The Northern Cross (A Baltic Sea Crime Novel Book 2)

by Hendrik Falkenberg

  “What’s wrong? With a face like yours, no one’s going to pounce on you anyway,” joked Hannes.

  “Shows what you know. Someone cornered me on my way out of the bathroom!” Per cried.

  “Well, at least it wasn’t in the bathroom,” Hannes said.

  Anna had a more convincing argument. She placed her hands around Hannes’s head and directed his eyes to the cleavage visible under her pink top.

  “Put your colleague out of his misery. Besides, I’ve got something else planned for us tonight. I’ll show you something no one here can offer you . . .”

  CHAPTER 18

  Hannes scowled as he scanned the news the next morning. It had been a month since the cross was discovered. The police had decided to go public with the search for David Bach. The media had run photos of him for two days, but it had yet to prove useful. And a few editors with good contacts in the force were able to deduce a few facts about the murders. If coverage of the so-called Jesus Murder had died down over the past month, there was now renewed interest in the story.

  “Religious Rampage?” read the headline on Hannes’s tablet, and his appetite quickly disappeared. The article established a clear link among all four murders, and it was noted that the victims had been members of New Way. The group was cast in such a positive light that Hannes suspected the writer was an avowed atheist. And with that, their attempts to keep the group out of the limelight crumbled. There was even speculation about the use of Rohypnol—someone had obviously been unable to keep his or her mouth shut. Fearing a copycat, Steffen Lauer now had a patrol car regularly drive past New Way.

  Potential witnesses kept calling the hotline, claiming to have seen David Bach. The detectives had been busy investigating every tip, but they all led nowhere. There hadn’t been any time to chase down other leads. Efforts at pinpointing Bach’s cell phone had also failed.

  Benjamin Lück had last been seen alive by his colleagues at the theater. Rehearsals had taken place on Monday afternoon, only a few hours before the actor was murdered. Those who had known Lück described him as a nice man who’d been particularly close to a couple of people there. But Lück had evidently been pretty tight-lipped—only two men at the theater knew about the attack on him, and only one friend knew about his former boyfriend. Although the name Karl or Carlo didn’t ring a bell, the friend did recall that Mr. Lück had once mentioned having a steady boyfriend at the time in question. They had dated for over a year but had never been seen together. Even the members of New Way were unaware if Mr. Lück had had a boyfriend or not, despite the fact that he was openly gay and often told others that “God loves me just the way I am.”

  In Clarissa’s opinion, it wasn’t a big surprise that Lück had not kept in contact with his family. She and Marcel had informed the parents of his death. Although Benjamin Lück had been an only child, his coming out had resulted in the family’s estrangement. According to his mother, he had told them about “his disease,” as she put it, on his thirtieth birthday and had adamantly refused to seek treatment. Her husband had sat next to her the entire time, never once opening his mouth; evidently, his son had been dead to him for almost fifteen years.

  Hannes went with Per, Isabelle, and Federsen to search Lück’s place. It was a one-bedroom apartment located in a somewhat dilapidated building. The furniture proved there wasn’t money in acting. The walls were covered in theater posters illustrating the man’s career. He didn’t seem to place much value in collecting things other than high-end fashion, which became immediately obvious when they opened his closet.

  Per rifled through a drawer of DVDs, pulled two out, and walked over to his colleagues with a grin.

  “Either Mr. Lück was also interested in straight sex or he was fond of the group’s new member.”

  “Those are the pornos Alexander Kramer starred in. Maybe he didn’t just demonstrate his skills to Sylvia Böhm.”

  “I doubt that,” Isabelle said and eyed the DVD covers. “He’s gorgeous. A lot of people are into these metrosexual types. Lück was probably just looking for a little inspiration.”

  “Niehaus, have there been any rumors that Kramer was interested in men?” Federsen asked.

  “I haven’t heard any. But if he was, people at the studio certainly would have known. Is there any more straight porn in the drawer, Per?”

