Grave Intent (28 page)

“Yes, something like that.”

“No. The only unusual thing about Elias was perhaps his long meditative phases after intrusions occurred.”

“Meditative phases?”

“A phase of emotional apathy often follows after a flashback and all its side effects. These vary in length, but as I mentioned, the subject eventually does return to normalcy. In Elias’s case there was an added intermediate phase in which he entered into a sort of meditative state. He sat in the middle of the room with his eyes closed, as though thinking hard about something.”

“Did you ever talk to him about it?”

“Of course.”

“What did he say?”

“Elias said that meditating would help him overcome his pain. He imagined some lovely place and put himself there in his mind.”

“What place was that?”

“Forest, meadow, the sea, a lake. Depending on his mood.”

“And you believed him?”

“Of course. Have you heard of
samatha
?”

“Afraid not.”

Dr. Beringer rumpled his brow. “Samatha is a Buddhist meditation technique. The person meditating concentrates on an image, such as a meadow or the sea. This extreme focus leads to a deep calming of the spirit.”

“Could Elias have been thinking about something else?”

“Such as how to carry out a murder?”

“For example.”

“I might be a psychiatrist but I can’t read minds, Detective Tommen. I suppose Elias could have been thinking of murder, but meditative behavior of this nature is uncommon for a violent criminal. I know of no such cases.”

“Did Elias Dietrich ever talk about what happened to his daughter?”

“Of course. That is a crucial component of the healing process.”

“Did he ever make any accusations? Mention anyone he held responsible for her death?”

“At first, Elias complained about his fate in general terms. The death of his wife, and his daughter Charlotte’s illness.”

“Did he name names?”

“He considered the doctor who treated Charlotte to be guilty for her death.”

“Dr. Valburg.”

“That’s his name.”

“Didn’t that make you suspicious?”

“No. It’s an understandable reaction.”

“Wanting to kill a doctor?”

“Elias never said anything about killing anyone. Perhaps about revenge, but not murder.” Dr. Beringer leaned forward. “I’m no pulmonologist, but diagnosing sarcoidosis as asthma is a grave mistake. How would you have reacted if a doctor more or less caused your daughter’s death?”

“Elias Dietrich clearly got his revenge.”

“You’re not going to make me feel guilty that easily. Elias Dietrich only talked about revenge during his first few months with us. Then he never mentioned Dr. Valburg again. It seemed highly unlikely he would carry out such an act.”

“Did Elias mention the names of his other victims?”

“Which were?”

“Moritz Quast, Robin Cordes, and Yuri Petrov.” Jan deliberately left out his friend’s name. He refused to count Chandu as one of the victims.

“Those names don’t mean anything to me.”

“Are there any records of your conversations?”

“I’ve got my notes. I don’t do audio or video recordings.”

“Could you give them to me?”

“If you don’t tell anyone else and promise to leave me in peace. They won’t help you much—most of it’s jargon.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Dr. Beringer shrugged. “I’ll send them to you when I get back to the clinic.”

“Did Elias write anything down? Did he keep a journal, recollections, anything like that?”

“Not a word. Elias was well read and smart, so it did surprise me that he never wrote anything down. When I asked him about it, he told me, ‘My thoughts are clear.’ I left it at that.”

“Did Dietrich have Internet access?”

“No. We’re as careful about that as we are about books.”

Jan shut his eyes, fighting the frustration that was welling up inside him. Elias Dietrich had done everything he could to make sure no one would be able to follow his trail.

“Why was he released?”

“He had recovered—that is, to the extent we considered possible.”

“Possible?”

“He hardly ever had flashbacks, and the magnitude of his intrusions had lessened. He had a better handle on his loss. We release a patient when we’re sure that he’s neither a danger to himself nor a danger to society. Returning to the real world does have its risks. A man might function well inside the controlled environment of the psychiatric ward, but that doesn’t always mean he will succeed on the outside.”

“Did you get the feeling that Elias was coping?”

“We met daily the first week, then only occasionally after that. I didn’t perceive any deterioration in his condition. Later, I could only assume that he was getting through March twenty-ninth, June twenty-third, and July fourth.”

“Why are those dates important?”

“The first is the day his wife died, the next is his daughter’s birthday, and the last was the day she died. His intrusions were particularly bad on those days. Especially on the last two.”

“June twenty-third was the day his first victim died—Dr. Valburg.”

Dr. Beringer folded his hands on the table and stared at his fingers, deep in thought. He looked ashamed. “I handled Elias on those days. Of course he was angry and might have thrown a chair over, but he didn’t do anything to suggest he could be a serial killer. If he had given any clear signs indicating that he was capable of such behavior, I never would have released him. I’m not looking to reach some quota of rehabilitated patients.”

“What do you think happened, then?”

Dr. Beringer appeared to choose his words carefully. It took him a long time to answer. “The first possibility is that Elias tricked me. He was fantasizing about murder the whole time and simply pretended to behave when he was with me so that he could be released from the ward.” He took a deep breath. “Unlikely, but not impossible.”

“Second?”

“He was released too early. In the psychiatric ward there were few aggravations to remind him of his losses—he only had photos of his wife and daughter. But in the outside world, the triggers for flashbacks increase exponentially. A child’s laugh that sounds like Charlotte’s, places they visited together, his wife’s and daughter’s graves. It might have been too much for him.”

