by Nele Neuhaus
Bodenstein involuntarily tensed every muscle, like a hunter who unexpectedly sees his prey standing in front of him. He almost held his breath. But he was disappointed.
“I want to talk to my lawyer.” Siegbert Kaltensee squared his shoulders.
“Where is Moormann?”
No reply.
“What happened to your son-in-law? We know that Thomas Ritter was abducted by people from your security firm. Where is he now?”
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Kaltensee repeated hoarsely, and his eyes seemed to be popping out of his head. “Right away.”
“Mr. Kaltensee,” said Bodenstein, pretending he hadn’t heard him, “you gave the men of K-Secure orders to attack Marcus Nowak in order to get hold of the diaries. And you also had Ritter kidnapped so that he couldn’t write the biography. As always, you’ve been doing your mother’s dirty work, right?”
“My lawyer,” Kaltensee murmured. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“Is Ritter still alive?” Bodenstein asked insistently. “Or don’t you care that your daughter is almost losing her mind out of worry over him? Bodenstein registered how the man flinched. “Incitement to murder is a felony offense. You will go to prison for it. Your daughter and your wife will never forgive you. You will lose everything, Mr. Kaltensee, if you don’t answer me right now!”
“I want to—” Kaltensee began again.
Bodenstein did not back off. “Did your mother ask you to take care of these things? Was this a favor you did for her? If this is true, you should say so now. Your mother is going to prison anyway; we have proof of what she did, as well as eyewitness testimony that reveals the alleged accidental death of your father was, in fact, murder. Don’t you get what this is about? If you tell us at once where Thomas Ritter is, you still have a chance of getting out of this whole mess with a relatively light sentence.”
Siegbert Kaltensee gasped for breath. A hounded look appeared on his face.
“Do you really want to go to prison for your mother, who did nothing but lie to you and exploit you all your life?”
Bodenstein let his words take effect and waited another minute. Then he stood up.
“You stay here,” he told Kaltensee. “Think everything over in peace and quiet. I’ll be right back.”
* * *
While Henning and Miriam went about searching the floor of the room inch by inch for human remains, Pia left the cellar with Elard, Vera, and Auguste Nowak.
“I hope you weren’t exaggerating,” said Elard Kaltensee as they emerged into daylight and crossed the former terrace. Auguste Nowak didn’t seem especially strained, but Vera Kaltensee needed a pause. Her hands still tied, she sat down on a pile of rocks, exhausted.
“No, it’s true.” Pia had put the safety on Elard Kaltensee’s pistol and stuck it in her waistband. “We know what happened here in 1945. And if we find any bones and can extract DNA from them, then we’ll have proof.”
“I mean what you said about Marcus,” Elard said with concern. “Is he really in such bad shape?”
“Last night, his condition was critical,” Pia replied. “But they’ll take good care of him at the hospital.”
“It’s all my fault.” Elard put both hands over his face and shook his head a few times. “If only I’d left that trunk alone. Then none of this would have happened.”
He was undoubtedly right about that. Some people would still be alive, and all the Kaltensees’ family secrets would still be well guarded. Pia’s eyes moved to Vera, whose face had assumed a blank expression. How could a person live with such guilt and act so cold and indifferent?
“Why didn’t you shoot the boy, too, back then?” Pia asked. The old woman raised her head and stared at Pia. Even after sixty years, her eyes blazed with naked hate.
“It was my triumph over that woman,” she hissed, and nodded in Auguste’s direction. “If she hadn’t existed, then he would have married me!”
“Never,” Auguste Nowak interjected. “Elard couldn’t stand you. He was just too well brought up to let you see it.”
“Well brought up!” Vera Kaltensee snorted. “That’s a laugh. I didn’t want him anymore anyway. How could he impregnate the daughter of Jewish Bolsheviks? He had already forfeited his life; anyone who had sex with a non-Aryan received the death penalty.”
Elard Kaltensee, stunned, stared at the woman he’d called “Mother” his whole life. Auguste Nowak, on the other hand, remained amazingly calm.
