The Zurich Conspiracy (45 page)

But then he spotted a Labrador headed single-mindedly for his grill.

“Go away,” Paul roared, storming toward the dog. The dog’s owner came running from the opposite direction and grabbed the animal by the collar. Then he looked up at Paul, who in the meantime had picked up the tongs and was brandishing them in a threatening manner.

“Hey, what are
you
doing here?” the man said and took off his sunglasses. “How come you’re not at the office? It’s Sunday, after all.”

Only then did Paul recognize the dog’s owner. “
You
should talk, Bruno. You’ve got every reason to be poring over your files.”

“No cynical remarks, my good man, there are enough of those in the newspapers. And that’s why I have to listen to constant complaints from my family.” Bruno Zicchun, a man in his midforties in jeans and a crocodile shirt, took a look around. “Do you have family here?”

“My daughter’s over there,” Klingler said. “There’s a whole bunch of us. The kids like it; there’s lots of room.” He wiped his hands on the striped dish towel on his shoulder. “You guys have landed another hopeless case,” he said as a gambit.

“Hopeless?” Bruno emitted a loud laugh. “You might be in for one hell of a surprise. I’m telling you, my client will walk out of that courtroom a free woman.”

“Dream on. Everything’s stacked against her. The cops caught her red-handed. Even the murder weapon was there, a gift for the crime scene investigators.”

Bruno Zicchun leashed his dog—it was still greedily sniffing the air—before answering. “Nothing’s ever as it seems, you know that yourself.”

The lawyer looked around. A woman in wide, colorful pants and an embroidered vest was sitting on a bench several feet away. Her graying, black, curly hair was tied back by a wildly patterned scarf. A young boy, who looked Eastern European and had big jug ears, was watching her repair a kite. Although Bruno assumed the two didn’t speak German, he lowered his voice anyway.

“This is completely confidential, Paul, between you and me, but we’re building a case that’s rock solid. There’s only circumstantial evidence for Westek’s murder. No evidence, no witnesses. Sure, she was with him in Düsseldorf, but no way does that make her a murderer.

“I grant you she worked as a teenager in her uncle’s car repair shop now and then. But is that proof that sabotaging the Porsche was her work? OK, she had top-secret documents from Loyn on her home computer. But Schulmann and Westek both used her computer, and she was naïve enough to give them her password.”

When Paul gave him an ironic smile he took him by the arm. “So who says that it wasn’t Thüring who knocked off Westek? Westek was a confidant, a potential danger. He knew Thüring’s new identity. And Thüring knew a thing or two about automobiles.”

Paul raised his eyebrows in feigned horror. “And you want to sell that to the court and the public? Just a few too many coincidences need explaining, don’t you think? And then she knocks Thüring off in an isolated chalet and is sitting in his car when the cops arrive. How do you guys explain that one?”

“Sit, goddammit!” Bruno’s dog was pulling so hard on the leash that the lawyer had trouble controlling it. “That was self-defense, pure and simple. Thüring’s a criminal, after all; even you must admit that. Drugs, white-collar crime, who knows what. He’d have certainly shot her dead if she hadn’t defended herself. It was
his
gun that was lying there.”

“And the lady just happens to be running around with Westek’s gun? Ahhh. Very, very tricky, Bruno. Lots of luck, that’s all I can wish you.”

“You watch, we’ll wangle it. Your steaks are certainly blacker than my prospects in this trial.”

“It’s all in the marinade, the marinade.” Paul patted his friend on the shoulder. “But take this hungry wolf away so I can get the meat onto the plate safely.”

“That is not wolf, that is dog,” the jug-eared boy, who now stood before them, announced. “I have hunger,” he shouted when he saw the sizzling steaks.

“See ya soon,” Zicchun shouted, dragging his Labrador behind him.

Paul put an avuncular hand on Sali’s shoulder. “Who’s the hungry wolf here, hmm?”

The woman with the scarf and the wide pants joined them. “Sali, your kite’s fixed.” She handed him the colorful, shimmering trapezoid, and he ran off, his hunger forgotten.

