“Calm down,” Franza said. “Herr Bohrmann, just calm down. We’re almost finished. Tell me if you saw anyone following her.”
“No,” he said, getting control of his voice and becoming calmer. “I didn’t see anyone. Except for the man who called the police and ambulance and all that.”
He pointed to the middle-aged man who was waving his hands around excitedly while being questioned by Felix. Franza glanced at the man and nodded.
“Listen,” Bohrmann said, “are we finished yet? I’m dead tired and I’ve got work to do. My wife will be worried.”
“Almost,” the detective assured him. “Soon. One of my colleagues will take you home. Haven’t you spoken to your wife yet?”
At that Bohrmann became suddenly nervous again. Franza raised her eyebrows with surprise and smiled to herself. It was always the same.
“Listen, I . . .” he stammered, “I haven’t had a chance yet.”
He swallowed, his anger rising again. “That’s personal! It’s none of your business!”
“Oh!” Franza said softly. “In this type of situation, everything is our business. You ran over a person, remember?” She wasn’t surprised at the nasty tone in her voice, and thought briefly of Port.
He looked down at the ground, chewing on his lips.
“All right, then, let’s forget about your wife. Back to you. Where were you coming from? What were you doing on the autobahn in the middle of the night?
He didn’t answer, just folded his arms on his chest and stared past her with hostility.
“Herr Bohrmann?”
She sensed his despair. I’m sorry, she thought, but I can’t do anything about it. You’ve fallen into my clutches now.
He sighed, and it sounded like a sob. “All right,” he said. “Shit. I was at . . . my girlfriend’s, twenty miles south of here. As you can imagine, my wife doesn’t know anything about it.”
Franza whistled softly through her teeth. It really was always the same. “What did you tell your wife?”
He swallowed. “Weekend meeting in Hamburg. We just wanted a few days to ourselves for once, not just two or three hours like usual.”
“Well,” Franza said, “that really is tough luck. You’ll have a few things to figure out.”
The floodgates were now open, and he wanted to talk. He took Franza’s hand, but she pulled it away.
“Listen, you’ve got to help me. She thinks I’m coming from Munich, from the airport. She’s waiting at home. I was supposed to be back two hours ago.”
Franza looked at him in disbelief. “Two hours ago? And you haven’t called her yet? You just let her wait? She’ll be worried! She’s probably made a few phone calls and found out you weren’t even on that plane!”
“She already tried calling me several times.”
“And?”
“I didn’t pick up.” He looked at her helplessly. “What am I supposed to say?”
She shook her head and gave a little laugh. “You’re asking me? How should I know? You should’ve thought of that before.”
He became angry again. “How could I know this was going to happen? Shit like this only happens on TV!”
“You think?” Franza asked and thought of Port and his bizarre plan to sleep with the director of the next play to get the lead role. That’s what usually happened only on TV.
“Tell her the truth,” she said, and turned to leave.
He panicked, realizing that his world was collapsing. “I can’t do that!” he said. “I just can’t.”
“The truth is always the best way out,” she said, knowing it was complete bullshit.
She nodded to him and started to walk off, but then she turned around one more time. “You can leave now, by the way. My colleagues will take care of you. But keep yourself available in case we need you again.”
He looked at her with drooping shoulders, lost for words. But then lifted his head high once more to have the last word. “Stupid bitch!” he yelled. “You can take the ‘truth’ and shove it!”
She didn’t bother turning around. One of the officers would take care of him. Poor bastard. Wrong place, wrong time.
As she slowly made her way back to Felix, she thought of Port and the director of the play, whom she’d seen in a photo, and of Max and how he had become suspicious and thought it was Felix. Then the girl came back to her mind, her hazel eyes.
8
How the downy tufts of the dandelion seeds used to float through the air when they were children! Released in one puff, their white seeds rose, quivering and light, dancing into the sky. Marie squinted and sneezed again and again because she had looked into the sun for too long.
“You must have been crazy as a child,” Ben said, holding a lavender stalk under her nose. It smelled wonderful, which didn’t surprise her, and she knocked it out of his hand, stood up, and ascended to her heavenly kingdom.
What a weird dream, Ben thought in his dream. He felt his full bladder and woke up.
9
“So,” Felix said, “what have we got so far?”
They were looking around the rest area about a hundred yards from the accident scene. The coroner, Dr. Borger, and the forensic team had finished their preliminary examination and were on their way back to the city. The girl had been placed gently into a gray metal coffin and taken away. Noon was approaching, and Franza was getting hungry.
The detectives were standing in front of a long wooden table with a bench on either side. There was a canopy overhead covered with shingles like an ordinary roof. On two sides it reached almost to the ground, offering protection from the weather. Beyond the table and benches but still underneath the roof, was a pile of large, jagged stones partially covered with moss. Ferns and low rosebushes covered with blossoms grew alongside.
Investigators had found traces of blood on the stones and assumed the blood belonged to the dead girl. Franza and Felix were sure the forensic examination in the lab would quickly confirm this, especially because under the table they had also found what they assumed was one of the girl’s missing shoes—a high-heel shoe with straps decorated with rhinestones that matched the silver dress.
