Deadline

by L. T. Ryan

  Was the condition of the place a reflection of the man’s mental state?

  I wondered what their life was like when he and his wife were together. Did they live here? Had they been better off than he was now?

  “Well?” the guy said.

  I took in the rest of the apartment then settled my gaze on him.

  He crossed his left arm over his right. His watch slid down his forearm an inch. I hadn’t noticed it before now. He wore an Omega Planet Ocean with an orange bezel. The model was easily worth over five thousand dollars. The cost of one brand new could probably cover rent in this place for six months, maybe more.

  “We have things to do,” the guy said. “My girls need to go to school. I have work.”

  “I won’t take much more of your time,” I said. “I just need you to tell me the truth about your wife.”

  CHAPTER 35

  He inched his head backward until he stared up at the ceiling. Was he choosing his words or coming up with a story? He filled his lungs with a deep breath, leaned forward over the table, and exhaled, letting his lips flap together. He looked up at me, held my gaze for several seconds.

  “Can I have a cup of coffee?” he said then he started laughing while shaking his head. “Christ, I’m asking for coffee in my own house. What the hell?”

  I saw the fire in his eyes. This man was not used to being in a subservient position. He gave the orders. I wondered how difficult the internal struggle in him was at that moment. Did he want to strike out? If his daughters weren’t present, would he have already? I gave him a second to settle down, then moved toward the counter where the coffeemaker was perched.

  The dark brew smelled fresh, so I poured a mug for both of us, then took a seat opposite him at the table.

  “Ready?” I said.

  He nodded then started his story. “My wife was diagnosed with liver cancer three years ago, uh, and two months now. The prognosis was grim. They said she likely had a year to live.”

  “These doctors,” I said. “They were good? Or were you stuck with whatever insurance told you to do?”

  “No, they were good. We had our pick, and I researched the hell out of them. We even took her for a, um, second opinion in Berlin. They gave her the same prognosis. Lucky to live a year, they said.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  He blew the steam off the top of his coffee and took a sip. He savored it for a few seconds before swallowing. “She followed the treatment course, which seemed to help for a little while. You know, it’s hard to tell if it was the cancer or the treatment that made her feel and look so dragged out.”

  I followed his gaze over to the bookshelf where a picture of his wife was perched.

  “That was her before she became sick,” he said.

  I stood, walked over to the bookshelf. “May I?”

  He extended his hand, palm up. “Sure.”

  The resemblance between Martina Kohl and the Ahlberg twins was remarkable. She could have passed for a sister or cousin.

  “You said she died a year ago,” I said, still staring at the ghost in the frame. “But that she fell sick over three years ago with twelve months to live. What happened after she beat the original time frame the doctors gave her?”

  He puffed out a laugh. “She said, ‘Screw those ignorant bastards.’”

  “The doctors?” I glanced up at him.

  He nodded. “They gave her a year, and she beat it. So she decided to tackle the cancer on her own.”

  “But she beat it with their help, right?”

  “No, she only did one round of treatment. Said it felt like that was going to kill her faster than the cancer.” He shook his head, smiling to himself. “You believe that?”

  I said nothing. Couldn’t tell if the statement was one of anger or incredulousness.

  “She still saw them,” he said. “But she wouldn’t let them do anything to her.”

  “Over the next year or so did she improve? Get worse?” I played into what he’d said earlier. “Obviously she passed, but was it sudden or did it drag for a long time?”

  He sat there for a few moments, thinking it over. Then he leaned back and looked toward the bedroom.

  “Everything OK?” I said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “My girls.”

  “You can check on them in a few. Tell me what happened with your wife.”

  “In those months she seemed to get better and was back to herself, taking care of the girls, and me.” He smiled momentarily, perhaps recounting a memory of his wife fixing his tie or making sure he had his lunch before heading off to work, maybe even getting frisky under the sheets. “She resumed the things she loved doing.”

  “Such as?”

  “Running was a big one,” he said. “Especially on trails. She would take off for a day and night every few weeks to camp and hike and run trails. Frankly, I never saw much point to it. I guess if a bear or something was chasing me, I’d run. But why else?”

  I shrugged, said nothing.

  “My wife seemed healthy again.” He spread out his arms and let his hands fall on the table.

  “Was the cancer in remission at that time?”

  Staring down at the table, he shook his head. “One can suppose, but she stopped going to the doctor. Stopped getting X-rays. It was as if she was acting on blind faith. My priest actually said that he believes she had enough faith that doing it her own way would work she had tricked her body into thinking she was OK. And perhaps that’s why it happened so fast. The cancer was there, eating away at her all that time and she did nothing to combat it.”

  The bedroom door cracked open and one of the girls poked her head out. She said something in German.

  Her father waved her back in the room without saying anything. His face and ears had turned red. At first I thought it was in response to his daughter trying to leave the room early. I soon realized it was for another reason.

  “It was selfish, what my wife did. She thought nothing of the girls, her daughters. Nothing of me.”

