Mark of Cain

by Marcus Hünnebeck

  She followed the trail of blood, which led along the living room floor into the foyer. Stefan had killed his stepfather in the living room but obviously hadn’t left him lying there long. In the foyer a crime-scene photographer came her way, up from the basement. He looked so ashen that she feared the contents of his stomach would soon need to be mopped up off the floor with all the rest of the mess. The man bolted outside.

  Taking a deep breath, she went haltingly down the basement steps. An icy cold shiver ran down her spine. Here was where the killer had acted out all his personal fantasies. In her mind’s eye she remembered the retired police officer as he was, still alive, sharing those painful secrets of his past with her over coffee and cookies.

  She steeled herself to take a clinical look at Walter Moll’s corpse. The killer had attached a cord to the handle of the small basement window and then looped the line around the victim’s upper torso several times, below the armpits. The dead man had been displayed sitting on top of a waist-high shelf. His slit throat explained the bloodstains in the living room. Stefan had stripped his stepfather naked. The wounds and bruises on the aged body testified to the violence the older man suffered before his death. His face was mutilated the most. To make things worse, Stefan had taken a long, thick nail and nailed his stepfather’s right hand to the basement wall, near his head, but at an odd angle.

  The noise of the large freezer-chest motor kicked in near the corpse and made Katharina start. At least it had shocked her out of the numb rigor she’d succumbed to while assessing the scene.

  Right as she turned to leave the basement, she had a gut feeling. The way the body was positioned, it served a specific purpose. The killer, after all, was “mission-driven,” as Chris a.k.a. Stefan had explained to her. She turned back around and focused on the way Walter’s hand was nailed down. The fingers pointed to the freezer.

  Why would Stefan go to that much trouble?

  She took a step toward the chest, grabbed the handle, and opened the huge lid. A sob escaped from her when she saw the plastic bag. Her heart heavy, she pulled the bag back a little to see its contents and slashed through the plastic with a knife. There was the frozen corpse of Chris Moll. His forehead displayed a single bullet hole.

  Katharina sat on the front steps of Walter Moll’s home, smoking a cigarette as she briefed Frank Weimer over the phone.

  “My guess is, his first victim was Chris Moll,” she told him, exhausted. “After that he pretended to be Chris, and we fell for the ruse. We’re going to stage a full-scale manhunt. I want to catch this fucking bastard.”

  Someone cleared his throat in the background, to catch her attention. She looked over her shoulder and saw Zimmerman, the detective in charge. He probably wanted to be filled in too. Nodding, she raised an index finger to tell him she still needed a minute.

  It took until the early morning hours before father and son were driven away in two separate morgue vans and the crime-scene officers finished up. Katharina stayed at the scene with her two bodyguards until the very end. Overlapping investigations involving two police jurisdictions could often prove difficult, so even though she was tiring herself out, her presence there could only benefit her. Instead of having to chase down the relevant information later and keep calling back officers she didn’t know, she had just gotten all the details firsthand.

  By the time she got into her car, dawn was breaking already.

  27

  Stefan Moll waited patiently. A sniper rifle was set up on the hood of his car. He peered through its telescopic sight from time to time. He had seen how she had raced to the crime scene in her car, and from this he knew that the final act was going exactly according to his plan. She had to take this access road on the way back to reach the autobahn. There was no other alternative. He looked at his watch. The daylight breaking would help him get a well-placed shot. Once she and her protection were put out of commission, he would carry her off to the old man’s hunting cabin. He’d found the key in Walter’s house and pocketed it.

  As Katharina drove toward the autobahn, she called Frank, with her cell connected to the car speakers.

  “Will you go home first and rest a little?” Frank asked her. He was already at headquarters. Even with the static, she could tell his voice sounded concerned. He had to be wondering just how much of this she could take.

  “I can’t,” she told him. “It’s fine. I can stick it out a few hours more. Has the manhunt found any trace of him?”

