“Sorry to screw up your grand finale!” Hannes shouted.
The man straightened and slowly turned to face him. Hannes looked into his eyes, which had become so familiar to him in recent days. Eyes that so uniquely reflected the inner life of this man. Eyes that could look amused, angry, thoughtful, compassionate, and melancholy—sometimes everything at once. Eyes which Hannes had looked up to. Now they were empty.
“When did you know it was me?” Fritz asked. His voice sounded tired.
“Really know? Only today. I suspected it yesterday, I just didn’t want to admit it! But too many things just fell into place. The brooch in your boat, the yellow paint scratches on your car, the green streaks on Ms. Ternheim’s car, and your painkillers, which were used to sedate the two Ternheims. Not to mention your behavior in recent days. Eventually I connected all the dots. After all, you were the one who taught me not to rule out any possibility. At first I laughed at the idea that you could be the murderer, until I found a picture of Maria Löwenstein this afternoon and remembered the photo of your mother in the office. When I learned that Mrs. Löwenstein gave birth to a son named Josef Fritz, all doubt vanished. Why did you do it?”
“Did I not tell you why in the letter? There are some that you can never forgive. What this monster did to my mother cannot be allowed to go unpunished. She was never herself again. Supposedly before her internment, she was a fun-loving and confident young woman. I never knew her like that. Only depressed, absent, angry, sad. She would burst into tears for what seemed like no reason in the middle of the city. Once, when a family friend gave me a pair of pajamas, she got upset because it reminded her of the blue-and-gray stripes on her prison clothes at the concentration camp. That’s why I also took photos of Ternheim’s beloved granddaughter Merle wearing pajamas like those.” Fritz had to take a short breath before continuing. “On one of my birthdays, my mother threw herself to the ground, kicking and screaming. Since that day, I became the leper at school, the kid with the crazy mother. On a summer day when I was nine years old, we went to the same beach where Helene Ternheim was found by her father. My mother couldn’t take it anymore. She simply walked into the sea and never came back.”
His voice was surprisingly firm. Hannes carefully took a step closer. Fritz raised his hand in warning. “Stay where you are! I have my gun in my jacket.”
“Is it true Heinrich Ternheim was your mother’s childhood sweetheart?” asked Hannes.
“Ah, so you’ve figured out who Mark von Wittenberg, or wittenberge, is,” Fritz said and nodded. “You know why I fought with Steffen when he assigned you to me? My plan was actually to work the case alone to control everything. Then suddenly you popped up. I knew I had to tighten my schedule because I couldn’t distract you forever with false leads.”
“You digress, Fritz,” said Hannes. “What about your mother and Ternheim?”
“Childhood sweetheart? Sandbox sweetheart is more like it! They were neighbors and practically grew up together. When Ternheim’s father became enamored with Nazi ideology, he forbade his son from hanging around ‘that Jewish bitch,’ as he called her. The two of them continued to meet in secret. There was even talk of running away to get married.” Fritz sneered. “But it didn’t work out that way.”
“Why did he turn his back on her?”
“He was a member of the Hitler Youth. They probably poisoned his thoughts. Then he was promoted to manager at his father’s company. The meetings with my mother became less and less frequent and finally stopped altogether. Then one day the Gestapo came to her door and took the whole family. They’d been tipped off in person by a childhood friend. Ternheim probably hoped to curry favor with the regime—and it worked! But that didn’t stop his lethal influence on my mother. A few years ago I found out that one of the drugs they tested on her at the camp came from Ternheim’s diabolical factory.”
“Why did the Ternheims go unpunished after the war? I thought Nazi criminals were brought to justice.”
“Justice?” Fritz laughed. “With the number of criminals and collaborators, they would have needed thousands of investigators to bring everyone to justice! They focused on the main perpetrators. Besides, many documents disappeared before the Allies could get ahold of them. Heinrich Ternheim renamed the company and buried the matter. Since his company made huge profits thanks to the Nazis, he could hit the ground running after the war. My mother on the other hand had to make a living as a seamstress and maid.”
“Did she tell you all this?”
