Tidal Shift

by Dora Heldt

  “What do you want with my wife’s telephone number?” asked Walter, confused.

  Dr. Keller looked surprised. “Oh, Frau Müller is your wife? Of course, I should have realized. Well then I can tell you—I’m very interested in her offer. I’ll come by on Sunday and—”

  A tinny voice from the loudspeaker interrupted him. “Dr. Keller to the ER immediately, please. Dr. Keller to the…”

  “Oh, I have to go. Give my best to Frau Müller.”

  He disappeared, his coat fluttering. Walter stared after him and slowly turned his head to Heinz.

  “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  His brother-in-law shook his head. “And why does he want to see her on Sunday? Why does Inge have meetings with everyone all of a sudden? Walter, has it always been like this?”

  Baffled, Walter plucked a few leaves from his jacket and let them glide down to the floor.

  “You won’t believe me, boys, but if it was like this, I never noticed a thing.”

  Chapter 34

  * * *

  Inge was already standing at the door when Christine and Johann climbed out of the car.

  “Hello, you two. You’re very punctual.”

  “Of course.” Noting with surprise how serious her aunt looked, Christine kissed her quickly on the cheek. “We’re intrigued to know what all this is about.”

  Inge shook Johann’s hand and stepped aside. “You’d better come in then.”

  “Do we not want to go out for some dinner?” Johann hesitated. “Or are you not hungry?”

  “I’d really like to discuss things with you first. We can always go afterward. Follow me.” Christine and Johann shared a confused look, then followed her up the steps and into the apartment.

  “Take a seat.” Inge gestured toward the sofa and sat down opposite them in a chair. She looked at them both for a moment and took a deep breath. “Please don’t interrupt me, or I’ll lose my thread. So, a few weeks ago, I got something in the mail…”

  She talked for half an hour, then looked up, clearly exhausted. “So, that’s everything. Now it’s your turn to speak.”

  Johann slowly crossed his legs and glanced at Christine. “Breathe. Otherwise you’ll suffocate.”

  She breathed in and out and stared at her aunt. “Good heavens,” she said, rubbing her temple in concentration. “It’s like something from a movie!”

  Inge looked at Johann pleadingly. “I know. I just don’t have any idea what to do now. What would you two do in my position?”

  Johann took his pullover off and carefully rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Do you have a copy of the will, Frau Müller?”

  “Please call me Inge, Johann.” Inge stood up and went over to the closet to fetch her handbag. “I’d prefer it if you did. Wait, where did I…ah, here. This is the copy the nice man at the court made for me.”

  Johann glanced over the document and handed it Christine.

  “It’s true. It’s not valid without a certificate of inheritance. Who actually sent the will to you?”

  “They asked me that in Niebüll too. The letter came from Flensburg, from some solicitor’s office. But there was no cover letter, and I didn’t give it any thought. That reminds me. I wanted to see whether I still have the envelope. Wait a moment.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a toiletry bag. Blushing a little, she sat back down. “When the document arrived in the mail, I was in the middle of unpacking my suitcase from the spa. I was standing in the hallway reading it when Walter came home. I stuffed everything into the toiletry bag so he wouldn’t find it and take over.” She fiddled awkwardly with the zipper; something was stuck. “In the court I realized that perhaps I only took the will out. And now the damn thing won’t open…”

  “Give it here,” said Christine. “I’m a bit more brutal.” She tugged the zipper as far as it would go, then pushed her finger into the gap. “There is something else there…”

  Under Johann and Inge’s watchful gazes, she smoothed the document out on the table. It was an envelope, addressed to Inge, with a Flensburg address. “Solicitor and notary Peter Sorensen.”

  Christine nodded contentedly and waved the envelope in front of Johann’s face. “Bingo. You see, Aunt Inge, all you need to do now is ask someone who knows what this is about.”

  “Well.” Johann took the envelope from her hand. “This isn’t the solution to Inge’s problem. It seems there are two wills, and only one of them is valid. Is it possible that Anna Nissen did another will after the one that was sent to you?”

