The Ice Queen: A Novel (39 page)

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The headquarters of KMF was located close to the tax office on the Nordring in Hofheim. Bodenstein had decided not to give Siegbert Kaltensee advance notice of their arrival, and he presented his ID to the guard without comment. A man in a dark uniform stared without expression into the car and then raised the barrier.

“I’ll bet you a month’s salary that we’ll find the men who attacked Nowak over there,” Pia remarked, pointing to an inconspicuous building with a discreet sign that read
K-SECURE.
In the fenced parking lot were several VW buses and Mercedes vans with tinted windows. Bodenstein slowed down and Pia read the text on several vehicles:
K-Secure—Protection for Valuables, Property, and Personnel—Transport of Money and Assets.
The scratches from the concrete planter in front of Auguste Nowak’s house had certainly been long since repaired, but they were on the right track. The crime lab had definitively linked the paint traces to a product used on Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Siegbert Kaltensee’s secretary, who had made it effortlessly to the final round of
Germany’s Next Top Model,
told them it would be a long wait—her boss was in an important business meeting with clients from overseas. Pia responded to her condescending look with a smile and wondered how anyone could walk around all day with heels that high.

Siegbert Kaltensee had apparently decided to leave his overseas clients, as he appeared within three minutes.

“We’ve heard that you’re planning some changes with respect to the firm,” said Bodenstein after the secretary had served them coffee and mineral water. “It’s our understanding that you now want to sell what you couldn’t sell before because some of the shareholders exercised their veto power.”

“I don’t know where you got this information,” Siegbert Kaltensee replied calmly. “But the matter is more complex than it was probably portrayed.”

“Yet it’s true that you did not have a majority backing your plan. Am I right?”

Siegbert Kaltensee smiled and leaned his elbows on the desk. “What are you driving at? I hope you don’t think that I had Goldberg, Schneider, and Anita Frings killed in order to acquire their shares as CEO of KMF.”

Bodenstein also smiled. “Now you’re the one who’s oversimplifying the matter. But my question was leaning in that direction.”

“Actually, we had the company appraised by an auditing firm a few months ago,” said Siegbert Kaltensee. “Naturally, there are always investors interested in a healthy, well-established firm that is also the worldwide market leader in its field and possesses a hundred patents. The evaluation was done not because we want to sell, but because we plan to go public in the near future. KMF will be completely restructured in order to conform to the requirements of the market.”

He leaned back.

“I’ll turn sixty this fall. No one from the family shows any interest in the company, so sooner or later I’ll have to turn over the helm to a stranger. I’d like to remove family ownership from the firm before that happens. I’m sure you know about the stipulation in my father’s will. At the end of this year, its validity will lapse, and then we can finally alter the organizational structure of the business. From a limited company a corporation will be formed, and that will take place within the next two years. None of us will make millions from our shares. Naturally, I have personally and extensively informed all shareholders about these plans, including, of course, Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Schneider, and Mrs. Frings.”

Siegbert Kaltensee smiled again.

“By the way, that was the reason for the conversation last week at my mother’s house when you came and asked us about Robert.”

It all sounded perfectly logical. Siegbert’s and Jutta Kaltensee’s motive for murder, which neither Bodenstein nor Pia had ever considered especially viable, now evaporated.

“Do you know Katharina Ehrmann?” Pia asked.

“Of course,” Siegbert Kaltensee said with a nod. “Katharina and my sister Jutta are close friends.”

“Why was Ms. Ehrmann given company shares by your father?”

“I don’t really know. Katharina spent part of her childhood at Mühlenhof. I assume that my father wanted to annoy my mother.”

“Did you know that Katharina Ehrmann has a relationship with Thomas Ritter, your mother’s former assistant?”

A furrow of displeasure appeared on Kaltensee’s face.

“No, I didn’t know that,” he admitted. “But it really doesn’t matter to me what that man does. He’s a bad egg. Regrettably, it took my mother a long time to realize that he had always tried to set her against the family.”

“He’s writing a biography about your mother,” Bodenstein said.

