One man died in 1968. Soon after the funeral, the widow recalls that before his death, the head of the family, bought a winning lottery ticket. But she did not find the ticket itself. And then it dawned on her that her husband kept the tickets in the inner pocket of the suit in which he was buried.
… Gloomy lottery in the 60s, funeral chores. Mourning. Soon after the funeral, the widow remembers one important fact - not long before the death of the head of the family, she and her husband bought several Sportloto lottery tickets.
The usual practice was to rewrite ticket numbers just in case - you never know where you have to read the winnings table. And now the table is found, the wife checks the numbers, oh - a miracle - a win, a brand new Moskvich car. I stopped looking for a winning ticket - but it's nowhere to be found. And then it dawns on her, because the husband always kept the tickets in the inner pocket of his weekend suit. Yes, exactly the one in which he was buried.
For a very long time, the widow sought permission for exhumation. After all, there were no visible grounds for opening the grave. But, since the family was influential, she still got her way. The next day, the grave was dug up and the coffin was opened.
But, to my great surprise, there was no body in the coffin.
They called the police. After all, there is a fact of desecration of the grave and abduction. A criminal case was opened. The investigation has bewilderment and only one clue, it is also the cause of all the fuss - a winning lottery ticket. Requests were sent to all the savings banks: to identify and detain the person with the winning ticket until the arrival of the task force.
On the same day, the Soviet citizen Udaltsov flew to the savings bank on the wings of luck. The cashier asked him to wait. Udaltsov's joy was replaced by the deepest bewilderment when the men in civilian clothes, waving red books in front of their noses, offered to go where they should.
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Citizen Udaltsov explained that he had found the ticket in his jacket pocket. And the jacket he bought at the nearest thrift store. For those times, something like a second-hand.
The widow identified her husband's jacket. Checked out the store. Udaltsov's testimony was confirmed. Then the militiamen began to find out who and when handed over the item to the store. There were no computers before, but accounting was always strict and accurate. Found out quickly. The suspect turned out to be a certain Portko Ivan Ilyich, fifty-six years old. The militiamen immediately decided that Ivan Ilyich was a mug: he had taken a stranger's jacket to the consignment shop, but had not guessed to check his pockets. Outwardly, Portco really turned out to be an unprepossessing worker of low proletarian status.
Ivan Ilyich immediately confessed that he worked as a watchman at the city cemetery. It was there that the demon lured him. Funeral is a familiar thing for him, and he is not afraid of superstitions - only one financial shortage frightens him. So he infringed on the clothes of the deceased.
- And where is the body? The officers of the Soviet militia asked in surprise.
“I don’t remember, citizen chief. Although I am an atheist, as our party teaches, but to dig up a grave - I went to drink heavily.
It was clear that Portko was dark and decided to attach a "tail" to him, that is, outdoor surveillance, just in case. If not everything is so simple in this mysterious story, if Portko is hiding something or someone, he will definitely warn the accomplice that the police have gone on the trail. The operative version was put forward as follows: the watchman is in collusion with the director of the commission, supplies him with things, he sells them and shares with the supplier.
But the watchman, having exhausted himself during the interrogation and having received a written undertaking not to leave, hastened not to the thrift store. He rushed out of town like a wounded antelope and broke into a large house behind a high fence. The detectives immediately "punched" the address. Yeah. A certain Voroshilov, a military pensioner. What connection can a retiree have with a cemetery watchman? The fact that it is not related is understandable. We decided to watch.
Voroshilov had a specific smell in the courtyard and there were many cages for certain animals. It turned out to be nutria. Soviet people loved hats and fur coats made of nutria fur.
The climax came when the owner came out into the yard with a large bowl of meat. Portco was mincing nearby. Voroshilov, with great pride, fed the animals with food. Just at that moment, guests in uniform burst into the yard.
The militiamen began to guess what they would find during the search, but they really did not want to believe their guess.
Voroshilov knew Portko from a very young age. And when he finally decided to make money on growing nutria, he found and warmed up a long-drinking friend of his youth. He, even to divert his eyes, bought a certain amount of meat waste at the local meat processing plant, but the watchman supplied most of the feed.
One can only guess about the fate of the defendants in this case, since, for obvious reasons, the trial was closed - a painfully heinous atrocity for that time.