by Noah Fitz
“Sort of. I want this to stop.” Olaf tapped his forehead with his right hand and hastily sat on it again.
“Want what to stop?”
“I’m just tired of it. I think I’d better go.” Olaf made as if to get up.
“You just sit tight,” Wulf said.
“Please. I did nothing. It was an accident.”
“Your behavior and your nervousness tell me that you’re hiding something important. You must be very naive if you think we can let you go now. You also admitted to hitting me yourself.” Wulf pointed to his cheek without touching it.
“She ran in front of me,” Olaf said.
“Who?”
“The girl!” he almost screamed and jumped up from his chair.
“Please sit down,” said Stolz.
Olaf trembled as if in withdrawal. “I want a lawyer!” he said. He sounded insecure, almost weepy, even to himself. “I just kept driving.”
“Are the scars on your face from the accident?” Wulf asked. His penetrating look was like an iron fist that gripped Olaf by his core.
“Not all,” he said.
“Your vague answers don’t really help us.” Wulf’s tone became cooler, more demanding.
“They beat me up,” Olaf admitted quietly. “I was drunk, and then she jumped right in front of the car.”
“Who? You must try not to confuse events. So, who jumped in front of your car? What was her name?”
“Her name was Pia Holm. And I know why.” Olaf’s bloodshot eyes fixed on the inspector. This time he managed to withstand the gaze. “Why do you think Immanuel Kräuser let himself be drafted? He was on an oil rig, that’s right. Not because of the money he could earn there, but…” Olaf faltered.
“Then what?” Wulf asked.
“I want a promise from you, in writing.”
“I’m not haggling with you. This is not a bazaar.” The policeman drove a hand through his hair and waited for Olaf’s reaction.
“We don’t haggle, we negotiate.” For the first time Olaf felt something like relief and even leaned back a little. The back of his head touched the cool wall. “I’ll tell you everything if you promise this will be treated as an accident. It was not murder. There was no intent behind it.”
“I can’t promise you anything,” Wulf said. “It’s not in my power to decide, but I’ll certainly take a closer look.”
“Pia was bullied by her friends, and also by her brother. She was not accepted.”
“And what does Mr. Kräuser have to do with this incident?”
“He was the trigger… or one of the triggers. I was in the workshop. Old Lind stored spirits there. You can drink that stuff, even undiluted. That day I slept off my intoxication there. I woke up to a sound, a whimper. Pia sat on the chair next to the door. That was my chair. I sometimes drank with old Lind…”
“Please don’t change the subject.”
“Like I said,” Olaf continued, “I woke up because the girl was whimpering. Immanuel held a bloody cotton ball in his hand and rubbed it over Pia’s knee. He’d been on something that day, too. He and Pia drank cheap vodka together. She must’ve fallen, because she was wearing roller skates and there was blood on her knee. She was really good on those skates. I stayed very still, because I didn’t want to get caught. Immanuel took one of those skates off her and worked on it for a good hour. When he was finally done, he put on her skate. And then he groped her. Yes. His hand went right up the girl’s skirt. There was a fight. She slapped him in the face and limped away. At first those two got along very well, only Immanuel must have misinterpreted Pia’s behavior. She only wanted his attention because she was lonely. And he was thinking with his dick.” Olaf’s voice had stopped shaking. Now it just sounded tired. “I’m sorry about my rough language,” he said.
“Why were you beaten up by the children?” Wulf asked. His colleague, Stolz, opened a folder.
Olaf looked at them in silence. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he waited.
The inspector stood directly in front of him and held out two photos. “Do you recognize any of the children in this picture?”
Olaf took his time. “Yeah. They all beat me up.”
“Is that why Pia isn’t in the photo? Because she didn’t belong to the gang?”
“She took the picture. And, yes, she was never with the others.”
“When did the accident occur?”
“Summer. Can’t remember the exact date, but it was on the weekend.”
