by Nele Neuhaus
“Why don’t you wear a dress more often?” he remarked.
“Don’t start,” Pia grumbled.
“Start what?” Kai asked innocently. “I think your legs are a feast for the eyes.”
“Oh right, my legs!”
“Yes, your legs. Since I have only one, I’ve become a leg connoisseur.” He grinned and sat down behind his desk. “What did you think I meant?”
“I … I didn’t think anything,” Pia hastened to say, turning on her computer. Why was she so touchy?
She entered her password and checked her e-mail. Nothing special. The police server had the advantage of filtering out annoying spam and advertisements. Just as she was about to close the e-mail program, a new message popped up with the subject line Lilly. The sender was unfamiliar. She clicked on the e-mail, which had an attachment.
Little girls keep disappearing and are never found again. It would be a shame if that happened to this sweet little thing just because her mama keeps sticking her nose into things that are none of her business.
Attached was a photo that showed Lilly and Pia along with the dogs in one of the paddocks at Birkenhof. It was a little blurry, as though it had been taken from a great distance. Pia stared at the message for a couple of seconds, uncomprehending. Only gradually did it dawn on her what this e-mail meant, and she felt a chill. It was an unmistakable threat. They thought Lilly was her daughter and were threatening to do something to her if Pia didn’t stop … Well, what was she supposed to stop doing? What things had she stuck her nose into?
“Now don’t get all huffy just because I pay you a compliment,” said Kai. “But you really do have great—”
“Come over here and take a look at this,” Pia said, interrupting her colleague.
“What is it?” He went over to her desk. “You’re as white as a sheet.”
“Here, look!” Pia rolled her chair away, grabbed her bag, and took out her cell. Her stomach was queasy, and her hands were shaking like crazy. She had to call Christoph right away and warn him. He couldn’t let Lilly out of his sight for even a millisecond.
“This is a threat that has to be taken seriously,” Kai agreed with a frown, looking at the sender’s address: “[email protected]—obviously a fake address. “The boss needs to see this.”
A little later, Bodenstein, Christian, Cem, and Kathrin were standing around Pia’s desk, looking somber. Pia had called Christoph, who’d grasped the seriousness of the situation at once and assured her that he would keep an eye on Lilly and impress on her to stay near him.
“You must have really stepped on some big shot’s toes,” Cem said.
“Yeah, but who?” Pia was still bewildered. Someone knew where she lived and had taken pictures of her and Lilly. The thought that somebody was sneaking around her house awakened deep fears that she thought she’d put aside long ago. “I don’t understand. We don’t know anything.”
“That’s obvious,” Bodenstein said, scrutinizing her. “Think hard. Whom have you talked to lately?”
Pia swallowed. Should she tell her boss that she had spoken with Behnke about Erik Lessing? Was the threat coming from that direction? Could Frank be behind it? Her eyes met Christian’s, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
There was a knock on the door. A female officer from the watch told them that the men were here for the lineup and waiting downstairs.
“We’ll be right there,” said Bodenstein. “You can’t do anything more than you’ve done, Pia. Kai will inform our colleagues in Königstein, and then all Christoph will have to do is call them if he notices anything suspicious.”
Pia nodded. It didn’t reassure her in the least, but her boss was right. For the moment, that was all she could do.
* * *
The weather god was merciful and granted her father-in-law for his eightieth birthday a cobalt blue sky scattered with puffy white clouds. Nothing would disrupt the reception and the party outdoors. Emma looked out the bathroom window onto the garden below as she dried her hair. Yesterday, Helmut Grasser and his diligent helpers had set up a speaker’s podium, chairs, cocktail tables, and a little stage for the various presentations. This morning, they’d installed the PA system and done a sound check. Everyone was very busy down there. The jazz band that Josef had received as a birthday present from Nicky, Sarah, Ralf, and Corinna had already been warming up for an hour, and the Sonnenkinder choir had also rehearsed. With the music playing in the background, Emma had been through a real struggle with her daughter, who had fought vigorously against wearing the pink-checked dress with the white collar, which she usually loved. Patience and a stern approach had been fruitless; no argument had worked. Louisa had insisted stubbornly on wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. The little girl had become more and more defiant, until she’d finally broken out in hysterical shrieking that had even drowned out the tootling from the jazz band. But Emma had refused to give up, and finally she’d gotten the howling child into the dress. Now Louisa was sitting in her room sulking, and Emma had used the opportunity to take a quick shower and wash her hair.
