The Bone Man (17 page)

A wonderful feeling actually, I’ve got to say, when a terribly complicated mess solves itself all of a sudden. For Brenner, it
was truly uplifting to understand it all so effortlessly in this relaxed state. Where normally a person would make too much of an effort, and precisely because of that, not understand.

In the two seconds that it took the old man to tear the cleaver out of the butcher block, what Helene Jurasic had told Brenner a few hours ago went running through his head again. That old man Löschenkohl didn’t demand any real service in return for his millions. Brenner could hear her voice so clearly now that you might’ve thought she was looking down from the smashed-in window and telling him the whole story again from up there.

How old man Löschenkohl would often come to her several times a week. And how he never asked anything of her. Except that she kneel before him and eat a bank roll of thousands. And how Helene Jurasic, in not even one year, had devoured Löschenkohl’s entire fortune. It was all going through Brenner’s head again now, while the old man struggled to pull his cleaver out of the butcher block.

Brenner understood now, too, that it had been Horvath’s lifelong dream to return as an ordinary waitress to East Styria. And these days, when your lifelong dream’s at stake, then you don’t just give up on it because of some slimy soldier recruiter. Besides, Horvath could understand why his boss, who’d got sent off to war himself at the age of sixteen, would make mincemeat out of the recruiter. And it was all just an unconfirmed suspicion anyway. And so, Horvath simply didn’t want to know for certain, and after that initial suspicion, never tried the fried pieces of meat again, but from that point on, sustained himself only on frankfurters. This, too, was going through Brenner’s head, as the old man gripped the front of the cleaver blade with
his left hand so that it’d be easier to pull it out of the butcher block.

In his relaxed state, it became clear to Brenner, too, that from the very beginning it hadn’t been the bone-grinder squealing beneath his window, but the walk-in freezer. And clear why Löschenkohl’s daughter-in-law had disappeared the very day she called Brenner. And that she’d had to die because she suspected something. A correct suspicion, alas. This is what was running through Brenner’s head—instead of his life flashing before his eyes—in those two seconds that he still had before Löschenkohl yanked the cleaver out of the butcher block.

Because it simply wasn’t true that the recruiter—who’d been given his walking papers so zealously by the old man six months ago—never showed up at Löschenkohl’s again. He just wasn’t recognizable anymore by the time the health inspectors picked him out of the bone-grinder. And when Rubber Manufacturer Marko was screaming at the waitress that he knew whose bones they were, old man Löschenkohl had to act fast, of course. Because Marko was a war profiteer himself, and he knew for a fact that the army recruiter had disappeared overnight.

Interesting, though, that a murderer can make so many mistakes, and nevertheless, can go uncaught for so long—this, too, was running through Brenner’s head now. Because he didn’t dispose of the recruiter’s bones very carefully. And then he wasn’t very successful with his daughter-in-law after she’d ordered the detective to his house.

And when he carved up Blackmailer Ortovic, he thought that, by depositing the head at the soccer club, he could shift suspicion onto Milovanovic, who’d just disappeared, but he
failed to reckon with Milovanovic. This, too, was still racing through Brenner’s head in the seconds before the old man finally tore the cleaver out of the block and raised it up over his head again.

Interesting, though! His headache had magically disappeared now that the old man was two feet away and aiming right for his skull.

And you see, that’s why I always say, you should never give up hope in this life. Old saying, just when you think it can’t get any worse, a beam of light—the light-beam’s only meant symbolically, though. Because in Brenner’s case, a beam of light would’ve been all wrong. Because a beam of light would’ve just presented Brenner’s head on a platter to old man Löschenkohl. And this, now, really interesting: the beam of light of hope for Brenner was that somebody had turned off the light in the freezer.

“Put the cleaver down, Father.”

Brenner could barely see Löschenkohl junior in the darkness. But he recognized his voice right away.

“And come out now,” Paul said to his father.

The old man listened to his son without protest. Paul turned the light back on now and asked Brenner, “Are you missing anything?”

“My finger.”

“That can be sewed back on,” Paul said. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Where exactly did you come from?” Brenner asked.

“From Little Joe’s. I wanted to pick up my car.”

