I Am Your Judge: A Novel (39 page)

“Why didn’t you want me to take the call?” Pia was baffled.

“So that no one else burns any documents,” said Bodenstein, turning to Christian Kröger.

“Could your team check all the phone numbers from the phone’s memory? Incoming and outgoing calls?”

“No problem,” Kröger said with a nod. “It’s best we take it with us.”

“Can we keep the line working and redirect any incoming calls?” Bodenstein asked. “As long as no one knows that Gehrke is dead, he might get some calls that would be informative for us.”

“Sure, we can do that. I’ll take care of it.”

“Please do it ASAP. And give Kai the list of calls so he can check them out.”

“Okay, okay,” said Kröger indignantly. “Everything has to go so fast. You know I’m doing the best I can.”

“Christian, you’re our best man. We all know that.” Bodenstein patted his colleague on the shoulder.

“Oh sure. No need to go overboard,” grumbled the head of the evidence team, and walked off, shaking his head.

Pia’s phone rang.

“It’s Kai,” she told her boss, switching to speaker so that Bodenstein could listen in.

“I found Thomsen,” said Kai even before she could say good morning. Kai was not easily riled, but he sounded excited. “Actually, his first name is Markus and his surname is Brecht-Thomsen—at least, that’s how he’s listed. No wonder I couldn’t find him yesterday when I checked the resident register.”

“Where does he live?” Pia asked.

“Lärchenweg 12 in Eppstein-Vockenhausen,” Kai replied.

“Thanks,” said Bodenstein. “We’ll go pay him a visit right now.”

“Hold on!” Kai shouted. “I’ve got more. Mark Thomsen used to be one of our colleagues! He was with the Federal Border Patrol, in GSG-9, the anti-terror unit. So we can assume that he’s probably an excellent shot.”

Bodenstein and Pia left Gehrke’s house, since there was nothing more for them to do there. Cem and Kathrin could talk to the neighbors later and find out whether Gehrke had had any visitors recently, especially last night.

“Isn’t is weird that everybody involved in this case is good with guns?” Pia said as she got in the car with Bodenstein. She’d parked her own car a ways up the street; she would come back for it later.

“Depends on your point of view,” said Bodenstein, and moved the car back so that the hearse could park. “There are plenty of people in Germany who are familiar with guns. As hunters, target shooters, or police officers. Not so many as in America, of course, but enough. In other investigations, we never asked about marksmanship, because it wasn’t important to the case.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Pia leaned forward and entered the address that Kai had given them into the GPS. “Now I’m anxious to meet the Helen Stadler’s surrogate father and hear what he has to say.”

*   *   *

The house at Lärchenweg 12 in Vockenhausen was a bungalow that must have looked quite nice at one time. Now it seemed dilapidated. The plaster was peeling, the roof had moss on it, and the front yard gave an impression of neglect.

Bodenstein rang the bell. No one opened the door, but in the driveway in front of the garage stood a dirty black SUV, and they could hear the sound of an axe in the Sunday stillness.

“Somebody’s chopping wood. Come on, let’s go around back,” Pia suggested. They went around the garage into the garden, which hardly deserved to be called that because it didn’t look much better than the front yard. The lawn wasn’t being mowed as winter approached, and a variety of junk and refuse was stacked along the side wall of the house and behind the garage. By the back steps stood a man chopping wood, dressed only in jeans and T-shirt despite the cold. He was good at it, splitting the thick logs and tossing the firewood into a basket on the back porch steps. Next to him lay a rottweiler, who now turned his head and jumped up.

“Oh great!” Bodenstein yelled, ducking behind Pia for cover.

“What kind of brave knight are you?” Pia chided. She stood calmly as the dog, a muscular colossus, ran toward her, barking ominously. The man slammed the axe into the chopping block and turned around.

“Enough, Arko!” he commanded in a sharp voice. The dog froze and stood as if rooted to the spot.

“Mr. Thomsen?” Bodenstein ventured forward, still behind Pia. “Excuse us for bothering you on a Sunday, but…”

He took out his ID, but Mark Thomsen waved it off.

“You’re cops,” he said. “I don’t need IDs. I can tell by looking at you. I used to be part of that club. What’s up?”

He was in his late forties, wiry, and in superb condition. Thick dark hair, a precisely trimmed mustache, and a couple of tattoos on his muscular biceps.

“We’re investigating the sniper case,” Bodenstein said.

“Aha,” said Thomsen without much interest. “And what do I have to do with it?”

“In our investigation, we’ve come across HRMO and learned that you were the first president. Can you spare a moment?”

“If it’ll help.” Thomsen shrugged, grabbed the basket, and whistled to the dog, who walked close by his side without taking his eyes off the strangers. “Let’s go inside.”

They followed him across the back porch into the house. It was cold inside.

“That’s the drawback with a woodstove,” said Thomsen. “It’ll warm up soon. Go on in the kitchen.”

