Bad Wolf (27 page)

Bodenstein thanked the neighbor and said good-bye. He had no reason to question what she had seen, but her observation was a riddle for him. Previously, he and Pia had assumed that something had happened to Hanna on her way home, but now it looked as though she’d been attacked and raped in her house. Vinzenz Kornbichler was aware of his wife’s routines, and he also knew that there was direct access from the house to the garage. Later, the perp must have shoved Hanna Herzmann into the trunk of her car and driven her to Weilbach. But how had he gotten away from there afterward? Were there two perps involved? Did Kornbichler have an accomplice? Or were they on the wrong track altogether? Maybe the tattooed giant Kornbichler said he’d seen had something to do with it.

Bodenstein reached for the phone and dialed Christian Kröger’s cell phone. He picked up at once.

“Did you examine the garage of the Herzmann house?” Bodenstein asked after quickly summing up the statement he’d just received from the neighbor.

“No,” Kröger replied after a brief pause. “Damn, why didn’t I think of the garage?”

“Because we had no idea that the house might be a crime scene.” Bodenstein was well aware of his colleague’s perfectionism and knew how much it rankled when he happened to overlook something.

“I’m driving over there right now,” Kröger said firmly. “Before that crazy woman destroys any evidence.”

“Who do you mean?” Bodenstein asked, slightly annoyed.

“The daughter, of course. She’s off her rocker. But at least she left me a front door key.”

Bodenstein glanced at the clock. Midnight, but now he was wide awake and wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. “You know what, I’ll go over there, too,” he said. “Can you be there in half an hour?”

“If you bring the evidence van. Otherwise, I’ll have to stop by Hofheim.”

*   *   *

His fingers flew over the keyboard of his laptop. The thunderstorm last night had brought only a brief cooling; today it was hotter and more humid than ever. All day long, the sun had mercilessly baked the trailer, heating up the tin box. The computer, fridge, and TV kept radiating more heat, so it no longer made any difference whether it was 104 degrees or 106. Even though he was hardly moving, the sweat ran down his face, dripping from his chin to the tabletop.

Originally, he had tackled the job with the intention of filtering out only the most important facts from the confused jumble of notes, diary entries, and reports. Her suggestion to make a whole book out of it haunted him. Concentrating on work distracted him from asking himself whether he had said or done anything to anger her. She used to be dependability personified. It was so unlike her to miss an appointment without notifying him in advance. It was a mystery to him why he hadn’t heard a word in more than twenty-four hours. At first, her cell was still on, but now it was off, and she wasn’t answering any texts or e-mails. Everything had been fine when they parted early Thursday morning. Or had it? What had happened?

He stopped and reached for the water bottle, which almost slipped out of his hand. Condensation had loosened the label, and the contents were almost at room temperature.

He stood up and stretched. His T-shirt and shorts were soaked with sweat and he longed to cool off. For a moment he allowed himself to think about his air-conditioned office in the old days. Back then, he’d taken this luxury for granted, along with the coolness of a well-insulated house with triple-pane windows. In the past, he could never have worked in such sweltering heat. But a person could get used to anything if he had to—even extremes. To survive you didn’t need twenty tailored suits or fifteen pairs of handmade shoes or thirty-seven Ralph Lauren shirts. You could cook on a single hot plate with two pots and a pan, and you didn’t need a fifty-thousand-euro kitchen with granite countertops and a cooking island. All superfluous. Happiness was to be found in the scarcity of material things, because if you didn’t have any possessions, you didn’t have to worry about losing them.

He closed the laptop and turned off the light so as not to attract more moths and mosquitoes. Then he took an ice-cold bottle of beer from the fridge and sat outside in front of the awning on the empty beer case. The trailer park was unusually quiet. The combination of heat and alcohol seemed to have paralyzed even the most ardent partyers among his neighbors. He took a swig and gazed into the hazy night sky, in which the stars and crescent moon were only vaguely visible. A beer at the end of the day was one of the few rituals he still held on to. He used to have a beer every evening with colleagues or clients in a bar somewhere downtown, a way of relaxing before he went home. That was a long time ago.

