The Wages of Sin: A Kidnap, a Crucifixion, a Murderer on the Loose

by Inge Löhnig

  ‘Can I help?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘You can dress the salad if you like. My salad dressing always comes out too acidic.’ Melli looked at the time. ‘Where are those two?’

  ‘Maybe they got stuck in traffic,’ Agnes said.

  The doorbell rang. ‘Finally.’ Melli wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and went to the door.

  Agnes got out the ingredients for vinaigrette from the fridge. She could hear a deep voice coming from the front door.

  ‘Good evening. My name is Aiblinger. This is my colleague Ms Prinz. We’re here from the police station in Baierdilching. Are you Mrs Lechner?’

  What was going on? Agnes went into the hall. A uniformed police officer was standing in the open front doorway. His head nearly hit the low doorframe. A greying moustache occupied the gap between his nose and mouth, white hair peeked from under his hat. His colleague, a young woman with a blond ponytail, was almost hidden behind him.

  ‘May we come in?’ the officer asked.

  Melli stepped aside. ‘Why? Has something happened?’

  He looked at Agnes appraisingly. ‘Are you one of the family?’

  Agnes introduced herself.

  Aiblinger turned back to Melli. ‘Mrs Lechner, we need to speak to you about an urgent personal matter. Would you like your friend to stay here? My colleague could go outside with her.’

  ‘No. Agnes should stay here.’ Melli’s voice suddenly sounded shrill.

  The police officer took off his hat and rotated it between his hands. Agnes could feel a sour nausea rising. A déjà vu. Melli pointed to the living room. Aiblinger and his colleague followed her. Agnes sat next to Melli on the sofa and tried to keep her growing anxiety at bay. There could also be other reasons for this visit. But what?

  Aiblinger remained standing. ‘Mrs Lechner, unfortunately, we’re here to bring you sad news. Your husband has had a serious accident.’ Aiblinger looked at the colourful rug. ‘He died at the scene of the accident.’

  Melli’s head snapped up. She jumped up and went to the window. ‘That’s impossible. It’s a mistake. He called me just this afternoon.’ All the colour drained from her face. ‘And Agnes’s brother would have called us if they’d had an accident.’ She sounded relieved, as if that proved it couldn’t be true.

  ‘A mix-up is not a possibility, Mrs Lechner. Your husband had his ID with him and Mr Aschauer identified him.’

  Agnes wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Melli sat on the edge of the sofa. Agnes put an arm round her narrow shoulders.

  ‘Mr Aschauer is your brother?’ Aiblinger asked, looking at Agnes.

  Agnes nodded. Aiblinger explained that Michael was only slightly injured. A few abrasions and a broken leg. He was in the hospital in Murnau.

  ‘How?’ Melli asked in a hoarse voice. ‘How did it happen?’

  Mr Aiblinger sat down. ‘The driver of a delivery van coming from the opposite direction was speeding and wound up in the wrong lane. His vehicle crashed head-on into your husband’s motorcycle.’ Aiblinger twisted one end of his moustache between his fingers. ‘Your husband suffered a broken neck and died immediately.’

  The window was open. A gentle breeze lifted the curtains and gave them a clear view of the roses in the garden. They were in bloom. A butterfly rested on a red rose. Further back, a wheelbarrow leaned against the shed under the roof overhang. Beside it was a pair of green wellies. Gigantic, boat-sized boots. They must have belonged to Franz. He would never put them on again. Agnes forced back her rising tears.

  ‘He didn’t suffer,’ Aiblinger said.

  Melli stood up and looked out into the garden. Her shoulders began to twitch. Agnes wanted to comfort her. Aiblinger looked over at her for help. But what should she say? There were no words. It was as if a giant hand pressed her down and held her there.

  The young policewoman wrapped her arms round Melli. ‘It’ll be OK, Mrs Lechner. Time heals all wounds.’

  Melli turned round and stared at her. ‘What?’ she cried. The tendons in her neck were like taut ropes. ‘What will be OK? He is dead! Dead!’ She staggered past Ms Prinz to the table. ‘Dead!’ With a jerk, she pulled the tablecloth to the floor. Glasses and plates exploded into shards. ‘He is dead!’ she cried and dropped onto the sofa. She curled up and pressed her face into the cushion. Agnes took her hand. It felt ice cold.

