Morgue Drawer Four (24 page)

“Of course not,” Olli cried. “He would have killed her. And then me right afterward.”

“How did her brother find out Semira was dead?” Martin asked.

Olli dropped back onto a ledge on the wall, drained and limp. “I obviously took a picture of the body in the trunk because I couldn’t let Eilig get away with it,” he began. “But Sjubek discovered the photo.”

“And?” Martin asked.

“And, what? He obviously wanted revenge, to kill the guy who killed his sister,” Olli said as though he kept having to explain to a child that you spread jam on your bread, not on your hands.

“And you of course didn’t want Sjubek to kill Dr. Eilig,” Martin said smugly.

Fortunately Olli didn’t have a feel for such nuances at the moment, otherwise he’d probably have felt provoked. “Of course not,” Olli said. “I wanted to blackmail the guy, right? And dead people don’t pay. Make sense?”

Martin nodded. I could feel that Martin was starting to seriously doubt his own mental health. Here he was standing in an industrial wasteland across from a rotund car smuggler who was explaining to him how much sense it makes to prevent a murder—not for humanitarian reasons but to blackmail the potential murder victim. Martin was wondering who here was normal and who was nuts.

“I still don’t understand why Pascha had to die,” Martin said after he thought his way back to me.

“Sjubek was out of his mind. He had to avenge his sister’s death, and he needed a scapegoat.”

“But his sister actually died from an allergy to hazelnuts,” Martin said.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Olli said dismissively. “Anyway, I put it into Sjubek’s head that Pascha felt guilty about offing his sister. That’s how I kept Sjubek busy: he got to act on his thoughts of vengeance, and Pascha couldn’t get in my way anymore. I assumed Pascha knew there was a body in the trunk; he would have come up with the idea of blackmailing the guy as well.”

“How convenient,” Martin said. “Killing two pesky birds with one stone…”

“Shit,” I said. “I would never have come up with the blackmailing idea, not even in my wildest dreams.”

None of us said anything for a moment.

“And why did Sjubek have to die?” Martin asked.

“That idiot was making a big fuss because we let his sister’s body go missing,” Olli said. “He absolutely wanted to give her a proper funeral.”

Martin nodded; even I could understand that. But not Olli, apparently.

“When the body turned up again, because that brain-dead Kevin just wrapped it and dumped it somewhere instead of burying it, Sjubek went to the cops so he could transport Semira back home, even though he didn’t have proper immigration papers. He was even risking a visit to the pen and deportation just for Semira’s funeral.”

“And then at the Institute he found out his sister hadn’t been killed after all?” Martin guessed.

Olli nodded. “He came to me and wanted an explanation.”

“And then you killed him.”

“Of course.”

This was all very interesting, but in the meantime even our naïve little Martin had to have realized that he was standing opposite a man who had committed multiple murders, who was confessing all of his foul deeds down to the last detail—and that it was high time to end this amicable conversation and bail!

Happily, the same thought finally occurred to Martin. He took an awkward step backward.

“Just a moment,” Olli said. “The attaché case.”

Martin handed it to Olli, who took it with his left hand.

In a lightning-fast motion I wouldn’t have thought him capable of, Olli suddenly shot his right arm forward. For a fraction of a second I could see the glint of the cold steel, then it sunk into Martin’s duffle coat fairly accurately, right where his heart should have been.

Olli slowly shook his thick head. “I’m really sorry, man, but you know way too much.”

Martin stared at fat Olli, surprised.

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend, too,” Olli said. “But, you know. At least she got her BMW back.” He sounded like he meant it.

Martin staggered, then he grabbed the left side of his chest and collapsed. I was speechless, aghast, horrified. Even I hadn’t expected this. I’d never seen Olli with a weapon. Car smugglers are in principle friendlier sorts of criminals.

As though through a thick fog I could see Olli pick up the case with the money and turn to go. Then he stopped, slipped a thick signet ring with a striking black stone off his pinkie and stuck it into Martin’s pants pocket, then disappeared through the derelict building he had just emerged from.

Martin stayed behind—in the middle of the night, in a shady location, with a flashy ring that didn’t belong to him, and a life-threatening injury.

I hovered close over Martin, trying to get hold of his thoughts, and I found myself suddenly confronted with an incorporeal soul floating over Martin at the same altitude as I was. Martin!

“Hey, get out of here!” I yelled. “Get back into your body!”

“Oh, but it’s so calm and peaceful here,” Martin’s ghost slowly said. “Down there is nothing but pain and suffering.”

“Enough of this horseshit—go back!” I bellowed at him. “You can take that tiny bit of pain!”

As Olli disappeared with his cash and the sound of a fat engine revving up pealed through the abandoned site, Martin’s soul and I furtively watched each other like two gamecocks, although I was the only one actually acting aggressively. Martin’s soul was acting solemn and placid. I didn’t know how this trial of strength would have turned out if at that very moment a voice hadn’t bellowed out from a megaphone.

“You are surrounded, resistance is futile!”

Had those dopes been struck completely blind? I thought. There’s a guy lying here in the mud slowly but surely bleeding to death, and these idiots are talking about resistance!

