A Matter of Breeding (17 page)

‘Yeah. I thought so, too,’ Franzl agreed.

Erika remained silent as they moved on to the inner office.

Berthe waited for Franzl to finish his bun and then an apple and a pear. For such a small boy, he had a very large appetite.

‘So, what do you want to know?’ he said, disposing of the tiny bit of pear core remaining.

‘Did Captain Putter’s mood change any over the time you knew him?’

‘That’s easy. Sure. The Monday before he died, a fellow came to see him and when the man left, the Captain looked like he’d seen a ghost. Sent me home early. Said the work was done for the day.’

‘Do you know what they talked about?’

Franzl shook his head.

‘Can you describe this man?’

‘Yeah. A young guy with these blue eyes that look like the sky. And he was dressed funny for the city, like he was just out hunting.’

‘Krensky,’ she said aloud. Of course, she thought. He told me he had visited Putter two days before the death.

‘Don’t know his name.’

‘And that was all?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, any other visitors. Anything else that might have disturbed Captain Putter?’

The boy arched his eyebrows, then shrugged.

‘Anything might help.’

‘Well, just the same guy who was always coming to look at the horses.’

‘Who was that?’

He shrugged. ‘I never heard his name. He wasn’t very tall, about the Captain’s height, but big, you know.’ He held his hands around his midsection to show a wide girth. ‘And hair everywhere but where it should be. Bald on top, but a funny bit of hair here and here.’

He motioned to where a moustache might be and then to a narrow swath of hair from the lower lip down the chin.

‘And when was the last time this man came to visit?’

‘I’m not sure, he was at the stables so much. But I think it was the night before the Captain killed himself.’

Berthe was pretty sure who Franzl was describing: it was the Van Dyke beard that Maximillian Hohewart sported. And she remembered that when talking with the director of Premium Breeds he had mentioned this young lad Putter had taken under his wing, imputing improper sexual motives to such a friendship. How could he have known about that without having been at the stables in Vienna recently?

Why would Hohewart be talking with Putter the very night before the captain’s death?

The Stiegls were still in shock on the Tuesday following their daughter’s murder when the team went to interview them. Frau Stiegl, a gaunt woman who wore her thinness like a martyr’s badge, sat stoically on a hardback chair at the kitchen table where Herr Stiegl had directed them.

He made up for his wife’s spareness by his generous girth which gave his body an ovoid appearance. He had the unlined features of a man naturally jovial, for whom the world presented opportunities rather than threats.

But now, with the loss of his daughter, he seemed cautious at every step, sitting on the edge of his chair as if it might collapse at any moment.

Such was the impression Werthen had of the couple, at any rate.

‘But why would someone want to kill my baby girl?’ Herr Stiegl said, his voice choking on the words.

‘That is what we intend to find out,’ Gross reassured him. ‘Not only why, but who.’

Gross waited a moment and then pressed on. ‘You assumed Monika was going to meet Herr Frank yesterday. Why was that?’

‘It’s what she told us,’ Herr Stiegl said. ‘Who else would she be meeting?’

‘They got along well, your daughter and Herr Frank?’ Gross asked.

‘They were a wonderful couple,’ the father said, but Frau Stiegl did not seem to share his opinion, shaking her head and muttering something unintelligible.

They had decided before arriving that Gross should take the lead in this interview; Werthen and Stoker were to look for reactions, nuances, any bit of personal behavior that might shed light on the affair. The ‘language of the body’ Gross called it, making such minute observations of witness behavior part of his techniques for inspectors. And if the time came when Gross needed to talk to one of the parents alone, Werthen would gently escort the other to view the victim’s room.

‘Frau Stiegl? You have something to add,’ Gross finally said.

‘He was a midge,’ she said with distaste.

‘Pardon?’ Gross said.

‘A midge,’ she repeated. ‘A pesky summer insect buzzing around our daughter.’

‘Now Klara—’ Herr Stiegl began, but his wife cut him off with a look that would sour dessert wine.

‘He wasn’t worthy of her. Study, study, that’s all he ever did. And dream. A great dreamer. But where was the proposal? that’s what I asked. Where was the commitment?’