  Aiblinger and his colleague said goodbye after Agnes had assured them that she would take care of Melli. She closed the door behind them, went back into the living room and sat next to Melli, who was lying on the couch and crying. Agnes knew that it had been like that for her back then too. Her mother had called the doctor and given her a sedative. She remembered that she had found it idiotic and paradoxical. But, thanks to the drugs, she’d been able to sleep and forget what had happened. For weeks, she took Valium, weeks in which the terrible truth of what had happened seeped into her life in small doses.

  She kneeled beside Melli and stroked her hair. ‘I’ll call Dr Wiessner. He can give you something calming. All right?’ Melli’s head jerked. Agnes took that as consent and reached for the phone.

  In the minutes that passed before the doctor arrived, she sat silently next to Melli. Time seemed to have slowed down and for a moment Agnes wished it would stand still. It was intolerable that it continued passing. When the doorbell rang, she stepped over the shards of glass and let the doctor in.

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ Dr Wiessner said. ‘They only got married a week ago and now . . .’ He ran his hand over his bald head and followed Agnes into the living room. Melli lay on the sofa, still crying. Dr Wiessner sat beside her. ‘Melli, I’m so sorry . . .’ He seemed to want to say something else, but then just asked whether he could give her a sedative injection. Melli nodded.

  He opened his medical kit and pulled out a disposable syringe and a needle. ‘I’ll give you Valium. Intravenously, so it’ll work faster.’ Wiessner stooped over and looked in his bag. A package fell out. He picked it up and shook it. Then he looked inside. The box seemed to be empty. He furrowed his brow and put the package back in the bag. He took out a vial, pulled out the syringe and gave Melli her injection. Five minutes later, she was asleep on the sofa.

  Monday, 26th May

  Agnes had cleaned up the broken glass, stored the food in the fridge, spoken briefly to Michael on the phone – he would be able to leave the hospital in two days – and spent the night at Melli’s house. She didn’t sleep a wink. When she came home the next morning, she felt absolutely destroyed. She went into the kitchen and turned on the espresso machine. She wanted to cry. But tears didn’t help. She got the milk and the yogurt out of the fridge.

  Melli had woken up at 3 a.m. and Agnes had spent the hours until dawn trying to console her. But there was no consolation. At the moment, there was only Valium and time. They didn’t heal any wounds, but they would make the pain more bearable.

  Agnes yawned. A strong cappuccino and a hot shower would get her on her feet again. She had to do some work. Anselm had accepted the quote she’d submitted on Friday and given her the job. She would use a few template pages to mock up two different design. Once he’d chosen one, she could really get going. She foamed the milk. When the cappuccino was ready, she sat at the table. She pushed the yogurt aside; she couldn’t eat anything. But the coffee was good.

  Her eyes landed on Jakob’s drawing. As well as buying colourful rugs and cream-coloured curtains on her shopping trip to Ikea – her living room finally looked warm and friendly – she had also bought picture frames. The picture now hung in the kitchen. It reminded her of the past, of the flat on Orffstrasse, of Yvonne’s framed drawings. Jakob had a feel for colour. The complementary colours he’d chosen had given it a flicker effect. It made the orangey-red and yellow scribbles over the heart look like flames. A burning heart. She had seen the image somewhere before. Maybe it was a symbol. Jakob was traumatised. He didn’t speak. Maybe there was a clue about his kidnapper in the picture.

&
nbsp; Agnes stood up, took her cappuccino with her into the office and started up her Mac. She went online to do a search for ‘burning heart’. Within a second, Google gave her two hundred and sixty thousand hits. She narrowed the search by adding ‘symbol’. Then there were only twenty-eight thousand hits. Agnes scanned the first few. A company selling wedding gifts using the burning heart as a symbol of love. The next website was for an art auction: Cupid Kindling the Flame of Two Burning Hearts with Bellows – a porcelain figurine with a steep guide price. The next site made her jump. The Crimes of Dr Capellari: Burning Hearts. But it was the title of a TV series. Agnes yawned and took a sip of coffee. She discovered a novel with the title Burning Hearts and also a music album. Maybe she was going about the search the wrong way. And besides, it was nonsense. She should get started on the book instead of trying to be the Bavarian version of Miss Marple. After all, Gabi had told her that Dühnfort thought the retired teacher was the kidnapper. They had found Jakob’s T-shirt at his house, in addition to photos that the man had taken of Jakob. That’s evidence, thought Agnes. What I have is just a vague idea. When she looked out of the window, she noticed that it had begun to drizzle.