The ground around the table and benches was strewn with cigarette butts, broken glass, and other trash, which was not surprising considering how much traffic passed through here during the day, and as they were now discovering, during the night as well.
The forensic team took the shoe, trash, broken glass, and cigarette butts in as evidence. They would be examined for hours for any useful information, though you never knew in advance if they’d find anything. That’s just the way it was. Like pieces of a puzzle slowly coming together, creating a picture.
Felix put his right foot on one of the benches, leaned his elbow on his knee, and thought out loud. “So, what have we got so far? Around five this morning, Tuesday, a disheveled girl stumbles onto the autobahn and gets hit and killed. It’s possible she was drunk, but considering we found blood here, it’s more likely she had been seriously injured before she was hit. She’s wearing a party dress, and she’s barefoot. We found one of her shoes here in the rest area.”
They found a matching shoe near the accident scene, in front of the bushes in the grass next to the shoulder. The grass was trampled in places and matted down as if someone had been lying there for a while. There were also tire tracks. Someone must have been driving too fast and, failing to consider how slippery the wet road was, braked too hard and skidded off the shoulder into the grass.
The crime-scene investigators had erected a kind of tent to protect any evidence that hadn’t been washed away yet, but the chances of getting a decent tire print were slim.
Felix pointed to the table and paused for a moment before continuing. “What’s all this telling us?”
Franza shrugged. “That she was coming from a party, some special occasion—a birthday, graduation, christening, engagement, wedding . . . something like that.”
“How did she get here?”
&nb
sp; “Evidently not in her own vehicle, or we would have found it.”
“So she was getting a ride with someone. Question is, who? And where to?”
“Anyway, she ended up here, at this rest area. Strange place.”
They paused a moment. Then the Ping-Pong match resumed.
“Lovers?”
“Who else would stop at a rest area on the autobahn in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah, who else?” He scratched his chin. “But would you pick this place for a romantic encounter?”
She shrugged. “When you’re really in love, who knows. On the other hand—maybe it’s something simpler. Maybe someone needed the restroom.”
“But they were here at the table. The restrooms are over there, pretty far away.”
They fell silent again as they thought it over. Franza spoke first.
“What about her shoes? Why was there only one here?”
Felix shrugged.
“She must’ve lost it during the struggle—or whatever it was—and he didn’t notice because he was panicking.”
Another pause. They were trying to picture how she would have fallen, how her head could have hit the stone.
It started raining again. Franza closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. It smelled like a walk through freshly cut grass in summer. She longed to take off her shoes and dig her toes deep into the wet grass, like she used to as a child. Back when the mornings were cool and big, when the creek was a raging river, and the days were filled watching the wide-open sky. She’d been crazy about those summers.
Felix nudged her. “Everything all right?”
She nodded. “What kind of struggle?” she asked.
“What was it about? Broken heart? Wounded pride? Jealousy?” Felix shrugged. “At least that’s why a lot of people have snapped before. Those things could make someone go completely off the rails.”
He ran his hand through his hair, trying to think. It was starting to turn gray and suited him well. “Yes,” he said. “And that’s when she fell and landed on this rock. Did you get a look at the wound on the back of her head? Borger thinks that’s what happened. The impact would’ve knocked her out for a while.”
Franza nodded.
“It was probably just bad luck, not what our man had planned. No one plans that in advance,” Felix said. “But then she was just lying there, not stirring, not making a sound. And he panicked. Probably thought she was dead.”
They fell silent. The air smelled of summer, of grass, of wide-open sky.
“What would a normal person do in this situation?”
“Get help. Or drive to the nearest place to get help, take the next exit, find a hospital.”
“What did he do?”
“He seemed to have had the same idea. That’s why he put her in the car and took off. At least for a hundred yards.”
“Or he just wanted to get rid of her. He thought she was dead, making things a lot more complicated. Try to picture that. Suddenly you’re stuck with a dead body.”
They felt the weight of their words tugging at them. They could see it in her eyes. She hadn’t been dead.
So someone had an unconscious girl in his car, unconscious most likely because of something he did to her, and drove away from the rest area and onto the autobahn. Then he suddenly slammed on his brakes so hard that the car shot straight from the shoulder onto the grass. Then he dragged the girl out into the open and took off, leaving her there to die. Why? Did he panic because the dead girl suddenly stirred, because the whole thing was getting more and more complicated?
“And then?”
“Then she must have come to. Woke up. Had no idea what had happened. Lying there on the grass, in the rain, in her sparkly dress, soaked to the bone, one shoe missing. It must have been cold.”
They fell silent again, mulling it over.
“And then?” Franza asked again.
“And then,” Felix said, “then she just started walking. Maybe she saw a light and was walking toward it. Wanted to stop a car, and took one step too many.”
Maybe she was confused. Or scared. Maybe she thought she was being followed.
