Bad Wolf: A Novel (Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein) Read online

  Hanna didn’t react to her daughter’s jibes. She was too tired to get into the sort of argument that Meike used to provoke on a daily basis. She knew that the worst of the hostility would taper off after a couple of hours, so she tried to ignore her comments for the time being.

  Meike was a child of divorce. Her father, a notorious smart-ass and nitpicker, had moved out when she was only six. Since then, he had spoiled her on every other weekend and successfully incited her animosity toward her mother. His brainwashing was still working eighteen years later.

  “I liked Vinzenz,” said Meike, crossing her much too skinny arms over her meager breasts. “He was witty.”

  She had been a completely normal kid, but as a teenager she’d put on almost two hundred pounds as a result of overeating because of emotional problems. Then at sixteen, she’d practically stopped eating altogether, and a couple of years ago, her anorexia had landed her in a clinic for eating disorders. At five seven, she had weighed only eighty-six pounds, and for a long time Hanna had been expecting a call telling her that her daughter was dead.

  “I used to like him, too.” Hanna finished her beer. “But we grew apart.”

  “No wonder he decided to leave.” Meike gave a contemptuous snort. “Next to you, nobody has any room to breathe. You’re like a tank, rolling over everybody with utter disregard for the consequences.”

  Hanna sighed. She felt no anger at the hurtful words, only deep sadness. She would never be able to feel real affection for this young woman, who had deliberately tried to starve herself to death. And it was Hanna’s own fault. During Meike’s childhood and youth, her own career had been more important than her daughter, and that’s why she had yielded the field almost without a fight and with a feeling of relief. Meike had not seen through the perfidious little power play of her father, and for years she had idolized him without reservation. Meike had no clue that he had used his daughter to exact revenge on Hanna. And Hanna took care not to mention the topic.

  “So that’s the way you see me,” she said softly.

  “Everybody does,” Meike snapped back. “You never care about anyone but yourself.”

  “That’s not true,” Hanna countered. “For you, I’ve—”

  “Oh, give me a break!” Meike rolled her eyes. “You haven’t done shit for me! All you ever cared about was your job and your boyfriends.”

  The teakettle began to whistle. Meike turned off the burner, poured water into the cup, and dropped in the tea bag. Her abrupt movements betrayed the inner tension she was feeling. Hanna would have liked to put her arm around her daughter, say something nice to her, talk and laugh with her, ask her about her life, but she didn’t do it because she was afraid of being rejected.

  “I made up the bed in your old room upstairs. There are clean towels in the bathroom,” she said instead, putting the empty bottle in the recycling bin. “Please excuse me. I’ve had a trying day.”

  “No problem.” Meike didn’t even look at her. “When do I have to show up tomorrow?”

  “Is ten o’clock all right for you?”

  “Sure, that’s fine. Good night.”

  “Good night.” Hanna stopped herself from adding her daughter’s childhood nickname, “Mimi.” Meike wouldn’t appreciate hearing that from her mother. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  No reply. But no insult, either. That was progress at least.

  * * *

  “What’s going on here?” Pia ducked underneath the crime-scene tape after making her way through an excited crowd.

  “There was a summer party over there in the sports club tonight,” her uniformed colleague explained.

  “I see.” Pia looked around.

  Looking up ahead, she could see fire engines and two ambulances with mutely flashing blue lights. Next to them were a patrol car, two plainclothes cars, and Henning’s silver Mercedes station wagon. Behind them, a section of the woods was brightly lit. She went around the beach volleyball court and glanced briefly into the open side door of one of the ambulances, in which a dark-haired young woman was being treated.

  “She discovered the body,” explained one of the EMTs. “She’s in shock and has a blood-alcohol content of point twenty percent. The doc is down by the river tending to the other boozer.”

  “What happened? Did she drink herself into a coma?”

  “I don’t know.” The medic shrugged. “The young lady here is twenty-three, according to her driver’s license. Actually a bit old for this sort of thing.”

