I Am Your Judge: A Novel (26 page)

Celina’s throat hurt. The screaming had come from her. What had just happened?

“Where … where is Hürmet?” she stammered in confusion. “I … I have to pay her back the fifty euros.”

Her knees gave way, she staggered, and all at once, everything went black.

*   *   *

The emergency call reached them at the exact moment they were leaving the A 66 at the exit to Hofheim.

“Where exactly?” Bodenstein asked.

“Eschborn, Seerose shopping center,” said the officer on duty over the radio. Pia reacted in an instant. She hit the left blinker, hung a U-turn, and stepped on it. Seconds later, they were on the autobahn going back in the opposite direction.

Bodenstein asked for more details.

“A woman was shot in front of a supermarket,” said the watch detective. “That’s all I know. The whole shopping center has been sealed off, and a chopper’s in the air.”

“When did you get the call?”

“At one thirty-seven
P.M
.”

Three minutes ago. The police could hardly move much faster than that, yet Bodenstein had a hunch they’d arrive too late. The perp would have taken off. Or maybe he was still there, blending into the crowd, and could make his escape that way.

Bodenstein knew the shopping center. There were supermarkets and furniture stores, two fast food restaurants, and a host of other shops and businesses. The parking lot had an exit directly toward the A 66 and another that led to the L 3005, where you could turn left toward the Taunus, or stay on toward the A 5 heading north. There were also footpaths and bike paths and a tractor track in the direction of Schwalbach that would offer ideal escape routes. The best camouflage, though, was definitely the crowds of people that came to a shopping center like this at noon on a Friday between the holidays.

“You think it was the sniper?” Pia was watching the road intently, passing a line of cars on the right at a hellish pace and ignoring the honking of incensed drivers.

“Yep, I’m sure of it,” Bodenstein said grimly.

“But it sounds exactly like last week at the Main-Taunus Center.” In Pia’s voice, there was a note of quiet hope that it might be another false alarm, but Bodenstein feared the worst.

“No, nobody mentioned a dead body at that one, only shots fired,” he countered. “It was him, that shitface. And he picked the perfect spot and the perfect time.”

Who was the victim this time? Another person targeted by this ice-cold killer who struck in broad daylight and vanished into thin air? What sort of sicko would execute innocent people to get back at their relatives? Why was he seeking revenge at all? What did he want to achieve, what was his goal? And how the hell was it possible that after ten days they hadn’t progressed one step further? It was devastating for the morale of his team. In addition to the lack of results and the wearisome waiting game, they were under constant pressure from the Ministry of the Interior, the press, and the public. Under these circumstances, even the most experienced police officer might not be able to remain calm and rational at all times. Mistakes could result from jumping to the wrong conclusion or from making hasty decisions, merely because the team was anxious to do anything at all.

Pia turned off the autobahn and braked sharply. The traffic was jammed beneath the overpass.

“We need the blue light, or we won’t get any further,” she said. Bodenstein fished out the police light with the magnetic foot from behind his seat, opened his window, and slapped it onto the roof.

“Up ahead everything is blocked,” said Pia. “Maybe we’ll catch him this time.”

The whole of Sossenheimer Strasse, which served as the exit route for the business district, was blocked by patrol cars angled across the road with blue lights flashing. An officer moved a car back a bit so that Pia and Bodenstein could get past. Pia rolled down her window.

“Which way?” she asked.

“Left at the stoplight, then straight ahead and turn left at the KFC into the parking lot!” The uniformed officer had to shout to be heard over the hammering of the low-flying helicopter.

“Thanks.” Pia drove on but had to stop after a few meters because hundreds of people were trying to flee from the shopping center, most of them in their cars, but also a good number on foot.

Finally she pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, drove halfway up onto the sidewalk, turned into the lot by Mann Mobilia, and circled around the furniture store.

“Let’s walk from here,” she said, snapping off her seat belt. “We can’t get through with the car.”

Bodenstein nodded in agreement. They crossed the hopelessly jammed street. Even the entrance ramp to the L 3005 was closed off. The officers, in Kevlar vests and with weapons drawn, were checking each car before letting any past the checkpoint.

