by Nele Neuhaus
The voice of the doctor sounded like a distant echo, which blurred and dissolved into a meaningless series of syllables.
Tired. Sleep. Hanna closed her left eye and faded away.
When she woke up the next time, it was almost dark outside. She had a hard time keeping one eye open. Somewhere a lamp was on, but it cast only a pale glow over the empty room. Hanna noticed a movement next to the bed. She saw a man sitting on a chair. He wore a green smock with a green cap; his head was bowed and his hand rested on her arm, which had tubes running out of it. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized him. Hanna closed her eye again. She hoped he hadn’t noticed that she was awake. She couldn’t bear for him to see her like this.
“I’m sorry,” she heard him say in a voice that sounded so strange. Had he cried? On account of her? Something really bad must have happened to her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again in a whisper. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
* * *
Bodenstein sat at the desk in his office, thinking about Meike Herzmann. He had seldom seen such bitterness in such a young face, so much anxiety and barely suppressed rage. Obviously, she had been under enormous pressure, but that made it all the more peculiar to see the indifference with which she had reacted to the news of the attack on her mother. That wasn’t normal. Vinzenz Kornbichler had displayed a similar lack of emotion. At first, the man had made an open and forthright impression, but over the course of the conversation, this impression had radically changed. He didn’t have to tell them that he had already been to his wife’s house on Wednesday. Admitting that had made him look suspicious. Was it unintentional? Or had he felt an urge to confess, as many perps did when their guilty conscience got the better of them?
Where had Hanna Herzmann driven with the unknown man after her husband had been forced to abandon the pursuit?
Vinzenz Kornbichler’s story checked out insofar as he actually had filled up with gas on Thursday morning at 1:13 A.M. at the autobahn rest stop at Weilbach. This was corroborated by the surveillance camera at the gas station. His alibi for Thursday evening—the bistro in Bad Soden—was going to be verified today by police colleagues. The rest of what he’d told them might or might not be true.
Bodenstein read once again the preliminary report from the forensic medical examination of Hanna Herzmann. He wondered how she was doing. Had she awakened from the anesthesia and realized what had happened to her? Physically, she might recover eventually, but Bodenstein doubted that mentally she’d ever be able to forget the abuse she’d endured.
Her injuries were similar to those of the dead girl in the river. What kind of monster must this guy be? Who could be capable of such bestial brutality? For over twenty years, Bodenstein had dealt with murderers, but he’d never been able to comprehend what could bring a person to the point of killing another human being. Only when he personally ended up in a situation in which despair, humiliation, and helplessness had caused him to lose self-control and he’d attacked his own wife did he realize how rapidly a person could turn into a murderer. He had been terribly ashamed and bitterly regretted resorting to violence, but since then he understood what must be going on inside a person who committed a crime of passion. Not that he could ever excuse such behavior or accept frustration or rage as justification for extinguishing a human life. Yet it was somehow more comprehensible than the excess of violence that had been exerted on Hanna Herzmann and the young girl whom they now called “the Mermaid.”
Bodenstein heaved a sigh. He took off his reading glasses, yawned, and rubbed his sore neck. It was dark outside. Already after eleven. It had been a long day. Time to go home.
Just as he’d switched off the desk lamp and put on his jacket, the phone on his desk rang. A number with a Hofheim prefix. Before the call forwarding could send it to his cell, Bodenstein picked up the receiver and said hello.
“Good evening, this is Katharina Maisel,” said a woman. “You spoke with my husband today; we’re neighbors of Ms. Herzmann. I’m sorry for calling so late.”
“No problem,” Bodenstein replied, trying to suppress a yawn. “What can I do for you?”
“I just got home, and my husband told me about the terrible thing that happened.” In Katharina Maisel’s voice he heard the nervousness that gripped most people when they called the Criminal Police. “I noticed something. At first I didn’t think it was anything unusual, but now … considering what happened…”
“I see.” Bodenstein went back around his desk, turned on the lamp, and sat down. “Tell me. What did you see?”
