Not Her

by Noah Fitz

  “I had a dog…”

  “What?!” Mrs. Dixon jumped up in a frenzy. “Are you comparing my son to a dog?”

  “No.”

  An almost feverish tension held Tine in its clutches. Her unsteady gaze flitted from the angry woman to her colleague, who was massaging his temples.

  “He ran into the street.”

  “And?” Mrs. Dixon’s voice broke.

  “And he was run over by a truck.”

  The woman lifted her arms in disbelief and let them sink again. “I-I can’t believe it,” she said.

  “What I mean to say is, I was seven. I was a child and alone at home. I should have taken care of the dog, and because I didn’t pay attention for a tiny moment, Charly died.”

  Mrs. Dixon’s facial features derailed. Her hands clenched into fists. “Steve was my son. He was everything to me.”

  “That’s what Charly was to me back then. He was my life.” Marc lowered his voice. “Do you know what happens to a child when he thinks life has no meaning anymore? I held my dog in my arms. My parents didn’t come home until evening. I dragged the animal into my room and sat on my bed with my best friend, who was dying. He was whimpering and licking my face.”

  It was the first time Tine had seen her superior so emotionally agitated. Even Mrs. Dixon seemed to lose her will to argue. She just stared at him.

  “Even when he went all stiff, I could not part with him.”

  “And what should I do now?” Mrs. Dixon said. “Buy myself a dog like your parents did?”

  “I never had another dog after that.”

  Silence settled over the room. Mrs. Dixon let her tears run free.

  “You will grieve for your son. Months, years, will pass, but you mustn’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. You must stay strong and try to get your life back under control. Of course, there is no substitute for such a loss, and it is wrong for parents to have to bury their children, but you mustn’t break. It will do no one any good.” He looked at her urgently.

  Mrs. Dixon remained frozen.

  “You must try to live your life, even if you have lost the most important thing in it. Your son is dead, but you’re still here. You can scold me, call me an idiot, punch me in the face, but please do not throw your life away. Don’t sacrifice it for something you can’t get back.”

  Mrs. Dixon did not punch him in the face. “Get out of here,” she said. “Both of you.” It was all she had left.

  “We will send a colleague to help you through the grieving period—”

  “Out!”

  After they were chased out of the apartment and back into the red Audi, Tine said, “May I be completely frank?”

  Marc put the key into the ignition. He looked tired and drawn. His face was gray, but his eyes were still clear and were radiating an unnatural coolness. “That phrase is just a bad excuse for a lie. An excuse to hide behind a mask. Unfortunately, that trick does not work on me. So if you want to be completely frank, it’s best to just keep your mouth shut.”

  Tine shook her head and ignored his rudeness. “Why did you tell the poor woman about your dog? I’m sorry, but that’s not the same thing, and not at all comforting.”

  Marc started the car, but didn’t drive off, staring at the steamed-up windshield. He turned the blower to the highest setting and adjusted his seat. Then he looked at Tine from the side. “We imagine our lives in the most beautiful colors there are, often several years into the future, and convince ourselves that we can reserve a fixed place for ourselves there because we are important. Instead we are only placeholders that can be replaced at any time.”

  “So you don’t believe in fate?”

  “We don’t really believe in luck, fate, or providence until we’ve lost something that was important to us. It doesn’t have to be material things. Sometimes they’re just trivialities.”

  “Like what?”

  “A seven-year-old kid’s dog, for example.”

  “That’s not funny,” Tine said.

  “Do you see me laughing?” He put the car in gear, turned the blinker on and added, “What forces us to believe in unexplained phenomena is despair. Only when we are desperate do we look for explanations or excuses.”

  “But didn’t you mention that you don’t believe in fate?”

  “I’m not seven anymore, Pride. I’m no longer a child.” With these words he drove out of the parking lot into the night.

  ***

  Tine blinked the memory away, but another took its place. With each flicker of the hallway light, the burst skull of the boy appeared before her eyes. And every time she blinked, she saw the other boy, his spilled blood, his slit neck. Except for a few hours of restless sleep, Tine had wandered around her apartment, sorting pictures and thoughts, taking notes and tearing out the pages, because nothing made sense. Unable to find peace, she had waited with her subconscious for morning. Even now she felt an inner emptiness that could not be filled.

  “You will learn it with time, Pride,” Marc Wulf’s voice echoed. “You can’t get too close to what’s happening around you. That’s the first step toward normality. You have to start building a mental barrier. There’s nothing wrong with showing empathy, but you must not let these feelings overwhelm you. Even more important is a completely different perspective. All this must not hinder your work. It can’t interfere. You must keep a clear head and remain impartial until the case is closed.”

  Tine stopped and blinked. She thought she had seen something. The clatter of her heels echoed somewhere in the distance. Was there some one there, or was it just her imagination?

  “Hello?” she said. She looked at the shadow of a human figure, which slowly dissipated, like a cloud, and turned left. The office was in the basement of police headquarters. Here the air smelled of moist, old paint and damp earth, and it was impregnated with electrosmog. Thick cables and pipes ran along the vaulted ceiling. They hissed, rushed, and crackled above.