Paul grinned at her. “Interesting, isn’t it? All the things you find out on a nice green meadow. You got all that, right?”

“Yes,” Josefa said, checking the dark brown steaks.

“You know,” Paul went on, “I wouldn’t put it past him to actually get her off. He’s a good one, that Zicchun.”

“But the people want blood, Paul. They can’t get at Pius, because he’s probably dead in that cave somewhere. And not at Thüring and his consorts anymore either. So that only leaves Claire.”

Paul was unimpressed. “In a trial like this one, anything’s possible. Just you wait. And you know, in the final analysis nobody’s going to think she was capable of doing it, the murders and all that. She looks so innocent. Have you gone to see her in jail yet?”

“No, it’s still too soon. First I’ve got to figure things out for myself. You know, sometimes I think it might have happened to me.”

“How so? That Claire would have killed
you
?”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. But sometimes…How quickly you can lose control of yourself when you’re under pressure. I mean, under constant pressure. At times something comes over you that’s stronger than anything else. Feelings you never thought you could have. They come from who knows where and overwhelm you.”

Paul shook his head in amusement. “My dear, you’re a model of self-control. I’ve seen you really lose it only once, and that was after the meeting with Van Duisen and the cops in the hotel. But that was a tempest in a teapot. Speaking of water, could you please get me something to drink? I can’t leave the grill unmanned.”

“Yes, or wolves will appear,” Josefa said, shaking off her dark thoughts. “When are we going to get something to eat?”

Josefa dropped Sali off at his apartment; his aunt and uncle had been invited to the picnic but had declined. Then she went to her apartment, took a long, hot shower, and rubbed her body with a subtly scented lotion afterward. She washed and dried her hair, even applied a little eye shadow and lip gloss. She deliberated before choosing a white blouse and a full white skirt, knotting a large, purple silk scarf around her hips to finish it off. She put on a CD on the spur of the moment and danced barefoot over the parquet flooring.

When the doorbell rang downstairs, she was completely out of breath and her cheeks were flushed. She heard footsteps in the stairwell and soon saw the pronounced shape of a head with fine blonde hair, then two broad shoulders. He finally rounded the last flight of stairs, and she saw his narrow gray eyes darken when she met his gaze. He was still shy in his serious way, and that appealed to her.

“Are you going out?” he asked, now standing opposite her.

“Why?”

“Because you’re so elegantly dressed. And then those sparkling stones, they look good on you,” he remarked, noticing the rubies on her earrings.

She drew him into her apartment. “To translate: Does that mean you’re happy because I’ve made myself look pretty for you?” She turned a coquettish pirouette. He let his jacket and briefcase slide onto the floor and wrapped her in his arms.

“And how happy I am,” he said and kissed her. He liked to kiss and kiss often—she hadn’t thought he was like that. But Sebastian Sauter was, as she’d discovered recently, a man full of pleasant surprises. He still behaved somewhat cautiously, to be sure, and until now he’d only given her a few glimpses into his inner life, but she found him on the whole an utterly delightful package of a man. Even if she’d only admitted it to herself so far.

“You’re here earlier than I expected,” she said. “I was going to bake a quiche Lorraine for you, but I haven’t even started.”

“Do you have any fresh bread?” Sauter picked his jacket up off the floor and hung it in the closet. Then he took a flat metal tin out of his briefcase and a plastic container.

“Caviar!” Josefa exclaimed in delight. “And sour cream! I’ve some baguettes in the freezer. We can bake them.”

Sauter brushed his thin hair back. “Wine, woman, and wow!” he teased and promptly got a poke in the ribs.

“Wine, weird, and wow,” Josefa retorted.

They sat in the living room afterward, on a blanket that Josefa had spread out on the rug. Their stomachs were full of caviar, sour cream, and crusty white bread. Sebastian Sauter lay on his side, his head propped up in his hand. He was listening to Josefa tell him about the picnic in the park and how she had repaired a kite with tools from her handbag.

