by Nele Neuhaus
“What’s going on here?” she asked. “Is there a problem?”
“You bet,” said a young man in a checked wool shirt and blue work pants. “We can’t get in, and we’re already late. The boss’s father told us that we had to wait until the police arrived.”
He nodded toward a man who was striding across the courtyard.
“Well, the police are here now.” Pia was pleased that dozens of people hadn’t trampled through the crime scene before the evidence techs could do their work. “Your boss was attacked very early this morning. He’s in the hospital and will probably be there for a while.”
That left the men speechless for a moment.
“Lemme through here!” shouted a voice, and the men instantly obeyed. “You’re the police?”
The man looked Pia up and down skeptically. He was big and powerfully built, with a healthy complexion and a neatly trimmed mustache under his bulbous nose. A patriarch used to being obeyed, who had a hard time accepting female authority.
“That’s right.” She showed him her ID. “And who are you?”
“Manfred Nowak. My son owns the company.”
“Who’ll be running the business while your son is on sick leave?” Pia asked. Nowak senior only shrugged.
“We know what we have to do,” the young man put in. “We just need the tools and the keys to the van.”
“Now back off just a minute,” snapped Nowak senior.
“I will not!” retorted the young man hotly. “You probably think you can finally get back at Marcus! But you have absolutely nothing to say about it!”
Nowak senior turned red. He put his hands on his hips and was already opening his mouth for a fierce comeback.
“Everybody calm down!” said Pia. “Please open the door. Then I’d like to discuss with you and your family exactly what went on here earlier today.”
Nowak senior gave her a hostile look, but he did what she asked.
“You’re coming with us,” she told the young man.
The office had been completely tossed. Document binders had been torn out of bookshelves; drawers and their contents had been dumped all over the floor; the computer monitor, printer, fax, and copier were all smashed; cabinets were standing open and had been ransacked.
“Holy shit,” the foreman exclaimed.
“Where are the keys to the vehicle?” Pia asked him. He pointed to a key box to the left of the office door, and Pia allowed him to enter the room. When he had taken all the necessary keys, she followed him down a hall and through a heavy security door into the workshop. At first glance, everything seemed to be in order in here, but the young man uttered a suppressed curse.
“What is it?” Pia asked.
“The storeroom.” The man pointed to a door that was wide open on the other side of the shop. A moment later, they were standing in the midst of a mess of tipped-over shelves and destroyed material.
“Did you mean it when you said that Manfred Nowak could finally get back at his son?” Pia asked Nowak’s foreman.
“The old man is absolutely furious with Marcus,” explained the young man with undisguised dislike. “He was really pissed that Marcus wouldn’t take over the construction company and all the debts. I can understand it. The company was broke because everybody had their fingers in the till and had no clue about bookkeeping. But Marcus is cast in a different mold than the rest of them. He’s really clever, and he knows what to do. It’s a pleasure working with him.”
“Does Mr. Nowak work with his son in the business?”
“No, he refused.” The young man snorted disparagingly. “Just like Marcus’s two older brothers. They’d rather go to the employment office.”
“Strange that nobody from the family seems to have heard anything when Marcus was attacked,” Pia said. “There must have been a hell of a racket.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to hear it.” The young man didn’t seem to think much of his boss’s family. They left the storeroom and walked back through the workshop. Suddenly, the foreman stopped short.
“How’s the boss doing, anyway?” he asked. “You just said he’d be in the hospital for a while. Is that right?”
“I’m no doctor,” replied Pia, “but as I understand it, he’s been seriously injured. He’s in the Hofheim Hospital. Will you be able to get along without him?”
“For a few days, sure.” The young man shrugged. “But Marcus has an important job coming up. He’s the only one who knows anything about it. And at the end of this week, there’s a big deadline.”
