“Sit back down,” Stepanovich ordered.
“Lada, come with me. We have a case out at the Arkhangelskoye estate. It will take all day—probably the whole weekend.
Lada Kornikova stood at attention. A senior private and the only woman in the on-call unit that day, she was also the brightest of all of the privates and one already being considered for promotion to sergeant. The lieutenant had to make an effort not to be obvious in his appreciation of her Nordic beauty. She came from Viking stock—the original Rus—and looked every bit the blond athlete or western movie star dressed in the humble soldier’s uniform. She filled that uniform out well enough that men had to remember to shift their gaze to avoid embarrassment. Lada would have been alluring in a gunny sack.
Lada was special in other ways. She served as a street cop alongside Trushin, a decidedly unusual assignment in the paternalistic society of Russian law enforcement. Although women constituted a significant proportion of militsiya staff, they were usually not permitted to fill positions that carry risks—such as patrolman, guard, SWAT—but were allowed to carry firearms for self-defense. Instead, they were widely represented among investigators. Lada had the respect of her tough fellow MYC [Moscow Criminal Investigations Department] for both her prowess in situations with risk, and for her investigative skills.
“Yesipov, you drive,” Trushin ordered.
Neither street patrols nor detectives were allowed to drive police vehicles themselves; so, a specialist driver—either a serviceman or a civil employee—was assigned to each car and was also in charge of its maintenance. Private Georgy Yesipov stood beside Lada in a demonstration of his readiness. Georgy was illiterate and coarse, but was loyal to Stepanovich to an almost embarrassing level because the lieutenant had fetched him from a brothel which had been declared counterrevolutionary by the NKVD one evening. He would have been branded a minor enemy of the state and considered suspect ever afterward had it not been for Stepanovich’s timely and improper intervention. Georgy was a huge stolid Slav, slow and steady, and incredibly strong. Stepanovich always wanted him to accompany him on high profile or dangerous assignments because he knew Georgy would always have his back. This assignment could easily require such protection, if past experience with “political” was any indicator.
Lieutenant Stepanovich called in his backup, Efreitor [Lieutenant] Zakhar Rumyantsev, to take over the office duties for the rest of the weekend while Stepanovich looked into the odious “political” case. Zakhar’s voice sounded hung over, but he said he would be at the police station in less than an hour. Unlike in some other countries’ police agencies, militsioners were not assigned permanent partners; instead, they worked alone or within larger groups; so, Trushin was obligated–as always–to work with his entire investigation unit; and he was also required to provide a unit in the office in his absence. Fortunately for Trushin, Rumyantsev was resourceful.
It was raining out—heavy, soaking, cold rain—the Rasputitsa— the twice annual season when the usually poor Soviet Union roads become muddy, rutted, and very nearly impassable. The other such season which made traveling so onerous was spring, with the melting snows from the Russian winter. Yesipov pushed the ponderous Lada Militia car expertly through the heavy muck of the road. Kornikovna sat in the front passenger seat—which had almost no cushion left—and Stepanovich sat in the backseat with the crime-scene equipment and the weapons.
It was difficult to see through the fog, low-hanging mist, and continuing downpour, to the turnoff road into the Arkhangelskoye Estate twelve miles west of the militsya MYC in Tverskoy District, central Moscow. Yesipov found a place to park next to Efreitor Lebedinsky’s metro police vehicle, and the three militsya officers hurried to get in out of the rain. The architectural center of the Arkhangelskoye Estate is the Yusupov Palace, a beautiful edifice on a sunny day. But today, they were unable to see even its outlines. They walked into the entryway to the long façade of the Stalin-era Military Convalescent Home. The home is located close to the Moscow Automobile Ring Road [MKAD]. It was built in the 1940s for the Red Army elite and is closed to visitors. Its terraces overlooking the river are accessible, and its staircases are the best way to reach the riverbank, a sodden mass at the moment.
