Grave Intent

by Alexander Hartung

  “The grave murderer got Yuri Petrov. He’s on the way to the cemetery. Why ‘again’?”

  “You called another officer here at the cemetery a half hour ago and said the open grave at the northeast corner along Wasgensteig Road was just a diversion. The actual grave is off to the west, north of Königsweg Road. So we moved all our people over there and sealed off the area.”

  “That’s not it!” Jan screamed into the phone.

  “Is so,” the man barked back. “It was your cell phone and you even gave your badge number.”

  “That was the grave murderer, you idiots. He stole my phone and my ID. You didn’t hear the difference in his voice?”

  “We got nothing to do with detectives. We only know about you from your last case. Plus the call was tough to understand with that train going by in the background.”

  “So turn right around and get back to the other side of the cemetery. The murderer could still be there!”

  “On our way.” The call was disconnected.

  The grave murderer had bested them yet again.

  Jan stood at Yuri Petrov’s grave. Like the previous victims, Petrov lay with his face in the earth. His hair was sticky with blood. Hordes of investigators were securing clues, taking photos, discussing results. The cemetery seemed more like a beehive than a final resting place.

  Jan watched the crime-scene techs as they sealed the grave’s cross inside a large plastic bag. Its wood bore the day of death for Yuri Petrov. Once again, the grave murderer had kept his word. Once again, Jan had failed.

  Bergman stood next to him at the grave’s edge.

  “You should have that looked at,” Bergman said, sounding unusually calm. “Your neck doesn’t look good, and there’s that blood on your shirt.”

  That was it. No screaming. No blaming. No cursing the media.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “This might sound like some crappy movie line—but it was not your fault.”

  “I’m the lead detective. Who else’s fault is it?”

  “We can only help people who want to be helped. Robin Cordes tried to go it alone, and Yuri Petrov willingly fell into the murderer’s trap.”

  “But why?” Jan clenched his hands. “How can a person be so stupid? He knew about the grave murderer. He was safe in the embassy. Instead of staying there, he slips out before morning to drive to some warehouse. I’ve been wracking my brains for hours trying to figure out why Petrov would do that.”

  “There is one explanation,” said Patrick, who’d just appeared beside Jan. He turned his phone around and showed him a picture of a rectangular white box.

  “What’s that?”

  “That is a thermally cooled chest. They’re used to transport organs.”

  “Where did you find it?” Bergman said.

  “In Yuri Petrov’s van.”

  “Petrov was an organ dealer?”

  “We don’t know much yet, but all signs point to it. We found two corneas in the case.”

  “So I burst in on an organ deal?” Jan said.

  Patrick nodded.

  “That explains it.” Jan pointed at the corpse. “Petrov had an appointment with the grave murderer without knowing it was him. That explains all the secrecy. He didn’t want us finding out about his illegal side business.”

  “My guess is it was a deal for a lung, but it went bad,” Zoe said, climbing out of the grave.

  “What makes you think that?”

  She held up a pouch with a dark organ.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Murderer cut it out of Yuri Petrov before lowering him into the grave here. Didn’t exactly do a professional job of it, if I do say so myself. He made a long incision just below the sternum, using a sharp knife, and rooted around in there till he found the lungs. You can rule out a doctor.”

  “That’s a lung?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “Why is it so dark?”

  “Belomorkanal.”

  “Never heard of that disease.”

  Zoe raised her eyebrows in contempt. Jan had clearly guessed wrong. “It’s a cigarette brand, Super Whiz. Yuri Petrov was a chain-smoker.”

  “He had a skeleton in his closet, in any case,” Bergman said. “I’ll put pressure on the embassy. If staffers are abusing their special status to bring organs into Germany illegally, the time for diplomacy is over. I’ll have each and every one of them down at the station by tonight.”

  Bergman pulled out his phone and left the cemetery. His forceful stride made it clear that the Ukrainian embassy was not going to have a good day.

  “I’ll carry on with my new friend here.” Zoe pointed at the corpse. “Should have something by this afternoon.”

  “Thanks,” Jan said.

  “Oh, and put a new shirt on. Bloodred doesn’t suit you.”

  Max sat at a police computer. His right hand flew across the keys while he guzzled a glass of Ovaltine and cola with his left. The machine was slow, but this server gave him unrestricted access to the criminal database, and he was going to need it today. His phone rang, playing the title song from the Legend of Zelda video game. He set his glass aside, took the call.

  “Hi, Jan. Where are you?”

  “Still at the cemetery, but I feel like a fifth wheel here among all these crime-scene techs.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Where did the last call from my phone come from?”

  “The one from the grave murderer? Not far from that warehouse. The location I have isn’t super exact. But if officers heard a train in the background, it has to have been a little over two hundred yards west of it. There are tracks there used by freight trains. That was the last signal. Your phone’s been dead since then. I do have it on the radar, though. As soon as it’s turned on, I’ll know where it is.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Forensics gave me Yuri Petrov’s phone. Easy to crack the PIN. I ran across a cryptic e-mail address in the browser. It’ll take about an hour till I have the password. Should I be looking for anything specific?”

  “Anything having to do with organ dealing.”

