I Am Your Judge: A Novel (5 page)

He was content with his strategy. Everything had gone exactly as planned. In the parking lot at Wiesenbad in Eschborn, a few mothers had been there with their kids, but nobody had paid any attention to him when he put the sports bag with the rifle into the trunk of his car and drove off.

He pulled up the German Weather Service site on his iPad. He’d been doing that several times a day for weeks and months now, because the weather was an extremely important factor.

“Shit,” he muttered.

The weather forecast for the next three days had changed since yesterday. He frowned as he read about heavy snowfall extending down into the valleys starting on Friday evening.

Snow was bad. He might leave tracks in the snow. What was he going to do now? A precisely worked-out plan in which all the risks had been considered and reduced to a minimum was essential for his success. Nothing was more dangerous than improvisation. But the damned snow threatened to ruin his calculations. For a while, he sat at his desk, summoning in his mind all the details of his plan. It didn’t help. The snow was a serious threat, so he would have to change his timetable. Immediately.

*   *   *

“Jeez, Kai, you belong in bed,” said Bodenstein as he entered the K-11 conference room and looked at his only remaining colleague.

“In bed is where people die,” Criminal Detective Superintendent Kai Ostermann said with a wink. “I feel better than I look.”

He grinned and coughed, and Bodenstein gazed at him skeptically.

“Well, at any rate, I’m grateful that you haven’t left me in the lurch,” he said, sitting down at the big table.

“The ballistics report came in a few minutes ago,” Ostermann croaked, shoving a few stapled pages over to him. “The bullet was a Winchester .308 caliber. Unfortunately, it’s a rather common caliber that’s used by the military, by hunters and target shooters, and also by us. Every ammo maker has this caliber in its catalog, and most also produce variants.”

The heating was turned up full blast, and Bodenstein was already breaking out in a sweat, but Ostermann, who had wrapped a scarf around his neck and wore a down vest over his sweater, didn’t seem to notice the heat at all.

“This cartridge is a Remington Core-Lokt, 11.7 grams, which is the bestselling centerfire cartridge in the world for hunting. The weapon from which the bullet was fired has not yet turned up.”

“So no real clue, then.” Bodenstein removed his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. “Any news from the evidence team?”

“No. The shot was made from a distance of about eighty meters.” Ostermann coughed, popped a sage cough drop into his mouth, and continued in a whisper. “No problem for a trained marksman. No traces were found at the crime scene or the spot from which the shooter fired, other than the blurred outline of indentations left by the bipod. He must have picked up the cartridge casing and taken it with him. After evaluating the statements taken from neighbors and employees at the flower shop, we have to conclude that nothing of note happened during the past few weeks. Ingeborg Rohleder seemed the same as always and gave no sign of feeling threatened.”

Bodenstein was coming to the depressing realization that so far, they knew nothing at all except for the caliber of the murder weapon and the type of cartridge used. He didn’t like resorting to such a measure, but because so many of his colleagues were out sick, he had no choice but to ask Commissioner Engel for reinforcements from other investigative units.

“I’m asking myself seriously, how we—?” he began when the door behind him opened. Ostermann’s eyes widened.

“Hello,” said Pia behind Bodenstein, and he turned around.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise.

“Am I interrupting?” Pia looked from him to Ostermann.

“Oh no, no, not in the least,” Bodenstein hurried to assure her. “Come and have a seat.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do on the day before you leave on vacation?” Ostermann whispered hoarsely.

“No.” Pia took off her jacket and sat down with a big grin. “I’ve taken care of everything. And then I thought I’d just help you solve this case quickly before I take off for three weeks in the sun.”

Kai Ostermann grimaced, and Bodenstein took off his sweater before rapidly summing up the facts that he and Kai had been discussing.

“That’s not much,” said Pia. “Is there any chance of finding out where and when the ammo was purchased?”

“No,” said Ostermann, shaking his head. “It’s found in every gun shop and hunting catalog in the world..”

“And so far, we have no clue as to the motive,” said Bodenstein. “It could be a sniper who shoots people out of a pure love of killing.”

“Or maybe Ingeborg Rohleder had some dark secrets that nobody knows about,” replied Pia. “We should do a complete rundown on the victim’s circle of acquaintances and past history.”

