The Ice Queen: A Novel

by Nele Neuhaus

  * * *

  “Who called before?” Pia asked when they were in the car. Bodenstein considered for a moment whether to tell her or not.

  “Jutta Kaltensee,” he said at last. “She supposedly has something important to tell me and wants to meet me this evening.”

  “Did she say what it was about?”

  Bodenstein was staring straight ahead and stepped on the gas when they passed the Hofheim city limits sign. He still hadn’t reached Cosima to ask her how her lunch with Jutta Kaltensee had gone. What sort of game was this woman playing? He didn’t feel good at the thought of being alone with her. But he urgently needed to ask her a few questions—about Katharina Ehrmann and about Thomas Ritter. Bodenstein rejected the idea of asking Pia to go along. He wanted to deal with Jutta by himself.

  “Earth to Bodenstein!” shouted Pia at that moment, giving him a start.

  “Excuse me?” he asked in annoyance. He noticed the strange look on his colleague’s face, but he hadn’t heard her question.

  “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something. Jutta and Siegbert Kaltensee were playacting that evening when I spoke to them at Mühlenhof.”

  “Why would they do that?” Pia was astonished.

  “Maybe to distract me from what Elard had said earlier.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Yeah, that’s the big question. I have no idea!” Bodenstein exclaimed with unaccustomed impatience, regretting his outburst at once. He wasn’t giving the case a hundred percent of his attention. If he hadn’t spent so much time on the phone with Jutta Kaltensee recently, he might have remembered more of the conversation at Mühlenhof. “It was something about Anita Frings. Elard Kaltensee told me that his mother was informed at seven-thirty about her disappearance and a couple of hours later about her death.”

  “You didn’t mention that to me,” said Pia, clear reproach in her voice.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. So that means that Vera Kaltensee had enough time to send her people to Taunusblick to clear out Anita Frings’s room.”

  “But I did tell you,” Bodenstein insisted. “I’m positive I did.”

  Pia said nothing, thinking hard about whether it was true.

  At the hospital, Bodenstein parked the car in the driveway out front, ignoring the protests of the young man at the information desk. The officer who was supposed to be guarding Nowak confessed sheepishly that he’d let himself be duped twice. About an hour ago, a doctor had shown up and taken Nowak away for an examination. One of the station nurses had even helped him push the bed into the elevator. Since the doctor had assured him that Nowak would be back from radiology in twenty minutes, the officer had sat back down on the chair outside the room.

  “I thought my instructions were crystal clear. You were not supposed to let him out of your sight,” Bodenstein said, his voice icy. “Your mistake will have consequences for you, I promise you that.”

  “What about the visitors this morning?” Pia asked. “What made you think that the man was Nowak’s father?”

  “The Oma said he was her son,” replied the officer sullenly. “That was good enough for me.”

  The hospitalist, whom Pia knew from her first visit, came down the hall and informed them that Nowak was in grave danger. In addition to the seriously injured hand, he had also suffered a stab wound to the liver, and that was nothing to joke about.

  Unfortunately, the information supplied by the officer who was supposed to watch Nowak wasn’t particularly helpful.

  “The doctor was wearing one of those green outfits with a cap,” he said lamely.

  “Jesus! What did he look like? Old, young, fat, thin, bald, full beard—you must have noticed something!” Bodenstein was just about to lose it. He’d wanted to avoid a situation like this, especially since Nicola Engel now seemed to be lurking in the background, eager to see him fail.

  “He was around forty or fifty, I would say,” the officer finally recalled. “And I think he was wearing glasses.”

  “Forty? Fifty? Or sixty? Or maybe it was a woman?” Bodenstein asked sarcastically. They were standing in the lobby of the hospital, and the SWAT team had just arrived. In front of the elevators, the squad leader gave his officers their instructions. Radios were blaring and curious patients were squeezing between the policemen, who were now setting off to search the building floor by floor, looking for the vanished Marcus Nowak. The patrol that Pia had sent to Nowak’s house called in to report that he hadn’t showed up there.

