by Nele Neuhaus
Pia nodded and asked herself whether he was aware of the double meaning of his words.
Monday, May 7
“Robert Watkowiak was murdered,” Pia announced to her colleagues at the morning meeting in K-11. “The consumption of alcohol and pills did not occur voluntarily.”
In front of her lay the preliminary autopsy report, which had pretty much surprised everyone yesterday, including herself. The stat analyses of blood and urine from the deceased indicated a high level of intoxication. The cause of death was doubtless the extreme concentration of tricyclic antidepressants in combination with a blood-alcohol level of 0.39 percent, which had led to cessation of breathing and circulation and subsequently to death. In addition, Henning had found hematomas and bruises on the head, shoulders, and wrists of the corpse. He suspected that Watkowiak had been bound and chained. Fine purpuric longitudinal tears in the tissue of the esophagus and traces of Vaseline had corroborated his suspicion that someone had administered the deadly cocktail to the man by means of a tube. Additional samples would be examined in the forensic laboratory in Wiesbaden, but Henning could conclusively state that death had resulted from the intervention of another, unknown individual.
“In addition, the site where the body was found was not the site of the crime.” She passed around the photos taken by their colleagues from the evidence team. “Someone deliberately swept the floor so as not to leave any tracks. But it seems to have been an afterthought; it probably didn’t occur to the perpetrator until after he’d laid Watkowiak down on the floor. The victim’s clothes were full of dust.”
“So now we have our fifth murder,” said Bodenstein.
“And we have to start from scratch,” Pia added despondently. She felt done in. The nightmares of the night before, in which Elard Kaltensee and a Luger 08 had played a frightening role, were still haunting her. “Although we really hadn’t made much progress.”
They agreed that whoever had murdered Goldberg, Schneider, and Frings was not the same person who had killed Monika Krämer. But to Pia’s disappointment, no one seemed to share her suspicion that Elard Kaltensee might be the triple murderer. She had to admit that her reasons, which she had considered absolutely conclusive on Saturday, now sounded pretty far-fetched.
“But it seems crystal clear to me,” said Behnke. He’d shown up promptly at seven o’clock and was now sitting grumpy and bleary-eyed at the table in the conference room. “Watkowiak shot the three old people because he needed money. He told Krämer about it, and when she threatened to spill the beans, he killed her.”
“And then what?” asked Pia. “Who killed him?”
“No idea,” Behnke admitted grouchily. Bodenstein got up and went to the whiteboard on the wall, which was now covered with writing from top to bottom, along with a series of crime-scene photos. He clasped his hands behind his back and studied the jumble of lines and circles.
“Erase all of this,” he told Kathrin Fachinger. “We have to start over. Somewhere we missed something.”
There was a knock at the door. A female duty officer came in.
“Here’s some more work for you. We received a report of aggravated assault early this morning.” She handed Bodenstein a thin folder. “The individual who was injured has several stab wounds to the upper body. He’s in the hospital here in Hofheim.”
“Great,” Behnke grumbled. “As if we didn’t have enough to do already with five homicides to investigate.”
His whining did no good. K-11 was responsible for working the incident, no matter how many murders were waiting to be cleared up.
“I’m sorry,” said the officer, not sounding particularly sympathetic, and left. Pia reached for the folder. They were not making any progress on the homicide cases, and they had to wait for the lab results, which could take days or even weeks. Bodenstein’s strategy to keep the press out of the investigations for the time being had one serious drawback: There would be no tips, either absurd or helpful, coming in from the public that might give them a lead. Pia skimmed the report by the patrol that had responded to the anonymous 911 call at 2:48 A.M. and discovered the seriously injured man named Marcus Nowak in his totally trashed office.
“If nobody has any objections, I’ll take this one.” She wasn’t especially keen on spending the whole day sitting at her desk with nothing to do, waiting for lab results—and being demoralized by Behnke’s negative energy. She preferred to combat her own gloomy thoughts with activity.
