by Tanja Pleva
Without being aware, Lea slightly bent her head while observing Ella. On her narrow shoulders sat a thin long neck that supported this small head, which was persistently flicking back and forth. Beneath, without any proper transition, her body extended broadly sweeping down to the pelvis from which spindly short legs stood out. A human chicken. Fascinating she thought. This human being had adapted to its surroundings and to the animals with which it had lived.
Lea quickly realized that this young woman suffered from idiocy, a typical result of incest.
Nurse Rosa left the room and Nathalia, the other nurse, cleaned up and covered the bed for Ella who now wore a pink gown.
'By the way, where has little Alfonso Villegas gone? Back home for nursing?' asked Lea, as if she knew nothing about the entry in her brother's day planner.
Nathalia had been serving the home for two years. She was just twenty years old, had finished nursing school and had immediately been accepted at the home. She was always friendly and obliging, but also very taciturn.
'You didn't know that he died last December, shortly before Christmas?'
'Oh, really?' Lea hoped that her surprised tone sounded authentic. 'What did he die of?'
'Renal shutdown, they said.' Nathalia cast a look at Lea, which she could not quite interpret.
They said … was this supposed to imply that it might not be the truth? If that girl was on her side, she might even ask more questions. She was not quite sure.
'There were quite a few deaths here last year', she said laconically, scribbling into the patient's file.
'Don't know about that. Sometimes there are more, sometimes less. Isn't it like that, Doña Lea?' Again that look.
The chicken woman walked excitedly around in the room and produced those clucking sounds again.
'Where are the actual files of the deceased patients?'
'Doña Lea, I got …'
At that moment the door opened and Nurse Rosa entered the room again. She brought food for the chicken woman who started to gurgle at the sight.
Rosa had been working for about ten years at the home. Lea had always exchanged only the most necessary words with her, otherwise they avoided each other as much as possible. For Lea had admonished her a few times with regard to how negligently she had treated some patients. Rosa did not appreciate being told things. She scheduled the staff's weekly duties and her boss was Rafael Rodriguez, not his sister, who would only occasionally drop in and had basically no idea what was going on in the home.
Nathalia fell immediately silent and stuffed the sheet into the mattress without looking at Lea again.
What had she wanted to say that Rosa was not supposed to hear?
Lea decided to look in after the chicken woman at another time when she was finished eating. She stepped out into the corridor that, as it always did, smelled of a mixture of urine, perspiration and chemicals that were supposed to hide the acid stench.
They now had three AIDS patients in the home who had been put away in back rooms by their families because their relatives had treated them like lepers. Their primitive minds still believed AIDS to be a punishment from God. Neighbors and relatives were told in such cases that the son, grandchild or daughter was studying abroad. Two of the patients were so weak that they would probably not survive the week.
Lea had just wanted to continue her consultation when Nathalia left the chicken woman's room. She had her eyes turned to the ground, but when she passed Lea, she briefly looked up and said quietly, 'We must talk, Doña Lea.' Then she asked her with a gesture to follow her into the laundry room.
Lea looked around to see if somebody was looking, but nobody was there.
The laundry room did not smell of starch and washing powder but of staleness and humidity.
'Doña Lea - how shall I start? - there are a few cases that are rather odd.' Nathalia turned the end of her long black hair into a lock and looked at Lea nervously.
'To what extent? What do you mean by odd?' She felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rise.
'There was, for example, Maria José, do you remember her? The Flower Lady, she who always painted flowers on the walls.'
Lea remembered quite well this mentally handicapped but physically healthy woman of about forty years. Wherever she walked she would paint flowers on walls, floors, chairs and tables. At the beginning she had used thick felt-tip pens, then they had given her chalk, so that it was easier to wash off.
'What about her?' she asked curiously.
'She just disappeared one night.'
'What do you mean by just?'
