Zons Crime: Fatal Puzzle Part 5

Fifteen minutes later, Oliver and Klaus sat in their boss's office. Hans Steuermark looked concerned.

"According to the local officers, the woman was badly mangled," he told the two detectives. "From what we can tell so far, she was tortured and possibly raped as well. She hasn't been identified yet. A jogger found her early this morning. The killer-or maybe the killers-tied her to a chain and suspended her on one of those old towers at the Schlossplatz. I'm a.s.signing you both to the case, and I want you to get cracking this instant!" He dismissed them.

Usually the drive between Neuss and Zons took about ten to fifteen minutes, depending on whether one took the Autobahn or the country road. Klaus opted for the supposedly faster Autobahn A57.

"I really hope we'll have more luck with this body than with the Body in the Woods," Klaus said and hit the gas pedal.

"Yep, a bit more luck would look good for us," Oliver agreed and looked out the window.

His adrenaline had been pumping since Klaus had called him; he couldn't wait to arrive at the crime scene. But as was so often the case, the A57 was under construction, and they advanced slowly. It took them almost thirty minutes to reach Zons.

They parked directly on the Schlossplatz, near the well-preserved city wall, and jumped out of the car.

"I haven't been back here since I was a boy," Klaus said and looked up to the edge of the wall.

"Same here. It's been many years. I've always liked this medieval city," Oliver answered.

"It wouldn't be easy to scale those walls," Klaus mused. "You'd need a ladder, or at least a rope with iron hooks on it."

Through a small gate they walked to the other side of the city wall. The green Rhine meadows spread out directly in front of them, several majestic old willow trees lining the path. On this cold, barren December day, the sight was a blessing to the eye. Neuss didn't have that much nature to offer, especially not all in one place like this.

About a dozen young children were skating on a natural ice rink amid the peaceful landscape, some eighty yards from where Klaus and Oliver stood. The shallow basin was probably a relic from the last flood. A small boy lost his balance and toppled onto the ice. He looked up, his face deep red, and screamed for his mother, who now hurried over to comfort her tearful little skater. Oliver smiled as he watched the scene. He used to love ice-skating when he was a boy, and of course his helicopter mom had followed him everywhere, making sure that nothing happened to her precious son.

Klaus tapped him on the shoulder and roused him from his musings. Oliver turned around and saw the corpse hanging from the tower, the Krotschenturm. He looked back at the playing children.

"Klaus, this area needs to be widely sealed off. Those kids haven't noticed yet, but any moment now we'll have cops and the forensics team and blue and red lights all over the place. I don't want any of those kids to see that dangling corpse."

"Good call, Oliver. Let me radio this right now. We should probably seal off the area around this entire segment of the wall. People like to go for walks here; we'll be dealing with hundreds of gawkers if we don't clear the area." Klaus reached for his radio.

Oliver approached the corpse and stiffened for a moment. The chain was attached to one arm, and the body was swaying slightly in the wind. A superficial glance might have suggested it was only an oversized flour sack hanging from the tower, because the dead woman was entirely wrapped in a rough, cream-colored linen gown. Oliver couldn't see a face because the body was hanging with its back toward him. He was just wondering how the jogger could have known the victim's gender, when a heavy gust of wind made the chain twist around, creaking loudly. The corpse swayed slowly back and forth, pivoting around its own axis with each new gust of wind, until it had turned 180 degrees and its red, empty eyes stared directly at Oliver.

Oh, dear G.o.d! The victim's lower jaw was hanging down lopsided, clearly broken. Her tongue was bluish-black and stuck halfway out of her lopsided mouth. As far as Oliver could tell with all the blood in her mouth, she was missing several teeth. Dried blood was smeared across her battered face. It looked as if someone had poured red paint down from the top of her head, where it had dried and caked in runnels.

"I've never seen anything so horrible," Klaus murmured from behind.

"Yeah," Oliver answered. "Compared to this, our Body in the Woods was a natural death."

That earlier victim had displayed no visible signs of torture; he had obviously been killed within seconds and probably hadn't suffered. This poor woman, however, looked as if she had endured excruciating torment before she died.

Within the area, now sealed off from onlookers, the team from Forensics was already busy, illuminating the corpse with a whirlwind of flashlights as if the dead woman was a model in a fas.h.i.+on show. Other members from the unit, dressed completely in white with latex gloves on, searched the ground beneath her feet using small forceps. They stored each piece of evidence in a small plastic bag, carefully labeling them, and stacked the bags in a large box to bring back to the lab.

Almost thirty minutes pa.s.sed before they were done and the corpse could finally be taken off the hook. Anxiously, Oliver and Klaus stood aside until the woman had been placed on a gurney and they could approach her. Beneath the old-fas.h.i.+oned gown, she was fully dressed. She even wore jeans.

