Snow White Must Die (20 page)

Hartmut went into the milk room and over to the circuit breakers. Here the light worked, because this room was connected to the house circuit. Three breakers had tripped. He switched them back on, and at once the glaring floodlights came on above the doors of the stable and barn. Hartmut crossed the barnyard and uttered a low curse when he stepped in a puddle with his felt slipper.

“Tobias?” He stopped and listened. Nothing. The stable was empty, no sign of his son anywhere. He continued on. The wind tore at his hair, penetrating the mesh of his cardigan. He was freezing. The storm had scattered the heavy cloud cover, and scraps of cloud scudded rapidly past the half moon. In this pale light the three big containers that stood next to each other farther up the yard looked like enemy tanks. The feeling that something wasn’t right grew stronger when he saw that one side of the barn door was swinging back and forth in the wind. He tried to grab the door but it was torn away by a new gust, as if it had a life of its own. With all his strength Hartmut pulled it shut behind him. The floodlight went off only seconds later, but he knew his way around the farm in the dark and went straight to the light switch.

“Tobias!”

The fluorescent tubes hummed and flickered on, and at the same moment he saw the red graffiti on the wall.
WHOEVER WONT LISSEN MUST PAY
! He noticed the misspelling, then he discovered the crumpled form on the ground. The shock registered in his limbs so strongly that he started to shake. He stumbled across the barn, dropped to his knees, and saw with horror what had happened. Tears welled up in his eyes. They had tied Tobias hand and foot, and the cord around his neck was so tight that it had cut deep into his flesh. His eyes were blindfolded, his face and his naked torso showed clear signs of cruel abuse. It must have happened hours ago, because the blood had already congealed.

“Oh God, oh God, Tobi!” With trembling fingers Hartmut set about untying the cords. They had sprayed one word:
MURDERER
! in red paint on Tobias’s naked back. Hartmut touched his son’s shoulder and gave a start. His skin was ice cold.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Gregor Lauterbach was pacing restlessly in his living room. He’d already drunk three glasses of scotch, but the calming effect of the alcohol failed to materialize. All day long he’d been able to push aside the threatening contents of the anonymous letter, but as soon as he got home he was overcome by fear. Daniela was already in bed, and he hadn’t wanted to disturb her. For a moment he had thought of calling his lover and asking her to meet him at his apartment, as a form of distraction, but he quickly dismissed the idea. This time he had to deal with things by himself. He had also taken a sleeping pill and gotten into bed. But the ringing of the phone yanked him out of sleep at one in the morning. Calls at that time of night were never good news. He had lain in bed shivering in a cold sweat, as if unhinged by fear. Daniela had taken the call in her room, and a little later she came down the hall softly so as not to wake him. Not until the front door closed behind her did he get up and go downstairs. Sometimes she had to go out at night to visit a patient. He didn’t have her on-call schedule memorized. By this time it was a little after three, and he was getting close to a nervous breakdown. Who could have sent him the letter? Who knew about Snow White and him and the lost key ring? Good God! His career was on the line, his reputation, his whole life! If this letter or one like it fell into the wrong hands, it was all over. The press was just waiting for a nice juicy scandal. Gregor Lauterbach wiped his sweaty palms on his bathrobe. He poured himself another scotch, a triple this time, and sat down on the sofa. Only the light in the entry hall was on, in the living room it was dark. He couldn’t tell Daniela about the letter. Even back then he should have kept his mouth shut. She was the one who had built this house and paid for it seventeen years ago. With his small civil servant’s salary he never could have afforded a villa like this. It had amused her to take him, the humble high school teacher, under her wing and introduce him to the right social and political circles. Daniela was a very good doctor; in Königstein and the surrounding area she had plenty of very wealthy and extremely influential private patients who recognized and nurtured her husband’s political talent. Gregor Lauterbach owed everything to his wife. He’d been forced to make that painful admission when she had very nearly withdrawn her favor and support. His relief when she forgave him had been boundless. At the age of fifty-eight she still looked dazzling—a fact that kept causing him problems. Even though since that time they no longer slept together, he did love Daniela with all his heart. The other women who had flitted through his life and shared his bed were unimportant, offering no more than physical satisfaction. He didn’t want to lose Daniela. No, he
couldn’t
lose her! Under no circumstance. She knew too much about him, she knew his weaknesses, his inferiority complexes, and the excruciating attacks of fear of failure, which he managed to keep under control for the most part. Lauterbach gave a start when the key turned in the front door. He got up and dragged himself into the hall.