“Great bedtime stories, huh?” Fritz laughed. “Sometimes she didn’t speak for days, other times it would all come gushing out. At least it awoke my sense of justice. That’s why I wanted to become a cop—to ensure the justice that my mother did not get. But all too often I’ve seen prosecutors and judges sacrifice justice in favor of corrupt agreements.”
Bit by bit, Hannes inched forward. “How was it for you after your mother died?” He was trying to keep the conversation going and distract Fritz at the same time.
“Oh, the new German government had a simple solution for me. I was hauled off to an orphanage. I was a feeble child, probably a long-term effect of the experiments and other hardships my mother had endured in the concentration camp. I couldn’t run as fast as the other boys and wasn’t as strong as they were, and my growth was stunted. Of course it was not long until they noticed such shortcomings. Then I became the whipping boy. Even the caretakers at the orphanage couldn’t stand this pale, sickly little boy and tormented me as well. I ran away several times, but was always brought back.”
“What I don’t understand is the history of your name. How did you become Fritz Janssen?”
Fritz smiled. “So that’s what held you up? After the war, my mother fell in love with a British soldier who was stationed for several years in Germany. When he was shipped back to England, my mother was already pregnant with me, but she never told him. They wrote each other letters for years afterward, but she never informed him about me. Everyone assumed this British soldier was my father. But there was a reason my mother didn’t breathe a word to him about me.”
The smile on his face gave way to hatred. “My birth had absolutely nothing to do with the English soldier. Long after my mother died, I found her diary and learned the truth about where I come from. Shortly after the war, Heinrich Ternheim once again entered my mother’s life and inquired about her health. She confronted him about his guilt, threatening to go public.”
A dark premonition took hold of Hannes, sending shivers down his spine.
“Of course that posed a serious threat to Ternheim’s career. He went ballistic, called my mother a Jewish bitch, and threatened her. Realizing she was undeterred, he changed tactics and began to flatter her and offer money for her silence. But my mother was not for sale; she insisted on seeking justice. So . . .”
Fritz’s voice cracked, and he shook his head in anger. He cleared his throat several times, and Hannes inched forward again.
“To make a long story short, he began to lash out at my mother. But that’s not all. He tore the clothes from her body, threw himself on her, destroyed the last small remnant of life in her. He raped her several times and the result of that . . . that heinous crime stands before you. Heinrich Ternheim . . . Merlin . . . is my father.”
Although Hannes had already feared this, it nevertheless pulled the ground out from under him.
“And your mother kept all this to herself? Why? Why didn’t she—”
“Why?” screamed Fritz. “My God, Hannes! Some empathetic cop you are! Put yourself in her shoes, and imagine what she’d gone through! After being raped, she was dead inside. With his seed, this devil had smothered the last spark of life in her. It’s a miracle she was ever able to write this . . . this . . . experience in her diary. She was troubled by me: every time she looked at me, the memories came flooding back. Once she lost her temper and called me the spawn of Satan. Then she hit me so hard I landed on the edge of the table. That’s how I g
ot my scar. The dog bite was a lie. But it’s understandable why she couldn’t love me, after all that she had been through. Right?”
Fritz fought to control his heavy breathing as he looked almost pleadingly at Hannes, who was unable to say a single word and was ashamed of himself for it.
“Anyway, you asked how I got my name. I was born Josef Fritz Löwenstein and everyone thought I was a German-English bastard. At least that was the expression I heard most often. The first positive experience in my life was a name change: when I was twelve, I was adopted by a couple named Janssen who couldn’t have children. For the first time I experienced what love and security were. They had a farm not far from here. I tried to catch up on my childhood there. Since neither had a particularly high opinion of the Church, they always called me by my middle name, not Josef. And it stuck. They were killed in a car accident twenty years ago.”
Hannes had dramatically shortened the distance between them. “What I don’t understand is: Why didn’t you just kill Old Ternheim? What did his children have to do with it?”
