Snow White Must Die (26 page)

The leader of the search party had reported finding Amelie’s backpack. It was lying in some bushes between the parking lot of the Black Horse and the church—not far from the bus stop where Dr. Lauterbach had picked up Tobias Sartorius on Saturday night.

“It was the same thing eleven years ago,” said Pia pensively as she drove the few yards over to where the backpack was found. “Tobias had been drinking and blacked out. The prosecutors and the court didn’t believe him.”

“Do you believe him?” asked Oliver. Pia thought about it. Tobias Sartorius acted like he was telling the truth. He liked the neighbor girl. But hadn’t he also liked the two girls he murdered ten years ago? Back then jealousy was involved, and wounded vanity. As far as Amelie was concerned, that wasn’t the case. Had the girl actually found out something that was directly connected to the old crime, or had Tobias Sartorius made that up?

“I can’t judge findings in the old case,” she replied. “But today, I don’t think Tobias was lying to us. He really doesn’t remember.”

Oliver refrained from commenting. He had learned to appreciate his colleague’s intuition over the years, since it had often put them on the right track. His gut feelings, on the other hand, had more often led them hopelessly astray. But he didn’t believe that Tobias Sartorius was innocent—either of the two homicides, or the events of today.

The backpack contained Amelie’s wallet, her iPod, makeup kit, and all sorts of junk, but no cell phone. One thing was for sure: She hadn’t run away from home. Something must have happened to her. The sniffer dogs had lost the scent at the parking lot and were now waiting impatiently with their handler for the next deployment, which for them was an exciting game. Pia, who had the layout of the village clear in her mind thanks to the map she’d drawn, spoke with the officers who were gradually assembling at the parking lot. The door-to-door questioning had turned up nothing helpful.

“The dog found some traces at the edge of the woods, everywhere on the street where the girl lives, at the neighbors’ house, and at their garden house,” the search leader reported.

“Which neighbors?”

“The Terlindens,” said the officer. “The woman told us that Amelie came often to visit her son. So it may be a cold trail.” He seemed disappointed. Nothing was as discouraging as a search with no result.

*   *   *

Kai Ostermann succeeded in cracking the password to Amelie’s computer. He took a look at the browsing history of the Web sites Amelie had visited lately. Contrary to his expectations she was seldom active in popular social sites like Facebook and MySpace. She did have user profiles all over the place, but she didn’t update them and didn’t have very many contacts. But she had done extensive research on the old murder cases from 1997 and the sentencing of Tobias Sartorius. In addition, she was interested in the residents of Altenhain and had entered names in various search engines. She seemed to have a particularly strong interest in the Terlinden family. Ostermann was disappointed. He had hoped to come across some chat partner or some other suspicious Internet acquaintance, something that would have led to a concrete lead.

The meeting called on short notice by Bodenstein, at which twenty-five people squeezed into the conference room of K-11, turned out to yield very little. The search had been halted at nightfall without result. Thanks to the infrared camera in the chopper they had discovered a pair of lovers in a car in a hidden woodland parking spot, and a deer in a death struggle that had escaped a hunter after a bad shot, but no sign of Amelie. They had spoken with the driver of the 803 bus from Bad Soden to Königstein, who had made a stop by the church in Altenhain, as well as with his colleague, who had passed by going the other way a short time later. Neither of the two men had noticed a dark-haired girl. None of the taxi companies in the area had had a lone girl as a fare in that time period. One of the colleagues from K 23 had located a man who’d been walking his dog late Saturday night and saw a man sitting on the bench at the bus stop, sometime around twelve thirty.

“We ought to search the Sartorius house and property,” Behnke suggested.

“What for? There’s no reason to do that,” Kirchhoff countered at once, although she knew that wasn’t completely true. Unfortunately, things didn’t look good for Tobias Sartorius. His friends had confirmed that he showed up at the garage around seven o’clock. Jörg Richter had called him late that afternoon to invite him over. Tobias had a few drinks, but not enough to make him black out. Around ten he had left the garage, quite suddenly. At first they thought he just went outside to take a leak, but he never came back.

“A seventeen-year-old girl has disappeared, and she’s been proven to have had contact with a man convicted of killing two girls,” Behnke sputtered. “I have a daughter that age, so I can understand what must be going through the parents’ minds!”

