Until the Debt Is Paid

by Alexander Hartung

  Chandu yanked the cup from her and went into the kitchen.

  “Okay, then,” Jan said. “It’s late, and I want to be rested up for this operation of ours. Chandu and I will head over there tomorrow evening and—”

  “Me too,” Zoe interjected.

  “Zoe, I thought we’d made it clear that—”

  “Oh, quit babbling. I’m coming along, if only to see how Mr. T here cracks the lock. That counts as one of those things you can always use later. Plus, it’s not like the place is a sealed-up crime scene.”

  She turned toward the kitchen. “What, you have to go harvest that coffee? Move it!” She pulled a Gauloise from her pack and lit it up, grinning. “When we going?”

  Jan sighed. “Tomorrow, ten p.m. Wear something low-key. Preferably no high heels.”

  Chapter 16

  Patrick sat between stacks of files, wearily stirring his coffee. He just wanted to go home and sleep for a week. His run-in with Jan had not given him peace. At first he’d wanted to laugh at Jan’s accusations, and yet the way Jan had laid them out did make them sound convincing. He didn’t know what to think. It was no different from his own speculations about Jan being the serial killer. Once the evidence gets interpreted another way, every theory disintegrates into nothing.

  He did not like Jan. That, combined with his shot at solving a big case as head of Team Judge, had blinded him to everything else. He was realizing his mistake too late.

  He looked around the office. At this early hour, only Jan’s friend Andreas Emmert was at his desk. The man’s typing was the sole sound on the floor. Andreas had doubted Patrick’s theory from the beginning. He’d never bought the idea that Jan had murdered Judge Holoch. Patrick should’ve listened to the guy.

  “Morning, Andreas.”

  “Nothing new on Jan’s hideout,” Andreas said without taking his eyes off the screen.

  “It’s not necessary.”

  Andreas stopped typing.

  “Maybe we should be investigating other angles,” Patrick suggested.

  “Other angles?”

  “Such as ruling out Jan as the serial killer, and coming up with new suspects.”

  “Uh . . .” Andreas scratched at his head, confused.

  “It’s a long story,” Patrick told him. “It all started yesterday, when I was just getting home . . .”

  It was one of those middle-class housing developments near a subway station. Row houses with little yards set close to schools and a daycare. Every half hour a bus passed through the street, which was lined with midrange cars.

  It was 11:00 p.m. Jan had waited till all the lights in the neighboring houses had been extinguished. He still felt wiped out, but the painkillers were working their magic. Chandu fiddled with the lock while Zoe tapped her foot, impatient as usual. Not being allowed to light up a cigarette was really wearing on her nerves. She had dyed her hair black, and she wore dark pants and a thick, warm black-leather jacket. With the huge flashlight in her hand, she looked like the perfect cliché of a burglar. All that was missing was the black mask.

  Jan finally heard that welcome click. Chandu shouldered the door open and they darted inside. The air was stagnant. The burglar gods were looking out for them, though, because the shutters were rolled down and the blinds pulled shut. In here their flashlight beams would not give them away.

  “What now?” Zoe whispered.

  “You can talk normal,” Jan replied. “As long as we don’t knock over any furniture, no one’s going to hear us.”

  “Oh,” she said. She shone her light around as if expecting an ax murderer around every corner, but she didn’t seem nervous. He’d never seen her so steely.

  “We should split up,” Jan said. “Zoe searches the basement, I stay here, and Chandu goes upstairs.”

  The medical examiner headed to the basement stairway while the big man made his way upstairs. Jan stood in the middle of the living room and circled his flashlight beam, trying to form an initial impression. The Esels’ house was a typical single-family home. Bland from the outside and even more so inside. Shelves full of items found in a million similar homes. A handful of CDs, a few books, souvenirs from vacations, cheap prints from furniture stores. The leather couch, which had clearly served its time, was set in front of a flat-screen TV and DVD player. The half-open kitchen was small and not especially well equipped.

