I Am Your Judge: A Novel (35 page)

Erik Stadler was lying, and Bodenstein asked himself why. What did he have to hide? Was he the sniper? It was time to raise the stakes and apply more pressure. They couldn’t allow him another opportunity to think things through.

“We’re getting nowhere,” said Bodenstein. “Let’s start again from the beginning. What exactly happened back then, with your mother?”

“You already know that,” Stadler replied, looking irritated. “My father and I told you everything the other day.”

He massaged his wrists, tugged on his fingers, and grew more and more nervous.

“There are reasons why we doubt your story,” Bodenstein said. “So? What was your mother’s condition when you and your sister found her? What exactly did you do? And what happened when she was taken to UCF?”

“What the hell does it matter?” Anger flared in Stadler’s eyes, as if he was afraid of being led into a trap. Anyone who had given a truthful account of a past event he had experienced wouldn’t be afraid.

“We think it’s very important.”

Stadler thought about it, then shrugged. His eyes darted here and there, and he began to sweat. Finally he rubbed his hands on his thighs, a clear sign of how much stress he was under.

“My mother went jogging and didn’t come back. Helen and I went out looking for her, since we knew the route she always took. When we found her, she was lying next to the path with the dog sitting next to her. I called the medics on her cell phone, then I knelt down and tried to help her.

“Can you be more precise?” Bodenstein made his voice a bit sharper. “What form did your concern take? Did you hold her hand?”

“No, I tried to resuscitate her. I had recently taken a first-aid course for my driver’s license, and knew what to do.”

“Was your mother at this point breathing on her own?” Pia asked.

“No,” Stadler said after a tiny pause. “But I kept on giving her CPR. Until the medics arrived.”

“During this time, did your mother ever regain consciousness, even briefly?” Bodenstein asked.

They were taking turns firing off the questions, giving Stadler no time to focus on either one of them.

“No,” he said, and this time Bodenstein continued the questioning as he fixed his eyes on Stadler.

“And then?”

“Then the medics took over. They loaded her in the ambulance and drove away.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“I … I had the dog. And Helen was completely hysterical. I called my grandfather and he came down with Grandma. Then Helen and I drove with them to the hospital.” Erik Stadler was relaxing a bit, Bodenstein thought, because now he was actually telling the truth.

“What happened there?”

“We didn’t see my mother for quite a while, not until later in intensive care. She was hooked up to a zillion tubes and a respirator. Nobody would tell us what was going on with her. My Grandpa was throwing a fit.”

“Where was your father?”

“Out of the country. We couldn’t reach him on the phone.”

“Then what happened?”

“Listen,” Stadler said, leaning forward. “I don’t remember it all very well anymore. It was ten years ago. My mother was declared brain-dead because she had been deprived of oxygen for too long.”

“Did your mother collapse at the beginning or the end of her jogging route?” Pia asked, digging deeper.

“What difference does that make?” Stadler gave her an annoyed look.

“Maybe she collapsed only a few minutes before you and your sister found her. And maybe she wasn’t unconscious at first. Which would mean that her brain hadn’t been without oxygen for as long as you stated.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Here’s the thing: Was her brain really irreparably damaged because of lack of oxygen or not?” Pia explained. “You say that you started CPR right away, then the medics took over. At the hospital, she was also hooked up to a respirator.”

Erik Stadler shrugged. “That’s what I already told you. It was like this,” he said. “The doctors confirmed brain death. The cerebral hemorrhage had damaged the brainstem irrevocably. She never woke up again.”

“Your grandmother told us that you blew your top when you found out the doctors were no longer interested in saving your mother’s life. At that point, they viewed her simply as a possible organ donor.”

“I was seventeen years old!” Stadler protested vehemently. “I was in total shock. My mother died right before my eyes! And I don’t understand what this is all about at this late date. It’s been ten years. She’s dead.”

I’ll tell you why this is important,” said Pia. “Outside, someone is running around shooting innocent people in order to punish their relatives for what happened to your mother back then. Somebody who knows what
really
happened. Someone who believes that your mother’s life could have been saved. If she had really lain in the field for two hours and was already brain-dead when she was taken to the hospital, it would have been a terrible stroke of fate. No one could be blamed. But that’s not what happened!”

