by Nele Neuhaus
“I’ve already told you that.”
“And I’ve told you that it’s looking bad for you,” replied Bodenstein. The most contradictory feelings were raging inside him. Less than half an hour ago, Thomsen seemed only seconds away from confessing, but now he’d changed his tune. They needed to get a confession from him, because even though the chain of evidence against Thomsen had almost no holes, Bodenstein still lacked the positive proof that would dispel any remaining doubts.
“You have no evidence that’ll stand up in court,” replied Thomsen with a nonchalance that irritated Bodenstein because it was true. His colleagues on the night shift told him that Thomsen had stretched out on the cot in the evening and fallen into a deep, calm sleep only minutes later. Nobody who was guilty ever managed to do that. But as a former member of an elite police unit, Thomsen had received top-flight training. He knew exactly how to behave to fool his opponent. Could he possibly be a psychopath, someone who had no conscience and felt no guilt?
“Oh, yes, we do, we have plenty!” Bodenstein said, sweeping aside his own doubts. “You are an excellent marksman. And we have proof that you spied on Ingeborg Rohleder, Maximilian Gehrke, Hürmet Schwarzer, Margarethe Rudolf, Ralf Hesse, Simon Burmeister, and Jens-Uwe Hartig over a period of several months. We found all the documents in the paper recycling bin at the firm where you work. You disposed of them there when you brought back the dog. The car belonging to Mr. Mieger, whose house you were using as a hideout, was seen in the vicinity of one of the crime scenes. And it was also seen in a garage in Sossenheim that you had rented.”
“That’s not true.” Thomsen shook his head. “I didn’t rent a garage or use the car.”
“In the garage, we found an empty water bottle with a perfect set of your fingerprints,” Bodenstein went on. “How do you explain that?”
“I can’t,” replied Thomsen honestly. “But I had no reason to rent a garage. And I’ve never been in Sossenheim in my life.”
“You planned this whole action way in advance.” Bodenstein chose not to comment on Thomsen’s objections. “You used Wolfgang Mieger’s car for transportation to the crime scenes. But you made a mistake with the garage. That is going to be your downfall.”
“I told you once already that Helen was tailing all those people,” Thomsen said. He sat calmly on his chair, his hands resting in his lap, and returned every look with no excessive blinking or sweating. “It went on for months.”
“Yes, we know that. But she didn’t do it alone. She had help from you. And after her death, you turned her plan for revenge into reality. You have no alibi for any of the times of the shootings. On the evening when Mrs. Rudolf was shot, your shift ended at six P.M. When Maximilian Gehrke and Ingeborg Rohleder were shot, you worked the night shift. We’ve already checked out everything. And you locked us in your furnace room so you could destroy all the documents in peace and quiet.”
Bodenstein felt his frustration growing. They were going around in circles, repeating almost word for word what they had already said several times.
“How do you know Mr. Mieger?”
Bodenstein already knew what Thomsen would answer, but he let him repeat it. Maybe he’d eventually get tired, forget a detail, and give himself away.
“I don’t know him personally. He was a colleague of Helen’s father. They used to work for a structural engineering firm, doing large-scale projects abroad. Stadler and Helen took care of him when his wife died and he developed dementia. I remembered his house when I locked you in the cellar. At first I wanted to go to the Winklers’ house, but I thought you’d probably look there first.”
“Which brings us back to the question of why you disappeared. If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”
“It was a knee-jerk reaction,” said Thomsen, the same answer he’d given three times before.
“Where did you get the key?”
“Helen told me that she had hidden a house key under the birdbath next to the garden shed.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand the gravity of your situation, Mr. Thomsen,” Bodenstein now interrupted the cycle of repetitions. “We suspect you of having murdered five individuals! The evidence against you is overwhelming.”
Thomsen merely shrugged.
“Why would I do that? Why would I shoot anyone?”
“To carry out Helen’s plan.”