  Jan took books from the shelf, searching for any hidden notes. He opened CD cases and confirmed that the silver discs inside matched. Then he looked under the couch and was just scanning his light along the floor when a loud clang made him jolt.

  “My bad,” Zoe shouted up from the basement.

  Jan closed his eyes, sighing. What he’d give for his old investigations team. He went into the kitchen, set dishes aside, and checked the cabinets, then opened the washing machine, but nothing caught his eye in any way. He scrutinized every inch of the ground floor for an hour. Then he dropped onto the couch. He needed to rest a moment. His injury was bothering him. He felt ten years older. Just as he was shutting his eyes, he heard Zoe coming up the basement stairs. She stood behind him.

  “I’m not certain,” she said, “but I might have found something.”

  Jan got up. “What exactly?”

  “It’s hard to say. Call Mr. T and come down to the basement.” With that, she went back downstairs.

  “I can hear you guys.” Chandu was coming down his stairs. He and Jan followed Zoe to the basement.

  “What’s up, Lady Cadaver?”

  “Check this out,” she said, her voice clearly excited. “I went about my search down here systematically. From rear to front. Then right to left. The walls are spaced evenly. Over there is a little storage room.” Her head jerked to the right. “On the other side, there’s nothing. Except for the wall.”

  “What if they needed room for pipes, something else like that?” Jan said.

  “The shaft for pipes and wiring, it’s back there behind us.”

  “Maybe they didn’t include that area in the foundation, for structural reasons.”

  Zoe shook her head. “There’s something behind the wall. One part of it is made from stagrock.”

  “It’s called sheetrock,” Chandu corrected her.

  “Whatever.”

  Jan studied the wall. “Could be possible, but I don’t see any way in. Whoever was hiding something back here would have to break through the wall to retrieve it.”

  “What I thought at first too, but check out that wallpaper.”

  Jan felt along the wall. “Thick, lots of fibers. What’s so weird about that?”

  “Only this stretch of wall is covered with wallpaper.”

  “Why just cover one part of a basement wall?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering,” Zoe replied.

  “Well, then . . .” Jan ripped down wallpaper. A bare wall appeared behind it. A person had to look closely to make out two hinges and a small finger hole. Jan stuck his finger in and pulled. The door opened with a faint creak.

  “Holy shit,” Zoe said as their three flashlights lit up the room.

  Jan’s mouth dropped open. No words came out.

  The room was lined with narrow shelving holding countless movies. Most of them were older movies, copied from VHS onto CD or DVD. All had one thing in common: they were child porn. The room was every pedophile’s dream.

  “Fucking bastard,” Chandu said.

  “Who can even watch sicko shit like this?” Zoe remarked.

  “I don’t think the Esels were the ones watching it,” Jan said.

  “What?”

  “Every movie here has at least five copies. I’m thinking the Esels had a thriving little racket selling child porn.”

  “And to think I felt sorry for the woman,” Chandu said. “They got what they deserved, at least.”

>   “Let’s start going through this,” Jan said. “We have to be done before it gets light out. Later, at home, we can speculate on how it all fits.” He turned to Chandu. “Are you done upstairs?”

  “Not completely,” he replied. “I found a couple photo albums in some kind of den. I was about to go through them when Zoe called us.”

  “This room’s too small for three,” Jan said. “I’ll keep looking upstairs. Take photos of all of it. Keep an eye out for names of possible clients, but don’t take anything. Put everything back in its place. Tomorrow I’ll be tipping off Homicide, so get those gloves on.”

  On the way upstairs, Jan looked at the clock. It was after two. In three hours they had to be out of here so they wouldn’t run into any early risers, bread trucks, or paperboys. Still, there was a chance the Esels had done him the favor of taking photos of some of their clients.

