The Ice Queen: A Novel (31 page)

Christina Nowak fidgeted on her chair.

“To be honest, I also wanted him to keep the company going. In retrospect, I admire him for not doing so. The whole family—including me—put a lot of pressure on him. Unfortunately, I’m not a very brave person. I was afraid that if Marcus wouldn’t do it, we’d lose everything.”

“And how are things now?” Pia asked. “Your father-in-law didn’t seem very upset by the attack on your husband.”

“There you’re mistaken,” Christina Nowak replied. “My father-in-law has become very proud of Marcus.”

Pia doubted it. Manfred Nowak was obviously a man who worried a lot about his loss of influence and reputation. Yet she could understand that his daughter-in-law wouldn’t want to say anything negative about her husband’s parents, since they all lived under the same roof. Pia had often met women like Christina Nowak, who shut their eyes with all their might to reality, dreading any change in their lives, and clinging desperately to the belief that everything was fine.

“Do you have any idea why your husband was attacked and tortured?” Pia asked.

“Tortured?” Mrs. Nowak turned even paler and stared at Pia in disbelief.

“His right hand was smashed. The doctors still don’t know whether it can be saved. Didn’t you know that?”

“No … no,” she admitted after a brief hesitation. “And I don’t have any idea why anyone would
torture
my husband. He’s a craftsman, not a … secret agent or anything.”

“Then why did he lie to us?”

“Lie? What do you mean?”

Pia mentioned the fact that Nowak was pulled over by the police on the night of April 30. Christina Nowak looked away.

“Please don’t play games with me,” said Pia. “It’s quite common for a man to have secrets from his wife.”

Christina Nowak flushed but forced herself to stay calm.

“My husband has no secrets from me,” she said stiffly. “He told me about being stopped by the police.”

Pia pretended to write something down, because she knew it would rattle the woman.

“Where were you on the night of April thirtieth?”

“At the May dance at the sports field. My husband had a lot to do that evening and came to the party later.”

“What time did he arrive? Before or after the police stopped him?”

Pia smiled blandly. She hadn’t mentioned the time of the traffic stop.

“I … I didn’t see him at all. But my father-in-law and a couple of my husband’s friends told me he was there.”

Pia dug deeper. “He was at the party and didn’t talk to you? That’s odd.”

She noticed that she had touched a sore point. For a moment, it was totally quiet. Pia waited.

“It’s not what you think.” Christina Nowak leaned forward a little. “I know that my husband doesn’t care much for the people in the sports club anymore, so I didn’t urge him to go to the party. He was there briefly, talked to his father, and then drove home.”

“Your husband was stopped by the police at eleven-forty-five
P.M.
Where did he go after that?”

“Straight home, I presume. I didn’t get home till six, after cleaning up, and he was already out jogging. Like he does every morning.”

“I see. Very well.” Pia searched through the papers on her desk and said nothing. Christina Nowak got more and more nervous. Her eyes flitted here and there, and beads of sweat shone on her upper lip. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Why do you keep asking me about that night?” she asked. “What does it have to do with the attack on my husband?”

“Does the name Kaltensee mean anything to you?” asked Pia instead of answering.

“Yes, of course.” Christina Nowak nodded uncertainly. “Why?”

“Vera Kaltensee owes your husband a large amount of money. And she has also sued him for negligent bodily harm. We found a summons from the police in his office.”

Christina Nowak bit her lower lip. Apparently, there were some things she didn’t know about. From then on, she refused to answer any of Pia’s questions. “Mrs. Nowak, please. I’m looking for a reason for the attack.”

She raised her head and stared at Pia. Her fingers were gripping the handle of her purse so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. For a long moment, there was silence.

“Yes, my husband does have secrets from me!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I don’t know why, but since he was in Poland the year before last and met Professor Kaltensee, he’s completely changed.”

“He was in Poland? Why?”

Christina Nowak paused, but then it poured out of her like lava from a volcano.

“He hasn’t taken a vacation with me and the kids for ages, because he supposedly doesn’t have time. But he can spend ten days with his grandmother and go off to Masuria. Sure, he has time for that. It may sound silly, but sometimes I get the feeling he’s married to Auguste and not to me. And then this Kaltensee shows up. Professor Kaltensee this, Professor Kaltensee that. They’re on the phone constantly, making some sort of plans that he won’t tell me about. My father-in-law exploded when he found out that Marcus was working for the Kaltensees, of all people.”