“Completely insane,” Bodenstein said to Pia. “The guy is probably in Switzerland by now.”

The huge parking lot of the REWE supermarket was mostly empty after being blocked off. Medics and EMTs were giving first aid to a few people who had suffered a shock or had been injured by shards of breaking glass. The police chopper circled overhead in the overcast sky, and blue lights were flashing everywhere.

For the victim, help had come much too late. The bullet had burst the head of the young woman and then shattered the display window of the shoe store behind her. Just like Ingeborg Rohleder, Margarethe Rudolf, and Maximilian Gehrke, she was dead before she hit the ground. A young life, snuffed out from one second to the next. Because a madman wished it so.

“Do we know the identity of the victim?” Pia asked her colleagues, who had been on the scene only a few minutes after the fatal shot was fired.

“She worked over there in the bakery and was on the way to her car,” replied a detective superintendent. “One of her coworkers was standing right nearby when she was shot. She’s in shock and is being treated by the emergency doctor.”

The officer handed Pia the victim’s purse, a cheap knockoff of a fancy brand. Besides a wallet, it contained a cell phone, a key ring, and all sorts of odds and ends. Pia thanked her for the information, then took a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket and pulled them on. In the wallet, she found a driver’s license.

“Hürmet Schwarzer,” she read, looking at the photo. “What a lovely young woman, only twenty-seven years old. Lived in Schwalbach.”

“Why?” Bodenstein asked himself. “Why would he kill a twenty-seven-year-old bakery sales clerk?”

“If it was the sniper, we’ll know soon enough,” said Pia. “He’s getting bolder and bolder each time.”

“Because he wants attention,” Bodenstein suggested. “He doesn’t kill for the simple thrill of it. There’s a lot more behind this.”

“One thing is for sure,” said Pia. “He’s playing us for fools and carrying out his intentions with ice-cold precision.”

Bodenstein looked around. Where had the sniper taken up position? Kitty-corner, across the street, he saw a building under construction. Did the sniper lie in wait on the roof of the unfinished building? If so, how did he get up there? Did the furniture store have surveillance cameras in its parking lot that may have caught the perp on video?

Bodenstein had seldom felt so powerless. He felt like somebody who wanted to open a treasure chest with a crowbar but couldn’t find anywhere to insert the lever.

*   *   *

Karoline Albrecht left the editorial office of the
Taunus Echo
in Königstein and walked up Limburger Strasse to the pedestrian zone, which was usually swarming with shoppers in the days after Christmas. This time, many of the shops were closed. Somebody had accomplished this simply by firing three shots. But at least the pub, which had been mentioned to her at the editorial office, was open. Karoline entered, pushing aside the curtain meant to keep out the wind. A couple of men were sitting in the semidarkness at the bar, drinking coffee. Neither of them matched the photo of Konstantin Faber that she’d found on the Web site of the
Taunus Echo
. She didn’t want to ask about him, so she decided to wait for a while. The woman at the reception desk of the editorial office had told her that he went to this pub almost every morning. So she ordered a cup of coffee and sat down at one of the few tables, receiving curious looks from the men at the bar.

Just as she was about to pay and leave, the door opened. The curtain parted, and a bitterly cold draft blew in. Karoline recognized the man at once, although he was considerably more rotund than in the photo, and he had less hair on his head.

“I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!” Konstantin Faber said to the other customers, and sat down next to them at the bar.

“Shut the hell up,” replied one of the men. “I had the worst sales ever before Christmas.”

“Me, too,” the other chimed in. “All year, we were looking forward to the Christmas business, and then this goddamn killer ruined it all.”

Both men nodded, looking depressed. Apparently, they were chefs, because they talked about canceled reservations and about staff calling in sick with the flimsiest of excuses. Karoline pretended she was busy with her cell phone as she listened intently to their conversation.

“People ordered their last-minute gifts online,” said the second man dejectedly. “I’ll have to let two people go in January, that’s for sure.”

“I’m closing till all this crap is over,” said one chef. “We’re leaving for Italy tomorrow. Whether it’s ten days earlier or late doesn’t really matter.”