  “No. Mostly just regular movies and gay porn.”

  A call to Paradise Images & Productions revealed that no one knew anything about any bisexual tendencies. Kramer’s friends, Mirko and Jonas, were similarly skeptical when Per asked their opinions. Isabelle was probably right. Although Lück’s phone showed that he had occasionally called Alexander Kramer, he had also contacted other members of New Way.

  Frank Meister received yet another visit from the cops. This time, the investigators shoved a search warrant in his face and inspected every inch of his apartment. He watched in surprise as they thoroughly examined his shoes. He wore size eight and a half, meaning that the police couldn’t place him at the scene of the last crime. Meister remained surprisingly calm for the duration of the search and only lost his cool when the police seized his laptop. The investigators didn’t exactly know what they hoped to find on it, but sometimes a shot in the dark brought the desired result to light.

  Hannes quickly put down his tablet when he heard the patter of Anna’s bare feet across the floor of his bathroom. They had spent the last few nights alternating between apartments, but Hannes had been getting off work so late that he had usually found Anna fast asleep. At least that morning they could have breakfast together. Hannes was scheduled to see Fritz until ten that morning. Anna wrapped her arms around him from behind. Her hair smelled like his shampoo.

  “Late night again?”

  “Yeah. I thought about waking you up, but you looked so peaceful.”

  “Oh, I would have sprung back to life,” she said and laughed, and her eyes fell on his tablet. “Are you obsessing over the case again?”

  She made a point of placing the tablet facedown on a chair, and Hannes managed not to think about the killings for most of breakfast.

  He was late arriving at the prison, but the precious few minutes he had gained with Anna were well worth it. Fritz had already spread his notes on the table and looked at him impatiently.

  “They almost took me back to my cell. Where were you? We only have an hour now.”

  One look at Hannes’s face revealed his reason. Fritz couldn’t begrudge him for wanting to spend a few extra moments with Anna. He didn’t press the subject. Instead, he let his investigative passions run free. He had also read about Lück’s murder in the papers, and thanks to the heads-up, he was able to put two and two together before the reporters could. Still, he insisted that Hannes clarify the details, then shared his impressions.

  “I’ve been thinking about your interviews with the members of New Way. Some of what they said is a little far-fetched, but there have been some unusual incidents. It all fits.”

  “What fits?”

  “Listen, your new girlfriend’s comment about that movie on the seven deadly sins got me thinking. You said that New Way uses the Ten Commandments as their guiding principles, right?”

  “Yeah, they even have them displayed on the wall.”

  “So what are they?”

  “Um . . . You shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not . . .” Hannes struggled.

  “I’ll help you.” Fritz slammed a piece of paper onto the table. “I’ve listed the incidents in chronological order. Let’s start with the Third Commandment: ‘Remember to keep holy the Sabbath.’ Think. Who in the group hasn’t obeyed the Sabbath?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. None of the victims—”

  “The man’s still alive. Wolfgang Hartmann. The department store owner who’s been protesting against mandatory closures on Sunday. His phone rang constantly on Sundays for a month this past summer. Get it?”

  “You mean . . .”

 
; Fritz was in full swing and slapped down a second piece of paper.

  “The Seventh Commandment: ‘You shall not steal.’ Didn’t your colleague Clarissa arrest one of the members several times for theft?”

  “Beatrice Reichert, the former ballet dancer.”

  “There you go. And she herself was robbed. Oddly enough, only her favorite mementos were taken. That probably upset her far more than if expensive things were taken. Now the Fourth Commandment: ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ What stands out to you?”

  Hannes stared blankly at him. “Mrs. Brinkmann. Her children want nothing to do with her. But then her children would be punished, not her.”

  “Mrs. Brinkmann also mentioned that she hardly goes to visit her parents at the nursing home. A little later, her own children receive a letter, after which they want nothing to do with her. Weird, right?”