  This tunnel used to be painted white, Tine thought. But the ravages of time had transformed the innocent white into a blotchy gray. You need to get some sleep, Tine, her inner voice said, mocking her. You’re already seeing ghosts.

  So far, she had passed two doors. She had stopped at each one and shook it to make sure she hadn’t walked past the correct one.

  When she had asked the doorman behind the glass pane where she could find Chief Inspector Marc Wulf’s office, he had said, “Third door on the left.” He had described the way to her in detail and had even offered to accompany her. He didn’t have much to do anyway. Tine had declined his offer, though. The twitching in his chestnut brown eyes, the flush on his reddened face, and also the steadily increasing trembling of his hands had betrayed his true intentions. While he was explaining the way to her, he’d also begun to stutter. He said he was just nervous because it was his first day back after his vacation, but Tine hadn’t bought the excuse.

  “You should get out more and meet some women your own age,” she had told him. “That way you can spare me your advances.” In retrospect, she was sorry for the outburst, but she couldn’t help it. She was so tired and exhausted. Had the guy followed her down here?

  “Hey, you there! I see you!” she shouted a little louder.

  “I’m sorry,” said a distant voice, echoing off the bare walls. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You walked past the correct door. Like I said, I was just checking. You seemed very distracted. I’m going back upstairs.”

  “Come here at once.”

  “I’m really sorry. You must take ten steps…”

  A loud squeak and the slamming of a heavy door cut off his words.

  “Now ten steps back,” she said and turned around on her heel. “He even counted my steps?” She raised her head and looked up at the ceiling, discovering a glass dome with a flashing lamp inside. A camera. Tine had walked straight past the door where a white slip of paper was hanging. She stopped in front of it and took a couple
seconds to calm down. When she could breathe evenly again, she took two steps closer.

  The slip of paper hung slightly crooked. Two adhesive strips of unequal length fixed the sheet to the door.

  Scrawled across the page in bad handwriting were the words, “Special Department X. Please knock.”

  The door handle was vertical. As with cat owners, Tine thought. She noticed a shadow just above her eyes. She jumped back in horror and waved her arms wildly.

  Because she had just choked on her chewing gum, her scream was nipped in the bud. She spat the chewing gum into her palm and stuck it on one corner of the sheet.

  A fat, black spider with a white cross on its back had rappelled down to the ground and crawled straight toward the red tip of Tine’s shoe.

  “I-I don’t kill animals,” she said and pulled the door handle wildly. The door crushed the spider into a wet spot. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling terrible.

  Chief Inspector Wulf sat at a table that must have been from the early seventies. A bare lamp hung above it, like in old crime movies. His grim face was bent over his documents. He must have been busy analyzing his preliminary reports. Tine said hello, but if Marc had heard her greeting, he paid no attention to her when she walked to a second table filled with empty boxes and other junk.

  “And this is where we’re supposed to work?” She pushed the boxes to the floor and held her breath. A cloud of dust rose to the ceiling and wafted around the lamp.

  Marc drew his mouth tight and put the pen in the middle of his notepad.

  “Vanity and resentment are the primary traits of a narcissist,” he said calmly, waving his right hand to chase away the dust. “Was that your dream of police service? Did you see yourself in a brightly lit office with high windows and a view of the city? Maybe with a good-looking partner at your side who always cuddles? Apparently, your long-awaited wish has turned out to be a silly little girl’s dream.”

  She could not think of a biting remark to hurl at him. She said, “I wasn’t expecting a prince, but neither did I expect a self-indulgent ruffian.”

  “I envy you, Pride. I’d rather have a psychopath for a partner than a hypochondriac.”

  “Excuse me?” Tine leaned against the edge of the table, which unexpectedly started moving, scraping loudly across the floor. She jumped up again.

  “If you’re looking for a reason not to work with me anymore, Pride, you’d better say it to my face. I chose this office for myself because I don’t want to constantly run into my dear colleagues up there. I am not popular with anyone, and I don’t want to be. What I want is to do my job properly. I don’t give a damn about those people up there. I would crush anybody, just like you crushed that spider with the door, if they said a single bad word about you. I swear to God, and do you know why?”

  Tine shook her head. He also noticed the spider? she thought.

  “Because we are partners. Now it is up to you. You are free to stay, or free to go.” He pointed to the door. “But if you’re going to stay, I want to be able to count on you. Day or night.”

  Tine’s eyes had filled with tears of anger. “I’m staying,” she said.

  “This is your place, by the way,” he said, clearing his throat. “I made it up very quickly.” He pushed the chair back and came forward. Tine lacked the words.

  “Here.” He went to a wall and pulled a tarp that Tine hadn’t noticed before. The fabric fell to the floor, rustling. Behind it was a large cork board. Marc had already pinned up some pictures from their case and had connected them with colored threads to establish possible links.

  “We also have a computer and a printer. I have already taken care of that. What we still need is a coffee machine.” He smiled tiredly. “For the time being we’ll have to make do with this.” He pointed to a corner where there was a small table. On it stood two coffee cups and a pump pot that held a good three liters.