“And you think Pia jumped in front of your car because Immanuel touched her inappropriately?” Stolz interjected.
“He would have raped her,” Olaf claimed. “But I threw one of the bottles against the wall, and she escaped.”
“Nevertheless,” Stolz said, “I strongly doubt that a child would take her own life because of that.”
“I told you that was just one of the reasons. She wanted to prove to the group that she wasn’t a coward.”
“Can you be more specific?” Wulf said. He put the photos back into the folder.
“Where you scared me the other day, I sometimes slept there when the workshop wasn’t open, or I needed some fresh air. I overheard the kids arguing loudly about some challenge on the internet. Pia was sitting on another bench reading, as she often did. It was Sarah, that dyke, who started to pester Pia. Even Peer got infected by the group dynamics. But he said nothing. He just stood there. ‘Do you want to belong to our gang?’ The Dixon kid asked that. He was always the one going off on people. He was the first one to hit you, too. My balls shrivel up every time I think about that bastard. He was the instigator.
“Anyway, he asked Pia if she would dare to stand in front of a moving car with her eyes closed. Or was it Bernd? It was as easy as jumping. None of the children thought the driver would be drunk as a skunk. I myself was not aware of what the consequences of that stupid prank would be. Who could’ve guessed that I’d be the one to sweep the girl off the road? Pia was very intelligent, but also a stubborn child.
“The next evening… or maybe the same evening… I hot-wired a car and wanted to get some more liquor. I ran out of beer and Lind was in the hospital. On the drive, my joint fell in my lap and then to the floor. I bent down, but I couldn’t find the damn thing. As soon as I sat up again, she just stood there without moving. Right in front of me. I had no time to get out of the way. Her head slammed against the windshield. I can still hear the crack. I couldn’t see much, but I think I remember a bright light. The others must have been standing at the side of the road, filming Pia. I drove away and later I sank the car into the river. That’s it.” Olaf deflated in his chair, completely exhausted.
“Would you like coffee or something to drink?” Stolz asked. She didn’t sound accusatory and Olaf didn’t feel any sarcasm behind the question. “We believe you,” she said. “We just need to check all this out.”
“One thing doesn’t seem right to me,” Wulf said. “Somehow, in my opinion, you appear far too often in places where you’re not supposed to be. I have the faint suspicion that you present yourself a little too much in the role of a neutral observer. But, as you can probably guess, we need some time to shed light on the matter. You’ll be presented to the judge, where you’ll have to repeat your statement as verbatim as possible. It’s the judge and the authorities, not us, who will decide on the further course of your life.”
Olaf was too tired to argue. “One more thing: Immanuel swore to hang me by the balls if I told anyone about the attempted rape. My idea of the bottle helped the girl escape, but I was trapped behind the shelf like a mouse. By the way, Immanuel was also involved in this work of art.” Olaf’s index finger circled in front of his scarred face. “And, yes. A coffee with a piece of cake would be very nice.”
“I’ll make sure you get something,” Stolz said. “You may stay here until then.”
“The window is escape-proof and two uniformed men are posted in front of the door,” Wulf
added. “Any attempt to escape will be punished as a criminal offense.”
“You promised me something,” Olaf said, starting one last desperate attempt.
Wulf gently ran his index finger over the staples. “I’m not going to press charges against you.”
“Thank you,” whispered Olaf and closed his leaden eyelids. At least it was something.
“Cherry or strawberry?”
Olaf opened his eyes, unable to process the question. The grim Inspector Wulf was no longer there. The nice policewoman stood in the door. She held two folders and her yellow duffle coat in her hands.
“The cake,” she said.
“Oh. Cherry, and the coffee without milk or sugar.”
Stolz nodded, then closed the door and disappeared. Olaf listened to the silence and tried to sort out his thoughts. A heavy burden had fallen from him. Hopefully I can sleep again, he thought. Just once, without the girl crashing through the windshield into my dreams. Immediately he began to drift off.