Mrs. Maisel had been in her garden at around 10:00 P.M., watering her flowers. Glancing over at Hanna Herzmann’s house, she saw a man she’d never seen before. He arrived on a motor scooter and had waited at the edge of the woods for a while. After about ten minutes, he noticed that she was looking at him suspiciously. Then he stuck something in the letter slot in the front door of Hanna Herzmann’s house and drove off.
“That’s interesting.” Bodenstein had jotted down a couple of notes. “Can you describe the man? Or his motor scooter?”
“Yes, I can. He passed by me not ten yards away and even nodded politely. Hmm, he was around mid-forties, I guess. Well groomed, very thin, about five ten or so. Short hair, dark blond, already a bit gray. His eyes were the most noticeable. I’ve never seen such incredibly blue eyes.”
“You’re a very good observer,” Bodenstein said. “Would you recognize the man if you saw him again?”
“Definitely,” Mrs. Maisel said. “But that wasn’t all. I couldn’t sleep that night. It was so hot, and our son had gone out in his car alone for the first time. I was worried because of the thunderstorm. So I kept looking out the window. From our bedroom, you can look down at Ms. Herzmann’s driveway. Around ten after one, she came home and drove into her garage, as usual.”
In a flash, Bodenstein’s fatigue was gone. He sat up straight.
“Are you positive?”
“Yes. I know Ms. Herzmann’s car. She always opens her garage with the remote and closes the door behind her right away. She didn’t have to go out again. From the garage, there is direct access to the house.”
“Did you actually see Ms. Herzmann?” Bodenstein asked.
“Well … I recognized her car. It’s nothing unusual; I didn’t look that closely. Fifteen minutes later, our son came home, and then I went to bed, too.”
Bodenstein thanked the neighbor and said good-bye. He had no reason to question what she had seen, but her observation was a riddle for him. Previously, he and Pia had assumed that something had happened to Hanna on her way home, but now it looked as though she’d been attacked and raped in her house. Vinzenz Kornbichler was aware of his wife’s routines, and he also knew that there was direct access from the house to the garage. Later, the perp must have shoved Hanna Herzmann into the trunk of her car and driven her to Weilbach. But how had he gotten away from there afterward? Were there two perps involved? Did Kornbichler have an accomplice? Or were they on the wrong track altogether? Maybe the tattooed giant Kornbichler said he’d seen had something to do with it.
Bodenstein reached for the phone and dialed Christian Kröger’s cell phone. He picked up at once.
“Did you examine the garage of the Herzmann house?” Bodenstein asked after quickly summing up the statement he’d just received from the neighbor.
“No,” Kröger replied after a brief pause. “Damn, why didn’t I think of the garage?”
“Because we had no idea that the house might be a crime scene.” Bodenstein was well aware of his colleague’s perfectionism and knew how much it rankled when he happened to overlook something.
“I’m driving over there right now,” Kröger said firmly. “Before that crazy woman destroys any evidence.”
“Who do you mean?” Bodenstein asked, slightly annoyed.
“The daughter, of course. She’s off her rocker. But at least she left me a front door key.”
Bodenstein glanced at the clock
. Midnight, but now he was wide awake and wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. “You know what, I’ll go over there, too,” he said. “Can you be there in half an hour?”
“If you bring the evidence van. Otherwise, I’ll have to stop by Hofheim.”
* * *
His fingers flew over the keyboard of his laptop. The thunderstorm last night had brought only a brief cooling; today it was hotter and more humid than ever. All day long, the sun had mercilessly baked the trailer, heating up the tin box. The computer, fridge, and TV kept radiating more heat, so it no longer made any difference whether it was 104 degrees or 106. Even though he was hardly moving, the sweat ran down his face, dripping from his chin to the tabletop.
Originally, he had tackled the job with the intention of filtering out only the most important facts from the confused jumble of notes, diary entries, and reports. Her suggestion to make a whole book out of it haunted him. Concentrating on work distracted him from asking himself whether he had said or done anything to anger her. She used to be dependability personified. It was so unlike her to miss an appointment without notifying him in advance. It was a mystery to him why he hadn’t heard a word in more than twenty-four hours. At first, her cell was still on, but now it was off, and she wasn’t answering any texts or e-mails. Everything had been fine when they parted early Thursday morning. Or had it? What had happened?