Maybe we were wrong and it wasn't rape, Oliver thought.

There was dirt under her ragged, broken fingernails, but her head looked far worse. Her hair had been shaved off. From the remains of her eyebrows, they a.s.sumed she had been brunette. Her scalp was smeared with blood and scattered with dark-rimmed wounds. Apparently, the killer had cut deeply into her scalp in several places.

What a gruesome way to torture someone, Oliver thought.

As if reading his mind, Klaus chimed in, "Can you even imagine? Sitting there defenseless and chained while a lunatic carves up your scalp and you feel your own blood running over your face?"

Oliver turned away in horror-it was too ghastly to consider.

"We'll take her to Forensics and perform the autopsy today," one of the medical examiners informed them. He swiftly zipped the body bag and prepared the woman's body for transport.

An hour later, back at the precinct, Oliver and Klaus reported to their boss.

"Any clues that could help us identify the woman?" Steuermark asked.

They shook their heads slightly. No.

"The woman was fully dressed, but we couldn't find any ID or purse on her," Klaus said.

"Fully dressed. So probably not a rape?"

"Yes, fully dressed," Klaus affirmed. "Only her shoes are missing. They could have slipped off her feet during the transport. Maybe she never wore any. We asked Forensics to look out for shoes. If they fell off while he was transporting her, we might find a trace that'll lead us directly to the place where the killer tortured and murdered her."

Oliver added, "The coroner examined the skin on her wrist where the chain was attached; his initial finding is that she was already dead when the murderer suspended her at the tower. He said her limbs were barely swollen, which indicates her heart had already stopped beating by the time he tied her to the chain."

"Seems our killer wanted us to find her as soon as possible," Steuermark said. "Otherwise he wouldn't have exposed her at such a public location. Of course, we're a.s.suming that the killer is male, based on prior cases and the strength it would've taken to carry out this monstrous deed."

He recalled the case of a serial killer from many years ago. That guy, too, had wanted his acts to be widely seen. The gruesome exhibitions of his victims regularly shocked the public, gripping the entire county with a paralyzing, spreading fear of his atrocities. It was common for serial killers to present their victims as conspicuously as possible, and often they would mingle with the crowd of onlookers, enthralled by their "work of art" and their own power.

Steuermark wished he was wrong in suspecting that this murder would not be the last such one. He really had no use for another serial killer now, especially in light of the most recent crime statistics that had been published last week and that had forced him to appear in a hastily called press conference to explain the stark rise of violent crimes in the region. In fact, it wasn't a surprise at all that crime had gone up in the past two years, since the state government had cut the budget dramatically, forcing him to reduce his manpower. It was only thanks to his excellent relations with the North RhineWestphalian Office of Criminal Investigations that Steuermark had been able to add Oliver Bergmann to his team of detectives.

Emily was crestfallen. As she leafed through the latest issue of the Rheinische Post, she had to force herself to not scream out loud. She had expected to be published on one of the main pages of the Style or Culture sections-but instead, that a.s.s of an editor had exiled her great article to one of the last pages of the issue.

And not only that, they'd given it so little s.p.a.ce that all the reader saw was a headline and a reference to a feature series "coming soon." Why had she pulled one all-nighter after another? Why had she forced herself to finish the first part of her article on time while battling the flu, and why had the newspaper pressured her so much when all they printed in the end were these pathetic few lines?

She could hardly believe it-and all because of a recent murder in Zons. Some woman found dead and unidentified. Frustrated, Emily slam-dunked the paper into the trash. There was news about homicides in Germany every day. Most of the murders committed weren't even covered at all-otherwise there'd be no s.p.a.ce left for other stories. And now this one murder in a tiny town like Zons had postponed her first publication!

The investigations were running at warp speed-but still not fast enough. Since the discovery of the dead woman a week ago, more than five hundred witness statements had been filed, and Oliver and Klaus were under the gun. Steuermark had to appear almost daily in multiple press conferences about the ongoing investigations, and now the mayor from Dormagen was also on their case.

Zons was incorporated in the nearby city of Dormagen, an idyllic medieval tourist attraction. The mayor was worried about the long-term reputation of his city, fearing a sudden drop in tourism. He was convinced that if he were running the show, the murder would have been solved in one day. He had little sympathy for the slow progress they were making.

The Body in the Woods case had been pushed into the background, and Oliver couldn't say he was particularly sad about it. The atmosphere in the precinct, however, was extremely tense. One could almost see the detectives duck their heads when Hans Steuermark paced through the office, as he was now doing at regular intervals, always asking for the latest status report.

