by Nele Neuhaus
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly, enclosing her firmly in his arms. Pia leaned against him and felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill down her cheeks. It was such a relief to be allowed to be weak for a moment. With Henning, she’d never dared.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured.
“That bad?”
She felt him kissing her hair and nodded mutely. Christoph held her tight for a long time, stroking her back.
“You go take a nice hot bath,” he said firmly. “I’ll bring in the horses and feed them. And I brought us something to eat. Your favorite pizza.”
“With extra tuna and anchovies?” Pia raised her head and smiled wanly. “You’re a dear.”
“I know.” He winked at her and then kissed her. “And now go soak in that tub.”
When she emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, her hair wet, wearing a terry-cloth robe, she still felt dirty inside in spite of the bath. The brutality of the murder was horrible enough. But the fact that she had spoken with the young woman only a couple of hours before made the whole situation so much worse. Had Monika Krämer died because the police had shown up at her apartment?
In the meantime, Christoph had fed the dogs, set the table in the kitchen, and opened a bottle of wine. The seductive aroma of pizza reminded Pia that she hadn’t eaten all day.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Christoph asked when she sat down at the table and began eating her lukewarm pizza al tonno with her fingers. “Maybe it would do you good.”
Pia looked at him. His sensitivity was incredible. Of course it would do her good to talk. To detach herself from it, she needed to share what she’d seen. That was really the only way to deal with the trauma.
“I’ve never seen anything so horrendous,” she said with a sigh. Christoph poured her some more wine and listened closely as Pia objectively described what had happened that day. She told him about her morning visit to Monika Krämer’s apartment, about Watkowiak fleeing, and about Behnke losing his temper.
“You know,” she said, taking a sip of wine, “to a certain extent I can handle anything, no matter how terrible it might be. But the insane brutality, the cruel way that young woman was killed, was too much for me.”
Pia ate the last piece of pizza and wiped her greasy fingers on a paper towel. She felt completely exhausted yet at the same time tense enough to burst. Christoph stood up to put the empty pizza boxes in the trash. Then he stepped behind Pia, put his hands on her shoulders, and began gently massaging her cramped neck muscles.
“The only redeeming factor is that it makes me even more determined to do my job.” She closed her eyes. “I’m going to find the fucker who did this and get him locked up forever.”
Christoph leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You really look all in,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry that I have to leave you home alone—it’s such bad timing.”
Pia turned to face him. Tomorrow, he was flying to South Africa. The one-week trip to Capetown to attend the Conference of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, WAZA for short, had been planned for months. Pia already missed him with every fiber of her being.
“It’s only for eight days.” She was acting cooler than she actually felt. “And I can always call you.”
“Be sure to call me if anything happens, okay?” Christoph pulled her close. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” Pia flung her arms around his neck. “But you’re still here now. And we should take advantage of that.”
“You think?”
Instead of an answer, she gave him a kiss. She would have preferred never to let him go. Henning had often gone on trips, and sometimes she hadn’t been able to reach him for days, but that had neither worried nor bothered her. With Christoph, it was different. Since the day they’d met, they hadn’t been apart for longer than twenty-four hours. The mere thought of not being able to drop by the zoo to see him filled her with desolation.
He seemed to sense the urgent, feverish desire emanating from her body. This wasn’t the first time she’d slept with him, but her heart was pounding hard enough to burst as she followed him to the bedroom and watched him strip off his clothes. She’d never known a man like Christoph—a man who demanded everything and gave everything, who permitted her no shameful withdrawal, no embarrassment, and no fake orgasm. Pia was practically addicted to the powerful way her body reacted to his. There would be time for tenderness later. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to sink into his embrace and forget the whole terrible day.
