Monday, November 10, 2008
Claudius Terlinden drank his coffee standing up and gazed out the kitchen window down at the house next door. If he hurried he could give the girl at the bus stop a ride again. A couple of months ago when the secretary of his company, Arne Fr?hlich, had introduced his almost grown daughter from his first marriage, the thought hadn’t occurred to Terlinden. The piercings, the crazy hairdo, and the weird black clothes had irritated him as much as her sullen expression and cold demeanor. But yesterday at the Black Horse, when she had smiled at him, the realization had struck him like a bolt of lightning. The girl bore an almost spooky resemblance to Stefanie Schneeberger. The same finely etched and alabaster-pale facial features, the voluptuous mouth, the dark, knowing eyes—simply incredible.
“Snow White,” he murmured. Last night he had dreamed about her, a strange, sinister dream in which the present and the past became entangled in a bewildering way. When he awoke in the middle of the night bathed in sweat, it had taken him a moment to realize that it was only a dream.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. His wife appeared in the kitchen doorway, her hair perfect despite the early hour.
“You’re up early.” He went to the sink and ran hot water in the cup. “Have you got something planned?”
“I have an appointment with Verena downtown at ten.”
“Oh.” How his wife spent her day didn’t interest him in the least.
“Things are starting to happen again,” she said then. “Just when grass was beginning to grow over the whole episode.”
“What do you mean?” Terlinden cast an annoyed glance at her.
“It might have been better if the Sartoriuses had moved away from here.”
“Where would they go? A story like that would follow them everywhere.”
“Whatever. There are going to be problems. People in town are already sharpening their knives.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Claudius Terlinden put his coffee cup in the dishwasher. “By the way, Rita was seriously injured in an accident Friday afternoon. They say somebody pushed her off a bridge into the path of an oncoming car.”
“What?” Christine Terlinden’s eyes widened in shock. “Where did you hear that?”
“I spoke to Tobias briefly last night.”
“You what? Why didn’t you tell me?” She gave her husband an incredulous look. Christine Terlinden was still a remarkably beautiful woman at the age of fifty-one. She wore her natural blond hair in a fashionable page boy. She was petite and delicate, and managed to look elegant even in a dressing gown.
“Because I didn’t see you afterwards.”
“You talk to the boy, visit him in prison, help out his parents—have you forgotten how he dragged you into this whole mess?”
“No, I haven’t,” Claudius Terlinden replied. His eyes fell on the kitchen clock on the wall. Quarter past seven. In ten minutes Amelie would be leaving her house. “All Tobias told the police back then was what he’d heard. And actually it was better that way, than if—” He broke off. “Just be glad it all worked out. Otherwise Lars would definitely not be in the position he’s in today.”
Terlinden dutifully brushed his wife’s proffered cheek with a kiss.
“I’ve got to go. I might be late getting home tonight.”
Christine Terlinden waited until she heard the front door close. She took a cup from the table, set it under the espresso machine, and pressed the button for a double. With cup in hand she went over to the window and watched her husband’s dark Mercedes slowly roll down the driveway.
A moment later she saw him stop in front of the Fr?hlichs’ house, his red taillights glowing in the dim early morning light. The neighbor girl seemed to be waiting for him and climbed into the car. Christine Terlinden inhaled with a little gasp and her fingers tightened around the handle of her cup. She had seen it coming ever since she first met Amelie Fr?hlich. She had noticed the fateful likeness at once. She didn’t care for the fact that the girl was cultivating a friendship with Thies. Even back then it had been difficult to keep her mentally handicapped son out of the whole thing. Was everything now going to repeat itself? The almost forgotten feeling of helpless despair spread through her veins.
“Oh no, dear God,” she murmured. “Please, please, not again.”
* * *
The photo that Ostermann had copied from the surveillance video of the train station platform was only in black and white, and pretty grainy, but the man’s face in the baseball cap was easy to see. Unfortunately the angle of the camera prevented a clear view of what happened on the bridge, but the credible testimony of fourteen-year-old Niklas Bender was enough to detain the man if he were found. Bodenstein and Kirchhoff had driven to Altenhain to show the photo to Hartmut Sartorius and his son. But even after they rang several times, no one opened the door.
“Let’s go over to the grocery store and show the picture around,” Pia suggested. “Somehow I have a feeling that this attack had something to do with Tobias.”
