Until the Debt Is Paid (6 page)

He clipped the ID onto his pants pocket. “I’ll get my jacket. There’s someone we need to go see.”

Chandu nodded with satisfaction. His old friend was back.

They stopped the car in front of a sprawling villa, and Jan got out to take a closer look at the spiked metal fence surrounding the property. Through the wrought-iron bars they could see neatly trimmed hedges and the details of the home, which had vast windows and a balcony fitted with columns.

“Looks spendy,” Chandu remarked.

Jan rang the bell and waited. The door opened, and an older man stuck his head out. He was wearing a bathrobe. His thin hair stood up all over his head. He took in Chandu’s towering stature and facial tattoos with a wary look.

“Harald Nieborg?” Jan asked.

“Who are you?”

“Berlin police,” Jan said, flashing his badge. “We would like to ask you a few questions about the murder of George Holoch.”

“Again?” Nieborg sighed. “I already told your colleagues everything.”

“I know,” Jan went on. “But we have a few follow-up questions. Seems our fellow officers were a little sloppy entering the data.”

“Why am I paying all these taxes to this shithole city anyway if detectives don’t even know their way around a computer?”

Jan ignored the remark. “Mind if we come in?”

“That’s not possible right now.” Nieborg hedged. “My, u
h . . .
cleaning woman is here and the floor, it’s all wet.”

Chandu crossed his big arms, giving the man a questioning look.

“We can do this at the door,” Jan conceded. He pulled out his notebook.

“Did you know George Holoch well?”

“We belonged to the same golf club, did wine tastings regularly. He was a smart, cultured man.”

“He have any enemies?”

“He was a judge by profession. Sure he had enemies.”

“Did he mention anyone specifically in that respect?”

“No.”

“Hmm,” Jan said, making a note.

“When did you come home on the night of the murder?”

“About eleven p.m.”

“And that’s when you noticed the car in your driveway?”

“Couldn’t miss it. I hardly got past it. I called the tow service and police, but they didn’t get here until about twelve thirty.”

“Then what?”

“By then the car was gone, and I had to explain it to them.”

“Did you write the plate down?”

“Yes.”

“And it was a dark-blue BMW M3?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the driver?”

“No. One second the car was taking up half my driveway. A few minutes later, it was gone.”

“Huh,” Jan said and noted something down.

“Are we done with this yet?” Nieborg asked, impatient now.

“You certainly don’t want to leave your cleaning lady unattended,” Chandu said, winking at him.

“One more thing. Then we’ll leave you in peace.”

Nieborg sighed.

Jan leaned forward. “See, there was a little accident securing evidence,” he whispered. “A box got misplaced, unfortunately. So now a few crime-scene photos are missing, and the house key too. George Holoch didn’t happen to give you a spare, did he? It would be pretty embarrassing for us to have to call the locksmith. If you could just lend us that extra key, we’ll be on our way.”

Jan did his best apologetic face.

Nieborg sniffed in contempt. “Wait here.”

“Not bad,” Chandu said, once the man had disappeared back inside the house. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I was just hoping.”

“So what if he hadn’t had a spare key?”

“We would have called the locksmith. We wouldn’t want to try and break in, not in a neighborhood like this, where people watch for prowlers and the houses are well secured. If someone spotted us creeping around, they’d call the police. With the key, we can walk in through the front door and avoid arousing the neighbors’ suspicions.”

“So why did you bother with those basic investigation questions? You knew all the answers already.”

“Asking for the key right away would’ve been too conspicuous.”

“Let’s just hope he bought our little story. If your coworkers find out you came over her
e . . .
”

“They won’t—not right away, anyway. Questioning was done a while ago and now the crime scene is sealed off. Nobody will bother to come back here for some time.”

Harald Nieborg returned. “Here’s the key.” He pressed it into Jan’s hand. “Don’t go losing it this time,” he said before shutting the door.

“Asshole,” Chandu muttered.

“Finally,” Jan said, a look of satisfaction on his face. “Now let’s take a good look at the judge’s digs.”

Jan, wearing gloves, ripped off the official Berlin Police paper seal that stretched across the front door and slid the key into the lock. Inside, he paused, staring at the spotless marble floor of the foyer as an odd fear crept over him. What if he remembered the house after all? What if the crime scene looked familiar? What if he really had driven over here that night, high on drugs?

“Jan,” Chandu said, jolting him out of his reverie. “What are you waiting for? Let’s keep moving.”

“Yeah,” Jan said. He turned and shut the front door behind them. He moved farther into the house, trying to banish the dark thoughts from his head, and let his gaze wander around the interior.

The owner had clearly wanted to show off his wealth. The floor was beautifully tiled. Above the designer sofa hung a striking blown-glass chandelier, its unusual design reminding Jan of a weeping willow. The walls showcased two paintings that looked to his eyes like a jumble of color splashes, but he could guess they were valuable. Everything had a clinical cleanliness. Not one speck of dust anywhere. There were no streaks on the glass cabinets, and the carpet leading up the stairs looked immaculate, as if it had just been laid.