  “Organ dealing?” Max let out a whistle. “That’s high-end stuff.”

  “Yuri Petrov wasn’t only an embassy staffer.”

  “Clearly. I’ll get in touch as soon as I’ve got any news.”

  Max hung up, started up his password cracker, and pushed his drink away. Getting at Petrov’s secrets was going to take a while; he was going to need something stronger. Time for a few energy drinks.

  When questioning a subject, Jan always adjusted his stance to match the interviewee. If it was some tough guy, he came on tough. For a person who’d never met a detective before, he was more subtle. Statements from persons shaking in fear weren’t worth much. If the subject had political influence or even diplomatic status, then he had to be doubly careful. People like that could simply get up and leave.

  Galina Yefimova required a subtle approach. But Jan was in no mood for that today. He had no idea how Bergman had delivered the woman to him—from out of the embassy, without legal means—but he did know that his boss had balls of rebarred concrete. If Bergman thought he was being played for a fool, he’d show even the chancellor herself his middle finger.

  Jan gave a kick to the conference-room door, which hit the wall with a little bang. As he’d hoped, Galina Yefimova flinched.

  Jan abandoned everything he’d learned about interrogations done right. He didn’t introduce himself and offer the person anything to drink, and he did all he could to appear hostile. He yanked the surveillance-camera cable out of the wall, slammed his files on the table, and landed hard on a chair.

  Galina looked like she hadn’t slept. Her eyes were red from crying. Her suit was wrinkled, and it looked as if she hadn’t had much time to get dressed. That slightly arrogant expression Jan had noticed on her embassy homepage photo was long gone.

  Jan glared at her. “Do you know why you’re here?”

&nb
sp; “Because Yuri was murdered.” Her voice sounded fearful.

  “Nice try. You want to try again?”

  “Isn’t this about Yuri dying?”

  “This here? It’s about organ dealing.”

  Galina looked down at the floor.

  “We hacked Yuri Petrov’s cell phone this morning.”

  “That’s illegal,” Galina protested. “There is confidential information on that device—”

  “I don’t care!” Jan pounded on the table. Again Galina obliged him by flinching. “We came across an e-mail Yuri used to set up the transports to Germany. And imagine who we found helping him do it.” He aimed his finger at Galina. “You!”

  Jan leaned forward. “Let’s sum this up. You and Yuri didn’t only use your diplomatic immunity to smuggle organs to Germany, you even used the embassy’s private jet to do it. Are you aware of the repercussions for relations between our two countries?”

  Galina kept her head lowered. This was the decisive moment. Either she was going to cave and start talking, or she’d retreat back into her shell and say nothing.

  Jan leaned back without taking his eyes off his subject. He was under hellish pressure, time-wise, but the ball was in her court now.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Jan stifled a triumphant smile. “If I’m in need of an organ, how do I reach Yuri Petrov?”

  “We have various contacts in Berlin and the vicinity. These can be anything from caregivers to hospital staff to well-regarded doctors. Whenever they’ve got a customer who’s sufficiently desperate and able to pay, they turn to me or to Yuri. They get a finder’s fee.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Up to seven thousand euros, depending on the organ.”

  “Not bad for a tip. Then?”

  “Yuri has the patient’s records sent to him so he can find a donor organ the patient’s system can tolerate. He sends the info on to his contacts in Ukraine. As soon as an organ becomes available, the wheels are set in motion.”

  “Who are his people in Ukraine?”

  “No idea.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  “I was just the courier. When Yuri didn’t have time. He was the brains behind the operation. I smuggled the packages through customs and collected a commission.”

  “And you have nothing on the people behind it all? Faces? Names? Addresses?”

  Galina raised her head, her eyes welling up. “Even if I did know the people, I wouldn’t talk. If I did, I’d be dead before I even made it back to the embassy. A human life means nothing to these people.”

  “Which is why you went out of your way to help them?”

  Galina looked at the floor again. “Sometimes, a person has no choice.”

  “My heart’s just melting with sympathy.” Jan paged through his notes. “What happens once the package is inside Germany?”

  “I hand the organ over to Yuri. He takes it directly to the person who requested it. With most organs, the window is really short. Often under twenty-four hours.”

  “Were German officials involved in the smuggling?”

  “That wasn’t necessary. We had no reason to need them.”

  “So how was the organ transported? You’d need more than a secluded back room and a nurse for that. It’s not like a municipal hospital is using illegal organs.”

  “Yuri had connections to doctors in Berlin. Not many. Maybe four or five. But each of them is capable of doing an organ transplant. A few falsified documents and the staff doesn’t notice that the organ didn’t come via the donor registry.”

  “What kinds of organs are we talking about?”

  “Livers, lungs, kidneys, and corneas.”

  “A wide offering. Who are the doctors?”

  Galina shook her head at the floor. A tear might have dropped there. “Again, I was only just the courier, Herr Tommen. Yuri kept all the rest from me. I received three thousand euros per smuggle. You don’t ask questions.”

  “How many deals were you involved in?”

  “Just forty.”

  “And Yuri?”

  “Twice that.”

