by Vreni Fox
“Why would I need a lawyer? There’s a murderer loose in Drachenfels, someone who was attacking young women in my own yard, and I’m somehow the one in trouble?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Stupid Horst. This was no time for jokes. Someone had been slaughtered like an animal practically in my home, and that murderer was still running free. He could be long gone or he could be waiting for me in my own bedroom. And, somehow, the cop who was one of my oldest friends thought that I was responsible.
“You know that’s, like, a thing?” asked Horst after radioing in to Munich. “Feeding victims to pigs? I’ve never seen it before in person, but everyone knows. It’s because pigs will eat anything, even bones and hair. Someone hurt this girl and knew what they were doing.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe how bad this was getting. “So now you think that I’m somehow become an organized crime lord and I’m feeding victims to my pig? Are you even listening to yourself? Heinrich would never eat a person.”
Actually I wasn’t sure because I’d never actually tried to feed him a person, but I felt it was a safe assumption. Especially give the frequency that he heard people asking me why I never barbecued and ate him. Plus, I made it a point to never feed him bacon, just in case that was offensive to him.
“Well, can you at least get the damn pig out of there before he tries something? Jesus. This poor girl. Imagine that, getting into a silly argument about a birthday cake and then getting fed to a pig.”
I’d heard enough from Horst. He was clearly not prepared to handle a case like this, and he was talking crazy. I let Heinrich out of his pen and allowed him to graze at the side of my yard. He’d be safe there for the night.
If only he could just tell us whatever he saw. I hadn’t expected Horst’s reaction, not at all, and I was beginning to worry that I actually was in serious trouble. Did he really believe that I was capable of something like this?
I could tell that it was going to be a long night.
Chapter Four
I wasn’t under arrest. Not yet, at least. I left Horst to sort things out with the team from Munich and the emergency services team. They would investigate the scene, hopefully clear my name, and take care of Mandy Unterwegs’ remains.
Mandy Unterwegs. Chantal Nussbaum. Someone’s daughter, someone’s friend. People loved her, and they didn’t know it yet, but they were in for terrible, heartbreaking news. It had barely hit me what happened to her and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.
So I did what I always do when I’m feeling overwhelmed… I let myself back into the bakery and got myself a leftover piece of cake. Mandy wasn’t going to need that feather-light, airy, boysenberry and ricotta dream that I spent the entire day concocting, so I dug right in. I had a tendency to eat my feelings, and I was feeling a lot at the moment.
I was about to help myself to a second piece when my attention was diverted to the growl of an old engine pulling up outside my window.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
“Wait, I’m coming, hold your horses,” I muttered to myself. The tapping continued until I unlocked the door and let in a grizzled old man, about seventy years old, with an unkempt beard and a long, scraggy ponytail.
“What in tarnation is going on here?” he asked, removing a worn leather jacket and draping it over the back of a chair. “Looks like a murder scene.”
I stared at my uncle in disbelief.
“What?” he asked, already making his way to the table where I left my cake. “You in trouble with the law? What’d you do? Ha. I always knew you weren’t so squeaky clean. Got your father’s heart.”
I flinched at mention of my father but let it go.
“Stop, Conrad,” I finally interrupted him. “Something happened. Something really bad.”
“Well?” he prompted. “Are you going to tell me what it is? Or is that top secret intel?”
I sighed and dropped my face into my hands. “You want a piece of cake?” I cut him a slice and served it on a gold-rimmed dessert plate adorned with pink roses.
“I found a body in Heinrich’s pen,” I blurted out. “A young woman who was in town for the Mayor’s wedding.”
Conrad sucked the air through his teeth, creating a whistling noise. “Well, you got me. Wasn’t really expecting that. You think the pig killed her? Told you he’s no good. Should have been roast as soon as you found him. Stuff like that doesn’t happen to good men.”
“What? Conrad, no, Heinrich did not kill anyone and we’re not going to eat him. Jesus, that’s a person. Try not to be so gross, please.”
“Well was it an accident? You think she was out partying, did something dumb, and got hurt?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess it’s possible? I think it must have happened in the middle of the day, though. I found her around eight. Kind of early for hardcore partying. Pudding seems pretty sure it was no accident. Horst too.”
“Ah, the cop,” Conrad rolled his eyes. He tended not to hold anyone in a position of authority in very high regard. He was an old school rebel and held an inherent mistrust in police officers and the law in general.
“Yeah, the guys from Munich are out back right now investigating.” I wondered how long this type of thing usually took. Would they be out there all night?
“You think they need our help?” Conrad suggested. “Should I go out there and take a look? Never know when they might miss something.”
“They actually already told me specifically to get out of their way.” I paused before continuing. “Conrad, I think I’m a suspect here?”
“Really?” he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You going to explain here? And you got any liquor?”
I wanted a drink too. “No, nothing here. Wait,” I remembered, “I have a nice bottle of champagne in the fridge in the kitchen. It’s left over from last New Year’s.”
“Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess. Pop her open.”
“Really Conrad? Is that appropriate? To open a bottle of champagne right after I found a woman’s body in my garden?”
