I Am Your Judge: A Novel (23 page)

Kirsten Stadler.

Was the death of this woman ten years ago really the reason for the sniper murders? Bodenstein didn’t want to be blamed for any oversight, so as a precaution he had arranged police protection for Dirk and Erik Stadler. Not round-the-clock surveillance, since that was beyond their resources, but patrols were driving at regular intervals through the streets in Liederbach and in the North End of Frankfurt, where the father and son lived. He’d also asked to be informed if either man left his residence.

The air was cold and clear, and Bodenstein felt chilled.

The babysitter who was supposed to look after Sophia during the day didn’t arrive until eight o’clock, so he couldn’t leave before then. He decided to read the paper, which he normally took to the office. He went downstairs, took the paper from the mailbox, and sat down at the kitchen table with his second cup of coffee. When he looked at the paper, he almost choked. The sensational headline jumped right out at him:
THE SNIPER MURDERS—WHAT THE POLICE AREN’T TELLING US.
Bodenstein hastily turned to page 3 to find the article with the alleged insider information and began to read. The first paragraphs of the article consisted mainly of assumptions and speculations, but what came next made him boil with rage. The reporter, whose byline was only “KF,” revealed the first names of the victims and included the initials of their surnames. In addition, he listed the age of each one. He also claimed that the police had long known that the shooter was specifically targeting certain individuals but was keeping this information from the public, possibly for tactical investigative reasons. Where the hell did the guy get those names? Was there a mole in their own ranks supplying the press with information? Or had the perp himself gotten in contact with the press?

*   *   *

Karoline Albrecht had drunk a whole bottle of red wine and spent half the night trying to make sense of the facts that were available to her. She had to confront her father with her knowledge, even if it meant falling out of favor with him for good. She was annoyed at feeling so timid. It was affecting her judgment and leaving her petrified with fear. On the drive from Kelkheim to Oberursel, she alternately sweated and froze, her stomach was tied in knots, and her palms were damp. The last time she’d felt like this was on the morning of her driver’s license test twenty-four years ago. As she pulled up in front of her parents’ house and saw her father’s car in the driveway, she was tempted to turn around on the spot and drive off.

“Pull yourself together, you wimp,” she admonished herself. She got out and took a few deep breaths, then walked to the front door. Just as she was about to put the key in the lock, the door opened.

“Hello, Karoline,” said her father. “What brings you here so early?”

He was freshly shaven and his hair was combed. He was wearing an overcoat and holding a briefcase.

“Hello, Papa.” She was surprised to see him about to step out the door. “Are you leaving?”

“Yes, I have to go to the clinic,” he replied. “I feel like the walls are falling in on me, and work is still the best medicine.”

“I have to talk to you,” Karoline said before he could slip past her and get into his car.

“Can’t it wait till tonight? I have an important operation at ten and have to—”

“You’ve always had some important operation to go to whenever I wanted to talk to you,” she interrupted him. “But not this time.”

“Has something happened?”

Was he asking her that in all seriousness?

“I know that you’re keeping something from me,” she said. “And I ask myself why. Is it really out of pure altruism or because you’ve got something important to hide?”

“I have nothing to hide!” Was that a brief flicker of emotion in his eyes? Annoyance? Discomfort? Or even fear?

“Is that so? Then I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I ask the police whether they’ve received an obituary for Mama.”

His hesitation was answer enough, and the last bit of hope that she’d been mistaken went up in smoke. Her own father had lied to her, and not because he wanted to spare her, but because—exactly like Renate Rohleder—he felt guilty.

“What was in the obituary?” she insisted. “What did the Judge write? Tell me! I have a right to know why Mama had to die and why my daughter is so badly traumatized.”

“Oh, Karoline.” He put down his briefcase and tried to put his hand on her arm, but she shrank back. “I didn’t want to keep anything secret from you, but I wanted to talk about it in peace and quiet.”

