Zons Crime: Fatal Puzzle Part 7

"Thank you, but the list of names is enough for now."

"But you need to study the doc.u.ments! Otherwise you won't be able to determine whether you really are dealing with a copycat or not!"

Perplexed, they stared at the archivist. How could he know that that's what they were trying to determine? He had certainly not read it in the papers!

"What makes you say that?"

The old archivist responded with a sullen expression and started to limp away.

"Hey, wait a moment!" Oliver yelled after him.

The old man turned around again and peered at Oliver through his enormous lenses.

"Well, over the past five hundred years, how many dead bodies do you think have been found dangling from the tower at the Schlossplatz?" He spat as he talked, droplets of spittle landing squarely on Oliver's chin. Fortunately, Klaus stepped up next to him and took over the conversation.

"Listen, Mister. We are investigating a murder case, and you are legally obligated to cooperate. So I ask you again, what makes you say it could be a copycat killer?"

The archivist sighed.

"I've just said it. Since 1495, there have only been two dead women hanging from that tower. I know the history of Zons from A to Z. Don't you think it's likely that our contemporary killer was inspired by his historic brother in spirit?"

He grabbed the Rheinische Post and opened it to Emily Richter's article.

"Here, see for yourself. This young lady is my most recent visitor, and she describes the murder of Elisabeth Kreuzer in great detail. I'll bet you that the same code was also carved into Mich.e.l.le Peters's scalp!"

He looked at them triumphantly and waved the newspaper in front of their faces. Klaus took it from him.

"Thank you, but we are already very familiar with that article. Please continue to be at our disposal, in case we have further questions."

Klaus turned around, grabbed Oliver's arm, and hurried him out of the building.

Ten minutes later, Oliver and Klaus were in the car on their way back to the precinct.

"You think the old guy could be the killer?" Oliver wondered aloud.

"He certainly is suspicious."

"Klaus, there is something . . . Emily Richter's article says that the historic killer was called Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich."

"Right, I remember. What are you getting at?"

"The archivist's name is Dietrich h.e.l.lenbruch. Doesn't that sound suspicious?"

"Could be coincidence, though. It's not spelled exactly the same-'bruch,' not 'broich.'"

"True. But he also limps with his left leg, just like the historic killer, Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich."

"That does sound like a few coincidences too many, Oliver. Good thinking. Seems we've found our first suspect. Plus those five names on the list!"

XVIII.

Five Hundred Years Ago

Bastian could already see the first bright rays of dawn on the horizon. His limbs were aching, but he felt happy. Wernhart had just returned from checking on the girls at the church and reported that all five were sleeping peacefully in front of the altar. Father Johannes had sent a jug of warm milk with Wernhart, and the two hungry men were indulging in an early breakfast.

They had outwitted h.e.l.lenbroich. For safety's sake, Bastian decided they'd hold the fort for another two hours. He was already looking forward to visiting Marie afterward, having a real breakfast with her, and enjoying the rest of the day. He would immediately put into practice his resolution to spend more time with her.

Two hours later they woke the girls and sent them home to their families. Bastian felt confident that they would track down Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich before the next full moon. He already had a plan that included another, more thorough search of every house and every farm in the surroundings of Zons. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d had to be hiding somewhere, and Bastian would not rest until he caught him.

Elated, he walked quickly down Rheinstrae toward the Zollturm, knowing Marie would be happy to see him and relieved that he could take a break from the h.e.l.lenbroich case.

Quietly he walked up the stairs to the bakery. He heard Marie's father scolding his employees and smiled to himself. Marie's father was considered one of the best bakers in the area. Even n.o.blemen traveled from far away to savor his pastry. He paid his employees well, but in exchange he demanded hard work, day and night. Mistakes were simply not tolerated. Bastian felt happy that his sweetheart was not as severe as her father. He knocked softly at her door.

"Marie, it's me, Bastian. Open the door!"

