Bodenstein steered his BMW easily into a parking space in front of the ugly high-rise in the Neuenhain district of Bad Soden. Kirchhoff had to search for a while to find Rita Cramer’s name among the fifty listed next to the entrance intercom. She pressed the button, but no one answered. So Pia rang other residents until someone finally buzzed her in. The building, despite its ugly outward appearance, was very well maintained inside. On the fifth floor Bodenstein and Kirchhoff were met by an elderly woman who perused their IDs with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. Pia glanced impatiently at her watch. Almost nine! She had promised Christoph that she would come to Annika’s party, and it was anybody’s guess how long all this would take. She was actually supposed to have the evening off. She silently cursed Hasse and Behnke for calling in sick.
The neighbor knew Rita Cramer and had a key to her apartment, which she got out without any fuss after the detectives had identified themselves and told her about the accident. Unfortunately the neighbor didn’t know whether Cramer had any relatives. She never had visitors, at any rate.
The apartment was certainly depressing. Spotlessly clean and recently tidied up, but only sparsely furnished. Nowhere was there any indication of Rita Cramer’s personality, no photos of loved ones, and the walls were decorated with pictures that you could buy for a couple of euros in home remodeling stores. Bodenstein and Kirchhoff went through the apartment, opening cabinet doors and drawers in the hope of finding a relative’s name or some reason for the assault. Nothing.
“As anonymous as a hotel room,” was Bodenstein’s assessment. “There’s not a thing to go on.”
Pia went into the kitchen. Her eyes fell on the blinking answering machine. She pressed the REWIND button. Unfortunately the caller had not left a message on the tape but simply hung up. Pia jotted down the number displayed on the phone. A prefix in K?nigstein. She took out her cell phone and punched in the number. After the third ring an answering machine picked up.
“A doctor’s office,” she said. “They’re closed.”
“Are there any other messages?” Bodenstein asked. Kirchhoff pressed REWIND again, then shook her head.
“Odd that somebody can live like this.” She replaced the phone and looked through the kitchen calendar, which was still showing the month of May. There was not a single thing written on it. On a corkboard hung a flyer from a pizza delivery service and the faded blue copy of a parking ticket from April. None of it signified a happy, contented life.
“Tomorrow we’ll call this doctor’s office,” Bodenstein decided. “There’s nothing else we can do today. I’ll drive by the hospital and check on Rita Cramer’s condition.”
They left the apartment and returned the key to the neighbor.
“Could you drop me at Christoph’s before you go to the hospital?” Pia asked as they took the elevator down. “It’s on the way.”
“Oh, right, the party.”
“How do you know about that?” She shoved open the glass door so vigorously that she almost struck a man in the back as he bent over to study the name labels.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I didn’t see you.”
Pia caught a fleeting glimpse of his face as she smiled her apology.
“No harm done,” said the man, and they went on.
Bodenstein turned up the collar of his coat. “I like to be well informed about my colleagues. But you know that.”
Pia remembered her conversation with Kathrin Fachinger that morning. This seemed the ideal opportunity.
“Well, then you also must know that our colleague Behnke is doing some moonlighting that would definitely not meet with official approval.”
Oliver frowned and gave her a quick look.
“No, until this morning I wasn’t aware of that,” he admitted. “Were you?”
“I’m probably the last person Behnke would confide in,” Pia replied with a snort of contempt. “He always makes such a secret of his private life, as if he were still in the Special Assignment Unit.”
Oliver studied Pia in the pallid glow of the streetlight.
“He has some fairly major problems,” he said. “His wife left him a year ago. He couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments and ended up losing the house.”
Pia stopped and stared at him speechless for a moment. So that was the reason for Behnke’s behavior, for his constant irritability, his foul moods, his aggressiveness. And yet she felt no sympathy for him, only annoyance.
“You’re going to take his side again, aren’t you? What is it between you two? Why do you always make allowances for him?”
“I’m not making allowances for him,” Oliver countered.
“And how come he gets to keep making mistakes and neglect his job without suffering any consequences?”
“I suppose I hoped he’d manage to straighten out his life somehow if I didn’t pressure him too much.” Bodenstein shrugged. “But if he really is moonlighting in an unauthorized job, then I can’t do anything more for him.”
“So you’re going to report it to Dr. Engel?”
“I’m afraid I have to.” He sighed and started walking again. “But I’ll have a talk with Frank first.”