  “Why would she have done that?” Inge looked at him quizzically. “If she had had someone in her life who was close enough for her to leave something to them, then I would have known about it. But this management company? You can’t possibly imagine how smarmy this Guido Schneider is. There’s no way that Anna would have liked him. And I already thought that even before Inspector Martensen spoke to me.”

  “Well, either way,” Johann said as he laid the envelope on the table, “let’s drive to Flensburg tomorrow and visit Peter Sorensen. You need a lawyer anyway, and if he knows something about all this, then…Is that someone’s cell phone ringing?”

  “Not mine.” Christine reached out for Inge’s bag. “It’s coming from here.” She handed her aunt the telephone.

  “Hello?…Heinz?…Yes?” Aunt Inge wrinkled her forehead, put her hand on the loudspeaker, and whispered, “He wants me to talk to Walter.” Then she spoke up again. “Walter?…Where are you?…What? You have to talk louder, I can hardly hear you…Aha…And you were in the hospital?”

  Christine gave a start and searched Inge’s face for signs of a catastrophe, but she looked calm.

  “You fell?…Oh, right. Does it hurt badly?…Yes, of course, I can imagine. And what am I supposed to do about it?…Then hand me back to him…Heinz, how did this happen? He hates gardening. He only likes mowing the lawn…Yes, I’ll come tomorrow…Christine is here right now. You want to speak to her?…Okay, fine, I’ll tell her. See you tomorrow then. Look after Walter…Yes, of course, ’bye.” With an inscrutable expression, she put her phone back in her bag. “Your father said that he can do a barbecue, but doesn’t know how to make potato salad. And neither does Kalli.”

  Christine looked at her, confused. “Yes, and?”

  “They want to barbecue tomorrow.”

  “And they want me to make potato salad?”

  Inge nodded. “Charlotte isn’t there, after all. And neither Heinz nor Walter is likely to expect anything of me right now.”

  “I think you’re being too harsh on yourself,” Johann said, and then urged, “So what was that about the hospital?”

  “Walter came on the phone and told me in a weak voice that he’s broken his behind, but that means he had a fall and knocked it a bit. To his credit, for once he actually didn’t want to bother me, but Heinz was of the opinion that it was his duty to tell me. They went to the hospital. Apparently Walter was cutting the hedge at your parents’ house and fell down from a ten-yard height.”

  Christine shook her head in disbelief. “We don’t even have a hedge that high—nor a ladder!”

  “Oh, you know how your father exaggerates.” Inge waved her comment away. “I promised to look in on Walter tomorrow. We’ll go to this ‘barbecue,’ and then we’ll see. Hopefully it won’t be anything too serious.”

  But she couldn’t hide her concern, so Johann leaned forward. “Should we drive you there now perhaps?”

  While Inge was still thinking, her cell phone rang again. Inge snatched it up and answered.

  “Walter?…Oh, it’s you, Anika…What?…Yes, of course. Christine and Johann are here right now, too, I’ve just told them everything…Really? I’m intrigued…Okay, see you soon.” She looked at Johann and Christine thoughtfully. “Anika went out to dinner with Jörn Tietjen, the architect working on Anna’s house. She found out quite a lot of information and is on her way here now.”

  “That’s g
reat.” Johann leaned back. “And after that we can go and see how Walter’s behind is doing. While we’re there, I think you should explain things to the men too. After all, they have some very abstruse theories about what’s going on with you.”

  Inge looked at him, confused. “Why? What do you mean?”

  Johann ignored Christine’s warning look. “From boy toys to wild extramarital romances and criminal activities, there’s hardly a theory they haven’t already considered.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Inge laughed loudly, then went pale when she saw Christine’s face. “You can’t be serious! Christine, why didn’t you reassure them?”

  “Um…well…Frankly, Aunt Inge, I wasn’t so sure myself…” Embarrassed, Christine fidgeted in her seat and was overjoyed to hear the doorbell ring.

  “As if I would suddenly lose my mind like that!” Inge stood up slowly, without taking her gaze from her niece. “Boy toys, affairs—how long have you known me?” She went downstairs to open the door for Anika.