Nothing. Not a sound came through the wooden door. Although he knew it was not appropriate, he opened the door anyway. Her bed was empty-and untouched. n.o.body had slept in there, or so it seemed. Had she gotten up early and left it tidy? Bastian knew this wasn't at all likely; Marie slept in whenever she could.

He ran down into the bakery and asked her father if he knew where his daughter was. The st.u.r.dy baker ran to Marie's room, and Bastian saw him stagger before letting out a loud cry of anguish. Marie's father clung to Bastian, tears edging his eyes, and it was all Bastian could do not to stagger and cry out himself. Marie had disappeared!

XIX.

Present

At six o'clock in the morning, Oliver Bergmann was sound asleep and dreaming of Emily Richter. It was summer, and they were strolling along a magnificent white, sandy beach. She turned to him and her pert, smiling face came closer, and closer . . . and just when he was about to kiss her, the loud ringtone of his phone interrupted the delicious dream. Oliver groaned. He didn't open his eyes just yet, instead feeling for the phone on the nightstand and answering.

"Oliver, it's Klaus, and it's urgent. We have another body in Zons. I'll pick you up in five and we'll head to the precinct."

After a short stop at the precinct and an equally short, but brutal, briefing-Hans Steuermark had been furious-Oliver and Klaus were in their car, headed to Zons.

"Yesterday this old guy in the county archive is laughing in our faces and today another woman is dead. We should have taken him into custody then and there!" Klaus banged his fist against the dashboard.

"We don't really have anything substantial against him, other than our gut feeling. Let's take a look at the body and then go straight to the archive."

They had already checked the five names on the list. Besides Emily Richter, two other students had borrowed material about the historic killings. The two remaining persons were employees of the National Library in Berlin. However, since those were interlibrary loans, the detectives didn't prioritize the Berlin trace and concentrated, instead, on the students from the area. The killer was sure to be a local. Berlin was too far away.

Of the two students, one was a woman named Isabelle Kirchner. Because of the brutality of the killings, the police a.s.sumed they were dealing with a single, male perpetrator and had therefore focused on the other student, Martin Heuer. Klaus was supposed to interrogate him. So far he had not been able to reach him in person or by phone.

This time the crime scene was at the ferry pier on the Rhine. An elderly woman had found the body early in the morning while walking her dog. Now it was a few minutes past seven, and the Rhine meadows still held the chill of the February night.

In the summer, the Rhine's water could be beautifully blue, but at this time of the year it flowed gray and murky, a thin, hazy layer hovering above the water. Even the gra.s.s on the Rhine meadows was more gray than green. Yet despite the bleakness of the wintery day, the landscape, as always, emanated a soothing calm.

Oliver had reread the second part of Emily Richter's article. She had kindly let him have a copy of her final draft, although the text, in which she accurately reconstructed the murder of Gertrud Minkenberg five hundred years ago, would not be published until next week.

Back then the City Guard had found Gertrud Minkenberg's body at this exact spot on the Rhine. She had been tortured, raped, and strangled. After the girl had died, h.e.l.lenbroich had tied her onto a large wooden board as if it were a bier and shoved her into the waters of the river. To this day, n.o.body knew why he had not suspended Gertrud Minkenberg on one of the towers, as one would have expected. This seemed to contradict the discipline h.e.l.lenbroich had manifested. He had methodically planned and executed the killings, and the investigators a.s.sumed that someone or something must have disturbed him before he could suspend Gertrud as well.

Oliver and Klaus noticed that this time Forensics had already taped off a large area around the site. In fact, the owner of the Rhine Ferry had made a furious phone call to Hans Steuermark early in the morning because he was forced to shut down his business for the entire day. But cars and gawkers were not what Steuermark's men needed. They wanted to avoid photos made public by curious reporters revealing important details, thus complicating their investigations. The public was still waiting for them to present a suspect, but aside from the old limping archivist they were basically groping in the dark.

