Crime (and Lager) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 3)

by Blake Pierce

  London heard the snowflake say in German with a chuckle, “Now, now. Let’s not gloat. And let’s not speak ill of the dead.”

  The flea replied in German as well. “Well, I’m not sure how else to talk about him.”

  “I know what you mean,” the snowflake said.

  “And anyway, it’s just one more reason to celebrate,” the flea said. “Do you really think he was murdered by somebody on that cruise boat?”

  The snowflake replied, “I’m not sure why any of those people would have done it. None of them knew him like we do. But I can tell you who is the happiest man in town to have him dead.”

  London stopped in her tracks and leaned forward to hear the next words.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  As London stood listening, she gasped at what she heard.

  The snowflake paused for effect, and then finished the sentence.

  “… the Katers Murr himself.”

  The flea scoffed. “Surely you’re not saying that Rolf Schilder killed anybody.”

  The snowflake chuckled. “Schilder? A murderer? I hardly think so. But Schilder is going around telling people how happy he is that Forstmann is dead. And he’s got good reason to be happy. Forstmann always wrote terrible reviews of his beer.”

  London’s mind was racing. So the Katers Murr was a brewer, and the murdered man had given him bad reviews.

  Could it be possible …?

  “Those bad reviews were well deserved,” the flea said. “That beer of his is terrible! But anyway, we all know that Schilder is no killer. He’s more like a mouse than a cat. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. Besides, he wouldn’t be gloating if he’d really killed someone. He’d be keeping quiet about it.”

  “That’s true,” the snowflake replied with a laugh. “And I guess that if Forstmann’s bad reviews were really a reason for murder, he’d have been dead long ago.”

  The flea also laughed. “Whoever did kill him, I’d like to shake his hand.”

  A costumed mouse approached and wagged his finger.

  “The two of you should be ashamed, talking like this.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to miss him,” the snowflake said.

  “No, I couldn’t stand him, but even so …”

  The costumed characters moved out of earshot.

  They’re not exactly grief-stricken, she thought.

  Nor did she suppose she had any reason to be surprised. It was like Captain Hays had said to Detektiv Erlich a little while ago.

  “Just about everybody in your lovely town is a viable suspect.”

  London could understand why Detektiv Erlich would prefer that someone aboard the Nachtmusik had killed Forstmann. Bamberg’s festival would suffer bad publicity if someone who lived in Bamberg had killed Forstmann out of spite. By contrast, the last thing London wanted was for the murderer to be somebody aboard the Nachtmusik.

  But what if that turned out to be the case?

  As she moved on around the plaza, London caught sight of a couple of familiar faces. Bob Turner had come ashore after all, and so had Stanley Tedrow. Bob appeared to be circulating among the crowd asking people questions, presumably about Forstmann’s death. Tedrow was following him around, dutifully taking notes about his investigative mentor’s methods.

  London wondered—was there even the slightest possibility that Bob might turn up some clues or evidence? From past experience she doubted it, but she hoped she was wrong. More than that, she hoped Bob’s efforts weren’t going to do more harm than good.

  The crowd was beginning to build up now, so she picked up Sir Reggie again. Just a few moments later, she was truly startled when the air suddenly filled up with what looked at first like large pieces of confetti.

  She reached out and grabbed one of the floating papers. It wasn’t confetti, but what appeared to be paper currency—various denominations of German Deutsche Mark. The people around her were laughing and grabbing the bills for themselves.

  What on earth …? London wondered.

  Then it occurred to her—the Deutsche Mark hadn’t been Germany’s official currency since 2002, when the country had adopted the euro. She looked more closely at the two-hundred-mark bill in her hand, and sure enough, the portrait on it wasn’t of some historical figure but a comical make-believe cat.

  Katers Murr, she realized. Tomcat Murr.

  It was pretend money, printed especially for the festival.

  The revelers, of course, knew this, and were having a great time seizing gobs of the phony money and throwing it around to each other. Before London could figure out exactly what was going on or why, she heard a voice calling out in German from the direction of the stage.

  “All this and more can be yours! Just vote for Zenitbrauen for this year’s first prize! There is plenty of money where this came from!”

  London pushed toward the stage. Pacing about in an open area in front of the stage was a man in the same enormous cat costume she’d glimpsed in the crowd at the moment when she’d discovered Forstmann’s drowned body. This time he was also wearing an ermine robe and a paper crown.

  He was carrying a bag of the phony money and throwing it everywhere among the laughing crowd.

  London turned to a pair of delighted bystanders.

  “What’s going on?” she asked them in German over the din.

  “You must be from the ship,” said one of the bystanders.

  “I guess you wouldn’t know,” said the other. “The Katers Murr is pretending to bribe the crowd into voting for Zenitbrauen, his own brewery, to win the beer competition. Whoever is chosen to be the cat does this every year.”

  “It’s a joke, of course,” said the other. “The voting is already done and over with, and the ballots are being counted right now. Later on, the master of ceremonies will announce the real winner of the brewers prize.”