“Why is that?”

“The Kaltensees are to blame for my father-in-law having to declare bankruptcy,” Christina Nowak explained, to Pia’s astonishment. “He built the new office park in Hofheim for the Kaltensees’ company. They accused him of bungling the job. There were umpteen specialist reports and the case went to court and then dragged on for years. Eventually, my father-in-law ran out of steam, and besides, it was a matter of seven million euros. Once they finally reached an agreement six years later, the company could no longer be saved.”

“That’s very interesting. So why did your husband agree to work for the Kaltensees again?” Pia asked. Christina Nowak shrugged.

“None of us understood it,” she said bitterly. “My father-in-law kept warning Marcus. And now the whole thing is repeating: There’s no money, nothing but trials, one report after another…” Her voice trailed off and she heaved a deep sigh. “My husband is literally obsessed with this Kaltensee. He pays no attention to me anymore. He wouldn’t even notice if I moved out.”

From her own experience, Pia could comprehend what was happening for this woman, but she didn’t want to hear any details about the Nowaks’ marital problems.

“I ran into Professor Kaltensee today at the hospital. He was on his way to visit your husband and seemed very worried,” she said, hoping to coax Mrs. Nowak to say more. “Apparently, he didn’t know that his mother still owed your husband money. Why didn’t your husband tell him that if they’re such good friends?”

“Friends? That’s not what I would call it. Kaltensee is exploiting my husband, but Marcus simply doesn’t get it,” Mrs. Nowak replied angrily. “With him, everything still revolves around the job in Frankfurt. It’s total insanity. The project is far too big for him—he’s taking on more than he can handle. How is he going to get the job done with the few employees he has? Urban renewal of Frankfurt’s Old Town—bah! This Kaltensee has put a flea in his ear. If he fails, we’ll lose everything.”

Bitterness and frustration colored her words. Was she jealous of the friendship between her husband and Professor Kaltensee? Was she afraid they were going to go broke? Or was it the fear of a woman who felt her small, seemingly safe world was coming apart at the seams and she was losing control? Pia rested her chin in her hand and studied the woman.

“You’re not helping me,” she said. “And I wonder why not. Do you really know so little about your husband? Or don’t you care what has happened to him?”

Christina Nowak shook her head vehemently. “Of course I care,” she replied in a trembling voice. “But what am I supposed to do? Marcus has hardly spoken to me in months. I have absolutely no idea who did this to him or why, because I don’t know what sort of people he’s dealing with. But one thing I do know for sure: The fight with the Kaltensees is not about any mistake that Marcus made. It’s about some chest that disappeared while the work was going on. Marcus had several visits from Professor Kaltensee and Dr. Ritter, Vera Kaltensee’s secretary. They sat in his office for hours discussing confidential matters. But that’s all I know, I swear it.”

Her eyes were shining with tears. “I’m really worried about my husband,” she said with a helplessness that aroused involuntary sympathy in Pia. “I’m afraid for him and for our children because I don’t know what he’s gotten himself into or why he won’t talk to me anymore.”

She turned her face away and sobbed.

“Besides, I think that he … that he has someone else. He often drives off late at night and doesn’t come home until the next morning.”

She rummaged in her purse and avoided looking at Pia. Tears were running down her face. Pia handed her a Kleenex and waited patiently as Mrs. Nowak blew her nose.

“That means he might not have been home on the night of April thirtieth, am I right?” Pia asked softly.

Christina Nowak shrugged and nodded. When Pia thought she wouldn’t learn anything else of interest, the woman dropped a bombshell.

“I … I saw him recently with a woman. In Königstein. I … I was in the pedestrian area, picking up some books for the kindergarten class at the bookstore. I saw his car parked across the street from the ice-cream parlor. Just as I was about to go over there, a woman came out of that run-down house next to the lotto store, and he got out of his car. I watched as they spoke to each other.”

“When was that?” Pia asked, as if electrified. “What did the woman look like?”

