A Whisper to the Living

17

Only one invited guest did not show up for the wedding party.

On the night before the wedding, Paulinin slept on the cot in his laboratory within a dozen feet of the two corpses laid out gently on two slabs. One was a male. The other a female. Both were covered by gray-blue sheets, the man’s just above his waist, the woman’s up to her neck. They were two corpses seemingly unrelated except for their means of death. She was forty-two, well dressed, well proportioned, decidedly handsome, and decidedly peaceful in death. He was an alcoholic of perhaps sixty years of age, underweight, ill clothed. If the killer had not selected him, he would have been destined to die within the year from a final rebellion of his organs.

Paulinin had slept five hours. When he rose, he had completely forgotten the wedding. Buoyed by hot coffee and the ever-present laboratory smells, he was prepared to talk to the dead. The white mug had blue printing on the side saying: “Police Target Champion 1987.”

Paulinin fired at no targets. The mug had been given to him years ago, though he could not remember by whom. He chose to ignore the three dark brown ring stains inside the mug as he drank.

And then he made his phone call.

“Paulinin,” answered Porfiry Petrovich after the third ring. “Do you know what time it is?”

“No.”

“And you do not care?”

“No. I have information.”

“I am listening.”

“I dreamt that my two latest guests told me something,” he said.

Rostnikov could hear Vivaldi playing in the background.

“Both of them have deep trauma to the back of the head caused probably by a hammer, a clean new one, which gave up tiny shining metal chips,” Paulinin said. “The wounds are not as deep as any caused by the Maniac. The corpses were simply dropped in the woods off of a pathway. All the other corpses were laid out in repose, on their sides with hands as pillows. Two hairs from atop the body of the man were DNA tested. They belonged to you. However, another bitten-off fingernail proved not to be from the dead Aleksandr Chenko.”

Paulinin was unable to resist the urge to gently touch the cheek of the dead woman.

“Get some sleep, Paulinin.”

“I have. Stop by in the morning with Karpo for pastries, coffee, and to discuss the situation. You bring the pastries.”

“We will be there,” said Rostnikov, although he could, if pressed, make a list of perhaps one hundred places he would rather be. His hope was that the scientist would make some effort to clean the autopsy tables and wash whatever dishes, cups, and forks they might be using. Rostnikov knew, however, that his wishes would be in vain. It might well be better to bring paper plates and napkins.

“Who?” asked Sara at his side dreamily.

“Paulinin,” answered Rostnikov, reaching for his pants.

“Not those,” she said. “They have a bullet hole in the leg.”

He grunted, rose, and reached for his artificial leg.

“Time?” she asked.

“After dawn,” he said, continuing to dress.

“Your shoulder?”

“Feels fine.”

“Porfiry Petrovich, you could have, should have, died.”

He had talked his way out of the hospital with the promise of seeing Sara’s cousin the next day. There was the wedding of his only child, his only son, to attend. Leon had rewarded him with large round yellow pain pills, which he had been using generously.

“Yes,” he said. “But. .”

“ ‘Yes, but,’ ” she said. “Be careful.”

“I am only going to visit the dead and talk to Paulinin.”

“That does not reassure me,” said Sara, starting to rise.

“Sleep,” he said, now standing and buttoning a clean white shirt.

“I cannot,” she said. “Wait. I will get you something to eat. Kasha and some of the pork from last night.”

“Why not? I must call Emil Karpo.”

“You really think the wedding went well?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very well.

“We are going to have grandchildren,” he said, now heading for the cubbyhole bathroom/shower.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

There was something in that final “yes” that made Rostnikov pause and turn to look at his wife, whose eyes were fixed on a slipper in her hand halfway to her foot, hovering in wait as if for some great something she knew would never come.

As he shaved, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov vowed to buy his wife colorful flowers, to take her out to dinner at her favorite restaurant, and to hold her for a very long time in his arms before they went to sleep that night.

They would talk about babies.

As it turned out, two of the copycat killers were a husband and wife working together, he to hold, she to strike. She was a night supervisor at a supermarket not unlike the one at which Aleksandr Chenko had worked. The husband was the head of the meat department. They had been married two years, and the tales of violent serial murder had entered their imaginations and moved them sexually. Murder together proved to be a powerful aphrodisiac.

And then one night in Bitsevsky Park, a few days after Aleksandr Chenko had been torn to pieces by bullets and Rostnikov had fallen wounded, the couple encountered a hulking man with an unsteady gait. They attacked. The hulking man turned out to be not nearly as old or as drunk as they had assumed.

His name was Andrei Anronkovich. He was the former middleweight wrestling champion of Moscow. He had fought back, but the woman had cracked his skull from behind. Responding to loud voices in the bushes, a policeman named Julian Ivanovich made his way to a secluded spot where the husband and wife stood over the dead Anronkovich.

The end of the Maniac murders had come, and if the victims of the young couple were to be counted, the sixty-four spaces on the chessboard had been filled. That still left two more copycats to catch.

It was one of those unpredictably pleasant mornings in Moscow. The temperature had climbed to almost forty degrees Fahrenheit. The trees in Bitsevsky Park swayed gently and whispered to Porfiry Petrovich, who almost dozed on the bench.

He recognized perhaps two dozen people who hurried to the Metro station in the morning and emerged from it at night. There was little reason for Porfiry Petrovich to return here, but here he found himself waiting with the few remaining pastries after his visit to Paulinin.

Then the boy appeared. He was on time for school but would be late if he stopped to talk to the policeman. Yuri could not resist. This time he sat almost at the policeman’s side.

“Why are you here? The Maniac is dead.”

“I came to say good-bye to you.”

Yuri nodded in understanding and accepted a pastry from the bag the policeman extended to him. The one he picked was very sticky but most delicious, with dark berries and brown sugar. He planned to down it quickly, lick his fingers, and hurry off.

“We are moving,” the boy said as he ate.

“Where are you moving?”

“To Tiblisi. We are Georgians. My father and mother say we are no longer welcome in Russia. Some other kids have made remarks. I know little of what is happening or why, and my grandfather is now cursing a great deal.”

“I am sorry,” said Rostnikov.

“That is all right. We have family in Tiblisi. A job awaits my father.”

Yuri paused for almost half a minute, looked at the last of his pastry, and quietly said, “I do not want to go.”

“Yes,” Rostnikov said. “Yes.”

The boy rose from the bench and extended his hand. Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov took it. The boy waved and was off.

Moments later Rostnikov rose and walked slowly into the park toward the swaying trees.

He shrugged his bandaged shoulder. Then he realized he wanted to weep.

But he did not weep.