I Am Your Judge: A Novel (51 page)

“I know my rights!” Rudolf snapped in rage. “I pay as much in taxes every month as you make in a year!”

“Sit the fuck down!” Bodenstein thundered at the man, and he obeyed, in shock. “We’re not talking about taxes here, but about moral obligations! You could have saved the life of an individual yesterday if you’d told us the name of your former colleague. Last night, the husband of the former transplantation coordinator at the UCF, Mrs. Bettina Kaspar-Hesse, was shot to death. Even more guilt to heap upon your conscience!”

The professor pressed his lips together, crossed his arms, and defiantly stuck out his chin.

“In the meantime, we’ve found out that you violated regulations in order to implant a new heart in the son of your friend Fritz Gehrke. The boy was very ill, and then Kirsten Stadler happened to fall into your hands. Ms. Stadler was unfortunately blood type O. That means that her heart was a match for Gehrke’s son and coronary patient Maximilian. You cut short Ms. Stadler’s life by prematurely declaring her brain-dead,” Bodenstein said.

“The woman was dead anyway,” Rudolf argued. “A day sooner or later, what difference did it make?”

“So you admit, with reference to Kirsten Stadler, that you—,” Pia began in disbelief.

“I admit nothing!” the professor declared. “There is nothing to admit.”

“Now, I want you to listen to me carefully,” Bodenstein took over, leaning forward. “You are sitting up to your neck in shit. If you had been cooperative from the beginning, then perhaps we never would have discovered what we now know about you.”

“My wife was shot to death by this … this person.” The professor was stonewalling. “I was in deep grief and utterly bewildered. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“You weren’t grief-stricken and bewildered enough not to try to do some damage control when you talked to Fritz Gehrke on the phone,” Bodenstein replied. “I don’t believe a word you’re saying. You have violated your Hippocratic oath as well as the law. And proof of it has now come out. That’s why Gehrke paid the relatives of Ms. Stadler a large sum to drop the case. But there was a witness who did not keep his mouth shut, namely Jens-Uwe Hartig. He told the Stadlers the truth.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” The professor remained outwardly calm, but he was blinking his eyes rapidly.

“On the contrary, we’re learning more by the hour.” Bodenstein glanced at the piece of paper with four names on it that Pia had jotted down, and nodded brusquely. “Attorney Riegelhoff told us quite a few things and turned over all the documents from the lawsuit between Stadler and the UCF.” He leaned back and studied the professor’s face intently. “Our conversation with Mr. Hartig was also extremely informative. Today, we will be talking to Furtwängler, Janning, Burmeister, and Hausmann.”

A spark of apprehension appeared in the professor’s eyes, and his mask of arrogant indifference began to crack.

No one said a word. Bodenstein and Pia simply stared at the professor. Abrupt silence was a tried-and-true technique. Most people couldn’t deal with it, especially not after a tough verbal exchange. They would grow more nervous by the minute. Their thoughts would begin to race, and they would get tangled up in explanations, justifications, excuses, and lies.

Professor Dieter Rudolf lost the power struggle after exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds.

“I want my attorney,” he croaked, cowed.

“And you’re going to need one.” Bodenstein shoved his chair back and stood up. “I arrest you provisionally on suspicion of the negligent homicide of Ms. Kirsten Stadler.”

“You can’t do that,” the professor protested. “My patients need me.”

“They’re going to have to get along without you for quite a while,” said Bodenstein, nodding to the officer standing by the door. Then he left the interrogation room with Pia.

*   *   *

Kim had stopped at a convenience store to buy sandwiches, and she now set the plate in the middle of the conference table. Present were Nicola Engel, Bodenstein, Kirchhoff, Ostermann, Altunay, and Fachinger. Everybody reached for a sandwich. Pia grabbed a soft pretzel with cheese.

“Happy New Year,” Kim told her, taking a seat beside her sister.

“Thanks, same to you.” Pia smiled as she chewed, then lowered her voice. “Where were you last night?”

“Later,” Kim whispered. “By the way, you could have let me know and I would have come along.”

Before Kai could begin, Pia took the floor and told her colleagues about her conversation with Henning.

“We have to consider the possibility that Gehrke did not commit suicide, but was murdered,” she concluded. “We’ll be receiving detailed lab results ASAP.”

