“Hello?” a quavering voice answered. She wondered how much older the man on the phone was. He sounded at least eighty.
“Good day to you. I’m Detective Rosenberg from the Cologne PD. Am I speaking with Walter Moll?” She was surprised to hear a sigh of relief on the other end.
“Yes. Good day,” the man replied, sounding more sprightly now.
“Herr Moll, I have a few questions regarding your son. Do you have some time?”
At first, Walter Moll was happy to hear a woman’s voice instead of being terrorized with more silence or, worse, more whisperings of his son’s name. But this lady detective was inquiring about his son. Could these really be separate incidents, coinciding purely by accident? The calls? That feeling of an intruder in the house? And now a criminal detective contacts him? No, this was no accident. In the past he had swept the rumors about his son under the rug, just as he’d done with those troubles his son had when growing up. Nonetheless, he had always feared that one day someone would figure it out. It had gotten to that point now, evidently. He often told himself he’d be able to deal with it. Even so, he just did not feel prepared.
“I assume you mean Stefan?” he muttered gravely.
“Stefan?” Katharina asked, startled. “Actually I meant Chris, uh, Christian.”
“Ah, I see. I thought you were inquiring about his twin brother.”
Walter Moll’s voice had suddenly perked up on the phone, and Katharina felt shaky. Chris had never mentioned a twin brother. How come he’d kept it a secret from her?
“Just what’s this all about?” Moll asked.
“I didn’t know Christian had a twin brother till now,” Katharina said, hedging. “He never told me about him.”
“I can completely understand why.”
His response piqued her curiosity now. Finally here was a lead, even if it was heading in a completely different direction than she’d expected.
“Herr Moll, may I come by? Immediately would be best.”
“Certainly.”
He told her his address, and Katharina calculated how much time she’d need for the drive over. “I’ll be there in one hour.”
Almost an hour had passed since they talked on the phone. Walter Moll couldn’t decide whether he should tell the lady detective about those phone calls he was getting. The calls were distressing him, and he didn’t have anyone he could talk to about it. Deep in thought, he padded into the kitchen to get the coffee going. Detective Rosenberg had said she liked her coffee strong and black.
He checked the cabinet for an unopened package of cookies. And he made his decision: the prank calls had nothing to do with why his visitor was coming; he didn’t want to sound like some whiny sissy, pouring out his heart to a complete stranger.
Katharina’s GPS led her through a vast woodland. The road was created decades ago to give the nearby village quicker access to the highway. But since the community was aging so rapidly, this route was barely used anymore, and it was such a contrast to the hectic city traffic she was used to. Her protection drove behind her at a maximum distance of fifty-five yards. They had agreed to let Katharina speak with Walter Moll inside alone. Visiting the man’s home certainly posed no danger.
Katharina did her best to pay attention to the road. A deer could appear in front of her car at any time. And yet her thoughts kept straying.
Why hadn’t Chris ever told her about the twin brother? The answer to this question just might help her identify the killer—the very one who had her name on his hit list.
An energetic-looking man in his sixties opened the door for her. He was still quite attractive, but on closer inspection he didn’t resemble Chris in the least.
He gallantly helped her out of her jacket before leading her into the living room. She gave him a vaguely harmless reason for her interest in his sons. Then, over coffee and chocolate cookies, he began to take her on a journey into his past.
“You should know, I’m not the biological father of the two,” he confirmed, after noticing she was inspecting him. “Christian is twenty-seven minutes older, by the way. On the outside they’re utterly indistinguishable. Identical twins. In character, however, they differ immensely.”
The revelation proved her suspicions. “How long have the two had your last name?”
“Since they were four. My wife—God bless her—she passed away last year, much too soon; she was only sixty-two. . . .” His voice broke, and he looked past Katharina with an empty stare; then he cleared his throat and steadied his voice. “You see, my wife and the biological father got divorced shortly after the twins’ second birthday. The man was an alcoholic of the worst kind. Violent, reckless. I got to know Ursula a good year after the divorce; six months later, we married. Did you know I worked as a police officer before retiring?”
“Chris mentioned it once. He always just called you his father—you know, not his stepfather.”
“He did accept me as his true father,” Moll said. “He never gave me any trouble.”
“Was it different with Stefan?” Katharina asked.
“Unfortunately,” he replied. “Ursula and I, we were always having such hassles because of him. Christian was the son who filled us with pride, Stefan the black sheep. At eight he began stealing, just to shock us. It was such a disgrace. The son from a respectable family gets caught stealing! And it happens to me of all people—a police officer. At ten he started smoking. Then, to top it all off: around this time he claimed his brother was mistreating him. Which was absurd, of course. Chris would never have done a thing to him. Yeah, well, after he figured out we weren’t going to swallow his lies, he at least stopped trying to make his brother look bad. But the usual troubles continued. There were more calls from the police—warnings—and then his first arrests. Shoplifting, drug offenses. Christian studied and passed his exams for college; Stefan dropped out of high school at seventeen, no degree. He wasn’t stupid, though. Just lazy. He took off shortly after and never contacted us again. For Ursula, it was a tough blow; despite all the problems she still loved him and could never truly let that part of her life go. She was always hoping she’d hear from him again, right until the end. I wish they would’ve finally reconciled. It could have been on her deathbed, even. Don’t get me wrong. It was hard on me too, not having any contact with him. For Ursula, though, it was far worse.”
