“Do you think Frau Leyhausen went underground?” Max asked. Lina was driving and Max wondered whether she could see anything at all, since the tip of her nose almost touched the steering wheel.
“Well, there are some indications.” Lina said, frowning. “Hanno, Alex, and Sebastian are quite sure, but I still can’t imagine she’s our culprit.”
“She could have gone into hiding even though she didn’t do it.”
“You’re right.” She signaled and turned left. The windshield wipers squeaked softly. “I just hope she doesn’t try to hurt herself. She was a nervous wreck yesterday.” When the road was straight for a while, she asked, “What’s new with you? Did you get anywhere with Niels Hinrichsen?”
Max shook his head. “He was transferred to the psychiatric ward. When he woke up this morning, he really freaked out. They had to sedate him.” Max grimaced. “Supposedly they had no choice.” Lina could see he didn’t share that opinion. “I visited him because I wanted to bring him fresh clothes, but he wasn’t responsive at the time.”
Lina kept following the GPS suggestions. The neighborhood became more upscale, which reminded her of Birkner’s domestic partner.
“Katja Ansmann received payments from Markman Solutions,” she said.
For the second time this morning, Max gave her an irritated look. Then it seemed to click: Katja Ansmann, Lina’s favorite suspect.
“Yes, so?” Max asked.
“The white-collar crime division has been investigating Markman Solutions for two years. The good woman’s consulting firm was paid twenty thousand euro a year and a half ago.”
“What does that tell us?”
“That she might have something to do with the data theft at Wesseling & Kröger and thus also with Philip Birkner’s murder.” Max sighed, but before he could say anything, Lina added, “This woman has just as good a motive to kill Birkner as Franziska Leyhausen or Frank Jensen. Three million euro—and there’s the matter of the data theft.” She took a deep breath. “Fine, I don’t particularly like her, whatever the reason may be, but we can’t simply leave her out when we investigate the case. We have to talk with her one more time.”
“And how do you plan to sell that to Hanno?”
Lina leaned forward and said, “Why do I have to? We would like to ask the witness whether Philip ever told her anything about the murder of Julia Munz; or whether she knows how Vogler and Birkner got along; or if she knew of Tanja Fischer, her domestic partner’s lover.” She grinned. “My own two or three questions won’t even be noticed. Besides, her apartment is almost on our way.”
Max looked out the window into the rain and said nothing. Finally he turned to Lina again. “All right. But first, we go to Daniel Vogler.”
Philip Birkner’s former employee lived in Großflottbek, an attractive bourgeois neighborhood in western Hamburg. Max whistled quietly when they stopped in front of the new building surrounded by a manicured, parklike garden. The door was opened by a pale and lanky man in his early thirties. Vogler’s apartment was on the second floor, and it really looked as if he had just moved in and hadn’t bought all the furniture yet—exactly as Franziska Leyhausen had said. A large moving box stood in the hallway. There was no coatrack. Instead, two jackets were draped over a chair in a corner. A brief glance into one of the rooms showed Lina what he was mostly occupied with: three computer monitors, all running, and two calculators next to them on the table. There were CDs on the shelves, piles of magazines, and a laptop.
Daniel Vogler brought them to the living room. He sat down on the only chair, while Lina and Max took the couch.
“Herr Vogler,” Max began, “We’re investigating a murder case. You might have heard about the dead man in the Niendorfer Gehege. The victim is your former employer, Philip Birkner.”
“Is that so?” Vogler said and lifted an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen him in years, not since the bankruptcy of Inoware, to be exact.” He was leaning back in the chair, had his legs crossed, and jiggled his toes. He wore jeans and a light-colored striped shirt. His ash-blond hair hung into his face. His left sock had a small hole in it. Lina had taken out her notepad and was looking around the room. Other than the leather couch, the chair, a shelf with some books and CDs, and a flatscreen TV, the room was empty. No curtains or venetian blinds. No carpets on the parquet floor. No pillows or blankets on the couch. On one wall there were two photos of a very tan Franziska Leyhausen laughing into the camera. Both pictures were taken outside and Franziska’s long dark brown hair fluttered in the wind.
“How well did you know Herr Birkner?” Max asked.
Vogler shrugged. “He was my boss.”
“Did you see each other outside work? Did you invite each other over, go for drinks after work, or do things like that?” Max pressed.
“No.”
“But you knew each other from school, didn’t you?” Lina asked.
Was she mistaken, or did Vogler hesitate for a tiny moment? “Yes, but we weren’t close.”
“Nevertheless, you applied for a job at his firm?”
“Pure accident. I was looking for a job and was calling several software firms. I only found out that Philip was the owner of Inoware when I came for the job interview.”
“Did you also know the girl who was murdered back then, Julia Munz?” Lina asked, digging deeper.
Daniel Vogler sighed. “Yes, but also only from afar. We were in the same class for a year or two.”
“What about Herr Jensen?” Max asked. “How well do you know him?”
“Not any better. I’m not very sociable. I like to be left alone.”
