“And who was on duty yesterday?” asked the lieutenant colonel, slowly leafing through a colorful booklet, advertising the sights of the richest sources of life-giving region.
Puzzled, Kormushenko automatically scratched the cropped back of his head, clearly betraying his obvious interest in promptly investigating a criminal offense. He could not imagine that someone could do this.
“Yesterday was my watch. Everything went quietly, calmly without screaming and scandals. None of the guests of the sanatorium asked me questions about the dysfunctional arrangement in the room or discontent of food in the restaurant,” explained the suspect in the murder, the administrator, since the whole gravity of the crime could lie on him because of negligence in the conduct of business.
On the table was a log of entries arriving and departing to a privileged sanatorium with the signatures of those employees who had passed and accepted duty. Excluding cooks, waiters and medical staff, who reported to their chief doctor personally, who had his own laptop, where all the analysis data and the dynamics of treatment of severe patients were made.
Doctors of the sanatorium did their utmost to restore the health of citizens after severe injuries, cardiovascular, chronic, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal diseases, providing a set of preventive procedures: heat and mud, massage, inhalation, electro and light therapy, bar therapy, paraffin-ozocerite and phyto baths.
Some employees rented the rooms there and paid as for a one-room apartment. Including chief doctor Mitrofanov constantly lived next to the outpatient clinic and the examination room. Together with the chef, he worked out the menu for each day. And the investigator’s suspicion fell on him least of all. Since he worked in the boarding house for a long time and got used to all sorts of circumstances that go beyond the ordinary.
“Everything in the kitchen is in order. Along with the national cuisine of the peoples of Russia,” Ira suddenly said with pride, trying with all her might to remove suspicions from her colleague.
“There are no complaints against them,” Nikifor Naumovich decided.
“But it seems that two foreign citizens abuse beer too much, but this is permissible according to our rules,” concluded Kormushenko, leaning back in the chic leather chair next to the administrator’s desk, blocking the inspector’s passage into the small staff storage room.
There he did not need to go, because there, in the closet stored dishes, balls and board games.
“In fact, everything went quietly. How close they are to them here, do not turn around,” Nikifor Naumovich thought minutely, taking a photo in the magazine that seemed to be starting to crack and tear in the investigator’s hands as he leafed through the pages, searching for the necessary line with the surname Soshin.
“We duplicate this information. We put it on the computer, “commented Ira’s actions, moving back in the chair with the rollers from the counter at the reception and allowing the investigator to leaf through the long files with the relatives’ tables, which came with whole families.
“You can see for yourself.”
“Well thank you. Now let’s look at the numbers. Do they coincide with the entries in the magazine,” said the policeman, accustomed to looking for a rational grain in every investigation.
He sat down at a table, on a nearby round stool, neatly, so as not to break and began to catch the same information that was entered in the paper original, leafing through, studying each squiggle and scribbler. To his delight, he noted that there were no corrections here or there.
“Here’s a suitcase and a passport. These things are from the room of Soshin. You can take it,” Kormushenko hesitated, not knowing how to say, so as not to scare the information, inexhaustible on the fiction, Ira.
“Good. I will keep in mind,” Nikifor Naumovich agreed, nodding, to take with him the personal belongings of the murdered elderly man for transfer to the examination, in the hope that there would be at least some clue to investigate the crime. “It turns out that this guest worked for a long time as a doorman in a restaurant, a bricklayer at a construction site in Beloyarsk. He took big bribes while standing at the entrance. We have already made a request to the place of his permanent residence. Soon his relatives will arrive. It will be necessary to place them.”
“Let’s keep in mind,” the administrators agreed.
Nikifor Naumovich for some time considered the documents, and then, giving vent to Irena’s imagination, said anxiously, taking out a small parcel from his package:
“Here, pass this sheet to the laundry or clerk, and you can take the blanket too.”
The policeman pointed to the second bulky sack with the emblem of the sports club, which he found in his office and brought for service purposes.
“I’ll take care of this myself,” reassured his caring Ira – the manager, the laundress and the administrator in one person, taking from the investigator’s hand the things from the pantry used to drag the corpse of the murdered porter from the basement to the police car.
She worked at several rates to earn a cooperative apartment, the prices of which grew year after year.
“You can shake out the blanket, but you do not have to wash it. There’s no blood there,” Nikifor Naumovich said without irony. “We are grateful to you for participating in the operation to eliminate unworthy elements in the sanatorium,” he continued, in order to emphasize the importance of their actions.
The lieutenant colonel placed a police certificate on the table to the hotel administrator for the discharge of the murdered old man from the sanatorium. The whole procedure took Ira a matter of seconds.
Having finished reading and photographing what seemed to him the most suspicious, the investigator from under the counter took a suitcase on the wheels, to which Kormushenko pointed it to him, put the passport of the murdered man in the outer pocket of the carpetbag, discharged from the sanatorium thanks to the efforts of the administrator, at the same time photographed the list of all staff members and business hours. What was not so much, but fifteen people trained to work in the tourism business: two administrators, a gardener, a chef, three waitresses, three doctors, two nurses and three maids.
“One new maid provided a typed abstruse recommendation on the computer from a previous job, signed illegibly without deciphering. It is good that her personal data is in my notebook. But there is no handwriting. Here, too, is a minus,” Nikifor Naumovich criticized himself, tearing the evil on the road surface as he approached the police Ford, stacking the suitcase in the luggage compartment, and then jerked violently off the resort mainline white off the sun. The strange phrase “a woman with work skills” made the experienced investigator question the veracity of these words, but he was not the head of the resort, so he immediately threw away the reflections on this matter. Since the experienced staff in the summer season is always not enough.
“We will sow all those who have a weighty alibi, and the others will be questioned without pressure. Someone will certainly open, some absurd, accidentally dropped phrase, or gesture will slip through. Then business will take a different turn. All CCTV cameras worked perfectly. The image did not flash. Apparently, someone dragged the corpse into the pantry, pre-inserted the standard image on the computer, which led me astray when I watched from my post behind all the doors of the dormitory. It was my watch. Means, I, too, can be taken under suspicion. Something is not glued to this matter,” he reasoned, ignoring the fact that he had already approached the two-story police building.
He stopped near the swinging doors. He put the car on the brake, went out, slamming the door in irritation. He went to the trunk, took out a suitcase taken at the sanatorium, to study