by James Carol
‘Yes.’
Winter shook his head. ‘No you wouldn’t. You were a cop for thirty years. You took an oath to protect the public. Even one per cent of doubt is too much when there’s a life at stake. Let’s say for a second that I’ve called this wrong. What’s going to happen? The next victim rolls the chair and ends up reduced to their constituent parts, and you’ve got a death on your conscience.’
Anderton said nothing.
‘And that’s what I’m talking about.’
‘What about you? If you’re wrong, that death is on your conscience.’
‘Not going to happen. The psychology’s on our side. Think about it. He could trigger the bomb a dozen different ways. He could have it wired up to a timer. Or he could be sat in a car, waiting for the husband to come home and trigger it using a cell phone. Or he could have it wired to a tilt switch just in case the victim tries to break free. Any one of those methods would produce the same result in that his victim would be just as dead.’
‘Except this guy needs the bomb to be triggered by the husband.’
‘That’s what makes his heart sing. He needs that door to open, and the bomb to go off. In that order. Door then bomb. He wants the husband’s hands soaked with the blood of his wife.’
Anderton stopped walking and waited for him to meet her eye. ‘In future, if you get an idea in your head I want to hear about it. Even the crazy ones that probably won’t come to anything. In fact, especially those. Are we clear on this?’
‘Crystal.’
‘In that case, I’ll say no more on the subject.’
She was still staring. Her expression had changed from borderline pissed to puzzled.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘During the first part of the interview you did a really good job building up that whole them-and-us dynamic, but then you undermined it all by warning the next victim.’
‘Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of an option. Where, why, who, remember? What I glimpsed back at Sobek’s house was the why of the situation. That gave us the opportunity to save a life, which trumps everything else. When you get down to it, we do this to save lives, right?’
‘Right. You know, I might resent every single breath that Delaney takes, but you couldn’t have asked for a better person to go up against. She made it easy for you.’
That was worth a laugh. ‘She did. The woman defines the concept of us and them. She lives to divide and conquer.’
They carried on walking to the car. Before getting in, Winter changed into a clean T-shirt, a Beatles one this time. It was a relief to get the shirt off, like learning to breathe again. The engine started smoothly with the first turn of the key.
‘Okay let’s go and see Kirchner,’ he said. ‘Where does he live?’
‘Mount Pleasant.’
‘ETA?’
‘This time of day, I reckon we’ll be there in twenty-five minutes.’
11
Eric Kirchner no longer lived in the house where his wife was killed. After the murder he hadn’t spent so much as a single minute there. These days he rented a small apartment on East Seventh Avenue. The neighbourhood had once been seedy but was now on an upward trajectory, location and rising property prices driving the district’s gentrification process. His apartment was in a rundown block that had so far resisted this. The developers would get here eventually, but not any time soon. There were much nicer properties to work with.
In the end it took thirty minutes to drive here, five more than Anderton’s estimate. There had been a minor traffic collision and they’d had to make a detour. Not that it mattered. Kirchner wasn’t home. Anderton knocked again just to be sure. Still no answer. She took out her cell, found Kirchner’s number, then pressed the screen to connect the call.
‘It’s been a while since I spoke to him. Let’s hope he hasn’t changed numbers.’
Winter tilted his ear toward the phone so he could listen. Three rings, then it was answered. The person on the other end was male, but the voice was too muffled to make out what was being said. The conversation was short. Anderton hung up and put her phone away.
‘Kirchner’s on his way back from work. He should be here in about fifteen minutes.’
‘He wasn’t happy to hear from you, was he?’
‘You could say that. He’s doing everything he can to forget that any of this ever happened. And then he gets a call out of the blue and he’s slammed right back into the past again.’
‘Even if you hadn’t called, it wouldn’t have made any difference. It’s the fifth tomorrow. His wife’s murder is all he’s going to be thinking about.’
‘I guess so.’
‘I vote we wait in the car. It’s more comfortable.’
Winter headed for the stairs. Anderton gave it a second, then followed. The Mercedes was parked fifty yards from the entrance. They climbed in and got settled. The apartment was directly ahead. There was no way for Kirchner to sneak past without them noticing.
‘All we need is some coffee and a bag of doughnuts and we could be on a stakeout,’ Winter said. ‘Talking of which, I’m starving. Once we’re done here, I need to find food.’
‘You know, I can’t remember the last time I went on a stakeout. It’s got to be years. Decades, even.’ She stopped talking and shook her head. ‘Jeez, where does the time go?’
‘I know what you mean.’
Anderton laughed. ‘No you don’t. You’re just a kid. The best years of your life are still ahead of you.’
‘Come on, you’re not that old, and I’m not that young.’
‘I’m fifty-three. And believe me there are some days where I feel every one of those years.’
‘Fifty is the new forty,’ Winter said.
‘And that’s easy to say when you’re in your still in your thirties.’
They fell into an easy silence, the seconds ticking by. Winter was staring out the windshield at the apartment building. Waiting for Kirchner. Killing time. Just like a stakeout.
‘You miss being a cop, don’t you?’