“Just imagine how amused Elard would have been, Edda,” she retorted derisively, “if he’d known that your brother, of all people, the Obersturmbahnführer, disguised himself as a Jew for more than sixty years to save his own skin. The staunchest Nazi of all had married a Jewish mamme and had to speak Yiddish!”
Vera Kaltensee’s eyes were shooting daggers.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t hear how pathetically he begged for his life,” Auguste Nowak went on. “He died the way he’d lived, a poor, cowardly worm! My family, on the other hand, faced death bravely, without whining. They were no cowards hiding behind a phony name.”
“Your family? Don’t make me laugh,” Vera Kaltensee said poisonously.
“Yes, my family. Pastor Kunisch married Elard and me on Christmas Day, 1944, in the library of the castle. Oskar could do nothing to prevent it.”
“That’s not true!” Vera shook her bound hands.
“Yes, it is.” Auguste Nowak nodded and grabbed Elard’s hand. “My Heinrich, whom you passed off as your son, is the baron of Zeydlitz-Lauenburg.”
“And Mühlenhof also belongs to him,” Pia said. “Even KMF doesn’t rightfully belong to you. You have stolen everything in your life, Edda. Anyone who was in the way was eliminated. Your husband, Eugen—it was you who pushed him down the basement stairs, wasn’t it? And the mother of Robert Watkowiak, that poor maid, also had to die. By the way, we found her remains on the grounds of Mühlenhof.”
“What else could I have done?” In her fury, Vera Kaltensee didn’t realize that with these words she was offering a confession. “Siegbert would never marry such a common person!”
“Maybe he would have been happier with her than he is now. But you put an end to the relationship and thought you could get away with all those murders,” Pia said. “But you didn’t count on Vicky Endrikat surviving the massacre. Were you scared when you heard about the number that was found next to the bodies of your brother, Hans Kallweit, and Maria Willumat?”
Vera was shaking all over with rage. There was nothing left of the elegant, friendly lady for whom Pia had once felt sympathy.
“Whose plan was it back then to shoot the Endrikats and the Zeydlitz-Lauenburgs?”
“Mine.” Vera Kaltensee smiled coldly and with obvious satisfaction, fully revealing the ice queen that had always lurked underneath her polished demeanor.
“You saw your big chance, didn’t you?” Pia continued. “Your ascent to the aristocracy. But the price of it was a life lived in constant fear of exposure. For more than sixty years, everything went well, but then the past finally caught up with you. And you were afraid. Not for your life, but for your social standing, which was always more important to you than anything else. That’s why you had your grandson Robert and his girlfriend murdered, leaving evidence behind that pointed to Elard. You and your daughter, Jutta, who is equally dependent on your high social status. The biography will be published. And with a first chapter that will shock everyone who reads it. The husband of your granddaughter Marleen refused to be intimidated by you.”
“Marleen is divorced,” Vera Kaltensee countered in a condescending tone of voice.
“That’s possible. But less than two weeks ago, Thomas Ritter married her. In secret. And she’s expecting a baby by him.” Pia enjoyed the impotent rage that appeared in the woman’s eyes. “So, this is the second man who has chosen someone else over you. First Elard von Zeydlitz-Lauenburg, who chose to marry Vicky Endrikat, and now Thomas Ritter.”
Before Vera c
ould say anything, Miriam emerged from the cellar.
“We found something!” she cried breathlessly. “A whole bunch of bones!”
Pia met Elard Kaltensee’s eyes and smiled. Then she turned to Vera.
“I am placing you under provisional arrest,” she said. “For suspicion of instigating seven counts of murder.”
* * *
Sina, the receptionist, had unambiguously identified Henri Améry as the man who had come to the editorial office of weekend on Wednesday evening. Nicola Engel now offered him a choice: Tell everything or face charges of unlawful deprivation of personal liberty, obstruction of justice, and suspicion of homicide. The head of K-Secure was no fool, and after ten seconds he decided on option one. Améry had visited Marcus Nowak with Moormann and a colleague and kept Dr. Ritter under surveillance for a few days, on instructions from Siegbert Kaltensee. He discovered that Ritter was married to Siegbert’s daughter, Marleen. Jutta had insisted on keeping this fact from her brother. The order to “pick up Ritter for a little talk,” as Améry expressed it, had come from Siegbert.