“Agreed,” Bodenstein said with a nod, and stood up. “Let’s drive over and see Renate Rohleder. Then we’ll stop by forensics. The autopsy is scheduled for eleven fifteen.”

*   *   *

Renate Rohleder seemed almost as distraught as she’d been yesterday. She sat red-eyed at her kitchen table, kneading a handkerchief in her left hand and with the other mechanically petting her Labrador, who was nestled at her feet. Her blond hair, which yesterday had been artfully pinned up, now hung limp over her shoulders. Her face was puffy and bare of makeup, as if she’d been crying the whole night.

“Why isn’t there anything in the paper?” Renate asked with a reproachful undertone instead of responding to Bodenstein’s polite greeting. She tapped her finger on an open newspaper. “Nothing on the radio either. Why not? What are you doing to find the person who murdered my mother?”

Visits to the loved ones of a murder victim were always difficult, and Bodenstein had experienced every kind of reaction in his twenty-five years at K-11. When a murder happened in a family, most people eventually managed to regain some semblance of a normal life, but the early days were always marked by shock, chaos, and breakdowns. He and his colleagues often served as lightning rods in this emotional state of emergency, and Bodenstein had long since acquired a thick skin.

“It’s still too early to involve the media,” he replied calmly. “We don’t have enough facts to ask the public for help. News reports filled with pure speculation would not be in your best interest.”

Renate Rohleder shrugged and looked at her smartphone, which was beeping melodiously every few seconds.

“I suppose so,” she whispered. “I can’t even go to the shop. People mean well, but I … I simply can’t stand hearing all these expressions of sympathy.”

In a glance, Bodenstein took in the state of the kitchen and assumed that Ingeborg Rohleder had kept the house in order while her daughter ran the flower shop. After twenty-four hours, her absence was already noticeable. Still on the table were the remains of a breakfast: a plate full of crumbs, an open jar of marmalade with a spoon stuck in it, and soggy tea bags lying on a saucer. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink along with a pot with burnt food stuck to the bottom.

“We’re very sorry that we have to disturb you in your grief,” Pia said. “But we need to know more about your mother and her circle of friends. Where was she from originally? How long did she live here in Eschborn—?”

“Niederhöchstadt,” Renate Rohleder corrected her, blowing her nose again and glancing at the display on her phone.

“In Niederhöchstadt. Did she have any enemies, or were there any difficulties in the family? Had she changed recently, was she nervous or feeling threatened?”

“You don’t seriously mean that someone shot my mother on purpose!” She sounded almost hostile. “I already told you: She didn’t have any enemies. Everyone liked her. She came here in the early ’60s from Sossenheim, opened the flower shop and nursery with my father, and she has lived here ever since. Happily and peacefully, for more than fifty years.”

She picked up her cell phone, which kept on chirping and lighting up, and held it out to Pia.

“See? Everybody, absolutely everyone is offering their condolences, even the mayor.” Her eyes swam with tears. “Do you think that would be happening if my mother wasn’t well liked?”

“It’s possible that your mother had some kind of secret in her life, something that happened a long time ago,” Pia persisted. Bodenstein knew that she was thinking of the Kaltensee case. The idea wasn’t that far-fetched. At the very start of an investigation, when they were still fumbling about in the dark, it was important to explore all avenues. That’s why he hadn’t contradicted Pia when she’d mentioned earlier in the car that, unlike him, she didn’t believe in random killings. The crime statistics were on her side. Murders committed simply from a desire to kill without any real motive were extremely rare.

“Ms. Rohleder, our questions are in no way intended to disparage your mother’s memory,” Bodenstein now intervened to reassure her. “Our sole purpose is to find the person who killed her. In our search for a motive, it’s common practice to begin by carefully examining the victim’s circle of friends and relatives.”

“But there can’t be any conceivable reason for killing her,” Renate Rohleder insisted. “You’re wasting your time if you’re trying to find the motive in my mother’s life.”

Pia wanted to ask something else, but Bodenstein signaled with a quick shake of his head that he found further questioning to be pointless.