* * *
An hour later, Pia spoke with the head of plastic surgery at the Hofheim Hospital. Dr. Heidrun van Dijk looked exhausted; she had dark rings under her eyes. Pia knew that the doctors who were on call over the weekend often had to put in inhuman seventy-two-hour shifts.
“I’m not allowed to tell you any details.” The doctor pulled out Nowak’s records. “Only this: It was no bar fight. The guys who beat him up knew what they were doing.”
“How do you mean?”
“They didn’t just beat him. His right hand was smashed. We operated last night, but we might still have to amputate.”
“An act of revenge?” asked Pia, frowning.
“Torture, more likely.” The doctor shrugged. “They were pros.”
“Is he out of danger?” Pia asked.
“His condition is stable. He came through the operation well.”
They walked down the hall and Dr. van Dijk stopped in front of a door. They could hear an outraged woman’s voice coming from inside the room.
“—you doing at that time of night in the office? Where had you been? Say something!”
The voice broke off when the doctor opened the door and ushered Pia in. There was only one bed in the big bright room. On a chair next to the window sat an old lady; standing in front of her was a woman at least fifty years younger. Pia introduced herself.
“Christina Nowak,” said the younger woman. Pia estimated she was in her mid-thirties. Under other circumstances, she might have been quite pretty, with classic features, shiny brown hair, and an athletic figure. But right now, she was pale and her eyes were red from crying.
“I need to speak with your husband,” said Pia. “In private.”
“Go ahead. And good luck.” Christina Nowak was fighting back more tears. “He won’t talk to me, at any rate.”
“Could you please wait outside for a minute?”
Christina Nowak looked at her watch. “Actually, I have to get to work,” she said uncertainly. “I’m a kindergarten teacher, and today we’re taking a field trip to the Opel Zoo. The kids have been looking forward to it all week.”
The mention of the Opel Zoo gave Pia a pang. Involuntarily, she asked herself what she would do if Christoph were lying seriously injured in a hospital bed and wouldn’t speak to her.
“We can talk later.” She took a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Christina Nowak, who glanced at it.
“You’re a real estate agent?” she asked suspiciously. “You told me you were from Kripo.”
Pia took the card from her hand and saw that it was the one the agent had given her on Saturday.
“Pardon me.” She pulled out the correct card. “Could you come down to the station this afternoon around three?”
“Of course.” Christina Nowak managed a shaky smile. She looked over at her silent husband once more, bit her lip, and left. The old lady, who hadn’t said a word the whole time, followed her out. Now Pia turned to the injured man. Marcus Nowak lay on his back, an oxygen tube in his nose and an IV in his arm. His swollen face was disfigured by bruises. Over his left eye was a row of stitches; another row ran from his left ear almost to his chin. His right arm was in a splint; his torso and the damaged hand were covered with thick bandages. Pia sat down on the chair that the old woman had been sitting on and scooted a little closer to the bed.
“Hello, Mr. Nowak,” she said. “My name is Pia Kirchhoff, from Hofheim Kripo. I won’t bother you for long, but I have to know what happened last night. Do you rememb
er the attack?”
With an effort, the man opened his eyes, his eyelids fluttering. He shook his head gingerly.
“Somebody hurt you badly.” Pia leaned forward. “With a little less luck, you’d be lying in the morgue instead of here in bed.”
Silence.
“Did you recognize anyone? Why were you attacked?”
“I … I can’t remember a thing,” Nowak muttered indistinctly.
That was always a good excuse. Pia suspected that the man remembered quite clearly who and why somebody had beaten him badly enough to put him in the hospital. Was he afraid? There could hardly be another reason for him to keep silent.
“I don’t want to press charges,” he said softly.
“That’s not necessary,” Pia replied. “Aggravated assault is a criminal offense and is automatically pursued by the district attorney’s office. That’s why it would be very helpful if you could remember something.”