Through the door, Wulf’s voice spoke up in the hall. Olaf only vaguely perceived what was being said. “The boy has come to. Pride, you’re going to the hospital. I’ll pay a visit to our ice queen and her lifeless patients.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m going to see Doctor Birkenholz in Forensic Medicine.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Meet me later.”
Olaf cleared his throat. His whole body contracted and tingled, like after a bath in hot salt water. The sweaty palms of his hands itched. As a child he had once strayed off the dirt road and flown off his bicycle. He’d crashed into a ditch, but luckily he had landed in dense undergrowth. Shortly afterwards, his hands and his face had started to itch. The skin had been covered with burning red pustules.
He felt exactly the same now: as if, once again, he had fallen into a nettle bush.
Chapter 33
Marc put his already clammy hands into blue surgical gloves. Slowly he approached the metallic dissecting table on which the corpse, dipped in bright white by several lamps, had been laid out. The table seemed to glow from inside, like an occult altar of sacrifice.
“Can we start?” asked Dr. Birkenholz. The words steamed from between her heavily made-up lips and drifted up to the lamps.
“What choice do I have?” Marc said, tugging at the left glove. The wrinkles on the back of the hand smoothed out, but the pressure on his fingertips increased. “Do you perhaps have another size?” he asked, raising his hand demonstratively.
The corpulent pathologist shook her head. “Next time you should just bring some,” she said and consulted the side cart on which various threatening instruments lay.
Birkenholz took a look to the left. “Mirco?”
Her assistant, a skinny man about to retire, came to the headboard and helped his boss fold back the coarse cloth that covered the corpse. “That’s enough,” she said.
The silent man nodded and removed himself again. The white gown was much too large for him and hung from his bony shoulders like a shroud.
“Prepare everything for the opening of the skull.” The brief instruction was acknowledged only by the brief howl of an oscillating saw.
“You’re probably wondering if Mirco is a mute? He’s not,” said Dr. Birkenholz. She covered her mouth and nose with a bright red mask and waited for Marc to put one on, too. Her fiery red hedgehog hairstyle was hidden under a green hood.
The first breath Marc took smelled of rubber and charred plastic.
While the forensic doctor entered the data of the dead into a spreadsheet, Marc watched as her taciturn assistant sorted the necessary instruments on a tray with nimble fingers.
“We’ve secured bloody contact marks on her neck, unfortunately blurred, but with conspicuous droplet formation.”
“A boy tried to save her,” Marc said. “He was brought back from the artificial coma today. Inspector Stolz is with him right now.”
“This child here was a poor thing.” Dr. Birkenholz cleared her throat.
“What do you mean?” Marc waited in vain for an answer.
“Mirco,” Birkenholz said.
The skinny sixty-year-old reached for the tarp. She just nodded. With practiced movements, they folded the coarse fabric together into a neat square, which Mirco then stowed under the stretcher.
“Sarah was a boy,” Marc said, making his first guess.
“No,” Dr. Birkenholz said. “She was an individual in a phase of self-discovery, without quite knowing which path to follow: the one socially expected or the one that dwelt in her heart.”
Marc took a fleeting glance at the genitals. In retrospect, his remark seemed tactless. “So her soul wandered into the wrong body?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe she wanted to be both. Only that doesn’t explain why she put herself in danger in this way. The child was wearing girl’s panties and a bra and most likely drowned or choked on her own vomit.”
Marc’s stomach cramped up.
“Let’s get started,” said the pathologist. She rested a pair of protective goggles on her fleshy nose.
Mirco handed his boss a scalpel with which she performed the classic T-cut.
Marc retreated into the background and watched as the organs were removed, weighed, and superficially examined. He heard terms he could not do much with. Once again the oscillating saw howled. The air smelled of innards, blood, excrement, and charred bones. Something clapped wetly into a titanium bowl. Once again Dr. Birkenholz’s smoke-damaged voice chanted technical terms.