'I was on the night shift then. I took her to her bed and when I looked in on her at three o'clock in the morning, she was gone. I looked everywhere for her. The next day, the boss bawled me out, but…'
'Go on?'
'I also looked in the cellar for her. And there I saw him.'
'Him?'
'Well your brother.'
'So what? There's nothing uncommon about that.'
'Well I'm not sure. It was three o'clock in the morning.'
Lea eyebrows slightly raised. Indeed, this was peculiar. What had Rafael's business been down there? Maybe he had prepared somebody for burial.
'Had anyone died the day before?'
Nathalia thought about it. 'That day was my first night shift after I had been ill for a week. I can't say for sure.'
'What about Oscar? Was he ill as well?'
Nathalia shook her head.
Lea convinced herself that there was nothing unusual about her brother being in Pathology. Of course he often investigated a patient's death himself.
Once, when he had been drunk, he had confessed to her that he was more fascinated by dead bodies than by living ones. Amateur pathology was in a way his hobby. Rafael had never wanted to study medicine. He had only done so because it had been his father's wish. His own greatest desire had been to visit Europe for some undefined time, as soon as he graduated from the University of Antioquia. Far away from the family.
The lightning that had hit their father fifteen years before had foiled that. Rafael was unceremoniously appointed head of the home. El Hogar del Desválido, the Home of the Unworthy One, had been founded by her father in 1970. It was chiefly financed by donations.
'Where are the files of the patients, living and deceased?'
'Down in the cellar. But Rosa has the key to the filing cabinet.'
This was annoying, of course. Ironically this old hag just had to have it, thought Lea. She had never had to face serious troubles before. Obstacles, yes, but they could be overcome.
She left Nathalia in the laundry room and finished her visit today earlier than usual. She had to take care, once more, of the keychain with the spare keys.
31.
Munich 'Goethe said very correctly, Basically, Man is capable of everything.'
Clever sayings were the last thing that Sam needed now. 'Is that all you can tell me, Dr. Jäger?' he asked angrily, in fact, he was tempted to grab this sympathetically smiling therapist by his collar and shake him wide-awake. 'Another innocent person will die because a living emotional bomb is running rampant on the street. I'm sick of it!'
Sam was furious. He was angry with himself because he still had not had a brilliant idea, upset because he could not anticipate the next move of that scumbag, loathing a society that would produce such schizoid freaks, as well as angry with his therapist who was looking at him stupidly and taking notes to psychologically evaluate them later.
'I know how you feel. It is sort of like powerlessness. You have the feeling of being buried alive. But that will pass.'
Phrases and phrases that he did not want to hear.
'Do not forget Sam, that you were mentally rather unstable during the last few months. After your girlfriend's death you had for the first time in your life dropped everything. You locked yourself in; suddenly you didn't care about anything. You ceased pretending to be the Dark Knight and that was a kind of catharsis, believe me. A per
son will turn ill if he cannot admit his feelings and keeps suppressing them.'
It was Sam's fourth session and the third time that Dr. Jäger told him that, using the exact same phrasing.
'Bullshit, you don't really think that anyone out there was interested in what it looks like inside here?' Sam energetically tapped on his heart. 'Important is that you do your job.'
At night he laid awake most of the time, dog-tired, yet asking himself for the meaning of all this. Did he really want to go on spending his life hunting morbid minds that proliferated every day anew, like weeds? Eighty percent of all serial killers had suffered childhood conflicts with at least one parent. Eighty percent! How many anti-social families were there on this globe fertilizing the soil from which potential murderers would spring? People who in childhood were beaten, abused, humiliated, tortured, disgraced and deeply disappointed, transforming mental injuries into extreme emotional impoverishment and apathy against their environment? And sometimes they were unleashed and the accumulated hatred discharged like an over-pressured pot. They would kill in a frenzy.
Only that this particular murderer did not kill in a frenzy. He acted in a controlled and organized fashion. No signs of rashness or emotional manslaughter. He was neither a religious fanatic nor sexually motivated, nor was he a robber, although he had stolen a watch and some diamond earrings. Had he taken the pieces of jewelry to give to somebody, or maybe to sell them?
