Bad Wolf (31 page)

“Is this Bernd?” Pia asked, pointing at one of the silver frames. Hulk Hogan with dark hair, standing in front of a black car; next to him a woman, two children, and a white pit bull terrier.

“Yes,” Elfriede Prinzler confirmed. “Too bad the way he’s tattooed, isn’t it? Like a sailor, my husband always said—God rest his soul.”

“How old is that picture?”

“He sent it to me last year.”

“Would you mind if I borrow it?” Pia asked. “I’ll send it right back next week.”

“No, of course, go ahead and take it.”

The white cat came back inside and jumped up on Mrs. Prinzler’s lap, purring.

“Thank you.” Pia took the photo out of the frame and turned it over. It was a photo postcard, the kind you could have made in Internet cafés.

Merry Christmas 2009 from Bernd, Ela, Niklas, and Felix. Take care of yourself, Mom!
was written on the back. Even bikers sent Christmas cards to their mothers.

Pia examined the cancellation mark closely, and secretly rejoiced. The postcard had been stamped in Langensebold, and part of the license plate of the car was visible.

Fifteen minutes later, they left the building; a crowd had gathered out in front. Altunay called Kai Ostermann and gave him the post office box address, although the prospect of finding out anything from the postal service over the weekend was negligible.

“A pure waste of time, the whole action,” Kröger grumbled on the way to the car. “What a screwup.”

“Not completely,” said Pia, handing him the photo postcard, which she had stuck in an evidence bag. “Maybe you can get a lead from this.”

“You’re a genius,” Christian Kröger said as he looked at the photo. “Well, if that isn’t the black Hummer that was parked in front of Hanna Herzmann’s house.”

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The street lay in the dim glow between two streetlights as if it were dead. At ten to four in the morning, there wasn’t much going on at the Rudolph Tavern, either; all the windows were dark. Bernd had impressed on her to keep an eye out for unfamiliar cars before she went outside and opened the gate. He had offered to drive her home, but she had declined. She rode along the street at walking speed, turned left into Haingraben, and then back onto the Old Niederhofheimer at the Rudolph. Nothing conspicuous. She knew all of her neighbors’ cars; the others she’d seen had the local MTK prefix on the plates. If things kept up like this, she was going to develop paranoia. Leonie stopped in front of her property, got out, and opened the small door in the gate. The motion detector reacted, the floodlight above the front door flared, bathing the courtyard in blazing bright light. She shoved the bolt aside and opened the big gate. She wasn’t particularly afraid, since she’d been living alone for years, and yet for the past few days she’d had an odd, queasy feeling when it got dark. Her gut feelings seldom deceived her. If only she’d trusted her own instincts and kept Hanna Herzmann out of the whole thing, she wouldn’t be having these problems now. Her resentment toward this arrogant, attention-starved woman had soared to immeasurable proportions. Because of her, they’d just had a real fight!

Leonie drove the car into the courtyard, closed the gate, and conscientiously shoved the bolt home. Inside, she went into the kitchen and got a bottle of diet Coke out of the fridge. She was so thirsty that her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. She finished the half-liter bottle in no time. With one hand, she typed in a text message.
All OK—made it home.

She slipped off her shoes and used the toilet that was actually reserved for her patients. She’d been tormented by miserable flatulence all day, but she simply hadn’t been able to release it anywhere else. After she’d relieved herself, she cracked open the window and then left the bathroom. In the hall, she switched off the light and nearly jumped out of her skin. Right in front of her stood two masked figures, dark baseball caps pulled down over their faces.

“W—what are you doing here?” Leonie tried to make her voice sound firm, although her heart was pounding with fear. “How did you get in here?”

Damn! Her cell phone was lying on the kitchen table. Slowly, she backed up. Maybe she could run upstairs, lock herself in the bedroom, and shout for help out the window. Was there even a key in that door? Another step backward. Twenty-five feet to the stairs. Don’t look in that direction, she thought; just run and hope to have the advantage of surprise. With a sprint, she could do it. She tensed her muscles and took off, but the bigger of the two men reacted like lightning. He grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly back. Another hand grabbed her by the neck and knocked her head so hard against the wall that she fell to her knees in a daze. First she saw stars, then everything double. A warm fluid ran down her cheek and dripped from her chin onto the floor. She thought about Hanna Herzmann, about what had happened to her. Were these men going to beat her up, too, and rape her? Leonie was shaking all over as the fear turned to naked panic, when she heard a ripping sound. The next moment, she was grabbed by the feet and dragged across the floor to the therapy room. She saw the door frame and clutched at it desperately, kicking her feet. A painful kick in the ribs took her breath away, and she let go.

