The Northern Cross (A Baltic Sea Crime Novel Book 2)

by Hendrik Falkenberg

  “But why go to that expense?” Marcel asked. “If Kramer really was his wife’s lover, why would Mr. Böhm bother to nail him to a cross? On the other hand, we do have some evidence that would support your theory and provide an explanation for the strange circumstances surrounding Mrs. Böhm’s death.”

  He nodded to Isabelle. They clearly respected each other.

  Isabelle took the floor. “Maria discovered that Mrs. Böhm had had an abortion shortly before her death. This was confirmed by the clinic. It was her husband’s child, not a lover’s. At least that’s what she told the doctor.”

  Before the meeting ended, Lauer instructed the two teams to continue working separately but consult with one another often. The number of suspects was manageable: Mr. Böhm, the one who potentially ordered someone to commit the murders; Dennis, the drug dealer; and Manuel Birkholz, the porn star. Federsen and Hannes were given the task of investigating the religious community—the appearance in the case of a crucifixion and an abortion were reason enough. The two colleagues Clarissa and Per, who had been searching without much luck for the dealer, were relieved of their other duties, so both teams could rely on them for support.

  Hannes was pleased. They could use the help, and now he would no longer be the only one Federsen could vent his frustrations on. He also remembered Fritz’s advice to stick with Marcel. He’d be able to do that without Federsen’s knowledge now that the teams were collaborating.

  At the moment, however, he was stuck with his boss.

  Federsen shifted up instead of down, and the engine howled as the Passat turned down the driveway of Böhm Horse Farm. Two young girls struggled to control their Haflingers as they shied away from the police car.

  The farm was well kept. It was situated on the outskirts of a small village, only a few hundred feet away from the sea. It was bright and warm, and Hannes was relieved he could breathe more freely. Federsen, however, sneezed so loudly that the two Haflingers snorted in fear. Hannes handed him a tissue. Evidently, his germ warfare was showing its first signs of success.

  “I warned you. If this turns into a cold, you’ll pay,” Federsen said, then blew his nose. He marched toward an elongated barn and lit a cigarette. It was clear that it was fall break, because the farm was inundated with children of all ages, mostly girls. An ill-tempered Federsen made his way through the children and horses, using his belly like a snowplow.

  “We’re looking for Mr. Böhm,” he said to the first adult he saw.

  “I’m here to pick up my daughter. I have no idea where Mr. Böhm is,” the irritated parent said.

  “Over in the main house,” a younger man said. His work clothes suggested he was a farmhand, and he pointed to a large residential building.

  Hannes thanked him while Federsen took off. The farm appeared to have been expanded in recent years, because unlike the stables, the main building seemed much older. But it was evident that its owners placed a great deal of emphasis on upkeep. The window frames and doors of the large brick house were painted glossy white, and its red-tile roof seemed recently redone.

  The front door opened, and a tall man eyed the two detectives through thick glasses. He wore brightly colored pants and a dark-gray turtleneck sweater, hardly appropriate for farm work.

  “Can I help you?” It was clear he had little desire to do so.

  “Detective Federsen. We’d like to have a word with you.”

  “Have you taken over the investigation? I’ve already told your colleague everything I know. Come on, we can sit on the terrace.”

  Next to the large front door was a spacious wooden deck with comfortable patio furniture from which it was possible to watch all the activity on the farm. Although it was protected from the wind and warmed by the sun, Hannes was grateful for his thick winter jacket. This time, Federsen was the one who was poorly dressed.

  “How many horses do you have on the farm?” Hannes asked.

  “Currently eighty-six,” said Mr. Böhm with some irritation. He turned to Federsen. “Forty of them belong to us, the remaining are boarded here. I’d be glad to give you a tour later. We have three stables, two riding arenas, a riding lawn, and over there is the riding hall. There’s also a round pen and numerous pastures. Six staff take care of everything.”

  “You can spare us the tour—I’m allergic to horses. My colleague and I are not here about your wife, the officers you’ve already met are taking care of that investigation.”