  “Which way do I have to go?”

  “Along the path down to the river. They’ve probably gotten the gate open by now.”

  “Thanks.” Pia continued on. The path ran alongside the soccer field. The floodlights had been turned on, and the crowd of rubberneckers on the other side of the chain-link fence was even bigger than up front by the crime-scene tape. Pia was having a hard time walking in her unusually high heels. The glaring lights from the fire department and rescue vehicles were blinding her, so she couldn’t see where she was going. Firemen holding their cutting torches stood in front of an open iron gate.

  Two EMTs came toward her in the darkness, carrying a stretcher, and the emergency doctor ran alongside them, holding an IV in the air.

  “Good evening, Ms. Kirchhoff,” he said. They knew each other from similar incidents at similarly ungodly hours.

  “Good evening.” Pia cast a glance at the boy on the stretcher. “What’s with him?”

  “Found him passed out next to the corpse. Very drunk. We’re trying to wake him up.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later.” She teetered along the path as curious bystanders gaped at her from behind the fence of the stadium. She silently cursed her decision to wear high heels today.

  A few yards farther on, she encountered two uniformed officers and her colleague Ehrenberg from the break-in department, who’d been on call today and had phoned her.

  “Good evening,” Pia said. “Could all of you please make sure to clear the people out of the stadium? I don’t want to see any photos or videos of a corpse showing up on Facebook or YouTube.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks.” Ehrenberg briefed Pia on the situation before she moved on, thinking enviously about her colleagues, who were now enjoying a pleasant weekend. She could hear excited voices in the distance, which gave her a hint as to what was going on. Another fifty yards and she had reached the brightly illuminated scene on the bank of the river. At the foot of a steep slope stood Pia’s ex-husband, Dr. Henning Kirchhoff, with Christian Kröger, head of crime-scene investigations at Hofheim police HQ. Dressed in white protective overalls and under the harsh light of the floodlights that had been set up, they looked like two Martians on a riverside stage who were calling each other names like “dilettante” and “bungler,” one with corrosive arrogance, the other with hot-blooded rage.

  Directly beyond the reeds, a boat from the river police heaved to and turned a glaring spotlight on the bank, bathing it in light bright as day.

  Three colleagues from the evidence team were following the heated argument from a suitable distance with a mixture of resignation and patience.

  “Hey, Ms. Chief Superintendent. Nice dress,” one of them remarked with an appreciative whistle. “And great legs.”

  “Thanks. What’s going on over there?” asked Pia.

  “Same old, same old. The boss is claiming that the doc is deliberately destroying evidence,” said another officer, raising his camera. “At least we already got our photos.”

  Pia made her way down the slope, hoping that she wouldn’t stumble in front of everybody and land in the stinging nettles, which grew abundantly on both sides of the narrow path.

  “I can’t believe it!” Kröger shouted heatedly when he caught sight of her. “Now you’re tramping right through the DNA evidence! First Ehrenberg, the smart-aleck detective, then the damned corpse slicer, then the emergency doc, and now you, too! Why can’t everybody be more careful? How are we suppo
sed to do our work properly?”

  His question was entirely justified. The spot where they were both standing measured no more than fifty square feet.

  “Good evening, gentlemen.” Pia paid no attention to Kröger’s outburst; she was used to it. He was a perfectionist and preferred to have every crime scene or discovery site all to himself for a few hours before anyone else contaminated it.

  “Hi, Pia,” Henning greeted her. “Are you a witness to the slanderous statements that this person has once again heaped on me in the most unprofessional manner?”

  “I’m not interested in any problems of cooperation you two may be having,” Pia snapped. “What happened here?”

  Kröger glanced up, his eyes widening as he stared at her with an expression of amazement.

  “Is this the first time you’ve ever seen a woman in a dress?” Pia barked at him. Without jeans and sensible shoes, she felt out of place and oddly vulnerable.

