Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 32

Moscow was cold again. March was already halfway over, but spring seemed to have changed its mind. By night, the sky had been swept clean, and bright stars were spilling out. Volkov was driving his old black Mercedes down the empty highway. Now he only used this car, alone, without a driver or bodyguard. Lately he’d felt a need for solitude. Sometimes he’d catch himself thinking aloud, talking to Lena, imagining her sitting beside him. Her slender silhouette was everywhere, her scent, the sound of her deep, low voice. He was counting the days until her return.

Now, after a long, hard day filled with meetings, negotiations, bad auditions, and cold, alien faces, he’d decided to spend the night not in his Moscow apartment, where Regina was waiting for him, but at their dacha in Peredelkino. He needed the peace and quiet, the last soft snow, and the clean, almost frosty air.

He was a little chilled, but he ignored it. He drove and delivered a long monologue under his breath to Lena.

What I’ve earned is enough for us for the rest of our lives. I have a small house in Greece, on Crete, right by the sea. We’ll live there. And when your daughter is old enough, we’ll send her to America or England to study. We’ll grow old together. We won’t be apart for a day, an hour, you’ll be by my side always. You only think your husband loves you. Believe me, he’ll find consolation quickly. And I can be a good father to your child. I already love Liza because she’s a part of you. Today I transferred a sizable sum to a Swiss bank. That’s our money. That’s our future. I’ll leave my wife the business. That’s the main thing for her. She’ll find consolation, too. You didn’t want anyone to be hurt because of us. No one will be.

As he drove up, he didn’t notice the light burning upstairs in Regina’s office. As always, the guard was dozing in the booth. The cook came out to meet him with a smile.

“Regina Valentinovna said she was going to wait for you to have supper,” she told him cheerfully.

He shuddered.

“Well,” Regina said when she’d kissed his forehead. “You have a fever. You finally managed to pick up that horrible flu. Let’s get you straight to bed. Lyudmila!” she shouted to the cook. “Make some tea with lemon and brew some linden.”

“I thought you were in Moscow,” he said thickly.

“I had a feeling you’d be coming here. Come, let’s go. Let me put you to bed.”

The thermometer read 102.2. Regina removed his boots, pulled off his trousers, and undid his tie.

“How could you drive with a temperature like that? Couldn’t you have phoned? I would have sent a driver or come for you myself.”

Only now did he feel how badly off he was. His chill had been replaced by a high fever. He’d broken out in a sweat, all his muscles ached, and his skin hurt. Even the thin sheet was unpleasant, rough against his skin.

Regina’s hand brought a glass of a clear liquid full of tiny prickly bubbles to his lips. It was slightly sour.

“What is this?” he asked after obediently draining the glass.

“Soluble aspirin. Now your temperature will go down and you can try to sleep.”

She left a small nightlight burning and quickly settled into the armchair beside the bed. When Lyudmila came in with a tray holding two steaming cups of tea and the linden infusion, Regina shook her head and put a finger to her lips. The cook retreated without a sound.

A few minutes later he fell asleep. In his sleep, his breathing was raspy and shallow. Beads of perspiration shone on his forehead, and his mouth hung open slightly. The last time he’d been this sick was four years ago, also with the flu. He’d been kept to his sickbed for a good ten days.

Well, Regina thought as she gazed at his pale, perspiring face. Isn’t this serendipitous! By the time he gets better, it will all be over. He won’t be able to stop me. He won’t have the strength.

“Lena,” she heard him whisper hoarsely. “Lena, my love… I feel so bad… this is our money… it’s warm there in the winter and the sea is calm and clean… Help me…”

“Venya,” Regina called softly. “Can you hear me?”

“We won’t hurt anyone… no one, ever… They’ll forgive us… The blood sank into the ground… that wasn’t me, it was someone else, from another life… the taiga is so noisy… the sea… a very reliable bank…”

Regina rose from her chair, went over to the bed, and leaned over his pale face.

“Venya, I’m here. I love you,” she said in a low, chesty voice, and she passed her hand over his closed eyes without touching them.

His eyelids quivered and slowly lifted. He looked at her with red, inflamed eyes and said, “Regina, stop it. I’m not asleep. Go to your room.”

“I should sit with you.”

“No. I don’t need you. Go to your room.”

“Fine.” She nodded and put her hand on his forehead. “I think your fever’s down. Shall we take it?”

He raised up on an elbow and looked her in the eye.

“Tell me, why did you have plastic surgery?”

“You’d think it happened yesterday, the way you’re asking.” She smiled. “Why bring this up now?”

