Snow White Must Die (50 page)

“Thies!” she whispered urgently, shaking him. “You have to wake up, Thies!”

He didn’t react. She couldn’t possibly move him higher, she wasn’t strong enough. But in a couple of hours his head would be underwater. Amelie was close to giving up. It was so cold! And she had such a terrifying fear of drowning. Images from
Titanic
kept popping up in her mind. She had seen that movie half a dozen times and had blubbered when Leonardo DiCaprio slipped off the plank and sank into the deep. The waters of the North Atlantic could hardly be any colder than this shit-brew here.

With quivering lips she kept talking to Thies, begging him, shaking him, pinching him on the arm. He simply had to wake up.

“I don’t want to die,” she sobbed, leaning her head against the wall in exhaustion. “I don’t want to die, damn it!”

The cold was paralyzing her movements and her thoughts. With the greatest effort she thrashed her legs up and down in the water. Eventually she wouldn’t be able to manage even that. She mustn’t fall asleep. If she let go of Thies, he would drown and she with him.

*   *   *

Claudius Terlinden looked reluctantly at the documents that lay before him on the desk, as his secretary escorted Oliver von Bodenstein and Pia Kirchhoff into his office.

“Have you found my son?” He didn’t get up from his chair and made no effort to conceal his displeasure. From close up Pia could see that the events of the past few days had left their mark on Terlinden, although he seemed emotionally unaffected. He was pale and had dark shadows under his eyes. Was he taking refuge in his daily routine in order to forget his worries?

“No,” Bodenstein said regretfully. “Unfortunately we haven’t. But we know who abducted him from the psychiatric ward.”

Claudius Terlinden gave him an inquisitive look.

“Gregor Lauterbach has confessed to the murder of Stefanie Schneeberger,” Bodenstein went on. “His wife kept silent about it in order to protect him and his career. She knew that Thies had been an eyewitness to the crime. She has consistently threatened your son and treated him for years with psychopharmaceuticals that he didn’t need at all. Because she feared that Amelie Fröhlich and your son could be dangerous to her husband and herself, she decided to take action. We’re afraid that she may have done something to both of them.”

Terlinden stared at Bodenstein, his face was a mask of frozen surprise.

“Who did you think murdered Stefanie?” Pia asked. Claudius Terlinden took off his glasses and rubbed his hand over his face. He took a deep breath.

“I actually thought it was Tobias,” he admitted after a moment. “I assumed that he saw Gregor with the girl and then flipped out with jealousy. It was clear to me that my son Thies must have witnessed something, but since he never spoke I didn’t know what he saw. Now, of course, some things make more sense. That’s why Daniela was always so concerned about him. And that’s why Thies was so terrified of her.”

“She threatened to send him to an institution if he ever breathed a word,” Pia explained. “But even she didn’t know that Thies was keeping Stefanie’s body concealed in the cellar of the orangerie. She must have found that out from Amelie. Because of that, Dr. Lauterbach set the fire. It wasn’t the painting she wanted to destroy, but the mummy of Snow White.”

“Good Lord!” Terlinden got up from his chair, went over to the wall of windows, and looked out. Did he have any idea how thin the ice was under his feet? Oliver and Pia exchanged a glance behind his back. He would be held accountable for numerous offenses, not least for the extensive bribery incidents that Gregor Lauterbach had revealed in his cowardly attempt to clear his own name. Terlinden as yet knew nothing about that, but surely he realized what a gigantic burden of guilt he carried because of his policy of silence and cover-ups.

“Lutz Richter tried to commit suicide yesterday when our colleagues arrested his son,” Bodenstein said, breaking the silence. “Eleven years ago he established a sort of militia to hush up what really happened. Laura Wagner was still alive when Richter’s son and his friends threw her into the empty underground tank at the airfield in Eschborn. Richter knew that but he covered up the tank with dirt.”

“And when Tobias came back from prison, Richter took matters into his own hands and organized the attack on him,” Pia added. “Did you order him to do that?”

Terlinden turned around.

“No. In fact, I expressly forbade the assault,” he replied hoarsely.

