Rain Girl

by Gabi Kreslehner

  Lauberts nodded, opening the door.

  “Lauberts!”

  He waited.

  “Tomorrow, ten o’clock, here. Someone will take down your statement. We’ll be expecting you.”

  Lauberts nodded again and left.

  “Asshole!” Felix said softly.

  Franza pulled out the container of cookies, fetched two coffee cups, and poured some Coke from Felix’s bottle for them both.

  “Ten years,” she said. “Maybe even fifteen.”

  “What?”

  “That’s how much he aged in the last few minutes.”

  Felix grinned. “That’s exactly what I needed now,” he said, “your sense of humor.”

  He stretched out his arms heavenward and exclaimed in mock desperation: “Please God, look after my Franza and her cookies!”

  Then he reached deep into the jar, pulled out a chocolate-coated gingerbread cookie, and put it in his mouth, chewing blissfully. “Do you realize this is perverse?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Christmas cookies in summer. Chocolate-coated stars when it’s about ninety-eight degrees.”

  “You think?”

  He nodded with his mouth full, grinning. “I think.”

  “But you like them.”

  “True.”

  “You see? Then it isn’t perverse. Being a cop, you should know how the human mind works.”

  He laughed and leaned forward, patting her arm. “We need to get a drink sometime soon, just you and me.”

  She nodded, got up, and walked to the window. Even though the windows were closed and the blinds were down, the thermometer read seventy-five degrees, and that was inside. She sighed and turned her thoughts back to their visitor. “Interesting, what he told us. Do you think it’s true?”

  Felix knew immediately what she was thinking. “What reason would Lauberts have to lie to us? None.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And her mother’s statement, and the letter saying she was in love—how does that all fit together?”

  “It doesn’t. These are two different things.”

  “At least now we know what we need to look for.”

  “Something like a list of clients.”

  He nodded. “Exactly, a list of clients. Well, I wonder if we’ll have any surprises?”

  He picked up the photo and studied it thoughtfully. “I can imagine she was hard to resist.”

  “You can?”

  “Oh, yes, looking at the picture—I’m just a man, too.”

  He raised his shoulders apologetically and looked at her with big, innocent eyes. She thought of Port and what he’d said, and in some far corner of her brain she wondered whether he was on the list, too . . .

  “So what have we got,” Felix said. “On the one hand prostitution and on the other, true love. Thank God she got to experience that, too.”

  “Poor girl. Don’t you think, Felix? All those crazy locations—that’s just crying out: ‘I want to be discovered! Why won’t you find me?!’ What a legacy to inherit from your grandfather.”

  Franza paused for a moment. “We should try to spare her mother all this.”

  Felix nodded.

  “We also need to check her finances as soon as possible to get a better picture of her . . . job.”

  Felix nodded again, slowly, thinking. “And her boyfriend, I mean her real boyfriend, I wonder who he is? We really need to find him.”

  “Which won’t be easy.”

  “Why not? She was living with other young people after all, and they would gossip and share secrets, wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t think she’d have paraded him around much. The way I see our girl at this stage, she would have kept him secret, like the rest of her life basically. And if he hasn’t reached out to us by now, I don’t think he’ll contact us at all.”

  “Which doesn’t really reflect well on him. I mean, you kind of notice when you can’t get hold of your girlfriend anymore. And if you have nothing to hide, at some point you start looking, you go to the police for help—but that point has come and gone, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, realizing she was thinking of Ben. Somewhere deep down in her heart she was thinking of Ben, and she was surprised.

  “Maybe he discovered her double life and snapped. Don’t you think that’s a possibility?”

  She remained silent, gazing into thin air, and he tapped her on the shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  She came back. “Yes,” she said. “Of course that’s a possibility. What about Lauberts?”

  “What?”

  “His alibi without an alibi.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind about him yet. But at least he came in voluntarily.”

  Franza shrugged. “Could’ve been calculated, a strategy.”

  “Yes,” he said. “One of us should be present tomorrow when they take his statement and give him another good grilling.”

  He took a sip of the Coke and made a face. “This is disgusting, warm as hell. We really need a coffeemaker.”

  Franza nodded. Then the phone rang on her desk. She picked it up and listened. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Marie’s mother’s a little early. She’s waiting downstairs.”

  28

  Her husband was with her.

  If Franza had harbored the least suspicion he had something to do with his daughter’s death, it was gone now. He was the opposite of what Franza had expected: a small, almost frail man wearing a dark suit and a black-and-white striped tie. Sorrow showed in his face.

  Marie’s mother stood silently beside him. She just nodded at Franza, and they didn’t talk on the way to the hospital, either.

  Perhaps, Franza thought, this had been their mistake, not talking enough, keeping silent.

  Borger was expecting them. As always, he wore a tie under his white coat. Today it seemed appropriate.

  Marie was back on the table, silent. As if she’d given all her answers, as if she were awaiting her release, when they would finally leave her in peace.

  But not just yet, Franza thought. I can’t leave you in peace just yet. There are too many secrets you haven’t told me yet. Talk to me, Marie, where is your boyfriend? Talk to me!