  “Yeah, but isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

  “Maybe. Let’s wait and see. The Ninth Commandment is ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.’ The Grafs are trying to kick out their tenants so they can renovate their buildings and jack up the rent. Then their house burns down in early October.”

  Fritz rummaged through his small stack of papers and pulled out a fifth sheet. He was so excited that his ears were red.

  “Now think about the murder victims. The First Commandment is ‘I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.’”

  “Which includes Celtic gods, of course.” Hannes eagerly leaned forward. “Antje Kramer was fascinated by Celtic mythology and even performed ceremonies. She was probably performing one when she ate the poisoned mushrooms. She also shared her fascination with others in the group.”

  “That’s why the druidess had to die.” Fritz nodded. “Just like her brother. He broke the Tenth Commandment: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.’ He was a ladies’ man, both in his professional and personal life. And Sylvia Böhm was married.”

  “Isn’t there also another commandment against cheating?”

  “The Sixth: ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ She’s also guilty of the Fifth: ‘You shall not kill.’”

  Confused, Hannes looked at him. “She didn’t kill anyone.”

  “She had an abortion. That’s probably why poison was injected into her abdomen.”

  “Right,” said Hannes in fascination. “That would make sense. But what about Mr. Lück? As far as I know, there’s nothing in the Ten Commandments about not being gay.”

  “Well, some hard-liners would say that it’s implicit. But there’s also the Second Commandment, which forbids taking the Lord’s name in vain. Mr. Lück made no secret of the fact that he was gay. He also would always say—”

  “That God didn’t hate him, but loved him just the way he was.” Hannes was amazed. All this made sense and was an unlikely coincidence. His head was spinning, and he stared at the list in front of him as he sorted through his thoughts and the Ten Commandments. “No commandment has been broken twice. If your theory’s correct and it’s been the same killer the whole time, then he’s selected someone for each broken commandment. And that means there’s still one missing.”

  “Or two,” said Fritz. “So far as we know, we can only attribute one commandment to each victim, except for Mrs. Böhm. But if we say that she was killed for breaking the Fifth Commandment, then there are two more commandments left for which there are no victims.”

  “One I know: ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But what’s the other?”

  Fritz pushed the last piece of paper toward him. “The eighth: ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’ Either no one has broken that commandment yet or there’s been an incident we don’t know about. But I wouldn’t count on the killer picking just one victim for each commandment. It could be pure coincidence that there’s only been one for each so far. When he gets to the last commandment, he might start from the beginning again.”

  Hannes only half listened. He stared at the list and another thought popped into his head. He quickly shuffled through the papers to reorder them, then looked up at Fritz.

  “If we arrange the incidents and murders chronologically, does anything stand out to you?”

  Fritz rubbed the scar on his left cheek as he carefully examined the notes through his rectangular frames. Then he nodded and glanced at Hannes.

  “They keep getting crueler. In July, harassing phone calls, relatively harmless. Then the mementos were stolen in August, which caused Mrs. Reichert emotional distress. And Mrs. Brinkmann likely experienced even more pain when her children stopped talking to her after the letter was sent in September.”

  “And in early October, the Grafs’ property was damaged,” Hannes said. “Maybe it was even attempted murder. It was sheer luck that the Grafs weren’t in the burning house. Then by mid-October the first victim’s killed: Alexander Kramer.”

  Fritz shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to die. After all, the killer attached a footrest to the cross. The goal was either to make him suffer longer—”

  “Or the perp assumed he’d be found in time.”

  “But then he realized how easy it was to kill and started to enjoy it. And thus the fate of Mrs. Böhm was sealed. Otherwise, maybe a few of her horses would have been poisoned.”

  “It’s possible we don’t know about every incident,” Hannes said. “But we wouldn’t have overlooked any deaths. The increasing cruelty over time supports our theory. But where do the attacks on Benjamin Lück and Thomas Beck fit into all this? They’re not in your notes.”