“Bullshit.” Mark Thomsen shook his head. “My life is screwed up enough. I’m not going to risk spending the rest of my days in the slammer by translating the fantasies of a mentally unstable young woman into reality.”
“Where is Mr. Mieger’s car?”
“No idea. I didn’t even know he owned one.”
“You were seen with that car,” Bodenstein reminded him, well aware that it was only a supposition.
“Impossible. The witnesses must have seen somebody else. Jens-Uwe, for instance. God knows he had more reason to carry out Helen’s plan than I did.”
“Helen wanted to break up with him,” said Bodenstein. “She was afraid of him, and you knew that, because you helped her kick the pills that Hartig had been giving her.”
No reply.
“Why did Hartig give Helen those pills? Why was he controlling her every step?”
“You’re going to have to ask him that.”
“Come on, Mr. Thomsen!” Bodenstein exhorted him. “Why don’t you give up and tell us the truth? Why did you flee and hide out in Mieger’s house?”
Thomsen sighed.
“I couldn’t risk landing in investigative custody before I had done something that required urgent attention,” he said, changing the choreography of the interrogation. “At first I thought you were just going to ask me a few questions and then leave, but then I realized you were going to arrest me. So it was really a knee-jerk reaction on my part.”
“What did you have to get done?” Bodenstein asked insistently. “And where?”
Mark Thomsen rubbed his unshaven cheek.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with this whole affair. When you and your colleague were at my place, I got a phone call. You may remember that.”
Bodenstein nodded. He had a vivid memory of the growling dog and the change that had come over Thomsen after that call.
“The call was from Holland. I had to go to Eindhoven immediately.”
“What for?”
“To prevent a messy business.” Thomsen returned Bodenstein’s look without flinching. “I also wanted to talk to Burmeister as soon as he returned from vacation. But now the police can do that.”
“What did you want to talk to him about?”
Thomsen stared at him for a long time, and Bodenstein’s hope of wringing a confession out of the man melted away. Only now did he comprehend how firmly convinced of success he had been.
“I recently found out that Burmeister was in Kelsterbach on September sixteenth,” Thomsen said once Bodenstein no longer seemed to be expecting a reply. “His car was caught by a flash cam that day on Kirschenallee. Only a hundred meters farther on was where Helen supposedly fell from the pedestrian bridge onto the commuter train tracks.”
Bodenstein was speechless for a few seconds.
“How did you find that out?”
“I may have been out on my ass for a while, but I do still have some connections on the force.” Thomsen shrugged. “The last thing I want is to help the police. I certainly haven’t forgotten getting the boot. After twenty years of risking my life a hundred times, the bastards at internal investigations twisted my words and made me the scapegoat. But I still don’t want to see criminals get off scot free, and that’s why I did a little snooping. I’m fairly sure that the sleazy Dr. Burmeister killed Helen because she found out something that would have destroyed his reputation.”
It was nine o’clock when Bodenstein left the interrogation room and stepped next door. That was where Pia, Kai, Neff, and Kim had been following his conversation with Thomsen through the one-way mirror.
&n
bsp; “He’s not the sniper,” Bodenstein said gloomily as he sat down on a vacant chair and stared through the window at Thomsen. “He’s just a frustrated ex-cop who has a big grudge against us. Damn it, we got the wrong guy.”
Nobody contradicted him.
“We’ll have to check whether he’s telling the truth about Burmeister’s car.”
“I’ll do it,” said Kai.
“How’d it go at the airport?”
“Burmeister refused any protection,” said Pia. “I kept trying to convince him, but he doesn’t want our help. He had an appointment at ten o’clock at the clinic that was more important to him.”
“All right, then. All we can do is warn him,” said Bodenstein. “What about Dirk Stadler? Where’s he?”
“He hasn’t left his house since last night,” said Neff. “We’ve had him staked out round the clock since you and Ms. Kirchhoff were there.”
Oppressive silence. Instead of nearing their goal, they were at another dead end.
