I Am Your Judge: A Novel (15 page)

She was smiling at him in the darkness.

“I … I don’t know what to say,” Oliver stammered. “This … This is…”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” said Gabriela, amused. “All the documents are ready, just waiting for your signature.”

“But Cosima and her siblings. They … They won’t put up with this.” He was gradually recovering from the initial shock.

“They’ll have to put up with it,” Gabriela replied. “It’s my will, after all. Besides, Cosima, Raffaela, and Laetitia have already inherited a great deal of money from their father. Your three children are my only grandchildren, and I want my property to stay in the Rothkirch family. So. Can I count on you?”

Bodenstein turned his head and smiled at her.

“Under one condition,” he said.

“And what would that be?”

“That you live for many more years.”

Countess Gabriela Rothkirch laughed.

“I can’t promise you that, but I’ll make my best effort,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

It had snowed again in the night. They would find his footprints, but he didn’t worry about that. When he bought the shoes, he’d been extra careful to make sure they were a mass-produced brand, nothing extravagant. He didn’t have to wait long; his target was as punctual on the first day of the holiday as on every other morning. And he hit him right where he intended. With one blow, his circulation ceased. His heart, no, her heart stopped beating. The way it should have stopped beating ten years ago, if nature hadn’t been so cunningly cheated. He’d wanted so much to see the old woman’s face, the shock, the painful realization that all that money had bought only ten years’ postponement. But he couldn’t risk staying here, even though the temptation was great. He bent down, picked up the empty cartridge, and stuck it in his jacket pocket. Then he stowed the rifle, shouldered the bag, and stepped out of the bushes, which had provided a perfect hiding place. The darkness of night was yielding to a gray dawn as he went up the steps and disappeared. Winter had always been his favorite time of year.

*   *   *

The call came at ten after nine and tore Pia out of a deep sleep. Last night, she and Kim had left their parents’ house right after dinner, before the animosity between Kim and her sister-in-law could escalate. Lars and Sylvia had outshone everyone else with the expensive presents they showered upon the children; even Pia’s taciturn father had made a critical comment. The sisters drove to Birkenhof, enjoyed a lovely evening with two bottles of excellent red wine, and talked until the crack of dawn.

“Where to this time?” Pia mumbled into the phone.

“Fasanenstrasse 47 in Kelkheim,” the officer on duty repeated patiently. He sounded disgustingly alert. “I’m sending the forensics guys over, and I’ve requested a medical examiner.”

“Could you please call Bodenstein, too?” Pia rolled out of bed and yawned. “I’ll leave at once.”

She staggered to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and got dressed. No time for a shower.

“Hey, you’re already up,” she said in amazement when she came downstairs and saw Kim sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and holding a cigarette. She had her iPad out with a keyboard attached. The dogs jumped out of their baskets to greet Pia, wagging their tails.

“Good morning,” said her sister with a grimace. “My damned internal clock wakes me up at seven on the dot, even on holidays. I really wish I could sleep in.”

“Sorry there won’t be any delicious breakfast,” Pia told her, patting the dogs on the head and pouring herself a cup of coffee. “We’ve got another body over in Kelkheim.”

“Oh, will you take me with you?” Kim closed her iPad. “I can be ready in two minutes.”

For years, Kim had been the acting medical director of a forensic psychiatric clinic at a prison near Hamburg, and she had an excellent reputation with the state attorney’s office as an expert witness for criminal trials. Neff had taken off over Christmas and would probably not show up at the crime scene. It might be helpful to have someone present to observe the whole situation from a different angle than the criminal police.

“Sure, why not?” Pia took a gulp of coffee, which tasted terrible. It didn’t bother her, because when it came to drinking coffee, it wasn’t the taste but the effect of the caffeine she cared about, and that was more than sufficient.

A few minutes later, the sisters drove out of the Birkenhof gate. The station wagon bumped across the train tracks.

“The shocks are shot,” said Kim.

“The whole car is shot,” Pia said dryly. “Soon I’ll have to start looking around for a new one, before this one breaks down under my butt.”

“You think it was the sniper again?” Kim asked. Last night, Pia had told her about the two cases she was working on at the moment.