They didn’t know. They only knew that the next moment Bohrmann was there with his BMW. As always, when Franza was confronted with confusing homicides—the kind that gripped her mind and swept over her, lodging in every fiber of her being—she found herself longing for childhood: the cool meadows, the little brook, the icy cold creeping up her little legs as she pattered through the water past the smooth pebbles.
She would cry on Port’s shoulder. He would hold her. But none of that would help.
“If not him, then someone else,” Felix said quietly. “She wouldn’t have survived, not at that time of the night. Two hours earlier she might’ve had a chance. If only . . .”
Franza nodded. “She would have needed some luck . . .”
“But you know,” Felix said slowly, “I don’t think luck would’ve helped her in this case.”
Franza looked puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”
He rubbed his chin, thinking. He’d forgotten to shave that morning, probably thanks to his wife, Angelika’s, unexpected early morning news.
“Our witnesses, you know, this Dr. Franke and his wife, they observed something interesting. While the doctor was running to the accident scene, his wife stayed in the car to call the emergency number. That’s when she noticed a car parked on the side of the autobahn, about fifty yards ahead on the shoulder. And then it suddenly took off, as if bitten by a snake, engine roaring. She said it seemed really strange to her, as if someone was fleeing the scene, so she told her husband and then told me. What do you think?”
Franza shook her head. She had seen and heard so many things in her job, but she never got used to it. So he had waited. He wanted to know what would happen, to see her run out onto the road and die.
“What kind of car was it? License number?”
Felix shook his head. “She didn’t know. It was very dark. And it happened so fast.”
Franza sighed. “Damn!”
Felix raised his index finger and smiled triumphantly. “Hang on,” he said, “wait a minute. We walked up to the scene, Frau Franke and I. She used to be a runner and was pretty good at telling the distance. Now guess what I found.”
He paused. Franza looked at him blankly. Cars whizzed past, heading north to Nuremberg, Potsdam, or Berlin.
“Cigarette butts,” he said. “Several. Some hadn’t even been lit, just snapped in half. Somebody must’ve been pretty nervous. Borger will compare them to the butts from around the table. If there’s a match—and I bet we’ll find one—we’ll have our suspect’s DNA.”
Franza slowly tilted her head to one side. “All we have to do then is find him.”
Felix nodded. “You don’t think we will?”
“Yes, of course we will.” Franza turned to leave. “Let’s go. I’m wet enough as it is.” I can’t grow any more anyway.
As they walked back to the car, Franza’s thoughts returned to the girl. “What if she’d gone the other way? If she’d run into the woods?”
Felix shook his head. “Then he would’ve thought of something else.”
Silence. There was nothing left to say. It could have happened that way. It was always sad like that, every time. And the girl’s eyes. Hazel eyes. Her matted hair. Her eternal silence.
10
“Angelika is pregnant again,” Felix said.
“Wow!” Franza said.
“Is that all?” Felix asked.
Franza grinned. “Well,” she said, “gotta expect that if you’re doing it.”
Felix gasped.
“No,” she said, leaning forward and giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Just kidding. Good for you. Congratulations. Planned?”
Felix rocked back and forth in his chair, thinking. “I’m not sure, I think so. You know Angelika.”
Yes, Franza knew Angelika Herz. A woman with both feet firmly on the ground, and now
she was expecting their fourth child.
“And my eldest isn’t eating properly,” Felix said. “Marlene. Since she turned fourteen she hardly eats anything. Angelika says it’s my fault. Because of this damn job.”
Franza nodded and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Do you think so, too?” he asked.
“What?”
“That it’s my fault.”
She shook her head and squeezed him a little. “Oh, Felix,” she said. “That’s nonsense. At fourteen they just don’t eat because they don’t eat.”
“Yeah, isn’t that the truth!?”
Franza nodded and squeezed her colleague’s shoulder a little tighter.
“She told me this morning, about the baby,” he said. “Then I got the phone call about this girl, and I had to run. She wants to tell the kids and celebrate when I get home, but I’m not sure I feel like it.”
He fell silent for a while. “I’m not even sure I want a fourth child.”
Franza nodded. “Will it be difficult financially?”
He shook his head. “No, you know my in-laws with their business. It’s doing pretty well, and Angelika is their only child. You could say we’ll be wealthy people someday. Our house is big enough, too. Angelika planned for everything. But I . . .”
He got up and walked to the window. “I feel like a breeding stud,” he said quietly, almost ashamed. “She didn’t ask me.”
Franza joined him, and they stood side by side looking out the window. They couldn’t see beyond the house opposite them. It was late evening, and the air was mild after the rain, a little misty. The others had left and were probably sitting in some beer garden, scarfing down pizzas and salads. Somewhere out there the autobahn was buzzing.
They still had no idea who the girl was, but she wasn’t in any of the photos in the missing persons file.
Her handbag with her ID was probably still in the suspect’s car where she’d carelessly set it down after she got in and they roared off into the night. Perhaps she wasn’t even carrying any ID, just a tiny purse with a lipstick inside. Who needs ID at a party? Who needs ID in the face of death?
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