In the past few years, there had hardly been anything that had weighed on his heart, so he had survived fairly well. But now things were different. Why hadn’t he been able to maintain a professional distance? Her silence made him feel more unsure than he wanted to admit. Too much closeness was just as damaging and dangerous as false hope. Especially for an ex-con like him.

He heard engine noise approaching. A full, throaty rumble, the typical Harley sound at low rpm. He was about to receive a visitor, and he raised his head in alarm. None of the boys had ever shown up at the trailer park before. The beam of a headlight grazed his face. The machine stopped in front of the garden fence, the motor rumbling in neutral. He got up from the beer case and hesitantly walked over.

“Hey,
avvocato,
” the rider greeted him without dismounting. “I’ve got a message from Bernd. Didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”

He recognized the man in the faint illumination from the streetlight that stood fifty yards away, and acknowledged his greeting with a nod.

The man handed him a folded-up envelope.

“It’s urgent,” he said in a low voice, and then rode off into the night.

He stood there until the sound of the motorcycle faded in the distance; then he went inside his trailer and tore open the envelope.

Monday, 7:00
P.M.
,
it said on the note.
Prinsengracht 85. Inner city. Amsterdam.

“Finally,” he thought, taking a deep breath. He’d been waiting a long time for this contact.

*   *   *

Friday used to be her favorite day of the week. Michaela had always looked forward to Friday afternoon, when she could do trick riding at the stables. But she hadn’t been there in two weeks. Last week, she said she had a stomachache, and it wasn’t even a lie. Today she told Mama she didn’t feel good. And that wasn’t a lie, either. She’d started feeling bad at school, and at lunch she’d only been able to get down a bite before she threw up. Her siblings had disappeared right after lunch. Today was the start of fall vacation, which meant the start of the Indian tepee camp they’d all been looking forward to so long. In a clearing in the woods, they would put up Indian tepees and sit around the campfire in the evening, grilling hot dogs and singing songs.

Michaela got into bed, leaving the door ajar, and listened to the sounds in the house.

The telephone rang. She jumped out of bed as if she’d had an electric shock and dashed out of the room, but—too late. Mama had already picked it up downstairs.

“She’s in bed … threw up … don’t know what’s wrong with her.… Aha … hmm … I see. Thanks for telling me. Yes, of course. It’s nonsense. Her vivid imagination sometimes baffles us.… Yes. Yes, thank you. Next week, I’m sure she’ll be glad to come. The riding stable is all she lives for.”

Michaela stood at the top of the stairs, her heart pounding like crazy. She felt dizzy with fear. That must have been Gaby, calling to ask about her. What had her mother told her? She hurried back to her room, got into bed, and pulled the covers over her head. Nothing happened. The minutes passed and turned to hours. Dusk was falling outside her window.

Now the others would be doing tricks, riding Asterix. How she wished she were there. Michaela pressed her face into her pillow and sobbed. Papa came home. She could hear him talking to Mama downstairs. Suddenly, her door opened. The light flared on and the bedcovers were torn away.

“What’s this crap Gaby’s been telling us?” Papa’s voice sounded irate. Her mouth was dry and her heart was in her throat from fear. “Tell me! What kind of bullshit story did you make up this time?”

She swallowed hard. Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut? Gaby had betrayed her. Maybe she was afraid of the wolves, too.

“Come with me,” said Papa. She knew what was going to happen now—she’d been through it enough times before. Still she got up and followed him. Up the stairs. To the attic. He closed the door behind him, took the riding crop from one of the roof beams. She was shivering as she pulled off her clothes. Papa grabbed her by the hair, flung her down on the old sofa under the sloping roof, and began hitting her.

“You lying piece of shit!” he hissed with rage. “Go on, turn over on your back! I’ll teach you to tell lies about me!”

He beat on her like crazy, the whip whistling through the air, hitting her between the legs. Tears streamed down her face, but only a faint whimper escaped her lips.

“I’ll beat you to death if you ever tell anybody something like that again.” Papa’s face was contorted with fury.

