“And there’s a former employee, Norman Seiler. He has a gigantic grudge against Hanna,” the man went on. “She fired him two weeks ago, without notice. And then there’s Niemöller—he has always seemed suspicious to me. He’s got a huge crush on Hanna, but she doesn’t pay him any attention. And there are lots of people whose lives were exposed when they were talk-show guests—some of them are pretty mad at Hanna because of that.”
Pia had been taking notes. Norman Seiler certainly had a motive that would be any police officer’s dream, but unfortunately, he also had an airtight alibi. The day before yesterday, he’d flown to Berlin and had just returned this morning. All appointments he’d mentioned had been checked and confirmed. But Jan Niemöller’s alibi was considerably weaker. He claimed he’d driven home after the wrap party and gone straight to bed. But Meike Herzmann had observed him sitting in his car, waiting for Hanna. His bleary-eyed appearance also contradicted his claim that he’d been sound asleep.
“One evening, I happened to drive through Langenhain,” Vinzenz Kornbichler now said. He hesitated before he went on. “It was late, shortly before midnight, and there was a vehicle I didn’t recognize parked in front of the house. A black Hummer. I thought, Oh great, my successor has already moved in. Actually, I wanted to leave right away, but I … I couldn’t resist. So I got out of my car and went into the yard. I saw not only one guy there, but two.”
Pia cast a glance at Bodenstein.
“When was this?” she asked.
“Hmm … night before last. Wednesday night,” replied Kornbichler. “I had a funny feeling. Even though Hanna threw me out, I still love her.”
Pia dug deeper. “Why did you have a funny feeling?”
“One of the guys was huge, with a beard and bandanna … the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into even in broad daylight. He had so many tattoos that he looked like a Smurf. Completely blue, except for his face.”
“And what did you observe?” Bodenstein asked. “Were the men threatening your wife?”
“No. They just sat there talking; I think they’d had something to drink. Around twelve-thirty, the giant Smurf left, and a few minutes later Hanna got in the car with the other guy. I followed them.” Kornbichler gave an embarrassed smile. “Don’t think I’m a stalker, but I’ve been worried about Hanna. She never told me much about her research, but she often has full-blown psychopaths on her show.”
“Where did they go?”
“In Diedenbergen, I saw that my tank was almost empty. I had to stop for gas on the autobahn, so I lost track of her.”
“Where did you stop for gas? At the Weilbach rest stop?” Pia had the geography of the Main-Taunus region pretty well memorized.
“Yes, exactly. Around that time of night, it’s the only gas station open.”
She glanced at her colleague. Hanna Herzmann had been found thirty-six hours later in the trunk of her car, not five hundred yards from that very rest stop where the husband she’d thrown out had stopped for gas. Only a coincidence?
“Did you notice the license number of the black Hummer?” Bodenstein asked.
“I’m afraid not. It was such a small plate, like on a moped, and it was dark.”
What Vinzenz Kornbichler was telling them could definitely be true. The glasses on the coffee table in the living room of Hanna Herzmann’s house could indicate that she’d had visitors.
But the fact that Kornbichler kept driving past his ex-wife’s house showed that he still had strong feelings for her. The man was feeling insulted, injured, broke, and jealous—all of it making for a highly explosive mixture. A single spark could set him off. Had the sight of Hanna getting into a car at night with a strange man been that spark?
“That was on Wednesday,” she said. “What happened on Thursday?”
“I already told you.” Kornbichler frowned.
“No, you didn’t.” Pia gave him a friendly smile. “So? What did you do at her house on Thursday?”
“Nothing. Nothing special. I just sat in the car for a while.” His body language betrayed his nervousness: his hands fiddled with his smartphone, his gaze kept shifting, and he was jiggling one foot. At the beginning of the conversation he’d made a commanding, even relaxed impression, but his self-confidence was leaving him with each second that passed.
Pia took from her shoulder bag the clear plastic sleeve with the photos of Hanna Herzmann’s face beaten until it was unrecognizable and held it without comment in front of Kornbichler’s nose. He glanced at the picture and recoiled.
“What’s this supposed to be?” He tried to sound indignant, but he couldn’t pull it off.
“I propose that you accompany us, Mr. Kornbichler.” Bodenstein got up.