“If you want to loan me your car one more time, I won’t be needing an ambulance.”

“The way I see it,” Paul said. And then he must have gone into shock, because in one glance, he took in his dead wife and the two other bodies in the freezer as if they were perfectly normal chicken and pig carcasses. And then he went upstairs with his father.

“Or you can call me an ambulance,” Brenner said.

“It’s fine,” Paul said. He looked as if he’d grown up overnight.

And Brenner, too, very calm, as if this wasn’t about his own finger at all. And to him, it really wasn’t about his finger, because he said to Paul now: “Do you know Manufacturer Marko, the art collector?”

“Yeah, him there by my wife.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Lived. In St. Martin. The old farmhouse on the edge of town.”

“Exactly. Send my ambulance there.”

“Why not here?”

But Brenner was already hurrying past Paul and his father, with his finger in one hand and the keys to the Porsche in the other. He ran quickly into the kitchen and bundled his finger in the plastic wrap that’s normally used for freeze-packing meat.

Then he got a few ice cubes out of the refrigerator, and put the ice cubes into a bag together with his shrink-wrapped finger. Because first aid, needless to say, always a class about that on the force, and so Brenner knew exactly what he had to do to keep his finger fresh so that it could be sewed back on later.

Then he was in the Porsche, and the steering wheel—instantly smeared with blood, of course, but what can you do.

When Brenner got to the intersection, he could already see a blue flashing light approaching from the left. He waited until the ambulance that was racing up from Radkersburg had passed him, and then he followed it.

Now, maybe it was because of his injury or because the ambulance was already driving so fast, but it was only by the skin of the Porsche’s teeth that Brenner could keep up with the ambulance. He was surprised that the ambulance drove with its blue flashing lights on the whole time because there wasn’t another car near or far, and so the blue flashing lights really weren’t necessary. Needless to say, the volunteers get a kick out of being able to follow emergency response protocol.

And then, they even turned on the sirens. At four-thirty in the morning! But Brenner didn’t have time to worry about disrupting Styria’s sleep. Because the ambulance was accelerating now. He didn’t let it shake him off, though. No, a certain ambition awoke in him, and he thought,
I’m not placing myself in the hands of a couple of Radkersburg volunteers
.

Then, the signs for St. Martin—speed limit through town’s fifty, but the ambulance and Brenner blew through St. Martin at one-hundred-fifty. And then, finally, at the very edge of town, Rubber Manufacturer Marko’s farmhouse.

And then, the ambulance stopped, and then, Brenner stopped, and then, the ambulance doors sprang open, left and right at the same time, and two people in uniforms hopped out—you would’ve thought they were riot police.

And then a thunderstorm, just awful, or, to be more specific, it went down like this: when the ambulance driver jumped out of his vehicle, he seemed familiar to Brenner right away. And
no wonder, because it was Franz Tecka, the middle-striker on FC Klöch. A bolt of a man, nearly as tall as old man Löschenkohl, nearly as wide as Brenner. His father was a carpenter’s assistant, his grandfather was a carpenter’s assistant, and his great-grandfather was a carpenter’s assistant. And what was Franz Tecka? Secretary at a warehouse.

Because, his father said, my boy should have it better, so Franz went to business school, and now, a job sitting at a computer. Energy like a steer, but all day long, only moves his fingers, so where does the energy go?

Usually soccer practice is good for that, but, in the game against Oberwart, Franz pulled the ligaments in his left knee. Now he just types all day—and no practice at night.

I’m only telling you this so that you might have a slightly better understanding of why Franz Tecka hopped out of the ambulance and rushed the Porsche like a madman and tore open the door.

Instead of screaming his head off, though, he was completely quiet. And maybe that was what Franz Tecka’s father always meant when he talked about felling trees. At the last moment before a tree falls over, total silence. Tecka was that quiet now—you could even hear the soft smack of his jaw when it dropped in surprise.

