Rain Girl (22 page)

With some effort, they both calmed down.

Because they knew there was no other way. Because they knew they had to calm down. They had to do something, soon. They couldn’t stay here forever, at this stupid rest area under this stupid roof.

He went and got another bottle from the car.

Cautiously, Marie suggested that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe they’d had enough to drink, and they still had to get back to town. If they got caught at a police checkpoint, he’d lose his license.

He gave her a dark look and tried to think of what to do. Then he sent the second bottle flying and started to laugh. He laughed and laughed until he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to stop, until he wasn’t sure if he was still laughing or if he was crying.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Marie sat down next to him. He began hoping again, and told her he longed for her, he longed for her so much.

He asked her to sleep with him one more time, here and now. He started to beg, brushing her neck with the back of his index finger. He felt her tremble.
“Come on, please!” he said and felt his heart beating faster. He felt alive, like he always did when he was with her. “Baby, do it for me, sleep with me. I need this now, please.”

He’d never had to beg before in his life. Women had always been eager to fall into his arms and then into his bed. At first he’d been surprised, but then he got used to it and simply accepted everything they were willing to do for him and give him. They were drawn to his mysterious silence and his eyes, distant and unreadable. It made them want to explore. They didn’t understand that he couldn’t lose himself. They didn’t understand anything, but that didn’t matter.

Karen? She was the least important. The least essential. She’d given him an alibi for his search—she was nice, servile, never asked questions. She was a little mouse keeping him warm when he was cold, because sometimes he was cold.

He was always gentle and tender, always gave them what they wanted. But they didn’t make him feel alive, none of them, and when he left—and he always left abruptly—they whined and cried and claimed he treated women badly.

He couldn’t understand why. He’d never raised a hand against a woman since the one time, so how could they say he treated women badly?

Because he didn’t see them and left them alone. Because he drove them crazy but didn’t let them get close, protecting himself so they couldn’t get under his skin.

But wasn’t that what had attracted them in the first place?

That shut them up. And him?

Once—only once—had he experienced the humiliation of being left, the pain of rejection. Back on that terrible afternoon when Judith had walked away and disappeared around the corner in her white tunic and white pants and pinned-up hair, taking his life with her.

Ever since then he had searched. For her, for Judith, for his life. Yet he knew it was hopeless, she was lost to him—forever. Because of that one desperate moment, she was gone forever. As far removed from him as if she’d died.

And then . . .
she
turned up, this one here. Marie. And brought back the magic feelings lost so long ago.

And now?

She humiliated him. No—worse than that—she was going to leave him. Just like her mother did.

“Come on!” he said. “Come on, let’s do it. I need to feel you, right now.”

But she said no. No, at least not until they were back in town. Then she’d take him back to her room, sneak him into the building, into her room. It’d be so exciting, an adrenaline rush with Hauer in the office just down the hall. He’d love it, he’d see.

She humiliated him. It pierced through him like a stinger.

She pulled out all the stops to convince him. She wanted to go back. She was getting cold in her light dress. She started shivering, goose bumps on her arms, her nipples hard against her dress. Why did he have to keep looking at her, fondling her?

She pushed him away, gently but firmly.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. It’s cold; I’m freezing. Let’s do it later, in my room. I want you.”

Her voice was flattering, cooing, but that was a mistake, he saw through it.

Like a pigeon,
he thought,
Disgusting, go fuck yourself you stupid bitch!

“Give it to me!” he said. “Give it to me right now!” He stood with his legs apart, opened his trousers. Nothing was decided yet. Things could still go either way.

But what did she do?

Nothing. Looked for something to talk about and chose the wrong topic. Her mistake.

54

The newspaper article was about a hit-and-run accident in which a nine-year-old girl had died. In the paper her face looked happy and curious, just like a typical nine-year-old.

The detectives ordered the file.

The case dated back more than twenty years and had never been solved. The officer working on the case had retired shortly after, and a year later died of a brain hemorrhage, so they couldn’t interview him. There hadn’t been a single real suspect back then; no one had seen or heard anything. The storm around the time of the accident would have allowed the person or persons to flee the scene.

The girl and her family had been vacationing from up north, visiting relatives down here. She had been playing by the Danube while her parents had gone to buy groceries for dinner. Pasta was on the menu. Lisa had become friends with the children from the village and wanted to stay while they went shopping. When the storm hit, the other children had scattered.

The parents became worried because of the storm and came back to the beach to look for her. Around the same time, an anonymous woman called the emergency number to notify the police of an accident. She described the scene and asked for an ambulance. But help came too late, and the parents had to take a dead girl home.

“What a tragic story,” Franza said, and put the Lisa Fürst file down.

She looked at the photo again. What was its connection to the newspaper article? And what was the connection between the Fürst and Gleichenbach cases?

Franza sighed and held the picture right up to her eyes, but it didn’t help. The faces were too small and it was almost impossible to make out anything.

“Maybe this will help,” Felix said, handing her a magnifying glass. A few moments later she made a surprised sound.

“What is it?” Felix asked excitedly. She handed him the photo and the magnifying glass. “See for yourself.”