  “So why are you here then?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about the so-called Jesus Murder, right?” Hannes asked.

  “Of course. What a crazy story. It happened near here. But I don’t see how I could help.”

  “You knew the victim,” said Federsen. “Your wife too. Alexander Kramer. His horse is boarded on your farm.”

  Mr. Böhm’s eyes widened. “The man . . . the crucified man was Alexander Kramer?”

  “How well did you know him?” Federsen asked.

  “Not well. His gelding has been with us for about six months. I only take care of the paperwork and had little to do with him. He was late twice on payments, so I was ready to give him notice. Sylvia spoke with him, and we had no trouble after that.”

  “Well, that’s about to change,” Federsen said. His gaze wandered. “Your wife knew him better?”

  “Sylvia was in charge of the day-to-day work, so she was in close contact with our customers. She interacted with him more than I did.” It was obvious that Mr. Böhm felt uncomfortable discussing the topic.

  “Weren’t your wife and Mr. Kramer also active in a kind of . . . religious community?”

  “That’s correct. She knew him from there. The group has little to do with religion. They supposedly live by Christian values, but they tolerate the most perverse lifestyles.”

  “Like acting in pornos or homosexuality?” Hannes asked.

  “Exactly.” Mr. Böhm was becoming increasingly agitated. “I’m a tolerant person. But some things are just sick and depraved. Pretending like everything’s compatible with Christian values is just pushing tolerance too far. Although Alexander Kramer was the only person from this group I knew personally, Sylvia told me enough about the other members for me to make my own judgments.”

  “Yes, what’s this world coming to?” Federsen asked. “But your wife thought differently?”

  “My wife was just naive. A typical do-gooder. Everyone has the right to do what they want so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But where does it end? Alexander Kramer, for example, with these sleazy films . . .” He shook his head in disgust.

  “Then I assume you weren’t very pleased that your wife got along so well with Mr. Kramer?” Federsen asked sympathetically.

  “Of course I wasn’t. I also didn’t want her participating in that pseudoreligious group. But if you’d met my wife, you’d have known how pigheaded she was.”

  “Your wife and Mr. Kramer were apparently very close. Is it true that the relationship between you and your wife had been strained?” asked Hannes.

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Mr. Böhm said. “But I do realize what you’re trying to get at. You’re insinuating that my wife was having an affair with this porn star and that I took them out? That’s absurd. At the time of my wife’s murder, I was with our accountant. You know that. I’ve been at my wit’s end since Sylvia died, and now you show up and suggest—”

  “We’re not suggesting anything,” Federsen said, and shot Hannes a warning look. “My young colleague misspoke. But you certainly understand that we need to pursue every lead, even those we can quickly rule out.”

  “You have an alibi for your wife’s murder, but not one for the crucifixion,” Hannes continued, unfazed. “Besides, you don’t necessarily have to be the perpetrator. There’s always someone willing to do the dirty work. We’d like to know what you were doing late Monday night and early Tuesday morning of last week.”

  For the first time in several minutes, Mr. Böhm looked direct
ly at Hannes. “I can tell you exactly what I was doing. As I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, I spent the night going over our finances and looking for a way out of our current difficulties. I went to bed around midnight.”

  “Do you have any witnesses?”

  “Yes. My wife. Ask her.” He laughed bitterly.

  Hannes fell silent, then said, “According to the autopsy report, your wife recently had an abortion. It’s our understanding that you didn’t agree with her decision. However, because your wife was still in her first trimester, she was free to choose and had an abortion against your will.”

  “Of course I was against it. You can’t do that to a child. But I wouldn’t kill my wife for that.” Mr. Böhm took a deep breath. “Look, like I just mentioned, we’ve been having financial problems. The renovation and expansion were more expensive than planned, and our occupancy rate still isn’t as high as it should be. My wife thought it wasn’t the right time to have a child.”

