The Wages of Sin: A Kidnap, a Crucifixion, a Murderer on the Loose

by Inge Löhnig

  ‘Do we have the make and model? And maybe a better colour description than “light”?’ Dühnfort asked. ‘Can anyone describe the driver?’

  Alois raised his hands. ‘Münch thinks it was white or very light beige, maybe a Fiat. He couldn’t see the driver. The woman and her son aren’t sure if the vehicle was white. It was really dirty. The boy said it was a Renault, his mother isn’t very knowledgeable about car manufacturers. It all happened very quickly. She couldn’t describe the driver either. I’ll put a search on it. OK?’

  Dühnfort nodded.

  ‘See you later then.’ Alois turned on his torch and made his way towards Agnes’s house.

  Alexander Boos shook hands with Buchholz as they went their separate ways and then came over to Dühnfort.

  ‘And?’ Dühnfort asked. ‘What do you think of our working hypothesis?’

  ‘Not enough data thus far.’ Boos rubbed his hands together. ‘It’s getting cold. Let’s go to the car.’

  Dühnfort turned on his torch and went first. ‘Have you come across any similar cases?’

  ‘No,’ Boos said, trudging behind him. ‘But that might change when we get more comparative data.’

  ‘What is your personal opinion?’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think there’s something else behind the kidnapping. This religious story seems a bit far-fetched to me. There’s neither evidence nor witness testimony to support the theory. What you have is a witness who sees a representation of the episode from the Old Testament in what she saw when she found the boy at the stake. She overlooked the petrol cans, the plastic rope and the box of matches. Very modern objects. Then another association: the picture that Jakob drew is supposed to represent the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But some of the significant details of the heart are missing from the drawing. Then the prayer service, which is to be expected in a Catholic community and had no influence on the kidnapper. And now the teacher. It’s been objectively established that the same kidnapper was at work. But why? Well, she also denied God, maybe she blasphemed, and she probably didn’t embark on her marriage as a virgin. Now, that seems to fit this very intuitive hypothesis. But I think it’s about selective perception. It fits so nicely.’

  Dühnfort turned onto the wider track where his car was parked. Boos was now walking beside him. Dühnfort sighed. ‘We have to start from scratch again. What connects these two kidnappings? What is driving the kidnapper? We suspect that he originally intended to let Jakob go –’

  ‘I’ve looked at the documents,’ Boos interrupted him, ‘and I’m not so sure about that. I think you’re right, the approach suggests that the kidnapper didn’t want to be identified. But that could also be for other reasons. Maybe he slips into a role, assumes a different identity, another form that enables him to wield his power. He doesn’t want to be recognised as who he is, but instead as someone who is powerful, who controls everything.’

  ‘In general, kidnappings are about money or sexual abuse or covering up a crime,’ Dühnfort said. ‘What do you think we’re dealing with here?’

  ‘Maybe a form of sexual abuse,’ Boos said.

  ‘How can that be?’ Dühnfort asked. ‘A five-year-old boy and a grown woman. What sexual preference would that suggest?’

  ‘A kidnapper exerts power. He takes total control over the life of another. That certainly has a sexual component. And if that’s the case here, then we’re dealing with a criminal who’s likely to need that high over and over again.’

  ‘First a child, then a woman. How is he choosing?’

  They had reached the car. Dühnfort opened the door.

  ‘He’ll have his criteria. We just can’t see it at the moment. We don’t have enough data. Presumably, he is a weak man. Maybe he began with animals. You should look for someone who’s been spotted torturing animals,’ Boos said. ‘I’ll use what little data we have to try and draw up a preliminary criminal profile. But I can’t promise you much. It will be a rough sketch at best.’

  Monday, 2nd June

  Dühnfort was torn from a nightmare by the ringing of his mobile. When he sat up, he didn’t know what he’d been dreaming about, there was just the residual sense of threat. It was 5.35 a.m. He groped around for the ringing phone. A moment later, he was wide awake. A mixture of anger and sadness drove out the shadows of the dream.

  Eight minutes later, he was on his way to Mariaseeon. Using the hands-free device, he called Gina, who answered as if she were already wide awake.