  “You were the one who didn’t want to talk about it!” Christine called after her.

  “Well, you didn’t ask me about any boy toys!” Inge roared back.

  Johann reached for Christine’s hand and squeezed it. He nuzzled her ear with his nose and whispered, “I just can’t hold myself back from saying, ‘I told you so.’ Be a sport and take it.”

  Christine didn’t have time to make a suitable comeback. Inge and Anika were already coming up the stairs. Anika threw her bag and jacket onto the chair, greeted Johann and Christine, and sank down onto the sofa. She looked around, her eyes glistening. “Inge just told me that you know everything, so I won’t keep you in suspense. Jörn told me that he was commissioned by Guido Schneider and his assistant Marion Fischer to convert Anna Nissen’s house. That was back at the end of March, only a week after Anna Nissen died. They told him she had left the house to the management company. And wait for this—while we were having dinner, two women came over to our table and asked if they could sit with us. Just guess who it was! Schneider’s assistant Marion Fischer and her sister. I insisted that they join us, of course, and we had a very lively conversation. I asked a few little questions here and there and kept topping off her wine. I’m always surprised at how much the customers at Badezeit confide in me when they get tipsy, and it worked here too. As you know, Guido Schneider is one of two owners of the management company. The other owner is a silent partner and never appears anywhere by name.”

  Johann gave her a glass of water, which she took gratefully. Her face was flushed, Inge’s was slowly turning the same color, and Christine was holding her breath again.

  Anika put the glass down and took a deep breath. “And now listen to this. Inge, the funny feeling you had about this Schneider guy was spot-on. The silent partner is Mark Kampmann. And Marion Fischer is Mark’s live-in girlfriend. She passes commissions on to him. Like yours, Inge. A client contacts the management company with a legal problem, and Kampmann immediately gets the commission. That applies to apartment rentals, house sales, disputes, inheritance matters—anything they take on that is connected to property. They even look after elderly apartment owners, and also own a mobile care service to take care of shopping, help with bank matters, and whatever else is needed. The business manager for the care service is called Heiko Schneider, and she’s Guido’s wife. And if one of the elderly clients under their care needs a lawyer, for power of attorney for example, or for completing a will, who do you suppose they recommend?”

  “Mark Kampmann.” Inge shook her head in disbelief. “It seems like they’ve got a real system going there.”

  “They do indeed.” Anika nodded. “So I guess from time to time a power of attorney gets turned into a will. Before the inheritance ends up going to the state…”

  “Come on,” Johann interjected. “That’s just wild speculation now.”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Anika. “My new friend Marion Fischer was pretty clear on that point.”

  “But why would she tell you something like that?” Now not only did Christine feel like she was in some movie, but also in a bad, unbelievable one. “She doesn’t even know you.”

  Anika looked at her calmly. “Some people are just very chatty. And she was mad at Mark for forgetting her table reservation. Maybe she wanted to impress the good-looking architect with her insider’s knowledge, or maybe it was because her little sister was there. I have no idea what made her do it, but in any case she was very clear.”

  Inge stood up. “I need a brandy. I’ll go see if Petra has any.”

  “Wait,” said Anika. “I’m not done yet. There’s one other thing. Jörn said that the building firm is ready to go, that they’re just waiting for the amendment in the land register. And that’s supposed to arrive any day now.”

  “Then they must already have the certificate of inheritance,” said Johann.

  Inge let out a bleat of protest and leaned against the doorframe as if to steady herself. “So what should I do now?”

  “As planned, we’ll go to see Peter Sorensen in Flensburg first thing tomorrow. I have a feeling that he’ll know more about all this,” said Johann.

  Christine looked at him hopefully and tried, not too successfully, to put a brave front on. “Let’s hope so. Otherwise, it doesn’t look good. Aunt Inge, I think you might need some luck now.”