Kaltensee coolly corrected him. “He
was
writing it. Our lawyers have stopped it. Besides, he signed a contract when his employment ended, agreeing to maintain silence about all internal family matters.”

“What will happen if he contravenes it?” Pia asked, curious.

“The consequences for him will be exceedingly unpleasant.”

“Why, exactly, are you opposed to a biography of your mother?” Bodenstein inquired. “She’s a remarkable woman with a splendid record of achievement.”

“We don’t really have any objections,” replied Kaltensee. “But my mother would like to choose her own biographer. Ritter has dug up all sorts of abstruse stuff, purely to take revenge on my mother for the supposed injustice he suffered.”

“For example, that Goldberg and Schneider were former Nazis and had assumed false identities?” Pia asked.

Siegbert Kaltensee smiled again noncommittally. “In the lives of numerous successful entrepreneurs from the postwar period, you will find connections to the Nazi regime,” he retorted. “Even my father doubtless profited from the war, because his firm was in the arms business. That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?” Bodenstein asked.

“Ritter is making wild accusations that meet the criminal definition of libel and defamation of character.”

“How can you know that?” Pia inquired.

Siegbert Kaltensee shrugged and said nothing.

“It has come to our attention that at one time your brother, Elard, was suspected of having pushed your father down the stairs. Does Ritter also write about that in his book?”

“Ritter’s not writing a book,” replied Siegbert Kaltensee. “Apart from that, I believe to this day that Elard was responsible. He could never stand my father. The fact that he received shares in the firm is simply preposterous.”

His smooth, self-confident facade was showing its first cracks. What was the reason for such blatant dislike of his older half brother? Was it jealousy over his looks and his success with women, or was there more to it?

“Elard’s been profiting for decades from my work, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yet in his eyes, the business of this company is merely a contemptible, empty chase after base mammon.” He laughed caustically. “I’d love to see my high-principled, sensitive brother try to live without money and have to depend solely on his own abilities. The art professor is not particularly well equipped to cope with real life.”

“Like Robert Watkowiak?” asked Pia. “Doesn’t his death affect you at all?”

Siegbert Kaltensee raised his eyebrows and retreated to his nonchalant attitude.

“To be honest, no, it doesn’t. I’ve been ashamed often enough that he was my half brother. My mother was lenient with him for too long.”

“Maybe because he was her grandson,” Bodenstein remarked in passing.

“Pardon me?” Kaltensee straightened up.

“In the past several days, we’ve been hearing about various matters,” said Bodenstein. “Including the fact that in reality it was
you
who was Watkowiak’s father. His mother was your parents’ maid, and when they got wind of this ill-advised relationship, you were sent off to America. Then your father took the blame upon himself.”

Siegbert Kaltensee was left literally speechless by this accusation. He rubbed his hand nervously over his bald pate.

“My God,” he muttered, and stood up. “I did actually have an affair with my parents’ maid. Her name was Danuta. She was a couple of years older than I and very pretty.”

He paced up and down in his office.

“I was serious about her, the way it is when you’re fifteen or sixteen. My parents, naturally, were not thrilled and sent me to the States to take my mind off things.”

All of a sudden, he stopped cold.

“By the time I returned nine years later with my degree, a wife, and a daughter, I had completely forgotten about Danuta.”

He went over to the window and stared out. Was he thinking about all the rejections and failings that had driven his alleged half brother first into criminality and then to his death?

“How is your mother doing, by the way?” Bodenstein asked, changing the subject. “And where is she? Because we urgently need to speak with her.”

With a pale face, Siegbert Kaltensee turned around and again sat down behind his desk. He began absentmindedly doodling with a ballpoint on a pad of paper.

“No one can talk to her right now,” he said softly. “The events of the past few days have taken a terrible toll on her. The murders that Robert committed, and finally the news of his suicide, were simply too much for her to bear.”

“Watkowiak didn’t commit the murders,” said Bodenstein. “And his death was not a suicide. The autopsy definitively concluded that he died as a result of actions by some unknown perpetrator.”

“The actions of an unknown perpetrator?” Kaltensee said in disbelief. The hand holding the ballpoint pen was trembling. “But who … and why? Who would want to murder Robert?”

