“We need to call the police of the city of Tarasov, where Soshin came from, strangled in a pantry, to report what happened. At the same time call a private investigator – Alice. She will find us even a needle in a haystack for two hundred dollars an hour,” remarked Seregin, since he was already tired of this red tape with many unknown people.
He preferred to sit by the TV with a jar of beer, or watch football between Manchester United and Real Madrid, or the NHL, but did not renounce NBA G Leage, preferring Raptors’ matches with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
“By the way, let her search the dossier for this old man in the local archive. I do not remember. It seems that this name was found in the criminal chronicle. If we find out that he was guilty of some kind of criminal offense, it will be easy to calculate the attacker, starting from the victim or her relatives. People are able to remember the evildoers through generations. Even in fairy tales, there are positive and negative heroes: Duremar, Koschey the Immortal, the devil, the Count Dracula, Baba Yaga, for example,” Nikifor Naumovich ventured into reasoning, dreaming of closing the oncoming hanging.
“We did not have enough foxes. I remember well that Alice agreed to respond to this nickname, despite the fact that she has dozens of terrible, in its criminal nature, investigations after the end of our university and graduate school,” Seregin suddenly recalled, who sometimes treated Alice as a detective sometimes hostile, but more often with respect and love.
He had a fruitful long-standing romance with her, which culminated in legal marriage and mutual reconciliation in the dispute over the right of Russian citizens to private ownership on the Cote d’Azur. There they spent the summer together on vacation to enjoy active rest among the most respectable part of the population, and in winter – to the Swiss Alps, to train in mountain skiing.
“Probably not in vain she received diploma with honors. She opened the office under the name: ‘Private investigation’, ” the investigator stated with pride and some inner relief, remembering all that he was to do today and how much paperwork was taking away every new and intricate criminal offense.
Nikifor Naumovich earned many special awards for detaining dangerous criminals and recidivists. He was a man of business, intelligent, delicate to the extreme, prudent, but not a coward. He was engaged in periodically professional boxing, winning in several rounds without defeatist blows. He could predict the outcome of each complex investigation and considered it was his duty to warn the employees in advance about any planned operation to eliminate brothels, gambling houses, suspicious gatherings of homeless people, drug addicts. He never missed a dash. He liked to joke about his virtues, read many classics of Russian literature. Particular preference was given to Tvardovsky’s poetry, Dostoevsky’s prose, but more often he had to read criminal cases risen from the archive. He worn a strict suit out of work as an old habit, and preferred to put on his new uniform for work. His extraordinary thinking and logic puzzled the wolves of criminal business. Journalists and photo correspondents often held a press conference with him, but he evaded frank confessions, knowing what such confessions threaten the investigation. In a word, he could be called a titan who supported the code of law.
“We all depend on each other, so we’ll have to endure the terrible nature of Alice. The case requires it,” the investigator reflected on the difficulties of mutual understanding, coughed into a fist.
“They want to get results immediately, so that they do not panic from corruption and rampant banditry. Now we are not in the mood for laughter, when all policemen and soldiers who came to rest in a sanatorium calmly take electroplating procedures. Seregin and I have to spin. It is necessary to establish a lie detector for interrogation of suspicious witnesses. It seems I hid it in the safe, after the last time I checked on the polygraph, how many people participated in a fight near a hotel near Rome. Alas, such a primitive technique, and the results are phenomenal,” he was burned by his cynical idea.
The local phone rang. They asked permission from the electricians to go to their office and replace the table lamps. There were also a couple of calls from the administrator of the sanatorium – Kormushenko, who wanted to be present at the time when the suspects were arrested for the perpetrators of the death of an elderly man; in addition, Regimov’s wife called, she was worried about whether her husband had dined. He, as the Commissioner Megre, the protagonist of the series of popular novels of Georges Simenon, who had worked for many years in the police, essentially, according to many bloggers, “differed from his colleagues in an unconventional approach to investigating crimes”, followed a strict daily routine. He wore a gray coat of jersey fabric in winter, a warm scarf in speckles and a hat, as his colleague, Seregin, drove to work, which generally preferred wearing only fur jackets without a hat.
“It was only as a detective to spread out the cards, how the prose of life turned into poetry,” highly erudite Seregin retorted allegorically, hiding the mercury thermometers found in the suitcase of victim, into his desk standing at the left side of the window, and opposite it there was the same desk of his colleague.
“In hot pursuit, she will immediately provide us with all the suspects and proof of the guilt of some of them. What do you say to that?”
“You can have no doubt about her abilities,” Seregin answered with knowledge of Alice’s extreme methods of work.
“Here you have to meet her, so she immediately understands what is required of her,” said Nikifor Naumovich, examining a new lamp with a fluorescent light installed on his desk. “She, I think, will bring the right relative of the victim to bury the body. That would be very useful…”
“Of course. She can not cope with us, and the investigation will be flawlessly if there are necessary clues and material evidence that will fall on our table along with evidence of the murderer’s guilt,” Seregin suggested, proportioning each next step, sympathizing with those who would be in Alice’s field of vision.
“She does not take any strings and courage,” Nikifor Naumovich agreed, who planned to monitor the investigation of the private detective.
After a little reflection, the investigator, who is well versed in current affairs, telephoned the head doctor in the health resort “Glory to Sport” with healing springs to make an excerpt from Soshin’s medical history and immediately sent to them. The handset was taken by Mitrofanov himself, who received a charge of energy after a morning walk in the fresh air in the shade of southern relic plants and a cup of coffee. He wiped sweat from his face with a moist, fragrant napkin and threw it into the urn.
“I’m listening.”
“You are disturbed from the city police station. Now we have the body of your former patient. Send us his medical card. We will send to his former residence. I hope he did not have any chronic illnesses?” asked the operative policeman, trying to soften the tragic news.
“He died without regaining consciousness?” Mitrofanov’s voice faltered, so he sat down in a chair behind a massive, black, carved, writing desk and took his head.
“While the criminalists are trying to find out the cause of death,” Regimov replied calmly, feeling all responsibility for every word, bringing all of their actions closer to revealing the criminal offense.
“I’ll do it myself now,” Mitrofanov became nervous, accustomed to discipline and positive emotions from his patients.
He hung his handset