“What is the appropriate drink in this situation?” Conrad got up to fetch the bottle himself. “Anyway, it’s all we got, so we’re going to have to make due.”
“Conrad,” I stopped him. “Leave the bottle in the fridge and please use juice glasses. I don’t want to cops to look in the window and see us celebrating.”
“Clever girl,” Conrad muttered back, following my instructions. He returned to the table with two enormous orange juice glasses full of relatively expensive champagne.
I took a long, slow swig of my drink before starting. It went down surprisingly smooth with the cake. “So,” I began, “earlier today. I met this woman.”
I could see my uncle resisting the urge to interrupt.
“She came into my shop. Kind of a high-maintenance looking girl, like a living Barbie doll. She cut the line and tried to buy someone else’s birthday cake. Actually, no, she didn’t want to buy anything. She wanted me to just give it to her.”
“So you killed her over a cake?”
“I didn’t kill anyone. Anyhow, I turned her down and that sent her into a white, seething rage. I don’t think that she heard the word ‘no’ very often. She was furious. She threatened to destroy my reputation and practically bankrupt the entire town of Drachenfels. Over a birthday cake.”
“Wow,” Conrad responded. “Must have been some cake. How was she planning to herald the demise of Drachenfels?”
“Turns out, first, that this girl is the Mayor’s distant niece. Great, right? Just what I need. Another conflict with the Mayor. Second, and worse, this girl is some kind of internet celebrity. She has a website where she posts pictures of her life and a million other girls want to be just like her. So they go the places she went, they eat the things she supposedly ate, and they but the things she buys.”
Conrad wiped a bit of frosting from his plate and waited for me to continue, swigging away at his champagne.<
br />
“So, she wants this purple cake so that she can take a picture for her website. But I can’t sell it to her. I’ve already sold it. She freaks out, makes a bunch of threats, and then — get this — wants me to give her the cake AND pay her twenty thousand euros to take a picture.”
“Hot damn,” Conrad interjected. “Maybe I should get myself one of these websites. I’ll take a picture of your cake for just ten thousand euros.”
“Believe me, I thought the same thing. Anyhow, after Sabine Natter clued me in, I spent the whole afternoon making this girl her cake so she could get her picture. Then she was a no-show, then I found her body. And that’s the story.”
“And you’re sticking to it, right?” laughed my uncle, finishing his drink.
“What do you mean I’m sticking to it?” I demanded, getting up to get us a refill. “That’s what happened.”
“You kill her?” Conrad asked directly. “I would have. Sacrifice her to the dragon.”
“Jesus, Conrad, for the last time, no, I did not kill anyone. And there is no dragon.”
Or, at least, if there was, no one had seen hide nor hair of her in over one hundred and fifty years. Our people originally settled in Drachenfels because of the dragon that supposedly lived inside the mountain. She was responsible for heating the springs at the Hotel. Legend was, a witch could make a human sacrifice to her and gain unfathomable powers.
Of course, human sacrifices of any kind were completely forbidden by the Chamber of Commerce Bylaws. No witch made living sacrifices, plus most locals believed that the dragon never really existed anyways. Magic was real; not every single magical beast was real. As time passed, her memory faded, along with our powers.
“Might not be a bad idea for you,” Conrad continued with his line of thought. “You must get tired of playing with your plants. You want to spend the rest of your life getting scolded by that harridan Mayor? She’s been ruling Drachenfels with an iron fist for nearly a decade, and not everyone appreciates her style of leadership.”
I knew that Conrad hated the Mayor. Usually he was more discreet with his opinions, at least regarding this matter, but the bitter aloe in the frosting had loosened his tongue. I tried not to bristle at his rude behavior; he couldn’t help it after that cake.
“Conrad, the vast majority of Drachenfels citizens aren’t interested in the old magic. No one wants to make sacrifices or lay curses anymore. We just want to live our lives in relative peace and comfort.”
“No one?” he scoffed. “I guess I’m no one?”
“Conrad you don’t seriously want to return to the days of being burned at the stake. Anyhow, is that even how a sacrifice works? Isn’t there more ritual involved? You just dump the body somewhere when you’re done?”
I honestly knew very little about the old magic. I knew that a sacrifice involved killing a person (or animal in some cases) but I was pretty sure there was more involved. My family recipe book contained a wealth of information about herbs, potions, and the spells that activated them. It did not contain any information about how to offer a living human being to a dragon in exchange for God only knows what.
“You’ve got a point,” Conrad tugged at his beard. “So someone missed an opportunity.You sure it wasn’t you? I won’t tell anyone. Your own version of events makes you look awfully guilty. Why’d she end up in your pen?”
“If it was me,” I finally snapped, “do you really think I’d be dumb enough to try to dump her in my own damn garden?”
“Don’t pigs eat bodies?”
Again with the damn pig.
“So I’ve heard. But this one didn’t. Wouldn’t even get within three meters of her.”
“So your plan didn’t work then.”
“I didn’t have a plan.”
“You should have made one.”