“I can’t think any more until I get something to eat.” Pia stood up. “I’ll run over to the bakery. Want anything?”
They all gave her their orders, except for Kim, who was busy on her smartphone and smiling dreamily.
“Want to come along, Kim?”
Hearing her name gave her a start, and Pia was amused to see her expression. No matter what happened in the world, life went on, and love found a way even amid murder and manslaughter.
“So, tell me where you were on New Year’s Eve,” said Pia when they were sitting in the car a few minutes later. “I don’t have the energy for another interrogation, so don’t keep me guessing.”
“I was at Nicola’s,” said Kim.
“That’s what I was afraid of. And?”
“And nothing. We just had a good time talking.”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
“Come on, now. This is like pulling teeth. Is she into you?”
“I think she likes me,” said Kim, who actually blushed a little. “But she has no experience with women.”
“Or with men lately?” Pia teased her.
“Successful women like her have a hard time finding a man who doesn’t view her as a competitor. I know that from personal experience,” said Kim, defending the object of her desire.
“Well, I must be lucky that I’m not so successful,” said Pia.
“You and Christoph are equals,” said Kim. “But most men can’t tolerate their partner working more and maybe even making more money than they do. That’s why my last relationship ended. And not just because he couldn’t stand it that I had to deal with the worst criminals day in and day out. That was only an excuse. For two long years, it hadn’t bothered him at all. By the way, did you know that Nicola was once engaged to Bodenstein? They were going to get married, but then Cosima came between them.”
“Yes, I know.” Pia turned down Elisabethenstrasse when the light turned green. “But honestly, I’m interested in my boss’s love life only as it pertains to you. Because I’m afraid she’s going to show up with you at our family celebrations.”
“At what family celebrations?” Kim had to laugh. “But we’ll go out to dinner together once this case is solved.”
“Well, that’s going to be a while,” replied Pia. “Mark Thomsen isn’t the sniper.”
“I agree with you on that,” said Kim. “All the evidence against him can be viewed differently.”
“I just wonder why he locked us in the cellar and then disappeared.” Pia put on the blinker and turned into the parking garage at Untertor in downtown Hofheim.
“But he told you why. He knew you suspected him, and he wanted to keep from landing in a cell before he took care of something and had spoken with Burmeister,” said Kim. “If he really had something to hide, he wouldn’t have called the police to tell them where you were.”
Pia nodded. Bodenstein had been so carried away with the idea that Thomsen was the sniper that he’d paid no attention to this mitigating detail.
“As Oliver correctly said, Thomsen is a frustrated ex-cop who got a bad break in life,” Kim went on. “I believe him when he says he has no wish to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He’s definitely not stupid.”
“But why did he clear out his house and throw Helen Stadler’s notebook in the trash? If he has nothing to hide, why would he do that? Is he covering for somebody? Maybe the real sniper?” Pia stared at her sister as though Kim’s expression might give her the answers to her questions.
“Just think about it, my dear sister,” Kim said. “What does Thomsen care about more than anything?”
Pia drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the ugly façade of the Buch department store.
“This HRMO thing,” she said after a moment.
“Precisely. The HRMO people’s biggest complaint is with the inhuman way the relatives of organ donors are treated in some hospitals. They want to denounce these practices, which means they need publicity,” replied Kim. “The situation seems to have been particularly bad at the UCF.”
“Right,” said Pia with a nod. “Bettina Kaspar-Hesse described Burmeister as a vulture. They more or less forced her to deceive the Winklers so they could get at Kirsten Stadler’s organs. And it was definitely not an isolated case.”
“I think that was Thomsen’s primary concern. Not Kirsten or Helen Stadler. I’m pretty sure that he and Helen were on the track of something else, something that Furtwängler, Gehrke, and the lawyer were mixed up in. You need to talk to Furtwängler again. Ask him straight out what he was up to with Rudolf and why he had to leave the UCF back then. I believe that’s the key to the mystery.”
Pia’s stomach rumbled loudly in the silence.