This time, the victim wasn’t an elderly woman, but a young man, and he had been shot on Christmas Day. If it was indeed the same perp, this turn of events had completely obliterated all of Neff’s theories.

“Possible,” was all Pia said, turning off Highway B 8 and stepping on the gas. Near the turnoff to Bad Soden, a silver Mercedes SUV tore past them with a blast of its horn, in total disregard of the speed limit.

“Ah, Henning is on his way, too, I see,” she said, flashing her lights in greeting at her ex’s rapidly vanishing car. She stomped on the gas till the pedal almost went through the floor. The old engine roared hoarsely, but the speedometer only shuddered at just over 85. The car had no more to give.

“What’s it like for you when you’re driving to a crime scene?” Kim asked. “Are you excited?”

“More like tense,” Pia said. “You never really know what to expect.”

“Do you think about where you once saw a dead body when you drive through the same area?”

“Yeah, of course. In my head, there’s a sort of crime-scene map. Even years later, I remember where a house burned down or a dead body was found.”

She slowed and shifted down. At the intersection where the federal highway ended, she turned right and drove a hundred meters farther along to the left.

“It’s up ahead over there.” She pulled in behind a patrol car. “And my boss is already here.”

*   *   *

“The vic’s name is Maximilian Gehrke, and he was twenty-seven years old,” said the young police superintendent who was first on the scene with her colleagues. “He was on his way to visit his father, as he did every morning at eight
A.M
. Seems to have been a firm ritual, as the neighbor who found the body told us.”

“Did she notice anything?”

“Unfortunately not. She went out with her dog and saw him lying here. She didn’t hear the shot.”

“Thanks.” Bodenstein looked around. The dead man was lying on his stomach, his legs on the paved path leading to the front door of the bungalow, his upper body on the winter-yellow lawn. The shot must have killed him on the spot; he hadn’t even had time to pull his hands out of his pockets in order to extend his arms to break the fall.

“Not a head shot,” Bodenstein declared. He pulled on latex gloves and touched the nape of the dead man’s neck. The skin had not yet turned cold. On the left side of his back, at about chest height, there was an entry wound, around which a dark red blotch had spread on his light gray jacket.

“A shot from behind, straight into his heart,” someone remarked behind him.

“Good morning, Henning.” Bodenstein turned around and wondered whether the medical examiner was going to wish him Merry Christmas. It seemed somehow inappropriate. “Glad you could come so quickly. It’s not that easy to get someone out on Christmas.”

“No big deal. Holidays are way overrated.” Henning Kirchhoff opened his aluminum case and pulled on overalls, gloves, and booties and pulled the hood over his head. “What do you think? The same perp as in Niederhöchstadt and Oberursel?”

“I’m not sure.” Bodenstein took a step back. “So far, he’s killed his victims with a head shot. Why should he change his MO? Though this perp obviously used a suppressor, and the sniper did, too.”

Pia’s old station wagon turned into the street and stopped behind the patrol car. Bodenstein watched as his colleague, accompanied by another woman, crossed the street and headed for the little gate through which Maximilian Gehrke must have walked before the fatal shot brought him down.

“Good morning, boss,” Pia said. “And Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks, same to you,” Bodenstein said with a nod.

“May I introduce my little sister? She’s visiting for the holidays.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Bodenstein extended his hand. “Oliver von Bodenstein.”

“Katharina Freitag, but I prefer to be called Kim.”

A firm handshake, a searching look from gray-blue eyes wreathed by thick eyelashes. The likeness between the two sisters was astonishing: the same high cheekbones, the wide mouth with full lips, the high hairline that in the younger woman was more pronounced, because she had tightly pulled back her natural blond hair, while Pia wore hers in a loose ponytail.

“I know it’s not customary to bring relatives along to a crime scene,” Pia said. “But Kim is a forensic psychiatrist and may be able to help us.”

“That’s not up to me,” replied Bodenstein. “But I have nothing against it if you’d like to watch, Ms. Freitag.”

Across the street, a few onlookers had gathered. The news of the bloody deed early on Christmas morning had apparently already made the rounds in this genteel residential area.