“I didn’t kill anyone!” I pounded my empty glass on the table. This was too much. I was beginning to feel like I’d actually be better off alone in my home with a murderer hiding somewhere.
“Okay, so you didn’t. Then who did?”
“How would I know? I’m not a cop. I didn’t even know this woman existed this morning, how would I know whether she has any enemies?”
“You’d better start trying to come up with some,” Conrad replied, his voice thick and ominous.
“Why is that my job? Munich sent what looks like practically an entire police force.”
“And there probably out there right now trying to prove that you killed this girl. You’d better figure out who did kill her before you get pinned.”
“You don’t think they’d really believe that I was capable of something like this? The police don’t just randomly accuse innocent people of crimes.”
My uncle’s blank stare spoke volumes. He clearly believed that, yes, the police do randomly accuse innocent people of crimes.
Could he be right? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure. After all, Horst was a police officer and one of my closest friends, and even he seemed to immediately assume that I was guilty of murder.
It was ridiculous, really. I wasn’t even known to speak an unkind word to anyone, no matter how annoying or rude my customers sometimes got. I barely stood up for myself earlier in the day when a complete stranger insulted me, my bakery, and my town, then had the nerve to try to extort twenty thousand euros from me.
How could anyone really believe that I was a murderer?
Chapter Five
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
Who was this now? I got up from the table and unlocked the door again. It was Horst, looking much older and more tired than he had just earlier in the evening. He had his hat in his hands and his face bore fine lines that hadn’t been visible just an hour ago.
“They’re done back there,” Horst started. “Hildi…”
I waited for him to continue. He looked like he wanted to tell me something important, and I wasn’t sure whether I ought to encourage him to just spill it or wait and give him time.
“It doesn’t look good,” he admitted. “Those guys from Munich… they’re like pit bulls. They want a suspect and an arrest, and they want it right now. It seems like they’ll do whatever is necessary to wrap things up and get the hell out of Drachenfels as soon as possible.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” I had hope in my voice. These big city guys were experts. They probably had a lot of experience with serious crimes. “They want to solve the case.”
“No, Hildi, they don’t want to solve the case, they want to close the case. It’s not necessarily the same thing.”
“I’m not following,” I prodded, wiping the sweat from my hands onto my skirt. Horst was a trusted friend, or at least I thought he was. Why was he holding back now.
“Hildi, I’m just…” He clearly wanted to tell me something important. “I’m just saying, maybe be very careful about what you say when these guys talk to you. Very careful. Actually, I’m going to tell you again that you ought to start looking for a lawyer.”
“A lawyer? Just to tell the cops what I saw? That’s going to make me look even more guilty.”
Horst shook his head and sighed. “Well, please just consider what I’ve said.”
“What’s going on here? Horst, just tell me.”
“It’s an open investigation, Hildi. You have to remember, these guys from Munich don’t know you like I do. They don’t know that you’re a good person and they don’t know that you’d never do something like this. Just be careful.”
Just an hour or so ago, Horst himself didn’t seem entirely sure that I’d never do something like this, and he did know me.
“Do you want to come in and talk about it?” I offered, in an attempt to clear my name.
“No, Hildi, I can’t, this isn’t my case anymore. Plus, this is exactly what I was warning you about. Be very careful about offering to talk to these guys on an informal basis. These guys… they know how to twist your words and make it look like you were saying things that you weren’t real
ly saying.”
Jeez, I guess this time Conrad was absolutely right. It was sounding more and more like Horst also believed that the police didn’t actually care about who was really the guilty party.
“Anyhow, I have to get home. You can put your pet pig back in his pen, he’s still eating all of the flowers in your garden. Take care.”
And with that he was gone. I glanced over my shoulder at Conrad, who had been fiddling with the fray on his dirty old jeans and pretending not to notice Horst. The two of them didn’t like each other and generally avoided any contact.
“I think that was bad.”
“Yeah, looks like your boyfriend wants to lock you up.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Anyhow, should we take a look?”
We locked up the bakery and headed out back to my garden. Like Horst had mentioned, Heinrich had completely destroyed by flower patch. At least he knew well enough to stay away from my herbs. I led him back into his pen, which he seemed reluctant to enter.
“Sorry buddy,” I consoled him. “I know. That was probably scary for you. I wouldn’t want to sleep at the scene of a murder either.”
I hoped he didn’t get nightmares.
“Hey,” I noticed the lock. “Take a look at this.”
My uncle picked up the chain from the gate that had fallen to the floor.
“Lock’s broken,” he noticed. So it was someone who didn’t have a key.”
“No,” I answered. It was intact before the police arrived. They must have busted it to get inside.”
I kept the pen locked to protect Heinrich from getting pignapped. It looked like the police had used a pair of bolt cutters to get it open.
“Too bad,” commented Conrad. “I’m assuming that no one had a key but you. Makes you look even more guilty.”
“No,” I argued. “It means that whoever did this was strong enough to lift Mandy over the fence. “She wasn’t a big girl, maybe fifty kilo? I don’t think I could lift more than twenty five that high.”