  London and Sir Reggie watched for a few moments as Katers Murr continued his antics. She remembered the name the costumed figures had said—Rolf Schilder.

  “More like a mouse,” they’d said.

  Mouse or cat, the man was being appropriately silly. She watched for a few moments, then forced her attention back to the reason why she was here.

  She’d made her way all the way across the Maximiliensplatz without seeing Audrey anywhere. She dreaded the thought of going back to the ship without her. But was she really going to spend the rest of the day wandering among the growing crowd? After all, she had no way of knowing whether Audrey was even anywhere nearby.

  While she tried to make up her mind, she found herself eyeing the closed red curtain, wondering what might still be behind it. The dunking of Katers Murr had been scheduled for yesterday. Surely it had been canceled altogether. So had the huge vat of beer and the dunking device been removed? And where was the police tape she’d seen yesterday?

  London walked around behind the edge of the makeshift proscenium arch that framed the stage. Sure enough, the stage itself was still surrounded by police tape. And the vat, the steps and platform, and the trick chair were all still in place.

  London looked around. Despite all the noise just a few feet away, she saw that she was truly alone. The edge of the proscenium masked her from the view of the crowd.

  She started to feel her curiosity get the better of her.

  As if sensing this, Sir Reggie let out what sounded like a whine of protest.

  “You’re probably right, pal,” London said as she set him down on the edge of the stage. “I know this is still a crime scene. But I can’t help myself. I guess I’m just having a ‘Nancy Drew’ moment.”

  She ducked under the police tape to join Sir Reggie on the stage. The dog sniffed the floor, taking an interest in the dried stains where beer had been puddled yesterday after Sigmund Forstmann’s fall into the vat.

  The whole stage smelled strongly of stale beer. As she and Sir Reggie climbed the steps, she wasn’t surprised to see that the vat was still full, with an unhealthy-looking filmy layer of froth and grime
spread across the top. London guessed that the beer would have been removed by now under normal circumstances.

  The last time she’d been here, she’d been soaked with beer and too badly shaken to really try to work out logically what had happened here. She hoped maybe she could do better now.

  First she looked carefully at the chair itself. Its bottom still hung loose from having been triggered into dropping Herr Forstmann. London remembered Polizist Wedekind saying he’d personally inspected the machinery for safety. It certainly looked safe enough to London.

  London could also see that the chair and the entire drop into the vat were well-padded. There really was no way Herr Forstmann could have hurt his head accidentally, let alone have received such a distinctively shaped wound.

  So what really happened here? she asked herself.

  She knew that Detektiv Erlich had been considering a theory that London and Audrey had clubbed the beer critic unconscious, then dragged him up onto the platform, placed him in the chair, and fatally dunked him.

  Of course London knew that she herself had done nothing of the kind.

  But what about Audrey? she wondered.

  Could the quarrelsome passenger have done something like this alone?

  Audrey was an unusually tall woman, and for all London knew, she might be quite strong as well. Herr Forstmann, by contrast, had been about London’s own height and build.

  Maybe it’s possible, London thought.

  But was it really plausible?

  London tried to imagine how the events might have unfolded. Maybe Audrey and Herr Forstmann had quarreled on the stage behind the curtain—or maybe right here where London was standing, on the platform. Maybe Audrey had hit him over the head …

  But with what?

  Not her purse, surely.

  It had to be something hard and cylindrical …

  London’s thoughts were interrupted by a man’s voice speaking in German.

  “I see you’ve returned to the scene of the crime.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  London whirled around in alarm. The man who had spoken so harshly was standing on the stage below her. His arms were crossed and his stare was baleful.

  It was Willy Oberhauser, the security guard.

  Now I’m in real trouble, she thought.

  “You Americans,” Oberhauser said with a smirk. “I guess you have never heard of police tape, eh? It is supposed to keep you out of active crime scenes.”

  He was being sarcastic, of course. London almost said that, yes, Americans had police tape just like the Germans, and she knew all about it, if only from watching cop shows on TV. But the last thing she wanted was to come across as the least bit snarky.

  After all, she really had just broken the law.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, picking up Sir Reggie and climbing back down the stairs to the stage. “I should have asked for permission.”

  “Permission for what?” Oberhauser asked.

  “Well … to have a look around here for myself.”

  “And why would you want to do that?”

  The little dog in London’s arms was grumbling as though he might break out into a growl and she didn’t think that would help the situation at all. She patted Sir Reggie and told him shhhh.

  Finally she said, “Well, since I’m suspected of murder, you can’t blame me for wanting to check out the evidence. I might have to clear myself.”

  “Leave all that to the police,” he said. “They’ll find evidence to clear you … if you are innocent.”

  Startled by his accusatory tone, London realized that this security guard certainly seemed to be prone to mood swings. She remembered how he’d changed yesterday when he’d broken up her altercation with Herr Forstmann. After he’d sternly separated the two of them, he’d been remarkably pleasant toward her—and actually rather sympathetic. He’d even been eager to make Sir Reggie’s acquaintance.

