The Ice Queen: A Novel (42 page)

Ostermann checked in on the phone. Marcus Nowak’s and Elard Kaltensee’s fingerprints on the murder weapon did not surprise anyone. In addition, a woman from Königstein had called the police after seeing Nowak’s picture in the paper. She recognized the contractor as the man who around noon on May 4, had spoken with a gray-haired man in a BMW convertible in the parking lot of Luxemburg Castle.

“Nowak talked to Ritter, but shortly before that he met with Katharina Ehrmann. How does that fit together?” Bodenstein asked, thinking out loud.

“I’ve been wondering about that, too,” replied Pia. “But this woman’s statement confirms that Christina Nowak wasn’t lying. Her husband was in Königstein at about the time Watkowiak died.”

“So he and Elard Kaltensee might be involved not only with the three murders of the old folks but also with the deaths of Watkowiak and Monika Krämer?”

“At this point, I wouldn’t rule anything out,” said Pia with a yawn. In the past few days, she definitely hadn’t gotten enough sleep and was yearning for a peaceful night. But for now, it looked like she could expect exactly the opposite, because Ostermann called again. He told her that downstairs at the duty officer’s desk someone named Auguste Nowak was waiting, and she wanted to talk to Pia urgently.

*   *   *

“Hello, Mrs. Nowak.” Kirchhoff extended her hand to the old woman, who got up from the chair in the waiting room. “Can you tell us where your grandson is?”

“No, I can’t. But I have to speak with you urgently.”

“Unfortunately, we’re very busy right now,” said Kirchhoff. At that moment, her cell rang. She cast an apologetic look at Nowak’s grandmother and took the call. Excited, Ostermann told her that they’d been able to pin down the location of Marcus Nowak’s cell phone for a few minutes. Pia felt adrenaline surging through her body. Maybe the man was still alive.

“In Frankfurt, between Hansaallee and Fürstenbergerstrasse,” said Ostermann. “We don’t have a more precise fix, as the phone was only turned on briefly.”

Pia instructed him to get in touch with their colleagues in Frankfurt and have a wide area blocked off.

“Boss,” she said, turning to Bodenstein, “Nowak’s cell was located in Frankfurt on Hansaallee. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Bodenstein nodded. “I certainly am. Kaltensee’s office at the university.”

“Please excuse me.” Auguste Nowak put her hand on Pia’s arm. “I really have to—”

“I just don’t have time right now, Mrs. Nowak,” said Pia. “We may find your grandson still alive. We’ll talk later. I’ll call you. Do you want someone to drive you home?”

“No thanks.” The old woman shook her head.

“It might take a while. I’m sorry.” Pia raised her hands in a gesture of regret and followed Bodenstein, who was already at his car. They had no time to lose, and so they didn’t notice the black Maybach limousine. The engine started up as soon as Auguste Nowak came out the door of the Regional Criminal Unit.

*   *   *

When Bodenstein and Kirchhoff arrived at the former IG-Farben Building at Grüneburgplatz, where the new Westend Campus of Frankfurt University was located, uniformed officers had already sealed off the area around the entrance. The unavoidable rubberneckers had gathered at the police tape. Inside the building, angry students, professors, and university employees were arguing with the police, but the instructions they’d been given were unequivocal: No one could enter or leave the building until Nowak’s cell phone had been found—in the best-case scenario, with its owner.

“There’s Frank,” said Pia, whose heart sank at the sight of the nine-story building, which was over seven hundred feet long. How was she going to find a cell phone that had been shut off again and could very well be anywhere on the thirty-five-acre campus, on the grounds or in a parked car? Behnke was standing with the squad leader of the Frankfurt Police between the four pillars in front of the imposing main entrance of the IG-Farben Building. When he saw Bodenstein and Pia, he went over to them.

“Let’s start with Kaltensee’s office,” he suggested. They went inside the magnificent lobby, but none of them paid any attention to the bronze plaques and artistic copper friezes that decorated the walls and elevator doors. Behnke led Bodenstein, Kirchhoff, and a group of martial-looking SWAT team officers up to the fifth floor. Then he turned right and strode purposefully down the long, slightly curved corridor. Pia’s cell rang and she took the call.

“The cell is on again!” Ostermann said excitedly.

“Is it in the building?” Pia stopped and covered her other ear so she could hear her colleague better.

“Yes, definitely.”

