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

by Inge Löhnig

  ‘You’ve often heard me say “It is how it is”. We can’t change what’s happened, we can’t turn back the clock. Today we have to deal with the fact that we didn’t manage to find Melanie Lechner in time. We did everything in our power and I thank you for your commitment, but a brutal murderer was faster than us. We’re currently assuming that Jakob’s kidnapping and the murder of his teacher are the first in a series of crimes. More on this later from Alexander Boos and Beatrice Mével.’ Dühnfort sat down.

  Alois spoke first. The search for the delivery van had come to nothing because the information was just too vague. There were still about a hundred vehicles to be checked. Then Buchholz presented the findings from the evidence. Apparently, the murderer had taken the body down a path to the cemetery and lifted it over the fence. Buchholz had found black fibres in the wire mesh and bushes that lined the cemetery side of the fence, as well as on the nightshirt that the deceased was wearing.

  ‘These fibres are identical to the ones found under Jakob’s fingernails. Along with the vial, it’s another indication that we’re dealing with the same guy in both cases.’ The murder weapon hadn’t been found. There was nothing in the cemetery or the adjacent meadows and fields. The lilies also hadn’t led to much. They could be bought in any flower shop. Gina had questioned the florists in Mariaseeon and the surrounding area. No one could remember a specific customer that had bought white lilies.

  ‘Let’s keep going with the nightdress,’ Dühnfort said. ‘It’s not mass-produced, it’s handmade. Old linen and lace. Where’s it from? Where can you get something like that these days?’

  ‘You can get them at linen markets and flea markets. There are people who collect things like that,’ Gina said. ‘Even the traders from Eastern Europe cart round that sort of stuff. I’m sure there are experts on it. I’ll look into it.’

  Then there was the necklace. Alois had spoken to Melanie Lechner’s mother. The chain belonged to her daughter. It had been a confirmation gift from her great-aunt, but she was surprised that Melli still owned and wore it.

  ‘Let’s move on to forensics now. Thank you for coming,’ Dühnfort said to Ursula Weidenbach. ‘We’re not used to such service. Normally we have to settle for stacks of paper, phone calls and hurried conversations.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said. She glanced at her papers and began. The cause of death had been the stab to the heart. The murder weapon was a dagger with a blade length of one hundred and forty millimetres. ‘The stab was very precise. This is not something you can get right at the first attempt, so you should assume that the murderer practised. Presumably on animals. The time of death was between seven and eight o’clock on Sunday evening. The murderer washed the body thoroughly and even cleaned the fingernails. So there is no usable DNA evidence.’

  ‘Shit,’ Dühnfort exclaimed.

  ‘But we have found something unusual: cyanoacrylate in the left nasolabial fold and on one of the incisors.’ Ursula Weidenbach looked at the group. ‘That’s superglue.’

  ‘Superglue,’ Gina repeated. ‘Why . . . why would that be there?’

  Dühnfort had a suspicion. ‘She blasphemed against God. Maybe he wanted to stop her from doing it again. But the real punishment he had planned was to cut out her tongue. After he’d glued her mouth shut, that wasn’t possible, so he had to cut off her lips.’

  ‘It’s so stuffy in here.’ Gina stood up. Dühnfort noticed her momentarily resting her head against the glass before opening the window and sitting back down.

  Ursula Weidenbach continued her report. In addition to marks from handcuffs, the body exhibited bruising and various abrasions, as well as bone fractures in the arms. The back was covered with lacerations, probably from having been whipped. The tongue had been pierced with a sharp object and torn. She also pointed to a deep cut at its root, which had been made by a blunt tool, possibly a wire.

  ‘So, even from his sick point of view, the murderer did much more than was necessary to punish Melanie Lechner,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘If he’d wanted to cut out the tongue, he could have used the dagger. Why wire?’ Alois asked.

  ‘He didn’t want to cut it out,’ Dühnfort said and told them about Schops’s description of medieval torture practices. ‘Presumably he wanted to hang his victim by the tongue, but maybe the tongue couldn’t hold the weight of the body and then tore. After that, he tried with a wire.’

