Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

“Politely,” she said, closing her eyes. “No.”

If she was not asleep in the next few seconds, she soon would be. She had pulled the thin blanket up to her neck and was holding the fringe loosely. She looked like a very young child.

“Stay awake a moment longer,” he said. “There is someone I want you to meet. The person who told me that you were to be attacked.”

Elena opened her eyes and watched Rostnikov cross the room, open the door, and motion to someone in the small waiting room. He held the door open, and Elena, fighting sleep, looked up at the blond girl who had been with Boris the night before.

She was wearing a simple blue dress with a wide black patent-leather belt. The young woman approached the bed. Rostnikov remained at the door.

“They say you will be fine,” the young woman said, standing next to Elena’s bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell Inspector Rostnikov sooner.”

“You saved my life,” said Elena, taking the woman’s hand with her good one.

“I must go,” the young woman said, smiling and backing away from the bed.

“Your name,” said Elena, now fighting sleep.

“Svetlana,” the young woman said. “Sleep.”

Svetlana left the room, closing the door, and Rostnikov moved to Elena’s bedside.

“Yaklovev is her uncle,” said Rostnikov. “She is very valuable to him, and to us. Also, I like her.”

“So. . do. . I,” Elena managed to say as she was falling asleep. “I have reason to.”

“Rest,” said Rostnikov, who touched the bed and went through the door in search of a phone and Leon.

The small reception room with three comfortable chairs and a desk was empty. Leon had a part-time receptionist/nurse, but Rostnikov had not seen her today.

The phone was on the desk. He reached for it and saw Leon’s appointment book open to today. As he placed his call, Rostnikov glanced at the appointment book and read the upside-down name: Sarah. No last name.

Rostnikov got his call through and discovered from the man he had left at the hotel that Sasha was fine, that the plan had worked, and that the meeting was set for tonight before the scheduled battle of the dogs. Sasha had managed to give the man that much information and no more.

Porfiry Petrovich’s plan had been to return to Petrovka. There was much to do, much to learn. It was early, but days had a dis-comforting way of being over just as they seemed to be beginning. Rostnikov sat in one of the chairs. Normally, he would have read the novel he brought with him, but he had left it with Elena.

He adjusted his leg, rested on the arms of the chair, and fell asleep. He was awakened moments later by the sound of a door opening and the sight of Leon ushering out a very well dressed woman in her forties. She looked as if she had just stepped out of one of the new salons after visiting a tasteful but expensive clothing shop.

The woman, well groomed but plain in spite of her makeup, smiled at Leon and thanked him.

“It will be fine, Marianskaya,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the door next to Rostnikov.

She looked down at the block of a man seated awkwardly and then allowed herself to be ushered out.

“People like that pay the bills,” said Leon, turning to Rostnikov after he had closed the door.

“You owe me no explanation,” said Rostnikov.

“I know, but why is it that I feel I do?”

“A little guilt?” asked Rostnikov, rubbing his face into a semblance of wakefulness.

“Perhaps. Yes.”

“You needn’t feel guilt, Leon,” said Rostnikov. “I know the good you do.”

“Yes,” said Leon, sitting in the chair next to Rostnikov and unbuttoning his jacket. “But do I do the good things because I feel guilt for being able to live like this with the huge fees I get from the Marianskayas of Moscow, or do I do it because I am a saint?”

“You are a saint,” Rostnikov said solemnly.

Leon smiled.

“I suppose it is my duty to accept beatification from a distinguished member of the government. I like you, Porfiry Petrovich.”

“I am humbled and honored and I like you.”

“I did not mean to be patronizing,” said Leon. “I’m tired. I have more rich patients coming, some with very little wrong with them, all who want a great deal of my time. I would rather be in my apartment through that door, playing Mozart or even Brahms. I am thinking of getting a harpsichord. Do you like the sound of a harpsichord?”

“I prefer the piano,” said Rostnikov. “Harpsichords remind me of Russians in powdered wigs trying to act like Frenchmen.”

They sat silently in the waiting room chairs for a few seconds and then Leon said, “You saw my appointment book.”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “Did you mean me to do so?”

“Perhaps.”

“Sarah is ill.”

“She will tell you,” said Leon.

“You tell me.”