The door to Kaltensee’s office was locked. Another delay ensued until someone finally located the head janitor, who had a pass key. The elderly gentleman with a snow-white mustache fumbled with his key ring. When the door finally opened, Behnke and Bodenstein stormed past him impatiently.

“Shit,” said Behnke. “Nobody here.”

The janitor stood in a corner of the office, watching with big eyes the enormous efforts of the police.

“What’s going on here anyway?” he asked after a moment. “Is it something to do with Professor Kaltensee?”

“Do you think we’d show up here with a hundred officers and the SWAT team otherwise? Of course it has to do with him!” Pia leaned over the desk and studied the desk blotter, which was covered with scribbles. She was hoping to find a name, a phone number, or some clue to the whereabouts of Nowak, but it seemed that Kaltensee had just enjoyed doodling while he was on the phone. Bodenstein rummaged through the wastebasket and Behnke searched the desk drawers while the SWAT team waited in the hall.

“He was acting strange yesterday,” said the head janitor thoughtfully. “He seemed somehow … excited.”

Bodenstein, Behnke, and Kirchhoff stopped at once and stared at him.

Behnke reproached the man angrily. “You saw Professor Kaltensee yesterday? Why didn’t you tell us that right away?”

“Because you didn’t ask me,” he replied with dignity. The SWAT team leader’s radio hissed and crackled; then a voice came through, barely understandable through the atmospheric static caused by the thick concrete ceilings in the building. The janitor pensively twirled one end of his mustache.

“He seemed elated,” he recalled. “Which is generally never the case. He came out of the basement in the west wing. I wondered about that, since his office is—”

“Could you take us there?” Pia asked impatiently.

“Of course,” the janitor said with a nod. “But what did he do, the professor?”

“Nothing much,” Behnke replied sarcastically. “He just may have killed a few people.”

The janitor’s mouth fell open.

“My men are holding several individuals in detention who gained unauthorized access to the building,” the SWAT team leader now reported in official police lingo.

“Where?” Bodenstein asked impatiently.

“In the basement. In the west wing.”

“All right, let’s go,” Bodenstein barked.

*   *   *

The six men wearing black K-Secure uniforms were standing with their backs to the police officers, legs spread, hands on the wall.

“Turn around!” Bodenstein commanded. The men obeyed. Pia recognized Henri Améry, the leader of the Kaltensee security force, even without his suit and patent-leather shoes.

“What are you and your men doing here?” Pia asked.

Améry said nothing and smiled.

“You’re under arrest.” She turned to one of the SWAT team officers. “Get them out of here. And find out how they knew we were here.”

The man nodded. Handcuffs snapped shut and the six men in black were escorted out. Bodenstein, Kirchhoff, and Behnke got the janitor to open every room—document archives, storerooms, electrical and heating equipment rooms, empty cellars. In the next-to-last room, they finally hit the jackpot. A person was lying on a mattress on the floor. Next to him were water bottles, food, medications, and a steamer trunk. Pia turned on the light. Her heart leaped into her throat as the fluorescent lights on the ceiling hummed softly and flickered on.

“Hello, Mr. Nowak.” She went over to the mattress and squatted down. The dazed man blinked in the bright light. He was unshaven and deep furrows of exhaustion had become etched into his badly beaten face. With his good hand, he was clutching a cell phone. He looked very ill, but he was alive. Pia put her hand on his feverish brow and saw that his T-shirt was soaked in blood. She turned to Bodenstein and Behnke.

“Call an ambulance right away.”

Then she turned back to the injured man. No matter what he might have done, she felt sorry for him. He must have endured incredible pain.

“You belong in a hospital,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“Elard…” Nowak murmured. “Please … Elard…”

“What about Professor Kaltensee?” she asked. “Where is he?”

With an effort, Nowak turned to look at her, but then he closed his eyes.

“Mr. Nowak, you have to help us,” Pia pleaded. “We found Professor Kaltensee’s car at the airport. He and his mother seem to have vanished from the face of the earth. And in the safe in your office, we found the pistol that was used to shoot three people. We assume that Elard Kaltensee committed the murders, after he found the pistol in the trunk.”

Marcus Nowak opened his eyes. His nostrils quivered and he was gasping for breath, as if he wanted to say something, but only a moan escaped from his split lips.