“And when had you planned to do that?” Damn, she was going to start bawling again. But tears were a sign of weakness, and she didn’t need that. Not now. “But you do know what it says, since the police were here, right?”

“Yes, I do. But I wanted to wait until you were feeling a little better. Believe me, I’ve been brooding over this and tormenting myself with self-recriminations.” Her father heaved a big sigh and his shoulders slumped forward, but he didn’t avoid her eyes. “The obituary said that I was to blame for your mother’s death because I had
murdered
somebody. That’s a completely false accusation, which is what I told the police. After all, my job is to save lives. Unfortunately, in doing so, I find myself walking a very thin line between life and death, between hope and disappointment.”

“So Mama wasn’t a random victim of this … this sniper.” Karoline crossed her arms. “Does it have anything to do with Kirsten Stadler? What was that incident really all about?”

“I told you that those accusations were utter nonsense,” her father said, allowing that indignant undertone to slip into his voice, as he usually did when he grew tired of a topic and wanted to end the conversation. Karoline remembered how unpleasant Mama used to find this tone of voice. She thought it was extremely rude to reveal so clearly how much he wanted to get away from whoever he was talking to. And yet she’d always had an excuse ready for her husband, saying that he didn’t mean to be discourteous, his mind was still on his patients.

Mama glossed over so many things,
Karoline thought with a pang of sorrow.
Also with regard to me.

Maybe that was the only way her mother could stand having two egocentric workaholics for a husband and a daughter.

“What happened back then?” she persisted.

“It was nothing extraordinary. A routine case,” her father declared, but Karoline didn’t agree. For him, his work might be routine, but for his patients and their loved ones, the mere fact that Professor Dieter Rudolf was operating on them signified a crucial turning point. He was their last hope in a hopeless situation. Did he ever truly realize that? Was he aware of the human fates behind every medical finding?

“Papa.” Karoline lowered her voice. “If you did something that resulted in Mama having to die, I will never forgive you.”

Her heart was hammering against her ribs. She had never said anything like this to her father. In the dim light of the porch, he seemed old and no longer the omnipotent, superior man that he had always been in her eyes. The father whose attention and affection she had desperately courted as a child.

“Who do you take me for? How could I ever wish that anything bad would happen to your mother?” he said gruffly. “I can’t think of any reason to feel guilty. Sadly, that case was nothing out of the ordinary. A woman was admitted to the hospital after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage, and since she had been deprived of oxygen for several hours, she was brain-dead. Help came too late. The relatives agreed to organ donation, and the required examinations were performed. The parameters were reported to Eurotransplant, which then notified the patients who were waiting for organs and whose numbers matched. The brain-dead woman underwent explantation that night. A completely normal sequence of events. For the woman’s family, certainly a tragedy, but for me, it was all in a day’s work.”

“But something must have gone wrong,” Karoline insisted. “Otherwise, why would someone go out ten years later and shoot innocent people out of revenge?”

“Nothing went wrong, I swear it,” replied her father vehemently. He picked up his briefcase and turned to leave. The floodlights over the garage door switched on, bathing the driveway in glaring light.

“Will I see you tonight?” he asked when she remained silent.

“Maybe,” Karoline replied, watching her father walk to his car. She had never before doubted anything he’d told her. And only rarely had she pondered what her father’s profession actually entailed. But now she suspected that he wasn’t telling the truth. Something had gone wrong back then, and as a result, her mother had died.

*   *   *

Bodenstein was sitting alone in the empty conference room, his chin resting on his hand, feeling depressed as he stared at the whiteboard. He saw the names written on it and the photos of the crime scene and victims. The sniper was going to strike again, maybe even today, and there was no way to prevent it. No matter how he twisted and turned things, Bodenstein simply had no idea what to do, because he lacked even the slightest clue about how the sniper selected his targets.

A great injustice has been done. The guilty parties shall feel the same pain as the one who has suffered because of their indifference, greed, vanity, and thoughtlessness. Those who have taken guilt upon themselves shall live in fear and terror, for I am come to judge the living and the dead.