  “Not so far. The boss is going to double your protection, by the way. And he’s taking you off the investigation.”

  She started to protest, but Frank wasn’t the right person to talk to. “We’ll just have to see,” was all he could offer her.

  “Are you okay?” he pressed on.

  “Everything’s fine. I’m just dog-tired, is all.” She was gradually starting to perceive something, a crucial realization—like a name on the tip of her tongue she still couldn’t recall. “See you soon,” she said, hanging up.

  Her car appeared finally in the crosshairs of his sight. Stefan readied himself for the shot, taking a deep breath, holding it in. The lighting conditions were more than adequate. A reddish dawn was spreading over the treetops. He took aim at her forehead.

  Suddenly it became clear to her. She’d overlooked it until now. Apart from his stepfather’s murder, Stefan had copied the other killings pretty closely. Matthias Blum had been strangled in a car like one of the prostitutes, Gerd Renner killed in his own home and moved several hundred miles, and Jörg Becher gunned down on the street. In the serial homicide she had worked together with Chris, the killer would take a woman into the forest, then release her and hunt her—until he shot her down with a bullet in the back of the neck and raped her postmortem. All at once the tree trunks along the road seemed to be practically leaning her way, closing in on her. The access road ran through this thick woodland for miles.

  Cold, naked fear clenched her throat. Now she stomped all the way down on the gas and frantically tried to radio the bodyguards traveling behind.

  He took his aim off her head and trained the sight on the car’s tires. A rapidly moving target did present a challenge, yet he didn’t doubt he’d prevail. In his time with the Bundeswehr, they had trained him to be an excellent shot.

  Just as she tried to warn her bodyguards, her left front tire burst. Katharina yelped out in fear as the car veered to the side at the same time. She steered against it, but too much. The car lurched the other way. More shots sounded, the bullets smashing the rear side window. She ducked and braked hard.

  “Fuck!” Tobias Wolfen shouted. He and his partner, Manuel Schröder, were responsible for protecting Detective Rosenberg. As he saw the shots fired at her vehicle in front of them, every hint of fatigue creeping into his bones these last few hours vanished in a flash.

  “What the hell?” Manuel yelled in shock. He braked abruptly. Their SUV came to a stop five yards behind the vehicle under fire.

  Tobias grabbed his weapon and unbuckled his seat belt. At that moment the driver’s side window shattered. Manuel’s head jerked to the side. Despite his horror, Tobias reacted with lightning speed. He shoved open the passenger door and rolled out. Pain penetrated his left shoulder as another shot ruptured the morning calm. Once he’d landed on the asphalt, he saw that blood was seeping into his shirt. He breathed in spurts. He was lucky the slug hadn’t killed him, but how was he going to shield the detective now, if she was even alive at all? The shooter appeared capable of firing on her with expert precision, and the gap between the two vehicles was damn wide.

  Then Tobias got an idea. He took a look back inside their car. Sure, it just might work.

  Keeping crouched, Katharina unbuckled her belt and grabbed her cell. She leaned across to the other side of the car and shoved open the passenger door. She climbed out cautiously, counting on a shot coming any second. Her bodyguards’ vehi
cle had halted behind her, the driver lifeless, still belted in. Her fingers shaking, she pressed the “Call Back” button for Frank.

  “Answer,” she pleaded as the phone rang and rang, her anxiety ramping up. Just don’t let him be in the cafeteria of all places, fortifying himself with his usual big breakfast. She had never been so happy to hear Frank’s voice come on the line.

  “What is it?” Frank said.

  “He’s shooting at us,” she told him. “At least one officer down. I’m guessing he’ll try hunting me down in the woods like he did the other women.” Somehow she was able to remain calm. She had asserted herself in a man’s domain her whole career, so she wasn’t about to go quaking and sobbing now, especially when a murderer had his eye on her.

  Frank, as always, grasped the situation at once and focused on the essentials. “Where are you?” he said.