  “Stay near the company door and call in right before your shift ends so we can send over your relief,” Pia told her colleagues.

  Bodenstein’s cell rang. They’d found the empty hospital bed in an examination room on the ground floor, right next to an emergency exit. All hope of finding Nowak somewhere in the building was gone. A trail of blood led out of the room, along the hall, and out the door.

  “So that’s it, then.” In resignation, Bodenstein turned to Pia. “Come on, let’s go see Siegbert Kaltensee.”

  * * *

  Elard Kaltensee was a brilliant theoretician but not a man of action. In his lifetime, he had dodged making decisions, leaving that task to others around him, but this time the situation had called for his immediate action. It had been hard for him to put his plan into action: It was no longer just about him, and only he could put an end to this situation once and for all. At sixty-three—no, sixty-four, he corrected himself—he had finally found the courage to take matters into his own hands. He had gotten the confounded trunk out of his house, closed the Kunsthaus temporarily, and sent all the employees home. Then he’d booked his flight online and packed his bags. And strangely enough, he suddenly felt better than ever before, even without the pills. He felt years younger, decisive and energetic. Elard Kaltensee smiled. Maybe it was a plus that everyone took him for a coward and no one would believe him capable of something like this. Except for the lady cop, but even she had been lured onto a sidetrack. A patrol car was parked in front of the gate at Mühlenhof, but not even this unexpected obstacle could deter him. If he was lucky, the police wouldn’t know about the shortcut to the estate via Lorsbach and through the Fischbach valley, so he’d be able to slip into the house unnoticed. One encounter with the police per day was plenty for him. Besides, he’d have a lot of explaining to do about the blood on the passenger seat of his car. Something caught his attention and he turned up the radio. “—and the police are asking for your help. Since this afternoon, Marcus Nowak, thirty-four, has been missing. He disappeared from the hospital in Hofheim and is in urgent need of vital medications.…” Elard Kaltensee turned off the radio and smiled with satisfaction. Let them look for him. He knew where Nowak was. Nobody would find him anytime soon; he had made sure of that.

  * * *

  The headquarters of KMF was located close to the tax office on the Nordring in Hofheim. Bodenstein had decided not to give Siegbert Kaltensee advance notice of their arrival, and he presented his ID to the guard without comment. A man in a dark uniform stared without expression into the car and then raised the barrier.

  “I’ll bet you a month’s salary that we’ll find the men who attacked Nowak over there,” Pia remarked, pointing to an inconspicuous building with a discreet sign that read K-SECURE. In the fenced parking lot were several VW buses and Mercedes vans with tinted windows. Bodenstein slowed down and Pia read the text on several vehicles: K-Secure—Protection for Valuables, Property, and Personnel—Transport of Money and Assets. The scratches from the concrete planter in front of Auguste Nowak’s house had certainly been long since repaired, but they were on the right track. The crime lab had definitively linked the paint traces to a product used on Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

  Siegbert Kaltensee’s secretary, who had made it effortlessly to the final round of Germany’s Next Top Model, told them it would be a long wait—her boss was in an important business meeting with clients from overseas. Pia responded to her condescending look with a smile and won
dered how anyone could walk around all day with heels that high.

  Siegbert Kaltensee had apparently decided to leave his overseas clients, as he appeared within three minutes.

  “We’ve heard that you’re planning some changes with respect to the firm,” said Bodenstein after the secretary had served them coffee and mineral water. “It’s our understanding that you now want to sell what you couldn’t sell before because some of the shareholders exercised their veto power.”

  “I don’t know where you got this information,” Siegbert Kaltensee replied calmly. “But the matter is more complex than it was probably portrayed.”

  “Yet it’s true that you did not have a majority backing your plan. Am I right?”

  Siegbert Kaltensee smiled and leaned his elbows on the desk. “What are you driving at? I hope you don’t think that I had Goldberg, Schneider, and Anita Frings killed in order to acquire their shares as CEO of KMF.”

