“Fortunately, their hosing down was as inept as the examination of the content of the stomachs,” Paulinin continued. “Look.”
The scientist turned the body of the older man farther on his side, holding him in place and reaching down with his gloved hand to push the dead man’s ear forward.
“See?”
Rostnikov and Karpo moved forward to look. Rostnikov saw nothing.
Karpo said, “A small green spot.”
“A stain,” said Paulinin with a smile.
“What is it?” asked Rostnikov.
“Juice. Guava juice,” the beaming scientist said, still holding up the body.
“You analyzed it?” asked Rostnikov.
“I tasted it,” said Paulinin.
The image of Paulinin touching his finger to his tongue after pressing it, probably moist, against the tiny dot was less than tantalizing to Porfiry Petrovich.
“Would you like to try?”
“I don’t care for guava juice,” said Rostnikov.
Karpo declined with a nod.
“Suit yourselves,” said Paulinin, easing the body down. “It is a distinctive taste. In any case, I shall see if there is a trace of guava juice in our silent friend’s stomach. If not. .”
“Then the killer may have been the one drinking guava juice,” said Karpo. “The wine was for the victims.”
“Precisely, but in fact he did not have to drink the wine or the juice,” said Paulinin. “Just touch them.”
“Who,” asked Rostnikov, looking down at the dead man, “would have guava juice on his fingers without having drunk it?”
“How should I know?” asked Paulinin impatiently. “Maybe someone who works with guava juice. Moscow cannot be crowded with purchasers of guava juice and Nitin wine. You are the detective. You find out.”
“We will,” said Rostnikov.
“You want to see your leg?” asked Paulinin.
“Why not?” asked Rostnikov with a shrug. “Why not.”
Aleksandr Chenko carefully removed the cans of sweet potatoes and lined them up on the shelf, labels facing forward, after carefully and quickly examining each can for rust or dents or torn labels.
He had been refilling the shelves of the Volga Supermarket II for the past nineteen years. He was good at it. No, he was perfect at it. It was taken for granted that Aleksandr would have the shelves full, report low inventory or damaged or no-longer-fresh produce, help customers find what they were looking for. Six store managers had come and gone in the past nineteen years while Aleksandr never missed a day, was never sick, never late for work. His reward for this was that he was almost completely unnoticed. It was easy to go unnoticed among the seventy employees in the hypermodern twenty-four-hour supermarket. He could lose himself among the shopping carts and the high metal shelving in the huge storeroom at the back of the store. He could report various damaged cans of juice and take them home. Nitin wine he had to pay for.
Aleksandr had the face of a forty-year-old Russian, smooth shaven, brown hair evenly cut. He was not handsome, but neither was he homely. His face was without blemish, his body neither heavy nor thin, and he was a few inches under six feet tall.
He was paid every two weeks. He never asked for a raise, though he had received four since he had taken the job. Assistant managers rose from the ranks between the many brightly lit aisles under twenty-five-foot-high ceilings and in the dank, dull light of the back rooms. That was fine with Aleksandr, who now backed up to examine the line of asparagus cans in even rows, close together but not quite touching one another.
Aleksandr Chenko believed in setting goals for himself and working to achieve them. The goals could even be arbitrary. Any set of goals worked to give meaning to life. As it happened, Aleksandr’s goals were meaningful. When he completed his quest, he would be famous. That would be good, but the discipline of working toward his goal would be more rewarding.
Aleksandr lifted the empty box and carried it through the door to the rear of the store. The smell of fresh- cut meat greeted him. That was good, one of the many smells he enjoyed: fresh meat, fresh fish, particularly salmon, fruit, vegetables, strong cheese. He placed the box on the floor, took out his cardboard cutter, and gracefully and efficiently broke down the box.
When the day’s work was done, he would take off his always clean apron and place it on the hook behind the door next to Max’s always dirty apron. He wondered how a slacker like Max could do so little work and make his apron so filthy. Aleksandr would select a few items for his dinner and say good night to all. He would smile. They would smile back. He was liked, perhaps not well liked because of his reclusive ways, but liked nonetheless.
He would walk through Bitsevsky Park as he always did, barely looking into the snow-covered trees. He would pass close to where his two latest victims had been found only two days ago.
Aleksandr Chenko wondered if the police would figure out what he had been doing for the past two years. He wanted to tell them, but he was no fool. There would be no phone calls, no e-mails, and no notes to the media.
Once in the one-room, always neat apartment in which he lived alone, he would put away his groceries, prepare a small meal, have a half glass of nearly black Georgian dry Saperavi. Working in a supermarket had advantages. There was still a boycott of Georgian and Moldavian wines, a punishment for dealing with the West. However, various products, like Georgian wine, could always be obtained from longtime suppliers. Aleks would drink the wine after dinner and then sit back and wait an hour or so to see if the feeling would come. If it did, he would retrieve the hammer, go to the park, and kill someone. It really didn’t matter who. It was neither “the who” nor “the when” that mattered; it was “the how many.”
Yes, he wished to succeed in his goal, but he was not, as the frightened public or the police certainly believed, insane. He could wait for the feeling, wait indefinitely. It was not a compulsion, barely an urge. He made no plans to kill but would strike when the feeling was upon him.
There was a problem. He was never certain about how many of those he killed had been found by the police. It was essential that they be found. He did not bury them and did not really hide them. He did not go into the depths of the park dragging the dead and bleeding.
It was incredible that so many police regularly searching the park were unable to find the dead.
Aleksandr waited awhile and then said, “Not tonight. Not yet.”
After eating a hot pork sandwich, Aleks got undressed, removing all his clothing, and then moved to his bed in the corner with the book he had been reading. He put an arm behind his head atop the two pillows, placed the book on a third pillow on his stomach, and began to read.
He did not turn on the radio or listen to music. He had never understood the lure or pleasure of music. The instruments that created these sounds had struck him since early boyhood as ridiculous toys. He preferred silence.
Later he would turn out the light, put the bookmark in the page, and place the book on the floor. Finally, in the darkness, he would reach down and gently fondle his testicles. There was nothing consciously sexual in his doing this. It was comforting and helped him fall asleep.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” he would tell the darkness. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
2
Ivan Medivkin was a giant.
