Read Vipovich :: Clue n⁰2 : Bounty

The police sirens were about 5 minutes away, wich was enough for me to search the body, I wanted some clues. I looked at his glasses wich were a little broken, and then the pockets on his pants, there was nothing but a 25 ruble bill in his right pocket and a used tissue on his left pocket. I dried my snotty hands on Ole's body before looking. At the pockets on his jacket. On the right pocket was his wallet, from wich I took the money before putting tapping Ole's face two times and putting it back in his pocket. There was also a lot of papers. On most them there was a phone number written down but one specific paper caught my attention, it was a letter, it looked like it was written recently too. The handwriting was pretty but the letter was so short.

"Good luck catching me next time. Look at his back." Was what the letter said.

I put the letter back in my pocket and turned Ole around. I had to act quick because the sirens were getting closer and closer. I lifted Ole's shirt and looked on his back, the letter "V" was cut on his lower back and blood was still coming out of the cut. I already had my idea of what this could mean.

"Vipovich" I whispered to myself.

I saw at least 6 police cars followed by an ambulance stop from afar and a lot of policemen coming out of the cars running towards old man Kevin who was waiving at the men to show them where my dead friend was laying. I went and hid behind a tree before the policemen noticed Kevin and joined him. The noises the police made attracted a lot of citizens to approach the crime scene. and soon after the arrival of the police around a 130 children, men and women were present each trying to look at what was happening. The sensitive public fainted and threw up wich forced more and more ambulances to come to the park causing more noise and more people to come and see what was happening.

At the same time, TV-channels and excited immature teenagers came to record what was happening, while journalists coming from everywhere in the city from different comapnies were trying to write the most interesting story and get it back to their boss as fast as possible. I was being emprisoned by human bodies all around me, it was like almost the whole city was here, old people, young people, middle-aged virgins, kids who barely even finished elementary school and even homeless people were here.

After about 30 minutes of endless, loud yapping, a tall, bald and angry looking muscle man came in the middle of it all with a megaphone in his right hand and his left hand in his pocket.

"Everyone shut the fuck up!" He screamed as loud as he could. When he saw that the crowd calmed down he cleared his throat before resuming his speech, "I am Sergent Pyatoshin Polikarp, and I was sent here because a murder was reported, yes this fat loser over here got killed by someone who we think is the same who is responsible for the death of Igor Yannovich. Why? Beacause both victims had this right here." Two other policmen lifted Ole up so that everyone tall enough or close enough could see. Pyatoshin lifted Ole's shirt and showed his back to everyone, "See everybody, the killer, just like with his past victim, took a sharp object and cut a 'V' on the dead person, this means that the once killer is now a serial killer!"

The silence in the park dissapeared as the crowd began to talk to their family and friends. It got louder and louder and Sergent Pyatoshin ordered the other policemen to take Ole's body back to the morgue. And as soon as the speech came to a pause every Journalists and curious people came to ask questions to Mr.Polikarp, he was surrounded by all types of questions, "Who is the number one supect?"one said.

"Do you think that the children are safe from this killer?"Another one asked.

"Do you think this nice body of yours will be enough to stop this monster?" and so on the questions continued and everyone was asking for the same thing, an answer."Please answer me!"

"Here sir, here the viewers want an answer!"

"Sergent Polikarp! The papers want to know, what will you do to prevent this killer from unalaving another person? Please sir answer! Please!"

Despite all the noise and questions Polikarp stayed calm and didn't answer any of their questions.

When the car transporting my bestfriends body left, Pyatoshin went into a telephone booth and stayed on the line with somone for at least 40 minutes before leaving with a devilish smirk on his face. He put on a hat and went in the middle of the crowd again but this time stood on top of a police car. During the 40 minutes of wait the number of people present in the park tripled and breathing was now almost impossible. people were climbing on trees and getting in top of cars just to breathe and see better while I was still trying to stay alive blended in perfectly with the crowd, but thanks to my height, I still managed to see the sergent Pyatoshin ready to make a speech.