“No private conversations? Nothing he shared with you one time or another?”
With knit brow Vogler said, “What do you mean by that? Maybe that he messed up the software for Wesseling & Kröger on purpose?” He laughed a hollow laugh. “He was stupid, but not that stupid. If he was involved, he wouldn’t have told me, that’s for sure.”
Lina looked up from her pad. “So you’re saying you consider Herr Jensen capable of such sabotage?”
Daniel Vogler grimaced mockingly. “You don’t have to be especially intelligent to do that. Even he could have done it—or he just messed up and someone else seized the opportunity.” He put both feet on the floor and bent forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I know that this sounds inconsiderate, but that’s always been my problem. I just tell it like it is. He might not want to hear it, but Frank Jensen is no more than a mediocre programmer. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised that he messed up. The project was way over his head.”
“But it would have been a piece of cake for you?” Max asked.
“Yes,” he replied. There was no doubt, at least not in his mind.
“Do you think your former colleague would have been capable of creating the mistake on purpose?”
“No idea. I never thought about it.”
“How did Birkner and Jensen get along?” Max asked.
“Quite well, I think.”
“When it became known that there was a mistake in the software—what happened then?”
“Philip freaked out. He gave Frank hell in front of the entire team. Frank spent half the day in the john because he couldn’t stop puking. He was whining that it wasn’t him, but Philip didn’t believe him and threw him out—even before he officially went bust.”
Lina pensively fidgeted with her pencil. “Is it true that other than Herr Jensen, Herr Birkner, and you, nobody had access to the source code?”
Daniel Vogler laughed. “Have you ever heard of hackers? A good hacker could have done all kinds of things without anyone being the wiser.”
Lina looked around the spacious room. While the furnishings were not very comfortable, it was obvious that the apartment couldn’t have been cheap.
“How about you? Did anyone ever suspect you of manipulating the code?”
Max asked.
“Sure, of course,” Vogler replied with a shrug. “Frank accused me, but Philip didn’t take him seriously. Besides, I wasn’t even at work when it all happened. I was on vacation.”
“So one can determine the exact time when the code was manipulated?” Max asked, surprised.
“Of course,” Vogler declared with a condescending look. “Each access to the data was recorded. And the log showed that it was Frank who messed with the program code.”
What was it about hackers? Hadn’t Vogler just said himself that nobody would have noticed if a good hacker had played around with the data? Looking around the room again, Lina focused on the two photos on the wall.
“Herr Vogler, do you by chance know where we could find Franziska Leyhausen?” She looked at him, but he avoided her gaze.
“I assume she’s at work, somewhere around metropolitan Hamburg. Try reaching her on her cell phone.”
Lina pretended to take notes. Why did the question not surprise him? He gave the impression that he had expected it.
“When did you talk with her last?” Max asked.
“Sometime last week, I think. Monday or Tuesday.”
“Wasn’t it Wednesday?” Lina asked. “As far as I know, you were thinking of attending the concert at the Waldschänke with her.”
“True. I completely forgot.” Daniel Vogler looked as if he had trouble suppressing a yawn. “But it didn’t work out. I had to work late,” he explained.
“Where do you work?” Max asked.
“I work at the university, but I’m able to do most of the job from home. On Thursday night I was logged in at the computer center of the university and worked until almost two in the morning.” He shrugged. “At night, there’re fewer annoying students asking dumb questions.”
“Are you employed as a computer scientist?”
Daniel Vogler nodded. “As a computer scientist and mathematician. I’m working on the partial stabilizability of high-dimensional nonergodic Markov network processes which, of course, cannot converge asymptotically to a global equilibrium. What interests me is whether a virtual stationary distribution—marginal, that is, local—exists within the dynamics of space and time; whether these local processes converge to t, to infinity, to any measure of probability. This has many connections to output analysis in information technology,” he explained.
“I see.” Lina hadn’t understood one word and suspected this to be true for Max as well. She had tried to take notes, but only a few terms, cryptic ones at that, had found their way to the notepad. “And with such work one makes enough to afford an apartment like this?” she asked, still floored by his job description.
Vogler laughed and Lina felt like a little child. “Of course not. I won some money playing poker.”
Lina frowned. Hearing “playing poker” or “winning money” automatically reminded her of the movie The Sting, one of her favorite films. But she didn’t believe Daniel Vogler had sat across from a crime boss in a classy train compartment and outbluffed him. “Where can one win that much money playing poker?”
Daniel Vogler yawned discreetly. “On the Internet.”
“Gambling for money is prohibited in Germany,” Lina replied.
Vogler laughed out loud, and again it sounded mocking rather than jovial. “So? Who cares? Besides, poker isn’t gambling, it’s a game of strategy. You don’t believe me? Why don’t you Google it. It’s become the thing to do. And with some idea of math, the whole thing is child’s play.” He yawned loudly now. “With all the amateurs who are also trying it . . .”
Lina looked at Max and rolled her eyes. Daniel Vogler obviously considered himself invincible. But who knows. Someone who tackles nonergodic distribution and asymptotic networks in his job probably does have plenty of gray matter.