Underofficer uchastkovyi militsioner Lebedinsky was standing at rigid attention as Lt. Stepanovich and his junior officers strode into the Palladian-style building. One unique feature of militsiya policing approach is the system of territorial patronage over citizens. The cities—as well as the rural settlements—are divided into uchastoks [English: “quarters”] with a special uchastkovyi militsioner [quarter policeman”] assigned to each. The main duty of uchastkovyi is to maintain close relations with the residents of his quarter and gather information among them. In particular, uchastkovyi should personally know each and every ex-convict, substance abuser, young hooligan, etc. in a given uchastok, and visit them regularly for preemptive influence. The uchastkovyi are the first line of defense against criminals and the principal conduit of intelligence for the police apparati. Lebedinsky excelled at both.
Nearly three dozen hospital personnel were lined up in three neat rows facing Lebedinsky, all with solemn faces and drooping shoulders. Each man and woman was carefully studying his or her shoes.
“Greetings, Comrade Lebedinsky,” said Lt. Stepanovich. “It is good to know that you are on the job. Would you please tell us all you know about what is going on here in the vets’ home?”
Stepanovich meant it when he said he was glad that Lebedinsky was on the job. He was a thorough and efficient police officer and uchastokovyi for the section of Moscow surrounding the Arkhangelskoye Estate, Yusupov Palace, and the Military Convalescent Home. Lebedinsky’s sobriety, attention to detail and to duty, and his loyalty to the militsiya was comforting to Operativniy Rabotnik [Detective] Trushin Vasilyvich Stepanovich. Nearly one in every three policemen in the USSR was a psychopath or an alcoholic, the result of the attraction that police and military service had for such people. There was no psychological screening of applicants, and the sense among many in the service was that—as militiamen—they were beyond the reach of the law. This was especially true of the higher ranks and those with connections to the communist party elite.
Ivan Lebidinsky was very tall and rail thin. His uniform was perfect with knife-edge creases, starched shirt, and well polished brass buttons. His shoes had a perfect shine all the time, a characteristic that sometimes made Trushin wonder if the fairies came in the night and polished them while the policeman slept. Lebedinsky had earned his rank of Efreitor—the highest non-com rank in the militaristic police—the hard way, by dint of inexhaustible hard work and sucking up to his superiors. His face was now—as always—freshly shaved and ruddy from exertion. Trushin had never known him to have an unshaven face for even a day, nor to have a hair out of place on his scalp. Despite his long-distance runner physique, Ivan was very strong; and he was quick. He had saved several civilians and occasionally a police officer by lightning-fast movements when he and the others had come under fire. He was a good man to have on your side, even if he was boring and entirely devoid of a sense of humor.
Ivan pointed at the downtrodden-looking men and women of the convalescent home staff and said, “Comrade Stepanovich, thank you for coming so soon. We have assembled the entire staff—even the gardeners—so far as we can tell.”
“Good work, Comrade Ivan Viktorovich. And I presume the crime scene is pristine?”
“Yes, sir, Comrade Trushin Vasilyvich. Two of my men have it under guard.”
“All right, please take Private Kornikova and me there. Georgy, take one of Underofficer Lebedinsky’s men with you and begin questioning the staff. Keep them separate from each other and unable to communicate with anyone until they are interviewed by you.”
Georgy saluted and began herding the thoroughly cowed staff towards a row of office and storage rooms.
Ivan led Trushin and Lada into the convalescent center proper and down an immaculat
e hallway to a bank of patient rooms flanking both sides of the polished linoleum floor. He gave the two Moscow officers a serious look and opened the door to the room being guarded by two metropolitan uchastkovyi police underofficers. Although Trushin Vasilyich was in the Great War from beginning to end, the sight that he saw as he entered the room gave even him a moment of pause. Lada had a little sharp intake of breath, betraying her shock.
The well-appointed small room contained a single bed, two bedside tables, a writing desk, a closet, and two places to sit, the larger of which was a comfortable overstuffed chair with a matching ottoman. Sprawled out on the chair was a frail old man who was naked, adding an obscene element to the specter. His head was slumped on his chest which was impaled with a handsome cavalry saber that penetrated all the way through the back of the chair. There was a small trickle of blood on his chest and only a little more on the floor in back. The blade was evenly smeared with blood.