It was obvious. Judith Gleichenbach, Marie’s mother.

And the man? Long dark hair, headband, athletic, tanned.

Could it be Lauberts? The man they had been trying so hard to find? They weren’t sure; they couldn’t make him out.

“Never mind,” Franza said, leaning back in her chair. “The picture is twenty years old—twenty years changes people.”

Felix nodded as he got to his feet and picked up his jacket. “But why puzzle over it if she can just tell us?”

Franza tapped the newspaper clipping with her finger. “And hopefully she can explain the connection.”

55

He zipped up his pants slowly, staring at her in disbelief for a few heartbeats. Then horror overcame him.

A name. Lisa Fürst. Did he know it?

Did he? How could she even ask? Where on earth was this coming from?

It was etched into his memory forever, eating away at him like hydrochloric acid in his gut, slowly killing him for more than twenty years now. How could she know?

“Oh my God!” she said, realization gradually dawning on her. He saw it.

She got to her feet as if in slow motion.

“You were driving,” she said, stunned. “It was you!”

She swayed a little. The alcohol had loosened her tongue and caused her to stagger now—out of her life and into death. But she didn’t know this yet. Neither of them did.

She turned around.

She wants to go,
he thought,
but it’s too late now
.
It’s really too late for that
.

She tried to slip past him. “I don’t know anything,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t know anything.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “you really don’t know anything. I wrestled with myself. I wrestle with myself every single day. You have no idea.”

“She was only nine,” she said. “Damn it, a nine-year-old girl and you took off.”

Her voice became firmer. Her wondering—her astonishment—was waning.

“You killed her!” she shouted. “A little girl!”

She crouched, cowering. “It’s always the same! You kill them and then you leave them and you don’t care. And then we die again and again while you walk away, back to your lives. And us? We stay right where you left us! Right where you dumped us! And no one sees us ever again, no one.”

She whimpered, lost in alcohol and memories.

Good,
he thought,
she won’t cause any trouble
.

“Listen. Now listen carefully. I’m taking you to Berlin and we’ll forget this ever happened,” he said.

“Listen,” he said again, his voice hoarse. “Listen, I’m letting you go—just like you wanted.”

He raised his arms and walked slowly toward her, wanting to touch her hair, her neck, her face.

“But just one last time,” he said in his new hoarse voice and couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself, “I want to be close to you one last time.”

When he touched her, she hissed like a cat. She jumped up, but he’d already grabbed her and was holding her by the throat.

She was too surprised to put up a fight. She gasped and groaned. He heard her choking as if through wads of cotton. And then he let go, pushing her away from him, and she spun around and fell. Just tipped over, all of a sudden. Then . . . the sound as her head hit the rocks, her eyes as she fell, her neck, still pulsing with life.

He ripped open the pack of cigarettes with trembling fingers, struggled to light a cigarette, and smoked it while trying to figure out what to do next. He couldn’t think of anything, and so he lit another one.

From the very start, her neck had seduced him. It was the only innocent part of her, the only pure part. It was the part, he imagined, no one else had possessed, only him. And it was still pulsing with life.

He looked down at her, brushing her with the back of his hand, feeling the urge to caress her in her innocence and purity. He felt like he was drowning and closed his eyes wearily, slipping briefly into a world of dreams. She was sitting on top of him, smiling. But then he heard again and again how her head hit the rocks, and how the blood trickled out, forming rivulets and puddles before disappearing among the rocks.

Then he saw the body of the child flying across the windshield and another sound, heavy raindrops hitting his car. The child, her eyes a dull gray—suddenly it all faded away.

Confused, he staggered backward and looked at his hand, covered with blood.
Shit,
he thought,
you bitch! You’re ruining everything, you bitch!

“Shit!” he shouted out loud and spun around, once, twice, looking all around, but no one was there. It was three o’clock in the morning.

56

Arthur leaned forward, whistling softly through his teeth. “Tell me everything,” he said.

“Sure,” Marilyn replied. “Would you like a drink? Champagne, maybe? Or a vodka, on the house?”

“No,” he said regretfully, “thank you. I’m on duty.”

She took a strand of his hair, which had fallen over his right eye, and brushed it back behind his ear. “What a pity,” she said.

He grabbed her hand and smiled. “You’re gorgeous, aren’t you!” he said, feeling flattered, almost moved.

“Am I?” she said.

A man came to the table. It was the manager of the restaurant, judging by his resolute demeanor. “May I ask what . . .” he began. “Frau Wallner . . .”

Arthur pulled out his ID again. “Police, Homicide Division,” he said coolly, “I’m interviewing a witness. You’re obstructing a murder investigation.”

The man froze for a moment, and then recovered and opened his mouth to ask a question, but Arthur beat him to it. “Ask your headwaiter, he knows. And now I’d be grateful if you’d let me continue my work in peace. Thank you very much.”

“All right,” the manager said confused. “But if I may ask you to . . .”

“You may,” Arthur said, surprised at himself. “Of course you may.”

He gave a friendly nod to the man, who raised his eyebrows and walked away.

Marilyn giggled with delight. “Wow!” she said. “You let him have it!”