The Ice Queen: A Novel (18 page)

He waited until Ritter had vanished from sight; then he got out and went into the building. Ritter’s apartment was on the fourth floor. It took the man exactly twenty-two seconds to breach the ridiculous safety devices on the apartment door. It was child’s play. He pulled on some gloves and looked around. How would someone like Thomas Ritter, who was used to a life of luxury, feel in a dump like this? A room with a view of the building next door, a bathroom with a shower and toilet and no daylight, a tiny entryway, and a kitchen that made a mockery of the name. He opened the doors of the only wardrobe and worked his way systematically through stacks of clean and less clean clothes, underwear, socks, and shoes. Nothing. No sign of a chest or any reference to the family. The bed looked as if it hadn’t been used in a while; it wasn’t even made up. Next, he turned to the desk. There was no permanent Internet connection or any answering machine that might provide a clue. To his disappointment, he found only uninteresting junk on the desk, old newspapers and cheap porn magazines. He took one with him. Some inspirational reading for all the boring hours he spent waiting in the car couldn’t do any harm.

Then he searched meticulously through the pile of handwritten notes and discovered that Ritter’s prose had deteriorated considerably. He deciphered the words
rustling sheets
,
juicy pussies,
and
breathless cries of orgasm
and had to smirk. So he’d sunk this far, the Dr. Ritter who had previously written highbrow speeches. Now he wrote dull short stories with pornographic content. The man paged further. He stopped short when he saw on a yellow Post-it a hastily jotted name, a cell phone number, and a word that instantly electrified him. With his digital camera, he photographed the piece of paper and then covered it with the other documents. His visit to Ritter’s apartment had not been a waste of time.

*   *   *

Katharina Ehrmann was standing in her slip and bra in her walk-in closet, trying to decide what to wear. She had never considered herself especially vain until after the sudden death of her husband. She had played the grieving widow and stopped using makeup for a while. Looking in the mirror had been a shock each time. A shock that she preferred to avoid, especially since she no longer had to live off the paltry salary of an office worker. Shortly before her fortieth birthday a couple of years ago, she had started taking measures to counteract her age. It started with hours at the fitness center, lymphatic drainage, and colonic cleansing. She had also opted for Botox treatments every three months and sinfully expensive wrinkle injections with collagen and hyaluronic acid. But it was worth it. She looked ten years younger than other women her age. Katharina smiled at her reflection in the mirror. A lot of wealthy people lived in Königstein, and discreet private clinics specializing in every sort of antiaging treatment were popping up like mushrooms.

But that wasn’t why she had returned to the small town in the Taunus. The reason for her return was far more pragmatic. She didn’t want to live in Frankfurt, but she needed a house close to the airport because she spent a lot of time in Zürich or at her finca on Mallorca. The purchase of the big house right in the middle of the Old Town in Königstein had been a triumph for her. It was only a couple of hundred yards from the hovel in which she had grown up as the daughter of a poor innkeeper. This was where the man who had driven her father into bankruptcy had lived. Now he was broke himself, and Katharina had acquired his house for a ludicrously cheap price. She smiled. What goes around comes around, she thought.

A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine as she thought about the day when Thomas Ritter had told her about his plan to write a biography of Vera Kaltensee. Overly confident about his own abilities, he had assumed that Vera would be enthusiastic about the idea, but the opposite had been the case. Vera hadn’t shilly-shallied long. She had fired him without notice after eighteen years. At a chance meeting with Katharina, Ritter had complained bitterly about this injustice, and then Katharina saw her opportunity to get revenge on Vera and the whole Kaltensee family. Ritter had greedily pounced on her offer.

Now, a year and a half later, after Ritter had indeed received a high-five-figure advance, he hadn’t put anything that even hinted at a best-seller on paper. Although Katharina occasionally slept with him, she had not let herself be fooled by his grandiose pronouncements and promises. After a sober analysis of what Ritter had turned in so far, she knew that his scribblings were miles away from the scandalous tell-all account that he had been promising her for months. The time had come to intervene.

As usual, she was well informed as far as the Kaltensee family went, because she maintained a friendly contact with Jutta, acting as though nothing had ever happened. Jutta, in her vanity, never doubted Katharina’s sincerity. Through Ritter, Katharina knew about the circumstances that had led to his termination without notice. A highly informative conversation with Vera’s not particularly loyal housekeeper had convinced her at last to contact Elard. She didn’t know for sure how helpful Jutta’s elder brother would be, but at least he had been present at the altercation last summer. As Katharina was still pondering this, her cell rang.