  Bodenstein also smiled. “Now you’re the one who’s oversimplifying the matter. But my question was leaning in that direction.”

  “Actually, we had the company appraised by an auditing firm a few months ago,” said Siegbert Kaltensee. “Naturally, there are always investors interested in a healthy, well-established firm that is also the worldwide market leader in its field and possesses a hundred patents. The evaluation was done not because we want to sell, but because we plan to go public in the near future. KMF will be completely restructured in order to conform to the requirements of the market.”

  He leaned back.

  “I’ll turn sixty this fall. No one from the family shows any interest in the company, so sooner or later I’ll have to turn over the helm to a stranger. I’d like to remove family ownership from the firm before that happens. I’m sure you know about the stipulation in my father’s will. At the end of this year, its validity will lapse, and then we can finally alter the organizational structure of the business. From a limited company a corporation will be formed, and that will take place within the next two years. None of us will make millions from our shares. Naturally, I have personally and extensively informed all shareholders about these plans, including, of course, Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Schneider, and Mrs. Frings.”

  Siegbert Kaltensee smiled again.

  “By the way, that was the reason for the conversation last week at my mother’s house when you came and asked us about Robert.”

  It all sounded perfectly logical. Siegbert’s and Jutta Kaltensee’s motive for murder, which neither Bodenstein nor Pia had ever considered especially viable, now evaporated.

  “Do you know Katharina Ehrmann?” Pia asked.

  “Of course,” Siegbert Kaltensee said with a nod. “Katharina and my sister Jutta are close friends.”

  “Why was Ms. Ehrmann given company shares by your father?”

  “I don’t really know. Katharina spent part of her childhood at Mühlenhof. I assume that my father wanted to annoy my mother.”

  “Did you know that Katharina Ehrmann has a relationship with Thomas Ritter, your mother’s former assistant?”

  A furrow of displeasure appeared on Kaltensee’s face.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” he admitted. “But it really doesn’t matter to me what that man does. He’s a bad egg. Regrettably, it took my mother a long time to realize that he had always tried to set her against the family.”

  “He’s writing a biography about your mother,” Bodenstein said.

  Kaltensee coolly corrected him. “He was writing it. Our lawyers have stopped it. Besides, he signed a contract when his employment ended, agreeing to maintain silence about all internal family matters.”

  “What will happen if he contravenes it?” Pia asked, curious.

  “The consequences for him will be exceedingly unpleasant.”

  “Why, exactly, are you opposed to a biography of your mother?” Bodenstein inquired. “She’s a remarkable woman with a splendid record of achievement.”

  “We don’t really have any objections,” replied Kaltensee. “But my mother would like to choose her own biographer. Ritter has dug up all sorts of abstruse stuff, purely to take revenge on my mother for the supposed injustice he suffered.”

  “For example, that Goldberg and Schneider were former Nazis and had assumed false identities?” Pia asked.

  Siegbert Kaltensee smiled again noncommittally. “In the lives of numerous successful entrepreneurs from the postwar period, you will find connections to the Nazi regime,” he retorted. “Even my father doubtless profited from the war, because his firm was in the arms business. That’s not what this is about.”

  “Then what is it about?” Bodenstein asked.

  “Ritter is making wild accusations that meet the criminal definition of libel and defamation of character.”

  “How can you know that?” Pia inquired.

  Siegbert Kaltensee shrugged and said nothing.

  “It has come to our attention that at one time your brother, Elard, was suspected of having pushed your father down the stairs. Does Ritter also write about that in his book?”

  “Ritter’s not writing a book,” replied Siegbert Kaltensee. “Apart from that, I believe to this day that Elard was responsible. He could never stand my father. The fact that he received shares in the firm is simply preposterous.”

  His smooth, self-confident facade was showing its first cracks. What was the reason for such blatant dislike of his older half brother? Was it jealousy over his looks and his success with women, or was there more to it?