Maybe they could find something today, something that would clearly establish a link to the archivist. They could definitely narrow down their search to those people who had inside knowledge about the historic murder cases. The first part of Emily Richter's article had only appeared several weeks after the first murder, and the second part had not even been published yet. So whatever the public knew now about the killings, the killer had known well before, and in detail. It seemed unlikely that the killer was from out of state. Most murder victims knew their killers personally, and the perpetrator was most often from the same area. But aside from the old limping archivist-who certainly seemed crazy and strong enough-and the five names on the list, they had nothing.

Oliver stepped closer to the dead woman. As far as he could see, every minute detail corresponded to the Minkenberg murder. A medical examiner came and handed him the woman's purse and ID. This time the killer had not bothered to conceal the identification of the victim. Like Mich.e.l.le Peters, this victim was fully dressed.

Oliver thought about the one important difference between the killings in the past and those in the present. The women in his present-day cases had not been raped-had not even been undressed.

The police psychologist had explained that a copycat killer rarely, if ever, was set off by the same trigger as the original killer. In this case it seemed that, while h.e.l.lenbroich was in the grip of religious delusions, the current killer was only interested in re-creating the killings as accurately as possible. But the rape had been a crucial element five hundred years ago. Why, then, did the present-day killer deviate in this matter? Maybe they should really be looking for a female suspect. Maybe that could account for why there was no sign of s.e.xual abuse.

Oliver studied the dead woman's ID card. Her name was Christiane Stockhaus. She lived on Wendestrae and was forty-eight years old. Oliver had to think a moment before he recalled the location of the street. And indeed: Wendestrae led directly to the Muhlenturm, at the southwestern corner of the city wall. h.e.l.lenbroich had presumably chosen his victims according to their last names. At least that was what Emily had told him.

He scratched his chin and followed his thoughts. h.e.l.lenbroich's first victim had been named Elisabeth Kreuzer, the second victim Gertrud Minkenberg. Their first victim, the woman they had found four weeks earlier, was called Mich.e.l.le Peters. Her last name didn't match the pattern, if there was one. The same for Christiane Stockhaus: her last name should begin with an M, if their killer were actually imitating h.e.l.lenbroich. Hmm. Didn't look like too much of a copycat anymore, Oliver thought. There were already two significant departures.

His gut feeling still insisted that the killings were imitations, but how to explain those striking deviations? He simply had to speak with Emily Richter again, and he definitely wanted to see her again. Well, with her name on the list from the county archive, plus her expertise as a journalist who had written about the historic murder cases, he had a strong excuse to get to know her better. That thought made him smile.

"d.a.m.n it, are you daydreaming?" Klaus snarled at him.

Oliver flinched and looked up. While he had been lost in his musings, Klaus had been inspecting the corpse. The MEs were already lifting her from the board and placing her into a body bag.

"Lorenz from Forensics is running a check to see if we're dealing with the same filaments on the gown as last time," Klaus informed him.

"I had asked him to test whether they're also identical to the ones we found at the Body in the Woods," Oliver replied, his eyes fixed on the corpse. "Did he say anything about that? I'm still waiting for the results."

"No, no results so far. They sent the sample to the Central Lab. You know, play it safe. They have the better equipment there. n.o.body wants to be the one who makes a mistake here."

"Sounds good. Let's head back. But let's stop at Wendestrae 26 on the way. I want to see exactly where the victim lived."

Ten minutes later, Oliver and Klaus were looking at the second victim's house at Wendestrae 26. The house was tiny, very old, but perfectly well preserved, with a wonderful view of the ancient, imposing Muhlenturm less than thirty feet away. They glanced at the nameplate. Christiane Stockhaus had lived there all by herself.

"Should we take a brief look?" Klaus asked.