Jasmin Rewe had also worn jewelry, but nothing was missing. It had turned out in retrospect that it was just not his style? Anyway, he did not seem to collect memorabilia from his victims. This man apparently was waging a private war and war meant pure violence. Violence was used to pursue a specific purpose.
'Sam? It is a good thing if you let your annoyance go.' The therapist looked at the clock. Apparently the session was too tough today and he would have preferred to get rid of Sam.
'Sometimes you have to let go to get on. Maybe you should spend a day doing something else, without thinking about the case at all.'
'You are a real fucking desk jockey, Dr. Jäger. You know that I came back only recently, I cannot simply…' Sam snapped his fingers in the air '… drop out and say I got a headache.'
Sam got up from the blue couch, reached for his jacket and left the office, as Dr. Jäger called after him, 'Yet I think you should take a day off. Go to Malaga and clarify your inheritance.'
Juri was waiting in a nearby bakery, drinking cocoa and reading a newspaper when Sam came back from his therapy. These sessions had been wisely recommended by Very High Up, but after this last one it was obvious that Dr. Jäger had contributed enough to Sam's recovery and that he might, from now on, tell his clever sayings to someone else.
'Wow! You look as if you have beaten the crap out of someone's ass, Juri said, examining Sam's grumpy face.
'What's up?' Sam did not comment on that.
'Everyone is getting ready for the big medical conference in Berlin. Plainclothes units have been appointed inside and outside the most frequented hotels. Staff is carefully checked, so that nobody can gain access without authorization and everybody wears a green spot on his uniform. Cameras have been installed as well. And up to now, no further murder has happened, as far as I know.'
'How comforting', said Sam dryly. Ever since he had left the doctors office, Dr. Jäger's inspiration was haunting his mind and refused to go away. 'I think I'm going to get a ticket and clarify my inheritance.'
'What? Now?'
'Yes, at the moment we can't do anything anyway. All we can do is wait. Something may happen today or next week or next year, or not at all. Maybe he got his revenge now. All potential victims from the photo are either dead or lost. No other useful traces at the scenes of crime, which might help us. We have nothing, except his stupid lines and a blood group. Not even a motive. Splendid!'
'I see that you aren't in the best of moods.'
'What is that suppose to mean now?'
'That you should take that flight. I'll take care of everything else meanwhile.'
Sam looked at Juri suspiciously, not knowing how to figure that out. But he liked it. Juri stayed calm while he himself felt quarrelsome.
'Come on, what are you waiting for. The conference will begin on Wednesday, then we should be present in Berlin.'
'Indeed, why not? Berlin, Frankfurt, Milan, Zurich, Madrid - who knows where that fucking ass will show up next to drop us another eloquent slip of paper?'
'You think Berlin doesn't fit in?'
Sam shrugged his shoulders as his mobile started to play a ringtone that he had definitively not selected.
Juri suppressed a laugh when Sam lashed out against his ribs. 'Keep your fingers off my cellphone! What is this tune, actually?'
'The theme of “Hawaii Five-O”.Was on German TV during the 1970s, like “Kojak” or “Starsky and Hutch”. You should remember from your childhood. Old-timer's stuff, you know. Yet cool - better than your previous tinkling.'
Sam shook his head disapprovingly while he read the name on the display. For one moment he held his breath and perceived the street noises around him like they were filtered.
'O'Connor?!'
'That's me', he said carefully and braced himself to hear the next terrible news.
But Estelle Beauchamp said merely, 'We found someone else who is in the photo.'
Less than half an hour later, Sam and Juri stood in front of a grey three story apartment building from the Sixties and pressed the doorbell next to the name, D. Thiel.
Sam took two steps away from the door so he could be clearly seen from the upper windows. Old people today were careful and usually didn't admit strangers. Indeed, somebody moved behind a curtain and the door buzzer sounded shortly after.
