by Nele Neuhaus
State Attorney Frey was heading in their direction, accompanied by a dark-haired woman. She stopped to talk to somebody, but Frey came over to their table. He wanted to put his arm around Finkbeiner’s shoulder, but Florian shrank away from him.
“All of you knew that Michaela was still alive,” he accused his adopted brother. “You always know everything, you and Ralf and Corinna.”
“No. We didn’t know,” the state attorney protested. “We even went to her funeral. I’m utterly shocked.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Finkbeiner snorted, full of hate. “You always sucked up to my parents, kissing their ass, just to push us out and win their favor. We never had a chance against the likes of you. And now you’ve shot my sister! I hope you’ll roast in hell for that!”
He spit at Frey’s feet and left. Frey sighed. There were tears in his eyes.
“I don’t blame Florian,” he said softly. “It’s a shock for all of us, but it must be especially bad for him. It’s true that he always had to take us into consideration.”
Bodenstein’s cell rang. It was Kai Ostermann, who reported that they had actually found a man in the basement of Hanna Herzmann’s house.
“You wouldn’t believe it, boss,” said Ostermann. “The man is Helmut Grasser. He’s here at the station now. He didn’t want to go to the hospital.”
Bodenstein turned away to give Ostermann further instructions.
“Pia, we’re leaving,” he said then. “We’ve got Grasser.”
“Who?” Frey asked, and Bodenstein, who at first wanted to ignore him, remembered that he was the prosecutor in three of their cases.
“The man’s name is Helmut Grasser,” he replied. “On the night Hanna Herzmann was attacked, a witness saw him not far from the scene where she was found the next day. You must know him, don’t you? He lives here on the grounds.”
He caught Pia’s glance, which changed from bafflement to anger. She was about to reproach her boss for not keeping her informed, but there had been no time for that. And besides, she was keeping secrets from him, too.
“I’ve known Helmut for ages,” said Frey. “He’s the caretaker and handyman here. Is he a suspect?”
“Until proven otherwise, yes,” Bodenstein said with a nod. “First we’re going to talk to him, and then we’ll see.”
“I’d like to be there when you question him,” said Frey.
“Do you really want to do that? Maybe today you should—”
“No, it’s no problem,” Frey said, interrupting. “There’s nothing more for me to do here anyway. If you don’t mind, I’ll go change clothes and then go down to Hofheim.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
Pia and Bodenstein watched him go, heading through the grounds with his cell pressed to his ear.
“Only moments ago he was still in shock, and now he’s as cold as a dog’s nose,” Pia said, slightly taken aback.
“Maybe he’s trying to escape into some sort of routine,” Bodenstein suggested.
“I didn’t recognize Mrs. Prinzler, either. She looked totally different. And then everything happened so fast.…”
“Come on, let’s go. First up is Rothemund. I’m really anxious to hear what he’s going to tell us.”
* * *
Kai Ostermann had put Helmut Grasser and Kilian Rothemund in interview rooms 2 and 3 on the ground floor of the Regional Criminal Unit. Bodenstein first went to see Bernd Prinzler, who was still waiting in room number 1. Silently and with a stony expression, he listened to Bodenstein and Pia’s account of the events in Falkenstein. Whatever was going on inside him, he had his emotions in an iron grip and showed neither anger nor concern.
“That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t kept me in custody here,” he reproached Bodenstein. “Fucking shit!”
“Wrong,” said Bodenstein. “If you’d told us right away what this was all about, we would have let you go home long ago. Why did your wife do this? And where did she get the gun?”
“I have no idea,” Prinzler growled as he balled his hands into fists. “Are you finally going to let me go?”
“Yes, you can go.” Bodenstein nodded. “Your wife, by the way, was taken to the hospital in Bad Soden. If you like, we can have someone drive you there.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” Prinzler stood up. “I’ve had enough cops chauffeuring me around in my life.”
He left the room, accompanied by a uniformed officer, who escorted him to the exit. Bodenstein and Pia followed, but at the door of the interview room, they found Dr. Nicola Engel.