While Lina was doodling on her notepad, Max asked, “Do you happen to know any other friends of Frau Leyhausen?”
“No, it was always just the two of us when we met. Wait a moment,” he added. “There’s Barbara. I’ve met her two or three times, but I don’t know her last name.” He covered his mouth and yawned.
Lina pricked up her ears and leaned back on the couch. “So you aren’t seeing Frau Leyhausen anymore?” she asked, watching Vogler attentively.
The man gave her an annoyed look. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you used the past tense. You said, ‘It was always just the two of us when we met.’”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
Daniel Vogler shrugged, folded his right leg over his left, and crossed his arms. “That means nothing. I’m rather more talented in math than in language usage.”
On the street again, Lina took a deep breath. “Wow, what kind of guy was that?”
“A nerd,” Max said. Then he grinned. “He’d be at least a fifth dan in martial arts.”
Lina laughed. “Tanja Fischer said he’s a catastrophe in social settings. Now I know what she meant.” Then she got serious again. “What’s your impression?”
Max climbed into the passenger seat and put on his seat belt. He waited for Lina to start the car before he said, “Maybe you should tip off White-Collar Crimes. Gambling for money is illegal.”
“Maybe he got paid for the industrial espionage and he uses poker to cover it up,” Lina suggested. Something, some inconsistency, gnawed at her, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Replacing one illegal gain with another?” Max shook his head. “That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?”
“Or, on the contrary, very clever.” Lina looked into the rearview mirror and signaled. It had stopped raining, but it was still gloomy, gray, and humid. “But our main question is whether or not he had anything to do with Birkner’s murder.”
Max shrugged. “I don’t see why he should have anything against Philip Birkner. And other than referring to his girlfriend in the past tense . . . I have to say, I didn’t even notice that. You’re a keen listener.”
Lina grinned. “Well, I’m rather more talented in language usage than in math.”
When Katja Ansmann opened the door and saw Lina, she pressed her lips together but remained polite otherwise. In a low voice—Leon was asleep—she asked the two detectives to come in and follow her to the living room.
Lina controlled herself at first and just listened. That gave her a chance to calmly observe Katja Ansmann. She was wearing comfortable, wide-leg trousers today and a blouse and sandals. Her makeup was as perfect as last time, but there were dark circles under her eyes which even makeup couldn’t hide. Lina noticed that the quasi widow seemed more agitated than during the previous visits, resembling a grieving spouse more than before. She looked at Lina every now and then as if asking herself what in the world this woman was doing on her sofa.
“Frau Ansmann, we still have a few questions about Herr Birkner, especially about his past,” Max said. “A former girlfriend of his was murdered shortly after he graduated from high school. Do you know anything about that?”
Katja Ansmann was frowning pensively. Though the woman wasn’t much older than she, Lina detected signs of aging for the first time: little, faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and a tired expression around the mouth. “No, sorry. He never told me anything about that.”
“He never told you about a girl he was in school with who was murdered?” Max’s voice was as calm as before. “That surprises me.”
“Philip never talked much about his past. He was very much about living in the present.” She shrugged. “Maybe he was suppressing it.”
Lina scrutinized Katja Ansmann suspiciously. He didn’t talk much about the past? That might be true for acquaintances he wouldn’t tell his life story to right away, but his partner, the mother of his son? Lina asked herself how open the relationship between the two had actually been—was it maybe so open that it bordered on indi
fferent?
“Do you know Daniel Vogler?” Max asked.
Katja Ansmann seemed to be thinking. “Daniel Vogler . . . ,” she said slowly. “I’ve heard the name. Could you refresh my memory?”
“A former employee of your partner, at Inoware.”
“Oh yes, the second software developer of his company. I remember. A very intelligent man, but his social skills were somewhat underdeveloped.”
“Could you explain that?”
“Good communication skills and the ability to work in a team are indispensable if you want to survive in today’s job market. If you’re unable to empathize with others or adjust to a group, you’ll be in trouble. Herr Vogler is what’s usually called a lone wolf. He always came up with solutions, absolutely creative solutions, all by himself, without considering his colleagues at all.” She allowed herself a little smile. “When he was questioned about that once, he declared that he didn’t feel like wasting time explaining the times tables to a bunch of jerks.”
“Did the term jerks include Herr Birkner?”
Katja Ansmann’s smile disappeared. “Yes, I would think so.”
“Did you know that Herr Birkner and Herr Vogler attended the same school and graduated the same year?” Max asked.
Katja Ansmann said in a tired voice, “No, I didn’t know that.”
She knows damn little about her dead partner, Lina thought. Or maybe she knew Daniel Vogler better than she was willing to admit. Maybe the mathematician was behind the data theft and Katja Ansmann had collaborated with him. “Were you in contact with Herr Vogler after the bankruptcy of Inoware?” Lina asked.
“No. I never saw him after I was done with my consulting job for the company, which was about nine months before the insolvency.”
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