“Manfred Wagner was the one who shoved Tobias’s mother off the bridge,” Pia went on. “If you hadn’t forced your son Lars to keep quiet about the truth, none of this would have happened. Your son might still be alive, the Sartorius family wouldn’t be destitute, and the Wagners would have learned what happened. Do you realize that you must bear the sole blame for the suffering these families have endured? Not to mention that because of your cowardice your own family has gone through hell!”

“Why me?” Terlinden shook his head, baffled. “I was only trying to contain the damage.”

Pia couldn’t believe her ears. Obviously Terlinden had found some sort of justification for his actions and omissions, and had been deluding himself for years.

“How could the damage have been any worse?” she asked sarcastically.

“The very fabric of the village community was threatening to break apart,” Terlinden replied. “My family has borne a great responsibility in this village for decades, if not centuries. I had to live up to it. The boys did something stupid when they were drunk, and the girl had provoked them.”

He had begun in an uncertain voice, but now he spoke in a tone of utter conviction.

“I thought that Tobias killed Stefanie. So he would be going to prison in any event. What did it matter if he was convicted of one crime or two? Because he kept his four friends out of trouble, I supported his family and always made sure that—”

“Now you shut up!” Bodenstein interrupted the man. “All you wanted was to keep your son Lars out of it! You were concerned solely with protecting your own name, which inevitably would have ended up in the newspapers if Lars had been connected to the murders. The young people and the villagers meant nothing to you. And it’s glaringly obvious how unimportant the Sartorius family was to you because you opened the Black Horse to compete with the Golden Rooster and even hired Sartorius’s cook to manage your restaurant.”

“In addition, you exploited the circumstances with ice-cold determination,” Pia took over. “Albert Schneeberger never wanted to sell you his company, but you put such massive pressure on him in this terrible situation that he finally did. Then, contrary to your agreement, you fired his employees and broke up the company. You are the only one who profited from the whole sad affair—in every respect!”

Claudius Terlinden glared daggers at Pia.

“But now everything has turned out very differently than you ever thought possible.” Pia refused to be intimidated. “The people in Altenhain didn’t wait for further orders from you, but decided to take action on their own. And then Amelie showed up and began investigating on her own initiative, putting half the village at risk. But your power had diminished to such an extent that you couldn’t stop the avalanche that was triggered by Tobias’s return.”

Terlinden’s expression darkened. Pia crossed her arms and returned his infuriated look without batting an eye. She had nailed his sore spot with absolute precision.

“If Amelie and Thies die,” she said with an ominous undertone, “you will bear sole responsibility for their deaths!”

“Where could those two be?” Bodenstein took over. “Where is Dr. Lauterbach?”

“I don’t know,” Claudius Terlinden said between clenched teeth. “God damn it, I really don’t know!”

*   *   *

The dark gray clouds hovering low over the Taunus promised snow. In the past twenty-four hours the temperature had dropped by almost eighteen degrees. This time the snow would stick. Pia was driving down the pedestrian street in Königstein, ignoring the angry looks from the few people who were out. She parked in front of the jewelry store above which Dr. Lauterbach had her practice. There a receptionist was bravely holding the fort, patiently fielding the incessant phone calls, and rescheduling indignant patients who had appointments that day.

“Dr. Lauterbach is not in,” she replied to Bodenstein’s inquiry. “And I haven’t been able to reach her by phone.”

“But she’s not at the conference in Munich.”

“No, that was only on the weekend.” The woman raised her hands helplessly as the phone rang again. “Actually she wanted to be back today. You can see what’s going on here.”

“We presume that she’s cleared out,” said Bodenstein. “We think she’s responsible for the abduction of two people, and she knows that we’re on her trail.”

The receptionist shook her head, wide-eyed.

“But that can’t be,” she protested. “I’ve been working for the doctor for twelve years. She would never hurt anyone. I mean, I … I
know
her.”

“When was the last time you saw Dr. Lauterbach or spoke with her? Has she been acting differently in the past few days, or has she been away more than usual?” Bodenstein glanced at the name tag on the right breast pocket of the woman’s starched white smock. “Mrs. Wiesmeier, please think! Your boss may have made a mistake, although she meant well. You could help her now, before things get any worse.”