“Hello, Elard,” she said. “You must be a mind reader.”

Elard Kaltensee skipped the chitchat and got straight to the point.

“How do you picture the handover?” he asked.

“From what you said, I gather that you have something for me in exchange,” replied Katharina. She was curious as to what Elard planned to offer her.

“I’ve got plenty,” said Elard. “And I want to get rid of the stuff. So?”

“Let’s meet at my place,” Katharina suggested.

“No. I’ll send over what I have by messenger. Tomorrow at noon.”

“Agreed. Where?”

“I’ll tell you then. Good-bye.”

And he hung up. Katharina smiled contentedly. Everything was going like clockwork.

*   *   *

Bodenstein buttoned his jacket and knocked on the door to his boss’s office before entering. To his surprise, he saw that Nierhoff had a redhead visiting. He was about to excuse himself, but the chief commissioner jumped up and came over. He seemed to be still under the intoxicating influence of what he regarded as a highly successful press conference.

“Come in, Bodenstein!” he exclaimed affably. “This may seem a bit unexpected, but I would like to introduce you to my successor.”

Then the woman turned around, and Bodenstein froze. What had started out as a bad day now raced with the speed of an InterCity Express train to its absolute blackest depths.

“Hello, Oliver.”

Her husky voice was unmistakable, as was the discomfort that her cool, calculating stare triggered inside him.

“Hello, Nicola.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed how his facial features had been derailed for a fraction of a second.

“What?” Nierhoff seemed disappointed. “You know each other?”

“We certainly do.” Nicola Engel got up and extended her hand to Bodenstein, which he shook briefly. In his mind, a movie of gloomy memories was playing, and a glance in Nicola’s eyes revealed that she hadn’t forgotten, either.

“We were at the Police Academy together,” she explained to the astonished chief commissioner.

“Aha” was all he said. “Please take a seat, Bodenstein.”

Bodenstein complied. He tried to recall his last meeting with the woman who was going to be his boss from now on.

“… had brought up your name several times,” the voice of the chief commissioner resounded in his ears. “But the Interior Ministry suggested we bring in someone from outside the Regional Criminal Unit. As far as I know, you’re not too keen on accepting a position to become the head of this office. Politics are not really your forte.”

At these words, Bodenstein thought he noticed a mocking glint in Nicola’s eyes, and at that moment everything came back to him. It had happened about ten years ago. She’d been bogged down in a hopeless investigation of a series of grisly murders in the red-light district, which still remained unsolved. The whole K-11 office in Frankfurt had been under tremendous pressure. A snitch whom she’d persuaded to infiltrate one of the rival gangs had apparently been exposed by another snitch and was then shot to death on the street in broad daylight.

Bodenstein was certain to this day that the betrayal could be traced back to a grave mistake that Nicola had made. At the time, she’d been the head of another department inside K-11. Nicola, ambitious and ruthless, had wanted to pin the failure on Bodenstein’s people. The power struggle had finally ended with the direct intervention of the police president. Nicola had then transferred from Frankfurt to Würzburg and had subsequently risen to vice president of the police presidium of Lower Franconia. She was considered competent and incorruptible. Now she had been made commissioner, and as of June 1, she would be Bodenstein’s new boss. He had absolutely no idea what to make of this.

“Dr. Engel has already left her position in Würzburg, and I will be familiarizing her with our work here,” Nierhoff said, concluding his speech, although Bodenstein had caught only fragments of it. “I will be officially introducing her to the whole team on Monday.”

He looked at his department head expectantly, but Bodenstein offered no comments and asked no questions.

“Is that it?” he finally said, getting up. “I have to get back to my meeting.”

Nierhoff nodded in consternation.

“Our K-Eleven has just about wrapped up the investigations into two homicide cases,” he explained to his successor proudly, probably hoping that Bodenstein would support his claim.

Nicola Engel also got up and again held out her hand to Bodenstein.

“I look forward to working with you,” she said, but the look in her eyes belied this statement. From now on, a new wind would be blowing at the Regional Criminal Unit; that was clear to Bodenstein. It remained to be seen how much Dr. Nicola Engel would interfere with his work.

“So do I,” he replied, shaking her hand.