  “Did you sleep here?” Tine asked.

  “Just the last two nights,” he said.

  “What do you think? Will he strike again?”

  “Not every serial offender is equipped with the innate average intelligence of the human species,” Marc said.

  “But that doesn’t just apply to the murderers,” joked Tine.

  “You may be right, but I have other qualities.”

  “That was not directed at you.”

  “And I’ve already put you on the defensive.”

  He does that extremely skillfully, she noted.

  “We must find out what drives the perpetrator,” Marc said. He pinned another photo on the cork board. Tine saw an electrical outlet with two colorful cables protruding. “We can start by understanding the victims. What would cause you to put yourself in a situation where you are willing to die?”

  “Despair?” Tine suggested.

  Marc took two steps to the right and pulled out a whiteboard from behind the boxes. With a black marker he wrote desperation on it.

  “What else?”

  Tine forgot her resentment and tiredness. “Fear of being excluded from the group?”

  Peer pressure, he wrote below.

  “Shame?”

  Marc tapped the marker against his chin. “Elaborate.”

  Tine thought for a second before continuing. “I know of a girl who was filmed masturbating in her room. The poor girl didn’t know that she was being filmed by the camera on her laptop. She took her own life. She was only thirteen and… my sister.” Hot tears were rolling down her cheeks. “That’s why I wanted to join the police.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Marc said.

  “It’s not your fault. The boy that did it was later called to account and expelled from school for two weeks. He was also thirteen and not of the age of criminal responsibility.” Tine wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. The tears gradually dried up, although the pain remained in her chest, just below the heart. “Every time I think of my sister, I remember this sweet smell. She loved strawberries. All her creams and scents smelled of them. I haven’t eaten strawberry jam since. It used to be my favorite breakfast. Jam and toast.”

  “Visual impressions are anchored in our minds by the olfactory,” Marc said, “so our memories can be suddenly awakened by certain smells, but only marginally.”

  Tine brushed at her eyes with the palms of her hands and tried to smile.

  “What you said makes sense. The killer might have something on the children, forcing them to do something that could cost them their lives.”

  He wrote another word on the whiteboard: Blackmail.

  “Please take a look at this picture.” He stepped aside and tapped the pencil on one of the photos he had taken. “What do you notice? Act intuitively. Say what you see and not what you think.”

  “Their faces,” Tine said. “Three of them are no longer alive.”

  “What else?”

  “Everyone’s about the same age, except for him here.” Tine’s red painted fingernail pointed at Enno.

  “Right. He is the oldest. Why?”

  “Because he didn’t make the cut with peers his age?”

  “Fine. What else?”

  “He’s shy…”

  “… and is actually into boys,” added Marc.

  “Pardon? How do you figure that?”

  “That is what Martin, the police photographer, found out from some pictures that hung in the boy’s room. A scene thing, I’m not really familiar with it, but Martin is. The neighbor also called Enno a weird guy or something.”

  “Could it be that we have a group of outsiders here?” Tine asked.

  “A clique of losers,” Marc said, rewording the sentence.

  “But Yara was pretty and also good in school.”

  “Yes, she was,” Marc said. “And yet she felt cramped in this small town and longed for freedom.”

  “Which she found at Enno’s.”

  “Because he was eighteen, got along well w
ith girls, made all her wishes come true, and owned a car.”

  “Right. He was probably a good listener and could buy her gifts,” Tine said. “He got enough money from his father, who wanted to compensate for his constant absence. The family is well-off.”

  “Now a question: Why did Enno kill his best friend with the fake katana?”

  “Because he was trying to stop him from electrocuting himself?” The answer sounded like a question.

  “I’m not quite sure about that,” Marc said. “The mother mentioned a power outage. Neighbors have confirmed this, but only those who live in the same section as the Parker family.” He paused.

  “Do we already have the results from the evaluation of the phones and the notebook?” Tine asked.

  “Yes. But apart from a few harmless porn videos, the guys from the IT department haven’t found anything interesting.”

  Tine nodded and picked up the original theme again. “Was someone tampering with the junction box?”

  “Shall we pay the Parker home a visit before we go to school? The apartment has been vacated since this morning, so we can have a thorough look. I really want to know what those bracelets they wore mean. But first I want breakfast.”

  “Agreed,” said Tine. She was in the mood for avocado toast and a poached egg. “There are a total of eight people in this photo. Three are already dead. Why is the killer targeting that group?”

  “Because they rejected him,” Marc said.

  “I don’t think so. Can it be a teacher? Maybe they teased him in class?”

  “And what would a teacher have on them? They do not all go to the same class. And Enno went to another school.”

  “He could have filmed her in the locker room or in the shower.”

  “A gym teacher,” said Marc.

  They left the office.

  “Could also have been the janitor.”

  “I like you better and better, Pride,” Wulf said. “I don’t think you’re right. But we should ask all the teachers nonetheless.”

  In the corridor the one light was still flickering. A soft, metallic squeak and the sound of water dampened Tine’s joy a bit. Involuntarily she walked a little faster.