  “Elard’s been profiting for decades from my work, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yet in his eyes, the business of this company is merely a contemptible, empty chase after base mammon.” He laughed caustically. “I’d love to see my high-principled, sensitive brother try to live without money and have to depend solely on his own abilities. The art professor is not particularly well equipped to cope with real life.”

  “Like Robert Watkowiak?” asked Pia. “Doesn’t his death affect you at all?”

  Siegbert Kaltensee raised his eyebrows and retreated to his nonchalant attitude.

  “To be honest, no, it doesn’t. I’ve been ashamed often enough that he was my half brother. My mother was lenient with him for too long.”

  “Maybe because he was her grandson,” Bodenstein remarked in passing.

  “Pardon me?” Kaltensee straightened up.

  “In the past several days, we’ve been hearing about various matters,” said Bodenstein. “Including the fact that in reality it was you who was Watkowiak’s father. His mother was your parents’ maid, and when they got wind of this ill-advised relationship, you were sent off to America. Then your father took the blame upon himself.”

  Siegbert Kaltensee was left literally speechless by this accusation. He rubbed his hand nervously over his bald pate.

  “My God,” he muttered, and stood up. “I did actually have an affair with my parents’ maid. Her name was Danuta. She was a couple of years older than I and very pretty.”

  He paced up and down in his office.

  “I was serious about her, the way it is when you’re fifteen or sixteen. My parents, naturally, were not thrilled and sent me to the States to take my mind off things.”

  All of a sudden, he stopped cold.

  “By the time I returned nine years later with my degree, a wife, and a daughter, I had completely forgotten about Danuta.”

  He went over to the window and stared out. Was he thinking about all the rejections and failings that had driven his alleged half brother first into criminality and then to his death?

  “How is your mother doing, by the way?” Bodenstein asked, changing the subject. “And where is she? Because we urgently need to speak with her.”

  With a pale face, Siegbert Kaltensee turned around and again sat down behind his desk. He began absentmindedly doodling with a ballpoint on a pad of paper.

  “No one can talk to her right now,” he said softly. “The events of the past few days have taken a
terrible toll on her. The murders that Robert committed, and finally the news of his suicide, were simply too much for her to bear.”

  “Watkowiak didn’t commit the murders,” said Bodenstein. “And his death was not a suicide. The autopsy definitively concluded that he died as a result of actions by some unknown perpetrator.”

  “The actions of an unknown perpetrator?” Kaltensee said in disbelief. The hand holding the ballpoint pen was trembling. “But who … and why? Who would want to murder Robert?”

  “That’s what we’re asking ourselves. Next to his body we found the weapon used to kill his girlfriend, but he didn’t do it.”

  In the silence, the phone on the desk rang. Siegbert Kaltensee picked up the receiver, brusquely announced he was not to be disturbed, and hung up.

  “Do you have any idea who might have killed your mother’s three friends or what the number one one six four five might mean?”

  “That number doesn’t ring a bell,” replied Kaltensee, and then he thought for a moment. “I don’t want to cast suspicion on anyone unjustly, but I know that Elard was putting massive pressure on Goldberg in the past few weeks. My brother refused to accept that Goldberg didn’t know anything about his past, or anything about his biological father. And Ritter also visited Goldberg numerous times. I could easily picture him committing the three murders without a second thought.”

  Pia had rarely heard anyone utter such a blatant accusation of murder. Did Siegbert Kaltensee see an opportunity to get rid of the two men he despised from the bottom of his heart, and with whom he had competed for the favor of his mother for so many years? What would happen if Kaltensee learned that Ritter was not only his son-in-law but also soon to be the father of his grandchild?

  “Goldberg, Schneider, and Frings were shot with a World War Two weapon and old ammunition. Where would Ritter get those sorts of things?” she now asked. Kaltensee stared at her for a moment.

  “You’ve probably also heard the story of the missing trunk,” he said. “I’ve had my thoughts about what it may have contained. What if it held items belonging to my father? He was a member of the Nazi Party and also in the Wehrmacht. Maybe Ritter stole the trunk and there was a gun inside.”