  Jan held a photo album and paged through it. “Construction 2001,” it read on the front. The first shots showed the excavating. Then came the basement, walls, ceiling, and the roof. The topping-out ceremony was one big party. The beer-garden tables were practically bowing under all the food and drink. They had maybe forty guests there. Children frolicked around, and two dogs were tussling over an old cable. Horst and Sarah Esel looked happy.

  Jan turned pages. By evening, the guests were clearly on their way to getting drunk. The next photo had been cut out in the middle, the lower part removed. Only five faces could be seen. Standing before the celebration wreath, all friends in complete harmony, were Horst and Sarah Esel, Judge George Holoch, and Michael Josseck. Jan had always guessed a connection between the four, but the fifth person shocked the breath out of him.

  It was Father Anberger.

  He had more hair on his head and looked younger, but that was his neighbor in the picture, unmistakably.

  “Goddamn it,” Jan said. Now everything was clear. The priest’s interest in the case. His willingness to help. Jan felt like he’d been slapped. He had trusted the old man, but it turned out he’d only wanted to spy on Jan. He set the album down and ran down the stairs.

  “Chandu, Zoe!” he shouted through the house. “Drop everything. We have to go.”

  Zoe appeared at the basement steps. “We’re not done yet.”

  “We got what we need,” Jan told her. “I’ll tell you all about it in the car.”

  “Father Anberger?” Chandu couldn’t believe it. He drove them down the empty city highway. “I never would’ve guessed.”

  “It fits,” Zoe said. “Now we have the connection to Jan.”

  “But we’re missing a motive,” Jan said.

  “It’s obvious,” Zoe explained. “Father Anberger found out what kind of sick bastards his friends were. Then he found a passage in the Bible that justified brutal vengeance for the sins, and he went off.”

  “But why frame me for it?”

  “So he’d be left alone,” Zoe replied. “While the police are focused on you, he’s spying out his next victim. He was friends with all of them, so he could easily get into their homes. Then he either shocks them with the stun gun or mixes drugs into their drink, and then he can do with them what he wants.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Jan buried his face in his hands. “Father Anberger, a psycho serial killer? I cannot have been that wrong about a person.”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” Zoe said. “There are hundreds of psychopaths who’ve used religion to justify brutal killings.”

  “People like that were nuts from the time they were born, though,” Jan said. “Father Anberger is a considerate man, admired in his congregation. No religious maniac could keep up a masquerade for so long.”

  “Sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think.”

  “What’s the plan?” Chandu asked.

  “We go over to Father Anberger’s.”

  “At three in the morning?”

  “All the better. Then he’ll be at home.”

  “You do know that police are still observing the building,” Chandu reminded him. “Even if Patrick did let you go, they haven’t lifted the manhunt for you.”

  “There’s a little hidden path around my building that leads to the rear entrance. At this hour we’ll be able to get in without being seen.”

  “So what do we do then?” Zoe asked. “Shoot the priest?”

  “I’ll confront him with all the facts. Then we’ll see what drove him into doing this, why he picked me to be the fall guy. I trusted him and confessed it all to him, but he only used the knowledge to throw me to the vultures.” Jan pounded on the seat in rage. He felt so damn betrayed.

  “When do we get there?” he said.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Good,” Jan said. It was about time he put an end to all this.

  It was a strange feeling being home again. Jan had dreamed of this day again and again, yet his return was not like he’d hoped. He tiptoed up the stairs, Zoe and Chandu in tow. It was dark, the halls empty. He cursed at how loud the stairwell was, his soft footsteps echoing like thunder. Even so, all remained calm. No door opened and no lights turned on to give them away.

  At the door to Father Anberger’s apartment, Jan gave Chandu the signal, and he went to work on opening the door. They would surprise Father Anberger inside his apartment. The more unprepared someone was, the more you could find out. So if the three of them had to pull the old man out of bed, that was a good thing.