  Gina went pale. Her freckles stood out on her cheeks. ‘A perverse sadist. This wasn’t done for religious reasons.’

  ‘Surely not,’ Alexander Boos said. ‘This murder is characteristic of a sadist with grotesque fantasies of violence and murder. He may have been going over it in his mind for years.’

  ‘What has to happen for a person to cross that line?’ Alois asked.

  ‘It can be something small, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ Beatrice Mével said.

  ‘If he is actually so devout, then he needs a justification for his crimes. It’s possible he believes that he’s acting on higher orders.’ Dühnfort summarised his conversations with Schops. ‘So, we’re looking for a sadist who’s hiding behind a cloak of Christian fundamentalism.’

  ‘One we can’t see, unfortunately. So, who are we looking for?’ Gina said. ‘Is there already some sort of profile?’

  ‘We have a starting point based on your working hypothesis and the data we’ve been given,’ Boos said. ‘You’re looking for a man of at least twenty-five years old, based on our experience, but possibly much older. His faith initially kept him in check. It’s possible, as already mentioned, that he started with animals. That is the typical progression. He spends a lot of time spying on his victims and ambushes them. This suggests that he is not regularly employed; that is, he may be unemployed. Secondly, it suggests that he has a compulsive personality, plans everything meticulously and leaves nothing to chance. His victims were both from Mariaseeon. Melanie Lechner was kidnapped because of a statement she made at a funeral. Funerals are public events but usually attended by family members, close friends and neighbours. I think that the murderer lives in Mariaseeon or nearby. Or at least stays here frequently. We also think that he’s a beginner. That’s supported by the fact that things went wrong each time. Jakob got away, Melanie Lechner’s punishment didn’t go as planned and he had to improvise. It can be assumed that he will continue and that he is perfecting his technique.’ Boos nodded to the group.

  ‘One other thing,’ Beatrice Mével said. ‘We are, by all accounts, dealing with a form of pathological sadism. However, it is not necessarily sexually motivated. Although the practice of exercising force and power over someone else is usually associated with sexual arousal, there is a variant, compensatory sadism, in which the sadistic action completely replaces the sexual satisfaction.’

  ‘So that pretty much answers my question,’ Gina said. ‘That is, how Jakob fits into the picture. If the criminal experiences another form of satisfaction through total control and torture, then that could explain it. How would you define this satisfaction if it’s not sexual?’

  ‘It’s a psychological satisfaction. These acts set him straight. For a period of time, they make him feel –’

  ‘But he didn’t torture Jakob, he was very careful with him,’ Alois jumped in.

  ‘That’s true,’ Beatrice Mével said. ‘However, he didn’t accomplish what he’d set out to do. Jakob was found. So we don’t know what sadistic acts he would have been exposed to otherwise. You suspect that he wanted to burn the boy. That would amount to total destruction.’

  ‘But how could he rationalise that?’ Dühnfort asked. ‘Jakob is still much too young to commit sins. He hasn’t received his first communion yet and can’t even go to confession. So he lives in a state of innocence.’

  ‘That doesn’t really matter at the moment,’ Alois said. ‘We know what makes the murderer tick. And that’s scary. If he wants to punish all sinners, then that probably puts ninety per cent of Mariaseeon in dang
er . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Beatrice Mével said. ‘The religious motives are being used as an excuse, so he can justify his actions to himself. I think he has it in for women.’

  ‘Why women? And Jakob?’ Gina asked.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s more of a gut feeling. In general, sadists prefer a certain type of victim. Maybe Jakob was a sort of experiment. If he really took pleasure in torturing little boys, he wouldn’t have taken a woman the second time. The fact is also that sadists are very commonly people who were victims of abuse and neglect themselves, in the formative stages of childhood and adolescence, usually within their own families. I think he will continue to go after women. Maybe in place of his mother, whom he can’t torture because she is already dead or because it would blow his cover.’

  Georg Veith, Dühnfort thought. He was tortured by a sadist, he was whipped, just like his friend Sepp, just like Melanie Lechner. The person who did that is dead. So, given that his spirit is presumably not still floating around Mariaseeon, he’s got a successor. Who? Has one of his victims followed in his footsteps?

