It was getting dark. A green military vehicle marked “Traffic Inspection” stood at a snowy intersection on a forest road leading to the regional center. Inside were three men. Two warrant officers, Michael Harris and Victor Thompson, sat in the back, while the driver, a conscript soldier, dozed at the wheel. The engine was running, and the heater kept the cabin warm. A truck with military plates appeared on the road, and the warrant officers reluctantly stepped out. By evening, the frost had intensified, and though checking the driver’s documents took only a few minutes, the officers were already chilled.
The truck rolled on, and the warrant officers, brushing snow off their boots, returned to the vehicle. Their leather jackets and pants had absorbed the biting cold, and even the heater’s warmth couldn’t shake it off. The senior officer, Thompson, glanced sympathetically at his shivering partner and patted the driver on the shoulder:
— Let’s head to the last stop.
Turning at the intersection, the green vehicle drove toward the training ground.
The “last stop” was a small roadside café on the edge of a large village, called “Mary’s Place.” The café operated from morning until late at night, offering unlimited hot soup, beer, and vodka. Officers and warrant officers, who often stopped there while heading to or from the training ground, had nicknamed it the “last stop.” Parking in the yard, the three entered the café. The small room was smoky and warm. They ordered vodka, soup, and salad as usual and settled at a corner table. While waiting for their order, Harris and the driver lit cigarettes, and Thompson stepped out to use the restroom. Three young men sitting at another corner table followed him.
Warrant Officer Thompson lay on the ground near the restroom, his left arm tucked beneath him. His cap lay nearby, and a dark pool of blood spread around his head on the snow. His holster was unfastened and empty, the pistol gone. Regaining consciousness at the training ground’s medical unit, he recounted that three men had ambushed him as he left the restroom. Without a word, one struck him from behind with something heavy. He remembered nothing more. The garrison’s military prosecutor opened a criminal case for the robbery and assault on Warrant Officer Victor Thompson and the theft of his pistol, but the case remained unsolved. The pistol was never recovered.
A cash collection team was making its usual rounds. The March sun had turned the snow into a wet, slushy mess, soaking the boots of the collector, James Wilson. When the van stopped at the Spring Market grocery store, Wilson’s partner, Ivan Carter, went alone to collect the money. The process typically took no more than three minutes, as store cashiers knew the collectors’ schedule and prepared in advance. This time, Carter was delayed. Sensing trouble, Wilson racked the bolt of his rifle and entered the store. At the door, he collided with a frightened cashier in a white coat.
— They killed your collector! — she said in a choked voice, leaning against the wall to let Wilson pass.
Carter lay face-down on the trampled tile floor, a large wound on his head, blood pooling beneath. The money bag was gone. An ambulance and police arrived almost simultaneously. Carter was bandaged and taken to the hospital, while the investigative team began their work.
The attack on the collector occurred on March 3rd around 3 p.m. The store was crowded, but no one got a good look at the attackers. There were two, wearing identical brown jackets and knit caps. One struck the collector with a metal rod, grabbing the bag, while the other fired a shot into the ceiling before both leaped over the counter and fled through the store’s back room. The back door, leading to the courtyard, was open. The attackers likely escaped through the yard, climbed a fence into the neighboring property, and disappeared. A police dog followed their trail through the adjacent yard to the road, then whimpered and stopped. The trail ended there, suggesting a getaway car. Questioning residents yielded nothing; no one had seen a vehicle on the road.
After suffering a traumatic brain injury, collector Ivan Carter was left with a second-degree disability. Wilson was fired, and the case of the theft of forty-two thousand dollars was archived.
The second attack on collectors, on June 20th, was bolder and bloodier. It occurred at a furniture store. As in the first case, one collector was struck on the head with a blunt, heavy object, dying instantly from the brain injury. The second collector was shot point-blank with a pistol. There were two attackers, but the assault was so swift that no witnesses recalled their descriptions. The city prosecutor opened a criminal case for the murder and robbery. The investigation was assigned to senior investigator Timothy Daniels. Requesting the unsolved grocery store robbery file from the local police, Daniels began comparing the two cases.
The head wounds in both robberies were strikingly similar. Moreover, the bullet lodged in the grocery store ceiling and the one extracted from the furniture store victim’s body were fired from the same pistol. The furniture store had received a popular shipment that day, and business was brisk. The robbers made off with sixty-five thousand dollars. As in the first case, they escaped through the store’s back room. Notably, in both incidents, the robbers knew the store layouts and the cash collection procedures intimately. In the furniture store case, they also knew the exact day for maximum revenue. This suggested an inside tip, likely from a store employee. For the next three days, Daniels pored over the personnel files of both the grocery and furniture stores.