“Tall, dark-haired, elegant,” replied Christina Nowak, greatly distressed. “The way he looked at her … and she put her hand on his arm.…”

She gave a sob and the tears were flowing again.

“When did this happen?” Pia repeated.

“Last week,” Mrs. Nowak whispered. “On Friday, about quarter to eleven. I … I thought at first it was about a new job, but then … then she got in the car with Marcus, and they drove off together.”

*   *   *

As Pia went over to the conference room, she had the feeling they’d reached a breakthrough. She didn’t enjoy putting people under so much pressure that they burst into tears, but sometimes the end justified the means. Bodenstein had called a meeting for four-thirty, but before Pia could tell him what she’d just learned, Dr. Engel came into the room. Hasse and Fachinger were already sitting at the table, and a little later Ostermann came in carrying two binders. Then Behnke showed up. Precisely at four-thirty, Bodenstein appeared.

“I see that all the members of K-Eleven are present.” Nicola Engel sat down at the head of the table, where Bodenstein usually sat. He didn’t say a word, just took a seat between Pia and Ostermann. “This seems a suitable occasion for me to introduce myself. My name is Nicola Engel, and starting June first, I’ll be taking over from my colleague Nierhoff.”

There was dead silence in the room. Naturally, every officer in the Regional Criminal Unit in Hofheim already knew who she was.

“I worked for many years as a detective myself,” Engel went on, unperturbed by the lack of reaction. “The work of K-Eleven is especially dear to my heart, and that’s why I’d like—unofficially—to collaborate with you on this case. It seems to me that additional help would do no harm.”

Pia gave her boss a brief glance. Bodenstein didn’t move a muscle. His thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. As the commissioner gave a speech about her career and her plans for the future of RCU Hofheim, Pia leaned over to him.

“And?” she said in a tense whisper.

“You were right,” Bodenstein said softly. “Kaltensee has no alibis.”

The commissioner beamed as she looked around the table, “So, I already know Chief Detective Inspector Bodenstein and Ms. Kirchhoff. I suggest the rest of you briefly introduce yourselves. Let’s begin with my colleague on the right.”

She looked at Behnke, who was sprawled on his chair and acted as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Detective Behnke.” Dr. Engel seemed to be enjoying the situation. “I’m waiting.”

The tension in the room was palpable, like before a thunderstorm. Pia recalled how Behnke had stormed out of Bodenstein’s office, his face pale as wax. Was his unusual behavior somehow connected to Dr. Engel? At K-11 in Frankfurt, Behnke had been Bodenstein’s colleague, so he had to know Nicola Engel as well. But why was the new boss acting as if she didn’t know him? As Pia was pondering this, Bodenstein spoke.

“Enough of this chitchat. We have a lot of work to do.”

He quickly introduced his colleagues, then immediately shifted to giving a rundown of the latest developments. Pia decided to be patient and wait till the end to give her report. The pistol that she’d found in Watkowiak’s backpack was not the weapon with which the three old people had been shot; forensics had clearly confirmed that. They hadn’t made much progress at Taunusblick. The residents Hasse spoke with hadn’t noticed anything that might be relevant to the case. Fachinger, however, had talked to a neighbor of Monika Krämer in Niederhöchstadt who said she’d seen an unfamiliar man in dark clothing in the stairwell at the time of the crime, and later by the trash cans in the courtyard. Behnke had found out some very interesting things in Königstein: The proprietor of the ice-cream parlor kitty-corner from the dilapidated house where Watkowiak’s corpse was found had recognized the victim from his photo. He said that Watkowiak occasionally spent the night in that house. Also, last Friday he had noticed the van of a renovation firm with a very prominent
N
as its logo, parked for almost forty-five minutes in front of the house. And a few weeks ago, Watkowiak had sat at one of the tables in the back of the ice-cream shop, having an intense conversation with a man who drove a BMW convertible with Frankfurt plates. The car was parked right in front of the shop.

As the investigative team speculated what one of Nowak’s vans had been doing in front of the house in Königstein, and who the unknown man in the ice-cream parlor could have been, Pia leafed through the Goldberg file, which was conspicuously thin.

“Listen to this,” she said, interrupting the discussion. “Goldberg had a visit on the Thursday before he died from a man in a sports car with Frankfurt plates. That couldn’t be a coincidence.”