He didn’t answer, just turned his head to the side.
“Think it over in peace and quiet.” Pia stood up. “I’ll drop by later. Get well soon.”
* * *
It was nine o’clock when Chief Commissioner Nierhoff came rushing into Bodenstein’s office with an ominous look on his face, and Nicola Engel was right behind him.
“What … the hell … is … this?!” Nierhoff flung the morning edition of the Bild tabloid onto Bodenstein’s desk and tapped his finger on the half-page article on page three, as if trying to bore right through the paper. “I want an explanation, Bodenstein!”
BRUTAL MURDER OF PENSIONER crowed the bold headline. Without a word, Bodenstein took the paper and scanned the rest of the sensational details. Four dead bodies in a week, and the police are at a loss, with no leads, offering only an obviously made-up story. Robert W., nephew of the well-known industrialist Vera Kaltensee and alleged murderer of pensioners David G. (92) and Herrmann S. (86), as well as his partner, Monika K. (26), is still at large. On Friday, the serial killer struck a fourth time, murdering the wheelchair-bound pensioner Anita F. (88) with a bullet to the back of the head. The police are groping in the dark and decline comment. The only similarity: All the victims were closely linked to Hofheim millionaire Vera Kaltensee, who now must fear for her life.…
The letters blurred before his eyes, but Bodenstein forced himself to read to the end of the article. His temples were throbbing so badly that he could hardly think clearly. Who had given this distorted story to the press? He glanced up, straight into the gray eyes of Nicola Engel. She gave him a look filled with both mockery and anticipation. Had she leaked the story to the press in order to bring even more pressure to bear on him?
“I want to know how this story got into the papers!” Chief Commissioner Nierhoff accentuated each word; he was more furious than Bodenstein had ever seen him. Was he afraid of losing face in front of his successor, or of consequences from an entirely different source? He had accepted outside interference and demands for a cover-up in the Goldberg case all too willingly, never imagining that the murder would be followed by two more very similar deaths.
“I don’t know,” said Bodenstein. “You were the one who spoke to the journalists.”
Nierhoff gasped for breath.
“I told the press something altogether different,” he snarled. “And now I see that it wasn’t true. I was counting on you.”
Bodenstein cast a quick glance at Nicola Engel and wasn’t surprised to see her looking rather smug. She was probably behind the whole thing.
“You didn’t listen to me,” Bodenstein replied, looking at his boss. “I was against the press conference, but you were so anxious to see the cases cleared up.”
Nierhoff grabbed the paper. His face was red as a lobster.
“I shouldn’t have trusted you with this, Bodenstein!” he exclaimed, waving the paper in front of his face. “I’m going to call the editor and find out where they got this information. And if you or your people are behind this, Bodenstein, then get ready for disciplinary action!”
He left his successor standing there and took the paper with him. Bodenstein was shaking with rage. The newspaper article was bad enough, but he was more angry about Nierhoff’s unfair insinuation that he had gone behind his boss’s back in an attempt to ridicule him in public.
“What now?” Nicola Engel asked. Her sympathetic query seemed to Bodenstein the height of hypocrisy. For a moment, he was tempted to throw her out of his office.
“If you think you can obstruct my investigations in this way,” he told her, keeping his voice under control with an effort, “then I assure you it’s going to backfire.”
“What are you implying?” Nicola Engel said with an innocent smile.
“That you leaked this information to the press,” he said. “I recall another instance when a rash decision to notify the press resulted in blowing a colleague’s cover. And then that colleague was murdered.”
He regretted the accusation the moment he uttered it. Back then, there had been no disciplinary action, no internal investigation, not even a memo. But Nicola was taken off the case overnight, and for Bodenstein that was confirmation enough. The smile on her face turned frosty.
“Be careful what you say,” she replied softly. Bodenstein knew that he was venturing into dangerous terrain, but he was too insulted and furious to be reasonable. Besides, this case had already been tormenting him for far too long.