It was high time to go downstairs. A catering service had provided canapés, finger food, glasses, dishes, flatware, and the drinks for the reception. Lunch for a smaller circle of invited guests was being prepared by the estate’s own cooks. The serving staff, which Corinna had also booked through the caterers, stood around, looking bored. It would probably be another forty-five minutes before the first official guests arrived, but Renate and Josef wanted to drink a toast with “their” children in honor of his birthday and this family reunion.
Emma sighed deeply and wished she could fast-forward time till evening. She used to love parties like this, but today she was dreading seeing Florian, and she was in no mood for small talk with the guests, who were of no importance to her. She went to the bedroom to squeeze into the lemon yellow maternity dress, which was the only garment from her wardrobe that still fit, although it, too, was tight. The phone rang. Renate.
“Emma, where are you? Most people are already here, except for Florian, you, and Louisa.”
“We’ll be right down,” Emma told her mother-in-law. “Five minutes.”
She hung up, glanced one more time in the mirror, not looking too closely, and walked down the hall to Louisa’s room. Empty! That darned kid! She wasn’t in the living room, either. Emma went in the kitchen.
“Louisa? Louisa! Come on, we have to go downstairs. Grandma already called and…” The words stuck in her throat. She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at her little daughter in shock. Louisa was sitting on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, wearing only panties, with the kitchen shears in her hand. Her lovely blond hair, which they’d washed last night, lay in curls all around her on the floor.
“Oh my God, Louisa! What have you done?” Emma whispered, beside herself.
Louisa started sobbing and flung the shears down, making them clatter on the floor underneath the table. Her sobs increased to a desperate howl. Emma squatted down and reached out her hand, running it over the stubbly bristles sticking out in all directions from Louisa’s head. The girl flinched under her touch and turned her face away, but then she snuggled into Emma’s arms. Her body was shaking with violent sobs, and the tears flowed in torrents down her little face.
“Why did you cut off your beautiful hair?” Emma asked softly. She rocked the girl in her arms and cuddled her head to her cheek. It hadn’t been done on a whim, nor out of protest or anger. It broke her heart to see her daughter so unhappy and frightened and not be able to help her. “Tell me, why did you do that, sweetie?”
“Because I want to be ugly,” Louisa murmured, and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
* * *
She had turned off the alarm clock at eight and slept until ten. She had no job anymore and nobody who was waiting for her. After she’d been to Oberursel, Meike decided not to go back to Sachsenhausen, but to drive to Langenhain. After she got up, she spent half an hour in the
Jacuzzi on the terrace and then tried out a few creams and peelings from the countless little bottles and jars she found in her mother’s bathroom. Hanna spent a fortune on this junk, but for her it seemed to work. Meike found her attempts anything but satisfactory. She looked like shit and had bad skin. Her mood sank toward zero.
“You ugly cow!” she said to her reflection, and made a face.
Downstairs, the front door opened. She raised her head in alarm and listened. Who could that be? The cleaning lady always came on Tuesdays, and no way would she voluntarily work overtime. Did some neighbor have a key? Meike crept down the hall, heart pounding as she pressed her body against the wall, and looked down into the entry hall. There were two men in the house! One had his back turned, but the other, a thin man with a beard and ponytail, ambled right into the kitchen as if he owned the place. Burglars in broad daylight!
Meike slunk back into Hanna’s bedroom, where she had slept, and looked around. Shit! Where was her cell? She rummaged through the bed, but then she remembered that she’d been listening to music in the Jacuzzi with the earbuds. Her phone was probably still there.