  ‘Melanie Lechner’s body has been found,’ he said bluntly. ‘We’re meeting at the new forest cemetery in Mariaseeon.’ He asked Gina to tell Alois.

  The streets were nearly empty. Dühnfort drove across the Middle Ring Road to the motorway. The sun was glowing red.

  They had worked feverishly over the weekend to find clues as to Melanie Lechner’s whereabouts. They had spoken to hundreds of people, looked through telephone-call logs, reviewed financial circumstances. Nothing had elicited any evidence. They worked day and night, searched the forest, cottages, barns and sheds. Within a ten-kilometre radius, there were over two hundred and fifty people who owned white or cream-coloured delivery vans. All of them would be checked, but that job had not yet been completed. How could it be, in just two days? Shit. Dühnfort hit the steering wheel. He’d been seeing light-coloured delivery vans everywhere since Friday night. There were loads of them. There was one in his rear-view mirror right now. Dühnfort indicated and exited the motorway.

  A few minutes later he reached the cemetery. A police car and a dark blue Audi were parked in front of it. Dühnfort walked down the gravel path until he heard voices coming from an area enclosed by hedges. One of the graves was fresh and the earth was still piled on top. The wreaths and flowers had already withered. Aiblinger and a bald man were standing next to it and talking softly. They looked up when they noticed Dühnfort.

  Aiblinger walked up to him. ‘Good morning, Mr Dühnfort,’ he said and shook his hand. ‘This is Dr Wiessner.’ Aiblinger swallowed. ‘And there is Mrs Lechner.’ He took off his police hat as he walked over to the fresh grave with Dühnfort.

  Dühnfort glanced at the body and then the gravestone. Melanie Lechner lay in the dewy grass beside her husband’s grave. An old-fashioned lace-trimmed nightdress reached all the way down to her ankles. It hadn’t just been thrown on but carefully pulled into place. Her bare feet stuck out of the bottom. Her hands were folded across her chest, with a white lily placed between them. A wedding ring was shining on the ring finger of her right hand. There was a thin silver chain with a pendant around her neck. Dühnfort stooped down. The medallion had a half relief of an angel.

  The condition of Melanie Lechner’s head made a horrifying contrast to the calm, peaceful pose of her body. As white as snow, as red as blood, Dühnfort thought. The face was waxy. There were dark red wounds where her lips had been. Melanie Lechner’s murderer had cut them off with a sharp tool; the edges were smooth and precise. The tongue was swollen and discoloured between her teeth. But her neck showed no marks from strangulation.

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘Old Mrs Gareis. Her husband is buried over there.’ Aiblinger gestured to one of the graves and then explained that she was a farmer and had been getting up at the crack of dawn her whole life. ‘You can’t break the habit of a lifetime. Shortly before five, she came to the cemetery to water her husband’s grave. When she got here, she discovered the body. Then the young Mrs Gareis contacted me.’

  ‘Why did you call Dr Wiessner?’

  ‘It was stupid,’ Aiblinger said, twirling one end of his beard. ‘But at first I thought that he might still be able to do something.’

  ‘I didn’t touch the body.’ Wiessner walked up. ‘The time of death was a while ago. I can’t tell you the cause, but you can see that she was tortured.’ Dr Wiessner crouched in front of the body. Dühnfort followed suit. ‘The lips . . .’ Wiessner said. ‘And the tongue. Someone tried to cut it
out or tear it out. See this injury?’ The doctor gestured to a tear that went all the way along the tongue, splitting it down the middle. The start of the tear was hidden in her throat.

  Dühnfort started picturing images that made his stomach churn. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, stood up again and got his mobile out of his pocket. Boos didn’t pick up. Dühnfort left a message on his voicemail.

  A VW bus rolled along the gravel path and stopped in front of the burial ground. Frank Buchholz and two people from his team got out. ‘Not a pretty sight first thing in the morning,’ Buchholz said after glancing over at the body. ‘Is the forensic examiner on the way?’

  Dühnfort nodded.

  Gina and Alois arrived one after the other. ‘Morning,’ Alois said. Gina gasped at the sight of the body. Buchholz got the camera out of the bus and began photographing.