“But first I need a whole bunch of calories,” she said. “Come on, let’s get some fodder for the pack.”
Her father had been arrested because the police suspected him of killing a woman who was married and had two children. He hadn’t stabbed, shot, or strangled her; no, he just let her die, although he could have saved her life. Why had he done that? He was a doctor, a good doctor, a man who lived for his profession. How had he been able to reconcile something like that with his conscience? Out of greed and vanity. That’s what the Judge had written after shooting her mother, as retaliation for what her father had done to the woman. Was it the first time he’d done something like that? Did he want to be celebrated as a healer by those whose lives he had saved with a transplanted organ? Or was it just the first time he’d been caught snuffing out one human life prematurely in order to save another? How could a person presume to make such a decision? The dead had no lobbyists. The relatives seldom doubted what doctors in the hospital said, especially when confronted with an eminent surgeon such as Professor Dieter Paul Rudolf, who assured them in his calm, understanding manner that there was no more hope.
Karoline Albrecht sat as if frozen at the dining room table in her parents’ house. She didn’t know what to do. Her father, whom she had admired all her life and whom she had loved almost desperately, was a murderer. Selfish and without a conscience, he had abused her trust and lied to her. Instead of admitting what he had done, he tried to cover it up. That’s how he’d spent the past several days, instead of grieving for his wife and arranging for her funeral. How despicable. He had lied and schemed, using any means available and acting without scruples. Why had he done all that? For money? For fame and praise?
Karoline closed the binder in which she had discovered the correspondence between the development board of Santex and her father. She got up, aching all over. But even worse was the pain in her soul. There was nobody she could talk to about all this. She longed for someone to pour out her heart to, someone who would understand how terribly lonely she was. Her mother, the only anchor she’d had in life, was gone. She had no close female friends, and no boyfriend or lover she could call. She had a house in which she did not feel at home, a job that meant only money and professiona
l success, and the responsibility for a traumatized daughter.
The best thing would be to call a cab to take her home, and simply go back to bed. Or she could take Mama’s car. Karoline stiffly pulled on her coat; she had neglected to put on the awkward cervical collar this morning after her shower. In the top drawer of the sideboard, she found the key to the BMW. She left the house and activated the remote on the key ring. The garage door opened with its familiar clatter. An acrid burnt smell struck her nostrils but quickly dispersed. Where did the stench come from? Had a marten caused an electrical fire under the hood of one of the cars? For a moment, she hesitated, then walked over toward her mother’s BMW, stumbling over something soft.
“Shit!” she exclaimed. She almost fell on her face, which wouldn’t have helped with her concussion. She bent down and saw a blue trash bag leaning against the rear tire of her father’s black Maserati. Karoline picked up the bag to move it aside, and grimaced. This was where the smell was coming from. She curiously opened the sack and found to her surprise some of her father’s clothes. A dark gray cashmere pullover, a shirt, a pair of gray slacks, a pair of shoes. She stared at the clothes in bewilderment. Why had her father stuffed them into a trash bag?
Like lightning, the words of the inspector flashed through her head: In Gehrke’s house, a large number of documents were burned in the fireplace. Karoline leaned against the trunk of the car because her knees were about to buckle. It’s important for us to find out what he talked about with Gehrke the night before he died.
There was a click, and the light in the garage went out. Karoline stood quite still, thinking. The pieces of the puzzle, which had previously been whirling around in her head, suddenly came together.
It was not easy to find an open Wi-Fi anywhere. Even in döner shops, Turkish cafés, and cheap hotels, they had started protecting their Internet connections with passwords. Today he didn’t have time to drive to one of the two places in downtown Frankfurt where he could simply log on from the sidewalk, but now it no longer mattered. He went into a café and was surprised to see that he was almost the only patron. That wasn’t good, but it was too late to turn and walk out. The waitress was already heading his way. He hung his jacket over the back of a chair, ordered coffee and a piece of Frankfurt crown cake, and asked for the password.