“What was the exact wording of the assignment?” Bodenstein inquired.
“I was told to bring Ritter to a certain location without a lot of fuss.”
“Where to?”
“To the Frankfurt Kunsthaus. At Römerberg Square. And that’s what we did.”
“And then?”
“We put him in one of the basement rooms and left him there. What happened to him after that, I have no idea.”
To the Kunsthaus. A clever idea, because if a body was found in the basement of the Kunsthaus, Elard Kaltensee would immediately be linked to the murder.
“What did Siegbert Kaltensee want from Ritter?”
“No idea. I don’t ask questions when I get an assignment.”
“What about Marcus Nowak? You tortured him to find out something. What was it?”
“Moormann was asking the questions. It was something about a trunk.”
“What does Moormann have to do with K-Secure?”
“Actually, nothing. But he knows how to make people talk.”
“From his years with the Stasi.” Bodenstein nodded. “But Nowak didn’t talk, did he?”
“No,” said Améry. “He didn’t say a word.”
“What about Robert Watkowiak?” Bodenstein asked.
“I took him to Mühlenhof on Siegbert Kaltensee’s instructions. On Wednesday, May second. My men had looked for him everywhere, and then he happened to walk across the street right in front of me in Fischbach.”
Bodenstein recalled the message that Watkowiak had left on Kurt Frenzel’s answering machine: “My stepmother’s gorillas have been laying in wait for me…”
“Have you ever received any assignments from Jutta Kaltensee?” Nicola Engel now inquired. Améry hesitated, then nodded.
“What were they?”
The self-confident and slippery security leader actually seemed embarrassed. He hemmed and hawed.
“We’re waiting.” Nicola Engel impatiently rapped her knuckle on the table.
“I was supposed to take photos,” Améry finally admitted, looking at Bodenstein. “Of you and Ms. Kaltensee.”
Bodenstein felt the blood rush to his face, and at the same time he was filled with relief. He caught a glance from Nicola Engel, but she concealed whatever thoughts she might have behind a blank expression.
“What was the exact nature of the assignment?”
“She told me to stay available and to come to the Rote Mühle later and take some pictures,” Améry replied uncomfortably. “At ten-thirty, I got a text that I needed to be on hand in twenty minutes.”
He cast Bodenstein a brief glance and smiled ruefully. “Sorry. It was nothing personal.”
“Did you take pictures?” Engel asked.
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“In my cell and on my computer at the office.”
“We’ll have to confiscate those.”
“Be my guest.” Améry shrugged again.
“What instructions did Jutta Kaltensee give you?”
“She paid me extra for special tasks.” Henri Améry was a mercenary and knew no loyalty, especially since the Kaltensee family wouldn’t be paying him anymore in the future. “Occasionally, I was her bodyguard, and now and then her lover.”
Nicola Engel nodded with satisfaction. Exactly what she’d wanted to hear.
* * *
“How did you actually get Vera across the border?” Pia inquired.
“In the trunk.” Elard Kaltensee smiled grimly. “The Maybach has diplomatic plates. I had counted on the border guards simply waving us through, and they did.”
Pia thought about the statement by Bodenstein’s mother-in-law that Elard was no man of action. What had led him to seize the initiative at last?
“I might have doped myself up with lorazepam so I wouldn’t have to face reality,” explained Kaltensee. “If she hadn’t done what she did to Marcus. When I found out from you that Vera had never paid him for his work, and then when I saw him lying there, so … beat-up and suffering, something happened to me. I was suddenly so furious at her—the way she treats people, with such contempt and indifference. And I knew that I had to stop her. I had to prevent her by any means necessary from hushing it all up again.”
He stopped, shaking his head.