‘You’re being too hard on the boy,’ Herr Stiegl said. ‘Wanting to do well at university does not make him a murderer. Besides, he was home all day yesterday. Police say so.’

‘Exactly,’ she spat out. ‘Home. When he should have been there protecting our daughter.’

Werthen and Gross exchanged looks. It was time.

‘Perhaps,’ Werthen said to the mother, ‘you could show us your daughter’s room. There may be some bit of evidence, some indication who she was really meeting.’

‘Police have already been through everything,’ she muttered. ‘Like a pack of wolves.’

‘Still,’ Werthen gently insisted, ‘they’re only human. They may have overlooked something.’

She clenched her jaw, stood up, and left the kitchen without a word, leaving Werthen and Stoker to scamper behind her.

‘She was our only child,’ Herr Stiegl said by way of apology after his wife had gone. ‘Do you have any children, Doktor Gross?’

Gross nodded heavily, thinking of his son Otto still being treated for drug addiction.

‘A son,’ he said. ‘I can understand how difficult this must be for you. But any information you can provide about your daughter, anything at all might help.’

‘It wasn’t Rainer,’ he said. ‘He really did love my daughter. But Klara is right. He
is
a dreamer. And a romantic. Monika told me he intended to take her to the Highlands of Scotland for their honeymoon. Only thing is, he forgot to propose marriage first.’ He gave a low laugh that soon turned into uncontrollable sobbing, his shoulders shaking, head buried in his hands.

Gross said nothing, offering no consolation. Finally Stiegl sniffed hard and dried his eyes.

‘That’s why she figured it was Rainer when she got the note. Just like him to set up a rendezvous at the castle.’

‘There was a note?’ Gross tried not to sound too excited.

Stiegl nodded. ‘Came in Saturday’s mail. She showed it to me, giggling at silly Rainer for writing it in a child’s hand. Telling her when and where to meet her on Sunday.’

‘From Rainer?’

‘Well, it wasn’t signed, but who else could it have been from? Who else would arrange such a place for a meeting, the maiden’s leap at Gösting Castle?’

‘Did you mention this to the police?’

This brought a shake of the head from Stiegl. ‘I didn’t think of it at the time. It was all such a shock. I just told them she was supposed to be meeting her boyfriend.’

‘Do you still have the note?’

Stiegl shrugged. ‘That was part of the game, see? Monika was supposed to bring the note with her to receive a prize. She thought Rainer finally meant to propose.’

‘So she took the note with her,’ Gross said.

‘She took the note all right.’ Then Stiegl paused. ‘But I think she left the envelope lying on the hall table where she opened it.’

Both their eyes went to the hallway at the same moment. From where they were sitting, they could clearly see the bit of white envelope still on the small hallway table. Gross looked at his reflection in the mirror above the table; there was the barest trace of a smile on his face.

After leaving the Stiegl apartment, they went to the Frank apartment to speak with Rainer Frank and ensure that he had not written a note to his sweetheart. An earnest young man with eyes that betrayed recent weeping, he assured them that he had done no such thing. He wanted only to get his hands on the maniac responsible for Monika’s death.

They double-checked his alibi and then proceeded to Monika Stiegl’s place of work, Kleinman and Brothers pharmaceutical firm in the heart of Graz. There they spoke with the girl’s supervisor and learned that she did have a sort of competitive friendship with another typist, a young woman named Hannah Vogel. When Hannah was introduced, it was evident she was hiding something. She could not look them in the eye and was most eager to return to work.

Werthen sensed that Gross was about to pounce, using his magistrate’s threatening tone to find out whatever she was holding back. And he also sensed that such an approach with this independent young woman would be counterproductive.

‘Perhaps we could have a word alone,’ Werthen quickly said to Hannah. ‘A coffee?’

Gross shot him a scornful look as Werthen escorted Hannah out of the tiny office where they were speaking with her, the girl’s supervisor also in attendance.