Kai had gone through Helen Stadler’s notebook, which Pia had given him last night, and he’d made a list of people he wanted to phone. He had reached the ex-wife of Dr. Simon Burmeister and learned that the doctor had been in the Seychelles with his seventeen-year-old daughter for two weeks and was expected back tomorrow morning.

Pia thought of something else.

“Remind me, Kai, what did Dr. Furtwängler talk to Fritz Gehrke about the night before he died?”

“Apparently nothing in particular,” replied her colleague. “They were old friends, and Gehrke had seemed in a melancholy mood. He attributed it to the death of Gehrke’s son.”

“Do you believe that?”

“So far, anyway. Why?”

“Henning gave me a tip about Furtwängler. He apparently had worked a lot with Rudolf. And now I’m asking myself where their fields of expertise intersected: One was a cardiologist, the other an oncologist and hematologist.”

“I’ll call him back.” Kai nodded and wrote himself a note.

Mark Thomsen’s house was still deserted. There was a stakeout on it, just as there was on the Winklers’ home and on Hartig’s house and shop. A note on the goldsmith’s door said that the shop would be closed until January 6, 2013. Hartig’s house in Diedenbergen had also been checked out and searched. It was empty. Neighbors had told them that Hartig had begun the renovation, but work had suddenly ceased this past autumn.

The telephone on the conference table rang. Kai picked it up and then handed the receiver to Pia.

“Hello,” said a timid girl’s voice. “My name is Jonelle Hasebrink. I live in Griesheim, on Saalestrasse.”

“Hello, Jonelle.” Pia sat down and put the call on speaker so that everyone could hear. “I’m Pia Kirchhoff with Kripo in Hofheim. How can I help you?”

“I think,” said the girl, “that my boyfriend and I saw the killer.”

Everyone stopped chewing and stared at the telephone as if spellbound.

“My parents can’t know about this, because … they … well … They have no idea that I have a boyfriend.”

“How old are you, Jonelle?” Pia inquired, writing down the girl’s last name and shoving it over to Kai. He typed it into his laptop.

“Fifteen.”

“You’re still underage. That means your parents have the right to be present when you talk to the police,” said Pia.

“Can’t we do it on the phone? Otherwise, I’ll get in big trouble.”

“Hasebrink, Lutz and Peggy, Saalestrasse 17,” Kai said quietly.

“How good a look did you get of the man?” Pia asked.

“Not too good, I guess.” Jonelle was trying to backpedal, now that she realized the possible consequences of making this call. “But I saw him getting into his car. Maybe it’s not that important.”

Pia looked over at Bodenstein. He gave her a thumbs-up and nodded.

“No, it’s very important.” Pia tried to sound soothing. “You’ll help us a lot if you tell us exactly what you saw. We’d be happy to come over right away, and it would be good if your boyfriend was there, too.”

“But how will I explain it to my parents? I mean, about Fabio?”

“Don’t you think that they’d be proud of you two if you contributed to solving this series of murders? Plus, then you and your boyfriend wouldn’t have to keep sneaking around.”

The girl hesitated.

“Hmm. Well, maybe you’re right. When can you come?”

“We can be there in half an hour.”

Ten minutes later, Bodenstein, Pia, and Kim were in the car heading toward Darmstadt. The construction site had clearly been the shooter’s hiding place, as proved by the ballistic path of the bullet. And for the first time, the sniper had left traces behind. Kröger and his men found shoe prints in the dust of the construction site, along with a clear body print where he had lain. The sniper had lain in wait in the opening of a floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor. He had rested the rifle barrel on two sacks of cement stacked up. A perfect hiding place with a first-class view of the Hesse family’s house.

Pia looked at her sister in the rearview mirror. Kim was typing a text into her smartphone and smiling to herself. In Bodenstein’s presence, she didn’t want to ask Kim about where she had been last night. But she was curious.

*   *   *

“We’d like to keep you here one more night for observation,” said the senior physician. “A concussion and whiplash are nothing to trifle with.”

“I’m not planning on going skiing,” Karoline Albrecht said stubbornly. “I can lie in bed just as well at home.”