“Your face was better before… It was dear to me.”

“Venya, it was ugly.”

“It was genuine. I loved it. Why did you do it?”

“No one could live with that face,” Regina said softly.

“No one can live with a stranger’s face, a doll’s fake face.” And he leaned back on the pillow and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Go to bed. It’s late.”

“Regina Valentinovna, should I call a doctor?” Lyudmila asked in a whisper when she ran into her in the living room.

“I’m a doctor.” Regina smiled. “Put together something for my supper, please. I’m very hungry.”

“Lighter or more substantial?” the cook asked pragmatically.

“Let’s have something more substantial. Do we have meat?”

“Lean pork. I went to the market this afternoon.”

“That’s excellent. Make me a nice chop. And plenty of vegetables.”

It was midnight. While waiting for supper, Regina lit a cigarette and picked up her cell phone.

“Hi, Grisha,” she said after dialing. “I’m sorry it’s so late. Did I wake you?”

“Knock it off, Regina!” Grisha responded in a cheerful falsetto.

“Listen, Venya’s got the flu. A temperature of 102. Imagine, he went around all day doing what he had to do sick. Now he’s lying here, sweaty and pale, and suffering, and saying he might have messed something up with the bank accounts. He can’t remember anything and he’s worried. He asked me to call you. Could you look first thing tomorrow and make sure everything is okay? He seems to have lost some contract or something. I didn’t understand it myself. I’m an idiot in these matters. You’ll check, though, all right?”

“Of course, Regina. I’ll clear this up and call first thing tomorrow morning. Is his flu that bad?”

“I’m telling you. A temperature of 102. Aspirin’s taken it down a little. You know what this nasty flu is like. You just had it yourself. By the way, how are you feeling?”

“Thank you for asking. I seem to be back on my feet.”

“That’s great. So I’ll expect your call tomorrow morning. Kisses, Grisha. Say hello to Innochka for me.”

She hung up and sat for a while, focusing on the flames dancing in the fireplace. When Lyudmila brought in her dinner tray, the phone rang.

“There’s no peace for you, Regina Valentinovna.” The cook shook her head. “Day or night. Why don’t I answer and say to call you back? You should be able to eat in peace.”

But the phone was already in Regina’s hands.

“You were looking for me?” She heard a voice that made her heart leap for joy.

“Thank God,” she sighed with relief.

“Is it that bad?” The man on the other end of the phone chuckled raspily. “You’d think I was your long-lost brother. Didn’t we just see each other? All right, come to Sokolniki tomorrow at six thirty. The same pavilion. Remember?”

“Of course I do.” Regina smiled into the phone.

The call significantly improved her appetite. She finished the tender, nicely browned chop in five minutes.

In Tobolsk they stayed in the same hotel Volkov had put her, Mitya, and Olga in fourteen years ago. The town was just as cozy as she remembered. Lena had liked it before, too, much more than Tyumen’s pollution.

There were lots of old buildings left. Tobolsk’s famous wooden citadel had been preserved, along with its exceedingly rich library, which contained many unique and ancient volumes. It had been fourteen years since she’d been there, but Lena couldn’t forget that particular, soul-stirring smell of antique folios you find only in quiet, provincial libraries. For some reason, the books in big city libraries smell completely different. It wasn’t even about their bibliographic value. As an elderly librarian had told her fourteen years ago, in the provinces time breathes differently, deeply and calmly.

Entering the stacks with Michael, Lena remembered that old librarian, small and withered, with short snow-white hair. Cold, she’d been wrapped up in a large, downy scarf. What was her name? Valentina Yurievna? Or not? So many years had passed, and theirs was a brief, chance episode.

Lena remembered the librarian not only because she’d let her and her young Muscovite companions into the library’s rare manuscript archive, but because unlike many provincials, she didn’t complain about her out-of-the-way existence. On the contrary, she sincerely believed she couldn’t live anywhere else on earth but in the ancient wooden town of Tobolsk. She’d spent her entire conscious life among books. She hadn’t ventured farther than Tyumen, though she knew France from Balzac and England from Dickens and assured Lena that she knew the world much better than most who’d had the chance to travel its length and breadth.

At the time she was over seventy. She could scarcely be alive now. Nonetheless, Lena decided to ask.

“Valya… Valentina Yurievna is alive,” the oldest librarian there told her. “A year ago she had to move to the Veterans Home. She’s ninety now and doesn’t have any relatives to take her in. She’s all alone in the world.”

“Well, not all alone,” the other librarian, a little younger, interjected. “She does have a daughter in Moscow. They say she’s gone far.”

