The two officers observed their subject talking with someone briefly and then disappearing with the person inside the premises.
“What now?” said the cop on the driver’s side.
“I’ll go take a photo of the name on the doorbell with my phone,” said his colleague. “Maybe the name means something to Rosenberg.”
“You owe Glasch,” Albrecht stated, his tone sharp. “You cheated Lydia out of her share.”
“Markus got life,” the man named Clotten explained, trying to justify it. “Other thing is, those pictures don’t exactly sell so fast. What was I supposed to do when they busted him? Go visit him in the big house with a bag stuffed with cash?”
“He has a family and they can use every cent,” Albrecht shot back.
“That didn’t occur to me,” Clotten murmured in apology.
Albrecht recalled the story Glasch had told him in prison. Glasch had gotten to know Karsten Clotten over the Internet. By e-mail and in chat rooms, they’d talked about how lucrative the market was for photos of abused women. The worse a woman was messed up and the higher-quality the shot, the higher the price. Before Glasch became a murderer, there were several cases of severe abuse the cops hadn’t linked to him. Glasch had tortured the victims and then taken photos of them with a nice digital camera. He provided Clotten with a memory card full of them but was arrested before the first pictures sold.
“How much you get?”
“Twenty thousand,” Clotten said without hesitating. “Most I could get.”
This matched the sum Glasch had said was the minimum.
“I’ll come collect twelve thousand, two days from now.”
“Markus and me, we agreed on fifty percent each,” Clotten protested.
“You’re behind in your payment. That costs you interest.”
Clotten wanted to object again, but Albrecht held up a hand.
“I don’t negotiate. Twelve thousand in two days. That a problem?”
Intimidated now, Clotten shook his head.
The crime scene was cordoned off over a wide area, and a lot of rubberneckers had gathered outside the crime tape since it had stopped raining. Detective Graf crouched down next to the body. He had never gotten along with Becher that well, but still, seeing him lying here shot to death hit him hard. Suddenly he noticed something inside the dead man’s half-open jacket. He pulled down the zipper all the way and found a piece of paper, laminated in plastic. Startled, he picked it up. He quietly read the printed note out loud:
“A message for Rosenberg. It started on October 14, 1982. But you don’t even see it, even when it’s right in front of your eyes.”
At that moment, Graf’s partner, Riedel, came up.
“Who the hell is Rosenberg?” Graf asked, bewildered.
Riedel shrugged. “We have a description of the perpetrator. A neighbor gave it.”
20
Katharina tried to overcome the fear taking root inside her. At her apartment, she’d just gotten a call telling her Becher had been murdered the day before. Neither Matisek nor Albrecht could be considered suspects now, since both had been shadowed without interruption. She considered it unlikely that Sandra Bürgel was killing for Matisek. He’d hardly be so careless as to order another murder right after being released.
She had to face the terrible reality: her name was next on a serial killer’s list.
What irony, she thought bitterly. A few days ago she’d had to convince herself not to throw her life away. Since then, she couldn’t imagine anything worse than dying.
She tried making eye contact with the man most responsible for her change. Chris was also completely shocked; he’d been at a loss for words ever since they’d gotten the call from Neuss. The question had to keep running through his head, as it did hers: Why had Becher shrugged off their warnings so carelessly?
Katharina picked up the report from the officers who’d watched Albrecht and skimmed it once more. At the time of the crime, the former inmate was miles away in Gummersbach—it meant she could rule out Glasch as the mastermind behind the murders.
She was back to square one. She needed a lead and fast if there was any chance of catching the guilty party in time.
“Why didn’t he listen to us?” she complained, regretting that they hadn’t pressed the dismissive cop harder. Chris’s pained eyes and contorted mouth revealed the answer they both knew: Becher had completely believed there was nothing to his theory of a mission-driven serial killer. Because of that, he had died. Chris sensed her tortuous thoughts and self-blame. He pounded on her bistro table. “He didn’t want to believe us. Goddamnit! If only that witness’s description could help us.”
“A person, most likely a man, taller in stature but slimmer than Becher, wearing a dark blue rain jacket and a red cap. Because of the heavy rain, the witness unfortunately couldn’t make out the face from his window.”
“Should we drive out to Neuss again? We have to do something, anything.”
“Our colleague Graf won’t let us for now,” Katharina said, despondent. “He was clear about that. He’s requested all existing findings we have on our end but wants to carry out their investigation on his own to start.” Her only hope was that the Neuss PD would come asking for her help once they ran out of options.
“They think they’re better than us?” Chris burst out in anger.
“You can’t go judging them like that! Don’t be so harsh. Becher was their guy; he was one of them. In a way I can understand their wanting to solve his murder on their own.”
“They’ll have to start from the very beginning. We could help.”