  ‘There were cases of sadistic abuse almost thirty years ago in Mariaseeon. I have the names of two altar boys who were sexually abused and sadistically tortured by the priest. He whipped them. One of them committed suicide. We have to talk to the other: Georg Veith. It’s likely there were more victims. Maybe one of them became our murderer.’ What is this filth we’re constantly digging through? Dühnfort asked himself.

  ‘What about Veith himself? Are we ruling him out?’ Gina asked.

  ‘He has a job, he’s married and he’s a volunteer lifeguard. He saves lives. That doesn’t sound like it fits the profile,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand here. The murderer is extremely brutal in his torture. He clearly enjoys the sight of suffering, blood and wounds. So why did he wash and prepare Melanie’s body so carefully?’ Gina asked.

  ‘Presumably he washed it to get rid of any evidence,’ Alois said.

  ‘That would certainly be one of the reasons. But he was probably also concerned about how it looked. He saved a soul, that is a sublime act, but you can’t see the soul, only the battered body, which certainly did not look saved. He was trying to bring the physical outcome of his actions into line with what he believed he was doing,’ Beatrice Mével explained.

  It’s the images that control us, Dühnfort thought.

  * * *

  Agnes spent the day in Munich. First, she went shopping. She bought Michael a bottle of single-malt whisky as a thank you for his help with her move. At the department store, she bought two blouses and spent a lot of money in the cosmetics department. After that, she went out for a bite to eat and then went to meet Werner at his office.

  When she walked into the elegant offices on Maximilianstrasse, her courage deserted her. She had never been out of a job for so long and now she was going to jump back in with something so big? But during the course of the conversation, she came up with a handful of promotional ideas for Luitpold Court on the spot, which Werner found compelling and original.

  He immediately called his employer and set up a meeting for the coming week. ‘And now I’ll phone Kathrin and then the three of us can go out for something nice to eat,’ he said.

  Despite the distraction of the shared meal, Agnes couldn’t stop worrying about Melli. As she drove down the road to her house, she saw the light on in Melli’s window. She suddenly felt a great burden lifting. She parked, took the shopping bags out of the boot and looked at the time. Nearly midnight. Not really an appropriate time for a visit. It would be better if she called ahead.

  On the way to the front door, she pulled her house keys out of her handbag. She was picked up by the motion detector and the light over the door came on. Much to her surprise, a bouquet of white lilies lay on the front steps. Agnes bent over and picked it up. Who could these be from? There was a card stuck between the flowers. Thank you, Agnes. Nothing else, not even a name. Who could this be? she wondered. Who is thanking me and why? She liked lilies, especially white ones. They were already getting a bit droopy, so the call to Melli would have to wait while she put them in water.

  * * *

  He leaned against the trunk of the copper beech tree. The light went on in the kitchen. He briefly saw Agnes pass the window and after a bit the light came on in the living room. But the curtains weren’t drawn. Agnes entered the room and took a vase from the shelf. No, not the white one, he thought. The green was a better choice. White and green, the colours of purity and innocence. Agnes considered the vase, hesitated a moment and put it back. Then she reached for the green one and left the room.

  He was bursting with joy. Tears filled his eyes. She is my counterpart; we are two parts of a whole. Finally, a person that I can trust, someone who’s on my side. The feeling was so overwhelming that he got a bit choked up. In a happy daze, he crept over towards the kitchen window. He watched as she filled the vase. She cut each flower first, then placed them in the water. How careful she was and what graceful and beautiful hands she had. Perhaps she would even . . . He didn’t dare finish the thought. This was the one. She wasn’t like the others. Those women. All the bitches and betrayers like his mother. Seductresses like Anna. He’d loved her. She’d toyed with him. Lured him in and then pushed him away and then lured him in again and when . . . He didn’t want to think about it. Still, he saw the hand again, how she put it over her mouth as the laughter poured out like bitter phlegm. He felt the miserable worm shrivel up and become smaller than it already was. He hadn’t touched a woman since. It had been so terribly humiliating. Cold sweat covered his forehead. He tried to breathe calmly. Now, everything would finally work out.