*   *   *

The meeting with the architect and the contractors had gone well. After a year of planning, the work on the Idstein Witch Tower would start next week. Marcus Nowak was in good spirits when he entered his office in the early evening. It was always an exciting moment when a project reached the imminent construction stage and things really got going. He sat down at his desk, switched on his computer, and looked through the day’s mail. Among all the bills, offers, ads, and catalogs there was an envelope made of recycled paper, which usually didn’t bode well.

He tore open the envelope, scanned the contents, and gasped in disbelief. It was a summons from the Kelkheim police. They were accusing him of negligent bodily harm. This couldn’t possibly be true. Hot rage boiled up inside him, and he furiously crumpled up the letter and flung it into the wastebasket. At that moment, the phone on his desk rang. Tina. She must have seen him going into his office from the kitchen window. Reluctantly, he picked up the receiver. As he’d expected, he had to justify why he wasn’t going to the open-air concert at the Kelkheim pool. Tina simply wouldn’t accept that he didn’t feel like it. She was upset, and while she was rattling off the usual accusations in a whiny voice, Marcus’s cell beeped.

“I’ll go with you next time,” he promised his wife without meaning it, and flipped open his cell. “Really. Don’t be mad.…”

When he read the incoming text, a delighted expression flitted across his face. Tina was still bitching and begging as he typed an answer with the thumb of his right hand.

ALL CLEAR, he wrote. BE AT YOUR PLACE NO LATER THAN 12. HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF SOMETHING FIRST. SEE YOU THEN.

Anticipation raced through his body. He would do it again. Tonight. The feeling of guilt that had tormented him so much was now no more than a faint echo somewhere deep inside him.

Friday, May 4

“We ought to notify the police.” The executive housekeeper, Parveen Multani, was seriously concerned. “Something must have happened to her. All her medications are there. Really, Mrs. Kohlhaas, I have a bad feeling about this.”

At 7:30 this morning, she had found out that one of her residents was missing, and there was no explanation for it. Renate Kohlhaas, the director of the elegant senior residence Taunusblick, was angry. Why did something like this have to happen today of all days? At eleven o’clock, she expected a delegation from the American head office to pay a visit for quality-control purposes. She wouldn’t dream of calling the police, because she knew precisely what a devastating impression the unexplained disappearance of a resident under her authority would make on the company management.

“Let me worry about it,” she said to Parveen with a soothing smile. “Go do your job, and please don’t mention this to anyone. I’m sure we’ll find Mrs. Frings soon.”

“But wouldn’t it be better—” began Parveen Multani, but the director cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“I’ll take care of the matter myself.” She escorted the anxious woman to the door, sat down at her computer, and pulled up the master file for the missing resident. Anita Frings had been living at Taunusblick for almost fifteen years. She was eighty-eight and for some time had been largely confined to a wheelchair because of severe arthritis. Although she had no relatives who might make trouble, all the alarm bells in the director’s head began to go off when she read the name of the person to be notified in case of illness or death. Real problems might develop if the old woman did not return unscathed to sit in her apartment on the fourth floor.

“That’s all we need,” she murmured, grabbing the telephone. She had about two hours to find Anita Frings. At this moment, the police would definitely be the wrong choice.

*   *   *

Bodenstein was standing with his arms crossed in front of the big whiteboard in the conference room of K-11. Three names were printed on the board: David Goldberg, Herrmann Schneider, and Monika Krämer. And despite the bulletins announced on the local radio station, to which he’d agreed yesterday, there was still no trace of Robert Watkowiak. His eyes followed the arrows and circles that Fachinger had drawn with the marker. There were a few similarities. For instance, Goldberg and Schneider had both had close relations with the Kaltensee family; they’d been killed with the same weapon; and in their younger days, they had belonged to the SS. But that didn’t take him any further. Bodenstein sighed. It was enough to drive him crazy. Where should he start? What reason could he present for another talk with Vera Kaltensee? Since the investigation of Goldberg’s murder had been officially taken away from him, he couldn’t very well mention the lab results or the DNA traces on the wineglass. It was not certain that Watkowiak’s girlfriend had been killed by the same person who had shot Goldberg and Schneider. There were no eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, no evidence—except from Robert Watkowiak. He seemed to be the ideal perp: He had left traces at all the crime scenes, he had known all of the victims, and he needed money badly. Maybe he’d murdered Goldberg because the old man had refused to come up with any cash; maybe he’d killed Schneider because the old man had threatened to turn him in, and Monika Krämer because she’d been a liability. At first glance, everything seemed to fit perfectly. Only the murder weapon was missing.