Marc became a spectator, or at least he tried to convince himself that what he was seeing was not truly real. He watched as Birkenholz reached for a rib shear, then heard the dry, hollow cracking of the ribcage.
Merry Christmas! He heard laughing voices in his head, and saw a happy family in front of him, who were all over the Christmas goose, because that’s exactly what the breaking of the ribs sounded like—like the carving of a big bird.
Marc’s cell phone jangled with a quiet melody. He let it ring.
“Would you like to take a closer look?” Dr. Birkenholz cut open the stomach, which she had previously separated from the intestines and esophagus.
Marc took a small step forward. The intense smell of ammonia irritated his nasal mucous membranes. Even before the second step, his phone rang again.
“Wulf, here.”
“This is Inspector Beluga. Mr. Kräuser unfortunately escaped us. But we found something you should have a look at. We’re waiting for you here.”
“Where?”
“In his workshop. October Street.”
“Thank you.” Marc disconnected. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“You’re leaving us? We’ve only just begun.”
“I’m sorry. I’m needed more urgently elsewhere.”
Dr. Birkenholz moved the glasses a little further up with her knuckle. “It has come to my attention that the perpetrator has turned himself in? You know I don’t listen to rumors… or is it wrong this time?”
“We don’t know yet,” Marc said. With those words, he fled into the corridor. He longed for the cold, fresh air that smelled slightly of car exhaust.
Chapter 34
Marktheide | October Street 16
“You’re here too?” Tine rubbed her hands together. The door to the janitor’s workshop stood wide open. Here and there were small yellow markings.
Marc Wulf came to meet her. With his head slightly bowed, he gave her a questioning look. “And?” he said.
“I spoke with the boy from the high school, Dustin. He remembers only the blow and a few fragments, all of which describe his panicky attempt to free Sarah from the plastic.”
“Shall we?” Marc nodded at the door.
“Look at this,” said Bruckner, the head of forensics. He stood in the middle of the room, wearing a knitted cap and a coarsely knit coat. If not for the blue disposable gloves, Tine thought, h
e could easily pass for a street fighter. She tried to hide her absurd thoughts behind a forced smile.
“Do you know what this is?” The hulking Bruckner held up a bag with a tool in it.
“A pair of combination pliers,” said Wulf.
“Exactly. And you know what?”
“What?” Wulf asked, but grinned his predatory smile, which said: “Just tell me what I want to know!”
“It’s the same wire that we found at both crime scenes,” Bruckner announced and patted Marc almost chummily on the shoulder.
“Not bad,” Wulf said.
“The best is yet to come.”
Tine watched Marc’s face become even darker. He hated procrastination.
“Santa Claus does exist?” Marc said.
Walter Bruckner shook his head with a frown. “The pliers have a notch. We’ll compare the abrasion and the pattern, but we still believe…”
“Quiet!” Wulf said, listening intently.
Little by little the people around them fell silent. Marc squeezed himself past two officials. With a raised hand he sank to one knee. The dusty boards under him creaked. He bowed his head and listened. No one dared move. Some of those present cast questioning glances at each other. Tine became restless.
“Pride! Don’t stand there like a fool, come here.” Marc waved her over energetically.
Tine stumbled over a box and almost fell. How embarrassing, she thought, but didn’t let her colleagues notice.
“Quiet, I said!” Wulf rubbed his throat. “Do you hear that?” He looked up at Tine.
She pushed her lower lip forward and raised her shoulders without understanding. Marc’s eyes searched the half-empty shelves.
“Please give me that thing there! Quickly, Pride!”
Tine did not understand what thing he wanted. A hand with a crowbar appeared before her eyes. It was Beluga, the man who had called her earlier and explained the situation to her. She thanked him in silence and cursed herself in the same breath for not figuring it out first. Beluga’s blue eyes betrayed doubt; he, too, had only guessed. Tine passed the heavy tool on.