“Why are you letting him go?” she asked. “What happened in Falkenstein?”
“He told us everything, and he has a permanent residence,” said Bodenstein. Before he could continue, Pia interrupted him. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Behnke had said about Nicola Engel’s involvement in the Erik Lessing case. She could also see that her boss mistrusted Engel. If there actually was a connection between the old case and the current ones, then it was better not to tell her every detail.
So Pia asked her boss, “First Rothemund, then Grasser?”
“Yes, Rothemund first,” Bodenstein agreed.
The commissioner’s cell phone rang and she stepped away to take the call. Pia was racking her brain, trying to think of how to get rid of Engel so that she wouldn’t be listening in on the interview with Rothemund via the loudspeaker behind the one-way mirror. There was no time for a detailed explanation, so she had to trust that Bodenstein wouldn’t object.
“I’d prefer to question Rothemund in your office,” she said.
“Good idea,” replied Bodenstein, to her relief. “The fluorescent lights give me a headache after half an hour anyway. Have him taken upstairs. I have to go to the little boys’ room first.”
“Er, Oliver?” Pia saw that Engel had finished her call. “I’d rather do the first interview with Rothemund without the commissioner being present. Can you fix it?”
She saw the question in his eyes, but he nodded.
“Chief State Attorney Frey is here,” Engel announced. “How shall we proceed?”
“Ms. Kirchhoff and I will first speak with Rothemund and Grasser alone,” Bodenstein replied. “Frey can join us later.”
Pia gave him a sharp look; then she went to interview room 3 to make sure they’d taken Kilian Rothemund up to the second floor.
“I’d also like to be there,” Pia heard Engel say. She couldn’t make out Bodenstein’s answer, but she hoped that he’d managed to dissuade her. When she came back, the commissioner was gone, but State Attorney Frey was coming down the hall. He was wearing a light gray suit, a white shirt, and a tie, and his hair was still damp and slicked straight back. Outwardly, he seemed as controlled and composed as always, but his normally piercing eyes were clouded and full of sadness.
“Hello, Dr. Frey,” she greeted him. “How are you?”
“Hello, Ms. Kirchhoff.” He extended his hand with the hint of a smile on his face. “Not so good. I don’t think I’ve really come to grips yet with what happened or how in the world it could have occurred.”
If Pia hadn’t seen with her own eyes the state he’d been in only two hours ago, she wouldn’t have believed it possible that he’d experienced something so horrible. His professionalism won her genuine admiration.
“I’d like to thank you once again,” he said. “It was amazing, what you did.”
“Don’t mention it.” Pia asked herself why she had previously considered him such a self-righteous bureaucrat. She really hadn’t liked him.
Bodenstein emerged from the men’s room. At the same moment, the door of the interview room down the hall opened, and an officer escorted Kilian Rothemund in handcuffs to the back stairs leading to the second floor. Frey watched him go. Pia noticed his expression change for a split second. His body stiffened and he raised his chin.
“That was not Helmut Grasser,” he said.
“No,” said Boden
stein. “That’s Kilian Rothemund. He turned himself in today. My colleague and I will speak with him first; then we’ll talk to Grasser.”
Frey eyed the man with whom he’d once been friends, and yet he’d sent him to prison for years. Then he nodded.
“I’d like to be present during the interview,” he said.
“No, Ms. Kirchhoff and I will speak with the gentlemen first,” Bodenstein replied firmly. “You may take a seat in the waiting room in the meantime.”
Chief State Attorney Frey wasn’t used to having his requests refused. His displeasure was unmistakable. He frowned and opened his mouth to object, but then he changed his mind and shrugged.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll go have a cup of coffee. See you later.”
* * *
Emma and Florian were sitting in the empty waiting room of the surgical outpatient department at the Bad Soden Hospital, holding hands and waiting. Louisa had gone to sleep on Florian’s lap. For over an hour, Michaela had been in the operating room. The bullet had penetrated obliquely below her breast and lodged in her pelvis. Josef had been taken by helicopter to the university clinic in Frankfurt, and Emma was glad of that. The mere thought of her innocent little daughter being under the same roof with that despicable bastard would have been intolerable. She gave Florian a sidelong glance. This whole situation must be much worse for him, she realized.