“You’re still up,” his wife said in astonishment. She looked calm and composed, as always, and he felt like a sailor on a rough sea who gratefully catches sight of the lighthouse in the distance.

She scrutinized him and sniffed. “You’ve been drinking. Has something happened?”

How well she knew him. He’d never been able to put anything past her. He sat down on the bottom step.

“I can’t sleep,” was all he said, omitting any explanation. All of a sudden and with a vehemence that shocked him, he longed for her motherly love, for her embrace, her consolation.

“I’ll give you a lorazepam,” she said.

“No!” Gregor Lauterbach stood up, staggered a bit, and reached out his hand to her. “I don’t want any pills. I want…”

He broke off when he saw her look of surprise. All at once he felt wretched and pathetic.

“What do you want?” she asked softly.

“I just want to sleep in the same bed with you tonight, Dani,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please.”

*   *   *

Pia Kirchhoff looked at the woman sitting across from her at the kitchen table. She had informed Andrea Wagner that forensics had released the mortal remains of her daughter Laura. Since the mother of the dead girl had seemed composed, Pia asked her a few questions about Laura and her relationship with Tobias Sartorius.

“Why do you want to know about that?” Mrs. Wagner asked suspiciously.

“For the past few days I’ve been examining the old documents in detail,” Kirchhoff replied. “And somehow I have the feeling that something was overlooked. When we told Tobias Sartorius that Laura had been found, I got the impression that he really didn’t know a thing about it. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to say that I consider him innocent.”

Andrea Wagner looked at her with a dull expression. For a while she said not a word.

“I’ve stopped thinking about all that,” she said then. “It’s hard enough to keep going with the entire village watching. My other two children had to grow up in the shadow of their dead sister, and I did everything in my power to make sure they had a fairly normal childhood. But it’s not easy with a father who drinks himself into a stupor every night at the Black Horse because he won’t accept what happened.”

She didn’t sound bitter; it was merely a statement of fact.

“I refuse to let that topic get to me anymore. Otherwise our whole life here would have fallen apart long ago.” She motioned toward a stack of paper on the table. “Unpaid bills, dunning notices. I work in the supermarket in Bad Soden so that the house and the cabinet shop won’t go into foreclosure. Then we’d wind up in the same situation as Hartmut Sartorius. Somehow things must go on. I can’t afford to live in the past the way my husband does.”

Kirchhoff said nothing. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen how a terrible event could throw the life of a whole family off the track and destroy it forever. How strong people like Andrea Wagner must be to get up morning after morning and keep on, with no hope of improvement. Was there anything at all in the life of this woman that made her happy?

“I’ve known Tobias since he was born,” Andrea Wagner went on. “We were friends with the family, as we were with everyone here in the village. My husband was in charge of the volunteer fire department and youth trainer at the sports club. Tobias was his best forward. Manfred was always very proud of him.” A smile flitted across her pale, careworn face, but vanished at once. She sighed. “No one would have believed Tobias was capable of such a thing, and I didn’t either at first. But you can’t tell what’s going on in a person’s head by looking them in the face, can you?”

“No, you’re quite right about that.” Kirchhoff nodded in agreement. The Wagner family had gone through enough bad times, God knows, and she didn’t want to open old wounds. Actually she had no basis for asking questions about a case that had been cleared up long ago. She simply had this vague feeling that bothered her.

