A Difficult Vacation

Investigator Maksim Poperechny goes on vacation to visit an old classmate in a quiet provincial town of Gorodishche. As it turns out, he arrived not at the most appropriate time: in the past week, three murders were committed in the town—something that had never happened before. In the first case, pensioner Khesniyarov, a former chairman of the executive committee, was killed in his own apartment; in the second, an elderly female pensioner—once a simple midwife at a maternity hospital; and in the third—an ex-teacher. Investigators put forward a theory that a maniac is operating in the town. The head of the investigative department, Lieutenant Colonel Razmolov, asked Poperechny for help with the murders. After reviewing the materials, Major Poperechny decides that all three murders were committed by one and the same person—but it’s not a maniac....