‘Every day. It’s what I was born to do. I know how pathetic that sounds, but it’s true. It was my whole life, and then it got taken away from me. That’s why I’m here now, I guess. I just can’t let it go.’
‘And why should you?’
She turned to face Winter. ‘I tried marriage once, but I didn’t take to it. The man I married was one of the good ones, but in the end he just had enough. Too many long hours, too much dark stuff and crap to deal with. Being married to a cop is no bed of roses. If you’re looking for a healthy relationship, it’s not the way to go. As for having kids. Again, I liked the idea, but the reality was another matter. It just wouldn’t have worked.’ She sighed. ‘And then you wake up one day and realise that what was once possible is now impossible and you’ve got to ask yourself, was it worth it? I sacrificed everything to be a cop, Winter.’
‘And was it worth it?’
‘Once upon a time I believed it was. Now, I’m not so sure.’
Anderton went back to staring out of the windshield and Winter checked his watch. If Kirchner was running to schedule then they still had another ten minutes to wait.
‘Charles Lindbergh,’ he said.
‘Has this got something to do with August 5, by any chance?’
‘Not this time.’
‘Okay, I’ll bite. What’s Lindbergh got to do with anything?’
‘Lindbergh’s baby son was kidnapped on March 1, 1932. The body of the boy was found a couple of months later close to the Lindberghs’ house in New Jersey. The kidnappers screwed up and accidentally killed the kid, then dumped the body. Then they pretended that he was still alive so they could collect the ransom.’
Anderton frowned. ‘You’re going to have to help me out. How’s a kidnapping that happened almost a hundred years ago even remotely relevant to what’s going on here?’
‘It’s relevant because this was the greatest unsolved crime of the twentieth century.’
‘But did they get the right person?’
‘You don’t think they did?’
Winter shook his head. ‘Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the abduction and murder of Charles Lindbergh Junior on February 13, 1935. He was executed in the electric chair at Trenton State Prison in New Jersey on April 3, 1936. His final words before the switch was thrown were Ich bin absolut unschuldig an den Verbrechen, die man mir zur Last legt. I am absolutely innocent of the crime with which I am burdened.’
‘Need I remind you that prisons are full of innocent men?’
‘And need I remind you that miscarriages of justice do occasionally happen?’
‘Fair point, but I still don’t see how this ties in with our case.’
‘Charles Lindbergh was one of the most influential figures of his generation. He was also a control freak. From the word go, he was right in there, dictating the direction the investigation should take. If he’d kept out of it and let the police and the FBI do their jobs, I’m confident the kidnappers would have been caught.’
‘And you think that Sobek is in danger of doing the same thing.’
Winter nodded. ‘If you lose control of an investigation, it’s almost impossible to get it back. We’re the investigators here. At best, Sobek is a back-seat driver. He’s entitled to an opinion, but we’re equally entitled to ignore it. We needed that established from the word go. That’s why I gave him a hard time earlier.’
Anderton took a moment to process this. ‘You know,’ she said eventually, ‘I have no trouble imagining Sobek killing someone. That’s why I put so much time and effort into chasing him at the start. The guy looked guilty, and he was a good fit, too. I don’t need to tell you that most murders are carried out by someone known to the victim.’
‘You don’t need to justify yourself.’
‘I’m not. I’m just stating facts.’
Winter looked out of the windshield again. There was a man walking toward the apartment building. For a moment he thought it might be Kirchner, but the guy just kept going, past the entrance and on down the street. He had only seen a handful of people since they got back to the car. It was a quiet neighbourhood. A good place to come if you were looking to hide away from the world.
‘So what do you think?’ Anderton pressed. ‘Is Sobek capable of murder?’
‘If we applied the Hare Psychopathy Checklist he’d probably score somewhere in the mid-thirties.’
‘Which would make him a psychopath.’
‘But a score that high doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a killer.’
‘You’re talking about good psychopaths, right?’ Anderton said.
Winter nodded. ‘For want of a better term. The thing you’ve got to remember is that you get CEOs and politicians and movie stars who’d score just as high, and most of them haven’t killed anyone.’
‘So you think Sobek’s a good psychopath?’
‘Until the bodies start turning up, then yes, that’s what I think.’
Anderton turned and gazed out of the windshield. Lots of waiting and boredom and time to kill. Just like a stakeout. Winter wished they had coffee. And doughnuts. Particularly the doughnuts. He could feel his blood sugar level starting to dip. Anderton looked at him.
‘Okay, getting back to the Lindbergh kidnapping. Earlier you referred to the kidnappers in the plural, yet the authorities seemed happy to pin the whole thing on Hauptmann. You clearly don’t agree with the lone-wolf theory, so what’s your take?’
‘Maybe I don’t have one.’
‘Based on the fact that you can quote dates and places, I’m figuring that you do.’ Anderton checked her watch. ‘We’ve got five minutes until Kirchner arrives, so let’s hear it.’