He’d always had a difficult relationship with his father, which had led him to withdraw and feel unloved. That was one of the main reasons why he’d chosen a profession that took him far away from home. It must be horrible to realize now that his own father is a child molester, a pedophile, who had abused their own daughter. Haltingly, Florian had told her about Michaela, about how much he had envied his sister because she was loved by their father, and because she had a close friendship with Nicky. As a child, Florian had both loved and hated Nicky, who had been taken into the Finkbeiner family when he was eight, after several foster families had given up on him and taken him back to the orphanage. Even as a kid, Nicky had been a talented manipulator, highly intelligent, ambitious, and with a narcissistic tendency. Florian had been glad to have a playmate of the same age, but Nicky had preferred Michaela and had completely monopolized her.
Michaela had always had her head in the clouds and was untruthful and aggressive, but Florian had idolized his twin sister, who was only ten minutes younger than he was. So it was all the more painful for him to lose his only ally within the family to Nicky. Their parents always forgave Nicky and Michaela everything, whereas he was rebuked and punished. At the age of ten, the two had started smoking, and at eleven, Michaela was the first to run away from home. At thirteen, she was smoking joints; at fourteen, shooting up heroin. And then she was gone, first to juvenile prison, then to the locked psychiatric ward. Nicky, on the other hand, had turned into an exemplary pupil and had passed the university entrance exam at the top of his class. He never talked about Michaela anymore, but instead had developed a close friendship with Corinna, Florian’s favorite sister after Michaela.
His memories of his twin sister were anything but happy, and now that they knew the story behind her disappearance, Emma could understand why he’d never mentioned Michaela.
They heard loud voices outside in the hallway. Someone said the name Michaela Prinzler, and Florian and Emma tried to listen. Then a man came into the waiting room. He was so big that he almost filled the whole doorway; his arms were covered in tattoos, and he looked scary.
“Are you Michaela’s brother?” he asked Florian in a strangely hoarse voice.
“Yes, I am,” said Florian. “Who are you?”
“I’m her husband. Bernd Prinzler.”
Emma stared at the tattooed giant, speechless.
Prinzler took a seat on one of the plastic chairs across from them and rubbed his face with both hands. Then he leaned his elbow on his knee and gave Florian a penetrating look.
“What happened?” he asked.
Florian cleared his throat and began telling this stranger the whole story.
“I thought my sister died many years ago. That’s what my parents told me,” he said, concluding his account.
“Exactly what we wanted them to believe,” replied Prinzler. “We faked Michaela’s funeral so that she wouldn’t be hounded by these monsters anymore.”
“What monsters?” Florian asked.
“Her old man and his pedophile pals. It’s a Mafia. Once they get their hooks into someone, they’ll never let the person out of their sight. They know about every move the girls make. And they’re better organized than any secret service.”
“What … what does this mean?” Florian asked.
Emma would have preferred not to hear it, but Bernd Prinzler told them with brutal frankness about the hierarchy and the means used to operate the child-molesting ring. The disgusting details were unbearable.
Emma shuddered. Was this gruesome nightmare ever going to end? Would Louisa someday be able to forget what had been done to her? Emma wondered why she hadn’t noticed anything sooner. Were there any signs that she should have seen? She tried to remember how her father-in-law had behaved toward Louisa, tried to find some proof that would show her that he hadn’t molested her daughter. He’d never been anything but friendly toward her.
A doctor in blue scrubs came into the waiting room. Prinzler and Florian jumped up.
“How is my wife?” Prinzler asked.
“How is my sister?” asked Florian at the same time.
The doctor looked from one man to the other.
“She came through the operation fine, and her condition is stable,” he replied, almost dislocating his neck as he peered up at Prinzler. “We’ve taken her to the ICU for observation, but we were able to remove the bullet and repair the damage to her intestines.”