There was a café across the street from the pharmaceutical firm and there Werthen seated them at a corner table out of the traffic and away from other guests. He waited for the coffee to arrive and the waiter to be gone before he commenced.

‘You want to tell us something, I am sure. Monika was your friend …’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I mean, it may sound cruel to say so now she is dead, but I didn’t really care for her. Not my type. She was too flighty. It was just that we worked together and she was about the only other young person with a semblance of intelligence. We used to have vocabulary contests. Every week a new word. But friends …?’ She shook her head.

‘Still, I am sure you would want to tell us anything that might help us track her killer.’

Her cheeks reddened and she looked down into her coffee.

‘It is good that you are a typist, Fräulein Vogel. You would make a most miserable thespian or professional card player.’

This brought a faint smile to her face.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘We need any help we can get.’

‘It may not be anything,’ she finally said. ‘And it makes me look like a rotten person.’

‘I am not judging your behavior. Really.’

She took a deep breath. ‘All right.’

And then she proceeded to tell Werthen about one day last week when, after work, she determined to follow Monika Stiegl.

‘You see what I mean? It makes me appear to be a real cat. But she was always so secretive about her beau. She would never introduce him, and I wondered if perhaps she did not even have one. She let it be known that she was going to meet him for an early dinner that day, and I was just too curious. I had to see if this boyfriend were real or a fabrication to impress her colleagues.’

‘What did you see, Fräulein?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to get too close to her, you know. I didn’t want her to know I was following her, so I stayed about a block distant and would stop when she did to look in shop windows. And after a couple of blocks of this, I noticed this other person across the street who appeared to be doing the same thing. He stayed at least a block away but seemed to be following Monika just like I was.’

‘
He
?’

She nodded.

‘How long did this go on?’

‘Until Monika finally reached her restaurant. Her young man was waiting at the door for her and gave her a peck on the cheek. He was real, but no Prince Charming.’

‘And the man across the street?’

‘Oh, yes. He was there, as well. Paying special attention to both Monika and her young man. I left then. He sort of scared me the way he was looking at them.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No. I mean, I don’t think he was expecting somebody else to be following Monika.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘I didn’t get a good look at his face. He wore a hat with a wide brim, so his face was in shadow. He wasn’t a big man. Sort of middle sized. I don’t think you could pick him out of a crowd very easily. It was almost like he wanted to become part of the background. Medium weight, medium height. Sorry, nothing much more I noticed about him.’

‘I’m not sure what it shows,’ Gross said later as they were examining the envelope. ‘But it is the first real physical connection we have to the killer. The handwriting has obviously been disguised to resemble the unsteady penmanship of a child.’ In fact that writing seemed somehow familiar to Gross, but he could not tease out the link.

‘Even if the writing has been disguised,’ he continued, ‘there is the ink to examine and the envelope itself. Perhaps we can trace these to a stationery shop. And we also now have an inkling of how the killer may have lured the other victims. He managed to learn enough about each of these young women to fabricate notes that drew them to their deaths.’

‘That is a rather broad interpretation of the evidence, I would say, Gross.’ Magistrate Lechner sat at his desk at the Graz Praesidium where they had now set up an incident room for the killings. They were all playing on the same team, it seemed, and this was not simply because another murder had been committed while Gross cooled his heels in prison. After all, if Lechner wanted to press the point, he could claim that the criminologist had an accomplice or accomplices who carried out this latest act of savagery.

No, it was more than that, Werthen knew. Following Gross’s release, Werthen had heard the rumor that Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself had intervened, sending a note to Lechner to stop being a silly ass and work with Gross and company to solve these atrocities.

‘We know positively of only this one situation,’ Lechner added. ‘The other families mentioned no such notes.’

‘Neither did the Stiegls initially,’ Gross said. ‘Perhaps we need to re-interview the others.’

Lechner seemed less than impressed but said nothing. No one else was eager to fill the void either.

Werthen eyed Lechner cautiously. He did not trust the man and figured he was just waiting for Gross to somehow step in it and make a fool of himself. He had to resist the impulse to reach across the desk and wipe off the rouge from the man’s cheeks. It made him look like a circus clown.