Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames

by Stefan Kiesbye

  Monday morning Benno dropped Tim off at school. “I’ll be home by five clock,” he promised the boy, “and take care of Rasmus.” Tim and Carolin were going to participate in a peace demonstration in Lauenburg, together with Pastor Cornelius and other members of the congregation.

  Benno parked on a small side street near the police station in Grevenhorst; Strathleven was too small for its own precinct. He hesitated at the entrance to the building, which looked like a repurposed villa. The bricks were painted pastel yellow, and a showcase was filled with wanted posters and other official announcements. Finally, he pulled himself together and climbed up the stairs and pushed open the door.

  At the reception he asked for the officer who led the investigation in the murder of the unknown woman, and was sent to the first floor, to Sergeant Gruber.

  It wasn’t only on the outside that the police station looked like a mansion. Although the walls could have used a new coat of paint and the hardwood floors a new finish, the high ceilings and ornate balustrades were still impressive.

  “And you are?” asked the uniformed officer who tore open the white-painted door after Benno’s third knock. His shirt and jacket were wrinkle-free.

  “My name’s Diedrich. I live in Strathleven.”

  The officer nodded. “Gruber.” He had short mousy hair, a red face, and was a head taller than Benno. Benno was sure he hadn’t seen him in the summer. He could not have been present during the initial investigation.

  “I work for the Strandkurier in Lübeck, but that has nothing to do with why I’m here.”

  “So you work for the Kurier,” replied Gruber, stepping aside to let in his visitor.

  “I was the one who found the body in the summer.”

  “What body?” Gruber asked suspiciously and closed the door.

  “The dead woman, the one no one has identified yet. The pastor and I waited for you at the crime scene.”

  “For me?”

  “For the police.”

  Gruber nodded and offered Benno a seat. The office was spacious, with large windows that looked out onto the main road. Gruber sat down behind his desk, which was empty except for two family photos and a penholder. Benno couldn’t discover any overflowing files, reports, letters or speeding tickets. It smelled of dill pickles.

  “Jochen Hecht still the publisher?”

  Benno nodded. “You know him?”

  “Who do you really know?” Gruber gave back half-philosophically. “But I’ve had the honor.” His lips were cut thin and sharp, and now they narrowed even more.

  “You don’t particularly like him.”

  “Back then he accused us of police brutality.”

  “When was that?”

  “When the junkies came to Strathleven. I hadn’t been here long, and sometimes the patients escaped from the asylum and appeared in Grevenhorst. One weekend there was a big fight in town, right over at Ulli’s Pub. We had to intervene, and some fool photographed everything and later sold the snapshots to the newspapers. People wanted to sue us. And your Mr. Hecht compared us to Hitler’s storm troops.” Gruber’s tone was meant to challenge Benno, and an ugly smirk appeared in the corners of his mouth, but his eyes seemed expressionless.

  Benno didn’t take the bait. After all, what could he say about the incident? All this had happened long before his time at the Strandkurier. “What became of the drug addicts?” he finally asked.

  “Building code. The clinic had been built for other purposes. The rooms were overcrowded and a short time after the brawl, several patients contracted jaundice. The health department intervened and after two weeks, the whole operation was shut down.” The sergeant paused, looked up from the toe of his shoes and out the window, then fixed his gaze on Benno. “But you’re here because of the corpse.”

  “Yes. I thought because I was at the scene . . . that the officers would contact me. Because I was a witness.”

  Gruber nodded thoughtfully. “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You know that we handed over the case to Lübeck’s homicide department?”

  Benno shook his head.

  “If they don’t contact you, that’s not our problem.” Gruber spoke fast, loudly, but almost without emphasis. Was he upset that he had lost his case to Lübeck?

  “They still don’t know who she was, right?” asked Benno.

  “Is this what you want? Get a great story for the Strandkurier?”

  “No,” Benno said, and sharply added, “But I don’t find a corpse every day.”

  Gruber stood up and left the room without a word. After ten minutes he still had not returned. Benno stood up, unsure if he should leave. From somewhere came the clatter of a manual typewriter.