“Maybe they’ll make some progress using our info. And let’s be honest: we haven’t been able to produce much so far. The only two suspects we have can’t be considered guilty. Not unless Sandra’s killing on Matisek’s orders, which I still don’t find plausible.”
“Me neither. The witness’s description points to a man.”
“So, we have nothing to go on.”
“Well, what are you going to do now?”
She could tell where he was going with this. She ignored him. She didn’t want to give in to reality. She recited, “It started on October 14, 1982. But you don’t even see it, even when it’s right in front of your eyes. What do you think he’s trying to tell us?”
“I have no idea. We’ll tackle that later. First, I’d like it if you’d answer my question. What are you going to do?”
“What can I do?” It was one last lame diversionary tactic. It only ended up provoking him.
“I don’t believe this,” he snapped at her. “You do know that you’re the next one on the list.”
“I also know I’m going to keep investigating until I have the right lead.”
“Are you going to request police protection?”
Katharina pressed her lips together. She really did not want to have her colleagues observing her every move. Chris stared at her, looking dumbfounded. He evidently feared that her hesitation meant more than it did. She reached across the table and stroked the back of his hand. “Don’t worry. I know what I need to do. But the same goes for you. I’ll tell them you’re in danger too.”
He exhaled in relief. “And here I thought you were going to go acting like Jörg.”
“No, that was never my intention.”
21
Forty-five minutes later, a total of fourteen officers attended a briefing in the largest conference room at police headquarters. The uninterrupted protection of two persons meant substantial organizational effort, and neither Katharina nor Chris were allowed to leave the premises before their surveillance was up and running.
Katharina, Frank, and Chris told their colleagues everything that they knew, backing up their speculation with facts. Katharina also told them that she and Chris had become closer in the last few days. That information c
ouldn’t have been kept secret from their bodyguards anyway.
The superintendent looked over a wall chart, moving magnet pins back and forth to allocate available forces. “It would make things easier for us if you two could remain together at one location,” he explained.
“I have a house that’s big enough for both of us,” Chris suggested. He seemed to like knowing she would be near him around the clock.
But Katharina was growing angrier by the minute. “Just wait!” she demanded. “Is anyone even going to ask me? It’s like you’re playing monkey in the middle and I’m the monkey. I refuse to leave the case alone. This is my case, after all! By all means, assign your chaperones to me, but I won’t let myself be sidelined.”
“Frau Rosenberg, no one intends to remove you from duty altogether,” the superintendent said. “But above all else, this is about your security.”
“No, it’s not,” Katharina said, bristling. “Above all, it’s about catching a cop killer. The faster we get that done, the sooner we can spare all this massive effort. You can’t suspend me!”
“It’s all right,” Frank reassured her. He added, “I too think Katharina needs to keep working the case. We won’t make much progress without her.”
“Suit yourself,” the superintendent growled. “And what about you, Herr Moll? Any special requests I’m supposed to fulfill?”
“Not as long as I can just go home. I won’t be leaving there.”
Chris glanced over at Katharina, his eyes questioning why she wasn’t coming with him. How could she tell him that it wasn’t all about the case, that she just wasn’t ready to take that step yet?
In her apartment late that evening, Katharina pulled off her shoes, frustrated. After such a demanding day, she needed to compensate with some physical activity. Of course she couldn’t expect her bodyguards, who’d taken up positions out on the street, to form a team to go work out with her. She couldn’t remain completely inactive, though, so she pulled on workout clothes and lay on her living room floor. She started with a hard-core Pilates routine and then planned to finish with a cardio workout. As she pushed herself physically, she turned over every facet of Becher’s murder in her mind; there had been no time for this back at headquarters with all the prep arranging their protection. She always felt that working out not only loosened up tight muscles but could also propel her train of thought beyond the same old tracks.
They had warned Becher, and yet the killer had still gotten close enough to shoot him in the gut. Heavy rain was cited as the reason for Becher not being alert to his surroundings. He apparently had wanted to get to a dry spot as quickly as possible and wasn’t watching out for who approached.
The witness gave a vague physical description in his statement but also said that Becher had exchanged a few words with his killer before the first shot came. A hunch was forming in her head. She rolled onto her back, about to do another set of leg circles, but just stared at the white ceiling.
Would Becher have talked to a stranger in the pouring rain? Or did he know the person?
As for Matthias, he had opened his front door for his killer. At least from what they could conclude, given the evidence.
Who would you open the door for so late at night?
“Someone you trust,” she said to herself. “Or at least know.” To her knowledge, there was only one person who applied in all cases for the murders.
Chris Moll.
“Oh God!” she blurted.
The rain jacket. Before she’d gotten into his car, he’d grabbed a dark rain jacket off the passenger seat and hastily flung it into the back. It was exactly like the one the witness had described.
She had no idea what Chris was doing that afternoon after they’d visited the Neuss PD. As soon as they got back to Cologne, he’d promptly told her he had to go to an appointment.
