“Here, look closely,” Grigory Petrovich said, his voice tense as he jabbed a thick finger at the screen.
A quarter to midnight. A strange car suddenly appeared on the deserted street, an ordinary dark-colored passenger car, which slowly, unhurriedly drove up and carefully stopped right in front of Elena’s house. A tall man in a dark, bulky jacket and a knitted hat pulled down low over his forehead got out of the car unhurriedly. It was impossible to make out his face on such a recording. He calmly looked around, as if checking for witnesses, then confidently opened the gate to Elena’s yard and disappeared behind it, dissolving into the darkness.
“Lord, have mercy…” Elena whispered, feeling everything inside her turn cold, her legs about to give way.
About ten, maybe twelve minutes later, the man reappeared in the frame. He walked out of Elena’s yard just as calmly, methodically closing the gate behind him with the latch. He got into his car and slowly, unhurriedly, drove away, disappearing around a bend.
“Freeze frame,” Grigory Petrovich commanded curtly, pressing pause.
He rewound a little, freezing the image at the moment when the car was most visible.
“There’s the license plate number. It’s hard to see because of the snow and darkness, but I think we can try to make out a few numbers. And here, on the side door of the car… That’s a company logo of some kind, a name.”
Elena squinted, staring intently at the blurry, indistinct image on the screen. There was indeed something light painted on the side of the car, some large inscription, an emblem.
“It looks a lot like a company car from some firm,” the officer muttered thoughtfully. “Definitely not a private individual. A serious organization, some kind of company.”
“Could it be an appraiser from a real estate agency?” Maria Ivanovna, who had been standing nearby watching intently with her hands pressed to her ample chest, suddenly spoke up. “You know, from a realtor’s office?”
Elena turned sharply to her neighbor, confused.
“What appraisers, Masha? Why would there be appraisers?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, maybe someone is planning to sell the house, getting an appraisal…” the neighbor suddenly stopped mid-sentence, seeing Elena’s completely pale, frozen face. “Oh, Lenochka, forgive me, an old fool, I probably said something stupid.”
But Grigory Petrovich was already on alert, like an experienced bloodhound.
“Maria Ivanovna, why did you immediately think of a real estate agency?”
“Oh, it was just an association,” the neighbor hesitated, slightly embarrassed. “It’s just that last month, an appraiser from an agency came to see me when I was looking at and buying my daughter’s apartment in the city. And he also came late in the evening—he didn’t have time during the day—in a company car just like that, with a big bright agency logo on the side. It just seemed very similar to me.”
The officer zoomed in on the image of the car as much as the recording quality allowed. The writing on the side door was very difficult to read due to the distance and darkness, it was blurry, but the first word could still be made out: it seemed to be “Dom” (House).
“‘Dom’… something else,” he quickly wrote it down in his work notebook. “We absolutely must check all the real estate agencies in our city and region, find out which one has company cars with similar markings.”
Elena was silent, at a loss for words. A single, insane, simply unbelievable thought was spinning in her head, making her feel sick. An appraiser from a real estate agency had come to inspect her house at night. But who could have possibly called this appraiser? The house was registered strictly in her name, entirely in her name. She had never given anyone any permissions, any powers of attorney. She had no intention of selling anything; this was her only home.
“Elena Alexeevna,” Grigory Petrovich said, carefully but firmly placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Have you by any chance given anyone an official, notarized power of attorney for your house? For selling, for processing any documents, or deals?”
“No, of course not,” she shook her head decisively. “I never even thought about selling. This is my home, I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“And your husband, Victor, could he have?”
Elena felt the ground give way beneath her. She froze…
Comments are closed.