  Then at last the door opened again, and the sergeant appeared with a file in his hands. He took no notice of Benno, sat down noisily behind the desk and began flipping through the rather thin file.

  “Dreadful scrawl,” he said softly. He pulled open a drawer and put on wire-frame glasses that seemed much too small for his massive head and began reading. “It doesn’t mention you.” He looked over the rim of his glasses, half questioningly, half accusingly.

  “How can that be?” Benno asked confused. “That’s impossible.”

  “Impossible?” Gruber laughed out loud. “My good man, you almost had me convinced. Does the Kurier want to interfere with police matters again? Are you trying to advance your career? Because the stupid police cannot do their job?”

  “But I was there. I drove the pastor to where the corpse lay.” Benno stopped. He sounded almost as if he wanted to confess to the crime. “I mean, after the pastor came back to the village, he asked . . .”

  “The pastor,” interrupted Gruber. “Yes, his statement is in here. And according to him, he discovered the body alone.”

  “Yes, initially,” Benno said. “But really.” He paused. He had almost mentioned the children, but just in time he remembered his promise to Cornelius. The children must not be drawn into the murder case. Sybille Antler and the boy who had taken the souvenir.

  Gruber stared at him wordlessly.

  “But I waited with him for the police and paramedics to arrive. I was there.” Benno swallowed; he knew his protestations simply sounded embarrassing. Not even he would have believed them.

  “Did you notice anything strange? Did you find something at the scene and take it with you? Did you know the deceased?”

  Benno shook his head.

  “Ingo must have been sure you didn’t.”

  “Who?”

  “Officer Schmoeh. He grew up in Strathleven, you should know him. He was in charge; I spent the week in Ibiza.” Gruber’s eyes looked up and inspected the ceiling. “I’ve been with the Grevenhorst police for over twenty years. And when our first murder case breaks, I’m in Ibiza. With the wife and children.” He looked sadly at Benno. “And now Lübeck has taken it away from us.”

  “But the report has to mention me,” Benno said. “I was even in the newspaper.”

  Gruber shook his head. “Either you’re lying or Schmoeh messed up.” The sergeant’s face turned red. “I would prefer the former. If you’re right and you were actually at the scene . . .” He looked at Benno with narrowed eyes, but did not finish his thought. Instead, he said, “But you were only the driver. So to speak.”

  “The driver? Is Officer Schmoeh here? You can ask him.”

  “He’s making his rounds. But as I said, this is no longer our case.” Gruber paused, sighed, and added, “If you want, I can give you the number of Lübeck Homicide. You can complain to them about your missing testimony.”

  Nothing. He had accomplished absolutely nothing and instead antagonized the police. Benno cursed on the way back to his car. But what did the omission in the report mean? Had the officer simply forgotten to add his testimony? He had been in the newspaper, and the whole village had known about his involvement. How could Schmoeh have forgotten that?

  He hit his faux leather-wrapped steering wh
eel. He had been acting like a complete idiot. Or was it Gruber’s fault? You couldn’t talk sense to such a pig-headed cop. Even if he was still mad at Jochen Hecht—what did he, Benno, have to do with it? He was only the sports editor.

  Outside of Lübeck, a tanker truck lay overturned at an intersection, blocking the road. Benno sat frustrated behind a bus and cursed Gruber, Hecht and especially Pastor Cornelius. And Carolin found him ‘charming’ and ‘wonderful.’ Now she even joined him at a peace demonstration. Such an old fool!

  The pastor! Benno had enough of the pastor. It had been his idea to protect the children and not drag them into the murder case . . . But just like the traffic in front of his windshield, Benno’s thoughts screeched to a halt. The children. What had the children really done with the body? When exactly had they found it? Gruber had asked him if he had seen something special—maybe Corinna was right, and one of the boys had taken a souvenir and now didn’t want to come forward. Or maybe the pastor had his own reasons for not getting the children involved? Perhaps he had asked Officer Schmoeh to leave Benno out of the report? But why? Had Cornelius known the dead woman after all?

