Mark of Cain

by Marcus Hünnebeck

  “I’ll have to borrow your car tomorrow,” he told her, concluding their arrangement. “And keep it for one night. Plus, I’ll need somewhere to sleep tonight.”

  “No problem.” She slapped at a cushion on the black couch. “This is a sofa bed.”

  “If all goes according to plan, I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. If I run into any trouble, I might be on the road for two or three days more.”

  “All right. I’ll put the key and registration on the kitchen table. We can get along without a car for that long.”

  A guardrail protected the curve. Beyond loomed a steep, rocky abyss. One traffic sign limited the speed to thirty miles an hour. Another warned of a sharp turn. Katharina disregarded both.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw her family. On that fatal evening, the asphalt had been slippery because of the heavy rain. But that alone did not explain the horrific accident, especially since Julius knew this stretch and had always been a careful driver.

  The traffic cops had pursued various theories on why her husband had lost control and why his vehicle had broken through the guardrail. According to the accident report, the fuel line was probably severed upon impact, leaking out fuel, which ignited and engulfed the vehicle in flames. Their bodies had been burnt beyond recognition.

  The nagging question was whether her husband had hurtled them to their deaths on purpose, just to punish her. She simply could not let it go.

  Her marriage was all but over by then. They already had separate residences and were about to file for divorce. They had been fighting about whom Sarah would live with, but Katharina’s divorce lawyer was confident in her assessment that the court would award her custody. At the time, Julius had been battling a severe addiction to painkillers because of chronic back pain. This was the point when Chris Moll had appeared on the scene and he and Katharina had been drawn to one another. They slept together only once, the day they wrapped up their investigation. She told Julius about it the next day—the day of the car crash—after he’d been arguing with her yet again. The pain in his eyes had brought a triumphant smile to her face.

  Was it truly possible he had taken revenge on her? Could he have plummeted to his death—taking his own daughter with him—on some rash impulse just to cause her pain for the rest of her life?

  Right before she reached the curve, Katharina imagined Sarah calling out for her. The moment of decision had come. Give up, or fight on?

  10

  Katharina braked just in time to come to a halt in the shoulder of the curve. Her tires squealed as the car swerved off the road, gravel flying up on all sides. This was her shock therapy, whenever the sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. She would race along this road until reaching that curve, all to affirm that she still considered her life worth living. She hoped she’d never feel the urge to press the accelerator all the way down, following her child into death.

  Katharina stepped out and walked away from the car and over to the guardrail, then climbed up and over the barrier. She approached the edge of the precipice that had sealed her family’s fate.

  “I miss you two,” she whispered.

  As if nature itself was responding to her words, an owl called out its dual notes, “Hoo, hoo,” from somewhere above. Then a car pulled up.

  “Everything all right with you, young lady?” an older woman asked in a concerned tone.

  “I don’t know,” Katharina whispered.

  The following afternoon, Katharina’s printer spit out the crime-scene report. As she skimmed the text her face lit up, beaming with relief. The fingerprints found on Blum’s car meant the case was as good as solved.

  Frank was watching her. “Don’t tell me you won the lottery jackpot?”

  “Better,” Katharina replied.

  Report in hand, she did a little happy jog around her desk. Frank tried to yank the page from her hands but she held it just out of his reach, grinning mischievously.

  “We got the bastard,” she said, certain they had clinched it.

  “Give it here!”

  Katharina handed him the findings, but before he could read through them, she started reeling off the results.

  “Apparently Klaus Matisek wasn’t careful enough. He left his fingerprints behind on the hood of Matthias’s car—prints that had been stored in the system for some other offense.”

  She sat back down and reached for her phone, to start coordinating how things were going to play out from here. She wasn’t about to put anything past a guy who was out there enacting revenge—and in an extremely violent way. She would have Matisek captured by a special unit, trained just for these situations. And if feasible, when he’d least expect it—in the middle of the night.

  Michaela was awakened by a piercing snore. Night after night she wasn’t sleeping well at all. She envied Klaus for his careless slumber.

  Apart from being afraid the cops were onto them, Michaela had started worrying about Sandra. She had been waiting, since yesterday, for any sign of life in the form of a phone call or even a text from Sandra. Michaela had already left three messages on her voice mail asking her to call her back, and got nothing. It didn’t bother Klaus. He dismissed her nervous foreboding with a shrug.

  She decided to get up, one more time, and swallow some valerian-root drops that were in the kitchen cabinet. She gently pushed down the covers and swung her legs out of bed. First, though, she went into the bathroom, where she had a look at herself in the mirror above the sink. On one hand, the signs of abuse were disappearing slower than she’d hoped. On the other hand, she had to assume Klaus would expect her to be turning tricks as soon as she was fully recovered. When she looked at the situation that way, waiting this long for the bruises and scabs to finally go away wasn’t the worst thing ever—getting a good break after what she’d gone through these last few months was definitely doing her some good.

