Emil Karpo had been slowly taking notes as he went through the building in which Aleksandr Chenko lived. Karpo had spoken to twenty-two tenants, all of whom, with the exception of an older blind couple, answered his questions with some degree of nervousness. They were anxious to rid their apartments of this pale specter of a policeman who stood erect, asked questions slowly, listened carefully, and watched them without blinking.
From most of those to whom he spoke he learned little or nothing. Few people, even those who lived on the same floor, remembered Chenko at all. Those who had encountered him said he was a pleasant young man who smiled when he passed and seemed pleased to see them when they encountered him at work at the nearby Volga Supermarket II. Most important, Karpo found that the blind woman, Kesenia Ivanovna, who was sixty-two years old and on a pension from the Moscow sewage authority, knew the histories of almost all her neighbors.
Aleksandr Chenko, she told Karpo as her husband sat nodding in agreement and confirmation, had suffered a rejection about six years ago. A young woman had told him that she planned to marry another man, an acquaintance of Chenko’s. In fact, Chenko had moved into this building just to be near the young woman.
“Tragedy,” said the blind woman, looking at a blank blue-white wall. “The man she was to marry had a tragic fall from his apartment window and the young woman disappeared.”
“Her name?”
“I do not remember,” the woman said.
“Hannah,” said the old man.
“Yes, Hannah,” the woman agreed.
“Hannah. .?”
Both of his hosts shook their heads to indicate that they did not know.
“His name, the dead man who fell from his window-,” the blind man began.
“Or jumped in grief,” said the woman.
“But he died before she was missing,” said the man.
“That is right,” the woman agreed.
Rostnikov caught up with Karpo on the third floor of the apartment building as he came out of the apartment being shared by three friends in their forties from Novosibersk who all worked as custom brick shapers for the dozens of new construction projects around the city. The trio had appeared quite guilty, but of what Karpo did not know or care. They knew nothing of Aleksandr Chenko.
“Luck?” asked Rostnikov.
“Some,” said Karpo, who spoke softly of the missing girl and the dead young fiancé.
“I have a job for us both,” said Rostnikov.
As they went down the stairs slowly, the Chief Inspector told Karpo what he planned to do. Karpo knew better than to express his lack of enthusiasm for the plan. Too often plans of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov made little sense to Karpo, but just as often they met with success.
“Aleksandr Chenko,” said Rostnikov shortly after shaking the hand of Aloyosha Tarasov in the latter’s office.
“Coffee?” asked Tarasov with a smile that gladly revealed even, white teeth.
The MVD Major was in a civilian suit with a striking purple-and-black tie. His steel blue short-shorn hair was brushed back. Rostnikov was reminded of the American actor Viggo Mortensen.
“No, thank you,” said Rostnikov, taking a seat across the desk.
“I was about to leave,” said Tarasov. “Since you have taken over the Maniac case, I now have time for leisure activities.”
Those “activities,” as Rostnikov knew, were centered on eligible and ineligible women of ages ranging from twenty-two to forty-five. Tarasov believed that his pursuit of beauty was implicitly condoned by Prime Minister Putin himself, who was reputed to keep company with women half his age. At least Aloyosha Tarasov was not married, as the Prime Minister was. Major Tarasov had removed his wife from the scene years ago. He felt no guilt over having thrown her out of their apartment window.
“Now, Porfiry Petrovich, what can I do for you?”
“Aleksandr Chenko,” Rostnikov repeated, resisting the urge to scratch madly at the line where the stump of his real leg met the nesting cup of his false extension.
“Who is that?”
Rostnikov paused. There were several ways to go about this, each reeking of potential danger.
“A possible suspect in the Bitsevsky Park murders.”
“So soon?” said Tarasov. “Congratulations.”
“He was questioned by you and held for sixteen hours before being released,” said Rostnikov.
“We arrested so many that-”
“This one is different.”
“So?”
“I would like whatever files you have on Chenko. There was nothing about him in the material you gave us.”
“I will look tomorrow and get back-”
“Tonight would be much better,” said Rostnikov.
“Porfiry Petrovich,” Tarasov said with a smile. “You should spend more time at things you enjoy. What do you enjoy, my friend?”
“My wife, son, two little neighbor girls, plumbing, working with weights, and American detective novels. I also derive satisfaction from my job.”
Tarasov’s smile disappeared. The Chief Inspector who sat across from him was not joking.
“Plumbing?”
“Yes. Did you enjoy spending time with your wife before she died?”
“Of course,” said Tarasov, now wary.
“I understand she fell or jumped from a window.”
“Yes.”
“The window was closed. She went through the glass and out onto the street. She could easily have opened the window before she jumped, but she chose to leap through a glass window that she could not with certainty penetrate.”
Tarasov’s smile broadened with mock cooperation as he said, “It is puzzling, isn’t it? I will see if I can find any file on this Chenko.”
When Tarasov left the room, Rostnikov immediately began to massage the end of his leg. If he scratched any harder, he knew, the itching would be even worse. He checked his watch. Almost four. He would go to Petrovka, see the Yak, and probably have time to get home for dinner and to talk to his wife. He would have just enough time to work out with the weights stored under the cabinet in the living room and work on the mystery of the backed-up drain in the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Bortkin.
Tarasov returned with a folder that he gave to Rostnikov, who placed it on his lap.
“Those are copies of everything about our interrogation and findings concerning Aleksandr Chenko.”
“You interrogated Chenko personally,” Rostnikov said, opening the file and lifting a printed sheet so that he could better see it.
“Yes, now I remember.”
“He is difficult to forget.”
“I really must be going,” said Tarasov. “Why don’t you take the file and-”
“It is thick for the file of a man who was never truly suspected.”
“No thicker than several of the others,” said Tarasov. “If you will just-”
“I will be quick as a fox pouncing on a skittish rabbit,” said Rostnikov, running his eyes across the pages.
Tarasov leaned back against the wall and took a cigarette from his pocket. He watched Rostnikov and smoked and waited.
After about five minutes, Rostnikov closed the file and rose.