Oliver nodded. Pia’s intuition was as good as his sister’s, and her hunches were often correct. He had thought about the conversation with Theresa all last evening and waited in vain for Cosima to tell him who she had been talking to on her cell outside the riding hall. Oliver had convinced himself that it was probably completely trivial, and that was why Cosima had already forgotten about it. She made a lot of calls and her colleagues also phoned her a lot, even on Sundays. This morning at breakfast he had decided not to attach much importance to the matter, especially since Cosima had behaved completely normally. She had been in a good mood and had cheerfully told him about her plans for the day: to work on the film in the cutting room, meet the voice-over guy, and have lunch with the team in Mainz. All quite normal. She had kissed him good-bye, as she had almost every morning for the past twenty-five years. He was obviously worrying for no reason.
The doorbell of the little grocery store jingled as they entered the shop. In one aisle a group of women with shopping baskets had their heads together, probably exchanging the latest village gossip.
“Your call, boss,” Pia said softly to Oliver, who usually had no problem wrapping most women around his little finger with his outrageous good looks and Cary Grant charm. But today Bodenstein didn’t seem up to par.
“No, you’d better do it,” he replied. Through an open door they could see into the courtyard, where a powerful-looking gray-haired man was unloading crates of fruit and vegetables from a delivery truck. Pia shrugged and headed straight for the group of women.
“Good morning.” She flashed her badge. “Hofheim Criminal Police.”
Suspicious and curious looks.
“On Friday afternoon the ex-wife of Hartmut Sartorius was the victim of a malicious attack.” Pia chose her words carefully, going for added drama. “I assume that you all know Rita Cramer?”
They nodded.
“We have here a photo of the man who pushed her off a bridge directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle.”
The lack of shocked reactions led her to believe that news of the accident had already made the rounds in the village. Pia took out the photo and held it out to the woman in the white smock, apparently the owner of the store.
“Do you recognize this man?”
The woman glanced at the photo, squinting her eyes, then looked up and shook her head.
“No,” she said, feigning regret. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen him before.”
The other three women, at a loss, also shook their heads, but Pia didn’t miss the quick glance that one of them exchanged with the store owner.
“Are you quite sure? Take another look. The quality isn’t very good.”
“We don’t know this man.” The store owner handed the photo back to Pia and returned her gaze without batting an eyelash. She was lying. It was obvious.
“Too bad.” Pia smiled. “May I ask your name?”
“Richter. Margot Richter.”
At that moment the man from the back courtyard came stomping into the store carrying three crates of fruit and noisily set them down.
“Lutz, they’re from the criminal police,” Margot Richter told him, before Pia could even open her mouth. Her husband came closer. He was tall and corpulent, with a cheerful face, his nose swollen and red from the cold and exertion. The look he gave his wife betrayed the fact that he was totally under her thumb and wouldn’t have much to say. He grabbed the photo with his big paw, but before he could look at it, his wife plucked it out of his hand.
“My husband doesn’t know this guy either.”
Pia felt sorry for the husband, who must not have much to laugh about.
“Allow me.” She took the picture from Mrs. Richter and held it out to her husband before she could protest again. “Have you ever seen this man? On Friday he pushed your former neighbor in front of an oncoming car. Since then Rita Cramer has been in intensive care in an induced coma, and we still don’t know whether she’s going to survive.”
Richter hesitated briefly, seeming to weigh his answer. He wasn’t a good liar, but he was an obedient spouse. For an instant he glanced uncertainly at his wife.
“No,” he said at last. “I don’t know him.”
“All right then. Thank you very much.” Pia forced a smile. “Have a nice day.”
She left the store, followed by Bodenstein.
“They all knew him.”
“No doubt about it.” Bodenstein looked down the main street. “Over there is a beauty shop. Let’s try there.”
They walked the few yards along the narrow sidewalk, but when they entered the small, old-fashioned salon the hairdresser was just hanging up the phone with a guilty look on her face.
“Good morning,” said Pia, nodding toward the telephone. “I’m sure that Mrs. Richter has already told you why we’re here. So I can probably skip the question.”
The woman gave them a clueless look, her gaze shifting from Pia to Oliver and stopping there. If Bodenstein had been feeling more himself today, the hairdresser wouldn’t have had a chance.
“What is it with you?” Pia asked Oliver, slightly miffed, when they were out on the sidewalk a minute later. “All you had to do was flash that hairdresser a smile and she would have melted and probably given us the name, address, and telephone number of our suspect.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said lamely. “I’m just not really with it today.”
A car rushed by down the narrow street, then a second one, then a truck. They had to step back against the wall of the building so as not to be hit by a side mirror.
“At any rate, this afternoon I’m going to requisition all the old files on the Sartorius case,” said Pia. “I swear, this is all connected.”
An inquiry in the florist’s shop was just as fruitless as those at the kindergarten and the office of the elementary school. Margot Richter had already disseminated her instructions. The whole community had closed ranks and was practicing a real Sicilian code of silence in order to protect one of their own.
* * *