  Jan shook his head. At least eighty cases. He could guess the organs weren’t obtained legally. The previous owners were probably lying buried somewhere in Ukraine.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Three years.”

  “Are others in the embassy involved?”

  “I don’t think so, but this is not exactly a topic for the coffee break. I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “In those three years, has anything gone wrong with any of the deals?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “An unhappy customer who got the wrong organ? An unexpected death? A delivery arriving too late?”

  “Yuri told me so little. I think the operations always went well. Sometimes an organ is rejected despite all pre-exams and medications. Few survive such a thing, except when it’s eyes.”

  “Was there ever a deal that failed completely?”

  “No.” She wiped away tears.

  “Did Yuri ever get death threats?”

  “No one knew who he was or where he lived. It was all done by phone. Most handoffs were managed by the doctors, not the customers. As far as I know, they kept their mouths shut.”

  “But why did Yuri deliver those corneas personally when the operating doctors usually get them?”

  “Some customers have their own doctors. They just want the organ, and they take care of all the rest.”

  “So how could the grave murderer have learned about Yuri?”

  “No idea.” Galina’s lips quivered, her eyes wet again. After a moment she said, “Two days ago I got the assignment to travel to Ukraine under some pretext and pick up the corneas. There were no difficulties. I handed over the package to Yuri last night. Eyes aren’t generally a rush, so he waited until morning, took the cook’s car, drove to meet his contact. I don’t know anything more than that.”

  “Did Yuri keep any records of his business?”

  “He was too clever for that. If he got caught, he could only be linked to one or two cases. Yuri wrote down the most important info, kept it in a safe, then burned it once the organ was handed over.”

  Jan sighed. He’d been hoping for a list he could use to match with the other victims.

  “What about his contacts?”

  “He wrote them down somewhere. In his address book, on his phone—that or they’re lying in his safe. This list alone would not look suspect.”

  “You know any of them?”

  “No. But I’m sure you’d find some doctors in there.”

  Jan observed the woman. The events clearly were hitting her hard. He couldn’t tell whether Galina was so despondent because of the lost business or the death of Yuri Petrov. He figured she’d be back to her old self in a few hours. In which case the ambassador would either send her back home or take her under his protective wing.

  Jan grabbed his files and stood. He’d gotten everything he could out of Galina. It was time to find out what the others had found out.

  “Welcome, everyone!” Max gushed. He sat in the police conference room before a telephone and speaker. Jan was pinning the latest photos of the dead Yuri Petrov on a bulletin board. The shots showed head wounds in all their graphic detail.

  “Zoe is on the line from Forensics and Chandu from home. So we’re looking good.”

  Zoe’s voice droned from the speaker: “Looking good? With a fourth victim and no sign of the killer? Have you been downing energy drinks again?”

  Max straightened. “No. What makes you think that?”

  “That’s just swell,” she growled.

  “Listen up,” Jan started in. “Even if the murderer slipped out of my grasp, I’m beginning to see a pattern.” He pinned one last photo to the board. “Yuri Petrov didn’t seem to fit the other victims at first because he looked like an embassy staffer rather than an organ dealer. Now the picture does fit, and we�
��re getting closer to a motive.”

  “Which would be?” Chandu asked.

  “Revenge.”

  “Now there’s a new one,” Zoe remarked.

  “When the murderer killed Yuri Petrov, he spoke about getting revenge for his daughter. That’s the one piece of the puzzle that was missing.”

  Jan went over to the board and pointed at Bernhard Valburg’s photo. “Dr. Valburg was a pulmonologist who specialized in lung diseases. This will become important later. His eyes were gouged out. There’s some room for interpretation, but I’m going with the obvious. Dr. Valburg didn’t see something that he was supposed to see.”

  “A misdiagnosis,” Zoe offered.

  “Exactly. The murderer went to see the doctor to get treatment for his daughter.”

  “Sometimes there’s nothing to be done, and people die even though the disease was treated correctly,” Zoe said.

  “Whether Dr. Valburg was guilty or not is irrelevant. Maybe he did all he could, maybe he failed. We still don’t know.” Jan pointed to the car salesman’s photo. “Let’s turn to Moritz Quast, when he was working for the health insurer. His tongue was cut out. We can assume from this that he said something he wasn’t supposed to say. But what? Look at it from another angle—when he was doing his job as an administrator.”

  “He rejected a treatment or a medication,” Chandu said.

  “For pulmonology, it could be a lot of things,” Zoe explained. “Ranging from naturopathic remedies and breathing exercises to antibiotics, oxygen therapy, thoracic drainage, and on up to partial lung resection.”

  “We don’t have any details on this,” Jan said, “but we don’t need them for our investigation. The murderer believes that Moritz Quast, in his function as a health-insurance administrator, was somehow responsible for his daughter’s death.”

  “Not too hard to figure out Robin Cordes,” Zoe said. “Robin was supposed to get the medication the insurance rejected, but on the black market.”

  “But either the medicine didn’t work,” Jan continued, “or he wasn’t able to get it.”

  “Thus the fingers cut off,” Chandu said.

  “Which brings us to Yuri Petrov, the organ dealer.”

  “He was supposed to get the murderer’s daughter a new lung,” Zoe said.