While Steuermark was known as the good-hearted chief of the Crime Commission who always had a friendly ear for his employees' troubles, he was not known for his patience. In times like these, when he asked for results that could not be delivered, you needed a thick skin to deal with him.

Klaus had faced this truth yesterday, when the woman's ident.i.ty had been confirmed. He had been out to lunch with his girlfriend and hadn't learned about the identification until an hour later. Unfortunately, that was half an hour after Hans Steuermark had heard the news. The entire office witnessed the eruption that followed Klaus's return. Poor Klaus. The roasting obliterated his post-lunch good mood and turned his normally erect bearing into a subdued and shrunken cringe.

The dead woman was one Mich.e.l.le Peters, single, twenty-five years old. She had moved to Zons about a year ago, after having inherited her grandmother's small, old house with rustic charm on Mauerstrae, next to the city wall and the Krotschenturm. Apparently the grandmother had left Mich.e.l.le a considerable amount of cash a.s.sets, since the little house had recently been renovated.

Mich.e.l.le Peters was from southern Germany. She had only been living in Zons for a short period, and n.o.body noticed her absence at first. When her family and employer were unable to reach her for a week, they filed a missing-persons report. The detectives got lucky when Peters's father came to town; the description of the hair color, height, and weight of the murder victim matched his daughter's, and he insisted on coming in to view the body. What he saw broke him utterly but moved the investigation along for Oliver and Klaus.

By now they had also determined what had caused her death. The killer had strangled her with his own hands. Forensics had even been able to identify the brand of latex gloves he had used-though unfortunately it was a very common brand, available in a retail chain that was prominent throughout the South. So far, it seemed that the killer had acted with a great deal of precaution and not left behind any DNA.

But the forensic examinations were not yet complete. The origin of some filaments found on the linen gown still needed to be determined, and Oliver, a.s.suming that the killer had not carried the victim on his back, hoped those fibers might reveal something about the vehicle in which Mich.e.l.le Peters had been transported to the tower in Zons. Even though she lived only a stone's throw from the tower, it seemed clear from an inspection of her apartment-which showed no evidence of a struggle-that Peters had been taken elsewhere, killed, and brought back to the tower.

Another important finding was that it was not a s.e.xual a.s.sault. The victim's hair had been shaved, and she had been brutally battered, but there was no sign of s.e.xual activity. And the killer had not carved into the scalp at random, with the goal of simply causing pain. Very deliberately, he had carved letters and numbers into the woman's scalp, three of them: 1 6 K. The significance of these symbols eluded the police entirely. Needless to say, this finding was kept extremely confidential. The media had only been fed unimportant facts.

XIV.

Five Hundred Years Ago

Bastian's head was throbbing. He wanted to open his eyes, but his lids were as heavy as millstones, and he felt oppressively hot. His whole body was bathed in sweat. He could feel someone placing a cool, damp cloth on his head, and he heard a male voice.

"Bastian, can you hear me? Bastian . . . Bastian?" The speaker sounded concerned, and Bastian tried to think of whose voice it was. Very slowly, he managed to open his eyes a sliver.

"Where am I?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"In my house," Josef Hesemann answered in a calm and caring tone. "You were so ill I wanted to have you under my vigilant care around the clock. You are suffering from a serious head injury, and you've been unconscious so long we worried you might not recover."

"How long was I unconscious?" Bastian asked. Suddenly, he could open his eyes all the way and saw Josef smiling at him.

"More than two weeks, my friend. Your sweet Marie was getting all worried about the wedding, but I promised her to have you fixed before that!"

Bastian tried to sit up in his bed, but he fell back against the pillows. Still, he managed to squeeze Josef's hand and said, "Josef, I saw him!"

"Who did you see, Bastian?"

"Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich!"

"He was the one who threw you down the stairs of the Zollturm?"

"Yes, I surprised him there. We fought. I almost had him, but then I lost my balance and must have fallen. I thought he'd kill me."

Josef frowned.

"Indeed, it is strange that he didn't, Bastian."

"The last thing I remember is how he was approaching me with my own sword in his hand. I was lying helplessly on the lower steps and couldn't move. I was sure he'd beat me to death."

Then he suddenly looked about him, agitated.

"Where is my jerkin?" He was shocked when he realized he was naked under the heavy cover.

"Calm down, dear Bastian." Softly, Josef pushed him back onto the bed. "You need to take it easy and rest. You're still badly injured. If you get up too fast, you'll get dizzy and possibly fall into a faint again-who knows for how long."

"Please, Josef, search through my jerkin. In one of the pockets you should find a list of those five girls whose last names start with a Z. We need to bring them to a safe place before the killer strikes again. I don't believe we'll catch him before the next full moon."