“Do you think somebody has to have kids to understand what her parents must be feeling?” Pia snapped back. “And as long as you’re proposing searches, why don’t you have Terlinden’s house searched too? The dogs found tons of traces there.”

“That’s true, actually,” Bodenstein put in, before things between the two wound up in an argument in front of the whole team. “But Amelie’s stepmother said that the girl often spent time at the neighbors’ house. So it’s questionable whether the traces we found have any relevance to the case.”

Pia said nothing. Tobias had asked his father to tell the truth, although he must have known that it might tend to incriminate him. He should have kept quiet or used his father as an alibi as Hartmut had first tried to do. Had he refused to lie because it hadn’t worked the first time?

“I think Amelie discovered something that has a direct connection to the old case,” she said after a moment. “And I also believe that several people have an invested interest in making sure certain secrets don’t come out.”

“Nonsense.” Behnke shook his head emphatically. “This guy obviously loses control when he drinks. He left the party, Amelie happened to run into him, and he bumped her off.”

Pia raised her eyebrows. As usual, Behnke tended to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator.

“And what did he do with her body? He didn’t have a car.”

“So he claims.” Behnke nodded toward the whiteboard. “Take a look at the girl.”

Everyone automatically turned to look at the photo of Amelie that was tacked up on the bulletin board.

“She looks a lot like the kid that he killed in 1997. The guy is sick.”

“All right then,” Bodenstein decided. “Fachinger, you take care of the search warrants for the Sartorius house, car, and property. Kai, you keep working on the diary. The rest of you please remain available. We’ll resume the search tomorrow morning at eight and expand the radius.”

With a scraping of chairs the team adjourned. The mood was still one of muted optimism. The majority of the officers were in agreement with Behnke and hoped for results from the search of the Sartorius house. Pia waited until her colleagues had left the conference room, but before she could speak to her boss and present her reservations, Dr. Nicola Engel entered the room with two men in suits and ties.

“Just a moment,” she said to Behnke, who was about to leave. Pia caught the eye of Kathrin Fachinger and they left the room together.

“Ms. Fachinger? Please wait outside for me.” With that Dr. Engel closed the door behind them.

“Well,” said Kathrin in the lobby. “Now I can’t wait to see what happens.”

“Who was that?” Pia asked, astounded.

“Internal Affairs.” Kathrin actually seemed pleased. “I hope they tear that shithead a new asshole.”

Only then did Pia recall the incident with Behnke working in the bar, and Kathrin’s unsuccessful refusal to be his partner in the investigation.

“So how did he act toward you today?” she asked.

Kathrin only raised her eyebrows. “I probably shouldn’t tell you anything,” she replied. “He was absolutely disgusting. He chewed me out in front of everybody like some stupid girl. I kept my mouth shut. I’ve got only one thing to say: If he gets away with it this time, I’m going to ask for a transfer. I won’t put up with any more crap from that jerk.”

Pia nodded. She knew where Kathrin was coming from. But she had a hunch that this time Frank Behnke wasn’t going to get off lightly. Dr. Engel seemed to hold some sort of grudge against him from the time they’d worked together at K-11 in Frankfurt. Things didn’t look good for their colleague Mr. Asshole, and she wasn’t sorry about that at all.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The newspaper lay open before him on the desktop. Another girl had disappeared in Altenhain, shortly after the skeleton of Laura Wagner was found. Lars Terlinden was well aware that sitting in his glass office he was highly visible from the trading room and his outer office, so he resisted the impulse to bury his face in his hands. If only he had never returned to Germany! In his greed for more money he had left his high-salary job as a derivatives broker in London and had taken a position in management for a large Swiss bank in Frankfurt. That had caused quite a stir in the banking profession, because he was only twenty-eight years old. But everything led to success for the “German Wunderkind,” as
The Wall Street Journal
called him—and he was under the illusion that he was the biggest and best. But he’d been jolted back to reality, and from now on he would have to look his past in the eye and acknowledge what he had done out of cowardice.