And Leon did, concluding, “I have never lied to Sarah, but I have sometimes not told the complete truth. It is what doctors must do.”

“And policemen,” said Rostnikov.

“The surgeon may have no trouble relieving the pressure on the brain, but the recent tests are troubling. We’re running more tests, but we have scheduled surgery for the day after tomorrow in the morning.”

Rostnikov looked at the ceiling.

“Sarah will be upset that I told you,” said Leon.

“No,” said Rostnikov. “Relieved. Thank you, Leon.”

“You are welcome, Porfiry Petrovich.”

The two men rose.

“It might be a good idea if you had different pants. Those have been badly shredded. I have several pairs of trousers from my late father-in-law,” said Leon. “I think they may fit you.”

“Why not?” said the policeman. “Why not?”

Paulinin had cleared off three tables in his laboratory, no easy task considering the amazing clutter. On one table lay the corpse of the recently murdered Chechin gangster. His hands were at his sides, and an open incision from the center of his ribs to his lower abdomen revealed a jumble of pinkish organs, intestines, and other body parts. On the second table lay the burned corpse from the roof of the apartment building on Kalinin. Its head was missing. On the third table were at least one hundred charred and partly burnt pieces of photographs, segments of cassette tape, and various items gathered by Paulinin from the hotel roof.

Emil Karpo, Iosef Rostnikov, and Akardy Zelach stood watching attentively. Paulinin, they knew, had a passion for exhibiting his skill before small appreciative audiences. Paulinin stood between the two corpses. He wore a blue smock and white latex gloves.

“There is still much to learn here,” he said. “It will take two or three days, maybe less. Had the corpses and this evidence been given to Pariatsok or Mendranov or any of the incompetents who call themselves pathologists and know nothing about careful examination and simple logic, they would have befouled the evidence, come to the wrong conclusions, and allowed the guilty to escape. That does not happen with Paulinin, who has been con-signed to this room for two decades. What they do not know is that I am content here, though I could use more modern equipment.”

None of the three detectives spoke or looked at each other. All three knew that those who knew of Paulinin and his laboratory also knew that he could be happy nowhere else.

“This is definitely the German, Jurgen,” he began, pointing at the blackened, headless corpse. “Teeth, bone structure, size, small hair samples all coincide with his description. I will find more. I will prove it conclusively. You can continue to search for our German, but he will be found nowhere but here in front of you. He was drunk when he died. He was nude when he was burned.

There are no signs of burnt clothing clinging to his bones. His skull was definitely cracked by a heavy wooden object brought down with great force, but that did not kill him. He was also stabbed in the neck, as I noted immediately upon examining the body. Now I know that the small slivers of wood in the skull and the others in the neck are from the same object, almost certainly one that broke upon striking the German’s head.

“Paulinin has changed his mind about one early conclusion. It takes courage in this profession to admit a possible error, even if the error is rectified immediately. There is a definite possibility, perhaps even a likelihood, that the German, while he was killed by the stab wound, may not have been quite dead when his body was burned. Oh, he was certainly dying and would have died, even with immediate expert attention, which is not easy to come by in Moscow and impossible everywhere else in Russia.”

“So,” said Iosef. “He was burned alive but he was dying?”

Paulinin looked up with satisfaction. It was the question he’d been waiting for.

“It is very possible. I’ll know more when I have finished my discussion with our headless friend. It would help if I could speak to him in German, but it is a language which I dislike.” He gently patted the scorched rib cage. “Now,” said Paulinin, “we bypass our second victim and go to the interesting pile of plastic bags.”

Paulinin moved to the pile of bags and looked at the policemen lined up attentively.

“I can salvage many of the photographs,” he said. “It takes time and delicacy, a skill those buffoons with all their equipment do not possess. I have already restored three of them to the point where the images can be seen with reasonable clarity. And I have begun carefully reclaiming pieces of tape, which I will put together onto a single reel and then copy.”

“May we see the photographs?” asked Iosef with just the proper tone of respect.

Paulinin nodded magnanimously and lifted three plastic envelopes. “I’ll hold. Don’t touch,” he said.

Iosef and Zelach moved forward to examine the photographs.

Emil Karpo remained where he was.

Even through the blur from the dim lights, the images on the photographs were clear. Yevgeny Pleshkov was in explicit and rather uninventive sexual positions with Yulia Yalutshkin in two of the pictures. In the third, he was in bed with Yulia and another woman, a very young woman.