She said good-bye to Mrs. Wagner, left the house, and walked across the neglected yard toward her car. From inside the workshop the screeching sound of a saw assaulted her ears. Pia stopped, then turned around and went over to open the door of the cabinet shop. It was only fair to tell Manfred Wagner that he would soon be able to lay his daughter to rest and finally put an end to a terrible chapter in his life. Maybe then he would somehow be able to regain his footing. He stood with his back to her at a workbench, pushing a board through a band saw. When he shut off the machine, Pia announced her presence. The man wasn’t wearing ear protection, only a slovenly baseball cap, and from the corner of his mouth drooped an extinguished cigarillo. He cast an unfriendly look in her direction before leaning forward to concentrate on another board. His baggy pants slipped down and Pia was faced with the unsightly view of the top of his hairy behind.

“What do you want?” he muttered. “I’m busy.”

He hadn’t shaved since their last meeting, and his clothes exuded the sharp smell of old sweat. Pia shuddered and took an involuntary step back. What must it be like to have to live day in and day out with such a slovenly man? Her empathy with Andrea Wagner grew stronger.

“Mr. Wagner, I was just speaking with your wife, but I also wanted to tell you in person,” Pia began.

Wagner straightened up and turned to face her.

“Forensics has…” Pia stopped short. The baseball cap! The beard! There was no doubt. Before her stood the man she’d been looking for from the still photo taken from the surveillance camera footage.

“What?” He stared at her with a mixture of aggression and indifference, but then he went pale, as if he’d read Pia’s mind. He shrank back, and his guilty conscience was written all over his face.

“It … it was an accident,” he stammered, raising his hands helplessly. “I swear to you, I didn’t want it to happen. I … I only wanted to talk to her, really!”

Pia took a deep breath. So she had been right to assume there was a connection between the attack on Rita Cramer and the events of September 1997.

“But … but … when I heard that this … this filthy murderer got out of the joint and was back here in Altenhain, then … then all at once the memories came rushing back over me. I thought about Rita, I know her well. We were friends before. I only wanted to talk to her so that she’d make sure that son of hers got out of town … but then she ran away … and she took a swing at me and hit me … and all at once … all at once I got so mad…”

He broke off.

“Did your wife know about this?” Pia wanted to know. Wagner shook his head mutely. His shoulders slumped.

“Not at first. But then she saw the photo.”

Naturally Andrea Wagner had recognized her husband, just as everyone else in Altenhain had. She had kept quiet to protect him. He was one of their own, a man who had lost his daughter in a most gruesome way. Maybe they even considered the misfortune he had dealt the Sartorius family as some sort of poetic justice.

“Did you think you’d get away with it because the whole village covered up what you’d done?” Any empathy Pia had felt for Manfred Wagner had been swept away.

“No,” he whispered. “I … I wanted to go to the police.”

Suddenly worry and anger overcame him. He slammed his fist onto the workbench. “That lousy murderer has done his time, but my Laura is dead forever! When Rita refused to listen to me, I saw red all of a sudden. And the railing was so low.”

*   *   *

Andrea Wagner stood in the courtyard with her arms crossed and watched as two police officers led her husband away. The look she gave him spoke volumes. There was no remnant of affection between them, much less love. The children had to be the only thing that kept them together, or maybe it was the duties of daily life, or the sheer impossibility of imagining a separation, but not much more. Andrea Wagner despised her husband, who chose to drown his sorrows and problems in alcohol instead of standing up and dealing with them. Pia felt real empathy with the sorely afflicted woman. The future of the Wagner family didn’t look any rosier than their past. She waited until the patrol car left the property. Bodenstein had already been notified and would talk to Wagner at the station later.

Pia got into her car, fastened her seatbelt, and turned the car around. She drove through the small industrial park, which consisted mainly of the Terlinden firm. Behind a tall fence there were large workshops scattered among neat lawns and parking lots. To get to the main building, a big semicircular structure with a high glass façade, the road led through barriers and gatehouses. Several trucks waited for admission at one of the gates, and on the other side one truck was being inspected by guards. The truck behind it honked. Pia had already put on her left-turn blinker to turn onto the B19 toward Hofheim, but then she decided to pay a brief visit to the Sartorius family and turned right instead.