"Smith, Martin Cruz - Gorky Park" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

'He really had red hair,' Pasha said. 'Red.'

'"Beauty", "Beast" and "Red". Our first major decision, Detective Fet,' Arkady said. 'Has anyone heard how Forensics is doing on those ice skates?'

'The skates could be a ruse,' Fet suggested. 'It seems very hard to believe that three people could be shot in Gorky Park without other people hearing. The victims could have been shot elsewhere, then skates could have been put on them and they could have been carried to the park at night.'

'It is very hard to believe three people could be shot in Gorky Park without other people hearing, I agree,' Arkady said. 'But it's impossible to get ice skates on dead feet. Try it sometime. Also, the one place you wouldn't want to try to sneak three dead bodies into at any time is Gorky Park.'

'I only wanted to have your thoughts on that possibility,' Fet said.

'Excellent work,' Arkady assured him. 'Now let's find out what Lyudin's come up with.'

He dialed the Kiselny Street lab. On the twentieth ring, the switchboard answered and put him through to Lyudin.

'Colonel, I  ' he got to say before he was disconnected. He dialed again. There was no answer at Kiselny Street. He looked at his watch. Four-twenty: time for the operators to shut down the board in preparation for leaving work at five. The detectives would want to go soon, too. Pasha to lift weights. Fet? Home to mother, or Pribluda first?

'Maybe they were shot elsewhere and carried to the park at night.' The investigator swept the matches aside.

Fet sat up. 'You just said they weren't. Also, I remember, we found the last bullet in the ground, proving they were shot there.'

'Proving the victim, dead or alive, was shot through the head there.' Arkady put one match back in the center of the desk. 'No cartridges were found. If an automatic pistol were used, the shells would have been ejected onto the ground.'

'He could have picked them up,' Fet protested.

'Why? Bullets identify a firearm as well as shells.'

'He could have fired from a distance.'

'He didn't,' Arkady said.

'Maybe he thought to pick them up because if anyone found them they'd look for a body.'

'He's carrying the gun in his coat, not waving it around.' Arkady looked aside. 'The gun and the shells in its clip are warm to begin with. The ejected shells, heated more by the ejecting gases, would melt into the snow long before the bodies were covered by snow. I'm curious, though.' He looked at Fet. 'Why do you think it was a single gunman?'

'There was a single gun.'

'There was only one gun fired so far as we know. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for a single killer to make three victims stand still at close range while he fired  unless there were other gunmen with him? Why did the victims feel their situation was so hopeless they didn't even run for help? Well, we'll catch this murderer. We've only begun, and so many things always turn up. We'll catch the fat son of a bitch.'

Fet didn't ask, Why fat?

'Anyway,' Arkady concluded, 'it's been a long day. Your shifts are up.'

Fet was first out.

'There goes our little birdie,' Pasha said as he followed.

'I hope he's a parrot.'

Alone, Arkady called headquarters on Petrovka to send a republic-wide west-of-the-Urals bulletin for information on crimes by firearm, just to keep the militia commissioner content. Then he tried calling the school again. Comrade Teacher Renko, he was told, was leading a criticism session for parents and couldn't come to the phone.