  But as much as he struggled, he couldn’t get anywhere with his thoughts, and half an hour later the road had been cleared and he was still angry. Angry and confused.

  “To hell with the Grevenhorst police,” Benno said to himself. “To hell with Cornelius.”

  As promised, he came home in time to let out Rasmus. Whenever Tim was there, the dog followed him around the house. But when his master was in school, he slept all day on the carpet in front of the door, apparently worried that Tim would not return. When Benno unlocked the door, the dog rose quickly, and the hair along his back stood up in a kind of Mohawk. It wasn’t Rasmus anymore, but rather the devil dog from Reincke’s cage. The black eye was full of suspicion and his cross-eyed gaze appeared demonic. Yet after a few seconds the dog turned back into his normal self. His hair smoothed out and he again hung his head.

  Benno petted the monster, but Rasmus didn’t make a sound.

  “God, you’re really stubborn. Or depressed,” Benno said. “But I know the magic word: chow.” The dog immediately sat up and cocked his head, as if to make sure he had heard correctly. Then he jumped ahead of Benno into the kitchen and drooled happily on the linoleum floor.

  While Rasmus wolfed down his dry food, the phone startled Benno from his thoughts. Friedrich was on the line, he had just received the floor mats that Benno had ordered for the winter. “It’s almost closing time, but if you don’t turn me in, you can pick them up tonight. I’ll still be here until seven.”

  “Oh wonderful,” Benno said. “The carpet looks quite awful already. In this weather.”

  Normally Benno would have left the dog behind, but tonight he felt sorry for Rasmus. Without Tim, he just looked too pathetic. As they stepped outside, Mrs. Schmied arrived on her bike.

  “Are you not with the pastor?” asked Benno.

  “I’m too old for something like that.” She got off her bike and extended a hand to pet Rasmus, but he didn’t seem to notice her at all.

  “That’s how he is,” Benno said. “His master is at the protest.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Schmied said. “Isn’t he too young to . . . ?” She paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to tell you how to raise your son. Manfred is waiting for his food, I should be going,” she added, pushing her bike past Benno and Rasmus.

  When they drove onto the car lot, Friedrich was standing with a customer at his door and then came slowly walking toward them. Obviously, he didn’t keep regular hours.

  “Is that the stray?” He pointed to the backseat while Benno was getting out of the car.

  Benno nodded, but when Friedrich came up to the car, the dog wouldn’t have it. His hair stood up again, and he jumped into the driver’s seat. He had never barked at anyone, but now he bared his teeth and snarled. He looked frightening.

  “Sorry about that.” Benno slammed the door shut.

  “I’m not possessed.” Friedrich stepped back from the car. Then he led Benno to the service department, where he handed him the floor mats. “With such dogs you never know. You can’t trust them.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. But keep an eye on him for your son’s sake. Make sure Tim’s not doing or saying the wrong thing.”

  “Oh, Rasmus worships the boy.”

  “Really?” Friedrich looked at him questioningly. Then he smiled. “If you say so.”

  Benno stared at the gray rubber mats in his hand. Friedrich’s suspicions didn’t sit well with him, but after Rasmus had acted so peculiarly, he could understand the dealer’s reaction.

  “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Do you want to switch to a Sierra? I told you so.”

  “No, no,” laughed Benno. “The Escort is just fine. No, I’m working on an article about Strathleven. Or maybe not.” He scratched his head; the episode with the Grevenhorster police had discouraged him, and he was not so sure about Cornelius’ motives anymore. “The pastor suggested it, and I thought . . . I thought that this might be an opportunity to ask you about the shooting club. And about everything else.”

  Friedrich looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes. “Shooting club? Of course. We have a long history. But what is ‘everything else’?”

  Benno hemmed and hawed. Could he really tell Friedrich that he wanted to write about witches and pagan rituals? “Well, you know this place. I’m not sure what I might be looking for. Dark secrets, rumors, ancient legends?” He laughed, and the dealer joined in.

