Grave Intent (11 page)

Anton nodded proudly, missing the sarcasm in Jan’s voice. First that patio, now this supergrass. Jan was hoping the last property would offer up something, anything. He crossed Anton’s yard and came to a dark wood fence.

“Simon Illgen lives there with his wife and three kids,” Anton said.

The Illgen yard was a hodgepodge of toys and furniture. The swings hung crooked, hazardously so. The outdoor table and chairs looked like they had been pulled out of a Dumpster, and the little barbecue was a pockmarked heap of rust with only three legs. The patchy, weed-covered lawn looked no better, but it might provide him with a clue.

“Is anyone home?” Jan asked Anton.

“The kids are in school at this hour, Simon’s working, and his wife’s hanging out with her yoga teacher.” Anton winked at Jan suggestively.

Jan hopped the fence. He landed on a yellow plastic thing that must have once been a rubber ducky. It didn’t even release a final peep of despair. “What chaos,” he muttered.

He moved along the fence and came to a spot free of grass. There he found what he was looking for. Footprints. He knelt down, rolled a rubber ball to the side, and took a good look at the prints.

One could have come from military or hiking boots. The other appeared to be sizes bigger and was from a bare foot.

“Did you find something?” Anton asked from over the fence.

“I did,” Jan said, taking his cell phone out and calling the crime-scene techs. “Riddle solved.”

Ten minutes later, the Illgen family’s backyard was besieged by crime-scene techs. Next door, Anton had pulled up a lawn chair and observed the techs deploying, his eyes twinkling as if expecting them to find a corpse any minute now. Leaning on the fence, Jan watched them make an impression of the footprints. One of the techs came over to him, holding up a baggie with a pebble in it.

“Found these in the barefoot print. The pebble bored into skin, made a little wound. Enough blood to check DNA.”

“Compare that sample with Moritz Quast’s DNA. It has to be a match.”

The man nodded. “If I had to deduce height and weight from the footprint? It could fit Moritz Quast.”

“And the perpetrator?”

“Judging by the foot length, I’m guessing he’s about five feet eight. The depth points to a slim man. Both men planted their whole feet, so they weren’t running. Otherwise the steps would be farther apart, and the impressions up front would be deeper than from the heel.”

“Thanks.”

Anton came over to the fence. Jan put on his friendly face. He would have to ask the man a few more questions after all.

“Find something there?”

“The murderer might have left behind a footprint.”

“So he ran through my yard?” Anton gasped with excitement as if he’d just learned that aliens had used his flower bed as a landing pad.

“Possibly,” Jan said, wanting this nosy neighbor to stay that way. “From this we can deduce that the murderer parked his vehicle on the side street. Did you notice anything there after ten, when you went to bed?”

“No, unfortunately,” Anton lamented. “For noise protection, the city planted bushes and birch trees between the street and the Illgens’ property. It’s all sprouted up like weeds in the last few years. I wouldn’t even have seen a truck parked there. Not even from my balcony.”

Jan noted something down. The only thing left to do was the grinding slog of questioning all the neighbors in the area. He put his pad and pen away. “Thanks a ton for your help.” He shook Anton’s hand and turned to follow the path the murderer took, when Anton grabbed him by the arm.

“You don’t have a card?” he said.

“Don’t have what?”

“You know, one of those business cards with your number on it, in case a person finds out anything more. Maybe the murderer will return to the scene.”

Jan reached into his jacket and handed him a card. Anton stared at the piece of cardstock as if it had been consecrated by the pope.

“Thanks, Herr Tommen. You’ll be hearing from me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jan muttered under his breath. He followed the marked tracks through the yard, out to the street. He could only hope the murderer had left behind a few more clues.

Three hours later, Jan wearily sat down on a bench next to a bus stop. He had questioned all the neighbors, but no one had seen a thing. No suspicious car, no unusual characters, no Moritz Quast running around barefoot. Adding to his bad luck, the light on the side street had gone out, right where the murderer’s vehicle had likely been parked. He pointed that out to the crime-scene techs, certain that they would find the power cut or some other sabotage. And, of course, no fingerprints.

They were dealing with a master planner. Insane, to be sure, but well organized and not easily unnerved. Psychopaths like this were the toughest to catch.

Jan’s phone rang, interrupting his brooding.

“Herr Tommen, Johannes Arnold here. I’m one of the managers at Stahnsdorf Cemetery. I was asked to call you.” The man’s voice sounded anxious. He had probably never dealt with the police before.

“Thanks for your call,” Jan began, keeping it casual. He normally preferred to have conversations like this face-to-face. A person’s body language said much more than his words.

“I’m a little confused here, because one of your fellow officers already questioned me about the case.”

“In especially volatile cases we do two rounds of questioning, to play it safe,” Jan lied. He had no desire to wait for the report, and he wanted to get the lay of the land himself.

Jan wedged his cell phone against his shoulder and pulled out his notepad. “It’s just general stuff. Did you or a coworker see anything suspicious? This would be during the time from midnight till two in the morning.”