Stadler flipped out. Under the increasing pressure of the questioning, which had been hitting him for fifteen minutes like machine-gun fire, he cracked.

“And what if I told you that they let my mother die because they desperately wanted her organs?” he yelled. “You’d take me for a nutcase who hasn’t been able to accept his mother’s death, even after ten years. Someone who’s spreading horror stories.”

“No, we wouldn’t do that,” said Bodenstein calmly. “And we would track down the people who permitted this to happen and call them to account. We think that’s a lot better than shooting people’s wives and children.”

“You could save lives,” said Pia.

“I’ve heard that line before,” Stadler said with a cynical laugh. “That’s exactly what they told my grandfather. Just sign here so that we can remove the organs. Your daughter may be dead, but she can still save lives. They really leaned on my grandparents hard. They cited examples: The little boy can live if he gets a new liver in the next fourteen days; this young mother of three will die if she doesn’t get a new kidney within a week. And on and on.”

Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His breathing was labored.

“Please calm down,” Bodenstein said soothingly. “We’re not trying to open old wounds.”

“But that’s what you’re doing,” said Stadler. “I’ve been trying for ten years to forget this horror. My sister is dead because she could no longer live with her guilty conscience, but she was never to blame for anything.”

He fell silent, shook his head, and briefly closed his eyes.

“When can I go?”

“Not yet.”

“When? You can’t hold me more than twenty-four hours without a reason.”

Bodenstein stood up and Pia grabbed the file.

“We do have a reason,” Bodenstein said. “As long as you have no alibi for the times of the murders, we consider you a suspect. I told you that last night. You have the right to remain silent, to avoid incriminating yourself, and you can call a lawyer at any time.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Stadler was getting worked up again. “I didn’t shoot anybody! I don’t need a lawyer!”

“On the contrary. I think you do. Or four alibis.”

*   *   *

“We’re not really making any progress,” said Pia to her colleagues in the corridor after Erik Stadler had walked past. She was disappointed because she’d been hoping for more from the interview. Something substantial. Some indication that Stadler was the Judge.

“You never get over something like this,” replied Kim, who along with Dr. Engel, Kathrin, Kai, and Cem had observed the questioning from the next room. “At any rate, he’s not telling the truth about his mother’s death. His behavior indicates that he’s lying. Based on his profile, he could be the perp. He had the motive and the opportunity.”

Pia didn’t want to hear any more of this profile shit. She almost regretted involving her sister in the investigation. They were overlooking something. But what?

“There’s something he’s not telling us,” said Kim. “I wonder why?”

“Maybe because the clinic made them agree to the official version of what happened,” Bodenstein guessed. “That’s why they got the hush money.”

“But they never told Helen anything about that,” Kai added. “She believed that she was to blame for her mother’s death.”

“Careful,” Bodenstein warned. “That’s speculation. All we know is that something’s fishy about the whole story. A powerful pressure has been building up around someone connected to the family or their circle of friends, and now it has exploded.”

“And maybe there’s a reason behind this that’s much more mundane than we suspect.” Pia gnawed on her lower lip as she tried to piece together the thoughts running through her head.

“Stadler is a good shot, at any rate,” Kathrin remarked.

“Biathletes shoot at a disk several meters away,” Cem said dubiously. “Our man shot a person from a distance of almost a kilometer. That’s something totally different.”

“What do you intend to do now?” Nicola Engel asked. “Let him go?”

“Reluctantly,” Bodenstein admitted. “But we can’t hold him much longer without new evidence.”

“Then dig some up.”

“One telling piece of evidence is that there haven’t been any more dead bodies since he’s been sitting in that cell,” said Kathrin.

“That’s not enough.” Bodenstein shook his head. “We’ll let him go, but only under certain conditions. Kai, arrange to have him watched. And he has to relinquish his passport and report to our colleagues in Niederhöchstadt once a day. Cem and Kathrin, you go talk to Stadler’s girlfriend. I want to know how Stadler’s been behaving recently, whether he’s changed in any way.… You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, we know,” said Cem.