He stopped and reached for the water bottle, which almost slipped out of his hand. Condensation had loosened the label, and the contents were almost at room temperature.
He stood up and stretched. His T-shirt and shorts were soaked with sweat and he longed to cool off. For a moment he allowed himself to think about his air-conditioned office in the old days. Back then, he’d taken this luxury for granted, along with the coolness of a well-insulated house with triple-pane windows. In the past, he could never have worked in such sweltering heat. But a person could get used to anything if he had to—even extremes. To survive you didn’t need twenty tailored suits or fifteen pairs of handmade shoes or thirty-seven Ralph Lauren shirts. You could cook on a single hot plate with two pots and a pan, and you didn’t need a fifty-thousand-euro kitchen with granite countertops and a cooking island. All superfluous. Happiness was to be found in the scarcity of material things, because if you didn’t have any possessions, you didn’t have to worry about losing them.
He closed the laptop and turned off the light so as not to attract more moths and mosquitoes. Then he took an ice-cold bottle of beer from the fridge and sat outside in front of the awning on the empty beer case. The trailer park was unusually quiet. The combination of heat and alcohol seemed to have paralyzed even the most ardent partyers among his neighbors. He took a swig and gazed into the hazy night sky, in which the stars and crescent moon were only vaguely visible. A beer at the end of the day was one of the few rituals he still held on to. He used to have a beer every evening with colleagues or clients in a bar somewhere downtown, a way of relaxing before he went home. That was a long time ago.
In the past few years, there had hardly been anything that had weighed on his heart, so he had survived fairly well. But now things were different. Why hadn’t he been able to maintain a professional distance? Her silence made him feel more unsure than he wanted to admit. Too much closeness was just as damaging and dangerous as false hope. Especially for an ex-con like him.
He heard engine noise approaching. A full, throaty rumble, the typical Harley sound at low rpm. He was about to receive a visitor, and he raised his head in alarm. None of the boys had ever shown up at the trailer park before. The beam of a headlight grazed his face. The machine stopped in front of the garden fence, the motor rumbling in neutral. He got up from the beer case and hesitantly walked over.
“Hey, avvocato,” the rider greeted him without dismounting. “I’ve got a message from Bernd. Didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”
He recognized the man in the faint illumination from the streetlight that stood fifty yards away, and acknowledged his greeting with a nod.
The man handed him a folded-up envelope.
“It’s urgent,” he said in a low voice, and then rode off into the night.
He stood there until the sound of the motorcycle faded in the distance; then he went inside his trailer and tore open the envelope.
Monday, 7:00 P.M., it said on the note. Prinsengracht 85. Inner city. Amsterdam.
“Finally,” he thought, taking a deep breath. He’d been waiting a long time for this contact.
* * *
Friday used to be her favorite day of the week. Michaela had always looked forward to Friday afternoon, when she could do trick riding at the stables. But she hadn’t been there in two weeks. Last week, she said she had a stomachache, and it wasn’t even a lie. Today she told Mama she didn’t feel good. And that wasn’t a lie, either. She’d started feeling bad at school, and at lunch she’d only been able to get down a bite before she threw up. Her siblings had disappeared right after lunch. Today was the start of fall vacation, which meant the start of the Indian tepee camp they’d all been looking forward to so long. In a clearing in the woods, they would put up Indian tepees and sit around the campfire in the evening, grilling hot dogs and singing songs.
Michaela got into bed, leaving the door ajar, and listened to the sounds in the house.
The telephone rang. She jumped out of bed as if she’d had an electric shock and dashed out of the room, but—too late. Mama had already picked it up downstairs.
“She’s in bed … threw up … don’t know what’s wrong with her.… Aha … hmm … I see. Thanks for telling me. Yes, of course. It’s nonsense. Her vivid imagination sometimes baffles us.… Yes. Yes, thank you. Next week, I’m sure she’ll be glad to come. The riding stable is all she lives for.”
Michaela stood at the top of the stairs, her heart pounding like crazy. She felt dizzy with fear. That must have been Gaby, calling to ask about her. What had her mother told her? She hurried back to her room, got into bed, and pulled the covers over her head. Nothing happened. The minutes passed and turned to hours. Dusk was falling outside her window.