“We will need everything as soon as possible,” said Iosef.

“As soon as possible,” said Paulinin. “And I decide when that shall be.”

“You’ve done an amazing job,” said Iosef.

“Yes,” said Paulinin. “It is odd, but I do not like Germans any more than I like their language. My father was killed by them.

Three of my uncles were killed by them. But when they are dead and on my table, they are not only forgiven, they become my friends and we talk. Death unites us.”

All three men knew that Paulinin had frequently been heard speaking to corpses with great animation.

“And now,” he said, “the big gangster.”

He went behind the corpse of the dead Chechin, placed his gloved hands on the table, and said, “Shot two times. Either would have been fatal. Very close range. The same gun that was used to shoot the Tatar in the river. Considering his wounds, the fact that he was capable of speaking to the guard who found him before he died indicates this man’s strength and the certainty that whoever shot him did so within a minute or two of his death. He too will tell me more. Perhaps he will even yield the name of the person who shot him.”

Emil Karpo had listened attentively.

Rostnikov, whom he had tried to locate before coming to the lab, could not be found. It was essential that he know about the murder of the Chechin before an all-out war began in the streets between the Chechins and the Tatars. It was not the lives of the gangsters about which Karpo was concerned. It was the innocents, always the innocents, who might well be the victims of the gangsters, notoriously poor shots.

“Now,” said Paulinin, “I would like to be left to do more work.” He looked down protectively at the white corpse before him.

“Thank you,” said Karpo. “Lunch tomorrow?”

“I’ll bring it,” said Paulinin with a sincere smile.

“No,” Karpo said, unwilling under any circumstance to eat anything Paulinin might make. He had frequently drunk weak tea prepared in this very lab, in specimen cups which may well have contained anything during their long lives. “It will be my treat, a sign of my great respect for your continued excellent work.”

“In that case,” said Paulinin, beaming, “I accept. One o’clock?”

“One o’clock,” Karpo confirmed as he turned and led the way for the other two detectives through the maze of tables, piles of jars, books, and pieces and bits of mechanisms of all types and many sizes.

Iosef knew that somewhere in this museum of clutter his father’s leg floated in a huge jar. He was sure, should he ask, that Paulinin would be happy to show it to him. Iosef had no desire to see it.

Before coming to Iosef ’s laboratory for the demonstration, Emil Karpo had finished checking the newspaper clipping files-

the computer had been of no help-for the information that would confirm his memory of the shoot-out. Karpo had found what he had been looking for. The clippings had not been mis-filed. They had simply never been properly filed at all. Going through them required a knowledge of what you were looking for and when it might have taken place.

One article contained the name he sought. It was mentioned but once. Karpo made a copy of the article, folded it neatly into his wallet.

Now, knowing the identity of the killer, he would have to find Rostnikov.

Yevgeny Pleshkov, the hope of Russia, the pride of Petrovar, could think of no place to hide and no one to go to. He had considered staying with Oleg, but the police had already been to Oleg and might be checking his apartment for the missing politician. Besides, Oleg had appeared greatly upset by the suggestion that his friend might stay with him. Yevgeny considered telling his friend that he knew of Oleg’s preference for men, had known it for years, probably even before Oleg knew, but if the man wanted to hold onto his image, Yevgeny was not one to pull it from him.

“I have. . visitors,” Oleg had said. “Other coaches, members of the team. It wouldn’t be safe.”

Yulia had left Yevgeny in the park, where he sat on a bench watching some small children play and wondering if it was going to rain. He had money in his pocket but no desire for drink, women, or food.

The children in the park were kicking a soccer ball. They were no more than four or five. The ball came to the seated Pleshkov, who made an effort to kick it back to the children without rising. The kick dribbled off the side of his right foot and rolled a few pathetic feet. One of the children, a boy wearing a shiny purple jacket, picked up the ball and gave the dirty man on the bench a look of disdain. Then the boy ran away shouting, “I’ve got it.”

Years ago, actually not that many years ago, Yevgeny and Oleg had played side by side. Yevgeny was a striker. Oleg was a left-wing. Together they had set park league records, and Oleg had gone on to the professional ranks and a coaching career.