Michaela, who only knew her father as a cheerful and loving man, had disappeared. A little bit earlier, downstairs in her bedroom, Sandra had already surfaced from the depths of her subconscious. Sandra always appeared whenever Papa got so furious and beat her. Sandra was able to stand the blows, the pain, and the hatred. Michaela wouldn’t remember anything about it the next day, surprised to see the bruises and welts on her skin. But she would never again mention a word about it to anyone else. Michaela was eight years old.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

The scare the day before had evolved into a terrifying nightmare: the dark biker types, the slavering hounds, the trigger-happy ranger, the cops. Vinzenz and Jan had played some kind of role. Meike could no longer remember who or what she’d been running from, but she was panting like a racehorse after the Grand Prize at Baden-Baden when she woke up just after midnight bathed in sweat. She took a shower, then wrapped herself in a bath towel, and sat out on the small balcony. The heat in the early-morning hours was tropical, and going back to sleep was out of the question.

Since yesterday, Meike had been speculating incessantly about what her mother could have been working on and whether it had anything to do with the assault. Even Wolfgang didn’t have the faintest idea. He was totally shocked when she told him what had happened to Hanna, and after she told him about her encounter with the bikers and the attack dog, he’d offered to let her stay at his house for the time being. Meike had been pleased, but she’d politely declined. She was too old to go into hiding somewhere.

She braced her feet against the balcony railing. After the cops had left yesterday, she’d searched through her mother’s home office. Nothing. Her laptop had vanished without a trace, and her smartphone, too. Her eyes scanned the façade of the building across the street. Most of the apartment windows were wide open to let in some fresh air during the heat wave. No lights were visible except for in a window on the fourth floor, which displayed a bluish shimmer. A man was sitting at his desk with his PC, dressed only in underpants.

“Of course!” Meike jumped up. The PC at Hanna’s office. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? She threw on some clothes, grabbed her backpack and keys, and left the apartment. The Mini was parked a couple of blocks away because she hadn’t been able to find anyplace closer last night. She could make it to Hedderichstrasse faster on foot than by going to get the car.

The hour between two and three in the morning was the quietest time of the night. She saw only a few cars. Two winos were sitting at the tram stop at the corner of Brückenstrasse and Textorstrasse and shouted to her drunkenly. Meike ignored them and kept walking fast. A city at night was always creepy, even when the streets were well lit and even potential rapists should be sound asleep. Besides, in her shoulder bag she had both pepper spray and a 500,000-volt Taser, which she had brought with her yesterday from the house in Langenhain, making sure to put in a new battery. Vinzenz’s predecessor, Marius, Hanna’s husband number three, had bought it for Hanna in an excess of concern when that stalker was lying in wait everywhere, but she’d never carried it with her. Would the Taser have protected her on Thursday night before the attack if she’d had it with her? Meike’s fingers closed tighter on the grip of the device when a man came walking toward her. She wouldn’t hesitate one second to use it.

Fifteen minutes later, she opened the door of the office building with the passkey. The elevator was shut down at night, so she had to climb the stairs to the sixth floor.

She knew the password to Hanna’s PC. Her mother never changed it; she’d used the same combination of letters and numbers for all her log-ins, even for online banking, foolishly enough. Meike sat down behind the desk, turned on the lamp, and booted up the computer. It took all the self-control she could muster not to think about her mother. Trying to assuage her guilty conscience, she told herself that she could help Hanna more here than sitting by her bed at the hospital.

Outside the windows, it was getting light. Hanna had tons of e-mails; Meike scanned the senders and scrolled down. The last e-mail her mother had read was at 4:52
P.M.
Since then, 132 new messages had come in. Jeez, there was no way she could read all of them. Meike resorted to reading the subject lines. The names of the senders didn’t mean anything to her.

A message from June 16 caught her attention.
Re: Our conversation
, it was titled. The sender was Leonie Verges. This name triggered a vague memory in Meike’s mind. It wasn’t very long ago that she’d heard it—but in what connection?

Hello, Ms. Herzmann
, she read.
My patient is ready to speak with you in person, under certain conditions. Though in no way does she want to appear in public. You are familiar with the reasons for this. She requests that her husband and Dr. Kilian Rothemund be present during the conversation that will take place at my office. As we discussed, I will send Dr. Rothemund the documents. Please get in touch with him so you can examine them at his office. Yours truly, Leonie Verges.