* * *
The behavior of Marcus Nowak’s family ranged from hostile to indifferent. No one thought of inviting Pia into the house, so the questioning took place outside the front door of the big house, which was situated right next door to the company. A stone’s throw away stood a little cottage in the middle of a neat garden. Pia was told that Nowak’s grandmother lived there. Manfred Nowak took it upon himself to answer every question that Pia asked, no matter to whom she was speaking. Unanimously, if apathetically, the others nodded to confirm each of his statements. Manfred’s wife seemed careworn and prematurely aged. She avoided all eye contact and kept her narrow lips pressed together.
Marcus Nowak’s brothers were around forty, both stout, somewhat awkward, and physically exact copies of their father. Yet they lacked his self-confidence. The older brother, who had the watery eyes of an alcoholic, also lived with his family in the big house next to the company grounds; the other brother lived two houses away. Pia now knew why they were at home at this time on a Monday morning and not at work. Neither of them admitted to noticing anything at the time of the attack; apparently, all the bedrooms faced the rear, toward the edge of the forest. Not until the ambulance and police arrived did they realize that something must have happened.
Unlike Auguste Nowak, her son immediately had several suspects in mind. Pia wrote down the names of a belligerent tavern owner and a colleague who had been fired, but she thought it would be useless to check them out. As the doctor at the hospital had remarked, the attack on Marcus Nowak was the work of professionals. Pia thanked the family for their help and went back to Nowak’s office, where her colleagues from the evidence team had begun their work. The words of Auguste Nowak popped into her head: “You have to work for envy, but pity is free.” How true.
* * *
When she returned to the station two hours later, Pia noticed at once that something must have happened. Her colleagues were sitting at their desks with tense expressions and hardly looked up.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Ostermann briefly told her about the newspaper article and Bodenstein’s reaction. After a vehement altercation with Nierhoff behind closed doors, the boss had flown into a fit of rage—which was so unlike him—and accused one colleague after another of leaking information to the press.
“I’m sure it wasn’t any of us,” said Ostermann. “By the way, the report from the interview with a Mrs. Auguste Nowak is on your desk. She was just here.”
“Thanks.” Pia put down her bag on the desk and glanced over the transcript that the duty officer had made. There was also a yellow Post-it stuck to her telephone with the message “Urgent: Call back!” and a phone number with the prefix 0048, the country code for Poland. Miriam. Both would have to wait. She went to Bodenstein’s office. Just as she was about to knock, the door was flung open and Behnke stormed out with a face as pale as wax. Pia went in.
“What’s the matter with him?” she asked. Bodenstein didn’t answer. He didn’t look like he was in a very good mood.
“What was all that about the hospital?” he asked.
“Marcus Nowak, a contractor from Fischbach,” said Pia. “He was attacked by three men in his office and tortured. Unfortunately, he won’t say a word about it, and no one in his family seems to have any idea who or what might be behind the attack.”
“Pass it on to the colleagues in K-Ten.” Bodenstein rummaged in a desk drawer. “We have enough to do.”
Bodenstein stopped what he was doing and looked up. His interest was instantly piqued.
“In the past few days, the Kaltensees’ telephone number at Mühlenhof was dialed from Nowak’s phone at least thirty times. Last night, he talked on the phone with our friend Elard for over half an hour. It could be a coincidence, but I find it odd that the name Kaltensee is popping up again.”
“I agree.” Bodenstein rubbed his chin in thought.
“Remember when they said the presence of the company security people at the estate was because they’d had a break-in?” Pia asked. “Maybe Nowak was behind it.”
“We’re damn well going to find out.” Bodenstein grabbed the phone and punched in a number. “I’ve got an idea.”