Katharina remembered the message left on Jörg Becher’s corpse. “Does the fourteenth of October, 1982, mean anything special to you, or to your sons?”
“Let me think.” Moll paused, sipping his coffee. “The two were ten years old then. Fourteenth of October? No, not that I know of.”
“Now, Christian went on to make a name for himself as a criminal psychologist, and for a time he worked analyzing cases for the police.”
Moll confirmed it with a proud grin. “Now, that was something I really liked seeing.”
“Till he suddenly gave it up. You know his reasons for that?”
“I don’t. Keep in mind, Detective Rosenberg, I haven’t had much contact with him over the last twelve months. Which is strange, actually. I have to say that ever since Ursula’s death and Chris’s leaving police work, he’s totally withdrawn from me and the family.”
“He spoke about having to see too much violence in the period leading up to that. Do you think that’s plausible?”
Walter Moll only needed a moment before nodding. “Absolutely. He was extremely sensitive as a child. Maybe it was too severe for him.”
“Wouldn’t he have realized that already, even while studying at university?”
Moll shrugged. “Christian is a person who finishes what he starts. He would have viewed breaking off his studies as a personal failure.”
“Is there anything else I should know about Stefan?”
The question seemed painful for her host. He crossed his arms in front of him, pressi
ng his back into his old armchair. Katharina didn’t ride him. She did understand how tough it would be for him to give up more family secrets, especially since she could only imagine how extremely upsetting a stepchild like Stefan must have been for a cop. So she waited it out.
“When the boys were eleven,” he told her after hesitating, “some neighbors’ pets, they went missing in the neighborhood. Bunnies, mostly. Carcasses were found, throats slit open, fur smeared with blood. Rumors sprang up. Neighbors knew of our problems with Stefan, of course. They had to be wondering if he was behind it. But there was no proof he was guilty of doing the deed.”
Katharina prodded him. “And what do you think? Do you think Stefan had anything to do with it?”
“I don’t think so. It would have been too vicious, even for him.”
A quarter hour later, Moll watched Chief Criminal Detective Rosenberg ease out of the driveway, waving back at him. He was already feeling the need to tell her about those recent phone calls. He stared at the business card she’d left him. Maybe he would call her soon, if those incidents kept happening.
As he went back into the house, he realized that she hadn’t explained exactly why she was interested in his sons. The reason she’d given him was too superficial. Suddenly puzzled by her visit, he turned back around again to look for her car, but it was already gone.
No matter where Katharina was heading with this, it had to lead right to Chris. He never mentioned having a twin brother, one who looked exactly like him.
Who would you trust? she thought.
Someone you know.
Sometimes, though, your own eyes can deceive you. Katharina was now convinced that Stefan Moll was the killer. The only question left was whether Chris had reached the same conclusion. If he’d already been considering the possibility before they drove to Neuss, then in her book he shared responsibility for a murder—that of Neuss detective Jörg Becher.
In her head, she imagined how it played out. The rain is coming down in buckets. Detective Becher sees someone come up to him and thinks, in error, that it’s Chris wanting to follow up on the exchange they’d had late that afternoon. If Becher had thought that, it was understandable that he’d switch off, let his instincts fail him. This was how the killer got near enough to fire deadly shots at close range.
If Chris had told Becher about his identical twin, Becher might have ended up being more alert. Admittedly, it was a vague assumption—yet if it was true, it could have meant the difference between life and death for her fellow cop.
Suddenly Katharina recalled all the changes she’d noticed about Chris: his trendier hair, his new style of dress, different aftershave, those hints of untidiness.
Her stomach cramped up. She reached for her phone, frantic to update the officers assigned to Chris with an altogether new warning. Walter Moll had told her so much; but now, with her new suspicions, she had even more to fear.
23
Five months earlier
Stefan stopped the car in the middle of the street, observing the house where his brother lived. How differently their lives had turned out. His twin had set himself up with a growing career as a criminal psychologist, even getting himself on TV. He on the other hand had served six years in the Bundeswehr and just roamed around the country after his discharge. He’d kept himself above water with the odd job or petty crime.
But today was payday.
On the passenger seat there was a bottle of wine and a pistol. The red wine was meant to show his willingness to reconcile with his brother, Christian, and then, the gun would make it clear to his brother that reconciling was an illusion. Before that happened, though, he really hoped he’d get the opportunity to torture him.