Lars Terlinden uttered a deep sigh. His only mistake of any lasting consequence had been to secretly follow them home from the fair, driven by the insane need to confess his love to Laura. If only he had let it be! If only he had … He shook his head vehemently, folded up the paper, and tossed it in the wastebasket. It was no use brooding over the past. He needed to put all his attention on the problems confronting him at the moment. There was too much at stake for him to be distracted by all this old stuff. He had a family to think of and loads of financial obligations that he could only meet with great difficulty in these times of economic crisis. The gigantic villa in the Taunus had not been paid off, or the vacation home on Mallorca, and the lease payments for his Ferrari and his wife’s station wagon were due every month. He felt caught in a spiral again, just like back then. And he could feel more and more clearly that this current spiral was hurling him downward at breathtaking speed. To hell with Altenhain!

*   *   *

For the past three hours Tobias had been sitting in front of the building on Karpfenweg and staring into the water of the harbor basin. He wasn’t bothered by the unpleasant cold or by the skeptical looks of the residents of the building who suspiciously scrutinized his battered face as they passed by. He couldn’t stand being at home anymore, and he couldn’t think of anyone to talk to but Nadia. And he had to talk or he was going to explode. Amelie had disappeared. In Altenhain the police were turning over every rock in a huge search effort, just as they’d done before. And once again, he thought he was innocent, but doubt gnawed at him with sharp little teeth. The damned alcohol! He was never going to touch a drop again. He heard heels clicking behind him. Tobias raised his head and recognized Nadia coming toward him with rapid steps, her cell phone at her ear. All of a sudden he asked himself whether he would even be welcome. Her stylish appearance merely amplified the oppressive feeling of inadequacy that came over him every time he was with her. He felt like a bum in his worn, cheap leather jacket and with his beat-up face. Maybe it would be better to get out of here and never come back.

“Tobi!” Nadia put away her phone and hurried to him with a horrified expression. “What are you doing out here in the cold?”

“Amelie is missing,” he said. “The police have already been to my house.”

With effort he stood up. His legs felt like ice and his back hurt.

“Why?”

He rubbed his hands and blew on them.

“Once a killer of girls, always a killer of girls, you know. Besides, I have no alibi for the time when Amelie disappeared.”

Nadia stared at him. “Let’s go inside.” She pulled out her key and opened the street door. He followed her, walking stiffly.

“Where were you?” he asked as they rode up to the penthouse in the glass elevator. “I’ve been waiting a couple of hours outside.”

“I was in Hamburg. You know that.” She shook her head and laid her hand on his, concerned. “You really ought to get yourself a cell phone.”

He finally remembered that Nadia had flown to Hamburg on Saturday for a film shoot. She helped him out of his jacket and shoved him toward the kitchen.

“Sit down,” she said. “First I’ll make you some coffee to warm up with. My goodness!”

She tossed her coat over the back of a chair. Her cell rang with a polyphonic ringtone, but she ignored it and kept on fiddling with the espresso machine.

“I’m really worried about Amelie,” Tobias said. “I have no idea what she really found out about the old case or who she may have talked to about it. If anything has happened to her, it will be all my fault.”

“You didn’t force her to sniff around in the past,” Nadia replied. She set two cups of coffee on the table, got some milk from the fridge, and sat down facing him. Without makeup, the violet shadows under her eyes made her look exhausted.

“Come on now.” She put her hand on his. “Drink your coffee. And then you’re getting in the bath to thaw out.”

Why didn’t she understand what was going on inside him? He didn’t want to drink any shitty coffee or take a shitty bath! He wanted to hear from her lips that she believed he was innocent, and then get her help to figure out what could have happened to Amelie. Instead she was talking about coffee and warming him up, as if it made any difference.

Nadia’s cell rang again, then a little later, the landline. With a sigh she got up and took the call. Tobias stared into space. Although the detective had obviously not believed him, he was more worried about Amelie than about himself. Nadia came back, stepped behind him, and flung her arms around his neck. She kissed his ear and his unshaven cheek. Tobias had to stop himself from trying to pull free. He was in no mood for affection. Couldn’t she tell? He got goose bumps when she ran her finger along the mark on his throat that the clothesline had left. To make her stop, he grabbed her wrist, shoved his chair back, and pulled her onto his lap.