Morgue Drawer Four (6 page)

“He was supposed to fix my car, but he wangled me out of the money because he said he had to buy replacement parts. The beater ran after that, but a week later it wouldn’t start up again. So he took my money for parts again, and then it worked well for a week, but that was it. I asked a friend of mine to take a look at it, and he thought that there weren’t any new replacement parts in it at all.”

“And then?” Martin asked as Nina sucked on her cigarette butt, her anger heating up like a can of ravioli on the stove.

“So then he was supposed to sell the piece of junk for me, which he did, but then he told me he got only four hundred for it. Later on someone told me that was a lie, too; he’d actually gotten six hundred. So he stole two hundred euros from me, too.”

I kept my mouth shut. Nina was wrong, but I didn’t need to saddle Martin with that. I’d moved her car for a cool eight hundred. To a half-blind Turk who wanted to drive that bedpan on wheels back home to his brother-in-law in Anatolia. I suspect he didn’t even get it across the Rhine, but since he didn’t know my actual name, I didn’t really care. Incidentally, I used the extra four hundred to settle my gambling debts—and, as we well know, gambling debts are debts of honor. So it was an honorable thing, the story with Nina’s car.

“Would you have any reason to think that his death was connected with this, uh, auto sale?” Martin asked, and I was slowly but surely developing a deep disinclination toward questions that began with “Would you…”

“Uh-uh,” Nina said, stubbing out her cigarette. “Why would anyone have waited so long? He conned me over the car months ago now.”

“Well, then…” Martin mumbled, standing up. He had taken only two sips of his coffee, and he made no effort to finish the mug before he left. “Thank you very much,” he added, briefly shaking Nina’s hand, and walked out the door with his coat over his arm. I had to hurry to keep up.

“What did these enhanced interrogation techniques produce in terms of actionable information?” Martin asked in a tone that wavered between irritability and resignation once he was finally seated back inside his hamster wheel, having locked the world outside.

“It wasn’t her,” I said, because I had decided not to pepper him with criticism right away.

“How do you know that?”

“She can’t lie. If she had pushed me, it’d have been all over her face.”

Martin relaxed a little.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

Secretly I had to admit he was right, of course, but I needed him, so I sucked up to him a little. “Well, that was a pretty good start.” Somehow at that moment I felt glad that I didn’t have a face anymore because I couldn’t have kept a straight face at such a bald-faced lie otherwise. Even I’m not that good.

“Best you jot down some notes,” I suggested, because I didn’t have any idea what the memory capacity of a disembodied corpse is. Martin nodded.

“And then take me back to the Institute,” I added. Of course, I didn’t feel like spending a boring night inside Morgue Drawer Four, but I was smart enough not to ask Martin for anything else tonight. And his reaction confirmed I was right. When the scope of my request really seeped into his brain, he quickly started nodding with such enthusiasm I was worried his head would shake right off his neck. The man urgently needed a break. He put the car into gear and drove to the Institute. As we were just stepping through the main entrance, a man walked up to us from inside, and it turned out this guy was Martin’s best friend and a true-blue plainclothes.

“Hello, Gregor. Did you bring me some new work?” Martin asked, vigorously shaking his counterpart’s hand.

“No, our attractive new colleague is on this one,” Gregor answered. He gave a wide and, as I soon realized, slightly suggestive grin. “The lovely Katrin.”

Ah ha! On mention of this name I sorely missed my erectile tissue as Martin recalled the embarrassing situation in the break room.

“She said you seemed a bit confused today,” Gregor said, scrutinizing him.

“Well, of course,” I interjected. “With a dream woman like that, the arrow always wants to hit its target, so there’s nothing but white noise inside the skull.”

Martin gave an answer along the same lines, content-wise at least, and Gregor scrutinized him even closer.

“Are you falling for Katrin’s charms? Wow, that’s a new one,” he answered. “What about Birgit?”

“Birgit?” I echoed.

“Yes, uh, of course I’m actually not that interested in Katrin, but rather in Birgit, although you knew that already.”

At the moment, unfortunately, Martin’s articulacy (another word he taught me) left a lot to be desired. Gregor’s face was growing more and more skeptical.

“Say,” Martin began, “are there still any investigations open on that accident on the overpass bridge at the construction site? That man who fell off it?”

Gregor shook his head. “No evidence of foul play. Why? Isn’t the autopsy report complete? Did you guys find something after all?”

“Uh, no.” Martin’s eyes evaded his friends’.

“Why the interest in that case?” Gregor asked.

“Oh, actually it doesn’t interest me that much at all,” Martin retorted. His answer sounded like a bad lie, because that’s exactly what it was.

Luckily Gregor glanced at his watch just then. “Unfortunately I’ve got to get going. Do you want to grab a beer again sometime? Tomorrow, or the day after?”

Martin nodded, stepped out of his way, and exhaled as his friend jogged down the front steps.

“Can you manage OK by yourself from here?” Martin asked me, and I said yes. The sense of relief spreading through him overwhelmed me like a big, warm wave. That relief included his certain expectation that the natural place for me to sojourn would be here in the basement of this institute and that he would be freed from my presence once he left.

I let him persist in this belief for the time being.

My night was totally boring once again, the way nights do tend to be when you’re surrounded by nothing but soulless corpses lying around. What, you didn’t know? Eh, you haven’t missed much. I tried to lure other wandering ghosts up and out, but I couldn’t find any clues that other spirits were present. The question why I in particular was stranded here occupied me only briefly. I’ve never had much left over for philosophical crap, and so I preferred moldering around a little instead of seeking answers to the important questions of life and death.