Thursday, May 3
Bodenstein felt absolutely exhausted when shortly before eight o’clock he dragged himself up the stairs to the office of K-11 on the second floor. The baby had cried for half the night. Cosima was considerate enough to move into the guest room, but he still got hardly any sleep. Then he’d been delayed by an accident on the B519 just before the off-ramp to Hofheim, wasting half an hour. And to top it off, Chief Commissioner Nierhoff came out of his office just as Bodenstein was climbing the last steps.
“Good morning, good morning.” Nierhoff smiled affably, rubbing his hands. “Congratulations! That was fast work. Great job, Bodenstein.”
He looked at his boss with annoyance, realizing that Nierhoff had been waiting for him to arrive. Bodenstein hated being ambushed like this, before he’d even taken a sip of his coffee.
“Good morning,” he said. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to the press right away with the news,” Nierhoff continued undeterred. “I’ve already instructed our press secretary and all—”
“What are you going to the press with?” Bodenstein asked, interrupting the chief commissioner’s flow of words. “Did I miss something?”
“The murders have been solved,” Nierhoff replied, gloating. “You’ve found the perpetrator. So the case is off the table.”
“Who says that?” asked Bodenstein, nodding to two colleagues passing by.
“Your colleague Fachinger,” Nierhoff went on, “she told me that—”
“Hold on.” Bodenstein didn’t care if he sounded rude or not. “Yesterday, we found the body of an acquaintance of the man who was at the scene of both homicides, but so far we don’t have a murder weapon or unequivocal proof that he actually committed the murders. We definitely haven’t solved the cases.”
“Why do you have to make everything so complicated, Bodenstein? The man killed out of greed; all the evidence points in that direction. And then he killed the woman because she knew too much. We’ll catch him sooner or later, and then we’ll get a confession.” For Nierhoff, the case was crystal clear. “The press conference has been scheduled for eleven o’clock. I’d like you to be there.”
Bodenstein couldn’t understand it. The morning actually seemed to be proceeding even worse than it had begun.
“Eleven sharp downstairs in the big conference room.” The chief commissioner wasn’t entertaining any objections. “Afterward, I’d like to speak with you in my office.” With that, he left with a smug smile on his face.
Bodenstein furiously tore open the door to the office that Hasse and Fachinger shared. Both of them were already at their desks. Hasse quickly pressed a key on his keyboard, but at the moment Bodenstein didn’t care if he was surfing the Net again, searching for a suitable spot in southern climes for his retirement.
“Ms. Fachinger,” Bodenstein said to his youngest colleague without bothering to offer a greeting, “come with me to my office.”
As angry as he was, he didn’t want to reprimand her in front of another colleague.
A moment later, she came into his office with an anxious expression and cautiously closed the door behind her. Bodenstein sat down behind his desk but didn’t ask her to take a seat.
“Why did you tell the chief commissioner that we’d solved both homicide cases?” he asked sharply, scrutinizing his colleague. She was still young and very capable, but she lacked self-confidence, and she sometimes tended to make mistakes o
ut of sheer eagerness.
“Me?” Kathrin Fachinger turned beet red. “But what was I supposed to tell him?”
“That’s exactly what I’d like to know!”
“He … came into the conference room … last night,” Fachinger stammered nervously. “He was looking for you and wanted to know how the investigation was going. I told him that you and Pia were in the apartment of a murder victim and that she was the girlfriend of the man who could be tied to both crime scenes.”
Bodenstein looked at his colleague. His anger dissipated as rapidly as it had appeared.
“That’s all I said,” Fachinger insisted. “Really, boss. I swear it.”
Bodenstein believed her. Nierhoff was in such a hurry to get this case cleared up that he’d put the pieces of the investigation together the way he wanted. It was outrageous—and strange.
“I believe you,” said Bodenstein. “Please excuse my tone of voice, but I was pretty mad. Is Behnke here yet?”
“No.” Fachinger looked uncomfortable. “He … he’s on sick leave.”
“Oh, right. And Ms. Kirchhoff?”
“She had to take her friend to the airport this morning; then she went straight over to forensics. The autopsy of Monika Krämer is due to start at eight.”