“Is that his own sword?” Lt. Stepanovich asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is this who I think it is?”
Lebedinsky nodded. “Lieutenant General of Cavalry Grigory Yegorivich Lagounov, Cavalier of the Order of the Red Banner, for his service in the Great War and for his service afterward in the management of the far northeastern prisoner of war system.”
“I presume he is the highest ranking officer in the home?”
“By several grades.”
“Do you think this savage murder had anything to do with his military service?”
“I have no idea, although it seems more than happenstance or weapon of convenience that the general was killed by his own saber.”
“If that is true, it is possible that the murderer was just a tool of someone of more political importance pulling the murderer’s strings.”
“That has occurred to me as well. I hope it is not true; but often, in our business, what we hope for does not happen.”
“Like a quick, easy, and quiet solution to the problem, eh, Ivan?”
“Yes, Trushin, like that.”
Lada employed her well-used personal Hasselbladski—Kiev 88 model—camera to document the scene. The complicated and bulky camera was a knockoff of the fine German Hassleblad 1600. The communist aspects of the Kiev company assemblage were heavy and rather difficult to use—interchangeable backs and Ukrainian made lenses which were shamelessly based on old WWII Zeiss designs. The advantages of the Hasselbladski were the viewfinders that were directly interchangeable with the original high quality Hasselblads, and the fact that the lenses had a satisfyingly wide range of optical choices.
Stepanovich and Lebedinsky started at opposite corners of the room and looked with intense scrutiny at every part of the small room for even the smallest and most obscure clue. They met at the halfway point and double-checked each other’s work. The killer had been scrupulous in clearing away any traces of blood on the floor that might have contributed a shoeprint, and there was no evidence of an effort to wash off blood in the bathroom or anywhere else.
Stepanovich and his MYC [Moscow Criminal Investigations Department] were enamored of fingerprint evidence and—without admitting the source—copied the forensic fingerprint identification procedures established in 1905 as the Bureau of Criminal Identification of the US Department of Justice. By 1946, the FBI had processed over one hundred million fingerprint cards. The USSR had joined the IAI [International Association of Identification] in 1932 and endeavored to make fingerprint identification a staple part of Soviet police and intelligence service work. Lt. Stepanovich was proud of his personal facility with fingerprint science but deferred to the superior memory of Private Lada Kornikova for day-to-day work.
He and Lebedinsky began a systematic dusting of the entire room and found several dozen different sets of fingerprints. Evidently, the killer had not been aware of fingerprint evidence, or did not feel he (or she) had to be concerned. Stepanovich took great pains to dust every part of the sword to identify prints and was able to identify prints indicative of the last person to hold the sword’s handle. He had Lada make very careful and close-up photographs of the prints. Then, he extracted the sword from Lt. Gen Lagounov’s chest; and Lada photographed the entire weapon with a series of photographs. Stepanovich concentrated on the blood smears on the blade and found no prints, and confirmed that negative finding with fingerprint dusting powder. Because of the importance of the fingerprint evidence, Lt. Stepanovich dispatched Private Kornikova back to the MYC headquarters to get the tedious search for the owner of the fingerprints underway.
“Comrade Ivan Viktorovich, would you please arrange for the deceased’s body to be taken to the police morgue and to have the autopsy done as a first priority? The body is to be kept cold and preserved as best as is possible in case certain important political officials wish to ascertain for themselves the validity of our work. Once your subordinates have that project underway, please join Lada and me back in the main section of the home to get through the interviews of the staff.”
“Immediately, Comrade Lieutenant Trushin Vasilyovich.”
Lebedinsky made a smart about-face and left the murder scene bedroom. He was flattered that the lieutenant would treat him with courtesy, even saying “please” more than once. He made a mental note that Lt. Stepanovich was going places in the services; and he, Lebedinsky, was going to attach himself to the rising star’s coattails.