* * *
A good hour later, Bodenstein parked in front of the door of the estate of Countess Gabriela von Rothkirch in the Hardtwald area of Bad Homburg, probably the most exclusive residential area in the lower Taunus region. Behind high walls and thick hedges, the real high society lived in opulent villas set in parklike grounds of quite a few acres each. After Cosima and her siblings had all moved out and her husband had died, the countess lived alone in the magnificent eighteen-room villa. An old caretaker and his wife lived in the adjacent guest house. By now they were more like friends than employees. Bodenstein had a high regard for his mother-in-law. She led an astoundingly modest life, donating vast sums to various family foundations; unlike Vera Kaltensee, she did this discreetly and without a lot of fuss. Bodenstein led Pia around the house to the spacious garden. They found the countess in one of her three greenhouses, busily repotting tomato seedlings.
“Ah, there you are,” she said with a smile. Bodenstein had to grin at the sight of his mother-in-law in faded jeans, a baggy knit jacket, and floppy hat.
“My God, Gabriela.” He kissed her on both cheeks before he introduced her to Pia. “I had no idea that your interest in growing vegetables had assumed such alarming proportions. What do you do with all this stuff? You can’t possibly eat everything yourself.”
“What we don’t eat we give to the Bad Homburg food bank,” replied the countess. “So my hobby does some good at least. But tell me—what’s going on?”
“Have you ever heard the name Marcus Nowak?” Pia asked.
“Nowak, Nowak.” The countess stuck a knife into one of the sacks lying beside her on the workbench and ripped through the plastic. Rich black soil spilled onto the bench, and Pia involuntarily thought of Monika Krämer. She exchanged glances with her boss and knew that he’d made the same association. “Yes, of course! That’s the young contractor who restored the old mill at Mühlenhof two years ago, after Vera won approval from the monuments preservation office.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Bodenstein. “Something must have happened, because she lodged a complaint against him for inflicting negligent bodily harm.”
“I heard about that,” said the countess. “There was apparently an accident and Vera was injured.”
“What happened?” Bodenstein opened his jacket and loosened his tie. In the greenhouse it was at least eighty-two degrees, with 90 percent humidity. Pia was jotting things down in her notebook.
“I don’t remember exactly. Sorry.” The countess set the plants she’d finished repotting on a board. “Vera doesn’t like to talk about her failures. At any rate, after the episode, she fired her assistant, Dr. Ritter, and filed several lawsuits against Nowak.”
“Who’s Dr. Ritter?” Pia asked.
“Thomas Ritter was for years Vera’s personal assistant and gofer,” explained Gabriela von Rothkirch. “An intelligent, good-looking man. After she fired him without notice, Vera bad-mouthed him everywhere, so he can’t find a job anywhere.” She paused to giggle. “I always thought she had a thing for him. But my God, that boy was clever, and Vera is an old bag. This Nowak, by the way, is also a rather handsome guy. I’ve seen him two or three times.”
“He was a handsome guy,” said Pia, correcting her. “Earlier this morning, he was attacked and badly beaten. In the doctors’ opinion, he was tortured. His right hand is so shattered that they might have to amputate.”
“Good Lord!” The countess stopped her work, horrified. “That poor man!”
“We have to find out why Vera Kaltensee sued him.”
“Then you’d probably better talk to Dr. Ritter. And to Elard. As far as I know, they were both present when it happened.”
“Elard Kaltensee isn’t likely to tell us anything negative about his mother,” Bodenstein said, taking off his jacket. Sweat was running down his face.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” replied the countess. “Elard and Vera aren’t very fond of each other.”
“Then why does he live under the same roof with her?”
“Probably because it’s comfortable,” Gabriela von Rothkirch speculated. “Elard is not a person who seizes the initiative. He’s a brilliant art historian, and his opinion is highly regarded in the art world, but in real life he’s rather inept—not a man of action like Siegbert. Elard likes to take the easiest path and remain good friends with everybody. If that doesn’t work, then he evades the issue.”
Pia had gotten the same impression of Elard Kaltensee. He was still her prime suspect.
“Do you think it’s possible that Elard could have killed his mother’s friends?” she asked, although Bodenstein rolled his eyes. But the countess gave Pia a solemn look.