  Jan felt torn between rage and betrayal. He had believed that Father Anberger was his friend, and even more than that, his confidant. But the priest had not only lied to him, he had used Jan’s confessions against him.

  Chandu bumped at the blank key in the lock. He needed only two attempts and the door came open. As if on silent command, the three hurried inside and paused in the foyer, which led to the living room. Jan switched on his flashlight. And stopped himself from swearing out loud. This, he had not expected.

  Jan had been in the old priest’s apartment only once before, when he’d helped the man with his groceries. At the time he’d noticed the spartan furnishings and the clinical order of things. Now the furniture was the same, but there was no more order. The kitchen floor was covered in the shards of a broken ceramic flower pot. Dirt and water had blended into a brown, pulpy puddle. The little table in the middle of the room was tipped on its side. A wooden chair with a busted backrest lay against it.

  Chandu went into the bedroom and shone his flashlight around. Zoe checked the bathroom.

  “No one here,” the big man said. The medical examiner shook her head. Jan inspected the furniture and discovered a small drop of blood on the chair. Zoe bent down and examined the sticky glop.

  “Not too old,” she said. “From a few hours ago.”

  “What went on here?” Jan said, wracking his brain. “I just don’t get it.”

  “If it wasn’t for that blood? I’d guess a break-in,” Zoe said.

  “This looks like a struggle,” Chandu remarked.

  “But who was struggling, exactly?” Jan asked.

  “Maybe it was the father and his next victim,” Zoe said.

  “All the victims were killed in their homes,” Jan said. “Why would he bring someone here?”

  “Who knows what a serial killer’s thinking?” Zoe replied.

  “I’m going with an abduction,” Chandu said, shining his light over a house key and wallet left on a side table. “Someone nabbed the priest.”

  “Then there must be a third party. Judge Holoch, Michael Josseck, the Esels, and Father Anberger knew each other. With the first three, it’s not hard to imagine them up to some disgusting shit, but how does a priest fit into this?”

  “They got child abuse in the church too,” Zoe said.

  “We’ve just happened upon a child-porn ring,” Chandu said. “What if the murderer is an abused chil
d? When I think of all those DVDs at the Esels’, there’s a ton of suspects.”

  “They don’t just have to be abused children,” Zoe added. “Have to consider parents or friends too.”

  “So where’s the connection to me?” Jan asked them.

  “Maybe it was just bad luck,” Chandu said. “The murderer sought you out as a scapegoat. Could be that you didn’t even know him.”

  Jan cursed under his breath. Every time he thought he’d found the murderer, his hunch dissolved into nothing. He was relieved Father Anberger was only a victim, but it set him back. They still had nothing.

  “The priest could still be alive,” Jan began, “and if I call the police, my fellow cops will show up here at the door any minute. But every second I wait, his chance of survival keeps dropping. So. Check out everything. The apartment is small. I’ll give us five minutes. Then we clear out and I’ll report an abduction.”

  Zoe rushed into the bathroom as Chandu hurried into the bedroom. Jan started on the living-room cabinet. Two minutes later, he had found their clue.

  Chapter 17

  Jan stared at the picture in his hands. It was the same one he’d seen in Sarah and Horst Esel’s photo album. But on this copy, the bottom area was not cut off. It showed a girl, sitting in the meadow and dreamily smelling a flower in her hand. The photo was about ten years old, but Jan knew that face like no other.

  “Betty,” he whispered.

  “You find something?” Chandu shouted.

  Jan started, stuck the picture in his bag.

  “Yes. I don’t know how it helps, but I’ll tell you in a second. Let’s get out of here quick.”

  A minute later they were back out in the open air, sneaking through the rear courtyard to the car. Jan started dialing on his cell before Chandu could drive off.

  “Max,” he said into the phone, “look and see if the Esels had any children.”

  “Just a sec,” Max said. The sound of typing on the keyboard clattered in the background.

  “They did,” he confirmed. “Bettina and Johann.”