Instead of finding her cell, she stuck the Taser, which she always carried with her since Hanna’s attack, in the back pocket of her jeans. All she could do was slip downstairs and take off through the front door if she didn’t want to be caught upstairs by these guys. The two were banging around loudly on the ground floor. They were standing in the kitchen, and suddenly she heard the coffee grinder of the espresso machine. These guys really had balls.
Meike crouched at the top of the stairs and listened, holding her breath. To make her escape through the front door, she would have to wait for the optimal moment. Then one of the men came out of the kitchen with his cell pressed to his ear. Meike couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Wolfgang?” she said incredulously, and stood up.
The man jumped in fright and dropped the phone. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.
“W … w … what are you doing here?” he stammered. “Why aren’t you in Frankfurt?”
Meike came down the stairs.
“I stayed here overnight. Why are you here?” she replied coolly. She hadn’t forgotten the way he’d treated her yesterday. “And who’s your pal? Why do you think you can walk right in and even fix yourselves an espresso?”
She propped her hand on her hip and regarded Wolfgang with feigned indignation. “Does Mama know about this?”
All color had drained from Wolfgang’s face and now he was deathly pale.
“Please, Meike.” He raised his hands beseechingly, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Sweat glistened on his brow. “Get out of here and just forget you ever saw us.…”
He stopped when the ponytail guy appeared in the kitchen doorway behind him.
“Well, well,” said the man, “what do we have here?”
“Do you like your coffee?” Meike asked sharply.
“It’s all right,” said the bearded, muscular man, whose suntan indicated that he spent a lot of time outdoors. His eyes flashed mockingly. “In my opinion, the Saeco makes a better cup of coffee, but this is acceptable.”
Meike gave him a dirty look. The gall of this guy. Who was he anyway? And what was Wolfgang doing on a Friday morning in her mother’s house? She walked down the last two steps.
“Please, Meike!” Wolfgang stepped between her and the man. “Just go. You didn’t see us here.…”
“It’s too late for that now,” said the other man, shoving him aside. “Go check the mail, Wolfi.”
Meike suspiciously looked back and forth between him and Wolfgang, but Wolfgang avoided her eyes and turned away. Incredible! He just left her standing there.
“Wolfgang, why did—”
The punch came out of nowhere, hitting her right in the face. She staggered back and barely managed to catch hold of the banister. She touched her face and looked down in disbelief at the blood on her hand. A wave of heat pulsed through her body.
“Are you crazy, you asshole?” she screamed. She didn’t know what made her madder: this outrageous jerk who had really hurt her, or Wolfgang, who had turned away like a coward as he took out his cell and left her to her fate. Hatred, disappointment, and adrenaline boiled over, and instead of running to the front door and yelling for help, she pounced on the bearded man with a furious shriek.
“Oh yeah? Your mama didn’t fight back like this. She was really boring compared to you.” He had his hands full fending her off, but in the end, Meike didn’t have a chance. He was a full-grown man and she only half his size. Still, he grunted with the effort as he toppled her to the floor and then jammed his knee into her spine and brutally tied her wrists together behind her back.
“You’re a regular little wildcat, aren’t you?” he hissed.
“And you’re a shit-eating jerk-off!” Meike gasped between clenched teeth as she tried to kick him.
“Get up. Let’s go.” The bearded guy pulled her to her feet and dragged her down the basement stairs.
“Wolfgang!” she shrieked. “Shit, do something! Wolfgang!”
“Shut your trap,” the man panted, slapping her a couple of times. Meike spit in his face and kicked at him, striking a particularly sensitive spot. That made him blow his top. He shoved her into the furnace room, then began beating her until she dropped to the floor.
Finally, he seemed to think it was enough. He straightened up, breathing hard, and wiped his brow with his forearm. His ponytail had come undone and his hair fell in his face. Meike was doubled up, coughing, on the bare concrete floor.