  “No, but … you, yes.” The appreciative look in his eyes might have flattered her at some other time, but right now it pissed her off.

  “Have you had a good look? Then tell me what we have here.” Pia snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Well?”

  Kröger cleared his throat. “Uh … yes. Hmm. Here’s the situation: The unconscious boy was lying on his stomach, precisely where our colleague the medical examiner is standing now. His left leg was in the water. The girl is exactly where we found her.”

  The body of the young girl was caught between the reeds and the weeds on the riverbank. She was floating on her back, her eyes wide open. One arm was sticking out of the water. With each gentle wave, she seemed to move.

  Pia looked at the gruesome scene in the cold glare of the floodlights. For a moment, the horror of the deed threatened to overwhelm her. Why should a person so young have to die before she’d even had a chance to live?

  “A short distance away, underneath a weeping willow, we found vodka bottles and Red Bull cans. Also a few articles of clothing, shoes, a cell phone, and quite a lot of vomit,” said Christian Kröger. “It looks to me as though a group of young people got unauthorized access to this off-limits area so they could get drunk undisturbed. And somehow things got out of control.”

  “What about the boy?” Pia asked.

  Henning had already examined the unconscious youth before he was taken away in the ambulance.

  “The kid had been boozing a lot,” he replied. “And threw up. His pants were unzipped.”

  “And what do you conclude from that?”

  “Possibly he wanted to relieve himself. But then he fell down the riverbank. He has fresh scratches on his hands and forearms, presumably from trying to break his fall.”

  Pia took a step to one side to make room for Kröger’s people. Two of them hauled the girl’s corpse out of the water.

  “She hardly weighs a thing. Just skin and bones,” said one of the men.

  Pia squatted down next to the dead girl. She was wearing a bright-colored top with spaghetti straps and a denim miniskirt that had hiked up and was bunched around her waist. There wasn’t enough light, but to Pia, it looked like the girl’s pale, bony body was covered with dark spots and welts.

  “Henning? Are those bruises?” Pia pointed to the belly and upper thighs of the dead girl.

  “Hmm. Could be.” Henning shone his flashlight on the body and frowned. “Yes, bruises and lacerations.”

  He inspected first her left, then her right hand.

  “Kröger?” he called.

  “What is it?”

  “May I turn her over?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Henning handed Pia the flashlight and with his gloved hands turned the girl over onto her stomach.

  “Good God!” Pia blurted out. “What is that?”

  The lower portion of the girl’s back and her buttocks were completely shredded; her backbone, ribs, and one side of her pelvis shone white through the darker muscle tissue.

  “Wounds from a boat propeller,” Henning pronounced with a look at Pia. “The girl didn’t die tonight or in this location. She’s been in the water longer than that, and the formation of skin maceration on her hands is already fairly advanced. Her body was probably washed up here on the current.”

  Pia stood up.

  “You mean that she had nothing to do with the other teenagers?”

  “I’m only the medical examiner,” said Henning. “Figuring it out is your job. The fact is that the girl did not die tonight.”

  Pia rubbed her bare upper arms and shuddered, although it was not cold in the least. She looked around, trying to get a picture of what might have happened here.

  “I’m going to try to find out something about the young woman who discovered the body,” she said. “Please take the body to the forensics lab. I hope the DA will grant authorization for an autopsy ASAP.”

  “Here, let me give you a hand.” Kröger gallantly offered her his arm to help her up the slope, and she took it.

  “Thanks.” Pia flashed him a quick smile when she reached the top. “But don’t make a habit of it.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said with a grin. “Only when you’re negotiating rough terrain in a cocktail dress and inappropriate footwear.”

  “You hang out with Henning too much.” Pia grinned, too. “I can tell by your choice of words.”

  “He may be an arrogant bastard, but his vocabulary is unbelievable. I learn something new every time we go out on a call.”

  “Then you could probably write off your emergency calls as continuing education. See you later.”