* * *
“Have a bad night?” Dr. Henning Kirchhoff asked, greeting his ex-wife shortly after 8:00 A.M. in Autopsy Suite 2 of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Pia glanced in the mirror over the washbasin. She thought she actually looked pretty good—considering she hadn’t slept for half the night and had been bawling in her car ten minutes ago. Amid the chaos at the airport, her parting with Christoph had been far too brief. In Terminal B, two of his colleagues—one from Berlin and the other from Wuppertal—who were also headed for the congress in South Africa had been waiting for him. With a trace of jealousy, Pia had noticed that the colleague from Berlin was female, and fairly attractive. A last embrace, a quick farewell kiss, and he had vanished with the others into the crowded terminal. Pia had gazed after him, not prepared for the overwhelming feeling of emptiness.
“Do you remember my friend Miriam?” she asked Henning.
“Fortunately, Miss Horowitz and I met only once many years ago.” He sounded rather bitter, and Pia remembered that Miriam had called Henning a “humorless Dr. Frankenstein,” whereupon he had characterized her as a “silly party chick.” Pia deliberated briefly whether to expound on Miriam’s professional career, but she dropped the idea.
“Anyway,” she said, “I ran into her recently. She works at the Fritz Bauer Institute.”
“Her daddy probably got her the job.” Once again, Henning showed his tendency to hold a grudge, but Pia ignored it.
“I asked her to make inquiries about Goldberg. At first, of course, she couldn’t believe that he might have been a Nazi, but then she discovered documents in the institute’s archive about Goldberg and his family. The Nazis were meticulous about documenting everything.”
Henning’s assistant, Ronnie Böhme, stepped up next to Pia, who was standing beside the table on which the washed and naked body of Monika Krämer lay. In these clinical surroundings, her death had lost all semblance of horror. Pia told them that Goldberg, his family, and all the Jewish residents of Angerburg had been deported in March 1942 to the Płaszów concentration camp. While Goldberg’s family had perished there, he had survived, until the camp was cleared out in January 1945. All the prisoners were then taken to Auschwitz, where Goldberg was murdered in the gas chamber that same month.
Utter silence descended upon the autopsy suite. Pia looked at the two men expectantly.
“Well, and then what?” Henning asked in a condescending tone. “What’s the big deal?”
“Don’t you get it?” Pia was miffed by his reaction. “That’s the proof that the guy you had on the table here was definitely not David Josua Goldberg.”
“That’s nuts.” Henning shrugged, unimpressed. “So where’s that DA? I can’t stand people who show up late.”
“Here she is,” a female voice replied. “Good morning, everyone.”
District Attorney Valerie Löblich strutted in with her head held high, nodding to Ronnie and ignoring Pia, who again registered with interest Henning’s obvious discomfort.
“Good morning, Ms. Löblich,” was all he said.
“Good morning, Dr. Kirchhoff,” the DA replied coolly. The formality with which they greeted each other prompted Pia to grin. She recalled her last meeting with DA Löblich, which had taken place in the living room of Henning’s apartment, a situation that could only be described as extremely compromising. At that time, both Valerie and Henning had been wearing considerably fewer clothes than today.
“We might as well get started.” Kirchhoff avoided all eye contact with DA Löblich and Pia as he launched into frenetic activity. When Pia had caught them in the act, he had assured her that despite concerted efforts on the part of Löblich, that was the only time they’d slept together—she knew that the DA blamed her for that. Today, she stayed in the background while Henning performed the external postmortem examination, dictating his comments into the microphone attached to his lapel.
“Now she’s picked up a judge,” Ronnie whispered to Pia, nodding toward the DA, who, with arms crossed, stood right next to the autopsy table. Pia shrugged. She really couldn’t have cared less. A slight ache in her thighs and back reminded her of the passionate night she’d just spent with Christoph, and she calculated when he would be landing in Capetown. He’d promised to send her a text as soon as he got there. Was he thinking about her? Pia’s thoughts wandered off. She was hardly following what Henning was doing.