  She found her way into the kitchen. A street lamp was shining through the window, so she didn’t bother turning on the kitchen light. She got the glass vial from among the medicines she had in the cabinet and then looked outside. Suddenly the vial fell from her hand. She saw six masked cops jumping out of a police van that very second. And she saw that female detective, Rosenberg, standing by another vehicle. Michaela ran into the bedroom in a panic.

  “Klaus!” she shouted. “Wake up!”

  She shook him by the shoulder till his eyes popped open.

  “What is it?” he growled, half asleep.

  “The cops! They’re at the front door already.”

  “Fuck!” He was wide awake now, scrambling clumsily out of bed. “Those bastards,” he cursed, yanking on a sweater. “Where should I go?”

  “Not downstairs. You’ll run right into them.”

  “Where then?” he demanded.

  “Attic—the storage space!” Michaela thought quickly. “Go! It’s big enough, and they might not look for you there.” She ran to the apartment door to look through the peephole, confirming the cops hadn’t made it to her floor yet. Frantically she grabbed the storage closet key from her key cabinet and pressed it into Klaus’s hand. “I’ll come get you when the coast is clear.”

  Keeping the foyer light off, he left the apartment and hustled down the hall for the stairway.

  Katharina raised three fingers and counted them down silently. She was hoping to catch Matisek while he slept. At the apartment door, lit by a bright flashlight now, an officer stood ready with a battering ram. The rest of the special unit had their weapons trained.

  Katharina barely got to zero when the first man lunged and plowed the ram against the door, just below the lock. It popped open instantly. An officer stormed in aiming his gun. Katharina brought up the rear along with the others.

  In the bedroom Michaela Meier was cowering on the bed, terrified, the covers pulled up high to her chin. The other half of the bed was empty but looked as if
someone else had been lying there just now.

  “Throw off those covers!” Katharina ordered, to see only a frightened Michaela in the mussed bed.

  Katharina signaled for the unit to lower their weapons, to defuse the situation a little. “Where is he?”

  “Who you mean?”

  “Don’t act so naïve. Klaus Matisek, who else?”

  “He hasn’t been here all day.”

  “In that case, I’m going to do all I can to see you prosecuted for inciting murder.” She turned to the officers. “Tear apart these rooms. He has to be here somewhere.”

  One of the police officers ripped open the bedroom closet while the rest fanned out through the apartment.

  “Believe me, Detective. Klaus wasn’t at my place today.”

  Katharina stepped close to the bed, glaring at the prostitute. “I really hate liars. You’ve been under surveillance since 5:00 p.m. At 6:00 p.m., Matisek entered the building and hasn’t left it since.”

  Michaela stared at the covers, embarrassed. Katharina saw the tears trickling down her face, which still had not healed, but she had no sympathy for her.

  Matisek made it to a large storage closet standing in the farthest corner of the attic. He frantically weighed his options for eluding capture.

  While checking out the attic space, he noticed an open window from which he could climb onto the gabled roof. The thing was, it was steep and a long way down—one wrong step and he’d break his neck.

  Katharina opened the key cabinet in the foyer. Only one hook was empty.

  “Frau Meier!” she shouted. “Come on in here.”

  Michaela, clearly reluctant, followed orders anyway.

  “Which key is missing here?”

  Michaela paused a moment too long. Katharina knew she was on the right track.

  “None,” Michaela claimed finally, but it wasn’t convincing.

  Katharina did not dignify Michaela’s poor acting performance with a comment. Instead she stepped out of the foyer and back out into the hallway. Unless the surveillance team had missed something, their suspect was still holed up inside the building. Even if Matisek had noticed the police van at the earliest possible moment, he hardly could have gained access to a neighboring apartment. The basement was probably out of the question too, since he would have run into them on the stairs.

  Still, there was a chance Matisek had enough time to hide out down there. To rule it out, she went back inside the apartment and assigned two men to search the basement while she headed upstairs with another officer. When they reached the door to the attic, Katharina gently pressed on the handle. Locked. Damn. She waited until the basement search ended and then ordered the whole unit to break down the attic door.

  11

  Gerd Renner kept his eyes focused on the foosball table, on that little white ball the opposing players nimbly tapped forward from the defensive line up to the forward players.

  Out of four matches, they were even; now both teams had scored five goals each and this next play was going to decide who could show up at work tomorrow with heads high.

  Gerd’s partner, Andreas, manning the front rows, blocked a shot but screwed around recklessly with the ball while trying to dupe his opponent with a trick shot off the boards.

  When they had started playing earlier that evening, alone in the far corner of the pub, three men and a woman began following their big game. Out of all of them, the woman seemed most impressed by Gerd’s skills. After spectacular shots or his quick-reaction defense, he had repeatedly caught her eye and wondered why an attractive thirtyish woman would ever be sending a guy like him, in his late forties, such unmistakable signals.

  The ball rolled in front of goal. Gerd jerked the goalkeeper bar—and prevented the crucial winning goal.

  “Wow!” the woman blurted out loudly. “Well played.”