“Thank you, Ms. Rohleder,” he said. “Should you think of something that might help us, please don’t hesitate to call.”

“Of course.” Renate Rohleder blew her nose again, using the already soaking wet handkerchief. Bodenstein stuck his hands in his jacket pockets for safety’s sake, in case the woman offered to shake hands with him when they left. But she was completely focused on the sympathy messages coming into her phone almost every second.

They left the kitchen and walked down the hall to the front door. Bodenstein turned up the collar of his coat. They had left the car in the lot back at the Eschborn police station on the main street.

“
Niederhöchstadt,
not Eschborn!” Pia snorted. “Good God, when was the local government reform? Fifty years ago?”

“Nineteen seventy-one,” Bodenstein said with a smile. “People are just proud of their old villages and want to hold on to their own identity.”

“What crap.” Pia shook her head. “All these hick towns would have gone broke long ago if they’d remained autonomous.”

At the street corner, a few elderly people had paused to stare at them with undisguised curiosity. Bodenstein greeted them with a nod.

“At least now they have new fodder for the village gossip mill,” Pia said caustically. “Maybe Ingeborg Rohleder was shot because she told someone she was going to live in Eschborn.”

“Why are you so sensitive about that?” Bodenstein cast a sidelong glance at his colleague. “Or were you hoping that Renate Rohleder would mention a name and we could immediately arrest somebody?”

They reached the police parking lot, and he beeped to unlock the doors of their unmarked car.

“Of course not.” Pia stopped. Then she smiled wryly, shrugged, and opened the passenger door. “Well, maybe. I’d feel better about leaving on vacation if the case were solved.”

*   *   *

At precisely 11:30, they entered Dissection Room II in the basement of the Institute of Forensic Medicine on Kennedyallee. The corpse of Ingeborg Rohleder lay washed and naked on the metal table. Professor Henning Kirchhoff and Dr. Frederick Lemmer had already begun with the external postmortem examination.

“Pia?” Henning cried in astonishment. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on vacation.”

“I am,” she said. “But almost everyone is out sick at K-11, so I jumped in just for today.”

“I see.” Henning pulled down his mask, raised his eyebrows, and grinned. A bit mockingly, Pia thought.

“We’re on a flight tomorrow evening at seven forty-five,” she reassured him. “The bags are already packed.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” said Henning. “I bet you a hundred euros that you don’t go.”

“You’ve already lost that bet,” Pia retorted. “And while all of you will be freezing your butts off here, I’ll be relaxing in the sun and thinking of you.”

“Not going to happen. Remember, I know you,” Henning teased her. “So, just in case you let Christoph go alone, you’re cordially invited to come have Christmas dinner with us. We even put up a tree.”

“I’ll be on that plane tomorrow!” Pia snapped in annoyance.

She hated that Henning knew her so well and always had such an easy time seeing through her. She’d actually prefer to call off this vacation that she’d been looking forward to for so long, but she refused to admit it to herself. And she certainly didn’t want to hear it from her ex-husband.

Bodenstein smiled and held out his hand to Henning’s new colleague, who had been following the exchange with some amazement.

“Don’t mind these two. They were married once,” he explained. “Oliver von Bodenstein, K-11 Hofheim.”

“Frederick Lemmer,” the other man answered. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Can we begin?” Pia asked indignantly. “We don’t have all day.”

“Why not? Your plane doesn’t leave till tomorrow,” Henning needled her, grinning at the dirty look she gave him. Then he turned to the corpse.

The autopsy uncovered no decisive new facts. Ingeborg Rohleder had been as healthy as could be, and if she hadn’t been shot, she would have lived many more years. The projectile had entered her temple above her left ear and exited a few centimeters higher through her right vertex, which confirmed Kröger’s theory about the path of the bullet. The shooter had been positioned down by the stream. He came out of nowhere and then disappeared into thin air.

*   *   *

“How do you like this one, Mama?” Greta had slipped into a short jacket edged with fake fur. She twisted and turned, casting a critical eye at herself in the mirror. The jacket suited her. She was slim, with legs that wouldn’t quit, which meant she looked fabulous in that sort of jacket, unlike many women of Karoline’s generation, who had already been getting pudgy even at Greta’s age.