“I called the staff together this morning to get you the answers. The last man left the cemetery yesterday at seven fourteen in the evening. The first employee today arrived at three minutes after six a.m. No one noticed anything during his shift, and we can’t say for sure what time the grave was dug. The grounds cover nearly five hundred acres, so it’s impossible to monitor every grave site.”

“Do you have an idea how the grave was dug? Could the murderer have used some of the cemetery equipment?”

“We use an excavator. It sits locked away in an equipment hangar. It wasn’t used during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“And your shovels and axes?”

“Those are kept in a shed that’s locked up at night. The lock looks untouched, and as far as I can tell, none of the tools were taken or used.”

Jan noted down that the murderer brought his own tools. On the one hand, a man like this wouldn’t leave something like that to chance; on the other hand, it could look conspicuous to be seen heading into a cemetery with axe and shovel.

“What kind of clothing do you and your staff wear?”

“Typical gardening gear. Either green overalls in a cotton-polyester blend, with a short jacket in winter, or gray work trousers without suspenders. Some of us swear by safety shoes; for others they’re too clunky.”

“You wear any insignia on your clothing?”

“Insignia?”

“Emblems, patches, stickers. Something that identifies you as Stahnsdorf Cemetery staff?”

“Not much. Our work clothes wear out sooner than I have the resources to replace them. The other thing is, some of the cemetery care has been awarded to outside firms.”

“So a man in simple work clothes without patches wouldn’t look conspicuous?”

“Perhaps to me or a few of my coworkers. Certainly not to a visitor.”

Jan sighed. Now he was certain that the murderer had brought his own tools. But questioning Wednesday-night visitors to the cemetery wouldn’t tell him much. No one would give a second thought to a man wearing work clothes.

“We see,” Jan said, “that the grave was only dug out about a foot and half deep . . .”

“That’s still quite a lot. Normally, the deceased are interred at least six and a half feet down. But that can’t be done in one night with axe and shovel.”

“Why didn’t anyone notice that a grave was being dug at that hour?”

“No one goes to the cemetery at night, apart from a few whacked-out freaks. You won’t find a quieter place in all of Berlin.”

“Had a grave plot been assigned there?”

“No. No graves were supposed to be dug there, actually.”

“Did Moritz Quast acquire some other burial spot?”

“Herr Quast paid the fees for his parents’ grave site. We’ve had no other contact with him.”

Jan rapped on his pad with his pen. This was starting to drive him nuts. Either the murderer was a genius at improvising, or these homicides had been planned precisely and well in advance. Just like with Bernhard Valburg, the cemetery wasn’t going to offer any revelations.

“Thank you for your time, Herr Arnold. If I have any further questions, I’ll be in touch.”

“Glad to help.”

Jan hung up, leaned back on the bench, and closed his eyes. The leads were scant. Even the traces still to be analyzed weren’t going to bring them any closer to the murderer. Jan would have to rely on his own three investigators. They were meeting again at Chandu’s that night. Before that he had to finish another report, one that Bergman was not going to like.

He was just getting up from the bench when his phone rang a second time. He looked at the screen but couldn’t place the number. He hoped it wasn’t his new friend, Anton.

“Jan Tommen,” he answered.

“It’s David here. Fabian Gisker’s partner.”

“Hello there, David.” It was good to hear from the young man. One corpse was enough. He didn’t even want to think about a cop being murdered. “How’s your head?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“What about that stun you took from the murderer?”

“That wasn’t the murderer.”

“What?” Jan’s weariness vanished.

“You’re going to think I’m nuts. But I didn’t just imagine what I’m about to tell you.”

Jan was the last one to get to Chandu’s, his report having taken more time than he’d expected. He grabbed a beer off the table and sat down on the couch.

“Salami with extra cheese and pepperoni,” Chandu said, handing him a personal pizza box.

“You’re not cooking?”

“No time. I caught up on sleep and then had to take care of some business.”

“This works.” Jan took a slice from the box and sank his teeth into it.

“Find out anything?” Zoe asked with her mouth full. She managed to smoke, drink beer, and eat pizza all at the same time. Luckily her pizza was covered with garlic, which helped offset the cigarette smell.

“The fog is slowly lifting,” Jan replied. “The murderer got to Moritz Quast’s house by coming through the neighbors’ yards. No signs of a break-in were found, so he must have had a key to the back door. Moritz Quast was not into security, kept his windows open, and liked to throw parties, all of which made it easy for the murderer to get a key.”

“No one noticed it missing?” Max asked. He’d moved on from pizza to ice cream.

“The rear entrance is fitted with a standard pin lock,” Chandu said. “The murderer would only have needed an impression to make a duplicate.”

“Talking from experience?” Zoe asked.

“You bet.”

Jan continued: “Our perpetrator entered the home around eleven p.m. Then he woke Moritz Quast, went into the kitchen, flicked on the light. Which, in turn, made our patrol suspicious. Fabian went in the front and got the stun-gun treatment. David, who was supposed to be covering the rear door, heard a thud and ran around to the front entrance.”