“I didn’t know how nice it was to fly a kite. It’s as if your soul were flying along with it; I felt so light and exhilarated. I don’t think I ever flew a kite as a kid. I felt a little today what it’s like to be a happy-go-lucky kid.”

“Yes, that what kids have going for them. My son makes me see the world through a kid’s eyes again. It certainly is good for Sali if he can forget himself when he plays.”

Josefa wrapped her full skirt around her knees.

“You know, Sali’s an amazing kid. There’s so much life in him. He can be so thrilled. He’s had such awful experiences, but nevertheless there’s such…such a powerful will in him to be happy. He takes in beautiful things like a sponge. The trust that he has in spite of everything—in me, in other people, in life—it’s…it’s…” Josefa felt tears welling up inside her.

Sauter would never interrupt her in moments like this. He’d learned to let people talk. That was the policeman in him. He’d simply wait until she spoke again.

“To see that, you know, it gives a person hope. Hope that it’s not only bad things that last. You have to give good things space to survive.”

Sauter seemed to sense that she wasn’t only talking about Sali but about herself as well. He cleared his throat. “I’ve often thought about how divorce has affected my son. Always shuffling between parents. But Kevin’s developing astonishingly well. I think I’ve become a better father. That’s what I imagine at least. Children bring out the best in you.”

Josefa began to pick up the used paper napkins. “Then maybe I can still become a good person if only I’m with Sali long enough.” She went to the kitchen.

“A
reconciled
person,” he called out after her.

“What did you say? A nice person?” Josefa replied. She came back smiling with two bowls of crème bavaroise. “You should have seen the salads Emilie brought. She’s such a creative cook.”

“Who’s Emilie?”

“Paul’s new flame. A Frenchwoman. Paul has a terrible accent when he speaks to her. I can hardly stand it sometimes. But he loves her meals. And she’s thin as a rail. Incredible.”

She did not mention Bruno Zicchun and his remarks. They only touched on the subject of Loyn when it was unavoidable. Josefa was happy to have some space from those events. And she knew Sauter didn’t want to be put into the position of having to comment on a colleague’s investigation. He liked to keep these worlds strictly separate.

“And then,” she continued, “I ran into that old man again who regularly brings his Siamese cat for a walk in Irchel Park, unleashed. It follows him like a dog. Last summer—I think it was last summer—I helped him with a crossword puzzle. He had to find a long keyword. He could still remember it, imagine that! He even still knew the question perfectly well. The man has
some
memory, simply unbelievable. And he must be at least eighty.”

“So what was the question?”

“It was in verse, something like this—let’s see if I can remember:
He moves our personal belongings, strangers’ worlds pass through his hands. He knows their comings and their goings, but never tells us where he stands
.”

Josefa looked at Sauter expectantly.

“‘Habe’ and ‘Pfade’—do they rhyme?” he asked, licking the finger that he’d greedily stuck into the crème bavaroise.

“It was a crossword puzzle, not Schiller’s
Ode to Joy
,
Herr Polizist
.”

“And what’s the answer?”

“I suggested
Koffertraeger
, and it fit and was long enough. But the old man said today that the first part of the word didn’t work, and he couldn’t finish the puzzle, that made him very antsy. The first letter didn’t fit with the rest. But I’m sure that we had the right word.”

Josefa got a ballpoint and wrote the letters on a paper napkin.

“Do you want the last of the caviar?” Sebastian asked.

“I’d love it.”

Josefa wiped the inside of the tin clean with a piece of bread. “Every black speck is worth a fortune.”

“I think, dear heart, you must bury one illusion.”

“Why? Did you confiscate the caviar from a Russian Mafioso?”

“I’m talking about the crossword. I think you got it wrong—the word’s
Moebeltraeger
.”

She counted out the letters on her fingers. “M-O-E-B-E-L-T-R-A-E-G-E-R—furniture mover, not porter. Well, aren’t you the clever one! Is that what you learn in the Zurich Criminal Investigation Department?” She leaned over him.