Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(100)
Bodenstein nodded, thinking it over. He now considered it highly possible that Nadia von Bredow had killed Stefanie Schneeberger. And now, fearing that what she’d done would be discovered, she had kidnapped and possibly killed Amelie.
When they reached Ostermann’s office, they found him holding the phone in his hand.
“I spoke to the father and also sent a patrol over there. Tobias Sartorius drove off with his girlfriend this afternoon. She told old man Sartorius she was taking him to us. But since she hasn’t shown up yet, I’m thinking they must have gone somewhere else entirely.”
Bodenstein frowned, but Pia was quicker to pick up on what her colleague had said.
“With his girlfriend?” she asked. Ostermann nodded.
“Have you got Sartorius’s number?”
“Yes.” Pia went around his desk and, with a sense of foreboding, she reached for the phone. She pressed the REDIAL button and put it on speaker. Hartmut Sartorius answered after the third ring. She didn’t even let him speak before she asked her question.
“Who is Tobias’s girlfriend?” she wanted to know, although she had a pretty good idea.
“Nadia. But … but she wanted to take him…”
“Have you got a cell number for her? Or the license number of her car?”
“Yes, of course. But what’s going on?”
“Please, Mr. Sartorius. Give me her cell number.” Her eyes met Bodenstein’s. Tobias Sartorius was with Nadia von Bredow en route somewhere and probably didn’t have a clue what Nadia had done or what she might be planning. As soon as she jotted down the number, Pia hung up and punched it into the phone.
The number you have called is temporarily unavailable …
“Now what?” She didn’t blame Bodenstein for sending the patrol to Lauterbach’s house today. What’s done is done.
“We’ll send out an APB,” Bodenstein decided. “Then we need to track her cell, as far as that’s possible. Where does the woman live?”
“I’ll find out.” Ostermann rolled his chair back to the desk and dialed a number.
“What’s going on with Claudius Terlinden?” Pia wanted to know.
“He’ll have to wait.” Bodenstein went to the coffee machine, shook the pot, which apparently still had coffee in it, and poured himself a cup. Then he sat down in Behnke’s empty chair. “Lauterbach is much more important.”
On the evening of September 6, 1997, Gregor Lauterbach had kissed Stefanie Schneeberger, his neighbor’s daughter, at the fair in Altenhain, and later he was with her in Sartorius’s barn. One painting didn’t show Nadia fighting with Stefanie, but possibly Lauterbach having sex with the girl. Did Nadia von Bredow find out about this? And later, when a suitable opportunity presented itself, did she strike her hated rival with a tire iron? Thies Terlinden had seen what happened. Who else knew that Thies was an eyewitness to both murders? Pia’s cell phone hummed. It was Henning, who was already in the process of examining the mummified corpse of Stefanie Schneeberger.
“I need the murder weapon.” He sounded tired and tense. Pia glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten thirty and Henning was still at the lab. Had he confessed his juicy problem to Miriam in the meantime?
“You’ll have it,” she replied. “Do you think you can still get any DNA off the mummy? The girl possibly had sexual relations shortly before her death.”
“I can try. The corpse is in very good shape. I estimate she was in that room all these years at stable temperatures, because she hasn’t deteriorated much at all.”
“How quickly can we get some results? We’re under a lot of pressure here.” That was certainly an understatement. Not only because they were still searching for Amelie, using all their resources and every available officer, but they were also in the middle of a new investigation of two eleven-year-old murder cases. The latter with only four detectives on it.
“So what else is new?” Henning said. “I’ll hurry.”
Bodenstein had finished his coffee.
“Come on,” he said to Pia. “Let’s get moving.”
* * *
Bodenstein remained sitting behind the wheel for a while when he pulled into the parking area in front of his parents’ estate. It was shortly after midnight and he was completely exhausted, but at the same time too wired even to think about going to bed. He had considered sending Felix Pietsch, J?rg Richter, and Michael Dombrowski home after the interview, but then the most important question of all occurred to him: Was Laura already dead when they threw her in the underground tank? The three men were silent for a long time. Suddenly it had dawned on them that it was no longer a matter of a rape or failing to help someone. They could be guilty of something far worse.
Pia had succinctly formulated the charges that might be filed against them: conspiring to cover up the death of an individual to conceal a felony. With that Michael Dombrowski broke down in tears. That was enough to constitute a confession for Bodenstein, and he had instructed Ostermann to prepare a warrant for their arrest. What the three had already told them was more than enough information. It had been years since Nadia von Bredow had contacted any friends from her youth. But shortly before Tobias was due to be released from prison, she had showed up in Altenhain and put major pressure on the three friends from the old days to keep their mouths shut. Since none of them were interested in having the truth come to light eleven years after the fact, they certainly would have continued to keep silent if another girl hadn’t vanished. The fact that they bore responsibility for the wrongful conviction of their friend had weighed upon their consciences all these years. Even when the witch hunt directed at Tobias had started up, cowardice and fear of the inevitable consequences had been too great for them to turn themselves in to the police. J?rg Richter hadn’t called up Tobias last Saturday simply out of old friendship. Nadia had asked him to invite Tobias that evening and encourage him to drink. And that confirmed Bodenstein’s fears. But what got him to thinking most was what J?rg Richter said when asked the question: Why would three grown men listen to Nadia von Bredow?