Everyone could feel the pressure that was growing by the hour. Secretly, they were all waiting for an emergency call to come in and a fifth obituary to appear in the paper. An officer of the watch came down the hall.

“A Ms. Wenning is waiting downstairs. She wants to speak with you,” he told Bodenstein. “She has a lawyer with her.”

“Thanks. We’ll be right down.” Bodenstein nodded, then turned to Cem and Kathrin. “Your visit to Stadler’s girlfriend will have to wait. Drive into Frankfurt and talk to Stadler’s neighbors. But first pay a visit to Patrick Schwarzer. Maybe today he’ll be in the mood to talk to you. Show him the obituary. We need to establish a link between him and Kirsten Stadler.”

The group broke up. Only Pia stayed behind.

“What is it?” Bodenstein asked.

“We’re asking the wrong questions,” said Pia.

“How do you mean?”

“Just what I said.” She looked at her boss. “Stadler is hiding something, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be about the murders. Remember the Kaltensee case? Marcus Nowak and Elard Kaltensee, the professor?”

“Yes, of course.” Bodenstein gave her a quizzical look. “What have they got to do with this?”

“We thought they were both suspects because they’d obviously been lying and were hiding something from us,” Pia said. “It turned out they weren’t clamming up about the murders as we thought; but they didn’t want to tell us about their secret connection. Erik Stadler also has some secret that he doesn’t want to reveal at any cost, but he isn’t the Judge.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Hmm.” Pia shrugged. “It’s only a hunch. But he was telling the truth when he said that he’d been trying for ten years to forget the whole thing and simply wanted to lead a normal life again. But I also think that he was forced to stick to the official version of the events—a version that had been explicitly spelled out. His nervousness was due to the fact that he wasn’t allowed to speak candidly.”

Bodenstein frowned as he thought about what she’d said.

“You may be right,” he admitted. “But why is he willing to risk becoming a suspect and continue sitting here in custody?”

“There could be several reasons for that. Either the secret he’s hiding seems worse to him than being suspected of the murders. Or—and this I consider more plausible—he’s trying to protect someone.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“Stadler first or his girlfriend?” Pia asked.

“First the girlfriend,” Bodenstein said.

*   *   *

Lis Wenning, pale and visibly anxious, was waiting in the lobby at the security checkpoint. Next to her stood a tall man sporting a mustache and dressed in a suit and tie. Everyone in the criminal police in the Frankfurt region probably knew who he was. Hiring Dr. Anders as attorney was tantamount to a confession of guilt, because the defense lawyer almost exclusively took on cases of individuals accused in particularly spectacular murder cases that would get his name in the papers. Naturally, he couldn’t pass up the Taunus Sniper case.

“I’d like to speak with my client,” he demanded at once.

“You may as soon as we’ve spoken with Ms. Wenning,” Bodenstein replied. “Please wait here.”

The lawyer objected while Lis Wenning apologized for the inconvenience. Pia noticed that she was on a first name basis with him.

As they walked along the corridor, Pia asked the dark-haired woman curiously, “How do you happen to know Dr. Anders?” They entered the interview room where Erik Stadler had recently been sitting.

Bodenstein closed the door and asked Ms. Wenning to take a seat. She sat down on the edge of the chair, holding the straps of her handbag tightly. Her big brown eyes looked anxious.

“He’s a member of my fitness club,” she replied. “I don’t know any other lawyers. When your colleague took Erik away last night, I knew that it must be about something serious. Where is Erik now? What are you accusing him of?”

Pia studied the woman and decided not to go easy on her.

“We suspect Mr. Stadler of having shot four individuals,” she said.

“You can’t be serious!” Lis Wenning turned even paler and pressed her hand to her throat. “Why would he do something like that?”

“To avenge the deaths of his mother and sister,” said Pia. “He hasn’t been very cooperative so far. He has no alibis for the times of the murders and claims he was out jogging. Maybe you could help him—and us.”

Stadler’s girlfriend was trying to process the shock of what she’d just heard. She shook her head in bewilderment.