‘Okay, from his arrest all the way through to his death, Hauptmann claimed to be innocent. His wife, Anna Hauptmann, lived to be ninety-five, and she claimed that he was innocent right up until her death, too. The thing is, Hauptmann was definitely guilty of something. The kidnapping required a specially constructed ladder, and Hauptmann was a carpenter who just so happened to have drawings of ladders in his notebooks. Also, he once worked for the timber merchant where the wood for the ladder came from. Also, the ransom notes were written by a semiliterate German immigrant and, lo and behold, Hauptmann was a semiliterate German immigrant.’
‘So what you’re saying is that the police put together a case that was built on circumstantial evidence.’
‘Mostly based on circumstantial evidence. What’s harder to explain away is the fact that he owned a keg of nails that came from the same batch as the nails used to build the ladder. Oh, and he had a third of the ransom money hidden in his garage. Despite claiming that he was just “looking after” the money, his standard of living took a dramatic upswing after the ransom was paid. Then we get to the single most damning piece of evidence. Rail sixteen of the ladder was made from one of the floorboards in his attic.’
Anderton was nodding. ‘Okay, Hauptmann was clearly involved, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that he was guilty of the murder, or that he was even involved in the actual kidnapping.’
‘Exactly. If Hauptmann had received a fair trial then he would have got off on the grounds of reasonable doubt. But he was never going to get a fair trial. The Lindbergh kidnapping was the crime of the century. Every single detail had been hashed and rehashed a thousand times in the press. Everyone had an opinion, which made finding an impartial jury an impossibility. Then there’s the fact that the public was baying for blood. This was a crime that needed to be solved, and Hauptmann looked good for it.’
‘So who did it?’
‘Unfortunately, we’ll never know since the main players are long dead.’
‘But,’ Anderton prompted.
‘But we do know two things for a fact. Firstly, kidnapping was big business in the 1930s. Secondly, Hauptmann had criminal records in both the US and Germany. Is it possible that he was part of a shady group of German immigrants who got together to carry out the kidnapping? Yes, it is. In fact, I’d argue it was more than possible. After all, Lindbergh was one of the richest men of his generation, which made him the perfect mark. And, if this was a gang kidnapping, it would also explain why Hauptmann chose to go to the electric chair rather than give up his fellow gang members.’
Anderton was nodding again. ‘If they’d threatened his wife, then I could see how that might work.’
Two minutes later a Ford Focus turned into the street and pulled into a space close to the apartment block. The car was at least a decade old, dated and dirty. Streaks of rust were visible on the side panels and fenders. The man who got out walked with a stoop, like the weight of the world had crushed him into submission.
‘Eric Kirchner?’ Winter said.
‘Got it in one.’
12
The sound of their car doors banging shut startled Kirchner. His head jerked up and his body tensed as though he was getting ready to bolt.
‘Mr Kirchner,’ Anderton called out.
Kirchner stopped and turned. When he saw Anderton he visibly relaxed. Not all the way, but he no longer looked as though he was about to make a run for it. They walked over to where he was standing. According to the police files he was only thirty-four. Up close he looked like he was pushing fifty. His suit was cheap and worn. The cut of the collar dated it. Anderton handled the introductions. Kirchner’s handshake was soft and boneless.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I saw on the news that you weren’t involved in the investigation any more.’
‘I’m no longer involved in the police investigation, but I’m still investigating the murders. I believe that the person who killed your wife needs to be caught and brought to justice.’
Kirchner just stood there looking lost and unconvinced.
‘Would you mind if we talked in your apartment?’ she added.
‘Sure, whatever.
’
Kirchner led the way inside. The building was as neglected and forgotten as he was. It was as though the world had given up on the both of them. He let them into his third-floor apartment and they went through to the living room.
‘Please, make yourself at home.’
Kirchner motioned toward the threadbare sofa. None of the furniture matched. It was a safe bet that everything had been bought from a thrift store, chosen for a purpose rather than how it looked. Financial considerations had been top of the list, aesthetic concerns at the bottom. Landlord chic. Winter had lived in enough rental properties to know what he was seeing. There were no personal touches whatsoever, not even a picture of Alicia. That in itself wasn’t a huge surprise. Grief was intensely personal. Some people built shrines, others did their best to forget. Sobek belonged to the first group, Kirchner the second.
Except forgetting wasn’t an option, not when there were reminders everywhere. Whenever Kirchner came back to his rundown apartment, he’d remember. Whenever he looked in the mirror and saw the haunted look in his eyes, he’d remember. And, at this time of the year, there would be even more reminders. The murders would be all over the TV news, all over the papers. Then there would be the well-meaning words and sympathetic glances from his friends and family and work colleagues. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to escape, it was impossible.
‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ Kirchner asked.
Anderton waved him away with a ‘Not for me, thanks.’
‘A glass of milk,’ Winter said. ‘And a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, please.’
Kirchner gave him a disbelieving look. ‘Sure. And what about you?’ he asked Anderton. ‘Can I get you anything to eat?’
Anderton waved him away with another ‘Not for me.’ She waited until he’d left the room before turning to Winter.
‘Seriously? A peanut butter sandwich?’