Since a car was approaching from behind, Stefan turned on his blinker and let his vehicle roll into the driveway. A glance at the clock confirmed he was precisely on time, something Christian would definitely appreciate. After all, their stepfather had placed so much worth on such unimportant details.
Stefan parked his car next to a more expensive-looking automobile, which had to belong to his brother. Then he stuck his pistol in his waistband and made double sure the bulge at his back was concealed by his shirt, which he’d left casually untucked. With bottle in hand, he got out and walked up the paved path to the front door. He pressed the doorbell, and a little Beethoven melody sounded, which made Stefan snicker.
When the door opened, there was Christian in one of his fancy suits, the kind he was always wearing on TV. Yet his brother’s expression was at odds with his slick appearance in the fine duds—in it, he could read just how unsure Christian was about their reunion.
“Hi there, Chris. Long time or what?”
“Damn long,” Christian replied. He took a step back, inviting him in with a sweep of his hand. “Come in.”
Stefan handed him the wine bottle. “I hope you like reds. It’s my favorite wine.”
Christian examined the label and nodded his approval. “Good choice. Let’s go into the living room.” He pointed to the room leading directly off the foyer. Stefan waited a second for his brother to go first, but Christian didn’t budge, so Stefan took him up on his invitation.
The middle of the room was an interior landscape of sectional sofas in black leather. A decanter filled with red wine stood on a side table. Stefan smirked when he noticed that.
“We’re so much alike.”
“Not in every respect. Sit down.”
A rage grew inside Stefan and he would have rather just pulled out his pistol and killed him off right then. It was all he could do to keep himself under control. A better opportunity was sure to arise, though, as the evening went on.
“So, let’s dispense with the small talk,” Chris began. “Why did you just up and disappear back then?” He had poured them glasses and Stefan was swirling the superb wine before he took a sip. “Mom was going crazy with worry. You can’t imagine how much it made her suffer.”
“Did you ever think how much I was suffering? So much that I had to leave home in the first place? The old man hated me. Made my life hell.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Christian countered. “You two had your problems, sure, but the way you just disappeared from our lives affected him too. I’ve talked about it with him many times. The worst part was that he never even knew if you were still alive.”
“The poor thing,” Stefan scoffed. “Maybe I should drive over to his house sometime and beg him to forgive me.”
“By the way, Mother died last year, from breast cancer.”
“I know,” Stefan said. “I got up to date on all of you now and then. How could I not know about you becoming a criminal psychologist? It’s like you’re this big authority.”
To Stefan’s surprise, Christian was staring at the glass in his hand, looking embarrassed. Stefan would have thought he’d take this opportunity to boast of all his successes.
“Sometimes, it gets to be too much for me,” his brother whispered.
“What gets to be too much?”
“The violence, the death. I’m thinking about concentrating on my psychological research and journal articles instead of taking such an active role in police investigations like I’ve been doing.”
“Then Walter would really be disappointed. I can just see him showing you off like some medal, what with you basically following in his footsteps.”
“Do you have any idea why I took this route?” Christian asked, staring directly at Stefan in utter seriousness.
“To suck up to the old man?” Stefan guessed.
His twin shook his head sadly. “I wanted to understand what was going on with you when you were young.”
That condescending way Christian was talking made Stefan’s rage build even more. But he listened to his brother, for the time being.
“I used to watch you back then. We were twelve. So of course I saw
how you used to sneak out of the house at night.”
“What?” Stefan turned to him, surprised. “You ever follow me?”
“Yes.”
“I never noticed you.”
“No, you were too focused on your mission.”
“Mission?” Stefan snorted his contempt. “I was just having fun.”
“You ended up on a neighbor’s property,” Christian recalled. “Once I saw you tampering with the rabbit cage, I knew what would happen. You pulled out one of those struggling bunnies and I saw that knife in your hand. I was speechless, Stefan. My God, I saw you cut the poor animal’s throat and hold the dying creature up in the air like some trophy. The blood ran all over your face and I got the creeping feeling that you liked it.”
“Maybe I did. Why didn’t you tell anyone? You could’ve scored a lot of points with the old man.”
“I didn’t want to. There was enough friction between the two of you.”
“How considerate.”
“If I would’ve known that those rabbits were only the beginning, I’m sure I would’ve done otherwise.”
“How do you mean?”
“Two years later, I was there spying on you when you slaughtered those pigs out on that tract of farmland near us. I saw how obsessed you looked.”
“Yeah, and it all started with you,” Stefan claimed.
“What?” Christian stared at his brother, slack-jawed. “Are you crazy?”
“You really don’t remember? How you and those neighbor kids used to bully and torture me? Starting when we were nine. I told our parents but they didn’t believe me. Then I realized: I too could commit crimes and get away with them without being punished.”
“Those weren’t ‘crimes’ we were committing. We were just playing. We were children then!”
Mark of Cain Page 10