I Am Your Judge: A Novel (21 page)

“She’ll get over it,” Carsten had said. “You just have to give her time. And the change of scene has done her good. With Opa and Oma at the farm, the world is still in one piece.”

“Thanks to all of you for taking such good care of her,” Karoline had replied. “Please thank your parents and Nicki, too.”

“I will. But it goes without saying.” He had hesitated briefly. “So how are you doing? Are you managing all right?”

Out of sheer habit, she had almost answered his cautious query with a hackneyed phrase such as
Sure
,
I’m doing fine,
or
I’ll manage,
but the lie stuck in her throat. This time it wasn’t about the flu or some business deal that had slipped through her fingers. This was an existential matter, and it wasn’t only about Mama’s death. She was dealing with a personal identity crisis.

“I’m not doing well,” she had told her ex-husband. “I miss Mama so much. Mostly I’d like to crawl into bed and just cry.”

She had told him about her doubts that it was a random shooting. She also mentioned that she thought Papa was lying to her.

“I have to find out what’s behind this,” she’d said. “I simply can’t imagine that Mama did anything that would make someone shoot her.”

“Oh, Karoline,” Carsten sighed. “I feel so bad for you. But please don’t do anything that might put you in danger. Will you promise me that?”

She promised.

“If you need us, we’re here for you,” he’d said. “You’re welcome here anytime.”

With much effort, she managed to utter a “thank you” before she hung up. She should have been sitting in Nicki’s place with Carsten and a passel of kids at her in-laws’ comfortable farmhouse on Lake Starnberg. But it was too late for that.

Karoline forced her thoughts in a different direction. It had been Carsten—well aware that she wouldn’t follow his advice to leave matters to the police—who had given her the idea to make contact with the relatives of the other murder victims. That was why she was now on her way to Eschborn. The first victim of the “sniper,” as the press had dubbed the insane killer, had been an elderly lady from Niederhöchstadt. Naturally, she had no idea what her name was or where to begin searching for her relatives, but the town in which she had lived seemed to be the best starting point for her detective work. The fuel light in her car started blinking as she drove through Steinbach toward Niederhöchstadt, so she stopped at the next gas station. Although the price of gas had dropped quite a bit, she was the only customer.

“Nothing going on here all morning,” said the clerk behind the counter, a stout woman in her midfifties, as she tapped her finger on the headline of the
BILD
tabloid. “Here, have you read this? Everyone’s afraid of the madman who’s shooting down people at random. That’s all anyone’s talking about.”

“Didn’t that happen pretty close to here?” Karoline found this type of gossip disgusting, but the end certainly did justify the means in this instance. “Did you know the woman?”

“Sure, Old Lady Rohleder. She came here often. To fill up her tank or just to buy a paper. The whole thing is really dreadful.” The cashier had nothing to do and proved to be a productive source of information. By the time Karoline paid for the gas and returned to her car, she knew the name of the victim’s dog, what make of car she drove, the fact that her daughter ran a flower shop on Unterortstrasse in Eschborn, and that the funeral had taken place late that morning at the Niederhöchstadt Cemetery. In addition, and this was probably the most important piece of information, she learned where Ingeborg Rohleder and her daughter lived.

*   *   *

The car phone rang as Bodenstein drove past the Commerzbank stadium heading for the autobahn. Ostermann was reporting in, though he had no real news. Despite intense canvassing of the neighborhood in Kelkheim, nobody had noticed or seen anything on Christmas morning. The Winklers hadn’t been at their home in Glashütten, so the patrol had left a note to call K-11 in Hofheim. The techs from the crime lab had been unable to find any fingerprints or DNA traces on the envelopes or the obituaries, and Napoleon Neff had returned from Ingeborg Rohleder’s funeral with no interesting information.

“It’s a dead end,” said Ostermann. “Unfortunately, we no longer have postmarks that reveal where a letter was sent from. Everything was printed on an inkjet printer, and the toner is mass-produced, as is the copy paper.”

“In the old days, we had saliva traces on envelopes and jammed keys on a typewriter,” Kröger mused in the background. “Or a type of paper that was manufactured at a specific time. Today, the perps get tips from TV cop shows about what they have to do to avoid leaving any evidence.”