  But Marie stayed silent.

  Franza turned away and looked at Marie’s mother. She was calm, but her husband had to sit down, pressing his hand to his mouth.

  “When can we take her home?” she asked, all the blood had drained from her face.

  She’ll pass out in a minute, Franza thought, very soon, I bet.

  She looked at Borger, knowing he was thinking the same thing. He cleared his throat. “I’ve finished my examination,” he said. “Now we’ll have to wait for the results. Two or three days. I’ll make all the arrangements to send her home.”

  “No!” the woman said, shaking her head. “Please don’t. That’s for us to arrange. It’s the only thing we can still do. We’ll take her.”

  For a brief moment she put her hand on Marie’s hair, on her cheek, and then turned away abruptly, probably frightened by the unexpected strangeness and cold, and walked away. All her remaining strength left her and her knees buckled.

  Borger caught her. He’d stayed close to her because he’d seen it happen so many times before. He did the only thing he could do; he caught her.

  A moaning sound came from her lips, a drawn-out, quiet whimper, and Franza thought of the cornfields of Marie’s childhood—the yellow oceans they’d seen along the road to Marie’s home.

  “We never asked her to forgive us,” Marie’s mother whispered. “We should have. But we were too busy feeling sorry for ourselves.”

  “Come on,” her husband said. “Let’s go. It’s over. Let it be over now. Finally.”

  29

  After dropping off Marie’s parents at the train station, Franza stopped by an appliance store and headed back to the office, feeling good about herself. As she opened the door, the smell of
freshly brewed coffee greeted her. Surprised, she looked at the small table by the window where the old coffeemaker used to be—and indeed, there was a new one bubbling away, exuding a divine smell.

  “But,” Franza stammered, “how did this get here?”

  “I thought you’d probably need a decent cup of coffee when you got back,” Felix said. “So I sent Arthur to get one. How was it?”

  “Awful!” Franza said. “As always.” And she put the bag with the coffeemaker she’d just bought on Felix’s desk. He looked into the bag, leaned back, and laughed quietly.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “you know, sometimes I feel like it gets harder the older I get.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I know.”

  30

  It was a typical school. Old and a little run-down, with long, narrow buildings, crumbling plaster, and lots of posters and pictures on the walls. The corridors were so long you’d get lost in them if you didn’t know your way and small classrooms were filled with students of all ages hollering and fooling around. Ancient couches in corners were supposed to provide recreational areas.

  “I’m glad I’ve got that over and done with,” Felix said. They walked up the stairs to the second floor, where according to the diagram, the teachers’ room was supposed to be.

  “Why over and done with?” Franza asked seriously. “Your children aren’t even all born yet.” She spread her arms and spun around as she walked down the hall. “If anyone’s not over and done with this yet, it’s you! Be prepared.”

  Felix forced a grin. “Well,” he said, “if you put it like that, you’re right. But maybe not all kids are as difficult as your Ben.”

  She looked at him sympathetically. “I hope so, for your sake.” They both thought briefly of Marlene, Felix’s eldest daughter, who was about to turn herself into a stick by refusing to eat.

  When they arrived at the door to the teachers’ room, they knocked and entered, but no one was there.

  Felix grabbed hold of a teenager scooting past them. “Herr Reuter, where can we find him?”

  The boy turned around and pointed back to where they’d just come from. “Down at the end of the hall. The Reuters have lunch duty on Thursday. Anything else?”

  Felix nodded. “That’s all, thanks.” Then he stopped short. “The Reuters? Are there more than one?”

  “Well, he and his wife. Is that a problem?”

  Felix held up his hands and shook his head. “No problem, heaven forbid!”

  The boy gave a quick wave and started to leave. “Hang on!” Felix said. “What are they like, the Reuters?”

  “I only know him, really,” the boy said with a shrug. “He’s all right. English and chemistry. Not exactly my thing, but that’s not his fault. Is that all?”

  “Yes,” Felix said, “that’s it. Thanks, don’t let us keep you.”

  The boy tapped his cap with his fingers and was gone. “Well,” Felix said, “that’s promising, at least.”

  Franza smiled indulgently.

  The noise became louder as they walked closer to the big lunchroom.

  The room was packed with students between ten and eighteen years old, and contained several pool and foosball tables. It was loud but bearable. Two adults, a woman and a man, were in the middle of all the activity. The woman was surrounded by a group of laughing girls who looked to be about fourteen years old, while the man was at one of the foosball tables, playing a game with three older teenagers. Franza and Felix made their way across the room to him.

  “Herr Reuter?” Felix asked. The teacher looked up, nodded, and stopped playing. A student who’d been watching took his place.

  “Yes,” he said. “Johannes Reuter. We spoke on the phone, didn’t we?”

  Felix nodded. “Can we find a quieter place to talk?”

  “Of course,” Reuter said. “I’ll just let my wife know.”

  When he came back, he wore a friendly smile. Not bad, Franza thought. A nice-looking man, just my type. She looked at Felix and knew he could read her mind.

  “Your wife?” Felix asked as they were walking back to the teachers’ room.