Now the others would be doing tricks, riding Asterix. How she wished she were there. Michaela pressed her face into her pillow and sobbed. Papa came home. She could hear him talking to Mama downstairs. Suddenly, her door opened. The light flared on and the bedcovers were torn away.
“What’s this crap Gaby’s been telling us?” Papa’s voice sounded irate. Her mouth was dry and her heart was in her throat from fear. “Tell me! What kind of bullshit story did you make up this time?”
She swallowed hard. Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut? Gaby had betrayed her. Maybe she was afraid of the wolves, too.
“Come with me,” said Papa. She knew what was going to happen now—she’d been through it enough times before. Still she got up and followed him. Up the stairs. To the attic. He closed the door behind him, took the riding crop from one of the roof beams. She was shivering as she pulled off her clothes. Papa grabbed her by the hair, flung her down on the old sofa under the sloping roof, and began hitting her.
“You lying piece of shit!” he hissed with rage. “Go on, turn over on your back! I’ll teach you to tell lies about me!”
He beat on her like crazy, the whip whistling through the air, hitting her between the legs. Tears streamed down her face, but only a faint whimper escaped her lips.
“I’ll beat you to death if you ever tell anybody something like that again.” Papa’s face was contorted with fury.
Michaela, who only knew her father as a cheerful and loving man, had disappeared. A little bit earlier, downstairs in her bedroom, Sandra had already surfaced from the depths of her subconscious. Sandra always appeared whenever Papa got so furious and beat her. Sandra was able to stand the blows, the pain, and the hatred. Michaela wouldn’t remember anything about it the next day, surprised to see the bruises and welts on her skin. But she would never again mention a word about it to anyone else. Michaela was eight
years old.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The scare the day before had evolved into a terrifying nightmare: the dark biker types, the slavering hounds, the trigger-happy ranger, the cops. Vinzenz and Jan had played some kind of role. Meike could no longer remember who or what she’d been running from, but she was panting like a racehorse after the Grand Prize at Baden-Baden when she woke up just after midnight bathed in sweat. She took a shower, then wrapped herself in a bath towel, and sat out on the small balcony. The heat in the early-morning hours was tropical, and going back to sleep was out of the question.
Since yesterday, Meike had been speculating incessantly about what her mother could have been working on and whether it had anything to do with the assault. Even Wolfgang didn’t have the faintest idea. He was totally shocked when she told him what had happened to Hanna, and after she told him about her encounter with the bikers and the attack dog, he’d offered to let her stay at his house for the time being. Meike had been pleased, but she’d politely declined. She was too old to go into hiding somewhere.
She braced her feet against the balcony railing. After the cops had left yesterday, she’d searched through her mother’s home office. Nothing. Her laptop had vanished without a trace, and her smartphone, too. Her eyes scanned the façade of the building across the street. Most of the apartment windows were wide open to let in some fresh air during the heat wave. No lights were visible except for in a window on the fourth floor, which displayed a bluish shimmer. A man was sitting at his desk with his PC, dressed only in underpants.
“Of course!” Meike jumped up. The PC at Hanna’s office. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? She threw on some clothes, grabbed her backpack and keys, and left the apartment. The Mini was parked a couple of blocks away because she hadn’t been able to find anyplace closer last night. She could make it to Hedderichstrasse faster on foot than by going to get the car.
The hour between two and three in the morning was the quietest time of the night. She saw only a few cars. Two winos were sitting at the tram stop at the corner of Brückenstrasse and Textorstrasse and shouted to her drunkenly. Meike ignored them and kept walking fast. A city at night was always creepy, even when the streets were well lit and even potential rapists should be sound asleep. Besides, in her shoulder bag she had both pepper spray and a 500,000-volt Taser, which she had brought with her yesterday from the house in Langenhain, making sure to put in a new battery. Vinzenz’s predecessor, Marius, Hanna’s husband number three, had bought it for Hanna in an excess of concern when that stalker was lying in wait everywhere, but she’d never carried it with her. Would the Taser have protected her on Thursday night before the attack if she’d had it with her? Meike’s fingers closed tighter on the grip of the device when a man came walking toward her. She wouldn’t hesitate one second to use it.