Suddenly, a searing pain shot through Emma’s abdomen. She gasped for air, and at the same moment her water broke, soaking her panties.
“Florian,” she said quietly. “I think the baby’s coming.”
* * *
“What happened to you?” asked Pia, appalled, when Kilian Rothemund turned around to face her. She thought about the photos they’d used during the search. His handsome face was now badly swollen; the left half was one big purple bruise all the way to his eye. His nose seemed to be broken, and his right arm looked like it had been caught in a meat grinder. Kilian Rothemund belonged in a hospital.
“When I tried to board the train yesterday in Amsterdam, they were waiting for me,” he replied.
“Who was?” Pia sat down across from him at the interview table in Bodenstein’s office. Bodenstein gave Rothemund a signal to hold his answer for a moment. He turned on the tape recorder, placed it on the table, and gave a few details about the case.
“It wasn’t the Dutch police who caught me,” said Rothemund with a grimace as the tape ran. “And it wasn’t the police who tortured me last night and shoved me out of a moving car this morning. It was the thugs from the pedophile Mafia; evidently, I’d become a threat to them. They forced me to watch a video of Hanna Herzmann being raped, and they threatened me by saying the same would happen to my daughter if I didn’t tell them where I’d sent the information that I got from two insiders.”
“Did you tell them?” Bodenstein asked.
“No.” Rothemund cautiously rubbed his unshaven chin. “I still had enough presence of mind to prevent them from getting their hands on that material. Because I knew that Hanna was in the hospital, I claimed that I’d sent the package of tape recordings to her.”
“That was clever of you,” Pia said. “There was actually somebody waiting for the mail at Hanna Herzmann’s house. Unfortunately, her daughter, Meike, was also in the house when it arrived.”
“Good God!” Rothemund was startled.
“But Meike managed to overpower the man and lock him in the basement. He’s here at the station now.”
Kilian Rothemund breathed a sigh of relief.
“Who was it? Helmut Grasser?” he asked.
“Exactly. How do you know him?”
“He’s Finkbeiner’s man who does the dirty work. He was once one of the Sonnenkinder kids himself. And he’s mentally ill.”
“Where’s your daughter now? Is she safe?” Pia asked.
“Yes. My ex-wife called her. She just got home when the police arrived to take me in.” Rothemund nodded. “I was able to talk to her briefly, and she promised not to leave the house for now.”
“We’re providing police protection for her,” said Pia.
Bodenstein cleared his throat.
“Now let’s take things in order,” he said. “We’ve already learned quite a bit from Bernd Prinzler about the life story of his wife. Today she showed up at the birthday party for Josef Finkbeiner. There she shot two men to death and critically wounded her father.”
“Good Lord!” Rothemund gasped. This news had a dramatic effect on him, and he struggled to maintain his composure. “Who did she kill?”
“Dr. Hartmut Matern and Dr. Richard Mehring, former chief justice of the federal constitutional court.”
“Those two are in the inner circle of the pedophile ring,” Kilian Rothemund stated. “They pull the strings, together with three other men, and have done so for over forty years. Until now, they’ve been committing their crimes unchecked. I have a long list of names and also plenty of proof that this list is accurate. Michaela Prinzler recounted her long years as a victim in minute detail, and she also wrote it all down. In recent weeks, Ms. Herzmann and I were able to gather a lot of evidence and statements from former victims and perpetrators to substantiate Michaela’s story. I’ve spent the past few years extremely involved with this topic, as you can imagine.”
No matter how damaged his face was, his extraordinary bright blue eyes possessed an alert intensity that made it hard for Pia to look at him. She had to force herself not to look away.
“Nine years ago, when Bernd Prinzler came to me and asked me to help his wife, I was fascinated by the topic,” Rothemund went on after a brief pause. “I had completely underestimated the determination and dangerous intent of these men. They destroyed me. I lost everything: my family, my reputation, my job. I went to prison and was convicted of child molestation and possession of child pornography. Photos and videos were found on my computer. It was all a skillfully set trap and I fell into it blindly.”