“Were Kathrin and Cem able to get anything at the UCF?” Bodenstein asked.

“No.” Ostermann demolished Bodenstein’s last glimmer of hope. “Supposedly there’s no one in-house who’s authorized to allow access to hospital records. The order from the state attorney’s office hasn’t arrived yet.”

They drove back in the same depressed state of silence as on the drive over. Henning Kirchhoff had been right: An autopsy in the case of Maximilian Gehrke was as unhelpful as those of Ingeborg Rohleder and Margarethe Rudolf. It was all wasted effort. Bodenstein felt like he was sitting in a car that was gradually running out of gas.

“Your car is still parked in Liederbach,” Pia reminded him just before they reached the turnoff for the Main-Taunus Center. He had intended to keep driving in the center lane toward Hofheim. Just in time, he put on his blinker and veered sharply to the right.

At least Rosalie had arrived safely in New York, and her pain at leaving had given way to excitement about the city in which she was now going to live and work for a year. When could he talk to Inka about the offer from Cosima’s mother? How was she going to react? So far, there hadn’t been a suitable opportunity. In the daytime, they were both busy, and at night, she slept at her own place because Sophia was staying with him. He’d been pondering for days how he was going to explain everything to her without her again making the unjustified accusation that he didn’t want to let Cosima go. In this tense situation, the last thing he needed was to fight with Inka.

Bodenstein stopped next to his unmarked car, undid his seat belt, and got out.

“See you soon,” he said to Pia, who had taken the wheel.

“Okay,” she said. “Have you got your car keys?”

He patted his coat pocket and nodded before walking past the garage to the row of houses where Dirk Stadler lived. As darkness fell, the shades had been pulled down in all the houses where somebody was already home. Here and there, faint light could be seen through the small glass panes in the front doors, but otherwise, everything was locked up tight.

The lights were off at Stadler’s house. Bodenstein pressed the doorbell, waited a moment, and rang again, but nobody came to the door. The gusty wind was shaking the two small boxwood trees at either side of the front door, whirling dry leaves over the path. The temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the cold was creeping up Bodenstein’s pant legs. There was no doubt that he enjoyed his job, which he’d been doing for a good thirty years, although he was often worn out. He loved the challenges that each case brought, and he felt great satisfaction when a murderer was convicted and justice was won for the victim and his family. Bodenstein couldn’t imagine working in another profession, and to be honest, he didn’t have the expertise for anything else. For him, his profession had always been a calling, far more than merely a job that was over at five o’clock. And there were always recurring periods like now, when they seemed to make no headway. In his career, there had been only a few cases that had never been solved, cold cases that he retrieved from the archives from time to time to review. Modern criminological technology permitted more extensive analyses and brought more precise results, and often the networking with international police authorities helped as well. Calm determination and patience were two important traits that a police officer needed, but at the moment, Bodenstein had the unpleasant feeling that waiting was the worst of all possible alternatives. He turned around and hurried back to his car.

Naturally, you will receive appropriate compensation for this task.
Gabriela’s statement kept running through his head. His officer status did not allow him to accept supplementary income just like that. Did it mean that he’d have to quit his job? And would he ever be able to meet his mother-in-law’s expectations?

Bodenstein turned on the engine and set the heat on high. Icy air blew into his face. Cursing, he adjusted the fan, turned on the windshield wipers, and drove off.

On the drive from Liederbach to Hofheim, he thought about the advantages of Gabriela’s offer. He would never again have to jump out of bed in the middle of the night or on a Sunday morning because there was a dead body somewhere. He wouldn’t have to worry about lack of personnel, tiffs among the colleagues, and all the regulations, restrictions, and tedious paperwork. No more burned, rotting, bloated corpses; no endless questioning in which the wildest tall tales were served up; no stress, no hectic pace, no more pulling an all-nighter. Would he miss the tension that he felt each time he was called to the site where a dead body was found? The fever of the hunt, the feeling of doing something important and good, and the satisfaction of working together with his team? What sense of accomplishment would he have if all he did was worry about his mother-in-law’s fortune? “No,” he said out loud to himself. “No, I won’t do it.”

