by Blake Pierce
He shrugged again and idly played a few notes on the keyboard.
“Anyway, anyone who knew him would have known they could find him on that balcony, relaxed and unwary.”
They stopped talking for a moment. The auditorium felt almost eerily quiet.
Finally London spoke cautiously.
“Herr Poehler, do you have any idea who might have killed Olaf?”
Poehler took a long, deep breath.
“Naturally, the police asked me questions,” he said. “I wasn’t here at the time, of course. After my practice, I’d gone out for a nice long walk along the Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse. I didn’t find out what had happened until I came back and found the police here. I told them what little I knew. But now … well, I wonder if maybe I should have just kept my suspicions to myself.”
London’s breath caught.
Suspicions? she wondered.
Poehler continued, “Olaf had told me he’d finally gotten up the nerve to tell Fraulein Greta Mayr how he felt, and she’d said she felt the same way about him. He was like a giddy schoolboy, he said. The only trouble was …”
Poehler’s voice faded.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say,” he said.
“Please. I want to know.”
“He said she was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of her maintenance supervisor—Gunther Raab is his name.”
London felt a jolt of excitement.
The very man I came here looking for, she thought.
Poehler continued, “Olaf said Raab was quite infatuated with Greta—obsessed with her, really, to the point of stalking her. She wasn’t attracted to him, to put it mildly. She told Olaf that Gunther was intensely jealous—dangerously so, she thought. She didn’t dare get into a relationship with Olaf on account of Raab.”
“So you think Gunther Raab was the killer?” London asked.
“I don’t know, but …”
He fell quiet again.
“I spoke with Gunther a little the day before yesterday. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’d just finished practicing, and he’d just finished work for the day, so we left the building at the same time. As it happened, he lives in a four-story apartment building on the corner of Prinzenstrasse and Nibelungenstrasse, which is in the same direction as the hotel where I’ve been staying, so we walked and talked together.”
Poehler shuddered.
“The whole way, he was badgering me about Greta, and whether I might be attracted to her, and whether she might be attracted to me, and how bad that would be for us both. Of course there was nothing of the kind going on between Greta and me, and I told him so, but I’m not sure I convinced him. I was relieved when we parted ways.”
London felt a chill all over.
She asked, “Do you know whether Gunther Raab is here at work today?”
“Apparently not, I’m happy to say. Just a little while ago I was talking with Frau Hahn, the theater director. She was annoyed because Raab had left a message on her answering machine to say he quit his job. He didn’t tell her why.”
London’s breath quickened, and so did her pulse. She remembered how terrified Greta had been at the mere mention of her supervisor. Gunther Raab sounded like a shadowy and even threatening character—perhaps, London thought, a truly dangerous man.
“It was nice talking to you, Herr Poehler,” she said, her voice shaking a little at what she’d just heard. “I’ve got to go.”
Sir Reggie hopped off her lap as she got up from her chair.
“Fraulein Rose, wait!” Poehler said, sounding suddenly worried. “You seem very agitated.”
“Oh, I’m fine, Herr Poehler,” she said. “Enjoy the rest of your day in Salzburg. I’m sure you’ll give a great performance in Bonn.”
Poehler peered at her with concern.
“Just tell me you’re not going to do something rash.”
“Don’t worry,” London said.
As she and Reggie left the auditorium and continued out of the building, London found herself thinking …
Herr Poehler really is a keen observer of people.
And maybe, she realized, he was right to worry that she was about to do something rash.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
I hope I know what I’m getting myself into, London thought as she and Sir Reggie crossed the paved terrace in front of the House for Mozart.
Then she sighed at the very thought.
Of course she didn’t know what she was getting into. She really had no idea. And the truth was, she was feeling more nervous and apprehensive by the moment.
With Sir Reggie trotting along beside her, London took out her cell phone and brought up a map of Salzburg. She quickly found the place where Poehler had said Gunther Raab lived, on the corner of Prinzenstrasse and Nibelungenstrasse. It didn’t look very far away—a ten-minute walk at most.
As she headed in that direction, she found herself remembering what Mr. Lapham had said to her during their last phone conversation.
“I want no more of your amateur sleuthing, do you hear?”
And here she was, disobeying her boss’s direct order.
Sorry, Mr. Lapham.
I can’t seem to help it.
She figured the least she could do was exercise a little common sense. She really ought to alert Polizeidirektor Tanneberger of what she was up to. She found the card Tanneberger had given her earlier and punched in his number on her cell phone. She was immediately transferred to his answering service. She spoke at the sound of the recorded beep.
“Herr Tanneberger, I thought I should tell you …”
She paused and asked herself—just what did she think she should tell him?
The truth, of course, she thought.
“I’m ashore right now,” she said. “I’ve been talking to a couple of people about Olaf Moritz’s murder. Perhaps you’ve checked him out already, but I think the theater’s maintenance chief, Gunther Raab, may have had a motive to kill Herr Moritz. I thought I’d ask him some questions, and I’m on my way to his apartment right now.