“Unfortunately, I have to arrest you, Mr. Nowak,” said Pia with a certain amount of regret. “You have no alibis for the nights of the murders. Your wife has told us that you were not at home on any of those nights. Do you have anything to say about that?”

Nowak didn’t answer; instead, he let go of his cell phone and reached for Pia’s hand. Desperately, he struggled to find the words. Sweat was pouring down his face, but an attack of chills made him shiver. Pia remembered the warning of the doctor at the Hofheim Hospital; he’d said that Nowak had suffered a wound to his liver in the attack. Apparently, being transported here had aggravated the internal injury.

“Take it easy,” she said, patting his hand. “First we’re taking you to the hospital. When you’re feeling better, we’ll talk.”

He looked at her like a drowning man, his dark eyes wide with panic. If Marcus Nowak didn’t get help soon, he was going to die. Had that been Elard Kaltensee’s plan? Was that why he’d brought him here, where no one would find him? But why hadn’t he taken away his cell phone?

A voice interrupted her thoughts. “The ambulance is here.” Two EMTs shoved a gurney into the basement room, and a doctor wearing an orange vest and carrying an emergency medical bag followed them. Pia wanted to get up to make room for the doctor, but Marcus Nowak wouldn’t let go of her hand.

“Please…” he whispered desperately. “Please … not Elard … my Oma…”

His voice trailed off.

“My colleagues will take care of you,” said Pia softly. “Don’t worry. Professor Kaltensee won’t do anything else to you, I promise.”

She detached herself from Nowak’s grip and stood up.

“He has a liver injury,” she informed the emergency doctor. Then she turned to her colleagues, who in the meantime had searched the trunk. “So, what did you find?”

“Among other things, the SS uniform of Oskar Schwinderke,” Bodenstein replied. “We’ll take a look at the rest back at the station.”

*   *   *

“I knew the whole time that Elard Kaltensee was a murderer,” Pia told Bodenstein. “He would have left Nowak to rot in that cellar hole, just to keep from getting his own hands dirty.”

They were on their way back to Hofheim. Katharina Ehrmann was waiting at the station, and the six K-Secure men were in the holding cells.

“Who did Nowak call last?” Bodenstein asked.

“No idea. We have to request the itemized call listing.”

“Why didn’t Kaltensee take the phone away from him? He must have figured that Nowak would call somebody.”

“Yes, I wondered that myself. Probably he didn’t know that we could get a fix on the phone.” Pia jumped at the shrill ring of the car phone. “Or maybe he just didn’t think about it.”

“Hello,” a female voice came from the loudspeaker. “Mr. Bodenstein?”

“Yes,” said Bodenstein, glancing at Pia and then shrugging. “Who is this?”

“Sina. I’m the secretary at
Weekend.
”

“Oh yes. What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Ritter gave me an envelope last night,” she said. “I was supposed to keep it for him. But now that he’s disappeared, I thought it might be important. Your name is on it.”

“Really? Where are you now?”

“Still here, at the office.”

Bodenstein hesitated.

“I’ll send a colleague over to pick up the envelope. Please wait until he arrives.”

Pia was already calling Behnke on her cell and telling him to drive over to the editorial office in Fechenheim. She ignored his angry curse at the prospect of driving all the way across town at this time of day.

*   *   *

“Yes, that’s right,” Katharina Ehrmann said. “My company wants to publish the biography of Vera Kaltensee. I found Thomas’s idea tremendously interesting, and I’ve supported him in his endeavor.”

“You know that he’s been missing since last night, don’t you?” Pia observed the woman sitting across from her. Katharina Ehrmann was a little too beautiful to be real. Her expressionless face testified either to a lack of emotion or too much Botox.

“We had an appointment yesterday evening,” she replied. “When he didn’t show up, I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. Later, his cell phone was turned off.”

That matched what Marleen Ritter had told the police.

“Why did you meet with Marcus Nowak in Königstein last Friday?” Bodenstein asked. “Nowak’s wife saw you get into her husband’s car, and then you drove off together. Are you having an affair with him?”

“I really don’t work that fast.” Katharina Ehrmann seemed genuinely amused. “That was the first day I met him. He had brought the diaries and other documents I’d requested from Elard, and then he was nice enough to give me a ride before he met with Thomas.”

Pia and Bodenstein exchanged a surprised look. That was interesting news. So that’s how Ritter had gotten hold of the information. Elard had thrown his own mother under the bus, so to speak.