“But why? I told you that I—” Kornbichler said, agitated.
“You are under provisional arrest,” Pia said, interrupting him. Then she read Kornbichler his rights and obligations according to paragraphs 127 and 127b of the criminal code. “Since you have no permanent place of residence, you will be housed at state expense until we have checked out your alibi for Thursday night.”
* * *
It was cold. She was freezing, and her body felt as heavy as lead. Somewhere in her mind, she felt a throbbing that was a distant foreboding of pain and torment. Her mouth was dry as dust, her tongue swollen so thick that she couldn’t swallow. As if through cotton she heard a faint, steady beeping and buzzing.
Where was she? What had happened?
She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t no matter how hard she tried.
Come on, she thought. Open your eyes, Hanna.
It took all her willpower to open her left eye just a sliver, but what she saw was blurry and out of focus. A gloomy twilight, blinds pulled down in front of the windows, bare white walls.
What kind of room was this?
Footsteps approached. Rubber soles squeaked.
“Ms. Herzmann?” A woman’s voice. “Can you hear me?”
Hanna heard an unarticulated sound that changed to a dull groan, and it took a few seconds to realize that she had made this sound herself.
Where am I? she wanted to ask, but her lips and tongue were numb and refused to obey her.
A hint of concern crept through the thick fog surrounding her. Something was wrong. This was no dream; this was reality.
“I’m Dr. Fuhrmann,” said the woman’s voice. “You’re in the intensive care unit of Höchst Hospital.”
Intensive care. Hospital. At least that explained the irritating beeping and buzzing. But
why
was she in the hospital?
No matter how much Hanna racked her brains, she had no memory of why she was in this condition. Just emptiness. A black hole. Total blackout. The last thing she could remember was the argument with Jan after the party. He’d suddenly appeared in front of her in the parking lot, as if he’d sprouted right out of the ground. He’d given her a real fright. He’d been extremely angry, grabbing her arm so hard that it hurt. She probably had a bruise on her upper arm today. But what was that all about?
Scraps of memory flitted through her head like bats, gathering into fleeting, fragmentary images, and then tearing apart. Meike. Vinzenz. Blue eyes. Heat. Thunder and lightning. Sweat. Why had Jan been so mad? And again those bright blue eyes with the laugh lines. But no face, no name, no memory. Rain. Puddles. Blackness. Nothing. Damn.
“Are you in pain?”
Pain? No. A dull ache and pounding that she couldn’t locate—unpleasant but not unbearable. And her head was throbbing. Maybe she’d had an accident, crashed her car. What kind of car did she drive anyway? Strangely enough, the fact that she couldn’t remember her car scared her more than anything else about her condition.
“You’re getting a strong sedative that will make you sleepy.…”
The voice of the doctor sounded like a distant echo, which blurred and dissolved into a meaningless series of syllables.
Tired. Sleep. Hanna closed her left eye and faded away.
When she woke up the next time, it was almost dark outside. She had a hard time keeping one eye open. Somewhere a lamp was on, but it cast only a pale glow over the empty room. Hanna noticed a movement next to the bed. She saw a man sitting on a chair. He wore a green smock with a green cap; his head was bowed and his hand rested on her arm, which had tubes running out of it. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized him. Hanna closed her eye again. She hoped he hadn’t noticed that she was awake. She couldn’t bear for him to see her like this.
“I’m sorry,” she heard him say in a voice that sounded so strange. Had he cried? On account of her? Something really bad must have happened to her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again in a whisper. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
* * *
Bodenstein sat at the desk in his office, thinking about Meike Herzmann. He had seldom seen such bitterness in such a young face, so much anxiety and barely suppressed rage. Obviously, she had been under enormous pressure, but that made it all the more peculiar to see the indifference with which she had reacted to the news of the attack on her mother. That wasn’t normal. Vinzenz Kornbichler had displayed a similar lack of emotion. At first, the man had made an open and forthright impression, but over the course of the conversation, this impression had radically changed. He didn’t have to tell them that he had already been to his wife’s house on Wednesday. Admitting that had made him look suspicious. Was it unintentional? Or had he felt an urge to confess, as many perps did when their guilty conscience got the better of them?