She paused, wondering what else she should tell the Polizeidirektor. She couldn’t think of anything.
“I will be in touch soon,” she said, then ended the message.
As she and Sir Reggie continued on their way, London wondered just how Tanneberger was likely to react to her message. In her experiences of just the last few days, she’d learned that European law enforcement officials didn’t much like it when civilians—especially foreign civilians—went off investigating on their own.
Was Tanneberger going to be furious with her?
Was she only worsening her already bad situation?
Maybe not, she thought. This morning Tanneberger had actually encouraged her to bring him any information that might clear her of suspicion. Wasn’t that what she was trying to do right now?
She hoped he’d understand.
Their route took London and Sir Reggie through a pleasant residential neighborhood of upscale apartments with balconies decorated with flowers and nice patio furniture. Things got less stylish just a little farther along a narrow street, where the apartment buildings were simpler and less well-kept.
Finally she found the one she was looking for—a plain, blue, four-story apartment building that really could have used a new coat of paint.
Now what? she wondered, walking up the front stoop.
She scanned the list of residents posted beside the door and found Raab’s name and apartment number. But when she tried the front door, she found that it was locked. Naturally, she realized, the entrance was locked for security. But would Raab buzz her in if she rang for him?
And if so, did she really want to meet him?
That’s what I’m here for, she reminded herself.
She gathered her courage and pushed the button for his room and heard a gruff voice.
“Hallo?”
“Herr Raab?” London said in German.
“Who’s as
king?”
“My name is London Rose.”
“What are you selling?”
“I’m not selling anything.”
“You sound American.”
“I am American. I just want to talk to you about …”
London hesitated. If she told him the truth, maybe he’d refuse to have anything to do with her. But she couldn’t think of any other approach.
“I want to talk to you about what happened to Olaf Moritz,” she said.
“I told the police everything I know. What business is it of yours?”
“I found his body,” London said.
A silence fell.
“Come on in,” the voice said.
London swallowed hard. She almost wished she hadn’t said that. It would have given her an excuse to just go away and try to forget about him.
Then came a loud buzz, and London was able to open the door. She and Sir Reggie walked into the building, where a narrow worn stairway awaited them.
She said to Sir Reggie, “Judging from his apartment number, he must be on the top floor. There’s no elevator. Are you ready for a tough climb?”
Sir Reggie let out an affirmative yap.
But after a single flight, she saw that the little animal was having some trouble leaping from one tall step to the next.
London stopped and looked down at him.
“Maybe it’s just as well,” she said. “I don’t want to get you into any trouble. You should wait right here until I come back.”
Sir Reggie growled in protest. Obviously he was going to try to follow her, no matter how difficult the climb might be.
“OK, come on,” London said, picking him up. “But if anything goes wrong, don’t try to do anything heroic. Remember what happened last time I got you into a jam? You almost drowned. Keep calm and stay safe.”
Carrying her little dog, she climbed the steep stairs all the way up to the fourth floor. London felt a bit breathless when they arrived at the last landing. But she suspected it was more from fear than the climb itself.
London found the right apartment. She hesitated anxiously, then knocked on the door.
A voice called out, “Come on in, it’s unlocked.”
London opened the door and carried Sir Reggie inside. She found herself in a cluttered one-room apartment with tattered furniture, a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen area, and a single bed against a wall.
A tall pot-bellied middle-aged man wearing jeans and a torn T-shirt was packing a suitcase on the bed. He had massive biceps covered with tattoos. He stopped packing and turned toward London.
“You didn’t tell me you had a dog,” he said.
“I’m sorry. He can wait in the hallway.”
“No, I like dogs. Have a seat.”
Judging from the snarl in his voice and the nervous way he eyed Sir Reggie, London suspected that he really couldn’t stand dogs. He just didn’t want to seem weak by admitting that, especially to a woman. London took a seat beside the Formica-topped kitchen table. Reggie sat down in her lap.
London gestured toward the suitcase.
“Are you taking a trip somewhere?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m taking a well-earned vacation. Actually, I quit my job. I should have quit long ago. I figure I’ll do a bit of traveling to celebrate my freedom before I get tied down with another job.”
Raab sat down on the edge of the bed.
“So you found Olaf’s body, huh?” he said.
“Yes,” London said.
“And you want to talk with me about it.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s fine with me, I suppose. I didn’t get to see at his corpse. How did he look?”
London was startled.
“What do you mean, how did he look?” she asked.
“I mean when you found him. Did he look like he died instantly? Or did he look like he suffered?”
London was unnerved by the blunt morbidity of the question. She suppressed a shudder as she flashed back to the moment when she’d seen those unmoving, staring eyes in the darkened theater.
“I don’t know,” she said.