Russian Recipes
Cold Russian Borscht—for Six
Ingredients
-2 lbs small new beets. Boil then peel and cut into quarters, 11 cps water, ±½ cp red wine, ¼ cp + 1 tbsp sugar, ¼ cp fresh lemon juice, 2 tbsps cider vinegar, salt and freshly ground pepper, 1 med. Yukon Gold potato, peeled and cut into ½ in. cubes, 1lb Kirby cucumbers—peeled, seeded and cut into ½ in. cubes, 1 cp finely diced radishes, 4 thinly sliced scallions, 3 lg peeled and coarsely chopped hard-cooked eggs, ¼ cp coarsely chopped dill, ¼ cp coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley, sour cream or crème fraîche, for serving.
Preparation
-In a large pot, cover quartered beets with water and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat until beets are tender when pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer beets to a plate and peel.
-Coarsely shred beets in a food processor or with grater. Return them to the pot and add sugar, lemon juice and cider vinegar; season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate soup until chilled, for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight.
-Meanwhile, bring a small saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add potato cubes and cook until tender~7 mins. Drain and cool under cold water. Pat dry and transfer to a med. bowl. Add cucumbers, radishes, scallions, eggs, dill, and parsley.
-Ladle the chilled borscht into bowls. Garnish with the vegetable and chopped egg mixture, top with a generous dollop of sour cream and serve.
Note: Borscht can be refrigerated for up to 3 days and safely used. Garnishes should be prepared shortly before serving. Borsht served with a dollop of very cold, rich, tart sour cream and salad type garnishes: cubed boiled potatoes, diced radishes, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and coarsely chopped dillweed.
Russian Black Bread—1Loaf
Ingredients
-2 cps coarsely ground dark rye flour, 1½ cps finely ground white flour, ½ tsp coarse brown sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 cp 100% all-bran cereal, 1 tbsp crushed caraway seeds or sunflower seeds and ¼ tbsp fennel seed, 1 tsp instant coffee powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 (¼ oz) pkg active dry yeast, 1¼ cps water or strong dark ale, 1 tbsp vinegar, 2 tbsp dark strong molasses, ½ oz unsweetened chocolate, ¼ cp salted butter, ½ tsp cornstarch, ¼ tsp cold water or beer
Preparation
-Combine flours, then, in a large bowl, thoroughly mix 1¼ cps flour mixture, sugar, salt, cereal, caraway seed, coffee powder, onion powder, fennel seed, and undissolved yeast.
-In a sauce pan combine 1¼ cps water or beer, vinegar, molasses, chocolate, and butter.
-Heat liquid mixture over low heat until liquids are very
warm (120°–130°F). Mix in butter and chocolate without melting.
-Gradually add heated liquid mixture to dry ingredients and beat (with electric mixer if available) for 2 mins, at med. speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Add ¼ cp flour mixture. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in enough additional flour mixture to make a soft dough. Turn dough on to a lightly floured board. Cover dough and let rest for 15 mins.
-Knead dough until smooth and elastic (about 10–15 minutes). Dough may be sticky. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning dough to grease the top. Cover bowl and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled in bulk~1 hour.
-Punch dough down; turn out onto a lightly floured board. Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a ball, about 5 ins. in diameter. Place each ball into the center of a greased 8-in. round cake pan. Cover; let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk~1 hr.). Bake at 350°F for 40–45 mins., or until done (check with toothpick).
-Meanwhile, combine cornstarch and cold water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to boil; continue cooking mixture for 1 min., stirring constantly.
-As soon as bread is baked, brush cornstarch mixture over top of loaves. Return bread to oven and bake 2–3 mins. longer, or until glaze is set. Remove loaves from pan and cool on wire racks. Serve hot.
CHAPTER TWO
Lt. Stepanovich and Private Kornikova returned to the main row of offices and storage rooms where Private Georgy Yesipov and Militsioner Private Yuri Inozemtsev, Lebedinsky’s next-in-command, were well into their interviews with the convalescent center staff. Stepanovich took Yesipov and Inozemtsev aside for a progress report.
“Where are we in the effort to question everyone on the staff, Georgy Artyomovich and Yuri Alexandreovich?”
The Charlemagne Murders Page 3