Fall of a Cosmonaut

Yuri Kriskov. He leaned in front of her, gave her some coins, and asked her if she had seen anyone making a call on the phone to which he now pointed. She looked at the coins and then at the phone. Then she looked at the policeman and said, “Ten rubles.”

Emil Karpo patiently questioned Boris Adamovskovich in a small, white-walled, windowless room on the fourth floor of Petrovka. There was a table in the room with four chairs. Adamovskovich had been directed to sit in one of the chairs. Zelach had taken a position behind the scientist. Karpo stood across the table before the man they were questioning. It was routine procedure. Zelach did his best to pay attention, but it was still early and much had already happened.

Less than an hour earlier he had walked behind Nadia Spectorski down the hall of the psychic research center and into the same room where she had tortured him with playing cards. He had little hope of outwitting the scientist, so he had a battle plan to name the cards based on a simple pattern he had worked out the night before with his mother.

Eagerly, Nadia Spectorski had sat him at the table and said, “We are going to do something different today, Inspector Zelach. Here is a pad of paper and a pencil.”

He adjusted his glasses and looked at the pad and pencil.

“I am going to draw six things on the pad before me,” she said. “This screen will prevent you from seeing what I am drawing.”

The screen was simple, a tall brown piece of plastic with two hinged sides.

“I will draw first, nod to you, and you will draw,” she said.

“What will I draw?” he asked.

“Whatever you wish to draw,” she answered. “Simple drawings.”

“I can’t draw,” he said.

“Keep it very simple,” she said. “This isn’t an art class. It won’t take long. Trust me. There are no grades. Just draw.”

Ten minutes later Zelach was breathing hard. The experiment was over. He put down his pencil. Nadia Spectorski reached for his pad and took it behind her screen.

Zelach watched her eyes compare what she had done with what he had drawn. She made a sound, made some notes on a separate pad, and looked up at him.

“Would you like to see?” she said.

“See?”

“What you did.”

“No,” he said. “I would like to go now.”

“Look,” she said, folding the screen and turning the pads toward him. “This is my first drawing and this is yours.”

Nadia Spectorski’s drawing was a circle with a small square inside it. Zelach’s drawing was a circle with a squiggle inside it. She went through the six drawings. Her number-two drawing was a crude man. His was a stick figure of a man. Her third drawing was an automobile. His third drawing was a cart with wheels. Her fourth drawing was the letter L. His fourth drawing was a right angle with both sides equal. Her fifth drawing was a vertical pencil. His fifth drawing was a simple vertical straight line. Her sixth drawing was a five-sided star. His sixth drawing looked like an asterisk.

“Nothing alike,” he said, peering at the pads through his glasses.

“On the contrary,” she said. “The match is remarkable. Another test.”

“No,” he said, rising.

“I understood that you were asked to cooperate, Akardy Zelach.”

“Another time,” he said. “I cannot …”

“Yes, I understand,” she said. “Talk to your mother.”

“My mother?”

“The woman at the table last night. That is your mother?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Don’t worry. Tell her not to worry. I won’t make trouble for you. I’ll keep it to myself.”

That was no more than an hour ago. Now he stood behind the big scientist named Boris, who was being questioned by Emil Karpo.

“… the blood of Sergei Bolskanov,” Karpo said.

“I don’t know,” said Adamovskovich, shaking his head.

“You were there,” said Karpo.

“In the center, yes. I was there, but I didn’t kill Bolskanov. I was in my office and then in my sleep laboratory, working.”

“Your shoes,” said Karpo.

Boris looked up, clearly unnerved by the situation and the pale, unemotional man before him.

“My shoes,” Boris said almost to himself. “I don’t … I took them off for a while. I slept. Sometimes I work for two, three days without sleep and then I nap for an hour or two. I must have been asleep when Sergei was murdered.”

“In your laboratory?”

“Yes, asleep.”

“You took your shoes off?”

“When I sleep, yes. I took my shoes off. Put them on the floor next to the bed.”

Karpo looked down at him for what may have been a minute. Zelach stood quietly. Boris turned to look at Zelach for sympathy. Zelach did not return his look.

“You are suggesting that someone came into the sleep laboratory while you were napping, took your shoes, put them on, murdered Sergei Bolskanov, made an attempt to clean the shoes, and then put them back where you had left them,” said Karpo.

“I … I suppose. Yes, that is what I must be saying. Though I don’t …”

“That someone took your shoes, wore them, murdered, and returned them,” said Karpo.

“I don’t … yes, that must be.”

“Perhaps you walked in your sleep and killed Sergei Bolskanov without knowing it,” said Karpo.

“No,” said Boris. “That is not possible. I do not walk in my sleep.”

“It would explain the blood,” said Karpo. “Possibly give you an excuse for what took place.”

“I did not commit murder while asleep. I did not commit murder while awake. If there is blood on those shoes, someone else wore them.”

“Why?” asked Karpo.

“I do not know,” said Adamovskovich, pounding the table with both fists. “I do not know.”

“I am sorry I’m late,” said the man with the umbrella, standing in the middle of the muddy street of Kiro- Stovitsk. “I was fortunate in having the opportunity to attend the annual services for the burial of Czar Nicholas and his family in St. Petersburg.”

The people of the town were lined up as the lean man in a business suit, umbrella tucked under his left arm, walked directly up to Rostnikov and held out his right hand.

“Primazon,” he said. “Anatoli Ivanovich Primazon.”

“Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov” Rostnikov replied, taking the man’s hand.

Primazon’s face was pink and smooth, his hair freshly barbered and white. His smile was of a man hoping for a reaction. “And this,” said Primazon, “is your son, Iosef.”

Primazon’s hand went out again. Iosef took it.

Rostnikov did not ask how the man with the umbrella knew his son’s name. He did not have to ask.

“And …” Primazon went on looking around at the small gathering. “Which one is Vladovka’s father?”

Boris stepped forward. He did not extend his hand, but he did introduce his son and Alexander Podgorny.

Primazon nodded politely and said, “Porfiry Petrovich, is there somewhere we can talk?”

Rostnikov looked at Boris Vladovka, who nodded toward the meeting hall they had just left.

“Thank you,” Primazon said with sincerity to Vladovka. “Official business. It shouldn’t take long.”

The man with the umbrella led the way into the former church, and the Rostnikovs followed. Iosef closed