“Please,” she whimpered in despair. “Please don’t hurt me.”

*   *   *

Meike opened her eyes and took a couple of seconds to figure out where she was. Then she luxuriantly stretched her arms above her head. Outside the window, the birds were singing, and sunlight seeped through the shutters, sketching bright stripes on the shiny parquet floor. Last night had been a late one. She and Wolfgang had gone out to eat in Frankfurt and had drunk quite a lot. Again he had invited her to stay at his house, because he didn’t like the idea of her alone in the house in Langenhain. This time, she’d accepted his invitation. She didn’t mention that for a few weeks now she’d been staying at a friend’s apartment in Sachsenhausen, not with Hanna. She’d loved her godfather’s magnificent white villa ever since she was a kid. She used to stay here overnight quite often when her mother was away on a trip. Wolfgang’s mother had been like a third grandmother to her. Meike truly loved her. Her suicide nine years ago had deeply shocked Meike. She couldn’t understand why someone who lived in such a lovely house, had plenty of money, and was popular and welcomed everywhere would hang herself in the attic. Christine had suffered from severe depression, Hanna once explained. Meike could still vividly remember the funeral. It was on a beautiful sunny day in September; hundreds of people had paid their respects beside the open grave. She was fifteen at the time, and she’d been most impressed that Wolfgang cried like a child. His father had always been kind to her, too, but ever since she heard him yell at Wolfgang and insult him, she’d been afraid of him. Shortly after Christine Matern’s funeral, Hanna had remarried. Georg, her new husband, was terribly jealous of Hanna’s friendship with Wolfgang, so after that they’d seldom visited the villa in Oberursel.

Yesterday, Meike had spent the whole day with Wolfgang, and she had enjoyed their time together. He never treated her like a child, even back when she was a kid. All those years he’d been her friend and confidant, the only person with whom she could talk about things that she could never discuss with her father and definitely not with her mother. Wolfgang had visited her in the various psychiatric clinics, he never forgot her birthday, and he always tried to mediate between her and Hanna. Every now and then, Meike would ask herself why he didn’t have a wife. When she learned about homosexuality, she wondered whether he might be gay, but there was no sign of that, either. One time, she asked her mother about him, but Hanna had merely shrugged. “Wolfgang is a loner,” she’d replied, “and always has been.”

Hanna. Meike’s guilty conscience was triggered by the thought of her mother. She still hadn’t gone to see her at the hospital. Yesterday, she’d phoned Irina, who had been there, of course. But what Irina told her only reinforced Meike’s decision to postpone the visit. She shuddered and pulled the covers up to her chin. Irina had chided her for not getting in touch. She would go there eventually, but not today, because Wolfgang wanted to drive out to the Rheingau in his cool Aston Martin convertible and take her to lunch. So you’ll have something else to think about, he’d said last night.

The smartphone on the nightstand buzzed. Meike reached out her hand, pulled out the charging cable, and unlocked the phone. In the past twenty-four hours, she’d received 220 anonymous calls. She never answered when anyone called with an unlisted number, and definitely not if it might be the cops. This time, she had a text waiting for her.

Hello, Ms. Herzmann. Please get in touch with me. It is very important! Yours truly, P. Kirchhoff.

Important? For whom? Not for her.

Meike deleted the text and hugged her knees to her chest. Why couldn’t they leave her in peace?

*   *   *

The call came into the switchboard of the Regional Criminal Unit at ten after nine in the morning. The dispatcher informed Bodenstein fifty seconds later, and he, in turn, called Pia, but she was on her way to the hospital in Höchst to see Hanna Herzmann.

As Bodenstein was driving toward Hofheim, he summoned Kai, Cem, and Christian to the station and also called the state attorney’s office to petition for a search warrant immediately for the home of Kilian Rothemund. Forty-five minutes after he made the calls, the whole team except for Pia had gathered in the watch room. Even after listening to the recording three times, nobody could say whether it was a female or male voice that in two brief sentences revealed what no one had known previously.