“That would have been too easy. I wanted him to suffer as much as I had suffered. He should feel what it’s like to lose a family member. And to make sure that he understood, I left several clues. First, Helene died like my mother did: by drowning. I even dyed her hair, because before my mother turned prematurely gray, she had light-blonde hair. I gave Helene a sedative and took her on my boat. Unfortunately, the dose was too low, so I had to tie her hands. I couldn’t tattoo her properly because she struggled. Don’t you know how easy it is to get a tattoo machine online?”
Hannes shrugged; he lacked the strength to reply.
“Anyway, the tattoo was meant to be another message to Old Ternheim. The numbers, as you discovered, were those tattooed on my mother at the concentration camp. I held Helene’s head under water until she stopped struggling. Then I removed the ropes from around her wrists and tossed her overboard where I could be sure she’d be driven by the currents to the beach where Old Ternheim takes his walks. You were already well on my heels when you decided to look at maps of the currents and lists of the ships in the area. One of those unknown blips on the radar was my Lena. Luckily I was able to stop you from looking into it further.”
“Then why did you also have to kill Christian Ternheim?”
“For the same reason. However, he had been estranged from his father for some time. Did you know he raped his sister? On the day Ms. Wagner called to say her boss was missing, I was alone with her in the office and was able to coax this savory detail from her. He also impregnated a woman he met on vacation and got in real trouble with his father. He once again had to dig deep into his pockets to buy the silence of the poor woman and keep the family name clean. Eventually Christian Ternheim channeled all his ambition into the company. The hasty launch of Xonux was due to his vaulting ambition, even if his father had the final decision-making power. And so Christian Ternheim also had my wife on his conscience.”
Hannes gasped in surprise.
“So you didn’t find everything out,” Fritz said with a hint of satisfaction. “My wife had a miscarriage and afterward suffered from anxiety. Xonux was considered a harmless miracle drug. In the summer of 1996, she suffered a fatal heart attack. I’m convinced this drug was the reason. Despite the warnings, Christian Ternheim had released the drug to satisfy his greed and desire for material success. That’s why I let him choke on banknotes. It was purely coincidence that I used twenty-euro notes like the ones we found in Ben’s nightstand.”
“But why did you try to lay the blame on Ben? What did he ever do to you?”
“Nothing! On the contrary, I really like him, and I find the war he wages against that Nazi shit admirable. But he was also an ideal scapegoat. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let the suspicion rest on him for long. I had to buy time so Heinrich Ternheim could suffer a little longer and I could carry out the last part of my plan in peace.”
Hannes stared at Fritz half in fascination and half in disgust. “But Ben’s fingerprints on the tattoo machine . . .”
“That was nothing! Do you remember when I excused myself to the bathroom the evening I visited you? I took a bottle from the kitchen covered with Ben’s fingerprints. It was easy to transfer prints from it onto the machine. I’ve been in the business long enough to know how to do a few things.”
“The warning sent to Ternheim that something would happen on the night of the gala probably came from you then, right?”
“No, why would you say that? I thought you were behind it because you felt guilty about the assistant. There’s no ignoring the sparks between you two. No, it was in my interest for the protest to take place. That way, I could cast suspicion on Ben. The increased security measures didn’t make the murder any easier for me. The leak had to come from someone in Ben’s circle.”
“But why didn’t you do more to sabotage the investigation from the start?”
“Then it would have been too obvious! Besides, I slowed the investigation down. I was able, for example, to delay the start by an entire day. Or think of the note stuck to Ms. Stahl’s bike, which was meant to silence her because I couldn’t be sure how much she knew. Then I tried to stifle your interest in the boat traffic, and this morning, I tried to convince you that Ben and Mark von Wittenberg were the same person. While it’s true he grew up in the vicinity of that small town, it was pure coincidence I had chosen the name von Wittenberg or wittenberge. At the time, I didn’t even know Ben. But a complete torpedoing of the investigation was also not in my best interest. Certain things about Lagussa and that miserable family had to come to light.”
“The leak to the press was your doing too, right? Ben was completely innocent.”
“Of course! I wanted to gradually up the ante. Unfortunately, I had to apply more pressure a little more quickly toward the end. Since there would be double the number of detectives working on the case tomorrow, I wanted to bring the matter to a close. I wouldn’t last long against three colleagues.”
