Rain Girl (3 page)

Investigators had found traces of blood on the stones and assumed the blood belonged to the dead girl. Franza and Felix were sure the forensic examination in the lab would quickly confirm this, especially because under the table they had also found what they assumed was one of the girl’s missing shoes—a high-heel shoe with straps decorated with rhinestones that matched the silver dress.

The ground around the table and benches was strewn with cigarette butts, broken glass, and other trash, which was not surprising considering how much traffic passed through here during the day, and as they were now discovering, during the night as well.

The forensic team took the shoe, trash, broken glass, and cigarette butts in as evidence. They would be examined for hours for any useful information, though you never knew in advance if they’d find anything. That’s just the way it was. Like pieces of a puzzle slowly coming together, creating a picture.

Felix put his right foot on one of the benches, leaned his elbow on his knee, and thought out loud. “So, what have we got so far? Around five this morning, Tuesday, a disheveled girl stumbles onto the autobahn and gets hit and killed. It’s possible she was drunk, but considering we found blood here, it’s more likely she had been seriously injured before she was hit. She’s wearing a party dress, and she’s barefoot. We found one of her shoes here in the rest area.”

They found a matching shoe near the accident scene, in front of the bushes in the grass next to the shoulder. The grass was trampled in places and matted down as if someone had been lying there for a while. There were also tire tracks. Someone must have been driving too fast and, failing to consider how slippery the wet road was, braked too hard and skidded off the shoulder into the grass.

The crime-scene investigators had erected a kind of tent to protect any evidence that hadn’t been washed away yet, but the chances of getting a decent tire print were slim.

Felix pointed to the table and paused for a moment before continuing. “What’s all this telling us?”

Franza shrugged. “That she was coming from a party, some special occasion—a birthday, graduation, christening, engagement, wedding . . . something like that.”

“How did she get here?”

“Evidently not in her own vehicle, or we would have found it.”

“So she was getting a ride with someone. Question is, who? And where to?”

“Anyway, she ended up here, at this rest area. Strange place.”

They paused a moment. Then the Ping-Pong match resumed.

“Lovers?”

“Who else would stop at a rest area on the autobahn in the middle of the night?”

“Yeah, who else?” He scratched his chin. “But would you pick this place for a romantic encounter?”

She shrugged. “When you’re really in love, who knows. On the other hand—maybe it’s something simpler. Maybe someone needed the restroom.”

“But they were here at the table. The restrooms are over there, pretty far away.”

They fell silent again as they thought it over. Franza spoke first.

“What about her shoes? Why was there only one here?”

Felix shrugged.

“She must’ve lost it during the struggle—or whatever it was—and he didn’t notice because he was panicking.”

Another pause. They were trying to picture how she would have fallen, how her head could have hit the stone.

It started raining again. Franza closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. It smelled like a walk through freshly cut grass in summer. She longed to take off her shoes and dig her toes deep into the wet grass, like she used to as a child. Back when the mornings were cool and big, when the creek was a raging river, and the days were filled watching the wide-open sky. She’d been crazy about those summers.

Felix nudged her. “Everything all right?”

She nodded. “What kind of struggle?” she asked.

“What was it about? Broken heart? Wounded pride? Jealousy?” Felix shrugged. “At least that’s why a lot of people have snapped before. Those things could make someone go completely off the rails.”

He ran his hand through his hair, trying to think. It was starting to turn gray and suited him well. “Yes,” he said. “And that’s when she fell and landed on this rock. Did you get a look at the wound on the back of her head? Borger thinks that’s what happened. The impact would’ve knocked her out for a while.”

Franza nodded.

“It was probably just bad luck, not what our man had planned. No one plans that in advance,” Felix said. “But then she was just lying there, not stirring, not making a sound. And he panicked. Probably thought she was dead.”

They fell silent. The air smelled of summer, of grass, of wide-open sky.

“What would a normal person do in this situation?”

“Get help. Or drive to the nearest place to get help, take the next exit, find a hospital.”

“What did he do?”