Because sitting in the Porsche was not Porsche Pauli, who’d just made the phone call. And whose face he wanted to scream into that it was strictly forbidden to drive behind an emergency vehicle, and where’d he get his driver’s license—a lottery? No, seated behind the blood-smeared steering wheel was the man with the hacked-off finger, who Paul had told him about on the phone. And Franz Tecka was wondering right
about now,
why was I driving like the devil from Radkersburg to St. Martin when the injured man was right behind me?

Needless to say, colossal misunderstanding. In a few words, Brenner explained to Tecka that he didn’t call the ambulance for himself but for the half-starved man in Manufacturer Marko’s farmhouse. But, naturally, the farmhouse was locked, and Brenner told Tecka he should kindly break into it.

But Tecka’s crew member, Paramedic Laireiter, was protesting now. Laireiter was actually the boss of the two of them, and quite correctly, he said, “Breaking down doors is out of the question. We’re not permitted to. It’d make us look bad legally.”

“Would you prefer to let the man inside starve?” Brenner shouted.

“How do you even know someone’s in there?” Laireiter said.

Brenner could tell right away that there was nothing to be done about Laireiter. With a stickler like him you could argue till the Second Coming. And on top of it all, Brenner felt like he couldn’t hold out much longer. Because, unbelievable, how much blood you can lose over a pinky finger. That’s why he turned back to Tecka now, “If you kick in the door right now, you can save a man’s life.”

But Laireiter immediately poked his nose back in: “We have to get the police. And then, the police will get the fire department. And the fire department will break down the door.”

But Brenner paid Laireiter no heed. He could tell that Tecka was itching to kick in a door, because his right foot was healthy, and in this day and age, the opportunity to break down a door just doesn’t come along every day.

“And if Marko turns himself in to me?” Tecka says.

“Marko can’t turn himself in to you, because he’s dead.”

“Who’s inside, then?”

“You’re about to find out. But if you don’t do it fast, it’ll be a dead body that you find.”

This was the day that Kindergarten Teacher Edith was startled awake at 4:44. Even though she usually slept especially well when she spent the night at Palfinger’s. But when she saw all the fours lit up on the clock radio, she thought:
so many fours, and I was probably only dreaming that a grenade just went off in front of the house
.

That was no grenade, though, just Franz Tecka’s foot, which, with a single kick, blew open the wooden door to Marko’s farmhouse.

Then, what else? Into the farmhouse, Brenner first, and Tecka behind him, and then, after heavy protest, Paramedic Laireiter. But no injured person in the kitchen, nor in the bedroom or the bathroom, and not upstairs, either.

“This is going to be awkward,” Laireiter kept saying, half-gloating, half-worried. “This is going to be awkward. You’re going to be waiting a pretty long time before you make rank.”

“To hell with it,” Tecka said, because he was supposed to earn the second point of his blue star on his uniform this summer, but it didn’t matter one bit to him now. Because kicking down doors was a feeling that no Star of Life can give you. But a person like Laireiter will never understand something like this.

And now Brenner comes over to Tecka and says, “I can’t find the key to the basement door.”

A moment later, Tecka had the basement door kicked down.

And it was in the basement that they found him. Nothing
but bones, and no sound coming from him, either. Tecka bent down and took his arm. Tecka’s thumb was almost as thick as Jacky’s forearm. It wouldn’t have surprised Brenner if there’d been a third crack, and Jacky’s arm snapped right in the plump hand of the Red Cross.

But Brenner wasn’t being fair to Tecka. Because, maybe a brute otherwise, but when it came to taking a pulse, he was delicacy
par excellence
. And he felt very carefully now for whether there was anything still stirring in Jacky.

And then, there was another crash after all. And Brenner was surprised that Laireiter was now suddenly making himself important again, by talking in an insistent tone of voice to the unconscious man.

Brenner didn’t understand, though, that the unconscious man wasn’t Jacky. And how was he supposed to understand. After all, he was the one who, in the next few minutes while under Laireiter’s care, would nearly die.

When Brenner returned to consciousness, he thought only two minutes had passed. And not two weeks, during which time his finger had grown back quite nicely. But, no wonder, he thought he was still in Marko’s basement.

“First you save my life, and then you leave me to die of boredom.” Brenner had no sooner opened his eyes than Jacky started in from his neighboring bed.