The man you’re looking for lives at the trailer park on Höchster Weg in Schwanheim. And he’s there now.

This was the first concrete tip since the regional newspapers all over southern Hessen had printed the photo of Kilian Rothemund.

“Send two patrol cars to the trailer park,” Bodenstein told the dispatcher. “We’re leaving right away. Ostermann, if the search warrant arrives, then—”

He broke off. Yes, then what?

“I’ll send it as an e-mail attachment to your iPhone, boss,” Kai Ostermann said with a nod.

“Will that work?” Bodenstein asked in astonishment.

“Sure. I’ll scan it in,” Ostermann said with a grin. Bodenstein had no trouble using his iPhone, but modern communications technology sometimes baffled him.

“And how—”

“I know how it works,” said Kröger, interrupting Bodenstein impatiently. “Come on, let’s get going before this guy slips through our fingers again.”

Half an hour later, they reached the trailer park on the banks of the Main River. Two patrol cars were parked in the lot in front of a low building painted yellow, which housed a restaurant with the pompous name of the Main Riviera, as well as the bathrooms for the trailer park residents. Bodenstein left his jacket in the car and rolled up his sleeves; his shirt was already sticking to his back this early in the morning. Next to the overflowing garbage cans, which gave off an unpleasant odor, empty beer cases were stacked to the roof. An open window with torn wire mesh in front of it allowed a view into a filthy, cramped kitchen. Dirty utensils and glasses covered every free surface, and Bodenstein shuddered at the thought of having to eat anything that was prepared here.

One of his uniformed colleagues had tracked down the proprietor of the Main Riviera. Bodenstein and Kröger stepped onto the terrace, which was made of concrete flagstones. A big sign announced
THE GARDEN CAFÉ
. In the evening, the increasing blood-alcohol level of the guests probably convinced them that the strings of lights and plastic palm trees suggested a sort of vacation ambience. But in the bright sunshine, the dilapidated, ugly state of the premises was mercilessly revealed. Places like this made Bodenstein feel deeply depressed.

At a table with a plastic tablecloth under a faded umbrella, the couple who ran the place sat peacefully having their breakfast, which seemed to consist mainly of coffee and cigarettes. The emaciated bald man was leafing through the
Bild am Sonntag
tabloid with nicotine-yellowed fingers and was not particularly pleased about a police visit early on a Sunday morning. He was wearing a pair of cook’s checked trousers and a dingy yellow T-shirt. Bodenstein suspected that it had been a very long time since either article of clothing had seen the inside of a washing machine. The penetrating odor of old sweat emanating from the man merely confirmed his suspicion.

“Don’t know him,” the man muttered after casting an uninterested glance at the photo that Kröger held under his nose. His wife coughed and stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.

“Let’s see it.” She held out her hand. She wore gold rings on her sausage fingers, whose nails looked like red-polished talons. Too much black mascara and teased hair pulled back into a ponytail revealed a style popular in the sixties, when she was young. The Schwanheim version of Irma la Douce. She was big, voluptuous, and energetic. Obviously, she would have no problem handling drunken guests. A sickly sweet aroma of garbage wafted over the terrace. Bodenstein grimaced and held his breath for a moment.

“Do you know this man?” he asked, almost choking.

“Yeah. That’s Doc,” she said after studying the photo. “He lives in number forty-nine. Down that way. Green awning in front of the trailer.”

The thin man gave his wife a dirty look, which she ignored.

“I don’t want any trouble here.” She gave Kröger back the picture. “If our tenants are in trouble with the cops, it’s not my problem.”

A very healthy attitude, Bodenstein thought. He thanked her and hurried to leave the Main Riviera and its proprietors, who began arguing loudly. They had to find the trailer before the bald guy could warn Kilian Rothemund by phone. He sent his colleagues to search in every direction, because there was no rhyme or reason to the space numbers in the huge area. Cem Altunay finally found the trailer with the number 49 near the far end of the grounds. The awning may have been green forty years ago, but the number was right. A couple of young people were sitting on garden chairs in front of the trailer next door and looked on curiously.