  Agnes carried the vase into the living room. He returned to his spot beneath the copper beech. She placed the flowers on the coffee table and reached for the phone. Then he heard the phone ringing in Melli’s house.

  * * *

  After the second ring, a hoarse voice answered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Melli?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘Who is this?’ The voice sounded weepy and irritable. Agnes thought it sounded like Melli’s mother.

  ‘It’s me, Agnes.’

  ‘Oh . . . Agnes.’ A shaky sigh fell between the words. ‘It’s just terrible . . .’ Melli’s mother said with a broken voice. Agnes heard a dry sob. She grew very cold.

  ‘What –’ Agnes didn’t want to ask, she didn’t want to know what she already knew.

  ‘Melli is dead.’

  Agnes had to sit down. She listened to Melli’s mother and was afraid. There was a madman out there somewhere. He could be lurking in the darkness. She stood up, closed the shutters and drew the curtains. With the telephone in her hand, she walked through the house locking doors and windows.

  When she was done, she sat in the kitchen. She felt as if her insides were bleeding, as if she’d been drinking acid. Her head was pounding. Images and fragments of words swarmed through it like panicked little birds. A glass of wine, Agnes thought, to calm the nerves. But instead, she opened the bottle of whisky she’d bought for Michael and drank two glasses. Then the birds disappeared and she felt as heavy as lead. She fell asleep on the sofa. Around 2 a.m., she woke up and dragged herself to bed. She pulled the blanket over her head and cried.

  Tuesday, 3rd June

  When Dühnfort awoke the next morning, grey clouds hung over the city. He went into the kitchen to make coffee, but on his way he noticed the letter from the property management company that he’d found in his mailbox when he’d finally got home from headquarters the night before. His lease was being terminated on the first of October. The owner’s daughter wanted to study in Munich and needed the flat. The idea of having to move filled him with sadness. He drank a cup of coffee standing up and left for Mariaseeon.

  Just before eight, he parked his car in front of Veith’s interior design shop. Fifteen minutes later, he left again with a list of se
ven names. Men who had been altar boys at the same time as Veith. Veith had also provided him with the addresses and places of work for four of them. The rest lived in Frankfurt, Munich and Bad Tölz. Dühnfort called Gina, gave her three names and asked her to look up the addresses. Then he visited Benno Maier, the first on the list. He was a farmer and, when Dühnfort asked his wife if he could speak to her husband, she directed him out into the fields. It was a delicate conversation to start at the edge of a grain field. How do you ask a man if he was the victim of sexual abuse thirty years ago? But Benno Maier turned out to be a warm and talkative person.

  The question surprised him, but he handled it calmly. When Dühnfort left, he was certain he’d received an honest answer. He’d still asked Maier for an alibi, but Maier had taken that well. A good start, Dühnfort thought and visited the next three one after the other. He drove to Ottobrunn, Neuperlach and Oberbiberg. He questioned a tiler, a banker and a programmer. They didn’t all respond with the same composure, but they all gave the same answer. None of them had been a victim of the priest. None of them had a light-coloured delivery van. They all provided alibis. He gave the information to Gina and asked her to look into it. In the meantime, she’d found the addresses of the three remaining men and passed them on.

  Dühnfort asked Gina to call the police station in Frankfurt and request that they question Sebastian König, the fifteenth man on the list.

  Next, he drove to Bad Tölz. Oliver Drewitz was an ophthalmologist. His practice was located in the middle of town. He was a man with friendly grey eyes and a tanned complexion. When he learned the reason for the visit, his eyes darkened. Dühnfort had found another of the priest’s victims.

  ‘I confessed to him that I’d stolen a locomotive from a school friend’s electric train set. That’s how he had a hold over me. Thank God we moved away shortly after that.’ Drewitz stared at the wall. ‘I thought I’d got over it. I was wrong. At seventeen or eighteen I nearly lost myself in the drugs scene. It was only after therapy that I got my life in order.’ Drewitz was married and had three sons. The family had spent the weekend, from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, in an alpine cabin in Austria.