“Right now, I want to speak with the father of the dead man,” Bodenstein told Pia after reporting on what he’d learned so far about the victim. Henning was almost finished examining the corpse, and greeted his ex-sister-in-law with surprise and pleasure.

The blue VW van of the evidence team drove up, and the officers climbed out. A triumphant smile spread across Henning’s lips when he caught sight of Christian Kröger.

“That makes it five to seven. I’m catching up,” he said to Pia and Kim. “This year, Kröger beat me to the stiff seven times. If the sniper keeps this up, I might still have a real chance at a tie.”

“Give me a break, Henning.” Pia shook her head disapprovingly. “I can’t believe you two are still carrying on this stupid competition.”

“Is that why you tore past us on the B 8?” Kim wanted to know.

“Hmm. Well, I guess so.” Henning seemed embarrassed to admit it.

“Let’s go inside,” Bodenstein said to Pia, “before these two start going at it again.”

*   *   *

Day after day in her profession, Pia encountered countless types of individuals, young and old, intelligent and stupid, pragmatic and spaced-out, gentle and aggressive, honest and hypocritical. Many of them were under great emotional duress, which meant they were often in no condition to hide their feelings. This situation—involuntarily provoked and sometimes lasting for only a few seconds—allowed her to get a glimpse into their innermost being. Her work demanded objectivity, and yet even she couldn’t help regarding some people as more pleasant than others.

She felt genuinely sorry for Fritz Gehrke. The old man was devastated, yet he was trying hard to answer Bodenstein’s questions. Like many people of his generation, it went against his grain to let himself go. Unlike young people, who often wept hysterically and completely broke down, he mustered all his strength to answer every question.

Since the death of his wife in 1995, the eighty-one-year-old man had lived alone in the big house, which he had built over fifty years ago as one of the first in this area. He suffered from various ailments of old age, though he did not specify them, but he managed fairly well. A housekeeper came by daily except for Sundays and holidays to take care of the household chores. Fritz Gehrke was checked on twice a day by a mobile nursing service, and every morning, Maximilian, his only son, brought him rolls and jam and read the newspaper with him.

“I can’t understand why anyone would want to kill Maximilian,” he said in a quavering voice. He had led them into the living room and sat down in an easy chair. His thin white hair was neatly parted, and he was properly dressed with a shirt and tie, slacks, and a Bordeaux-red pullover. His age-spotted hand gripped the handle of his cane. The house was old but immaculately kept and well maintained. The travertine floor shone, and even the fringes of the rugs lay perfectly straight.

“Max is such a modest and kind young man.” Tears shimmered in his eyes behind his gold-framed glasses. “He studied music pedagogy and he teaches at the music school here in Kelkheim. He also directs the church choir at St. Franziskus and plays the organ.”

He knew that his son was no longer alive, but he couldn’t bring himself to use the past tense when talking about him.

“Where did your son live?” Bodenstein asked.

“He has an apartment down in Kelkheim, on Frankfurter Strasse.” Fritz Gehrke blew his nose in a linen handkerchief as white as apple blossoms. “I invited him to live here. The house has a beautiful in-law apartment with its own entrance, but it was important to Max to finally stand on his own two feet. He was born with a serious heart defect, spent years in clinics, and his health was never robust. He could never romp about or play soccer like the other boys his age. In spite of that, he always had lots of friends, because he is … he was … Please forgive me.”

His voice failed; he shook his head mutely and struggled for a moment to regain his composure.

There was a knock on the front door. Pia excused herself and went down the hall to open it.

“We’re finished with the body.” Christian Kröger was still wearing his overall with the hood. “And we found the spot where the shot was fired. Do you want to look?”

Pia nodded. She followed Kröger outside, saying hello to the men from the morgue, who put the body in a body bag for the trip to the Forensic Medicine lab in Frankfurt.

“Look, over there.” Kröger pointed to the lot across the street, surrounded by a tall yew hedge; it lay a bit higher than Gehrke’s house. “That’s where he must have stood.”

“Wouldn’t that be too risky?” Pia said skeptically. “The people in that house could have seen him.”

“No, it’s ideal. I’ll show you.”