  “Yes.” She straightened up and stretched. “Hopefully we’ll come back tomorrow all the wiser. And then I have to explain to Walter and Heinz what all this is really about. But right now I’m going to get a brandy, see if there’s anything in the freezer that I can warm up for dinner, and then I think we should pray that the good guys win.”

  Chapter 35

  * * *

  Walter handed the telephone back to Heinz. “You see! She said there’s nothing she can do…or rather, nothing she will do.”

  Heinz gave him a reprimanding look. “Well, you shouldn’t have told her you ‘broke’ your behind. What on earth were you thinking? I would have said it was a lumbar vertebrae fracture.”

  “But that’s not what he has,” Kalli interrupted sympathetically and pushed a bottle of beer toward Walter.

  “So what? Inge’s his wife, not a doctor!” Heinz cracked the cap off his beer with a flourish. “At least we worried her a little. Anyway, she’ll be coming to the barbecue tomorrow, and Christine is making the potato salad.”

  “And what are we going to eat tonight?” Walter rubbed his stomach. “It’s after eight o’clock. I’m hungry. I’m already feeling really dizzy.”

  “Is that from the fall?” Kalli leaned over with concern. “Do you feel like you’re about to faint?”

  “Nonsense. I’m hypoglycemic, that’s what it is.” Walter tried to take a few cautious steps, but crumpled over with a pained expression. “I mean, I would sort something out for us to eat, but as you can see…”

  “No, you can’t be…” Kalli jumped up at once and put his hand on Walter’s shoulder. “You need to rest. Heinz can see to it.”

  Heinz stared at him in irritation. “Kalli, don’t make such a fuss. You’re not Florence Nightingale. And besides, all the shops are already closed.”

  “Well, I’m sure you can drive down to the docks and get a few fish rolls,” said Kalli.

  “Or fried fish platters,” Walter quickly added. “We’ve already had cold fish rolls today, and I need a hot meal once a day.”

  “Exactly.” Kalli gave Heinz a look that tolerated no discussion. “And besides, you don’t let anyone else drive your car, so you’ll have to drive anyway.”

  “But you’ll have to come with me and help me carry.”

  “No.” Kalli sat back down. “One of us has to stay with Walter in case something happens. I’m sure they have some bags you can use to carry them in.”

  “Fine.” Heinz stood up, but not without putting his hand against the small of his back first. Walter wasn’t the only one with ailments.

  Half an hour later, they heard He
inz coming back. Then, just seconds later, a second car pulled up in front of the house. The driver revved the engine for a moment, then turned it off. Kalli leaned out of the window.

  “It’s a Porsche. There seems to be a lot of them around here.”

  “They’re all leased,” was Walter’s abrupt answer. “Or rented.”

  “Do you think?” Kalli pulled the curtains aside to be able to see better. “Hey, Walter. It’s Renate, Inge’s friend. She’s the one in the Porsche, and she’s getting out.”

  “Heavens!” Walter heaved himself up, fighting against the pain. “She drives a Porsche too?”

  “I’ve brought a visitor,” Heinz called from the door. “You’ll never guess who.”

  “I’m sure we can,” mumbled Kalli, brushing his hands through his hair quickly and plastering a smile on his face.

  “Come through.” Heinz stood back to let Renate go ahead of him and then stopped behind her. “What a coincidence. I was just ordering for us, and then I saw Renate. All alone with a glass of wine. So I went over right away, of course.”

  Renate, dressed in a denim suit with sequined dragon appliqués, nodded her head up and down like a pleased little girl. “How wonderful. I was starting to fear I would have to spend another evening by myself. May I…?” Without waiting for an answer, she sat down on the kitchen bench and patted the seat next to her.

  “Walter, why on earth are you standing? Heinz already told me about your accident. Come on, sit down.”

  Walter looked at his brother-in-law and sat back down with a small yelp. Renate laid her hand on his arm.

  “The things you men get up to. My goodness, when I think of what might have happened to you. I’m sure Inge was out of her mind with worry, wasn’t she?”

  Heinz looked confused. “That’s what I was just telling you. Inge isn’t even coming until tomorrow. She doesn’t seem to realize—or care—how serious things are.”