“That’s what we’re asking ourselves. Next to his body we found the weapon used to kill his girlfriend, but he didn’t do it.”

In the silence, the phone on the desk rang. Siegbert Kaltensee picked up the receiver, brusquely announced he was not to be disturbed, and hung up.

“Do you have any idea who might have killed your mother’s three friends or what the number one one six four five might mean?”

“That number doesn’t ring a bell,” replied Kaltensee, and then he thought for a moment. “I don’t want to cast suspicion on anyone unjustly, but I know that Elard was putting massive pressure on Goldberg in the past few weeks. My brother refused to accept that Goldberg didn’t know anything about his past, or anything about his biological father. And Ritter also visited Goldberg numerous times. I could easily picture him committing the three murders without a second thought.”

Pia had rarely heard anyone utter such a blatant accusation of murder. Did Siegbert Kaltensee see an opportunity to get rid of the two men he despised from the bottom of his heart, and with whom he had competed for the favor of his mother for so many years? What would happen if Kaltensee learned that Ritter was not only his son-in-law but also soon to be the father of his grandchild?

“Goldberg, Schneider, and Frings were shot with a World War Two weapon and old ammunition. Where would Ritter get those sorts of things?” she now asked. Kaltensee stared at her for a moment.

“You’ve probably also heard the story of the missing trunk,” he said. “I’ve had my thoughts about what it may have contained. What if it held items belonging to my father? He was a member of the Nazi Party and also in the Wehrmacht. Maybe Ritter stole the trunk and there was a gun inside.”

“How could he have done that? After the incident, he was forbidden to set foot at Mühlenhof,” Pia said. Siegbert Kaltensee refused to be rattled.

“Ritter wouldn’t let something like that stop him” was all he said.

“Did your mother know what was in the trunk?”

“I assume so. But she won’t talk about it. And when my mother doesn’t want to talk about something, she won’t.” Kaltensee gave a spiteful laugh. “Just take a look at my brother, who’s been searching for his father in vain for years.”

“All right.” Bodenstein smiled and stood up. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Oh, just one more question: On whose authority did the people from your security force torture Marcus Nowak and beat him up?”

“Excuse me?” Kaltensee shook his head, looking annoyed. “Who did you say?”

“Marcus Nowak. The contractor who carried out the renovation of the mill.”

Kaltensee frowned in thought. Then he seemed to remember.

“Oh, him,” he said. “We’d had big problems with his father in his day. His shoddy work on the construction of the administration building cost us a lot of money. But what is our security force supposed to have done to his son?”

“That’s something we’d be very interested in learning,” said Bodenstein. “Do you have anything against having our crime-scene technicians take a look at your vehicles?”

“No,” replied Kaltensee without hesitation, apparently amused. “I’ll call Mr. Améry, the head of K-Secure. He will put himself at your disposal.”

*   *   *

Henri Améry was in his mid-thirties, a good-looking southern European type, slim and tan, his short black hair combed straight back. He wore a white shirt, dark suit, and Italian shoes. He could have been a stockbroker, lawyer, or banker. With an obliging smile he handed Bodenstein a list of their employees, thirty-four in all, including himself, and answered all their questions without hesitation. He had been the head of K-Secure for a year and a half. He had never heard the name Nowak and seemed genuinely surprised to hear about the alleged covert action of his men. He had no objection to allowing the police to examine his vehicles. He provided a list of all the company vehicles with license plate numbers, make and model, registration dates, and odometer readings.

As Bodenstein was talking to Améry, Miriam called on Pia’s cell. She was on her way to Doba, the former Doben, which had jurisdiction over the village of Lauenburg and the estate.

“This morning I’ll be meeting a man who until 1945 worked as a Polish forced laborer on the estate of the Zeydlitz-Lauenburgs,” she reported. “The archivist knows him. He lives in a retirement home in Wegorzewo.”

“That sounds good.” Pia saw her boss come out of the K-Secure office. “Keep your ears peeled for the names Endrikat and Oskar, okay?”