“He seemed to have had the same idea. That’s why he put her in the car and took off. At least for a hundred yards.”

“Or he just wanted to get rid of her. He thought she was dead, making things a lot more complicated. Try to picture that. Suddenly you’re stuck with a dead body.”

They felt the weight of their words tugging at them. They could see it in her eyes. She hadn’t been dead.

So someone had an unconscious girl in his car, unconscious most likely because of something he did to her, and drove away from the rest area and onto the autobahn. Then he suddenly slammed on his brakes so hard that the car shot straight from the shoulder onto the grass. Then he dragged the girl out into the open and took off, leaving her there to die. Why? Did he panic because the dead girl suddenly stirred, because the whole thing was getting more and more complicated?

“And then?”

“Then she must have come to. Woke up. Had no idea what had happened. Lying there on the grass, in the rain, in her sparkly dress, soaked to the bone, one shoe missing. It must have been cold.”

They fell silent again, mulling it over.

“And then?” Franza asked again.

“And then,” Felix said, “then she just started walking. Maybe she saw a light and was walking toward it. Wanted to stop a car, and took one step too many.”

Maybe she was confused. Or scared. Maybe she thought she was being followed.

They didn’t know. They only knew that the next moment Bohrmann was there with his BMW. As always, when Franza was confronted with confusing homicides—the kind that gripped her mind and swept over her, lodging in every fiber of her being—she found herself longing for childhood: the cool meadows, the little brook, the icy cold creeping up her little legs as she pattered through the water past the smooth pebbles.

She would cry on Port’s shoulder. He would hold her. But none of that would help.

“If not him, then someone else,” Felix said quietly. “She wouldn’t have survived, not at that time of the night. Two hours earlier she might’ve had a chance. If only . . .”

Franza nodded. “She would have needed some luck . . .”

“But you know,” Felix said slowly, “I don’t think luck would’ve helped her in this case.”

Franza looked puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”

He rubbed his chin, thinking. He’d forgotten to shave that morning, probably thanks to his wife, Angelika’s, unexpected early morning news.

“Our witnesses, you know, this Dr. Franke and his wife, they observed something interesting. While the doctor was running to the accident scene, his wife stayed in the car to call the emergency number. That’s when she noticed a car parked on the side of the autobahn, about fifty yards ahead on the shoulder. And then it suddenly took off, as if bitten by a snake, engine roaring. She said it seemed really strange to her, as if someone was fleeing the scene, so she told her husband and then told me. What do you think?”

Franza shook her head. She had seen and heard so many things in her job, but she never got used to it. So he had waited. He wanted to know what would happen, to see her run out onto the road and die.

“What kind of car was it? License number?”

Felix shook his head. “She didn’t know. It was very dark. And it happened so fast.”

Franza sighed. “Damn!”

Felix raised his index finger and smiled triumphantly. “Hang on,” he said, “wait a minute. We walked up to the scene, Frau Franke and I. She used to be a runner and was pretty good at telling the distance. Now guess what I found.”

He paused. Franza looked at him blankly. Cars whizzed past, heading north to Nuremberg, Potsdam, or Berlin.

“Cigarette butts,” he said. “Several. Some hadn’t even been lit, just snapped in half. Somebody must’ve been pretty nervous. Borger will compare them to the butts from around the table. If there’s a match—and I bet we’ll find one—we’ll have our suspect’s DNA.”

Franza slowly tilted her head to one side. “All we have to do then is find him.”

Felix nodded. “You don’t think we will?”

“Yes, of course we will.” Franza turned to leave. “Let’s go. I’m wet enough as it is.”
I can’t grow any more anyway.

As they walked back to the car, Franza’s thoughts returned to the girl. “What if she’d gone the other way? If she’d run into the woods?”

Felix shook his head. “Then he would’ve thought of something else.”

Silence. There was nothing left to say. It could have happened that way. It was always sad like that, every time. And the girl’s eyes. Hazel eyes. Her matted hair. Her eternal silence.