It was tempting, but Oliver knew they had better wait for Forensics. Hans Steuermark would wring their necks if they forced the door and entered on their own. Oliver suggested they climb the fence instead to get into the small garden behind the house. This wasn't in keeping with police regulations either, but maybe not as bad a violation.

Carefully, they climbed over the fence and, tiptoeing along a small path, reached the rear of the house. Behind the house, entwined in old plants and trees, lay a small garden. Even at this time of year, with the tree branches bare, it was hard to see into it. Oliver noted that the foliage not only kept them safe from prying neighbors but also could have s.h.i.+elded the killer.

A smell of decay hovered in the air. Oliver sniffed and tried to determine where the foul odor was coming from. The smell intensified with each step he took toward the small terrace. Then he noticed that the gla.s.s door stood open a crack. The killer had intruded through the terrace door.

"Klaus, come here. I found something!"

Klaus interrupted his inspection of a small shed at the far end of the yard and came quickly over to Oliver.

"You smell that, too?"

"Yep. Smells like rotting garbage that hasn't been emptied out for days."

"Seems like the victim hadn't been home for a while."

"Yeah," Klaus concurred. "The killer either kidnapped her several days ago and had her locked up, or we just found her late. It's possible that she was lying in the Rhine for more than a day."

Oliver nodded. Klaus was right. In the early months of the year, the ferry wasn't that busy, and the cold temperatures could have significantly slowed the body's decomposition. Also, the body had been heavily beaten. They couldn't do much else but wait for the autopsy results. One thing, however, was already clear: Christiane Stockhaus had not left her home by her own will.

One week later, Oliver and Klaus were still unsuccessfully trying to get hold of Martin Heuer, the student who, according to their list, had borrowed doc.u.ments from the county archive regarding the medieval killer and his fatal puzzle. n.o.body had seen him lately-neither on campus nor at his apartment. Given the circ.u.mstances, Hans Steuermark had decided to initiate a missing-persons report for Martin Heuer. That was an hour ago.

While the dean's office knew of an application for a study-abroad semester that had been granted, they didn't know whether and when Martin Heuer intended to leave. Aside from the queer old archivist, Martin Heuer was the only other suspect who could have committed the murders. Isabelle Kirchner, the female student, had produced a watertight alibi when Oliver and Klaus had interrogated her the day before.

XX.

Five Hundred Years Ago

Bastian still couldn't believe it. His dear Marie had disappeared. How could that happen when he himself had implemented every possible security measure necessary to stop Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich? Something must have slipped his attention. But Bastian couldn't think straight, because he hadn't slept in days. If h.e.l.lenbroich really had Marie, she was certainly dead by now. A terrible nausea gripped and paralyzed him. Bastian took a deep breath and tried to think harder. And indeed, a tiny flame of hope lit up in his mind: so far, h.e.l.lenbroich had made sure to exhibit his victims ostentatiously-yet in this case they still had not found a corpse.

For the umpteenth time, Bastian went through his notes. It was Marie's last name that simply didn't fit into the puzzle: Dunnbier. According to Bastian's theory, the killer should have been hunting for a girl whose last name began with a Z. That was the letter the madman had carved into the wooden door in the Juddeturm. He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. Then he grabbed the city map of Zons again, along with the map of the stars. The outline of the city wall was identical to the outline of the Raven, only reversed. He turned the drawing of the constellation 180 degrees. Now it matched perfectly the outline of the city wall. The four stars that shaped the Raven sat exactly over the four corners of the wall, where the towers were located. Bastian silently identified each tower by its name. Suddenly, he had an idea.

Marie couldn't see anything. It was pitch-dark and freezing cold, and a dank smell filled the air. Her head was throbbing. She tried to move her hands, but they were tied behind her back with heavy iron chains.

He had put her, chained, into a dark hole. How long would it take until he'd come back and kill her? It was so dark she had lost track of time, unable to tell even whether it was day or night. All she knew was that it couldn't be much longer before he'd come back-and before her short life would be over.