“Yes, a daughter.” The older woman nodded dolefully. “I’ve spoken with her on the telephone and by letter. She sends money to support her but hasn’t visited once. The conditions at the Veterans Home are fine, of course. Valya has a separate room and we stop by sometimes. You should visit her if you have the time. She’s so pleased when people come to see her.”

“I doubt she remembers me.” Lena shook her head. “So many years have passed.”

“She’ll remember. She has an excellent memory and an amazingly bright mind. And if she doesn’t remember, it will still be nice for her.”

“Good.” Lena smiled. “Give me the address and I’ll drop by.”

“You can take your professor along. I don’t think anyone knows the history of Tobolsk better than Valya. Not only that, she is fluent in English and French. It will be quite a treat for her to speak English with a professor from New York.” The older librarian wrote the Veterans Home’s address on a slip of paper and explained to Lena how to get there.

Later, unfolding the slip, Lena read: Valentina Yurievna Gradskaya. Lena paused. It wasn’t only the last name that put her on her guard, but the name and patronymic as well. Valentina Yurievna was the name the fake doctor had given. But she immediately checked herself. It had to be a coincidence. Right?

Major Ievlev flew into Tyumen in the dead of night. He woke up at eight, did some quick exercises, rubbed himself down to the waist with ice-cold water—an old army habit—had a quick breakfast in the hotel buffet, and headed for the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office. He sat in the archive the entire day, studying the thick files from a twelve-year-old criminal case.

Nikita Slepak was a model citizen compared with the serial killers of his day—Chikatilo, Golovkin, Mikhasevich, and Jumagaliev. He didn’t do anything particularly horrible to his victims, didn’t disembowel them, didn’t dismember their corpses, didn’t eat their organs, didn’t hang them on a rack in a specially equipped cellar. His victims were all girls ages fifteen to eighteen. And there were six of them in all. Four of them were strangled with the killer’s bare hands; two were killed with a precise knife blow to the heart. Each had been raped before being murdered, but not in an outlandish, disturbing way.

Slepak was given the title of serial killer with great reservation. His first victim had been eighteen-year-old Galina Kuskova, a resident of Tyumen. The fifth of many children in an underprivileged family, Galina had suffered from a mild form of mental retardation. After completing her special school, she had worked as a prostitute. Her place of residence was listed as the Moscow Restaurant, the most expensive and elegant hotel in town. The mental disabilities that prevented her from attending a normal school and working a traditional job by no means kept her from succeeding at the world’s oldest profession.

Her body was discovered in September 1979, in a vacant lot near a construction site on the edge of town. The medical examiner determined that her death was the result of manual strangulation. Before her death, the victim had been in a state of severe alcoholic intoxication and had had sexual intercourse with a man. What was odd about the case was that the murderer hadn’t taken her money or jewelry. When her body was discovered, the girl was wearing three expensive rings and a pair of sapphire earrings. Lying next to her was her purse, still fastened, which, besides holding her passport, also contained three hundred and seventy rubles—a considerable sum in those days.

Later it was discovered that a piece of jewelry Galina Kuskova never left the house without—a small gilded pendant in the form of a bell tower—had disappeared.

According to witness testimony, that evening Galina had been propositioned at the restaurant by Mustafa Saidov, a resident of Azerbaijan, and spent close to ninety minutes in his room at the Dawn Hotel. The doorman and administrator on duty said categorically that at 11:20 the young woman had left the hotel alone, alive and unharmed, albeit visibly drunk. She was never seen alive again.

The next victim was discovered seven months later, in April 1980, in Tobolsk. The body of fifteen-year-old Tobolsk high school student Marina Laricheva was found at an abandoned construction site. She, too, bore the marks of death by manual strangulation.

The night before, she’d visited the house of a girlfriend, whose parents were away, to celebrate her friend’s birthday along with several of their friends. With no adult supervision, the vodka and port flowed and, according to complaints made by neighbors, the music wailed. At about midnight, after arguing with her boyfriend, a very drunk Marina left without saying a word.

Just as was the case with the body of Galina Kuskova, Marina was discovered with her expensive gold earrings still in her ears. The cheap nickel-silver bracelet she always wore on her right arm, however, had been taken.

Three months later another body was found, this time on the outskirts of Tyumen, in a wooded park not far from the city’s summer camp, where older schoolchildren and vocational students went during vacation. Once again, toxicology reports showed that the victim, sixteen-year-old Irina Kozlova, had been intoxicated at the time of her murder.