  “Sure thing. Spells and old wives’ tales. Of which we have many. But all that happened such a long time ago.” The laughter subsided, and Friedrich’s face turned serious, with only a strange smile playing about his lips. “The time hasn’t stood still here, Mr. Diedrich. We may seem strange to you, strange and behind the times. You have lived in Berlin and might still feel very suave compared to us.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Benno said quickly, but Friedrich interrupted him.

  “I know how you meant it. But we are decent people here. Strathleven is not stuck in the Middle Ages.” Friedrich paused, and his tone was getting friendlier. “But if you want to write something about our village, I’m of course happy to assist you.” He put a hand on Benno’s shoulder and escorted him to the door. “If you’d like to order winter tires . . .”

  “Do I need them?” Benno was happy to step out of the stale air of the service department.

  “You never know. You don’t want to slide off the road here. Too dangerous.” He winked. “The slush can be pretty disgusting.” He turned around and disappeared behind the fireproof metal door.

  After eight o’clock, Carolin and Tim came home wet and chilled to the bone, but at least Carolin seemed overjoyed. Before he could ask about her afternoon, she threw herself into his arms. Tim seemed to be tired, and did not even take notice of Rasmus’ joyous barking.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Benno and began warming up some soup, while Tim and Carolin changed clothes.

  When they were all sitting around the dinner table, he realized how much he had missed his little family. “Rasmus was worried about you,” he told Tim. “He’s pretty depressed when you’re not here.” Friedrich and the dog’s strange behavior toward the dealer he didn’t mention. “How many were you?”

  “Fifteen. Cornelius rented a small bus.”

  “No, at the protest. Did many come out?”

  Carolin looked up from her onion soup. “Maybe two hundred people.”

  “All the others didn’t want peace?”

  Tim shook his head.

  “No police? No fights?”

  “Police were there, of course.” Carolin’s skin was still flushed, and she’d put on a shirt of his. She looked tired and beautiful and happy. “They didn’t interfere. We wouldn’t hurt anyone—at a peace protest.” she added quickly, and looked at Tim as if she was waiting for a confirmation. />
  “Exactly,” he said, and stuffed a large piece of bread into his mouth.

  Later in the bedroom, Carolin pressed herself against Benno and whispered, “You smell good.” She leaned on one elbow and looked at him in the darkness. Then she leaned down and kissed him quickly. “You’re so sweet. So sweet. Sometimes I’m not as crazy as I look.” Then she took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been drug-free for exactly eleven days now.”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “Have you been snooping?” she asked indignantly, but Benno could hear that she wasn’t serious.

  “Nah,” he said, laughing softly. “But I’m a reporter. I keep my eyes open.”

  “Aren’t you proud of me?”

  “How are you feeling?” asked Benno. “Do you think it was the right decision?” He tried not to sound too suspicious.

  “Yes. I feel . . .” she stopped to think, “as if I had finally woken up. I don’t feel so . . . dead anymore.”

  10

  Martin Wehrke was the older brother of the John Deere dealer, as well as the village historian. “Not officially, of course,” he added. “We have no archives in Strathleven, and as far as I know, people do not keep diaries here. If they did, they probably wouldn’t admit it, and take their doodles to the grave. Very North German.”

  “North German?” asked Benno.

  “Cool on the outside, but deep down they are very passionate.” Wehrke laughed, but Benno could see that he was serious. “Very deep down.”

  Wehrke lived in an old farmhouse, whose stables he had torn down. Inside, too, he had left very little in its original state. Several walls had been eliminated to turn the small rooms into one large one with integrated kitchen. Larger windows and bamboo floors gave the house warmth and light. Wehrke had hardly any furniture, but some Japanese woodcuts and a few Tibetan wood panels covered with paintings of tigers accented the emptiness.

  Wehrke might have been fifty-five and looked as lean and leathery as in his author photo, but he was a bit shorter than his brother. He was wearing a sports coat, jeans, and Birkenstocks, and his socks were made of coarse wool.