He fired up the stove, which was in the living room. The inside of the house was in no better shape than the exterior. Doors and doorframes were scratched, the floor tiles were filthy, the windows almost black with dirt. On the other hand, the kitchen was spic-and-span, clean and orderly. On the wall hung a framed photo of a boy about fourteen in a soccer jersey, grinning happily at the camera.

“How can I help you?” Mark Thomsen said as he entered the kitchen. “Coffee?”

Bodenstein and Pia declined.

“What is HRMO exactly, and what does the acronym stand for?” Pia asked.

“We’re an association with common interests,” Thomsen explained, pouring himself some coffee and adding a spoonful of sugar. “The acronym stands for Help for Relatives of Murder Victims of the Organ Mafia.”

“Murder Victims of the Organ Mafia?” Bodenstein repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Transplant doctors are absolute vultures. If they sniff out an opportunity somewhere to obtain an organ, then to them, nothing is sacred anymore. And what takes place when organs are removed is nothing but murder,” Thomsen said earnestly as he leaned against the counter. “One person has no chance against all of them, but together we can make some noise and warn people who have ended up in the same situation that we were once in.”

“What situation?” Pia asked.

“Losing a loved one in an accident is bad enough, but if you’re then put under pressure in the hospital, it’s pure hell,” replied Thomsen. “You never get over it.”

“Have you experienced this yourself?”

“Yes. It was fifteen years ago. My son was in a bicycle accident. At the hospital, they determined he was brain-dead. My wife suffered a nervous breakdown, so the doctors latched on to me. They applied massive pressure to make me agree to have my son’s organs removed.” Thomsen glanced at the photo on the wall. “I didn’t want to do it. Benni didn’t look dead to me. I didn’t want to admit that he wouldn’t wake up. But they played on my emotions, using all the tricks in the book. Benni’s death was terrible, they said, but there was absolutely nothing more they could do for him. But with his organs, he could help save other sick people. I wanted to think it over and discuss it in peace and quiet with my wife, but they kept pressuring me. They couldn’t keep Benni stable for very long, and time was of the essence. At some point, I couldn’t stand it any longer; my nerves were shot and I consented. And I still regret it to this day.”

Thomsen heaved a sigh.

“They wouldn’t let me be with my son when he died. They took him from the ICU to the operating room, and when we saw him the next day in the morgue, he was no longer our son. Only a gray shell, his facial features contorted, his eyes glued shut, because they’d even taken his retinas.” His voice sounded calm, but the pain was still there. Fifteen years hadn’t been enough to alleviate it. “My son died without dignity, on an operating table. At the age of fifteen. If you have children, then maybe you can comprehend how I felt then and still feel today.”

“Yes, I can understand it,” Bodenstein said with a nod. “I have three children myself.”

“My marriage couldn’t
survive
what happened. My wife left me two years later, and I lost my job.”

“What sort of work do you do now?” Pia asked.

“I work for a private security service.” Thomsen gave a laugh that sounded forced. “I wasn’t qualified to do anything else.”

“You were in the GSG 9,” said Bodenstein.

“A long time ago. I’ve been out for twelve years.”

“You never forget how to shoot.”

“That’s true,” Thomsen replied, and his eyes took on an sardonic glint. “It’s like riding a bike.”

He said it so dryly and soberly that Pia was reminded who this man was, standing there before her in jeans and T-shirt. Not any old cop could get into the GSG 9. Along with extremely hard physical training, members of this elite unit learned to push themselves to the limit, also mentally, and during missions often far beyond that. They were trained to be highly efficient fighting machines who knew no hesitation or pangs of conscience. The perfect killers.

“Did you know Helen Stadler?” she asked.

Thomsen’s expression was once again inscrutable, but for a fraction of a second, there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Sure,” he said. “Her grandparents are active in HRMO. What about Helen?”

“You must know that she’s dead.”

“Of course. I was at her funeral. Why are you asking about her?”

“We suspect that the sniper is killing people because of her and her mother,” said Bodenstein. “That’s why we’re starting from the assumption that the perp must be among Helen Stadler’s closest friends or acquaintances.”

“I see. And so you thought that a washed-up ex-sharpshooter from the border patrol might do such a thing.” Thomsen snorted in contempt and set his coffee mug in the sink.

Pia turned her head and saw the rottweiler lying in the hall and staring at her attentively with his amber-colored eyes. A dog as dangerous as a loaded weapon. Just like his master.

“Dirk Stadler called you Helen’s ‘surrogate father,’” she said. “So you must have been pretty close to her.”

Thomsen crossed his arms and shot her an appraising look, which sent shivers down her back. The man was creepy, and her intuition told her that something wasn’t quite right with him.

“Joachim Winkler is a hunter,” he said. “He’s a pretty good shot. Just like Helen’s friend Hartig. And her brother was a biathlete. They were all much closer to Helen than I was.”