“I refuse to be intimidated by you, Nicola.” He looked down at her from his full height of six two. “And I won’t put up with you monitoring my colleagues without consulting me first. I know better than anyone else what you’re capable of when you have a specific goal in mind. Don’t forget how long we’ve known each other.”
Unexpectedly, she retreated. All of a sudden, he felt the balance of power tipping in his favor, and apparently she noticed it, too. She turned abruptly and left his office without another word.
* * *
Nowak’s grandmother got up from the plastic chair in the hospital waiting area as Pia Kirchhoff came through the door with the milk-glass panel. She looked about the same age as Vera Kaltensee—but what a difference between the well-groomed lady and this burly woman with short-clipped ice gray hair and work-worn hands that showed clear signs of arthritis. Without a doubt, Auguste Nowak had experienced a good deal in her long life.
“Let’s sit down for a moment.” Pia motioned toward a group of chairs by the window. “Thank you for waiting.”
“I can’t leave the boy alone, though,” replied the old woman. There was a worried look on her lined face. Pia asked her for a few personal details and took notes. Auguste Nowak was the one who had called the police during the night. Her bedroom faced the courtyard, where the workshop and office of her grandson’s company were located. Around two in the morning, she’d heard noises, got up, and looked out the window.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well for years,” the old woman explained. “When I looked out the window, I saw a light in Marcus’s office, and the door to the courtyard was standing open. In front of the office was a dark-colored vehicle, a van. I had a bad feeling and went outside.”
“That was a rather foolish thing to do,” Pia remarked. “Weren’t you afraid?”
The old woman made a dismissive gesture.
“I turned on the outside light from the hallway,” she went on, “and when I went out the door, they were already getting in the van. There were three of them. They drove right at me, like they wanted to run me down, and then they hit one of the concrete planters that are placed there to protect the garden fence. I tried to see the license plate number, but they didn’t have any on the van, those crooks.”
“No license plate?” Pia, who had been taking notes, looked up in surprise. The old woman shook her head.
“What sort of work does your son do?”
“He’s a contractor,” Auguste Nowak replied. “He renovates and restores old buildings. His company has an excellent reputation, and he has ple
nty of work. But after becoming successful, he’s not very popular anymore.”
“Why is that?” Pia asked.
“How does that saying go?” the old woman snorted contemptuously. “You have to work for envy, but pity is free.”
“Do you think that your grandson knew the men who attacked him last night?”
“No,” said Auguste Nowak bitterly, shaking her head, “I don’t think so. None of the people he knows would dare do anything like that.”
Pia nodded.
“The doctor thinks his injuries resulted from some sort of torture,” she said. “Why would anyone torture your grandson? Did he have something to hide? Had he been threatened recently?”
Auguste Nowak was listening attentively. She might be a simple woman, but she wasn’t slow on the uptake.
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said evasively.
“Then who might know? His wife?”
“I hardly think so.” She gave a bitter smile. “But you could ask her this afternoon when she gets home from work. She thinks her job is more important than her husband.”
Pia noticed the sarcasm in her voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered a profoundly dysfunctional family behind a facade of normality. “And you really don’t know whether your grandson is in any kind of trouble?”
“No, I’m sorry.” The old woman shook her head regretfully. “If he were having problems with the company, he certainly would have told me.”
Pia thanked Auguste Nowak and asked her to go down to the station later for an interview. She ordered an evidence team to go to Fischbach and search the premises of Marcus Nowak’s company, and then she headed for the crime scene.
* * *
Marcus Nowak’s company was located on the outskirts of Fischbach, on a street blocked to public traffic, which residents liked to use as a shortcut, especially at night. When Pia arrived at the site, she found Nowak’s colleagues in a heated discussion in front of a building that apparently housed the offices.
Pia held up her ID. “Good morning. Pia Kirchhoff, Criminal Police.” The buzz of voices ceased.