It was the truth, of course. She had no idea whether Olaf’s death had been instantaneous or lingering. But Raab scoffed as if he didn’t believe her.
“You don’t know, do you?” he said. “Well, my guess is he didn’t die right away, falling from the top balcony like that onto a row of theater seats. It probably took a few minutes. I’ll bet he was in a lot of pain.”
London was shocked by the sadistic glee in the large man’s voice. She wished she could just walk out and leave right now. But she reminded herself of why she’d come here.
“Did you know Olaf personally, Herr Raab?” she asked.
“Yes, everybody knew Olaf. Good old Olaf. Everybody liked Olaf except me. I hated him. I was smart to hate him. I don’t know why everybody else didn’t hate him too. He was a blowhard, a loser, and a phony.”
London felt a chill at the sheer animosity in his voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“What do you think I mean? He acted superior to everybody, like he knew more than anybody else about everything there was to know. The whole reason he worked as a tour guide was so he could show off to people. He wasn’t so smart, not really.”
He let out a grim chuckle.
“He fancied himself a musician, thought he could really play the piano. I heard him play, I didn’t think he was so good. Oh, and he thought he was going to be a great composer, like Beethoven or Mozart. Or at least he thought so until the day before yesterday.”
“What happened then?” London asked.
“He showed a piece he wrote to Wolfram Poehler, that pianist everybody’s talking about these days. I was backstage mopping the floor at the time. Poehler was trying to practice for his recital, and Olaf was making a nuisance of himself, trying to hand him the score, begging him to play just a few bars of it.”
Raab laughed and added, “Poehler took one look at the piece and pushed it back at Olaf. Olaf tried to hand it to him again, and he pushed it away again. Olaf tried one more time, and Poehler wadded up the score and threw it on the floor. Olaf looked like someone had just killed his mother. He picked up the score and left.”
London tried to make sense of what she was hearing.
This wasn’t the way Wolfram Poehler had described the incident to her at all.
Raab is lying, she thought. But why?
Raab continued, “Well, that sure put Olaf in his place. He knew once and for all he’d never be any good as a composer. I even heard him say so. ‘Now I know,’ he muttered on his way out of the theater.”
Raab shrugged and sneered.
“Anyway, I guess someone else must have hated him too. Enough to kill him. It wasn’t me, though. I wasn’t there. I was drinking lager with some of my chums at the Hopla Bar, just a short way from the theater. The cops checked out my alibi and my chums vouched for me. I’m not a suspect. But I’d like to shake the hand of whoever killed that useless guy.”
So the police don’t suspect him, London thought.
If so, she surely had no reason to suspect him either. But he was such a harsh man, she couldn’t help dreading his very presence.
She found herself thinking about what Greta had told her about why Raab had suddenly left work that afternoon.
“He said … he didn’t feel well. He just wanted to go home.”
She’d thought Greta was lying at the time, and now she was almost sure of it.
London squinted curiously at Raab.
“So you were at a bar drinking with friends when Olaf was killed,” London observed cautiously.
“That’s right.”
“You left the theater earlier than usual to go there.”
“That’s right, I clocked out early.”
“Why did you leave when you did?”
Raab threw his head back and laughed.
“Well, if you must know, I h
ad a fight with my girlfriend.”
His girlfriend! London thought.
“Do you mean Greta Mayr?” she said.
“Yes, that’s who I mean. Former girlfriend, I should say. I broke up with her right then and there. She didn’t take it well.”
London wasn’t sure whether he was lying outright or was engaged in some elaborate feat of self-deception. All she knew for sure was that Greta was not his “girlfriend”—she never had been and never would be.
“Why did you break up with her?” London asked.
“Because she’s a flirt, that’s why,” Raab said bitterly. “She’s too good-looking for her own good, and men are always after her, and she likes it. She likes the way men look at her, she likes the attention. She didn’t appreciate the good thing she had with me. I’d told her time and time again the flirting had to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. I finally had enough of it. I told her it was over.”
London almost felt dizzy from the palpable lies Raab was telling. Of course he hadn’t broken up with Greta. They’d never been a couple to begin with. But London felt sure of one thing—they really had gotten into an argument before he left the theater that day. And London also felt sure she knew what that argument was about.
“You were jealous of Olaf,” she said.
The sneer faded from Raab’s lips, and his eyes darkened.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
London’s fear was rising. It was a struggle to keep herself from running away.
Focus, she told herself. Don’t lose your nerve.
“I think I do,” she said. “Greta told you that Olaf was attracted to her, and she was attracted to him, and she said she wanted you to leave both of them alone so they could be together. How did that make you feel?”
London was stunned by the sudden roar that erupted from Olaf’s throat.
He lunged from the bed and knocked her backward in her chair onto the floor. Sir Reggie yelped as he was thrown out of her lap.
London scrambled to get to her feet, her fear spreading through every fiber of her body, but one enormous powerful hand gripped her throat and shoved her back down.