  * * *

  Dühnfort watched a single raindrop as it ran down the windowpane, cleared a trail through the thin layer of dirt and then dripped onto the aluminium windowsill. The chestnut tree on the opposite side of the street was no longer clad in young, pale green leaves but now had a full complement of rich, dark green foliage.

  The past week had been full of work that had led to nothing. Sifting through particulars, knocking on doors, checking countless details, but nothing had pushed the investigation forward. Kallweit seemed not to have a second residence. At the moment, everything spoke to his version of the story: he had seen the children after visiting the doctor, photographed them and taken Jakob’s T-shirt. After that, he got his medication from the chemist’s and went home. The receipt from the chemist’s had the date and time on it. At three twenty-five, Kallweit had paid and left. At around four thirty, a neighbour saw him working in the garden when she came home from shopping. The window of time was tight, but enough for a kidnapping if the hiding place could be reached within fifteen minutes. But they still had no evidence.

  The hearing was set for Wednesday, when the judge would determine if he could be detained any longer. Christoph Leyenfels expected new facts by then, otherwise he would release Kallweit. Dühnfort ran his hand through his hair. Time for a proper cup of coffee. He heard the door being opened and turned round. Gina came in with two cups of coffee and a carton of milk under her arm.

  ‘I thought you might want one too.’ She put the cups on the table as she closed the door with her foot. The door softly clicked shut. Gina looked different. She opened the milk carton and handed it to Dühnfort.

  ‘You’re a doll,’ he said, pouring milk into his coffee. She had even thought of bringing milk. He appreciated the attention to detail.

  ‘Women always like to hear that,’ she said with a smile. She sat down in the visitor’s chair and crossed her legs. She was wearing a skin-tight stripey jumper, a denim skirt that ended just above her knees and sand-coloured suede boots.

  Nice legs, Dühnfort thought. Why’s she been hiding them in cargo trousers until now? ‘You look nice,’ he said.

  ‘I needed a new look.’

  Dühnfort knew that Gina was single. A year ago, she had broken up with her boyfriend, a driving-school instructor. Maybe she was newly in love.

  He sat down. ‘What’s up?’

  The telephone began to ring.

  ‘It’s not so important,’ she said.

  Dühnfort picked up the receiver. It was Dr Till Wiessner. ‘A colleague of yours visited me recently and asked if any midazolam had gone missing from my practice.’ Dühnfort put it on speakerphone, so that Gina could listen in. ‘Not from the practice,’ Wiessner continued. ‘I checked that while your colleague was there. But there is some missing from my medical bag. I only just noticed last night.’

  Wiessner answered Dühnfort’s questions and told him that he kept the bag both at the surgery and at home, and that he took it with him on house calls. Since the drug was so rarely used, it had taken him a while to notice it was missing. The vials must have disappeared some time in the last five weeks.

  ‘Who has access to the bag?’

  Dr Wiessner sighed and explained that, actually, anyone could get to it if they really wanted to. At the practice, it was stored in one of the treatment rooms, and during house calls he often left it lying around unattended.

  Dühnfort asked him to make a list of all the patients who had visited the practice or required house calls over the past five weeks. The doctor promised to put his receptionist on the job.

  ‘Kallweit will be on the list, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ Gina said as Dühnfort hung up. ‘What if you’re wrong?’ She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Dühnfort said. ‘Then we’re completely in the dark.’

  Prohacek had given in on Thursday. Four employees from different banks had conclusively identified him as the depositor. After that he revealed the hiding place for the rest of the money. It was in a watertight container among the reeds in the lake.