“You were in a serious car crash,” the doctor argued, but he was already beaten. Of course he wanted to keep a private patient in the hospital awhile longer, but Karoline was restless. At a little past noon, she had phoned Greta to wish her a Happy New Year, but refrained from mentioning the accident. She didn’t want to upset her daughter unnecessarily. She hadn’t been able to reach her father, because his cell was turned off, and he didn’t pick up the landline. Maybe he had put in earplugs and gone to bed, since he’d never been a fan of New Year’s Eve and fireworks.

“I feel fine,” Karoline said to the doctor. “I promise to take it easy. And if I feel worse, I’ll come back.”

“As you wish.” He gave up. “I’ll have the discharge papers printed out. But you’ll have to sign a statement saying that you’re leaving the hospital at your own risk.”

As soon as he was out the door, Karoline got up. She felt a bit woozy, and she had a headache, but except for a couple of bad bruises and a cut on her forehead, she had survived the accident without injury. She went into the small bathroom and was shocked when she saw how pale she looked in the mirror. The left half of her face had turned purple, and under her eye, a fat blood blister had formed. Someone had put the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday into the wardrobe. It was rather disgusting to put on the stinking, blood-caked garments, but she could take a shower and change clothes when she got home. Her cell phone rang. The number was unlisted, but she took the call anyway. It might be the police or the towing company.

“Bodenstein. Good morning.” She recognized the sonorous baritone of the inspector. “How are you feeling?”

“Good morning. I’m feeling pretty good, thanks. Because of the air bags, I have only a mild concussion and whiplash,” she replied. “I’m going home now. Were you able to get anything out of that notebook?”

“Yes, it’s very informative. But I’m afraid that last night it was too late. Once again, the sniper was faster than we were.”

“Oh my God.” Karoline sat down on the edge of the bed. “If I hadn’t had that accident and could have delivered the notebook earlier—”

“It’s not your fault,” the inspector interrupted her. “And you’re not to blame for Fritz Gehrke’s death either. The autopsy showed that he had been sedated and then killed with an overdose of insulin. Later, a large number of documents were burned in his fireplace, which we thought he’d done to cover up something. But new information has now shed a whole new light on the destruction of the documents.”

One piece of disastrous news after another. In the meantime, she was so numb inside that she hardly felt anything with regard to dead bodies and murder. She had once read in a book that no one who had been touched by murder, no matter how casually, would ever be the same. That was certainly the truth.

“Your father was a friend of Gehrke’s,” the inspector went on. “Is that correct?”

“I have no idea whether they were actually friends,” replied Karoline. “But they had known each other for a very long time, and Gehrke’s firm financed my father’s research.”

Her cell phone began to beep because of a low battery.

“In case this call is cut off, it’s because my battery is running low. I left my charger at home.”

“Then I’ll make it brief,” said Bodenstein. “Last night we arrested your father. He’s not talking and wants to have his attorney present. Of course, that’s his legal right. But it’s important for us to find out what he talked about with Gehrke the night before his death and—”

His voice broke off; the battery was dead. Karoline stood up and tossed it in her purse. Mama was dead. Papa in jail. The new year was starting out as badly as the old year had ended. She grabbed her coat and purse and went down to the nurses’ station. There she signed a form that said she was leaving the hospital on her own recognizance. She longed to take a shower and get some sleep. But before she went home to bed, she would stop by her parents’ house one more time.

*   *   *

By ten thirty, they were in Griesheim. Streets were still blocked off over a wide area, and the evidence team was busy reconstructing the sniper’s escape route with the help of sniffer dogs. The Hasebrinks lived on the second cross street before Tauberstrasse, which had already been more densely developed, in a duplex that was painted red. Jonelle was a pretty girl with a snub nose, long straight hair, and big wide eyes. Her boyfriend, Fabio, was a skinny guy with spiky hair; the kind of guy who wore jeans that were too loose, a baseball cap, and sneakers. But for the visit to his girlfriend’s parents, he had dressed decently. He sat motionless at the Hasebrinks’ pine dining room table. Bodenstein and Pia had also sat down, and the two young people stared at them like convicts eyeing their executioners. The conversation was not flowing smoothly, which may have been due to the disapproving expressions of Jonelle’s parents. They made no secret of the fact that they regarded Fabio as a disastrous boyfriend for their fifteen-year-old daughter. Finally, Pia asked the parents if they could speak with the teenagers in private. Kim remained with the parents. After that, things went better.