Where had Hanna Herzmann driven with the unknown man after her husband had been forced to abandon the pursuit?
Vinzenz Kornbichler’s story checked out insofar as he actually had filled up with gas on Thursday morning at 1:13
A.M.
at the autobahn rest stop at Weilbach. This was corroborated by the surveillance camera at the gas station. His alibi for Thursday evening—the bistro in Bad Soden—was going to be verified today by police colleagues. The rest of what he’d told them might or might not be true.
Bodenstein read once again the preliminary report from the forensic medical examination of Hanna Herzmann. He wondered how she was doing. Had she awakened from the anesthesia and realized what had happened to her? Physically, she might recover eventually, but Bodenstein doubted that mentally she’d ever be able to forget the abuse she’d endured.
Her injuries were similar to those of the dead girl in the river. What kind of monster must this guy be? Who could be capable of such bestial brutality? For over twenty years, Bodenstein had dealt with murderers, but he’d never been able to comprehend what could bring a person to the point of killing another human being. Only when he personally ended up in a situation in which despair, humiliation, and helplessness had caused him to lose self-control and he’d attacked his own wife did he realize how rapidly a person could turn into a murderer. He had been terribly ashamed and bitterly regretted resorting to violence, but since then he understood what must be going on inside a person who committed a crime of passion. Not that he could ever excuse such behavior or accept frustration or rage as justification for extinguishing a human life. Yet it was somehow more comprehensible than the excess of violence that had been exerted on Hanna Herzmann and the young girl whom they now called “the Mermaid.”
Bodenstein heaved a sigh. He took off his reading glasses, yawned, and rubbed his sore neck. It was dark outside. Already after eleven. It had been a long day. Time to go home.
Just as he’d switched off the desk lamp and put on his jacket, the phone on his desk rang. A number with a Hofheim prefix. Before the call forwarding could send it to his cell, Bodenstein picked up the receiver and said hello.
“Good evening, this is Katharina Maisel,” said a woman. “You spoke with my husband today; we’re neighbors of Ms. Herzmann. I’m sorry for calling so late.”
“No problem,” Bodenstein replied, trying to suppress a yawn. “What can I do for you?”
“I just got home, and my husband told me about the terrible thing that happened.” In Katharina Maisel’s voice he heard the nervousness that gripped most people when they called the Criminal Police. “I noticed something. At first I didn’t think it was anything unusual, but now … considering what happened…”
“I see.” Bodenstein went back around his desk, turned on the lamp, and sat down. “Tell me. What did you see?”
Mrs. Maisel had been in her garden at around 10:00
P.M.
, watering her flowers. Glancing over at Hanna Herzmann’s house, she saw a man she’d never seen before. He arrived on a motor scooter and had waited at the edge of the woods for a while. After about ten minutes, he noticed that she was looking at him suspiciously. Then he stuck something in the letter slot in the front door of Hanna Herzmann’s house and drove off.
“That’s interesting.” Bodenstein had jotted down a couple of notes. “Can you describe the man? Or his motor scooter?”
“Yes, I can. He passed by me not ten yards away and even nodded politely. Hmm, he was around mid-forties, I guess. Well groomed, very thin, about five ten or so. Short hair, dark blond, already a bit gray. His eyes were the most noticeable. I’ve never seen such incredibly blue eyes.”
“You’re a very good observer,” Bodenstein said. “Would you recognize the man if you saw him again?”
“Definitely,” Mrs. Maisel said. “But that wasn’t all. I couldn’t sleep that night. It was so hot, and our son had gone out in his car alone for the first time. I was worried because of the thunderstorm. So I kept looking out the window. From our bedroom, you can look down at Ms. Herzmann’s driveway. Around ten after one, she came home and drove into her garage, as usual.”
In a flash, Bodenstein’s fatigue was gone. He sat up straight.
“Are you positive?”
“Yes. I know Ms. Herzmann’s car. She always opens her garage with the remote and closes the door behind her right away. She didn’t have to go out again. From the garage, there is direct access to the house.”
“Did you actually see Ms. Herzmann?” Bodenstein asked.
“Well … I recognized her car. It’s nothing unusual; I didn’t look that closely. Fifteen minutes later, our son came home, and then I went to bed, too.”