  “That’s true. However, it is conceivable that the attack on Mr. Lück was meant to be a warning. Maybe something similar happened to the victims, and we just don’t know. If that’s the case, then more people are in danger. Especially Mr. Beck, since he’s already had several incidents.”

  “He’s also sort of the group’s unofficial leader,” Hannes added. “With the death of Lück, the public outreach coordinator has been silenced. It’s possible that the spiritual leader will soon follow. I wonder if . . .”

  Hannes furrowed his brow as he weighed various possibilities. Fritz watched him intently.

  “If I were the killer and considered New Way a personal affront to my deeply held religious beliefs and decided to wage war, where would I start? Sure, with the leaders. Mr. Beck and Mr. Lück make sense. Maybe Alexander Kramer, since his films gave him an audience. Maybe even Sylvia Böhm, because she organized a lot of the group’s activities. But the others? The Grafs, for example, aren’t in any sort of leadership role. On the other hand, the Schweigers are. Yet their somewhat conservative views don’t seem all that in step with the group’s stated principles.”

  “And so far, they haven’t experienced any cause for concern. But maybe that’s the reason why? Maybe in the eyes of the killer, they’re not blasphemers?”

  Hannes nodded as he took it all in. “True. But the killer would have to be intimately familiar with the lives of the members. He’d have to know that Mrs. Brinkmann ‘banished’ her parents to a nursing home. Or that Mrs. Reichert is a kleptomaniac. I doubt Mrs. Böhm told the whole world about her abortion. But at the same time, there’s a lot of openness at New Way. Everyone’s there because they’re looking for a community that doesn’t judge, where everyone shares their values. People know a lot about each other. Maybe the killer has an informant in the group. Or . . .”

  “He was—or is—a member of New Way.”

  A number of journalists milled about outside the station. Lauer felt forced to hold a press conference to put an end to the wild speculation and counter the impression that the police were not on top of the situation. He had initially chosen Federsen to participate in the press conference, then changed his mind. Federsen was uncontrollable. It was feared that he wouldn’t hold up under cross-examination from the press.

  The last few minutes served only to validate his decision. Federsen had spent the entire morning lambasting every memb
er of the team until Lauer had to intervene. Even Marcel didn’t escape Federsen’s wrath, and he was only a rank below the ornery detective. Lauer sighed. He had chosen Federsen over Marcel because of his age and experience, but the man seemed incapable of controlling his anger. He briefly took him aside and explained the seriousness of the situation.

  “Henning, if you keep behaving like a rabid dog, I’ll put Marcel in charge of the investigation. You can’t treat your team like that. That’s it.”

  “A bunch of amateurs,” Federsen said. “How am I supposed to catch a serial killer with them?”

  “You are not the only one who would prefer that this case be solved today rather than tomorrow, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen if there’s another victim. But I don’t get the sense that your team’s overwhelmed. Detective Niehaus just presented a brand-new theory. And in thanks you insult him in front of the entire team. How’s your team supposed to explore every angle when they’re only going to be met with ridicule?”

  “Ridiculous,” Federsen said. “A religious serial killer who’s imitating a mass murderer from a horror movie? This isn’t the US.”

  “The connection to the Ten Commandments sounds logical. It doesn’t matter if the film was the inspiration for the killer, or if the killer came up with the pattern on his own. It may seem unlikely that there’s an informant in New Way, but this is a lead that should have been investigated a long time ago. Be happy that someone’s finally looking at the bigger picture. Let’s head back inside. And pull yourself together. Marcel will join me at the press conference. I don’t need you insulting anyone on camera.”

  He turned and opened the door to the conference room. Five officers stared at him as he returned to the room with Federsen in tow. The detectives had all been amazed when Hannes presented his theory regarding the Ten Commandments. Finally: a clear motive. Hannes was a little uncomfortable with the admiration it had earned. After all, Fritz did play an important part in this new break. But he of course had to keep that to himself and outwardly basked in the praise. Only Federsen had rained on his parade, calling it “a preposterous, harebrained idea.”