  “Maybe it’s selfish of you to assume that,” I said. “She was the one dying. Inside, she might’ve felt that she lived her life more fully during that year than at any other time. Perhaps she loved you and the girls more than ever in that year. Your own blindness to the situation caused you to not see it. Maybe she felt that a year living the way she wanted was better than the treatment and feeling, not simply knowing, that she was dying.”

  “She was dying.” His hands balled into tight fists. He lifted them but stopped short of slamming them down on the table.

  “There’s a difference between knowing you’re dying and feeling every moment of it happening.”

  He sat motionless for a minute, then started shaking his head.

  “No,” he said. “It was all because of that damn woman.”

  CHAPTER 36

  A swath of deep red coated his face. He drummed his fingertips violently on the table. I imagined it wasn’t easy to relive what had happened to his wife. Especially when he was forced to tell a stranger every detail. I’d lost people too soon and understood the emotions that went with it. So I let him take his time. He’d held nothing back thus far. At least it seemed that way.

  After a moment of silence, I pressed for more. “What woman?”

  “She went by some made-up name.” He shook his head. “I won’t even repeat it, it’s so ridiculous.”

  “It’d help if you would,” I said.

  “Veronica Ingersleben. That helpful?”

  I wanted to say no but refrained and nodded instead.

  “I only met her a few times,” he said. “She was a natural or alternative healer. I still don’t quite understand how my wife found her. The internet, I guess. She’d started spending so much time on the computer after the diagnosis, looking for alternative methods to fight the cancer.”

  “What did this woman look like?”

  “I always thought she resembled Martina.” He stared past me, his eyes fixed on some
spot above my head. “She had dark hair, but it looked unnatural. Like she’d dyed it. And her skin always looked tan, but you could tell it was from an oil or cream. A bronzer, I think you call it?”

  I nodded.

  He continued. “She saw this healer quite a few times. Weekly, actually. The woman made my wife drink foul smelling green drinks, eat raw meat, and consume all kinds of herbs and other oddities. She provided her with oil to consume, too, from the cannabis plant.”

  “But it helped, right? You said she resumed the activities she enjoyed, but it sounds like you were against her working with this healer.” I had to keep him talking, answering questions, that way if I asked anything point blank he’d be more likely to respond.

  “Yeah, it helped for a while. But in the end, the result was death.” He placed his elbows on the table, lowered his head into his open palms. His eyes misted over. “If it were up to me, she never would have seen that healer-woman. She would have kept battling the traditional way, and she might be alive right now. It would be her at the table with me, not you. My girls and I wouldn’t be left in this state of utter confusion on what to do next with our lives.”

  “You keep living,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Is that everything?” I asked.

  He looked up at me with a penetrating gaze. His face set in stone. He said nothing. Was it the trauma of reliving the loss of his wife?

  I felt for the guy, and at the same time, I had to remain focused on the alternative healer. That was the link to Ahlberg. I pulled out a recent photo of Katrine and placed it on the table in front of the man.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  I studied his face, watching for any sign of recognition or concealment. I saw neither.

  “Have you ever seen that woman?” I said.

  “Would I ask who it was if I had?” he said.

  “Possibly.” I placed another photo on the table. “If you wanted to hide something.”

  He straightened and, biting his bottom lip, glanced toward the bedroom where his daughters waited.

  “If there’s something you’re not telling me,” I said, “it’s best you come out with it now. Last thing you want is the guys above me visiting you after it’s been determined you withheld information.”

  He became flushed, and his forehead dampened with sweat. He recognized Ahlberg in the second photo, and that set off a chain reaction of what-ifs in his mind. He pushed his chair back, walked to the sink. Water spilled over his turned-up palms. He doused his face, turned back to me, his shirt and hair each half-soaked.

  I stood and repositioned myself to block him from any attempt at leaving. With his behavior, I couldn’t discount he might try to jump out the windows lining the opposite wall.

  The guy mumbled something to himself. I couldn’t tell if it was in German or English. Either way, it was indistinguishable.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  He grabbed the back of his head, pulled, stared upward.

  “Tell me,” I said. “It may seem insignificant, but I can use any information you have.”

  “That woman,” he said. “She looks like the healer. Not one hundred percent, but close enough. I guess the hair could be the difference. The healer was always coated in makeup in addition to the tanning lotion. Heavily, I might add. Her lips were always so red, and she tried to make them look fuller than they were.”

  “Do you know where she is?” I said.

  He meshed his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, then stuffed his hands in his pocket.

  “My wife is dead,” he said.

  “Yes, died a year ago,” I said.

  He nodded, said nothing.

  “Unless she didn’t?” I said it to gauge his reaction.

  He fell back a step, colliding with the counter and using one hand to stop him from falling. His face paled and sweat beaded on his forehead and began streaming down his cheeks.

  “Tell me about her final moments,” I said.

  “I…,” he dropped to his knees. “I can’t.”

  “Too painful?” I said. “Or just plain bullshit?”

  Fear replaced the pained look on his face.

  “How long did you think you could get away with this?” I said. “What was the plan? You’d meet up in a year or two someplace remote and resume your life together?”

  His mouth hung open. “What?”