“When did you release him?”

“On March first, 2013.”

“So, four weeks before the anniversary of his wife’s death?”

“That was a conscious decision. It would give him some time to find his way. Of the three dates, March twenty-ninth would have likely triggered the mildest reaction. I wanted to test his reaction to the day of his wife’s death.”

“So how was it?”

Dr. Beringer paused a moment. “I had a longer appointment scheduled for him that day, but he didn’t show up for it.”

“That didn’t seem strange to you?”

“It did. So I drove over to his house. But he wasn’t home. I asked a neighbor, but she hadn’t seen him. Then I drove to the cemetery and visited his wife’s grave. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers there, but no trace of Elias. I sent staff to his apartment and the cemetery regularly over the next few weeks, but Elias had disappeared for good.” Dr. Beringer shook his head. “I’m sorry if I was wrong about Elias. But after March first? I lost all contact with him.”

Jan had just seen Dr. Beringer out when Max came running up to him. “I got something,” he said, out of breath.

Max raised his laptop up high like a trophy, grabbed Jan by the sleeve, and pulled him into the conference room.

“The crime techs analyzed the flash grenade and stumbled on a fascinating detail.” He pressed a few keys and turned the laptop screen to Jan. It showed a document, a form of some kind that Jan could hardly read, owing to its small text.

“A couple years ago, SWAT reported a case of flash grenades gone missing.”

“Someone stole from SWAT?”

“It’s not phrased exactly like that. It turns out one of the cases in a shipment contained fakes instead of the real grenades. Since the case had already been in storage for a year, they never found out if the swap happened during delivery or in SWAT’s building.”

Max pressed a key, and an image of grenade splinters appeared. “The grenade that took out Chandu belonged to the missing shipment.”

“Were there any suspects?”

Max pulled up a photo of a man about Jan’s age. He was staring into the camera with a spiteful grin as if to say,
You got nothing on me
.

“The suspect was Linus Keller, who did time for owning illegal weapons and selling firearms. There was no hard evidence, but your fellow cops would’ve bet their lives that Linus was involved.”

“We know where he lives?”

“Better than that,” Max said. “I’ve tapped his cell phone. We can follow his every step.”

Jan slapped Max on the shoulder. “Time for the cavalry.”

“This is police brutality!” Linus shouted as SWAT officers led him into the interrogation room. Linus’s head was bent forward, his arm twisted back in a painful hold that gave him no chance to make a move.

“I’m going to sue all of you.”

The SWAT officers pushed Linus down into a chair and cuffed him. Jan sat down across from him.

Linus tugged at the handcuffs. “What is this shit?”

Jan didn’t address the question. “I’ll be brief,” he said. “I need some info on a missing shipment of flash grenades. Come clean and you can stroll out of here, and we’ll drop the illegal-weapon charge.”

“What weapon is that?”

“The Heckler & Koch P8 we found on you, that you seem to have scratched the serial number off of.”

“That? I just happened upon it.”

“Don’t tell me: free prize, came with your carton of cigarettes?”

“In my parking lot.”

“Such a coincidence.”

“I wanted to bring the gun down to the station. Just didn’t have time.”

“And the hundred rounds of ammo that were lying right next to it?”

“You said it.”

“I’m going to try one more time nicely. We found a flash grenade that was used in a kidnapping. I need a name. Then we’ll forget all about this.”

“And otherwise?” Linus grinned wide, exposing his yellowed, gap-filled teeth.

“Then you end up in custody awaiting trial. I’ll stick a nasty-ass thug in your cell and pay him ten euros for every blow that lands on your face.” Jan pulled his wallet from his pocket. “I have a hundred on me. It’s gonna be a real good time.”

Linus shook his head. “Jesus Christ. Who got kidnapped? The pope?”

Jan leaned across the table. “My friend Chandu. And he’s more important to me than the pope.”

“Wait, Chandu? You don’t mean Chandu Bitangaro?”

“The very same.”

Linus laughed out loud. “So there is justice.”

Jan pounded on the table. “You think this is funny?”

“I do.” Linus displayed that repulsive grin again. “Your friend Chandu tossed me out of a club a few years ago for being too drunk—the sluts in that joint supposedly said I was harassing them. I was of a different opinion and wanted back inside.”

Linus pointed to a scar on his forehead. “This is the result of our little difference of opinion. Had to be sewn up with a bunch of stitches. Reminds me every morning how much I hate that friend of yours.”

Linus spit on the floor. “I’ll tell you something, pig. You’re not getting a thing from me. I’ll go to jail even with a hundred thugs waiting for me in there. I’ll just lie there on my cot grinning while Chandu gets what he deserves.”

Jan pushed over the table and rammed it into Linus’s stomach; Linus fell back onto the floor, chair and all. Jan came around and grabbed him by the hair.

“Listen to me, you rat puke. If anything happens to my friend, you’re leaving jail in a plastic bag.”

He let go of Linus’s hair and went to leave the interrogation room. When he reached the door, Linus shouted, “Hey, pig.”

Jan turned to the man. He still lay on the floor, but he’d raised his bound hands and showed Jan both middle fingers. Then he laughed.