  The evidence was clear. Jakob had not been kept in Prohacek’s private home or the print shop or any of the numerous auxiliary buildings. Prohacek had piggybacked on the kidnapping, as Dühnfort had assumed from the start. Dühnfort was no longer sure that he was on the right track with Kallweit. There was still the question of how Jakob’s Lulli wound up in the Celtic enclosure. He asked Gina how she was getting on with that.

  ‘With difficulty,’ she said. ‘I spoke to the butcher, the trainee and the shop assistants. No one can explain how the slaughter waste disappeared. Satanists exist only in the city and on television. Still, something seems off about the trainee to me, even though his blond curls make him look like an angel. There’s something too slick about him for a seventeen-year-old. But that’s just a feeling, and people in the village like him. He’s polite, nice, and quiet, they say. To me, it seemed more a case of still waters running deep. I’ll stay on it.’

  Dühnfort’s thoughts returned to Kallweit. ‘If by tomorrow evening we still don’t have any evidence that Kallweit has a second residence, our only remaining option is an identity parade with Jakob.’

  ‘Do you really want to do that?’

  ‘Not really. But it might give us something definite,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘Sure. Maybe,’ Gina said. ‘I wouldn’t ask that of the boy. Is he talking yet?’

  Dühnfort had talked to Gabi Sonnberger on the phone an hour earlier. He shook his head.

  ‘Then there’s no sense in it. If Jakob had recognised his kidnapper, he wouldn’t have described him as “the black man”. He would have told us something more concrete. I don’t think an identity parade will get us any further. And it’ll scare Jakob. We shouldn’t do it.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Dühnfort said. ‘We’ll keep an eye on Kallweit once he’s been released from custody. Telephone monitoring and surveillance. Sooner or later he’ll lead us to the hiding place.’

  ‘If he has one.’

  ‘There’s a window of about sixty-five minutes when no one saw Kallweit.’

  ‘Do you really think that he decided to kidnap Jakob and then still went to the chemist’s first?’

  ‘Why not? It still fits the timeline. At three thirty-five he gets into his car and drives into the woods. He parks the car and hides in the hawthorn hedge. Quarter to four. A few minutes later, Jakob reaches the climbing tree. He ambushes the boy, drugs him and then carries him to the car. Ten to four. He drives to a hiding place that can be reached within fifteen minutes at most. Five past four. He takes the boy in and ties him up. Maximum five minutes. Ten past four. He drives home. Fifteen to twenty minutes. He’s back in his garden no later than four thirty and warmly greets his neighbour as she arr
ives home from shopping.’

  ‘If you think so,’ Gina said. She sounded resigned. ‘I feel like you’re getting stuck on something.’

  ‘I’m not stuck on anything. I want us to be meticulous,’ Dühnfort replied, in a tone that even he didn’t like.

  ‘Oh. Well, isn’t that what we’re doing? Do you think that Alois and I can magically pull Kallweit’s hiding place out of a hat? I don’t think there is one. He already has such a good one. Why else would he have gone to such trouble with the secret room under the garage?’

  Wednesday, 28th May

  The sky had turned lead grey. It made the forest cemetery in Mariaseeon look as if it were cast in dull metal. It began to drizzle as the funeral cortège set off. The priest walked in front, carrying the cross before him, as if the symbol could give meaning to the incomprehensible.

  Michael walked beside Agnes, supported by a crutch. They were at the back of the procession. Melli walked behind the coffin, which was covered in flowers. She wore a black suit, hat and heels and looked even more childlike than usual. As if she were a little girl in adult’s clothing. Only, little girls pretended to be brides and princesses. Melli’s parents were on either side of their daughter. Franz’s parents walked behind Melli. Agnes remembered his father from the wedding as a tall man with upright posture and a broad back. Now his head sank between his shoulders, his back was hunched and his feet dragged. His wife, who had personified red-faced happiness a week earlier, walked beside him, pale and haggard. They were walking arm in arm and looked shaky and unstable. Agnes wondered who was supporting whom. They were followed by friends and relatives, neighbours and acquaintances. Half the village seemed to have turned up. The young men’s association and the volunteer fire brigade lined up with flags. The fire brigade was in uniform.