The Zurich Conspiracy (26 page)

“I saw you just this minute,” Josefa confessed. “Are you going for the national championship?”

Sauter blew his nose. “My son wants to play hockey with me so I’ve got to practice a bit. I don’t want him to lose respect for me.” His expression changed into a questioning one. “And what are you doing here? I’ve never seen you at the rink.”

She didn’t answer but suggested they go to the cafeteria instead.

Josefa blew over her hot chocolate for a while and then finally screwed up her courage enough to ask Sauter something that had been bothering her for a long time. “Tell me, Herr Sauter, what section do you in fact work in at the police department?”

Josefa used the eternity it took him to answer to examine this man a little more closely. The top of his ski suit was folded down so that she could see his broad shoulders—and the start of a little paunch, as he sat across from her, slowly stirring his pitch-black coffee. At last he said, “I thought you’d ask me that someday.”

“That’s a very vague answer, if I may say so.”

“You’re right there,” he remarked, turning very serious. “I’m with Criminal Investigation but get involved with burglary in exceptional cases. Right now I’m working with the feds on a political crime.”

“Do you mean to say the break-in at Esther Ardelius’s was a political crime?” Josefa’s hands suddenly felt cold despite the warm cup she was holding.

“There was suspicion that it might have something to do with a political crime. Frau Ardelius was probably not the burglar’s intended victim.”

“Who was, then? Maybe me?” Josefa was getting nervous.

“No, not you. Somebody else.”

Josefa stared at him inquisitively. Sauter met her gaze. “Don’t you read the papers, Frau Rehmer? About foreign political factions bringing their wars to Switzerland when they come here?”

“So it’s the people below me? Sali’s parents?”

“They’re not his parents, they’re his aunt and uncle. Sali’s parents are dead. Murdered.”

“Good God!” Josefa put down her cup. “Who murdered them? And why?”

“Do you remember that attack on a restaurant in the Fourth District? Hand grenades were tossed into it? Sali’s parents were in the restaurant. It was a favorite meeting place for Kosovo Albanians.”

“That’s unbelievable! And who did it?”

“We have our suspicions, but that’s all I can say. Political factions fight in the Balkans and here too. Sali’s parents and some of their friends were targeted because rival ethnic groups were settling scores.”

Josefa recalled hearing about the terrible incident. Militant Serbian immigrants were said to have carried out the attack at the time.

Sauter continued without taking his eyes off her, “We want to know if more people are in danger. The boy’s aunt and uncle, for instance—and maybe Sali too. That’s why we’ve been monitoring the building for a while.”

“Monitoring? What does that mean?”

“There’s a hotel across the street. That’s made it easier, but unfortunately I can’t say anything more than that.”

Josefa took a deep breath. “Then you know all my habits, my visitors—half my life.” She was upset.

“No, it’s not that bad. We only monitor suspicious persons.”

“And who’s been following me all this time? They were your people, or weren’t they?”

“No, they were protecting Sali, people from his uncle’s party. They probably wanted to be sure that the boy isn’t in any danger. They’re just very distrustful.”

Josefa froze. “Or contract killers,” she said sarcastically.

Sauter stretched his back. “We do our best to keep Switzerland safe for everybody. Unfortunately our world is no paradise, and we must learn to live with that.” He put a hand on her arm but immediately withdrew it, as if he’d changed his mind about something. Josefa stared off into space.

Sauter cleared his throat. “Sali’s relatives place an extraordinary amount of trust in you, Frau Rehmer, in spite of everything.”

“Trust? When I’m being shadowed? That’s a laugh.”

“They’ve trusted you with their little boy—a person they barely know, a woman from a completely different culture.” Sauter stopped for a moment. “In my book, that’s practically a minor miracle.”

Josefa raised her eyebrows. “Indeed. Me, of all people, who thinks headscarves are dumb and pashas ridiculous.”

“We have our pashas too,” Sauter said.

His words did not miss their mark. “And you…Do you think I’m trustworthy, like Sali’s par—like Sali’s relatives do?” Josefa inquired.

He looked at her squarely with his narrow, gray eyes. “I trust you not to pass on what I’ve told you.”

“I’m not able to bear so great an honor,” she exclaimed but did not look away until Sauter got up.

“I think you can bear a heck of a lot.” He slipped into the sleeves of his ski suit.

Josefa stayed seated. She took another drink, but the chocolate tasted bitter now.
Was he thinking of the maelstrom at Loyn when he said that
? That subject, she knew, was taboo between them. A detective would never talk about an ongoing investigation, even if his colleagues were carrying it out and not him. Besides—the lower her profile in this business, the better. There were things she dearly wanted to know, to be sure, but she kept herself in check. Instead she said, “Sali has never spoken about his parents. I wonder if he knows if they’re dead or how they died.”

“Better leave that to his relatives. You already know too much as it is, Frau Rehmer.”

Josefa went right on talking as if she hadn’t heard him. “Sali only talks about his skis. I mean, about the skis he did
not
get for Christmas. Everybody else in his class got them.”

“My son’s got two pairs of new skis and never feels like skiing. He only wants to play hockey.”

“Why two pairs?”

“A mix-up. One of many between me and my ex, me…and other people.”

Josefa was afraid he’d tell her a whole divorcé’s tale of woe, but Sauter simply said, “I dare you to go back on the ice.” He was standing before her completely dressed now, his cap on his prominent skull.

“I dare
you
,” Josefa shot back.

He just grinned.

The sun was melting the last vestiges of snow in places where there had been some shade. Swampy puddles lurked in ambush everywhere. A car whizzed by and sprayed dirty water all over Josefa and her new, light-blue winter coat. That was her punishment for daring to wear a color like that in this weather. She cursed loudly at the departing driver.