  “On the access road to the autobahn. Little over a mile from the on-ramp. I’m going to go find cover.”

  “Watch yourself.”

  “Will do.”

  Right as she hung up, she saw her colleagues’ vehicle rolling slowly her way.

  Once Tobias got the clutch released, he tried to get the heavy SUV moving. It didn’t seem to work at first, but the wheels finally started turning.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he groaned.

  The pain in his shoulder had developed into a dull throb. The wound wouldn’t kill him. No way he was going to die, not today. With the door open, he pulled himself out and planted himself, crouched down, pushing against the car’s body. Another shot made him start. The bullet had struck the road and ricocheted under the car: harmless. Tobias doubled his efforts.

  “That you, Tobias?” Katharina shouted at him.

  “Yeah,” he groaned. “We need a barricade. Otherwise he’ll pick us off.”

  A jolt shook his vehicle and it came to a stop. He had bumped up against the detective’s car.

  She crawled over to him and eyed his wound with deep concern.

  “Could be worse,” he said through clenched teeth. “The motherfucker killed Manuel. I heard you calling it in. When’s backup here?”

  “Can’t be long,” she answered. She was looking over Tobias’s dark blue denim shirt at the bloodstain growing fast, not liking what she saw. “We have to stop that bleeding.”

  “First-aid kit’s in the trunk, but he’d get you.”

  Right as Katharina made a move to go get the first-aid kit, Moll fired off a salvo at the car. The bullets pounded into the body like hammers flung at high speed.

  “Gas tank is on our side, asshole. You won’t hit it,” Tobias mumbled, out of breath. He gave Katharina a grave look. “You have to bolt.”

  “Not without you,” she told him.

  He laughed in despair, ending in a coughing fit. “Don’t be an idiot. Here? Can’t . . . defend ourselves.” His breathing was labored, and he had to stop and gasp between words, concentrating hard. “Once we saw him coming . . . too late. Could hit our gas tank . . . blow us sky-high. You, make for the woods. Maybe he . . . he leaves me be, when he figures out you’re gone. . . .”

  Katharina wasted no time. Tobias watched, amazed, as she pulled off her jacket and then her sweater up over her head, stripping down to her T-shirt.

  “If he’s dumb enough to come in closer,” she argued, “we’ll pick him off.”

  Tobias, feeling light-headed, watched her undress further, taking her bright green T-shirt off and holding it out to him.

  “Now this is something . . . I always dreamed about, but what’s the big idea?” he said, his words nearly slurring now.

  “Enjoy the view,” Katharina said, as if it were a command, and handed him the T-shirt. “Keep pressing this on the wound till emergency gets here.”

  “Thanks.” He took the tee from her, his smile contorting with pain.

  “You got enough ammo?” she asked him, hastily pulling the rest of her clothing back on.

  “One . . . full . . . mag, three spares.”

  “Can you stay alert?”

  “Could you strip a little . . . more? That might help.”

  28

  Those goddamn cops had managed to turn the two cars into a barrier they could hole up behind.

  Stefan knew he only had a few minutes left. Should he just clear out right now and hunt her down later? Or give up on her completely? She was sure to have an even larger cop contingent guarding her in the future. No, he wouldn’t give up. This was the best opportunity he would get.

  He hurried to stow his equipment in the car and then climbed in. He was positioned about five yards above the main road. He’d found his lookout via a little dirt lane leading off the access road. Normally a forest ranger used it to reach a feeding spot he had on his beat.

  He checked the glove box; the Taser was there. Then he drove off. If he managed to carry Katharina off to the old man’s hunting cabin, he could still have a few hours of fun with her before killing her off.

  He sped down the lane and turned right, the tires squealing.

  “Hear that?” Katharina said.

  The sound of a car zooming off filled her ears.

  “No sirens,” Tobias replied, his voice weak. “A commuter?”

  “That would be from the other direction.”

  “Night shift?” Tobias asked, and Katharina saw what effort it took him to speak.