Daniels first visited the Spring Market. The store’s director, also its owner, laid out the staff roster and twelve employee files, explaining as requested. The grocery was small, with eight salespeople. Four women worked twelve-hour shifts in the sales area, alternating days. The staff also included a chief accountant, a logistics manager, and a driver. Daniels copied the employees’ names and skimmed their files before heading to the furniture store. But all the way there, he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d missed something critical.
The furniture store’s staff roster was similar to the grocery’s: a director, chief accountant, logistics manager, expediter, two drivers, salespeople, and loaders. Reviewing the document twice, Daniels realized what he’d overlooked at the grocery. Their roster listed no loaders, yet a store selling tons of goods daily couldn’t function without them. The next day, he returned to the Spring Market. The director was absent, so Daniels spoke to the chief accountant, who was the director’s wife. She explained that they had two loaders, hired on short-term contracts.
— You know how it is with those types. Drunkards, mostly! We have to replace them almost monthly.
Comparing the staff lists of both stores, Daniels found no matching names. Yet he was certain the key lay here. The robbers’ knowledge of the stores’ back rooms and collection routines was too precise.
For a month, Andrew Foster had been enjoying idleness. He’d never been one for hard work, but now it was different. Now he had money—lots of it. Andrew spent it freely. Passing by the Spring Market, he decided to pop in. He’d worked there as a loader for months and liked chatting with the young cashiers, who remembered him fondly. Generous by nature, he often bought them flowers or treated them to small evening gatherings with champagne and candies. Unlike other loaders, he never harassed or groped them in the back room, which the girls appreciated. The store was quiet, and the cashiers gathered around Andrew behind the counter. Asking Vera, a cashier from the confectionery section, for a box of the priciest candies, he opened it and set it before them. The girls nibbled happily, sharing the latest gossip. The big news in their small world, confined to the store’s walls, was the investigator’s visit regarding the March collector robbery. The news alarmed Andrew. After a few more minutes of chatter, he said goodbye and headed to the furniture store.
He found his former loader colleagues in the store’s courtyard, smoking. Before he could greet them, they rushed to tell him that a week ago, two collectors were killed in their store, and now a senior prosecutor’s investigator was questioning everyone. They’d called in Pete Dawson yesterday and asked about Andrew, too. Nervously finishing his cigarette, Andrew, citing other plans, left. The only payphone near the furniture store was broken, so he walked three blocks to find a working one. Nicholas was home, and they arranged to meet. Andrew headed to his place.
At Nicholas’s, Andrew found their third friend, Roman, who’d recently bought a used foreign car at the market and stopped by to invite Nicholas for a drive. They went cruising together. In the car, Andrew shared what he’d heard at the grocery and furniture stores. Roman drove silently, focused on the road. Nicholas tried to ease Andrew’s concerns. They stopped at the Snowdrop Café for coffee. Afterward, Roman dropped them off at their homes. Before parting, Nicholas suggested Andrew consider temporarily leaving for another city. They agreed to meet at Nicholas’s the next day. In the morning, after telling his grandfather about his departure, Andrew went to buy a bus ticket.
A young man’s body was found in a wooded area by workers from a plant protection service. Their team was spraying pesticides on a sugar beet plantation. A flock of crows bustling near a birch tree by the highway caught their attention. Approaching, they saw a corpse. After shooing the crows away and covering the body with broken branches, they called the police.
The young man had been killed with a shot to the back of the head. The medical examiner concluded it was a botched deal, with death occurring two days prior. The shot was fired at close range; the hair around the wound was singed. No belongings or documents were found. After photographing the body and completing formalities, the police left. The body was sent to the morgue, and a photo of the deceased was published in the local paper.
A cashier from the Spring Market recognized Andrew. At first, she doubted herself—the lifeless figure in the photo barely resembled the cheerful Andrew she knew. She brought the paper to work, where older women immediately confirmed it was him. Three days later, Andrew’s friends, who’d seen him off to the bus station, were detained. They denied involvement in his death, claiming they’d parted at the station. A search of Roman’s apartment uncovered a lead-filled rubber hose. At Nicholas’s, a TT pistol—stolen from Warrant Officer Thompson the previous year—was found wrapped in plastic in the toilet tank. The pistol’s magazine was missing three rounds. Ballistic tests confirmed it was used in the grocery store, the furniture store, and Andrew Foster’s murder. Under the weight of evidence, the friends began to confess.
The regional court sentenced Nicholas Grayson and Roman Parker to the maximum penalty. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict.
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