“Why did you hide Ms. Ternheim’s car?”
“You know why. Don’t you remember the slight yellow scratch on my car? At first, Helene Ternheim trusted me. I got in touch with her and told her I was doing some research into Lagussa’s past during the Nazi era. I told her that what I had unearthed would cause a scandal in the wrong hands, that it would be better if Lagussa took proactive measures. She initially doubted the authenticity of the documents, but later she was very interested. But then I noticed she was uneasy in my presence. Perhaps I had pressured her too much. I soon realized I had no other option. So I arranged to meet with her one last time. She was reluctant. So I lied to her, said I had found new documents which were much more damning. In the end, she agreed to meet. When she ran to her car, I managed to block her with my Jeep before she could drive off. Unfortunately, my car was not the only vehicle damaged in the crash. It would be hard to explain the traces of paint from my Jeep on her sports car. So I drove the car on Sunday to that abandoned barn. I of course hadn’t considered that Old Ternheim would notice and somehow inform you. Luckily for me, you called. That gave me enough time to trip and fall in the driver’s seat before forensics arrived and thereby explain why my fingerprints and DNA were inside the car.”
Hannes nodded as he took it all in. “Just tell me one more thing: Why was Heinrich Ternheim so afraid of you, and how did he know your other name?”
“That was a mistake on my part. Ten years ago, I had written him a letter, but I’d limited it only to allusions. This triggered his withdrawal from the company. I couldn’t bear the thought that he was living the peaceful, quiet life of a retiree. I confronted him years later, after he gained worldwide fame and admiration for his weird pictures. I knew he had stopped talking and supposedly acted a little confused. I thought he had forgotten my face. At that time, I had no idea that I would—”
“And the sedative found in the Ternheim siblings—I suppose you took them from your own stock?”
�
��I made another mistake taking those two pills in front of you this morning, but I couldn’t deal with the back pain anymore. I immediately feared you would recognize the drug and remember the name Letharmol. That’s when I realized I didn’t have much time left.”
“Why do you take those pills, anyway?” Hannes continued to inch forward. “Suppressing back pain can’t be the only course of treatment.”
Fritz was silent for a moment. “The back pain isn’t the real problem, Hannes. I have prostate cancer—and it has metastasized to the spine. The cancer wasn’t diagnosed in time and is incurable. That’s why I’m running out of time.” He rubbed his eyes before he continued. “Now you know how it all fits together. And you figured out most of it for yourself. Perhaps Mrs. Öztürk from the cafeteria is right. With your different-colored eyes, you can see both past and present. You have shed light on the events of the past and linked them to those of the present. As unlikely as it may sound now, I’m proud of you! You learned quickly and you’re not easily outwitted. You’ve got the instinct, Hannes. You’ll be a good cop. I hope in spite of everything that you’ve learned something from me.”
“What about Merle von Hohenstein? You’re behind her disappearance, aren’t you?”
Fritz gazed past him, lost in thought. “That . . . that was wrong of me. Merle is Heinrich Ternheim’s granddaughter. Christian Ternheim slept with her mother; she was the result. Of course, the Ternheims simply bought the mother’s silence. Merle only recently found out who her father is.”
“Why did you kidnap her? She bears no guilt just because she’s Christian’s daughter.”
“You’re right . . .” Fritz’s moist eyes were shimmering. “I said I made a big mistake. I was blinded by hatred. It was only in the last few days that I found out her true story. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty. When I kidnapped her, all I knew was that she was that barbarian’s granddaughter and probably meant more to him than his own children. She visited him often, and since there are no buses out here, she’d walk from the last stop. I watched her over and over. It was obvious the old man had a soft spot for her.” He rubbed his eyes again. “I was sure she was his weak point. I observed Merle for quite some time, waiting for the right opportunity. She always had a water bottle in her backpack. I laced her bottle with sleeping pills when she wasn’t looking. Today I realize Merle was just as much a victim of this family as I was.”
Time Heals No Wounds (A Baltic Sea Crime Novel) Page 31