  She dared to peer over the SUV’s hood. A vehicle was nearing. From this distance she could only make out one person inside, a person wearing a cap and a scarf, making a positive ID from this distance impossible even with the increasing daylight.

  Innocent third party? Or Stefan Moll?

  To be safe, she raised her gun into position.

  “Is that . . . ,” Tobias struggled to ask her, “that motherfucker?”

  “No clue,” she replied.

  Suddenly the driver revved the engine and steered his car for them, coming head-on.

  “Shit!” Katharina shouted. “Down the bank!”

  She fired three times. Glass shattered but the car kept coming. She leapt for the nearby short embankment as the car rammed the SUV. The SUV spun in place, and Tobias cried out in pain.

  She fought to regain balance, flailing her arms, and toppled backward. Her head hit the ground hard. She blacked out briefly, her pistol falling from her hand. A shot brought her back to consciousness. Was it her gun? Or had Moll jumped from his car and killed Tobias?

  A figure leaned over her. Stefan Moll. He moved to press something to her neck. Using all the strength she had left, she kicked at him and caught his leg. He groaned loudly and the thing left her neck. She crawled up the short embankment. An object bored into her back. She groped for it, but at that moment Moll trained his pistol on her.

  “Stop!” He barked out the order. “Stand up!”

  She looked for a way out, in vain. Moll seemed to be losing patience fast. She saw his finger quivering on the trigger, bending. Then a bang, and earth spouted up next to her.

  “Any day now,” he said.

  As she stood, her eyes landed on her dead colleague. His face was splattered with blood.

  “You sick motherfucker!” she shouted at Moll. “I’m gonna take you out.”

  “We will see about that.”

  At that moment, countless emotions washed over her. Sorrow for Sarah’s death and for Chris’s murder. Rage that she’d fallen for Chris’s impersonator. A tsunami of guilt because officers had given their lives trying to protect her. Stefan Moll had worked her like a marionette.

  He came at her, gun in one hand, Taser in the other. If he succeeded in knocking her out and carrying her off before backup arrived, she knew she would suffer horrific tortures before she died.

  She’d rather die fighting. She waited till he was just a yard away. She lunged at him in a frantic fury. Taken by su
rprise, he fired a shot. She felt a searing pain in her left arm and bounded into him. Moll staggered backward. The Taser dropped out of his hand. He lunged back a step into the road to keep his balance, but his feet tripped on Tobias’s body. As he fell he fired in her direction but missed. She dove headlong after him. Her eye caught Tobias’s pistol at the same time, just within her grasp. The back of Moll’s head had hit the asphalt hard. She snatched up Tobias’s gun. Moll, dazed, tried to target her, but she was faster. She pulled the trigger three times, the bullets shredding open his chest till he collapsed.

  As she stood, panting, she heard police sirens in the distance. She bent down to Tobias, but her finger on his pulse only confirmed he was dead. Then she saw her arm. The bullet appeared to have just grazed her, leaving a superficial wound. Her feet dragging, she stepped out into the middle of the road, laid the gun on the asphalt, and waited for backup to rescue her.

  29

  Radiant sunshine bathed the cemetery in a warm, autumnal light. Katharina would have preferred if an occasion like this had brought a dark sky thick with clouds. Walter Moll and his son Christian were buried side by side, next to the grave of Ursula Moll. Walter’s brother had arranged the burial service. He had also seen to it that Stefan would not be buried anywhere near his family. The police would have him cremated.

  The pastor gave his monologue, which was supposed to comfort those left behind, but Katharina couldn’t follow the priest’s words anymore. She knew from experience how little help such clichéd consolation could be when you’ve lost a loved one so tragically.

  Only when Frank nudged her and pointed ahead did she realize that it was her turn to say good-bye. She stepped up to the grave and tossed a small bouquet of flowers on Christian’s coffin. Then she grabbed the shovel stuck in the pile of loose dirt.