  “Yes,” the teacher replied. “She works here, too. Does that surprise you?”

  “A bit.”

  “It’s more common than you think. You meet in college, and the rest is history.”

  “And your children, are they here, too? Family business?”

  Reuter laughed. “Not yet, they’re too young—but who knows.”

  When they reached the teachers’ room, Reuter held the door open for them, and they entered and took a seat. Reuter leaned over the table to serve coffee, coming close to Franza. He smelled freshly showered, but with a slight odor of coffee and cigarettes. She liked the combination immediately. She thought, Wow, it’s past noon, eighty-five degrees, and while the rest of us are sweaty and gross, he’s . . . and she closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. When she opened them again Felix was staring at her, grinning and winking. She made a face at him.

  “Well,” Reuter asked, as he sat down with them, oblivious to their exchange, “How can I help you?”

  “Just tell us,” Franza said. “Just tell us about Marie, anything you can think of. Anything might be important.”

  He became serious, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms. “Well, what can I say? It’s a tragic story.”

  He paused a moment, and a shadow passed over his face. It made him look more attractive, and Franza wondered how often he’d cheated on his wife. Wasn’t it a law, after all, that good-looking men around forty cheated on their wives? Was that why she was working at the same school, to keep an eye on him?

  “Marie started here two years ago,” Reuter continued. “She had to take some tests and was placed in my class. She just completed her final exams—with average results, but who really cares.”

  “In her case probably no one anymore.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I haven’t gotten used to it yet.” He lifted his hands regretfully.

  “What do you know about her past?”

  He thought it over for a moment. “About her past? Not much, to be honest. I know she lived in a state home and for whatever reason she’d led a very unsettled life for years. We get all this paperwork from the welfare office, you know, but it doesn’t really give you any insight into the life of a person.”

  He paused, brought his fingertips together, and continued slowly. “I was worried at first how she’d adjust to my class. I wasn’t overly pleased to have her. I mean, you have to understand, it’s not easy to join a class of sixteen-year-olds when you’re twenty or twenty-one. But they managed really well, though she never fully became a part of the class, as far as I could tell from a teacher’s perspective. She was always very late in the morning—too late—and in the afternoon she took off right away. She just never fit in with her classmates, not just age-wise, but mentally—just the whole way she was. But she was a nice girl, no doubt about it.”

  “How was your relationship with her?”

  He laughed, a little surprised. “Me? Just a normal teacher-student relationship. I treated her just like everybody else. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t—you know what it’s like. But I liked her. She had special eyes.”

  He stirred his coffee, appearing genuinely shaken. Perhaps, Franza thought, Ben just had the wrong teachers. She sighed and felt sorry for herself for a minute. Thankfully that part of their lives was over.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  The question came quick and sharp as a razor. For a brief moment the teacher seemed thrown. Franza looked at Felix with amusement. He always managed to throw the people he interviewed, every single time—and then he was secretly proud, but only she knew it.

  “Yes!” Reuter said. “Of course! But I read the paper, and there’s been a lot of talk at school, so I think . . .”

  The door swung open and the woman from the lunchroom came in.

  “Oh, Karen,” Reuter said,
and seemed a little relieved. “These are the police.”

  The woman walked over, nodded, and gave each of them a weak handshake. Though she seemed smart and was pretty, there was something obsequious about her. Franza was now certain that he cheated on her.

  “We’d like to talk to her classmates,” Felix said. “Is that possible?”

  Reuter smiled regretfully. “Difficult, very difficult. All the students who finished their finals have gone God-knows-where. Why should they hang around? We already had the official graduation party, too.”

  Franza and Felix looked at each other, the realization striking them both at the same time. The dress. That’s why she wore the special dress.

  “On Monday night?”

  Reuter nodded. “Yes. The evening she . . .” He faltered, his eyes flickering briefly, and then he got hold of himself again. “How did you know?”

  The detectives waved dismissively, not wanting to waste any more time with explanations.

  “What was she wearing? Can you remember?”

  Reuter shook his head. “What she was wearing? What a question. No, I really don’t know.”

  Then his wife spoke up. “But I do. She stood out because she looked so . . . special. Maybe even a little overdressed for the occasion. But it looked good on her. She wore a dress, silver fabric, sequins, strings of pearls hanging down. A bit of a twenties style, if you know what I mean, those beautiful flapper dresses.”

  She was looking at Franza, and although Franza had no idea what she was talking about, she nodded. “There was something really special about the way she looked,” Karen Reuter continued. “I think a lot of people noticed.”

  She broke off and looked at her husband thoughtfully. She smiled at Felix and helped herself to coffee.

  “Well,” Reuter said apologetically and smiled. “I didn’t notice anything. Or I forgot. When you have so many students . . .”

  He glanced at his watch. “Are there any more questions? I’ll have to get back soon.”

  “No,” Franza said and thought it was intriguing the way the sun bounced off Reuter’s dark hair. She was sure he had a melancholy tendency and could lose himself in dark sonatas by Russian composers. “No more questions, thank you. But we do need a list of names and contact details for her classmates.”