  Kröger waved good-bye and made his way back down the slope.

  “Oh, Pia?” he called. She turned around.

  “If you’re cold, there’s a fleece in my car.”

  Pia nodded and made her way to the ambulance.

  * * *

  Spending the evening in the company of old classmates and the unexpected encounter with Pia had done Emma good. Elated and in an excellent frame of mind, she opened the dark green Gregorian front door of her in-laws’ big villa. She and Florian and Louisa had the entire second floor to themselves. Having grown up in a faceless neighborhood of row houses in Niederhöchstadt, Emma had fallen in love at first sight with the big house of weathered red brick with its oriel windows, little towers, and white-mullioned windows. She loved the high ceilings with their plaster ornamentation, the glassed-in bookcases, the pattern of the parquet floors, the elaborate carving of the banisters. It was charming. Florian’s mother called the style of the house “rococo,” but Florian had disparagingly dubbed it “wedding cake–style.” He found it kitschy and overly ornate, and to Emma’s great regret, he had no intention of living in the house on a permanent basis. She could easily have stayed on forever.

  The villa stood on the edge of a huge park that extended all the way to the woods. Right next door was the residence of the Sonnenkinder Association. Before Florian’s father had founded the group in the late sixties, it had been an old folks home. Later, the building across the street had been added, in which the administration, the kindergarten, and the classrooms were located today. Farther back in the park stood three bungalows with their own driveways, in which close associates of Emma’s father-in-law lived with their families. The house in the middle had actually been built for Florian, but he had preferred to leave home, so now it was rented out.

  Emma had slipped off her shoes as soon as she got in the car. Her ankles and feet swelled up every day in this heat wave, and in the afternoon it was almost unbearable to wear shoes. The wooden steps creaked under her weight. Behind the milky-glass triptych of panes in the front door she could see a glimmer of light. She quietly opened the door and tiptoed inside. Florian was sitting at the kitchen table in front of his laptop. He was so lost in concentration that he didn’t notice her come in. Emma stood in the doorway for a moment, observing the sharp contours of his profile. Even after six years, she still found the sight of him fascinating.

 
In the beginning, there had been no love lost between them when they first met at the camp in Ethiopia—she was the technical leader of the project, he her medical counterpart. From the first instant, they had done nothing but argue. Nothing happened fast enough for him, and she was angered by his arrogance and pushiness. It was no simple task to transport medicines and technical gear hundreds of miles on the country road. Yet they were working for the same cause, and although she had been terribly annoyed by him, as a doctor he had impressed her deeply. He worked on behalf of his patients until he was utterly exhausted, sometimes seventy-two hours at a stretch, and in emergencies he was quick to improvise so that he could help and heal.

  Dr. Florian Finkbeiner never did anything halfway; he was a doctor through and through, and he loved his profession. Anytime he could not save a human life, he regarded it as a personal defeat. It was the contradictory nature of his personality that slowly but surely had cast its spell over Emma: on one side the sympathetic humanitarian and on the other the worrywart doubter who could sound almost cynical. Sometimes he sank into a deep melancholy that bordered on depression, but he could also be witty, charming, and downright entertaining. Besides, he was probably the best-looking man she had ever met.

  Emma’s colleague had given her a warning when she admitted that she’d fallen in love with Florian. “Keep away from him if you don’t want to make yourself unhappy,” she’d said. “He lugs the problems of the whole world around with him.” Then she added mockingly that maybe he was exactly the right man for someone like Emma, with her need to help everyone. Emma had immediately suppressed the doubt that these words aroused in her. She would always have to share Florian with his job and his patients, but what was left over for her was enough. Her heart overflowed with tenderness when she saw him sitting there. The curly dark hair, the shadow on his cheeks and chin, the warm dark eyes, the sensitive mouth, the tender skin on his throat.

  “Hello,” she said softly. He gave a start and turned to stare at her, then slammed his laptop shut.