Josef searched Bastian's clothes, eventually finding the heavy sleeveless vest and drawing a thin, crumpled sheet of paper from one of the inner pockets.

"This one?" he asked, slowly unfolding it.

"Yes, it contains the five names. Tell me, Josef, when is the next full moon?"

Josef thought for a moment. "In five days, I believe. That leaves us enough time."

"Yes," Bastian agreed. "This time, he won't kill another girl. Please let the girls know that they have to spend the upcoming full moon night in Father Johannes's custody. We will have the soldiers from the City Guard encircle the church and lock the gates so that n.o.body can get in or out of the city. Even if Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich tries to break into the walls, we'll be there to greet him. And if we don't catch him, at least we'll have prevented him from killing a third victim. Then he might leave Zons in peace!"

Exhausted, Bastian leaned back deeply into his pillows, overwhelmed by the powerful urge to sleep.

It was another raw, frigid night in the seemingly endless winter. Gradually the moon was growing into a big, yellow circle. Dietrich stood at the window and looked toward Zons. Soon, his time would come again. The sheer thought stirred his blood in antic.i.p.ation. This time it would be especially exciting. There was a reason he had changed his mind at the last minute and let that meddlesome city guard survive. He could have rammed the man's own sword deep into his heart, but what purpose could a dead Bastian Muhlenberg serve him? With a worthy challenger, the puzzle was even more gratifying to create.

Since that night when he'd sneaked into the church and spied on Bastian and the priest discussing his grandiose "fatal puzzle," he had felt irrepressible pride. Granted, the two were not too far off in their reasoning-but they had overlooked a decisive piece of the puzzle, even though it was in plain sight right before their eyes. Hah! Bastian thought he could prevent Dietrich from finis.h.i.+ng his so-called fatal puzzle, but Dietrich grinned to think just how wrong the miller's son was.

Deep in thought, he rubbed his amulet. He would have to pay the smuggler soon. The amulet had belonged to his father, and even though he hated the man from the bottom of his heart, he was attached to this family heirloom. Yet the only way to get in and out of Zons was to curry favor with the smugglers. It had taken him some effort to locate the most successful smuggler gang, but in a dark tavern close to the river he'd finally found them. After he'd treated them to several barrels of mead, they'd struck a deal.

A faint feeling of regret swept through Dietrich as he remembered little Gertrud. Her hair so beautiful, long and blonde; her skin so soft and innocent. He recalled the hope that had been s.h.i.+ning in her eyes until the very last moment. But G.o.d had not come to her rescue. As always, G.o.d had abandoned his little lamb. In turn He had helped Dietrich to satisfy his l.u.s.t and feel like a true warrior. He regretted only that this beauty had not been exposed at the tower for all to see, as his first conquest had been. A pack of wolves had attacked them when he was dragging the girl deeper into the Rhine meadows, forcing him to change his plan. He would have loved to pay her his last respects, but the wolves had almost overwhelmed him. Dietrich got lucky when he managed to stab one of the wolves in its flank. The wolf howled loudly, and his spilt blood attracted the other wolves' attention, and they abandoned Dietrich. Howling, the animals disappeared into the darkness of the woods from which they had come and where, Dietrich a.s.sumed, they'd feast on the injured one.

Three days later, Bastian was still confined to bed. While he managed to sit upright for a few hours, there was no way he could stand on his feet. Nevertheless, all the preparations for the coming full moon were completed. Each of the five girls had been brought to Josef's house where Bastian himself had spoken with them, explaining the gravity of the matter. They had all stared at him with wide and fearful eyes and promised they'd spend the entire night together inside the church. At no time was any of them to be alone. They would even have to go relieve themselves in pairs.

Bastian had also personally briefed the soldiers from the City Guard. He still resented their sloppy performance four weeks ago, when they had disobeyed his orders. Had his men been more responsible, Gertrud Minkenberg might still be alive. If any one of them went about his guard duties without the appropriate care, dedication, and commitment, Bastian would fire him from the squadron and expel him from Zons. His men looked at him remorsefully, and Bastian was convinced that this time they'd all give their lives if necessary in order to catch Dietrich h.e.l.lenbroich.

Yes, everything was prepared. The killer would come and fall right into their trap.

XV.

Present

Emily and Anna were enjoying some spare time in a cafe called Altes Zollhaus. They had ordered two large lattes and were leafing through the Rheinische Post. A triumphant smile curled around Emily's lips. This morning, at long last, the first part of her series had been published: "Fatal Puzzle: The Historic Murder Cases of Zons. Part I by Emily Richter." A large, flattering photo even accompanied her byline.

They had made her wait three weeks, but in the end it had been well worth the wait. The excitement about the recent murder in Zons had died down, and by now any news of the case was run on the last pages of the Local section.