And suddenly he felt a lot better.

*   *   *

Karoline Albrecht had been sitting in her car for quite a while, wondering whether she should get out and ring the doorbell of the row house. She didn’t really want to learn anything about this woman who had also been struck by such a cruel fate. She herself was so filled with pain and rage and grief that she didn’t know whether she could stand any more. Gradually, the guests at the reception after the funeral left, and Karoline finally had to get moving before it got too late to pay a visit to a stranger.

“Yes?” Renate Rohleder scrutinized her suspiciously through a crack in the door. “What do you want?”

“My name is Karoline Albrecht,” she said. “Please excuse me for simply showing up at your door, but I … I wanted to speak with you. My mother was … shot last week, in Oberursel. By the same … murderer as your mother.”

“Oh!” The reddened eyes of the woman widened in astonishment, and caution gave way to curiosity. She didn’t ask how Karoline knew her name and address. She took off the safety chain and opened the door all the way. “Please come in.”

The house smelled sweet and stuffy and a bit like wet dog. For a moment, the two women stood facing each other mutely in the hall, looking at each other with some embarrassment. Grief had ravaged Renate Rohleder’s face. Deep furrows ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth; her eyelids were swollen, and dark circles had formed under her eyes. Although she was probably only a little older than Karoline, she looked like an old woman.

“I’m … so sorry about what happened to your mother,” Karoline broke the silence, and Renate Rohleder gave a sob and wrapped her in her arms. Karoline, who normally did not care much for physical contact, felt herself pressed to a soft bosom, and the ice that had covered her heart burst into a thousand pieces. She made no effort to maintain her composure but gave her tears free rein, sobbing just as hard as this other woman, whose soul had been just as damaged as her own.

Later they sat together in the living room and drank tea. They had agreed to skip the formalities and address each other in the familiar way, using each other’s first names. But for a while, neither of them knew quite how to broach the subject. The old brown Lab lay in his basket and watched them out of melancholy dark eyes that were clouded over by a bluish sheen.

“Topsi hardly eats anything, now that Mama is gone,” said Renate with a sigh. “She was there when … when it happened.”

Karoline had to swallow hard.

“My daughter, Greta, was standing next to my mother when she was shot through the kitchen window,” she replied, amazed at how easy it was to say these words. Until now, she and her father had chosen a multitude of euphemisms for the terrible event.

“Oh my God!” Renate’s face showed her concern. “That’s even worse. How is she coping with it?”

“Well, she’s with her father and his family at the moment. She seems to be doing all right.” Karoline cradled the teacup in her hands. “I just can’t believe that this guy shot my mother at random. My parents’ house is at the edge of the woods, at the end of a cul-de-sac. Nobody ever walks past by chance.”

Renate straightened up and gave at Karoline a searching look.

“The murders aren’t random,” she said softly. “They’re saying that in the papers only because the police aren’t giving out any information.”

“What do you mean?” Karoline said in bewilderment.

“The police think it’s because of Kirsten. Kirsten Stadler.” Renate’s voice quavered, and her eyes swam with tears. “They found out her name through the last victim. And through these … these obituaries.”

A sob caught in her throat.

“It’s so terrible. We were practically next-door neighbors, Kirsten and I. I saw her often, and sometimes we went walking together. Kirsten also had a dog, a Hovawart, whose name was Spike.”

Karoline didn’t have the faintest idea who this Kirsten was or what Renate was talking about.

“What obituaries?” she interrupted her.

“Wait a sec.” Renate jumped up and left the living room; she came back a little later holding a paper in her hand and gave it to Karoline. “This is a copy of the one that was mailed to the police in Eschborn.”

An obituary, printed on a sheet of paper.

INGEBORG ROHLEDER HAD TO DIE BECAUSE HER DAUGHTER IMPLICATED HERSELF IN THE DENIAL OF ASSISTANCE AND ACTED AS AN ACCESSORY TO NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER,
she read.

“What’s this supposed to mean?” she whispered. “And what does it have to do with my mother?”