The young officer looked angry. “What are you doing? Move along now or I will have you arrested.”
Ah, youthful exuberance, though the young man’s delivery needed work. You got more bees with honey than vinegar, his Lada liked to say. Arkhip smiled up at the officer and flashed his badge identifying him as a senior investigator with the Criminal Investigation Department for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A mouthful, for certain.
The young officer raised his hands as if in surrender. He looked aghast. “My apologies, Senior Investigator.”
“No need.” Arkhip smiled again. “If you could just move those cones.” The officer hurried to pick up the orange cones, then waved Arkhip forward.
Arkhip parked and stepped from the car. He put on his lightweight summer sport coat and brown porkpie hat. “Thank you, Officer,” he said when the young man approached, looking chagrined. “If I might offer a word of advice?”
“Please, Senior Investigator.”
“Smile more often. One gets more bees with honey.” The officer tried, but the smile looked painful. “It will become easier with practice,” Arkhip said.
Arkhip checked his jacket pockets, felt the familiar shape of his spiral notepad and pencil, then stepped into a throng of police, a seemingly inordinate number for a shooting at a bar. One would have thought the president of Russia had been killed here. Someone had made the mistake of painting the exterior of the bar red, which was like that other saying of Lada’s . . . something about putting a dress on a pig. The peeling paint only drew more attention to the bar’s dilapidated condition. In an area of Moscow rapidly undergoing revitalization, the bar was not long for the wrecking ball.
Arkhip flashed his badge, and officers kept passing him up the line to the front door. Inside the bar he was brought to an officer speaking to a middle-aged man with a mane of wild, black-and-gray hair and matching beard.
The officer squinted in the dull light to read Arkhip’s badge. “Senior Investigator,” he said.
Arkhip looked about the bar at all the uniformed officers and crime scene investigators. He hoped someone had a log to list all the people inside the bar contaminating his crime scene, but he doubted it.
“Senior Investigator?” the officer said a second time.
“Hmm?” Arkhip turned to the uniform.
The officer gestured to the man with the wild hair. “This is the bar owner.”
Both men stood at least half a foot taller than the five-foot-six Arkhip, but that was not uncommon. His mother had told Arkhip that while God had not blessed him with physical height, his intellect scaled the tallest mountains. Perhaps, but football coaches and women didn’t see intellect—except of course his Lada. Though she had also stood three inches taller, she made Arkhip feel like the tallest man in any room.
“One moment, please.” Arkhip turned to the assembled group. “Excuse me. Excuse me.” The officers continued jabbering uninterrupted.
“Hey!” the uniformed guard yelled, gaining everyone’s attention. He gave Arkhip a nod.
Arkhip smiled. “Thank you, Officer.” He raised his voice. “I am Arkhip Mishkin, senior investigator of the Criminal Investigation Department within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. If you are not a crime scene investigator, or a witness, please depart these premises immediately. Please do not touch anything. Provide your name and your badge number to . . .” He looked to a young officer at the door. “What is your name? Yes, you.”
“Golubev.”
“Please give your name and badge number to Officer Golubev so I can look for your detailed report of your time inside my crime scene this morning.”
That cleared the bar. The officers loved having something to do at night but loathed having to fill out paperwork. As the bar cleared, Arkhip took in the worn booths and nicked and scarred tables, the low ceiling, and the scraped and worn linoleum floor. At the back of the bar, up one step, he noted a pool table with billiard balls. A game had been in progress. One cue stick lay on the table. He looked, but didn’t see the second stick, though the rack on the wall was definitely short two. A suit coat and shirt hung on a wall hook near the rack. Multiple beer bottles lined the table’s edge. A shattered bottle and beer, not yet cleaned up, puddled on the floor.
This was a drinking establishment. He could smell the beer permeating the air. People came here to get stinking drunk and forget their problems, perhaps their lives. Arkhip had seen this too often. A drunk dropped a beer. Another drunk took offense and said something. One thing led to another, and before anyone knew it, one of the drunks was dead. Likely a stab wound. The only question was— “Where’s the body?” Arkhip looked about the room.
“Excuse me?” the officer said. He and the owner exchanged a look.
“I was told there was a shooting. I’d expect to see a body.” Arkhip smiled congenially at both men.
“The body is in the alley, Senior Investigator Mishkin,” the officer said.
“Ah. They took their dispute outside?”
“Excuse me?” the officer said.
“The two drunks. They argued. One dropped a beer. The other took it as a tragedy of great consequence and they took their dispute outside. There it escalated. Someone said something to the other and . . . we have a body.”
Again, the officer and the owner exchanged glances.
Arkhip used the eraser of his pencil to scratch at eczema he’d developed along the back of his head and down his neck. His doctor said it was stress related, likely due to his wife’s death. He told Arkhip to take shorter showers and gave him some cream. He said it would likely abate when Arkhip retired at the end of the month, but as that day approached, the eczema seemed to spread, not abate. Arkhip turned to the man with the mane of hair. “You’re the owner?”
“Yes,” the man said.
Arkhip looked but did not see another employee behind the bar. “And the bartender?”
“Yes.”
“You saw what happened? Perhaps you wish to tell me.”
“Yes. Certainly. I was—”
Arkhip raised a hand. “Please.” He reached in his jacket, removed the spiral notepad, and licked the lead tip of the pencil.
“Do you wish to record the conversation?” the officer asked. He held up his cell phone.
Arkhip looked to the officer. “Why?”
“To . . . document what is said.”
“I’ll have my notes,” Arkhip said. “And you will take a statement at Petrovka. But please. Feel free. Now . . .” He turned to the owner. “Tell me what happened.”
“Well. Two men entered the bar.”
Arkhip chuckled. The bartender and the officer looked perplexed. “It’s just that . . . the way you began . . . It sounds like the start of a joke.” Neither man smiled. “Please continue.”
“They were with a woman. They ordered beers and shots. They were drunk when they entered.”
Again, Arkhip raised a hand. “You know they were intoxicated?”
“Know it?”
“Did they tell you?”
“No, of course not, but I have been a bartender for many years. I could tell from their behavior, the look in their eyes. It—”
“Ah. You surmised it.”