In 1946, a corpse of a young woman is discovered in a crypt at one of the Tambov cemeteries. Investigators manage to establish that the murdered woman was Olga Filatova: she worked at the local hospital, was the widow of a front-line soldier, and had a three-year-old daughter who vanished after her mother’s death. Suspicion falls on: Filatova’s partner, with whom she began living after her husband died; an invalid from the hospital; and a local simpleton who had shown the woman signs of attention. The detectives work through one version after another.
Soon it becomes known that a corpse of another murdered woman has been found in the river—and her child also disappeared. Could a maniac have appeared in the city? The investigation is already ready to accept such a terrifying conclusion when a young detective Zhuravlev stumbles upon an incredible explanation of these events.