Katharina pulled herself up and reached for her cell phone, her dread growing. She tried frantically to come up with some explanation that could quash her suspicions, but nothing came to her. She dialed Frank’s number.
“After that first homicide, we thought maybe Blum knew the murderer and that’s why he opened up the door,” she told him outright.
“That’s true,” Frank said. He was used to abrupt calls from Katharina. “But we didn’t pursue the idea later because in Renner’s case clues pointed to a break-in.”
“What if the break-in was a feint, to keep us off the right track?”
Frank thought it over. “There’s also the fact that the perpetrator was imitating a previous homicide each time,” he added.
It all fits, Katharina thought in despair. Was the man she’d gone to bed with, the man who’d renewed her courage to keep on living, the cop killer?
“Let’s say I’m number four on the hit list and all the victims knew the killer. I can think of only one person that matches,” she said, her voice low.
Silence filled the line at first. Then Frank spit out the name: “Moll!”
“What do we actually know about him?” Katharina urged. “About his motives for quitting police work, for instance.”
Frank repeated what Chris himself had told both of them, but she needed more.
“I don’t mean what he’s claiming now,” she countered. “Do you know if he ever gave an official reason at the time?”
Frank couldn’t recall any official announcement any more than she could.
“Crap,” she said. “You think he could have confided in anyone after he made his decision?”
Frank alerted her to another factor. “We have to warn the officers outside his place. Not that there’s any danger, but we just don’t know.”
Sandra was enjoying her time on the rugged Baltic Sea, but with every day that went by her stay at the cheap hotel felt more and more like solitary confinement. She missed her apartment, especially her comfy bed. The sagging mattress on this rickety bed frame was straining her back, and not only that, her money was starting to run out. On two separate evenings she had gotten to know lonely men prepared to pay for her services after a little coaxing. Still, turning tricks in a big city was a lot easier.
She stared at her cell phone, which was turned off. Could those fucking cops determine her location if she used it just once? Or were they bugging Michaela’s phone?
She brooded about it awhile, then turned on her phone, retrieved Michaela’s number from her contacts, and turned the thing off again.
A little ways from her hotel was a public phone booth. Once she got there, she dialed Michaela’s number.
It only took seconds for Michaela to answer. She sounded so happy. “Sandra! You called finally! You can come right on home. Klaus had nothing to do with the murder.”
As Sandra listened to her friend explain it all, she wavered between relief that this episode was over and bitterness about Klaus’s double-dealing. She had fled because he asked her to, to give the police no chance of putting the screws on her. In the end, though, her relief won out. Now she really could go home.
22
By now, Walter Moll was starting to question his sanity. He was increasingly scared of being alone in his small house. Every ring of the phone, every unexpected sound, made him start with fright. He felt like the walls themselves were going to press in together and squash him.
Why was he getting phone calls in which he thought he heard his son’s name? What could that mean?
He wondered if he should inform the police. But what could they do about it? His former colleagues had all retired over time. Would these young upstarts at the station even take him seriously? They’d surely say the phone calls were just some stupid prank. Nothing that required following up on. Not a chance. They would appear sympathetic face-to-face, sure, but later in the patrol car they would roar with laughter about it. He recently met one of them—an arrogant, disrespectful fellow—and felt ashamed that men like that had
taken his place in his old precinct. So calling in the police for this was simply out of the question. At least, as long as nothing worse happened. Still, there was—
The phone rang, jolting him from his thoughts. He bolted up from his TV chair, peering in fear toward the foyer.
Katharina’s belief that Chris was the killer was losing none of its plausibility, not even after a few hours of fitful sleep. On the contrary. For her, he was now the only logical suspect.
This was the man she’d nearly fallen head over heels in love with. Why had her instincts not kicked in to warn her? In retrospect, his contacting her so unexpectedly was now taking on a whole different light. His shock at Blum’s death was only a pretense. Wasn’t it even written somewhere in the textbooks that certain murderers liked to interfere with the work of the police because it held a special allure for them?
The question of motive was still up in the air. Had working on police investigations traumatized Moll in such a way that he was taking his revenge on those very detectives he had helped out, whom he consequently held responsible for his trauma? Frank had mentioned this possibility but Katharina wasn’t convinced. She was seeing a different picture, in which he fed off his trauma. “Too many corpses, too much violence”—those were just empty words to her now. Maybe seeing the dead had excited Moll instead of repelled him. Maybe at some point it had stopped being enough for him to behold them solely in the course of his work. Blum wasn’t necessarily Moll’s first victim. By murdering cops, maybe he was only jacking up his thrill level.
To get some clarity, she needed to find someone from whom she could learn more about Moll than any official findings. Conversations with people from his professional sphere came up empty, so after noon she started researching his personal connections. She came across his father’s phone number this way. She dialed it, hoping. It took forever until someone answered.
Mark of Cain Page 9