10

“Angelika is pregnant again,” Felix said.

“Wow!” Franza said.

“Is that all?” Felix asked.

Franza grinned. “Well,” she said, “gotta expect that if you’re doing it.”

Felix gasped.

“No,” she said, leaning forward and giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Just kidding. Good for you. Congratulations. Planned?”

Felix rocked back and forth in his chair, thinking. “I’m not sure, I think so. You know Angelika.”

Yes, Franza knew Angelika Herz. A woman with both feet firmly on the ground, and now she was expecting their fourth child.

“And my eldest isn’t eating properly,” Felix said. “Marlene. Since she turned fourteen she hardly eats anything. Angelika says it’s my fault. Because of this damn job.”

Franza nodded and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Do you think so, too?” he asked.

“What?”

“That it’s my fault.”

She shook her head and squeezed him a little. “Oh, Felix,” she said. “That’s nonsense. At fourteen they just don’t eat because they don’t eat.”

“Yeah, isn’t that the truth!?”

Franza nodded and squeezed her colleague’s shoulder a little tighter.

“She told me this morning, about the baby,” he said. “Then I got the phone call about this girl, and I had to run. She wants to tell the kids and celebrate when I get home, but I’m not sure I feel like it.”

He fell silent for a while. “I’m not even sure I want a fourth child.”

Franza nodded. “Will it be difficult financially?”

He shook his head. “No, you know my in-laws with their business. It’s doing pretty well, and Angelika is their only child. You could say we’ll be wealthy people someday. Our house is big enough, too. Angelika planned for everything. But I . . .”

He got up and walked to the window. “I feel like a breeding stud,” he said quietly, almost ashamed. “She didn’t ask me.”

Franza joined him, and they stood side by side looking out the window. They couldn’t see beyond the house opposite them. It was late evening, and the air was mild after the rain, a little misty. The others had left and were probably sitting in some beer garden, scarfing down pizzas and salads. Somewhere out there the autobahn was buzzing.

They still had no idea who the girl was, but she wasn’t in any of the photos in the missing persons file.

Her handbag with her ID was probably still in the suspect’s car where she’d carelessly set it down after she got in and they roared off into the night. Perhaps she wasn’t even carrying any ID, just a tiny purse with a lipstick inside. Who needs ID at a party? Who needs ID in the face of death?

No one else seemed to be looking for the girl. Not a single report had come in. They were still within the required waiting period, but people usually came forward sooner because they were too worried to wait.

Arthur and Robert, the two junior members of the investigating team, had done a computer search for any missing persons reports that fit the girl’s description, a girl who failed to come home after a night out—but nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Strange,
Franza thought.
There are no reports of this missing girl. Didn’t she belong to anyone other than her murderer?

Franza thought of the suspect as a
murderer,
though she wasn’t sure that was the correct legal term in this case. No one had been murdered, not in the true sense of the word, not in a way that the act would necessarily be treated as murder.

Bodily injury resulting in death, failure to render assistance—that’s probably how the case would be handled if it came to court, unless, of course, they could prove that the yet-unknown suspect was acting with intent, or they could make him admit it. But that was the least of their problems right now. First they had to find him.

“We’ll get him,” Felix said, sensing her unrest.

She smiled gratefully. “We will, right?”

They were a good team—tough, and with the necessary persistence that anger always gave them. First thing the next morning they would visit the hospital’s morgue, where the coroner would carefully reconstruct every minute of the girl’s death and explain everything clearly and calmly to Franza and Felix, as he always did. The forensic team would have some preliminary results, as well, which would allow Franza and Felix to meticulously track down all the leads until they reached a conclusion.

“Summer vacation starts soon,” said Felix, shaking his head. “Time flies, it’s incredible.”

Franza nodded absentmindedly and thought how many times she’d heard him say that. She couldn’t help being touched by his repeated astonishment at how quickly time flew by.

“Do you think it’ll get even hotter?” Felix asked. “I know you don’t particularly like the heat, but . . . it’d be nice for the kids.”