Chandu was clearly impressed by the pomp. “Looks like the judge pulled in a few. What do we do now?”

“We look for clues.”

“I don’t mean to say the obvious, Jan, but didn’t your coworkers already go through the place?”

“Sure, but maybe they missed something.”

“You’re always telling me how thorough you guys are.”

“The crime-scene techs might have been sloppier than normal. Plus, with me as the suspect, they probably viewed the case as easy to close. That might have tempted the guys into wanting to finish up quickly.”

Chandu uttered a grumpy snort.

“I know there’s little chance, but I had to come here. Even if we don’t find a thing.”

“Where was the judge murdered?”

“By the TV,” Jan said, pointing to a flat-screen built into the wall. As they neared it, the antiseptic smell of cleaning agents grew stronger.

“Everything looks normal enough,” Chandu said.

“The crime scene was cleaned. We won’t find anything here. We’ll have to look somewhere else.”

“Today is my first day investigating a murder,” Chandu said. “So I’d be grateful for any tips.”

“We’re looking for things that the judge might have hidden away. Every person has at least one dark secret. For some, it’s just the porno sites they like to visit on the Internet—we’ll never know in this case because they already confiscated the judge’s computer. But lots of people have tangible stuff too—say, kinky sex toys, illicit photos, drugs.”

“So where do we start?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jan said. “Just focus on finding spots where something might be hidden. In a crawl space that’s hard to notice, or behind books on a shelf.” Jan shrugged. “Knock yourself out, but put on gloves. Your fingerprints are in our system.”

“All right,” Chandu said, heading to the stairs. “I’ll start on the upper floor.”

Jan nodded and then positioned himself in the middle of the living room, pivoting around. He tried to take in every detail. Then he closed his eyes.

“Where’s your secret, George?” he whispered. He’d searched through plenty of homes and found more sick stuff than he cared to remember. Some people would just leave a snuff video lying out on a table next to a crack pipe. But a man like Judge Holoch was far too clever for that. His secrets would have to be sniffed out. Jan doubted the judge was so secretive that he’d have to bust open the walls, but the man would have known to hide things in a place where the cleaning lady wouldn’t stumble on them.

Jan hadn’t said it to Chandu, but he felt convinced that being in the judge’s home would bring back a memory or two. The thing he wanted most was to recall some details, even if they incriminated him. Not knowing was the worst.

Just then, Jan heard Chandu calling for him.

Once they’d found the murder weapon in the Judge Holoch case, Zoe had dropped everything to drive over right away and pick it up. Two tickets for excessive speeding later, she was in the lab with gloves on and all the analyzers running.

She opened the plastic evidence bag, took out the hammer, and placed it, with due reverence, atop two little metal stands. Then she went around the table to verify its correct position. The apparent murder weapon was arm length and had industrial grip tape on the handle. Dried blood extended down to the tape. She focused on observing every centimeter of the surface. That completed, she pulled out of her lab coat a small tube topped with a cotton swab. She removed the cap and took a sample of the dried blood.

She handed the sample to her colleague Walter, who had arrived just after her. “DNA sample,” Zoe said without turning, which Walter acknowledged with a crabby grunt. Walter hated being treated like an assistant, but Zoe didn’t care one bit. When she was examining evidence, she didn’t let anything interfere. A kind of symbiosis developed between her and the object if she concentrated hard enough. That was what she was after now. And there was no way she was going to let some Birkenstock-wearing bore wreck the delicate bond she was trying to forge.

As she examined the weapon, a clear timeline of the murder started to coalesce in her head. The tape revealed that the killer had brought along the hammer. The person had known in advance that he wanted to keep his grip. He’d also sensed that the victim might try to fight back when he realized the attacker had a hammer, not a gun.
That
would explain the minor burn on the neck of the corpse, which must have come from a stun gun. The murderer had probably been waiting in the house to attack the judge by surprise. Once he’d incapacitated the man with the stun gun, he’d smashed the knee and other body parts in succession. Not exactly a fair fight.

Zoe kept moving around the small table. She took a wide brush and began dusting off the handle. The first fingerprints became visible. Some were smudged and could barely be used, but two prints clearly stood out. She grabbed a piece of film and transferred the first print onto the see-through plastic.

She went to the adjoining table, took a magnifying glass from her pocket, and examined the prints. The loops and arcs were familiar to her somehow. They were identical to the ones found at the crime scene—and they belonged to Jan.

Zoe secured the second print and found Walter, who was busy analyzing the DNA.

“Run these through the print database,” she said. “I’ll take a few more blood samples.”

The blood likely came from the victim, but you never knew. Maybe the murderer was injured in a struggle. Whatever she found, she’d have to call Jan right away. The guy was not going to like the results.