  She also remembered his cheerful parting words on that occasion.

  “Enjoy the rest of your visit.”

  But his attitude toward her had taken a dark turn again as soon as Herr Forstmann’s body was found. He’d been the first person to name London and Audrey as suspects in the murder.

  And now London wondered …

  Why?

  Did he really suspect her? Or was he anxious to be the one who solved the crime?

  Or … could he be trying to deflect any possible suspicion …?

  As calmly as she could manage, she said, “Surely you don’t really think I had anything to do with Forstmann’s death.”

  “It’s not my job to make any such assumptions.”

  London felt her composure slipping away.

  “Well, it’s certainly what you did yesterday,” she told him, “when you pointed me out to Detektiv Erlich. And isn’t it what you’re doing now? Why are you so anxious to blame me? You said yourself that lots of people in Bamberg got angry about Herr Forstmann’s behavior at the festival every year—including yourself.”

  The security guard didn’t move from his spot.

  Is he going to arrest me? London wondered with dread.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry,” she said, trying to sound more repentant than she felt. “I’ll leave right now. But first maybe you could help me with something. I’m looking for that tall woman I was with yesterday. The one Herr Forstmann spilled beer all over.”

  “You mean the one who might have helped you kill Forstmann?” Oberhauser said.

  London fought down the urge to answer him sharply.

  “Have you seen her today?” she said instead.

  “No, and I hope I don’t. I’m having enough trouble with all of you nosy Americans today.”

  London’s forehead crinkled with interest.

  “Who do you mean?” she asked.

  Oberhauser said, “There’s a man wearing sunglasses who keeps telling people he’s a detective who is going to solve the case all by himself.”

  Bob Turner, London realized.

  The security guard continued, “I’ve told him more than once to mind his own business, but he never listens. And I’m telling you the same thing—to mind your own business, or else. It’s time you both took heed.”

  His expression was grim as stepped toward her, and his hand reached menacingly toward a holster on his hip.

  “Otherwise, I promise there will be consequences,” he said, glaring directly into her eyes.

  London shuddered sharply.

  Is he threatening me with deadly force? she wondered.

  And maybe threatening Bob as well?

  It seemed like an absolutely crazy idea. Here she was in a lovely city where a celebration was taking place. In fact, she could hear the sounds of the Hoffmann Fest in progress nearby. She knew that people in clever costumes from E.T.A. Hoffman stories were celebrating right there in the plaza in front of the stage. It even sounded like the Katers Murr might still be clowning around on the front side of that closed red curtain, perhaps no more than twenty feet away. But here behind the curtain and further hidden by the edge of the proscenium, both she and Oberhauser were masked from sight.

  Would anyone hear her if she cried out?

  And what would happen if they did?

  Oberhauser was an official security guard. He was a local authority, and she was just on tour from a faraway country.

  What if he did something really rash, then made up his own story about what had happened? Might he claim to have acted in self-defense?

  Who would believe her? Surely they would take his word over hers.

  And of course, if he did something truly extreme, maybe she wouldn’t even be able to contradict him.

  London shushed another soft growl from Sir Reggie.

  She stood frozen with alarm, unable to think of anything to say.

  To her relief, the guard seemed to have second thoughts about what he was doing.

  He hesitated with his hand on the holster.

  London’s mind raced.
What could she do?

  She managed to speak in a nearly normal tone of voice.

  “I should get back to my errand,” she told him. “The captain will be expecting me back at the ship. And Detektiv Erlich is there with him. They’re waiting for me to find another passenger and come right back. I wouldn’t want them to send out anyone looking for me.”

  “Yes, you should go on back,” the security guard said, letting his hand fall away from the holster. “Do your job and go back to your ship immediately. And you must stay there. All of you Americans. Stay put aboard until you leave Bamberg.”

  London was sure Oberhauser had no authority to give such a command. Even Detektiv Erlich hadn’t ordered her or anyone else to stay aboard the Nachtmusik and not come into Bamberg. But the last thing she wanted to do right now was to argue.

  Even so, she wasn’t going to make any promises about staying aboard the Nachtmusik.

  “I’m sorry to have troubled you,” she said instead.

  London turned away from the confrontation, and the security guard actually held up the tape for her as she ducked under it and climbed down from the stage.

  When she walked by the front of the stage, she saw that the Katers Murr was indeed still there, begging the surrounding spectators to vote for his beer. The crowd was still grabbing at fake money floating through the air.

  As far as any of them knew, nothing at all had happened.

  Hurrying away with her dog still in her arms, London didn’t look back, but she thought she could feel Oberhauser’s eyes following her.

  She felt a wave of discouragement. She’d come ashore with one simple purpose, to find Audrey Bolton. She had circled the festival area before going to look at the crime scene and hadn’t seen Audrey anywhere. She had only picked up some useless gossip and managed to annoy the security guard, who was clearly suspicious of her. She really had no idea who to ask or where else to look.

  The Maximiliensplatz was getting more crowded now, and London realized that she wasn’t likely to run into Audrey even if she were here somewhere.