He turned on the megaphone and managed to silence the crowd with only this action. Pictures were being taken, articles were being written and the stage was being recorded but not one word. Pyatoshin got handed a paper by one of his underlings and then put the megaphone in front of his mouth. He cleared his throat and hit the megaphone to make sure it worked before looking up to the crowd.

"Hello again everyone,"He started,"the imformation I'm about to give you all tonight is crucial to everyone and you musn't be scared." Whispers erupted from the crowd after what segent said. "Is the info really that scary?", was the question everyone was asking themselves. Pyatoshin resumed his speech soon after with a bomb, "The killer and ex-prisoner Vladmir Baburin escaped prison not long ago, to be excat he escaped 2 days before the first murder occured, and he is now on the run and is suspect number one for these murders, and as far as I know, he could be in this crowd right here right now..."

In that instant, the atmosphere among the crowd shifted into a mix of fear and anger. People were mad that we, the citizens of the city where a killer was freely walking around town weren't aware of this. The crowd was screaming and crying throwing all kinds of things on the police.

"Jesus Christ, this dude sure is strong to create a dramatic environment." a deep and joking voice said next to me, I turned to him nodding and smiled at him while analysing him. He was around my height, so I'd say at least 6'1 and a half. He had a striking combination of eyes reflecting asian heritage and deep eyebags under them, he had jet black hair styled in a two block hairstyle and had a scar, probably caused by a knife going from his forhead all the way to his lower lip passing by his right eye. And even though he sounded like he had my age, he already had some wrinkles on his face, wich makes me think that he's maybe around 35 to 40 years old.

He reached out to me with the intention to shake my hand, "I'm Norowareta Jin, nice to meet you." I shook his hand, impressed that he spoke Russian so well, even though he had a little accent it was still well spoken. "I'm Viktor sir, nice to meet you too." I said while letting go of his hand.

"Yo Viktor, what do you think Pyatoshin there will say next?" He asked. I looked at the sergent who was patiently waiting for the crowd to calm down.

I sighed in despair, "Only Jesus knows." I answered. Jin nodded in agreement while he lit a cigaret. The crowd was finally calming down as the closest churches clock struck midnight, the fog that was present throughout the entire day lifted and the rain slowly took it's place, and soon, the whole crowd was being showered by the skies and the citizens of Vladivostok used anything they could to cover their heads, while people like me or Jin got all wet on our heads.

"Well since the rain is here I want to make this as quick as possible." Pyatoshin announced through his megaphone. "I called my superior, the one in charge of this case at the KGB and he gave me the right to tell you all this, from now on, June 2nd at 12:07PM, the unknown serial killer now has a bounty of 1 million of Soviet rubles on his head while Vladimir Baburin, the one who has escaped prison has a bounty of 750 thousand of rubles on his head and if Mr.Baburin IS the serial killer... you have a chance to get 1 million and 750 THOUSAND of soviet rubles in. Your. Pockets."

The words that just came out of Sergent Pyatoshin's mouth kept the whole crowd quite, the shock was just too much to handle right now for everyone present but what had me worried was the fact that, as he said the one in charge of the case was the one who gave him the orders, wich means I'm no longer the one in charge.

The rain was getting heavier the crowd was still dead silent and the blood that Ole had leaked was gone thanks to the rain. Pyatoshin got off of the car he was standing on and was just looking at the crowd, confused as to why no one had begun to search for the wanted criminals, and i was as confused as him.

"Shit, my cig!" Jin whispered just next to me. "Them heavy rain drops just made it fall out of my damn mouth." I just looked at him wondering why he wasn't going looking for the two criminals, but suddenly the whole crowd heard some hurried, wet steps. Someone was running away and he looked like Vladimir. Pyatoshin smirked as he put the megaphone up.

"The hunt is on!" He said with a chilling voice, and just like that a battle cry was heard throughout the whole city and all the motivated money hungry citizens ran behind Baburin, hunting him down. Almost half the city was gone. And the city was filled with screams and cries.