A Goddamn Moskal

"What a fucking mess.”

The officer exclaimed, as he went through the kitchen cubbords. Several others, carefully placed small yellow triangles with numbers on them across the livingroom. Two detectives stood aside, watching the pale carcass, sitting hunched over in the only armchair available. Both of his hands were clenched in an awkwardly stretched position between his legs, with his head resting on his biceps. A large pool of blood had seeped into the carpet flooring, and his wrist were slit wide open. A knife laid stuck to the floor. A haunting static was heard from the record-player by the window.

“How long d’you think he's been, like this?”

“ 'Like this?' He's dead Kuzma, get used to the word, you're gonna hear it a lot.”

“I just don't like the sound of it.”

“Anyway, I'd say about a week. Maybe two. But we'll let the coroner give us a clear answer on that.”

Kuzma was a careful man, never mentioned the word violence, didn't know half the meaning of it. Careful enough never to mention the word disturbance. His coal-black hair had started turning grey last year with his thirtieth birthday, a testament to his stress and worry. His brown eyes seemed worried at every awake minute of his life. He was clean shaven and wore a black leather coat, just like Lesya, and every other detective at the bureau.

“So you wanna go with this suicide story, or do you think there's something else behind this?"
He said.

“Can't say for sure right now. There has been a lot of suicides lately for some reason. I talked to the wife of a man who shot himself a couple of days ago, he was employed at some government institution, and she told me he was unhappy with his employment, and claimed she knew alot of friends who suffered the same way. Never heard of anyone complaining before. Maybe this guy’s a state-employee.”

She had been working as a detective since a few years back, before that, working as an assisting investigator for the police force, giving assistance in any case or situation where she may have been needed. She had a massive rise in her career by support from her husband, a certain fanatic with a desperate fervour for what he claimed just. He went by the name of Ruslan. Ruslan was head of a private security-wing under strict state control. And, like many others before him, opted to promote family members. However unlike many others, Lesya was an adept in criminal-investigation. She portrayed a healthy ideal of the law-abiding citizen, strong, obedient and cunning. Her brown hair was closely cut. Cut, following a close encounter with a suspect. Her brown eyes always had a certain anger behind them, as if they forced you to admit to anything you'd been accused of. She was little taller than Kuzma, which seemed appropriate with her being the one in charge.

“Why don't you snap a couple of photos whilst I take a look around?”

Kuzma agreed and took out his Chaika-camera and got to work. In the meantime Lesya walked carefully around the room as if not to disturb the victim in the center. She took a closer look at the record player and noticed how worn the vinyl-case was. Obviously his favourite, she thought to herself. She noticed something lying on the case, what seemed like a short, black piece of hair. It seemed odd considering the victim was blonde with a couple of silver patches around the ears. The victim was closely shaven. Could have been stuck there for ages, but she bagged it for later.

“Oh you piece of…!”
Kuzma seemed to struggle with the shutter on his camera. Lesya looked bothered by Kuzmas ineptitude and brought forth a little manual with a small print of a camera on the front. She motioned it towards Kuzma, still struggling and stressing to a sweat over the object in his hand.

“You threw this out along with the box you doffus.”
Kuzma seemed annoyed at the gesture and sighed;

“Oh come on, you know I never read those things!”

“Well you might wanna start before you break this one as well.”
He accepted the leaflet and skimmed through it as quickly as he could manage. Lesya stod looking at him and she could count the few seconds he actually spent reading it, but he seemed to have gotten the hang of it.

“Does this look edible to you?”
One of the officers stod in the kitchen door and held a shifty looking glass jar in his hand.

“What in god’s name is that?”
Replied Kuzma, gazing into the thick blue liquid which the jar contained. The officer proceeded with opening it and having a smell.

“It’s got sort of a chemical fragrence to it.”

“Save it for later, if it’s homemade, he might have a recipe for it. Keep shaking the kitchen."
Lesya instructed and took notice of Kuzma as he turned towards her, mouth on a slander.

“Do you reckon this is that glass-psycho we’ve been seeing lately?”

“I have no idea, Kuzma. Could be the sculpturing-guy or whoever.” I wanna see if this hair takes us anywhere.”

“But those DNA-analists take forever, could take well up to two months for them too bring us something!”

“And we’ll have plenty more evidence like this guy until then, yes Kuzma, I know what you’re gonna say.”

“I can’t get sacked again, Lesya. My family is living off of scrapes and leftovers.”

“I brought you back didn’t I? Stop worrying about it.”

“Just afraid it's going to be permanent next time. Anyway, I think I’m done with the photos, anything in particular you wanna save on film?”

“Take one of the jar.”

Kuzma went into the kitchen and immediatly engaged an officer in conversation. Lesya opened her coat and got forth a pair of black leather gloves and put them on as she studied the body infront of her. Judging by the look on his face, the victim seemed to have suffered utter terror during his last hours. His jaw hung low and his eyes were wide open and had sunken deep into their pockets. In comparison to the other victims she had seen kill themselves, most seemed calm. As if they were comfortable with the decision. Maybe the sensation was simply to grim for him. Maybe he was blackmailed into it. She really couldn’t tell at this point. She went through all of his pockets, beginning with his jacket until she found his wallet. “Walder Borowski.” Born July 16th, 1936. No charge-card, no bus-pass, no license. Just an old ID from the fifties, worn at the corners with a bleak photo of a handsome young man, not much younger than herself. She felt sad thinking about the prospects of his life, blown away in with wind. She kept burrowing among the receipts and found several from the same store. A drugstore down on main. All the receipts were for five grams of anti-depressants, some of them ten. She tried asking around to see if anyone knew the appearance of said drug and whether or not you needed a prescription. One of them told her his brother had a prescription for them, and that they were small, circular and bright blue in colour. “Smile”, he could remember them being called. He gave her a comment on the terrible labeling and had a chuckle for himself. His info cemented her belief that the blue jar was probably some sort of mixture with “Smile” in it.

“Its anti-depressants.”
She told them, laying the receipts on the counter next to the jar.

“So it’s a grogg then.”

“Actually I think it’s a yoghurt.”
The officer corrected, shaking it to reveal it’s thick consistency.

“Probably had it for breakfast every morning, poor bastard. You think we’re done here detectives? Cuz' I wanna make it home to dinner and leave the rest of this shit to the coroner and his crew.”

“Just bag all the evidence and take it to the station. Kuzma, could you take some more photos of this?”
She emptied the wallet out on the counter and put the contents in a neat pattern.

“Pretty sure I could make a living off of creepy photos of the dead and stuff, famous people, like directors and stuff pay alot for these things from what I’ve heard.”
Kuzma said.

“Even I would buy them, and just keep them in a box somewhere, as a kind of… remembrance thing I guess. For when all this is past us and I'm sipping drinks by the beach."