  “Your wife was already thirty-nine,” Federsen said. “She wouldn’t have had a lot of time left to get pregnant.”

  “That’s what I told her. We risked not having children at all. Not to mention, it’s a mortal sin to kill an unborn child. But these free spirits at New Way supported her decision, told her it was perfectly fine—Kramer more than anyone else, even though he was always fond of the kids here.”

  “I don’t know,” Federsen told Hannes on their way back to the city. “Sure, Mr. Böhm didn’t have very much of anything nice to say about his wife, and even less about Kramer, but he would’ve tried to hide that from us if he were actually behind the murders. He also doesn’t give me the impression that he’d be able to kill a man, and certainly not in such a sadistic manner. To nail someone to a cross or to pay someone to inject your own wife with poison, you need to have a pretty cruel streak in you. And there can’t be any financial motive—his wife didn’t have any life insurance.”

  Hannes hadn’t left with a positive impression. He may have listened to one too many of his sister’s esoteric explanations, but he believed the eyes were a window into a person’s thoughts. And Mr. Böhm’s eyes seemed cold and calculating. The horse farm’s six employees confirmed this. Everyone had spoken very well about Sylvia Böhm, who regularly pitched in with the work and was a very warm person. Her husband, on the other hand, could rarely be found around horse manure and limited himself to a few words of encouragement.

  “Mr. Böhm doesn’t seem to know the difference between encouragement and excessive criticism. It’s clear he doesn’t know the first thing about horses and isn’t interested in learning,” Jonas Talmann had said.

  His opinion, however, was presumably lacking in impartiality, since he had received written notice of his termination. But he’d been indignant at the suggestion that Mrs. Böhm was unsatisfied with his work.

  “We were always on the same wavelength,” he had said. “Unlike her husband, she understood that you can’t run a farm based solely on finances. Of course, you have to make ends meet, but you have to respect certain basic principles in breeding and keeping horses. Ignore them and your bottom line might be good in the short term, but in the long term, it’ll all go down the drain. If things get really bad, animal control can make your life very difficult—and rightly so.”

  Hannes was unsure what to make of Jonas Talmann’s and Matthias Böhm’s arguments. But it was clear that the employee had repeatedly opposed what he saw as his boss’s delusional cost-cutting measures in favor of the alleged welfare of the horses. Talmann was floored by the gruesome deaths and couldn’t imagine who was behind them. He also knew that his friend owed money to a dealer but wasn’t familiar with the details. While the professional horse groomer seemed rather likable to Hannes, Federsen had a very different view.

  “We should keep our eye on Talmann,” he said as he hit the horn to shoo a group of young cyclists off the road. “He strikes me as suspicious. It is obvious he was attracted to Mrs. Böhm, and unrequited love can elicit strong reactions. Especially if his buddy Alexander got with her.”

  That seemed far-fetched to Hannes. Federsen was aware that Talmann claimed to be with his girlfriend on the alleged night of the crucifixion. And he couldn’t have been responsible for the murder of Sylvia Böhm—the other staff had all confirmed that he had been at the farm all day. Federsen didn’t seem to be bothered by this fact. He thought the employees weren’t “very bright,” as he’d put it.

  “His girlfriend could’ve lied for him, and the staff seems pretty clueless. His alibi’s questionable. At least we don’t have to search for the murderer among the rest of the staff.”

  Mr. Talmann was the only professional groomer at the farm. The other employees were placed by an organization that helped individuals with developmental disabilities find jobs. Mrs. Böhm had set up the agreement. According to Mr. Talmann, her husband had been against it, until he realized that the mentally challenged were a cheap labor force that made few demands. None of them alone would have been physically able to nail a large man like Alexander Kramer to a heavy wooden cross and raise it. This was in stark contrast to Jonas Talmann, who had the arms of a lumberjack.

  “Mr. Böhm isn’t exactly lacking in the upper-body department either,” said Hannes. “On the other hand, it wouldn’t have required much physical force to murder his wife.”