The flat was on the second floor. On the wall, opposite the front door, hung a poster of young Clint Eastwood, a smoking cigarillo in his mouth, distrustfully regarding intruders out of almost closed eyes.
They said their names again and produced their official identity cards before they entered the small well-furnished apartment of Doris Thiel.
In the sitting room there was an ancient worn leather couch and two matching armchairs on which Juri and Sam sat down. A little dog sniffed first at Juri and then at Sam before it jumped on its owner' lap to be fondly caressed on its neck.
'Go on then, gentlemen. I took it that … well, how shall I say … you very urgently wanted to see me?'
When Sam mentioned the name of her father, Doris Thiel's face turned gloomy, her eyes froze, jaw and body tightened. She concealed her reaction, though, and tried to continue smiling.
'Do you recognize your father in this?' Sam bent over the wooden table and handed to her the black-and-white photograph.
Doris Thiel took her glasses that hung on a colorful necklace of pearls, and held it closely over the image. 'Oh, yes. Unmistakably.' Her voice was full of contempt, fear and rage. 'He's the one in the center of the front row.'
'Do you recognize anybody else in that photo?'
Now she took more time. After a while she quietly said, 'I am not quite sure, but this man here one day personally delivered a letter to my mother.'
Sam and Juri got up at the same time and went around the table to see at whom Ms. Thiel was pointing. Her finger was on the head of a tall man who stood just behind Thiel. He was dark-haired, wore a side part and smiled for the camera.
'Are you sure?' Sam tried to sound not too hopeful.
'Pretty sure. I remember him so well because he secretly slipped an envelope with money in into my hand. It was from my father and it was probably meant to calm his bad conscience. Moreover, my mother was very fond of this guy. He was charming and handsome and he seduced her that very first night. For about three weeks he stayed with us, then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared. Whenever the postman drove onto our street later, my mother would run towards him in hope that a letter would arrive from this man.'
'And did a letter arrive?' Sam asked.
; Doris Thiel obviously enjoyed their attention. She offered biscuits from a small porcelain tin and took one herself. Nibbling at the biscuit, she took her time to answer.
'Yes, once, maybe half a year later, the postman finally brought a letter. Her face radiated. Never have I seen her so happy. But when she opened it – puff! went the magic cloud. She locked herself in her room and did not come out for seven days.'
'Do you know what …'
'… what the letter said?' Again, she deviously smiled. 'I will get it for you later if you want me to.'
Sam could hardly believe it. A lucky star shone upon them. This would fill another gap in the puzzle. He fidgeted on his armchair, trying to focus on the next questions.
'Do you have any idea where the photo was taken?' Juri asked quickly.
'I am not sure. I think it was some place in South America.'
That one came as a surprise to Sam. He had all times taken Spain for granted.
'I was living with my father at the time. Then, when I was eight, he sent me back to my mother in Darmstadt, Germany, without saying a word about it. Then for a long time I heard nothing from him. At sometime he must have remembered his daughter and started to write letters. I never answered them.'
Sam thought about asking for her reasons, but decided against it for the time being.
'In South America, you said? Didn't he have a permanent residence?' Juri chewed on the end of his ballpoint pen.
'We were living quite reclusively in Argentina. No personal contacts. And when one day two men asked for him, he told us he had to go away for a short time.'
'Do you remember what kind of men they were?'
'They looked like FBI agents you see on television. Sinister looks, laconic. One of them had a gun, as far as I remember. They stayed for about three hours in our house, examining everything and when my father did not come, they left. That same evening, my father packed his belongings. He sent me to Germany on the very next airplane, claiming that my mother wanted to see me, which was not quite true. And the employee, with her rounded belly, he just left behind in the house. The letters, which I received later, were sent from different places in Brazil. He was probably always on the run from those men. And then news of his death came, I think, from Colombia.'