The chapel was covered with white flowers. There are funeral wreaths on the walls. Withered roses and lilies are scattered on the floor. And like a mirage against the background of the wall, a pedestal of polished black wood. And on it is a skeleton in a white wedding dress, decorated with gold — dozens of chains, rings, bracelets, watches on bony hands … A skull with empty eye sockets … A braid in a hand devoid of flesh. At the first moment, seeing this strange figure, the police captain Yekaterina Petrovskaya thought: this is some kind of trick, a performance … But then a wild anxiety squeezed her heart. My head was spinning from stuffiness, from the smell of dead flowers, from hot wax. In order not to fall, she grabbed the hand of the investigator Strashilin. Where did this seemingly simple case of the murder of pensioner Ilya Ufimtsev lead them? .. What happened in the house of old Ufimtsev, a former party functionary who read the Bible in his declining years and communicated with the nuns of the nearest monastery? ..
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