Kozlova, a ward of the children’s home, was learning the painting trade at the vocational school at the time of her death, but wasn’t known for her exemplary conduct. She had already had several run-ins with the local police. Approximately two hours before her murder, she had been dancing at a nightclub. Then she got into a fight with two other intoxicated girls. The other two were giving her a beating, but Irina managed to break free and run away. Marks from a beating were discovered on her body. As were the strangulation marks her killer left around her neck.

Of her numerous cheap adornments, only one was found to be missing—a silver seal ring that Irina wore on her pinky.

One of the girls who’d fought with her told investigators that she remembered seeing “some older blond guy, badly dressed and stinking drunk” standing by the fence outside the club. She even cadged a cigarette—a Pegasus—off him. Though he never spoke a word to her, she noticed a tattoo on his arm—maybe letters, maybe numbers, she didn’t get a good look—when he lit her smoke.

The murder was never solved. That this murder might be related to the other two similar ones in the area never occurred to any of the investigators working the case.

Nine months later, in late May 1981, a fourth body was found in Tobolsk, at the same abandoned construction site where a year before the schoolgirl Marina Laricheva had been killed.

Eighteen-year-old Olga Fomicheva was in her second year at the Tobolsk teachers college. Unlike the three previous victims, she had not been drunk at the time of her death. She didn’t drink, was an excellent student, and didn’t frequent nightclubs. The rapist robbed her of her virginity and knifed her in the heart. The blow was so precise that there was almost no blood and death was likely instantaneous. The murder weapon was never found. Neither was anything else that could have helped investigators solve the crime. A hard rain fell all night, quickly washing away any clues from the ground and the dead girl’s clothing. Her large, fake leather bag was found right next to her body. In it were her notebooks, a comb, a mirror, and a small purse with fifty-five rubles.

Olga wasn’t wearing jewelry, cheap or expensive. The murderer had taken only her small Dawn watch.

Zakharov was the first to have the idea that all four murders had been committed by the same person. He went to Tyumen and studied the cases carefully. Based on his examination of all the case files, Zakharov created a profile of the killer. In his opinion, the murderer was extremely cautious, although he made no attempt to hide the corpses. He wasn’t interested in money or valuables, but he took something—a souvenir—from each victim, which meant these murders had a ritual aspect for him. He was psychologically disturbed, but not a fool. He managed to leave almost no trace of his presence other than the sperm in the dead girls’ bodies at the crime scenes. No witness had ever seen him. And this was no accident. He carefully prepared and thought through every crime.

The cases had been looked into by four different investigators. Zakharov was able to get ahold of the forensic reports, which said that the sperm discovered in the bodies of the four raped and murdered girls could belong to the same man. But they hadn’t wanted to combine the two Tyumen and two Tobolsk murders into a single case.

In June 1982, a fifth body was found at a construction site in Tyumen. A classmate of Natasha Koloskova, the sixteen-year-old student at Vocational School No. 8 who’d been killed, stated she’d seen a tall, fair-haired man looming in the door during the graduation dance. The girl was raped and strangled. A piece of jewelry was missing—a cheap, heart-shaped enameled pendant with a red rose drawn inside.

She had a low blood alcohol level. During the dance, Natasha drank only half a glass of vodka. She left the dance alone and in a bad mood.

Just ten days later, in Tobolsk, deep in the city park, the body of yet another dead girl was discovered. Seventeen-year-old Angela Nasebulova, unemployed, had been raped and knifed in the heart. According to the forensic report, she was highly intoxicated at the time of her murder. Her blood showed high levels of drugs and alcohol. The murder weapon was never found.

It was not known whether any of the girl’s jewelry had been taken. Nasebulova was an orphan, and she lived with her alcoholic aunt, who couldn’t remember what kind of trinkets and jewelry Angela owned or wore. What was known was that the sperm found inside her body belonged to the same serial rapist and murderer that had killed the other five girls.

Major Ievlev was starving. He’d been poring over the case files since nine in the morning. And it was now half past one.

In the cafeteria at the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, a man of about thirty wearing jeans and a colorful patterned sweater sat down at his table. The man had a pleasant, round face with a bushy mustache.

“I hate digging around in old cases,” he said with a smile.

Ievlev gave him a surprised look.

“Zhenya Kostikov. I’m an investigator in the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.” He held out his hand. Ievlev shook it and introduced himself.

“In these parts for long?” his new friend inquired.

“Depends on how it goes,” the major growled vaguely.