Josefa was in a fighting mood even before this affront.
A woman cannot be careful enough in the choice of her enemies
. She’d printed out the whole batch of the anonymous e-mails; they were even more depressing on paper than in electronic form.
A woman can also use her enemies to serve her own purposes
, she thought to herself.

She decided to pay her father a visit. Verena’s house—it was still hers alone, in Josefa’s eyes—exuded a proud sedateness as always. Those walls had lasted for three hundred years; you could literally breathe in the past in its grand rooms. Verena put a glass of water on the kitchen table every night. “Each wandering soul must know that it is welcome at our place,” she once explained to Josefa, which was sufficient evidence not to ever take her stepmother too seriously.

There was no glass of water on the table this afternoon, although Verena was entertaining a poor soul. “May I introduce you?” she said as she took Josefa into the little parlor. “This is Anita Schulmann.”
His mother
.

Frau Schulmann had a surprisingly strong handshake. “Pleased to meet you,” she said in a loud voice. She was much younger than Josefa would have suspected, perhaps midforties. Her hair was dyed red.
What are you supposed to say at a moment like this? My condolences? Or, I’m very sorry for you?
Josefa could never have gotten those words out. But Anita Schulmann saved the day. “Verena is an old friend of mine; she has surely told you that, hasn’t she? She is so good to me. I could hardly have made it through these last few weeks without her.” Verena squeezed her friend’s hand reassuringly.

“It must be terrible for you,” Josefa said politely.

“Yes, it is bad. My goodness, who would want to do anything bad to Werner? Do you know, I did not know him particularly well. I married his father after Werner’s mother died.”

So that was the connection between Verena Rehmer and Anita Schulmann. The two stepmothers were sitting in enviable harmony on the Biedermeier sofa, one talking nonstop, the other listening patiently.

“Werner had already moved out and was living in Dietikon. He did not come to visit very often, even when Armin, my husband, was bedridden. I am sorry to say he never brought a girlfriend home. Armin wanted to have grandchildren, but a career was more important to Werner. Ah, well, that is how it is today, and one must accept it…Werner never told us about his problems. Never mentioned any enemies.”

Frau Schulmann was wearing red lipstick and had outlined her lips with a dark pencil. Josefa felt stuck, not knowing what to say or think. Verena didn’t do anything to help her out of the situation either. Werner’s mother, on the other hand, did everything possible to hang on to Josefa.

“Who could have done such a thing?” she asked again. “And with a hypodermic needle of all things.”

“With a needle?” Josefa straightened up.

“Yes, an injection, imagine that. The murderer first anesthetized Werner, presumably put something in his glass. Then he pumped poison into his blood stream with a needle. Werner died right away. The police discovered the injection point on his body but will not say where, as the investigation is ongoing.”

Her blood-red mouth was quivering.

“Would you like another cup of coffee, Anita?” Verena asked.

“Yes, please, but decaffeinated,” her friend replied.

“Of course, my dear. Josefa, your father is expecting you in his office, if that is all right with you.”

Josefa was now reluctant to say goodbye to Frau Schulmann. Maybe she could pick up some more interesting pieces of news. But Verena escorted her with a firm step down the long, dark hallway. “Sometimes he’s better, sometimes worse,” she whispered to Josefa, “but you’ve caught him on a good day; he’s not so tired today.”

Diabetes. Something else Josefa had successfully repressed. But she was reminded of it by the sight of the needle in the open case on her father’s desk. “Do you have to inject the insulin yourself?” she asked by way of a greeting. That saved her from having to hug him.

He took off his glasses and turned around in his wooden office chair to look at her. Verena’s father, a corporate lawyer in his day, had done his accounts in that chair.

“Yes,” Herbert Rehmer said. “But that’s not the worst of it.” He rubbed a flat hand over his forehead. “I have to stay on a diet. Weigh everything, not one gram too much. You can lose your lust for life over it.” This confession almost took the wind out of her sails. But then she heard her father say, “And what catastrophe brings Josefa Rehmer to her parents’ house this time?”

This comment allowed her to regain her usual objectivity. “I’d like you to read this.” She handed him the printouts. Her father was a connoisseur of English literature, so a translation was unnecessary.

Rehmer put his glasses back on. Josefa studied him more closely as he read; he’d aged quite a bit in the few weeks since her last visit.

Her father looked up at her, irritated. “What’s this? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I got these messages from an anonymous sender. I want to find out who it is.”

“So what? What do you want from me?” Herbert Rehmer was as impatient as ever.

“Somebody says there are quotations in there. Quotations from famous people. I’d like to know what those quotations are and who sent them.”

Her father gave her a curious look. He opened his mouth as if to say something but refrained from doing so.

“I recognized two quotations straight off,” he said after a while. “One is from Tennessee Williams
: ‘
We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.’” He translated it into German for her, then went back to the page. “The other is from Oscar Wilde, but somewhat changed. The others, let me see, I’ll have to look them up.” He got up with great effort, dragged himself over to the bookcase, and selected a thick tome.

“What’s that?” Josefa asked. Her father looked at her again with that strange expression.

“A reference work,” he grunted. And then, in a somewhat more animated tone of voice, “Here, Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘The devil’s most devilish when respectable.’ That’s my translation. I’ve improvised a bit.” After thumbing some more he found another quotation: “‘An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.’ Lord Chesterfield in a letter to his son.”

Herbert Rehmer couldn’t resist this kind of riddle, and Josefa knew it.

Finally he found another quotation: “As a matter of fact, I was glad to hear you lose your temper. It’s a good sign when sick people are cross.” He raised his eyes. “A passage from Dorothy Parker. She goes on: ‘It means they’re on the way to getting better.’”