Bodenstein folded up the copy of the letter that the Judge had sent to the editor of the
Taunus Echo
. The original was already on its way to the crime lab. A phone call from the press spokesman of the Regional Criminal Investigation this morning had sufficed to discover which reporter at the
Taunus Echo
was concealed behind the initials KF. Then it had taken a good hour before the police finally got Konstantin Faber on the line. The journalist’s response was rather snotty when Bodenstein reproached him for impeding a police investigation by making hasty speculations and naming names.

“In Germany, we have freedom of the press,” Faber said. “Besides, as a journalist, I have a duty to inform the reader.”

Bodenstein had a vehement retort on the tip of his tongue, but he decided to shift down a notch. It would do him no good to alienate the press; working together could be much more useful. Especially since Faber was the one who had received copies of the three obituaries in the mail, along with a letter, all sent anonymously, of course. But there was no doubt that the so-called Judge was the person who had sent them.

On his way to the station, Bodenstein made a detour to the editorial office in Königstein to speak with Konstantin Faber. He picked up the letter from the Judge along with the envelope and obituaries as evidence, and promised exclusive information to Faber if he promised to notify the police immediately of any further communication from the Judge.

The article in the
Taunus Echo
had opened the floodgates for panicked calls to the newly added telephone hotline, but there had also been a few tips that seemed useful, and they had to be followed up ASAP. The morning meeting was brief and to the point. Bodenstein had nipped in the bud any new discussions between Neff and Kim Freitag and sent off his team with clear assignments, all of them looking for the hot lead they so urgently needed.

They had to locate Joachim Winkler, the father-in-law of Dirk Stadler, as well as the man who had accompanied Helen Stadler on her visit to Renate Rohleder’s shop. Someone also had to talk to the Stadler children, Erik and Helen, and to the Stadlers’ former neighbors in Niederhöchstadt. They also had to find out which staff members at the UCF had been involved in the case of Kirsten Stadler ten years ago. And they needed permission to access the records of the lawsuit between Dirk Stadler and the UCF. Who had represented the legal interests of the hospital? What was the name of the Stadlers’ attorney? Who had allegedly bribed Maximilian Gehrke’s father? Was it about his son’s heart transplant? Could bribery be used to acquire an organ?

Bodenstein had spent half the night researching online and found out that it was difficult to find a match donor for someone with heart disease. There were many medical parameters that had to match so that the recipient’s body would not reject the donor heart. A charitable foundation called Eurotransplant based in the Netherlands coordinated the donation of organs for the patients who were on their list. Recently, there had also been some scandals about patients who had been listed under false pretenses. Bodenstein had read about this in the newspaper but had never specifically dealt with the issue.

“Ah, you’re still here.” Pia’s voice tore him out of his thoughts. “Am I bothering you?”

“No, come on in. And please close the door.”

Since all the insanity had started, he’d hardly exchanged more than a few words with her before someone interrupted.

Pia pulled up a chair and sat down, facing him.

“How did the Judge come upon Konstantin Faber, of all people?” she asked. “I took a look at the Web site of the
Taunus Echo
and saw that he’s actually responsible for the cultural and financial pages.”

“Probably by accident,” Bodenstein guessed. “Faber is the acting editor over Christmas and New Year’s, so the letter landed on his desk. As always, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. At least Faber is being cooperative and not simply looking for a sensational angle.”

They were silent for a while.

“Something else is going to happen today,” Pia said. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Me, too,” Bodenstein agreed.

“It’s making me so fidgety, this whole mess. I can’t seem to get any peace and quiet to think things over. Someone is always coming up with a new idea, or theory, or new approach, or suggesting an MO or a different perp profile.”

“I know what you mean.” Bodenstein sighed. “At the moment, the experts who’ve been called in are brake pads rather than catalytic converters.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Pia gave him an unhappy grin and nodded. “I feel like I’m back at the police academy. Every step I take I have to explain and justify. Too much bickering and babbling.”