Bodenstein’s personal plea and the urgent tone of his voice had an effect. Waltraud Wiesmeier paused to think, a frown on her face.

“I’ve been wondering why Dr. Lauterbach canceled all her appointments for people to look at Mrs. Scheithauer’s villa last week,” she said after a while. “She’s been trying for months to find a buyer for that big old place, and finally somebody was interested and wanted to come down from Düsseldorf on Thursday. But I had to call and cancel the appointment with him and two real estate agents. It was strange.”

“What kind of house is it?”

“An old villa on Grüner Weg with a view of the Woogtal. Mrs. Scheithauer was one of our patients for years. She had no heirs, and when she died in April she left her estate to a foundation and the villa to Dr. Lauterbach.” She gave an embarrassed smile. “I think the boss would have preferred it the other way around.”

*   *   *

“‘At a press conference this morning a spokesman for the cultural ministry announced the surprising resignation of Cultural Minister Gregor Lauterbach, stating personal reasons…,”
said the news reporter on the car radio as Pia turned from Ölmühlweg down Grüner Weg. She slowly drove past the new construction and turned onto a cul-de-sac that ended at a huge wrought-iron gate.

“There has been no official reaction from the state chancellery. The government spokesman…”

“This must be it.” Bodenstein undid his seatbelt and got out almost before Pia had stopped the car. The gate was secured by a chain and a brand-new padlock, and only the roof of the villa could be seen. Pia shook the bars of the gate and looked to the left and right. The wall was over six feet tall with iron spikes on top.

“I’ll call for backup and a locksmith.” Bodenstein pulled out his cell. If Dr. Lauterbach was inside the villa, she probably wouldn’t give up without a fight. In the meantime Pia walked along the wall of the spacious estate but found only a smaller locked gate that was overgrown with thorny brush. Minutes later a locksmith showed up. Two patrol cars from Königstein parked farther up the street, and the officers approached on foot.

“The villa has been empty for a few years,” said one of the officers. “Old Mrs. Scheithauer lived at the Rosenhof retirement home in Kronberg. She was way over ninety when she died in April.”

“And then she left the whole place to her doctor,” Pia noted. “Why do some people have all the luck?”

The locksmith had finished his job and wanted to leave, but Bodenstein asked him to wait a moment. The first tiny snowflakes came floating down as they walked up the gravel path. The castle ruins on top of the hill had vanished in the clouds; the whole world around them seemed to have ceased to exist. Another patrol car caught up with them and stopped in front of the entrance. The front door was also locked, and the locksmith got to work.

“Do you hear that?” asked Pia, who had eyes and ears like a lynx. Bodenstein listened, but he heard only the rustle of the wind in the tall firs in front of the villa. He shook his head. The door was opened and he stepped into a large, dim entry hall. It smelled deserted and musty.

“Nobody here,” he said, disappointed. Pia went past him and touched the light switch. It made a bang and sparks flew out of the switch. The two officers from Königstein grabbed their weapons. Bodenstein’s heart was in his throat.

“Just a short circuit,” said Pia. “Sorry.”

They moved on from room to room. The furniture was covered with white sheets, the shutters closed in front of the tall windows. Bodenstein crossed the big room that opened off the entry hall on the left side. The parquet floor creaked under his feet. He pulled aside the damp, moth-eaten velvet curtains, but the room didn’t get much brighter.

“I hear a rushing noise,” said Pia from the doorway. “Everybody be quiet!”

The officers fell silent. And now Bodenstein actually heard it too. There was water running down in the cellar. He went back and followed Pia to a door underneath the curved stairway.

“Has anybody got a flashlight with them?” she asked, trying to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. One of the patrol officers handed Pia a flashlight.

“It’s not locked but it won’t open.” Pia bent down and shone the light at the floor. “Look at this. Somebody put silicone under the door. Why would they do that?”

The colleagues from Königstein knelt down and dug out the silicone with their pocket knives. Pia yanked on the door until it sprang open. The sound of running water was louder now. Five or six dark shapes hurried past her and into the depths of the house. “Rats!” Bodenstein jumped back and bumped into one of the officers so hard that he almost fell over.

“You don’t have to KO me just for that,” the uniformed colleague complained. “You almost landed on my foot.”