“He’s dead,” one of the policemen said as he approached, shooter drawn.

“He is not dead!” I roared as loud as I could. “Get the paramedics over here!”

They were already on the way, but those two minutes until they arrived felt like an eternity to me. They got a bag of blood set up and flowing into Martin right away, and I was able to talk his little soul into at least staying close by his body and not taking the direct route to heaven. The cops waited until Martin had been carried off, half-dead. Then the forensic squad arrived, and the whole shebang that would last for hours began.

From the various conversations among the police I learned that the cops had been sent to the site by a traumatized dog owner who, while out for a walk, had unwittingly been witness to a stabbing. Martin was taken under police escort with his life-threatening injury to the hospital where emergency surgery would hopefully avoid his delivery as a corpse to the morgue. A mysterious ring was in his pocket, which Olli had certainly not deposited there as a memento of a pleasant evening.

I came down on myself hard. I was the only reason that Martin had gotten stuck in this situation, and I was the only reason he had lost his girlfriend and his reputation—and maybe even his life. This couldn’t be happening!

I couldn’t do anything to save his life. And maybe I couldn’t do anything about his girlfriend, either, but I could at least try to save his reputation. After all, apart from Martin I was the only good guy left who knew the whole story. And I had to tell the story somehow, because Martin couldn’t talk, and even if he could no one would have believed him. The only question was to whom and how should I recount the events of the past two weeks. Except for Martin I still hadn’t found anyone who could hear me. But I’d have to come up with something—that much was clear. I owed him that.

I zoomed faster than a jet back over to the Institute, because I was hoping people there had heard about the events and I could get some news. But it still took a few hours before Katrin came running distraught into the break room, yelling, “Martin was stabbed and is in surgery in critical condition! The police had him under surveillance.”

Awesome, he wasn’t dead yet—that was my first piece of good news all day. Katrin continued by saying they were currently looking for the man who had tried to kill him. Everyone was shocked. No one could imagine Martin being involved in any kind of crime. On the other hand, everyone at the Institute had noticed how weirdly he’d been acting the past few days. People had been doubting Martin’s innocence more and more, but now suddenly people’s suspicions also started sticking to him like dog shit to treaded soles. Martin couldn’t defend himself. It made me sick.

I felt like being close to Martin again, so I slunk over to his desk, where I stared into space in gloom.

“Assholes,” I mumbled.

The screen flickered on, and the word “assholes” appeared.

I couldn’t believe it. One look confirmed my hope: before Martin left the office on forced leave, he had left his computer just as it was. With his dictation software ready to go and his cordless headset activated. Apparently no one had checked whether his power guzzler here had been turned off or was just on standby. Hallelujah!

I tried it again: “…are what you call everyone who doesn’t believe Martin.”

Now I had a plan. I floated in front of the screen, close enough to be able to read well, and I started dictating: “I hope you’ll read this account from top to bottom…”

That was about twenty-four hours ago. I dictated for twenty hours, with little breaks here and there. Now I’ve been hanging around here for four hours hoping that someone would finally look at this screen. I cursed the way everyone’s cubicles were organized, because Martin’s desk was the last one back by the wall with a view out over the whole room, meaning that you could see his screen only if you were standing back by the wall.

In the meantime I’ve learned that Martin is alive and on the road to a full recovery. He’s not allowed to have any visitors, and no one has any idea yet what kind of business he’d gotten mixed up with, but the signet ring that has since been identified as the property of the murdered Moldovan is casting an extremely negative light on him. There are rumors that an arrest warrant is about to be issued for Martin for the murder of Semira’s brother.

The mood in the office is depressed, and so far everyone has stayed clear of Martin’s desk. I can only hope that will change soon. I keep writing an extra sentence once in a while so that the power-saving mode doesn’t turn off the screen, because otherwise no one will ever see what I’ve written here.

I’m slowly getting nervous. What if no one…Ooh, here comes someone, exactly the right person. Yes, yes! Come over this way! Farther, past the other desks, back here to the last desk, to Martin’s desk, yes! And now look at the screen!

HELLO KATRIN
!!!

From a strictly chronological perspective my first word of thanks goes to my elementary school teacher Helene Grimm, who in 1977 wrote in my friendship book:
Übermut tut auch mal gut
(“It does you good to be cocky sometimes, too”). I’ve stuck to that advice ever since.

From a more current perspective my thanks must go to Dr. Frank Glenewinkel, my contact in the world of forensic medicine. He not only answered all my questions with patience, but—neither intentionally nor consciously—he also gave me the idea for this book. Anyone who gives a talk in front of a group of women authors simply has to be prepared for anything…

But the ultimate megathanks are due to my editor Karoline Adler, who for years has harbored an unshakable faith in our shared future. Without her I would never have made writing my profession and this book may never have come to be.

Jutta Profijt

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Jutta Profijt was born in 1967 in Ratingen, Germany. After finishing school, she lived abroad working as an au pair, an importer/exporter, a coach to executives and students, and a business English instructor. She published her first novel in 2003 and today works as a freelance writer and translator. Her first novel featuring coroner Martin Gänsewein,
Morgue Drawer Four,
was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.