  A silver BMW parked behind the evidence collection vehicle. The forensic examiner Dr Ursula Weidenbach got out and walked over to Dühnfort. She had short greying hair and wore no make-up and her grey eyes looked larger behind her frameless glasses. Her appearance gave her an air of great competence. She shook hands with Dühnfort. ‘Shall we?’

  After she had seen the body, she took an aluminium case out of her car and placed it on the grass. ‘She definitely wasn’t strangled,’ she said. ‘Even if it might look that way at first. No strangulation or rope marks.’ She opened an eyelid. ‘And no internal bleeding.’ Then she looked at the mouth and tongue, managing to get the lower jaw down with a bit of force. ‘It’s hard to look at. I’ve never seen anything like it. It needs to be examined more closely.’ Then, wearing latex gloves, she undid the buttons of the nightdress down to the folded hands, placed the lily aside and pulled the nightdress open. ‘Here we have a possible cause of death,’ she said, pointing to a narrow, almond-shaped wound below the left breast. ‘But don’t hold me to it. Stab wound to the heart. You probably don’t need me to tell you that this didn’t happen here,’ she said and stood up.

  ‘Can you say anything about the time of death yet?’ Dühnfort asked.

  ‘I could, but it wouldn’t mean much,’ she replied and smiled at him.

  ‘Rigor mortis seems to have fully set in,’ Alois said. ‘You had a lot of trouble moving the jaw bone.’

  ‘That doesn’t tell us much. Eight to twenty hours. Also, I’m a weak woman. You wouldn’t have had any trouble moving the jaw.’ Dr Weidenbach got a thermometer out of the case and placed it beside the body in the grass. ‘You’ll have to be patient. I’ll know more by the afternoon.’ She wrote down the temperature and then took the temperature of the body.

  ‘What happened to her tongue?’ Dühnfort asked.

  ‘Someone tried to cut or tear it out. Pretty amateur. Probably done with a blunt tool. But don’t hold me to that either. I need to examine that closely too.’ Dr Weidenbach packed up and spoke to Buchholz. The body would be transferred to the forensics department. The crime-scene technicians dragged boxes and all kinds of equipment over to the body. Dühnfort decided to call on Father Schops.

  * * *

  To Dühnfort’s surprise, Schops was already up.

  He invited him into the kitchen, a large room with a low ceiling, dark wooden table and matching chairs. He was busy making breakfast. ‘Mrs Schulz won’t be here until around noon today,’ he said and put out a second setting. ‘You look miserable,’ he noted and took the coffeepot from the coffee maker. ‘Coffee?’

  Dühnfort nodded.

  Schops gestured for him to sit down and did the same.

  ‘Melanie Lechner was found this morning. She was murdered,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Schops put down the cup. ‘I will accompany you of course. It is not easy to be the bearer of such news.’

  That was not why Dühnfort had come, but he was grateful for the offer. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said and noticed Schops’s eyes getting watery.

  ‘I took over this parish twenty years ago. Melanie was the first child that I baptised. She took her first holy communion from my hand; I married her; last week I buried her husband; and now I must return her to the earth.’ Schops pushed the coffee cup away and pulled a packet of cigarillos and matches out of his shirt pocket. ‘It doesn’t bother you, right?’ he said and lit up.

  So, he was the successor to the priest who had abused Veith and his friend Sepp. And maybe others as well, Dühnfort thought. But that was a long time ago. ‘Mrs Lechner took her husband’s death very hard,’ Dühnfort said. ‘She is said to have blasphemed at the funeral.’

  Schops blew a puff of smoke towards the ceiling. He watched it rise, deep in thought. ‘On your last visit, we discussed the possibility of Jakob’s kidnapping having religious motives. Melanie was also kidnapped. And now you’re asking me if she blasphemed. That’s what you want to know?’

  Dühnfort nodded.

  ‘There is only one explanation: Melanie was killed in a way that makes you think she was being punished for her blasphemous statement.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dühnfort said. ‘I’m afraid so. We have to assume that the murderer has only just begun. Before I get started with time-consuming research on the internet or in libraries, I was hoping you might be an expert and able to advise me in much less time. Would that be possible?’