Why the hell weren’t there any TV sets down here, actually? Fine, the answer was admittedly obvious, because corpses stored in refrigerated morgue drawers typically do not require any diversion of that type. But now I found myself in a special situation, and I actually wouldn’t have objected at all to having the constant, mind-numbing stream of the boob tube on for company, because sleep was out of the question.
Sleepless in Morgue Drawer Four
, I thought, trying to imagine how a romantic comedy could arise from this material, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I think sawed-up corpses may not really make good stars for romantic comedies. As you can see, my thoughts were getting more and more idiotic, and just hanging out was getting more and more boring, so I went in search of a television. I found one in a conference room, but it was turned all the way off. So off that even the standby light wasn’t on. Since I no longer possessed any fingers I might have used to depress the power button, I spent a while cooing around the beautifully designed appliance, but I soon had to concede this wasn’t going to get my any further, and so I left the conference room. I had better luck in another room. There was a TV on standby. I tried to switch the set on with my electromagnetic waves—because I had heard about things like that at some point. Pulses of thought are really electromagnetic waves, or something along those lines. And things like cell phones, computers, and maybe, with just a little luck, televisions have something to do with those waves, too. So I focused my thoughts on switching the TV on. I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll briefly summarize the result of my efforts: it didn’t work. Still, I’d killed some time (funny way to word that, don’t you think?), and so now I didn’t have to wait so long for the return of my noble forensic pathologist/knight.

At the start of the work day, Martin came into the basement and asked in his thoughts, Everything OK with you? And he then apologized that he had a ton of work to do and didn’t have time for me just now. I felt his relief when I said that wasn’t a problem, he shouldn’t give any thought to me, just get his important work done. He trotted out, and I after him. Of course I should have left him in peace, but I already had a totally boring night behind me, and I wanted some action! I firmly resolved not to put him in any embarrassing situations, and I followed him without making myself noticed. And that ended up working out really well.

I’ve written hardly a positive word about Martin so far, and back at the moment when I started tailing him to escape my boredom I hadn’t really anticipated feeling the need to do so, either. But now, since I’ve not only brought Martin’s life to the brink of catastrophe but also put him right in the thick of things, I feel compelled to clear a few things up.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of seeing someone you’ve never met before and just knowing at a glance if they’re a cheerful or grumpy type. Martin is one of the cheerful ones. His face tells you right away that he likes to laugh, and the way his colleagues said hi to him on this morning showed me that people like him. A guy named Jochen came over to Martin’s desk and laid an old, handled-to-death city map onto the desk, and he said he’d brought it back for Martin from his trip out of town over the weekend. Martin picked up the map, unfolded it, studied it, and thanked Jochen effusively.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

“At the flea market,” Jochen explained, his chest puffed out with pride.

(Yes, we’re talking here about an old city map—a thing that shows streets and train lines and buildings and all that.)

“It’s a true rarity,” Martin said enthusiastically.

Jochen patted him on the shoulder again, assuring Martin that the pleasure was entirely his, and he accepted Martin’s repeated thanks with a grin. If I still had a mouth, then it’d have been gaping so wide open you could shove an entire XXL Burger Value Meal sideways into it. With fries. And dessert. But I pulled myself together; I didn’t want to irritate him, which was exactly why I had undertaken not to let him sense my presence, so I kept my trap shut. But it was hard, let me tell you.

The day had nothing interesting to offer; Martin wrote reports—or, more accurately: he dictated them. I had never seen something like that before, so I stayed with him for quite a while watching. His computer has a program that recognizes speech. Because I’ve learned what that means since then, obviously, I can quickly explain it to you now: you speak into the microphone attached to your headset, which is also connected to the computer, and then the computer types what you say all by itself. Crazy, right? Imagine a typing pool in an office, like at a lawyer’s office or something. In the olden days the typists would all be putting their special finger skills to the test, but nowadays the women are all sitting there wearing headsets that ruin their hair, hands resting lazily in their laps, and they just mutter out their letters, memos, and reports, which the computers type.
INSANE
!

Anyways, Martin was prattling out his endless reports, and the computer was diligently taking everything down. Impressive technology. Of course, a proper soccer match would’ve held my attention more, and longer, but no one seemed to be using a computer for anything even remotely interesting in this office building. No softcore porn on the Internet, no hot chats with anonymous representatives of large religious communities, and no gambling. Not even harmless things like flight simulators or car racing. Just reports, reports, reports. So I soon lost interest and started cruising around the offices aimlessly, wiling away the time and finding my passive existence somewhat bleak. Sure, I was able to take a look around in the women’s bathroom and stare at the women’s panties without them noticing anything. I practiced going through the wall a bit and was happy about the slight tickle I felt when I whooshed through the wall into the break room and landed in the microwave. But I couldn’t get a cup of coffee for myself—which, due to the tight spatial situation in front of the coffee machine, could’ve been pretty interesting at times. Specifically, if some piece of skirt were standing in this corner of the break room, there would basically be no way to avoid a full body check. The break room’s interior designer must have been a pretty clever guy. Anyways, I’d have enjoyed squeezing past some lab coat booty in front of the coffee machine, but then I remembered: no body, no check. No luck!