Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(127)
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 Fr?hlich 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—”