Upstairs, the doorbell rang.
“The mailman is here,” said the man. “Don’t go away. You’ve still got a date.”
“With you, or what?” Meike croaked. He leaned over her, grabbed her by the hair, and forced her to look at him.
“No, baby. Not with me.” His grin was diabolical. “You’ve got a date with the Grim Reaper.”
* * *
The witness shook his head.
“Nope,” he said firmly. “It’s not any of these guys.”
“Really?” Bodenstein asked to make sure. “Take your time.”
“No.” Andreas Hasselbach was quite sure. “I saw him only briefly, but it wasn’t any of these men.”
Five men were standing on the other side of the one-way mirror, each holding a sign with a number on it. Prinzler was number three, but the witness didn’t look at him any longer or more intently than at the other four. Pia saw the disappointment on her boss’s face, but she knew at once that the man wasn’t there, because all of them except for Prinzler were police colleagues.
“What about this guy?” She handed Hasselbach the printout of the artist’s sketch that was done with the assistance of the eyewitness from Höchst. All it took was one glance.
“That’s the guy!” he shouted, excited and without hesitation.
“Thank you,” Pia said with a nod. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Now all she had to do was find this man. Maybe the public could help them again. Her colleagues returned to their desks, the witness was ushered out, and Prinzler was taken to the nearby interview room. Bodenstein and Pia sat down across from him, while Cem leaned against the wall.
“Why are you keeping me here?” Prinzler was pissed off. “There are no charges against me. This is sheer police brutality. I want to call my wife.”
“Just talk to us first,” Bodenstein suggested. “Tell us how you knew Leonie Verges and Hanna Herzmann and why you visited them. Then you can call your wife and leave.”
Prinzler gave Bodenstein an appraising look.
“I’m not saying a thing without my lawyer present. You’ll just use anything I say against me.”
Bodenstein bombarded the man with the same questions that Pia and Kröger had already asked him yesterday, and received the same answers.
“I want to call my wife,” Prinzler replied to each question. It seemed really important to him, even when he trie
d to act calm. He seemed extremely worried about his wife. But why?
Pia glanced at her watch. In an hour, she had to be in Falkenstein. Then she wasn’t coming back here today. She shoved the artist’s drawing in front of Prinzler.
“Who is this man?”
“Is that the guy you’re looking for? That’s why you had the lineup?”
“Right. Do you know him?”
“Yeah. That’s Helmut Grasser,” he replied brusquely. “If you’d asked me in the beginning, I could have saved you this whole song and dance.”
Fury rose up inside Pia, like blood oozing out of a cut on the skin. Time was running out, and this guy, who might hold the key to solving their cases, was holding things up. And she couldn’t find anywhere to insert a crowbar. Bernd Prinzler was like a concrete wall with no cracks or crevices, an impregnable wall of stubborn determination.
“Where do you know him from? Where can we find him?”
He shrugged.
Pia felt her blood really start to boil. Was she going to have to physically drag every scrap of information out of this guy?
Cem left the room.
“Take a look at this.” Pia put in front of Prinzler a printout of the e-mail she’d received that morning. “Someone was taking pictures of me and my partner’s granddaughter yesterday.”
He didn’t even look at it.
“I don’t have my reading glasses with me,” he said.
“Then I’ll read it to you.” Pia snatched the page. “‘Little girls keep disappearing and are never found again. It would be a shame if that happened to this sweet little thing just because her mama keeps sticking her nose into things that are none of her business.’”
“I have nothing to do with that.” Prinzler kept his gaze fixed on Pia’s face. “I’ve been in jail since Wednesday, remember?”
“But you know what this is about!” She had to control herself to keep from yelling at the man. “Who writes e-mails like this? And why? What was Hanna Herzmann researching? Why did Leonie Verges have to die? Who else has to die before you finally open your mouth? Your wife? Should we bring her down here? Maybe she’ll talk to us if you won’t.”