“I had learned that she secretly planned to go to Italy and from there to South America, so I couldn’t wait any longer. There was a police car at the gate, so I left the house another way. All day long, there was no opportunity, but then Jutta drove off with Moormann, and a little later Siegbert left, too; then I was able to overpower my mo—I mean … that woman. The rest was child’s play.”
“Why did you leave your Mercedes at the airport?”
“To leave a phony trail,” he explained. “That way, I could concentrate less on the police and more on my brother’s security men, who were hot on the trail of Marcus and me. Unfortunately, she had to wait in the trunk of the Maybach until I came back.”
“When you visited Nowak at the hospital, you claimed to be his father.” Pia looked at him. He seemed more relaxed now, finally at peace with himself and his past. His personal nightmare was over after he freed himself from the burden of uncertainty.
“No,” Auguste Nowak interjected. “I said that he was my son. And that wasn’t a lie.”
“Right.” Pia nodded and looked at Elard Kaltensee. “The whole time, I thought you were the murderer. You and Marcus Nowak.”
“I can’t blame you,” replied Elard. “We were behaving pretty suspiciously without meaning to. I wasn’t really aware of the murders; I was too wrapped up in myself. Marcus and I, we were both utterly confused. For a long time we didn’t want to admit what was going on. It was … it was somehow unthinkable. I mean, neither he nor I had ever had anything to do with a … man before.”
He gave a deep sigh.
“The nights for which we had no alibis, Marcus and I spent together at my Frankfurt apartment.”
“He’s your nephew. You’re blood relations,” Pia noted.
“Well, yes,” said Elard Kaltensee, a smile flashing across his face, “but it’s not as if we can have children together.”
Pia also had to smile at that.
“It’s a shame that you didn’t tell me all this earlier,” she said. “You would have saved us a lot of work. What are you going to do now when you get home?”
“Well,” said Baron von Zeydlitz-Lauenburg, taking a deep breath, “the time for playing hide-and-seek is over. Marcus and I have decided to tell our families the truth about our relationship. We don’t want to stay in the closet. For me, it’s not so bad—my reputation is dubious anyway—but for Marcus, it will be a difficult step to take.”
Pia took him at his word. Marcus Nowak’s family and friends would never display even a spark of understanding for this sort of relationship. His father and the whole family would probably commit collec
tive hara-kiri if it became known in Fischbach that their son, husband, and brother had left his wife for a man thirty years older.
“I’d like to come back here sometime with Marcus.” Elard Kaltensee let his gaze sweep over the lake glinting in the sun. “Maybe we could restore the castle once the ownership claims are settled. Marcus would be a better judge of that than I am. But it would be a wonderful hotel, right on the lakeshore.”
Pia smiled and glanced at her watch. It was high time to call Bodenstein.
“I suggest we take Mrs. Kaltensee to the limousine,” she said. “And then we’ll all drive back together.…”
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” a voice suddenly said from behind her. Pia spun around in alarm and looked straight into the barrel of a gun. Three figures clad in black and wearing balaclavas over their heads, pistols drawn, had come up the stairs.
“Well, finally, Moormann,” she heard Vera Kaltensee say. “It’s about time.”
* * *
“Where’s Moormann?” Bodenstein asked the head of K-Secure.
“If he’s on his way somewhere in the car, I can find out.” Henri Améry wasn’t keen on having a police record, so he was helpfulness personified. “All vehicles of the Kaltensee family and K-Secure are equipped with a chip, which allows them to be located by means of computer software.”
“How does it work?”
“If you’ll let me use a computer, I’ll show you.”
Bodenstein immediately escorted the man from the interview room to Ostermann’s office on the second floor.
“Go ahead.” He pointed to the computer on the desk. Bodenstein, Ostermann, Behnke, and Nicola Engel watched with interest as Améry entered the name of a Web site called Minor Planet. He waited until the page displayed completely, then logged in with user name and password. A map of Europe appeared. The vehicles were listed on it, along with their license numbers.
“We introduced this monitoring system so that I can see at a glance at any time where my employees are,” Améry explained. “And in case any vehicle should be stolen.”
“Which car might Moormann be driving?” Bodenstein asked.