  I pulled my pistol and aimed it at him. He spread his arms out, clenched his eyelids.

  I raised my voice a notch. “Did you really think you could get away with this?”

  “It’s in the freezer, wrapped in a bag to protect it.” He squinted his eyes closed, and held his hands out in front as he scooted his feet underneath him. “I never cashed it in. She told me to wait, so I waited.”

  I kept my pistol trained on him as I tried to figure out what the hell he was talking about. What was in the freezer? I gestured with my head for him to rise and go to the fridge.

  “Get it out,” I said. “Put it on the table. Then step back.”

  He pulled the freezer door open. Cold air escaped and formed a wispy cloud around his head. I repositioned myself to see what he was doing inside. I had to be prepared in the event he pulled a weapon out. He pushed aside ice cream, frozen meat and other food, and leaned far enough in that his shoulders were past the opening. When he turned, he held a bag. I couldn’t tell the contents through the hazy plastic. He tossed the package on the table and walked back to the sink.

  “I knew something was wrong from the beginning,” he said. “That’s why I never claimed the money. A ten million dollar policy? I think I would have noticed a monthly payment for that amount of coverage.” He looked up from the cloudy bag on the table. “Understand? Something was wrong. And I figured one day the insurance agency would send someone like you to take the money back. Much easier if I haven’t cashed it in, right?”

  Insurance? He thought I was there over a damn insurance policy?

  “Where is she?” I said. “And don’t lie to me. You know how serious fraud is, right?”

  “She’s dead,” he yelled.

  I yelled back louder and raised the pistol for additional effect. “Then why are you afraid to claim the money?”

  “I told you, I never knew she had a policy to begin with. It just didn’t seem right.”

  I waited for him to continue. He required prompting. “And?”

  He took a deep breath and steadied his trembling hands before walking to the curio. He rose up on the tips of his toes and reached for the back of the top shelf. A cookbook fell to the floor, opened to a minced meat recipe. Several printouts of recipes had spilled onto the floor. When he turned toward me, he held a simple white urn that had turned grey with dust on the lid. I’d lost many close friends and family over the years. Once they were gone, they were gone, save for a select few. I imagined that’s how he felt as he held the urn, caressing it as though he were touching his wife’s face once again.

  He set it on the table, lifted the lid, and knocked the urn over. Ash spilled out, cascading over the edge of the table and onto the floor. Air from a nearby vent sent a cloud of his wife’s remains floating off. Bernd Kohl looked up at me with dead eyes.

  “I never saw the body.”

  CHAPTER 37

  He scooped up a handful of the ash, parted his fingers slightly, let the remains slip through. They drifted and formed a small pile. His breathing was labored. His focus turned to the pistol. I presumed he feared what would happen next.

  “You weren’t there when she died,” I said, confirming the facts as he’d laid them out.

  He nodded, said nothing, looked away.

  “And you never saw the body, only the cremated remains?”

  He nodded again refusing to make eye contact.

  “When did you get the insurance check?” I said

  “The day she brought me the urn,” he said.

  There were only two ‘she’s’ mentioned in this conve
rsation. “You mean the healer? The one that resembles that woman in the photo on the table.” The picture was covered with his wife’s remains now.

  He glanced at the pistol, then at me. A half-dozen wrinkles sliced his forehead into sections. “Yes, the healer. Only she was different this time. Gone was the ruse of one who could cure disease. She looked hardened and cold and pale. More than capable of killing me.”

  “She threatened you.”

  He took a long moment before responding. “She told me to wait before cashing it.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “She’d take the girls. Someone like you would show up at my door, and I’d lose everything. My kids, the money.” He clawed another scoop of ash, and clenched his fist. A tight line of remains cascaded to the table. “And my life.”

  I studied him, wondering if that was all. What kind of timeframe had she given him? Was he supposed to receive a call from her when he was allowed to deposit the check?

  “So we moved,” he said. “To this shitty apartment to wait it out. She told me that I’d know when the time was right to claim the money. And then, well, then I was to leave the country. Go someplace remote and start a new life. But that’s not going to happen now, is it?”

  I stared him down, said nothing.

  “Answer me, you prick!” He slashed his arm across the table, clearing it of the urn and most of the cremated remains. “Kill me now if you’re going to do it. Or are you too much of a pussy to shoot me with the kids in here?”

  I’m not sure when he grew a backbone, but his tirade had zero chance of working. “You’re not in a position to make demands. And I have a couple more questions for you.”

  He drew in a deep breath and sighed, dejected. “What? I’ve told you everything.”

  “You sure?”

  “Everything I can remember.”

  “Did she give you anything else? A forwarding address or phone number?”

  He shook his head.

  I rose and rounded the table, keeping the pistol aimed at him. He started sobbing when I disappeared from his field of vision. This could go one of two ways. Either he’d told me the truth as he knew it, and no threat existed by letting him live. Or, he lied, was in on it from the beginning, and the first thing he’d do after I left was make a phone call reporting my presence. For all I knew, the guy had one of those security cameras hidden in a teddy bear recording the whole thing.