He extended the brutal cut that the murderer had inflicted on the girl, removed the individual organs, and then dissected the heart. Ronnie took samples from her stomach contents to the lab on the top floor. The whole time, nobody said a word, except for Henning, who was narrating his work in a low voice for the autopsy report.
“Pia!” he called out loudly. “Are you asleep?”
Rudely yanked from her reverie, she took a step forward. At the same time, the DA stepped closer to the table.
“You need to look for a knife with a hawkbill blade about four inches long,” Kirchhoff told his ex-wife. “The perpetrator made the cut with a great deal of force and without hesitation. The blade injured the internal organs and left incision marks on the ribs.”
“What’s a hawkbill blade?” the DA asked.
“I’m not your private tutor. Do your own homework,” Kirchhoff snapped, and Pia suddenly felt sorry for Valerie.
“A hawkbill blade is curved like a half-moon,” she explained. “They’re originally from Indonesia and were used by fishermen. Blades like that aren’t suitable for cutting, but they are used exclusively as combat knives.”
“Thank you.” DA Löblich nodded to Pia.
“You can’t buy a knife like that at the supermarket.” Kirchhoff’s mood had abruptly deteriorated. “The first time I saw knife wounds like this was in victims of the Kosovo Liberation Army.”
“What about her eyes?” Pia was trying hard to remain objective, but she shuddered at the thought of how much the woman must have suffered before she died.
“What about them?” snapped her ex-husband irritably. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
Pia and the DA exchanged a meaningful glance, which did not escape Henning. He began examining the woman’s abdomen, taking samples and muttering incomprehensibly to himself. Pia pitied the secretary who would have to type up the autopsy report. Twenty minutes later, Kirchhoff inspected the bluish lips of the dead woman with a magnifying glass, then thoroughly examined the oral cavity.
“What is it?” Valerie Löblich asked impatiently. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Please be patient for a moment, dear District Attorney,” Kirchhoff replied sharply. He grabbed a scalpel and dissected the esophagus and the larynx. Then with an expression of extreme concentration, he took several sam
ples with cotton-tipped swabs and handed one after the other to his assistant. Finally, he picked up a UV lamp and shone it in the mouth and in the opened esophagus of the dead woman.
“Aha!” he said, straightening up. “Would you like to look, District Attorney?”
Valerie Löblich nodded eagerly and stepped to his side.
“You have to look very closely right here,” said the pathologist. Pia had an idea what there was to see there, and she shook her head. Today, Henning was really taking things too far. Even Ronnie knew what was going on and, with effort, had to suppress a grin.
“I don’t see anything,” said the DA.
“Don’t you notice the bluish shimmering areas?”
“I do.” She raised her head and frowned. “Was she poisoned?”
“It depends. I can’t tell at the moment whether the semen was poisoned or not.” Kirchhoff smirked. “But we’ll be able to determine it in the lab.”
The blood rushed to the DA’s face when she realized she’d been the victim of an inappropriate joke. “You know what, Henning? You’re an asshole!” she hissed furiously. “The day when you’ll be lying on this table yourself will come sooner than you think if you keep this up!”
She turned on her heel and marched out. Kirchhoff watched her go, then shrugged and looked at Pia.
“You heard it,” he said with an innocent expression. “A blatant threat of murder. Oh well. Those DAs just don’t have a sense of humor.”
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Pia replied. “Was she raped?”
“Who? Löblich?”
“Not funny at all, Henning,” Pia said sharply. “Well?”
“My God!” he exclaimed with unusual vehemence after he made sure that his assistant wasn’t in the room. “She’s such a pain in the butt. She just won’t leave me alone. She keeps calling and babbling all sorts of crazy stuff.”
“Maybe you gave her cause for false hopes.”
“You’re the one who gave her cause for false hopes,” he countered. “Since you forced me into a divorce.”