  “No, only chemical or medical knowledge. Knowledge which these five numskulls hardly have. It’s an entirely different story with Talmann. I’ve seen it all before.”

  “Yeah?” Hannes rolled down his window as Federsen lit a cigarette and puffed frantically.

  “The chemical that caused Mrs. Böhm’s death is a drug commonly used for deworming horses,” Federsen said. “It’s also used on the Böhm farm. However, Mr. Böhm, unlike Jonas Talmann, knows absolutely nothing about horses or any other animal. It’s a neurotoxin, and in extremely high doses like the one found in Mrs. Böhm’s system, the drug inevitably leads to death—a rather painful one.”

  Federsen eyed Hannes. “It’s obvious you’re in no shape to train,” he said. Hannes’s cold had taken a brief hiatus at the stables but was now back in full force. Instead of sending him home, though, Federsen had a different idea. “We’ll pay a visit tomorrow morning to this religious—or antireligious—group. Find out some more background info on them and set up a meeting with the group’s leader, if there is one.”

  Tomorrow meant Saturday, and Hannes was surprised that his boss was willing to work a weekend shift. He had never worked one before—Lauer obviously must have upped the pressure.

  Back at the station, Hannes huddled over his computer. He found the group’s website and opened a Word document to type notes.

  New Way had celebrated its tenth anniversary that year, the festivities captured in a photo gallery. Its meeting location was in a residential neighborhood, and those interested in finding out more were invited to join them every Friday night. Evidently, the group had a skilled IT person, because the website was modern with a clean interface.

  They clearly valued transparency, because under “Our Finances” was a spreadsheet of the group’s revenue and expenditures. The previous year, the club had earned about 8,ooo euros, mainly through donations and events. Membership dues accounted for only a small portion. Almost all proceeds went toward group activities, administration, and event-related rentals. The remainder was allocated to its capital fund, which had grown to 200,000 euros. The group intended to use the savings to purchase its own building.

  New Way was a registered charitable organization. Its purpose was a bit vague, described as the “promotion of civic engagement for charitable purposes.” In the next section, the aims of the group were more specific. Hannes scanned the bullet points: support of persecuted people, equality, religious tolerance, integration of the disabled, support for children, and the creation of a vibrant community within the group.

  The members had some lofty goals, and Hannes wondered how they were implemented. He was
surprised to find not a single reference to religion, until he clicked on “Our Tenets.” New Way referred to the Ten Commandments of the Bible as the basis for moral behavior, but only a few of the Commandments were mentioned. The association provided a justification for their selectiveness: “When considered abstractly, the Ten Commandments include all the essential elements of moral behavior. The key messages are love and tolerance. Everyone should be allowed to live as he or she wishes, so long as his or her actions do not infringe on the freedom of anyone else. For this reason, we firmly reject religious rites and dogmas, institutionalized forms of religion, and fundamentalist interpretations. Far too often have they triggered war and persecution. We wish to create a community of fellowship for all those who place moral principles above blind religious obedience.”

  Pretty grandiose, Hannes thought. He wondered how serious the group really was. But at least he wasn’t surfing the website of some fundamentalist religious organization. If their words reflected reality, then the perp wouldn’t be one of them. Hannes suspected, however, that this professed aversion to organized religion didn’t attract only like-minded individuals. He briefly surfed the “Our Activities” page, where there were write-ups of afternoons spent playing with refugee children, theater performances, and Christmas bazaars.

  He also looked elsewhere for information on the group, but apart from a few newspaper articles on activities he already knew about, he found nothing useful. Nor did any comments about the group, positive or negative, pop up; apparently, public awareness of the group was very limited. The club didn’t have a Facebook page or any other social media presence, so Hannes jotted down the contact information listed on its website.

  His nose was dripping like a leaky faucet, and he had used up all his tissues. He ran down to the station cafeteria, where Mrs. Öztürk reigned supreme. In addition to the daily meals she served to officers, she also ran a sort of minikiosk; she was always prepared.