“Winkler has Parkinson’s,” Pia replied. “Without taking pills, he can hardly hold a glass of water, not to mention make a precision shot from a distance of almost a kilometer.”

Somewhere in the house, a telephone began to ring. Thomsen gave a start and stood up straight.

“Pardon me a moment,” he said brusquely, and left before Bodenstein could stop him. The dog had gotten up and was now blocking their way. When Pia took a step toward the doorway to listen in on what Thomsen was saying on the phone, a dull rumble came from the throat of the rottweiler.

“It’s okay,” she said to the dog. “Stay cool.”

Mark Thomsen came back a little later. He patted the dog on the head in passing and ordered him to lie down.

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Thomsen?” Bodenstein asked.

“Why?”

“Please answer my question.”

“I have a gun permit. But I’ve sold off all my weapons over the past few years because I needed the money.”

“Do you have receipts?”

“Of course.”

“What’s the name of your employer?”

“TopSecure.” Thomsen glanced briefly at his watch. He seemed nervous.

“Where were you on December nineteenth between eight and ten in the morning, on December twentieth around seven in the evening, on Christmas Day at eight in the morning, and around noon on December twenty-eighth?”

Thomsen’s eyes narrowed.

“What’s the point of this nonsense?” he asked grimly. “I have no idea where I was. Probably here. When I have the night shift, I sleep during the day.”

“On December nineteenth, did you work the night or day shift?”

“Night shift.”

“So that means you have no alibis for these times,” Bodenstein concluded. “And that makes you a suspect. Motive, means, opportunity—you know all that, naturally, as a former police officer. I would like to ask you to come with us.”

Thomsen didn’t answer. His eyes flickered quickly around the small kitchen before he looked back at Bodenstein.

“No,” he said then.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Thomsen turned around and pulled open a drawer. Before Pia knew it or could react, he was holding a pistol to her head. She could feel the cold muzzle of the gun on her temple.

“Put your service weapons and cell phones on the kitchen table.” His tone of command was unmistakable. “Now!”

“What’s this about, Mr. Thomsen? You’re only going to make it worse on yourself,” Bodenstein protested. But Pia took her weapon out of the holster and placed it with her cell phone on the table. Her hands were trembling, and her pulse was racing. Thomsen didn’t give the impression that he would hesitate even a second before firing.

“Put down the weapon,” said Bodenstein, amazingly calm. “Nothing has happened yet, and if you give me your gun and come with us, we’ll forget about this whole thing.”

“As an ex-policeman, I know that’s not true,” Thomsen countered. “And all that de-escalation shit won’t work on me. So get moving.”

Bodenstein glanced at Pia; then he, too, laid down his service weapon and phone.

“Nothing will happen to you if you don’t try anything stupid,” Thomsen assured them. “Now, walk ahead of me to the hall and then down to the basement.”

*   *   *

Each task gave her joy. What was more beautiful than having her own house? For months, she had planned, chosen flooring, wallpaper, bathroom tiles, the banister, the flagstones for the terrace. At first, there had been only blueprints and an open field, but then things finally got going, and day by day, what she had imagined was turning into reality. Bettina Kaspar-Hesse went to the construction site daily, documenting in photographs how the project gradually took shape: the concrete foundation for the basement, the floor slab, the walls, the ground floor, the second story, and the attic. She had waded through mud in rubber boots, had spoken to the construction foreman and the architect, made small and somewhat larger alterations, and longed for the day when she could finally move in and take possession of her dream. The old apartment on Sterngasse had become much too small; the children urgently needed more room than the couple square feet that had sufficed until now. In the new house, there was plenty of space. Large rooms, a playroom in the basement, and their own backyard with a swing, a pool, and a huge trampoline. Bettina enjoyed the luxury of driving her car straight into the garage and entering the kitchen directly from there. She no longer had to schlep her groceries across the parking lot and up to the fourth floor. She smiled and ran her hand along the oak counter. That morning, she had woken with a feeling of deep satisfaction, gazing from the bed out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the woods. She thanked her lucky stars for the way her life had changed over the past ten years. Back then, she never would have thought that everything would be so wonderful one day. Overwhelming despair had finally driven her to free herself from her terrible first marriage, and then she happened to meet Ralf, her childhood sweetheart, again. He had supported her, instead of trying to hold her back as her ex had done. Her first husband had never succeeded at anything. He started drinking out of frustration and then began beating her. The shadows of the past had faded long ago. With Ralf, peace and quiet had returned to her life, and he had given her two wonderful children, even though she had given up hope of ever becoming a mother. The house was now the crowning jewel of her happiness. Her own house. Her own furniture. Everything had turned out exactly as she and Ralf had planned as they sat together in the evenings poring over the blueprints, fantasizing, laughing, and calculating. One day, all their debts would be paid off and they would grow old together in this house. Old and gray and full of love for each other.