One man had heard that since yesterday the bus drivers and train engineers were refusing to go to work. In Frankfurt, the S-trains were going nowhere, and the cabdrivers were staying home.

“I hope they catch this nutcase soon,” said the proprietor, shoving another cup of coffee over to Faber. “The infrastructure in the whole Rhein-Main region is going to collapse if this keeps up.”

“We’ve got problems, too,” said the journalist. The office had been getting complaints from numerous subscribers that their daily paper wasn’t being delivered. Many of the delivery boys had called in sick, and you couldn’t really blame them.

The men at the bar continued to discuss what the police could and should be doing. Karoline would have liked to tell them that there was no need for panic, because the sniper wasn’t interested in shooting paper boys or bus drivers. The police probably hadn’t thought about this aspect, but obviously, the Judge was causing major headaches for many businesses and shop owners in the region.

Karoline got up and went over to the bar.

“Excuse me for bothering you,” she said to the journalist. “Are you Mr. Faber from the
Taunus Echo
?”

“Who wants to know?” Faber looked at her impatiently. “Are you from the police?”

“No. One of your colleagues told me that I might find you here,” she replied. “I’d like to talk with you. But perhaps somewhere more private.”

“Oho, Faber, somebody wants to drag you off,” teased one of his pals, and the others laughed, but he didn’t pay them any mind. He was no longer looking annoyed.

“Okay.” He got up from his barstool and grabbed his jacket. “Put it on my tab, all right, Willi?”

“No problem,” replied the proprietor.

Karoline paid for her coffee and followed Konstantin Faber out to the street.

*   *   *

For Pia, it was unusual to work under the eyes of the public. Mostly dead bodies were found in a residence, in the woods, or somewhere else hidden away. She then had to deal with one or two witnesses and with those who had discovered the body. But this time, there were dozens of people who had seen Hürmet Schwarzer get shot. In a country where firearms were a rarity and generally not part of everyday life, this experience was even more traumatic. It was particularly bad for a seven-year-old boy who had been with his parents and siblings in the shoe store when the plate glass window was shattered by the bullet. His older siblings were trying on some shoes, but he was bored and had been looking out the window when the horrible event took place right in front of him. The little boy had had some good luck with the bad, because the bullet that killed Hürmet Schwarzer flew past him only millimeters away and slammed into some shelving.

The boy now lay inside an ambulance and was being treated by a medic. Bodenstein talked to his parents while Pia looked for the young woman who had stood next to the victim.

“May I speak with her?” she asked the doctor.

“You can try,” he said. “She is suffering from shock. She hasn’t said a word to us yet.”

Celina Hoffmann, a blond woman in her early twenties, sat slumped on the running board of the second ambulance, staring at her hands. She was wearing her bakery smock, and someone had put a foil blanket around her shoulders. At first, Pia thought the woman had freckles, but then she realized that her face, hair, smock, and hands were covered with blood spatter.

“Hello, Ms. Hoffmann,” said Pia. “I’m Pia Kirchhoff from Kripo in Hofheim. May I sit with you for a moment?”

The young woman raised her head, looked at Pia with an empty gaze, and shrugged her shoulders. She was trembling all over, and her face was gray. Even if the shock eventually receded, she would never forget what she had experienced today. Some people were more robust than others and could cope with processing such a horrendous experience; for others, it would leave behind lifelong scars in their souls.

“I … I wanted to pay back the fifty euros to Hürmet before she went on vacation,” whispered Celina Hoffmann, holding out a crumpled bill to Pia. A tear ran down her cheek. “She loaned it to me before Christmas, and I didn’t want … I … It’s bad luck if you go into the new year with debts.”

“You and Hürmet were colleagues, weren’t you?” Pia asked.

“Yes. We … We both work at the bakery,” Celina replied in a quavering voice as she stared at her hands covered with spots of blood. “She always works the early shift, and I usually don’t come in until noon. And today … Today I came a little late, because … my car ran out of gas. Hürmet had already left, but she always goes shopping after work, so I looked to see if she was still around. Then she came out of REWE. I … I ran out and called to her. She stopped and … and … turned around to face me and then … then…”