  Schops nodded and sucked on his cigarillo, making the red embers glow. Then he exhaled and stubbed out the butt on his breakfast plate. ‘I did a doctorate in theology.’

  ‘Good,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘I suppose that Melanie Lechner had her tongue cut out,’ Schops said. ‘Or am I mistaken?’

  ‘It looks as if the murderer tried to do that. Her tongue was torn in half lengthwise and was almost detached at the root,’ Dühnfort said. ‘And her lips were cut off.’

  ‘Her lips . . . cut off.’ Schops’s voice cracked. He went pale. After thinking about it for a while, he said, ‘The lips don’t bring anything to mind. But the tongue . . . Torn, you say. During the Inquisition, they would cut out tongues as physical punishment for having blasphemed against God, as stipulated in the criminal code Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, or Carolina for short. The Carolina was the court order of Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire and, as such, a secular penal code. However, it had its roots in Italian criminal law, which in turn was strongly influenced by the Church. But blasphemy was not an offence punishable by death,’ Schops said.

  ‘The cause of death is presumed to be a stab to the heart,’ Dühnfort said. ‘That still has to be confirmed by the forensic examiner. At the moment, we still don’t know whether the stab occurred post-mortem, that is, whether Mrs Lechner died as a result of the torture or if it was the stab to the heart that –’

  ‘That delivered her from her suffering.’ Schops completed the sentence.

  ‘Do you have an explanation for the tear in the tongue?’

  ‘It’s unusual, but I have read about it before.’ Schops closed his eyes. His index finger slid back and forth on the table like a seismograph needle and then it suddenly stopped. He opened his eyes. ‘Fifth-century Spain,’ he said. ‘There was a text in circulation. Unfortunately, I can’t think of the title at present. The text promulgated the idea that in hell sinners were hung up by their genitals, tongues or eyes. Sinful virgins were cooked on a grill, sinful women had their breasts burned, adulterers suffered the same torture to their genitals, and blasphemers were hung up by their tongues. There was also an illustration of a woman whose tongue was pierced by a hook suspended from the ceiling. The tongue was torn.’

  ‘That is sadistic and sick,’ Dühnfort said. ‘It has nothing to do with faith.’

  ‘So, that brings us back to our recent discussion. It’s all a question of perspective,’ Schops replied. ‘If the power of words wasn’t enough to convince heretics, then one could follow the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, the spiritual father of the Inquisition, and use moderate severity for greater influence. This included things such as flagellation, penance and exile to help
obtain the required spiritual adjustment. And if that was still not enough, the death penalty seemed justified. This was based on Christian love: one must show an apostate the right path – by force if necessary. Heretics were seen as wayward sheep that had to be returned to the flock by any means necessary. Torture was considered legitimate, since it was only the sinful flesh and didn’t damage the soul.’

  ‘We don’t live in the era of the Inquisition any longer. It’s hard to imagine that in our times someone who’s religious would kill. After all, “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Commandments.’

  Schops’s gaze drifted off into the distance. ‘ “God honours the sword so highly that He calls it His own ordinance, and will not have men say or imagine that they have invented it or instituted it. For the hand that wields this sword and slays with it is then no more man’s hand, but God’s, and it is not man, but God, who hangs, tortures, beheads, slays and fights. All these are His works and His judgements.” ’ The priest looked at Dühnfort. ‘Martin Luther. The Two Kingdoms Doctrine. In it, he overrules the Christian commandment of love in the secular realm. In the kingdom of God, there is no wrath but rather purest love; but in the kingdom of earth, being gentle or compassionate does not apply – it’s more about punishment.’

  ‘So, Melanie Lechner’s murder may be part of a deluded attempt at saving souls,’ Dühnfort said. Unimaginable, he thought.

  * * *

  As Dühnfort stood up, the room went quiet. In addition to Gina and Alois, Frank Buchholz, Alexander Boos, Beatrice Mével and Ursula Weidenbach had gathered round the conference table. The cold ceiling lights gave everyone an unnatural paleness that made them look even more tired and overworked. The night was black outside the windows. An exhausting day lay behind them and it was not over yet.