest performer, otherwise we would get even more ‘happiness’! But even so, bro, there are more than a thousand men in our list! And we have no materials for any of them!! But to learn so skillfully cut the pussy can any man in the street if you have the desire!”

Starkov chuckled into the phone: the vis-a-vis was well rounded. But with this “joy of life” ended.

“But you collect waste paper, didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course, bro!” the tube immediately came to life. “As they say, ‘the plan for the shaft – the shaft for the plan!’ We work on volume, sparing neither ink nor paper! I have already begun to fill the third volume with papers! The bosses are very pretty with all our work… except for the result.”

Starkov laughed shortly: even despondent, Yun was not discouraged, and if he was discouraged, it was somehow cheerful.

“Okay, Vlad, we will assume that you confessed to me… I have a couple more small questions: did you find anything during the inspection?”

“Nothing. Not a single piece of paper, not a single poop. I am silent modestly about the tracks. No one saw anything, heard nothing. So with your case there is a complete discrepancy here. This is in your case there are a lot of material evidence, but we have nothing! And work with the corpse does not fit: a stick in the hole, the redeployment from area to area…”

The tube “thought” for a moment.

“It seems to me, bro, that these are different cases, and they were made by different people… in the sense of: nonhumans. There is no relationship, except that our corpses and yours are found in depressed areas, at a considerable distance from housing.”

“Are you suggesting that a maniac did this?” Starkov “delighted” colleague additionally.

“God save us, bro!” the tube “crossed” right away. “We do not need such a ‘happiness’!. . And in the killings there is no chronology, no ‘moon’… Just in case – for waste paper – we made inquiries both in place, and in the republic, and to the centre, of course.”

“Have you received a formal reply already?” Starkov “admired” with interlocutor.

“Yes, we have!”

Both of them were silent for a while. Finally, Starkov was the first – and not too optimistic – sighed into the phone tube.