  Unfortunately Gerd couldn’t respond to her praise because the ball rolled his way again. But this time he not only blocked it but also brought it under control. Andreas had positioned his players so their wooden feet wouldn’t block a well-placed shot from out of the back. Gerd aimed for the opposing goal. Aiming for a gap, he twisted his right wrist and whipped the ball forward right on target. It struck the inside of the goal with a loud crack.

  “Yes!” his partner cheered, and gave Gerd a fist bump. The audience applauded raucously. The opposing team congratulated them like good sports yet couldn’t help pointing out that such a close score could’ve gone either way.

  The woman came over to him eventually, with two beers fresh from the tap.

  “Let’s drink a toast to your well-fought victory,” she told him.

  His fellow players made for the bar, grinning, and left them alone.

  He took a beer from her and clinked her glass with his.

  “My name’s Franziska,” she said, smiling.

  “Gerd,” he replied.

  In the minutes that followed, she started flirting so obviously with him that there was no mistaking what she was after. Gerd thought of his wife, who this very morning had set out on vacation to the North Sea with their grown daughter. Because of work commitments, he would be following them there in three days. The opportunity was definitely good timing.

  Yet as he drank up his beer, and as Franziska touched him on the arm, he came to a decision. Her touch alone, which he had not encouraged, already made him feel complicit. How soon after his cheap thrills would he feel thoroughly ashamed? Luckily, he was old enough that his sex drive didn’t dictate all his actions.

  He raised his right hand, nodding at his gold wedding ring. “Sorry,” he said with a wink.

  Franziska’s lips contorted into an incredibly hot-looking pout—making him briefly regret his resolve. Then she emptied her glass, wished him sweet dreams, and left the pub, while he went to join his work buddies at the bar.

  “We were about to start betting if you’d give in or not,” Andreas told him, smirking. He waved the bartender over for another round, this one on the winning team.

  The door to the attic flung open, and an officer felt for the light switch. A naked bulb dangling from the ceiling flashed on but gave off a dim yellow glow. Two more officers entered the attic, then Katharina. In the first third of the room hung sheets of various colors, stretching to the floor. Officers pushed the sheets aside without finding Matisek behind any of them. Instead they saw a closet—like an armoire, as tall as a man and with double doors—over in the farthest corner.

  Katharina pointed to it. “Let’s go take a look,” she whispered.

  She and one officer planted themselves a few steps away, their weapons held out in front. Then two of the cops, each grabbing a door handle, ripped open the cabinet. The bulky Matisek was curled up inside the dark, dusty storage compartment.

  “Hello, Herr Matisek,” Katharina said, keeping it friendly. “Nice to see you.”

  A special-unit officer wasn’t so friendly. He hauled Matisek out of his hideout and slapped on the handcuffs.

  Matisek’s body language told Katharina and Frank that he wasn’t going to admit to murder willingly. He sat at the interrogation room table with his arms folded at his chest and acted bored, like a man with nothing to fear. They had read him his rights as required, yet he still hadn’t bothered calling for a lawyer.

  “You shouldn’t have been hollering so loud about killing Blum,” Katharina told him. “That’s how we’re able to prove intent. If you don’t cooperate with us, you’ll land behind bars for life.”

  “Is that all you got? Then you should probably let me walk,” Matisek said.

  “Michaela was abused by Officer Blum,” Katharina continued. “She contacted you. You drove to her place right away. A while later, you left her apartment again. We have a witness for that.”

  “It could be that I might have cussed out loud,” Matisek conceded. “But aft
er that all I did was drive to an all-night pharmacy, to buy some ointment for Michaela’s wounds.”

  “You have a receipt to prove that?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t bother getting one.”

  “You do at least recall which pharmacy you were at?”

  “I’m sorry. I was still pretty worked up, on account of what that cop had done to Michaela.”

  “We’ll figure out which pharmacies had all-night service that night, with or without your help. Maybe someone on staff remembers you.”

  “And if not, you still got nothing to pin on me.”

  Frank Weimer, following the exchange in silence, tapped at a page of paper lying in front of him with its blank backside facing up. “The thing is, though, you pinned the charges on yourself.”

  “What’s that you got?” Matisek asked.

  “Crime-scene results. You left behind fingerprints, on the roof of Officer Blum’s car.”

  Matisek, stunned, grabbed at the page.

  They had stayed in the pub much longer than planned. It was half past one by the time Gerd Renner was back at his apartment unlocking his front door. Tomorrow in the office, he’d curse himself for planting his butt in the pub so long, but having a good time with his coworkers had been worth it. Now, though, he really needed to get to bed. First he checked his phone to see if he’d gotten a voice mail from his wife. Soon, Dagmar’s voice came out of the tinny speaker.

  “Hi, dear. Just wanted to tell you that the vacation rental is gorgeous. It’s not even a hundred feet to the beach. And the TV’s big enough for you to watch your beloved Sportschau just fine. By the way, we forgot a few things you’ll definitely have to bring. First off, there’s . . .”