He didn’t feel like socializing. He had some serious thinking to do, and he did that best over a meal. When he was a boy, his grandmother was constantly grumbling and taking away his book when he read at the table. For some reason, complicated episodes of history got learned more easily in the kitchen, over a bowl of soup than in his room at his desk.

The pickled cucumber soup in the cafeteria of the Tyumen Prosecutor’s Office didn’t compare with his grandmother’s, but he thought pretty well over it, too. Investigator Kostikov was a perfectly nice guy, but his chatter kept Ievlev from concentrating.

They left the cafeteria together.

“I’m on my way to breathe dust, too,” Kostikov told him, descending into the archive with Ievlev.

The major went back to his reading and soon after forgot about his chance acquaintance. He forgot about everything. Everything but the case.

In the files, he found three typewritten pages of a psychological portrait of the killer. This quasi-official document suggested that the girls had been killed and raped by a man aged forty to fifty with a midlevel technical education. Married, a drinker, psychologically unbalanced. Possibly registered at his local drug or psychiatric clinic. In his adolescence he probably had difficulties in relations with the opposite sex and may have suffered some serious setback or insult, which traumatized him so badly that it left a deep scar on his psyche. The document, which gave a name to the psychological illness of the killer—the so-called heboid syndrome—was authored by “R. V. Gradskaya. Medical student, Serbsky Institute of General and Forensic Psychiatry.”

So, in November of 1982, Zakharov had gone to Moscow specifically for this document. For the psychiatrist Gradskaya to compose a psychological portrait of the criminal, she would have had to familiarize herself with the materials of the investigation.

In late December, police arrested Nikita Slepak, age forty-five. Slepak had a midlevel technical education, was married, an alcoholic, and was registered at the local drug and psychiatric clinics. On one of his benders, Slepak had tried to sell women’s jewelry and a watch near a beer stall. He’d created a scandal, cutting the line and shoving the baubles under the stall owner’s nose and attempting to pay for his beer with them. A duty cop happened to be walking by and responded to pleas for assistance from the stall owner.

Nikolai Ievlev looked at the photographs and the detailed descriptions of the items taken from N. V. Slepak at the time of his arrest. Here was the small gilt pendant in the shape of a bell tower on a silver chain, and the nickel-silver bracelet, and the silver seal ring, and the Dawn watch on the black leather strap, and the heart-shaped enameled pendant with the rose. All of the jewelry taken off the murdered girls.

Slepak was blind drunk, and the report said he’d actively resisted arrest. Later, after he’d slept it off, he said he hadn’t stolen the trinkets, he’d found them in the pocket of his quilted jacket.

When his home was searched, they discovered a sweater with blood spots stashed behind the stove. It was the blood of Angela Nasebulova, the latest victim. A small, carefully washed tourist knife with a plastic handle was wrapped in the sweater. The nature of her wound pointed to it having been inflicted by a knife of this type. And Slepak’s blood type was the same as the killer’s, which had been determined from an analysis of the sperm.

He often went to Tobolsk to stay with a relative; he’d lived there for long stretches. He did odd jobs wherever he could find them. Then he’d drink up all his earnings, sometimes right in Tobolsk with his relative. Sometimes, if they were at odds, Slepak would go back to Tyumen and drink there instead. He didn’t have an alibi for a single one of the six murders.

He was tall, broad shouldered, and blond. And he had a tattoo on his left wrist—NIKITA, written in small letters.

For a long time he didn’t understand what they wanted from him. Then they nearly beat him to death in the holding cell at the Tyumen jail, smashed his head, and crushed his genitals. After that, he answered all their questions with the same phrase: “I didn’t kill anybody.”

Slepak never did admit his guilt. But he didn’t write any statements or petitions or appeal to any higher offices. His lawyer did his job strictly by the books and with little energy. In the courtroom, the dead girls’ relatives rained loud curses on the beast, the pervert, the vile monster Slepak. If anyone had had any doubts about the evidence against him or the nature of his guilt, in the atmosphere of that courtroom, they would have felt foolish, even blasphemous. If not him, who? Everything pointed to him. If they hadn’t caught him when they did, who knew how many more victims there might have been?

The Tyumen Provincial Court sentenced Nikita Slepak to death. The sentence was carried out in the spring of 1983. Up until the last hour of his life, he continued to repeat the same thing, like an incantation: “I didn’t kill anybody!”

Of the entire large operational and investigative team, only one person expressed any doubts about Nikita Slepak’s guilt—First Lieutenant Igor Zakharov. But in late November 1982 he was killed under mysterious circumstances, randomly attacked by hooligans. There were no clues. His murder was never solved.