“Elard is hard to read,” she said. “I’m sure he’s hiding something behind his polite facade. You have to keep in mind that he never had a father, no roots to speak of. That bothers him a lot, especially now that he’s reached the age when he would finally realize that perhaps he’ll never find out. And there’s no doubt he could never stand Goldberg and Schneider.”
* * *
Marcus Nowak had visitors when Bodenstein and Kirchhoff entered the hospital room an hour later. Pia recognized the young foreman from that morning. He was sitting on the chair next to his boss’s bed, listening to him and avidly taking notes. After he promised to come back that evening and left, Bodenstein introduced himself to Nowak.
“What happened to you?” he asked with no preamble. “And don’t tell me you can’t remember. I won’t accept it.”
Nowak didn’t seem particularly enthused to see Kripo again, so he did what he was good at: He kept his mouth shut. Bodenstein had sat down on the chair while Pia leaned against the windowsill with her notebook open. She looked at Nowak’s badly beaten face. Last time, she hadn’t noticed what a nice mouth he had. Full lips, straight white teeth, and finely chiseled facial features. Bodenstein’s mother-in-law was right. Under normal circumstances, he must have been a rather good-looking man.
“Mr. Nowak,” Bodenstein said, leaning forward, “do you think we’re here for our own amusement? Or don’t you care if the men who may have caused the possible loss of your right hand get off scot-free?”
Nowak closed his eyes and stubbornly said nothing.
“Why did Mrs. Kaltensee sue you for inflicting negligent bodily harm?” asked Pia. “Why did you try to call her about thirty times over the past few days?”
Silence.
“Could it be that the attack on you has something to do with the Kaltensee family?”
Pia noticed that Nowak balled his uninjured hand into a fist when she asked this question. Bingo! She took a second chair, set it on the other side of the bed, and sat down. It almost seemed a little unfair to put this man through the wringer after he’d been through such a horrible experience less than twenty-four hours ago. She knew only too well how terrible it was to be attacked inside your own four walls. Still … she had five murders to solve, and Marcus Nowak could have easily been the sixth dead body.
“Mr. Nowak.” She spoke in a k
indly tone. “We want to help you, really we do. This is about much more than the attack on you. Please look at me.”
Nowak obeyed. The expression of vulnerability in his dark eyes moved Pia. There was something appealing about the man, although she didn’t know him at all. Occasionally, she would feel great sympathy and understanding for a person into whose life she had suddenly had a glimpse through her investigations. But that wasn’t good for maintaining the required objectivity. As she continued to ponder why she liked this man who so stubbornly refused to divulge anything, she recalled what had gone through her head that morning when she saw Nowak’s vehicles. On the night of Schneider’s murder, a witness had seen a vehicle with a company name on the side in the driveway of Schneider’s house.
“Where were you on the night of April thirtieth?” she asked out of the blue. Nowak was as surprised by this question as Bodenstein was.
“I was at a dance for the May Day celebration. At the sports field in Fischbach.”
His voice sounded a bit indistinct, which could have been because of the bruises and his split lower lip, but at least he’d said something.
“You weren’t possibly in Eppenhain briefly after the dance?”
“No. What would I be doing there?”
“How long were you at this celebration? Where did you go afterward?”
“I don’t know exactly. Stayed until one or one-thirty. Then I went home,” said Nowak.
“And on the evening of May first? Were you perhaps at Mühlenhof with Mrs. Kaltensee?”
“No,” said Nowak. “Why do you ask?”
“Did you go there to talk to Mrs. Kaltensee? Because she had filed a complaint against you. Or maybe because you wanted to intimidate Mrs. Kaltensee.”
Finally, Nowak emerged from his shell.
“No!” he said emphatically. “I wasn’t at Mühlenhof. And why would I want to intimidate Mrs. Kaltensee?”
“You tell me. We know that you restored the mill there. While you were doing that, there was an accident, and Mrs. Kaltensee obviously blames you for it. What’s going on between you and her? What happened back then? Why did she sue you?”