Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(20)

He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. To the left old Maria Kettels had lived in a tiny cottage. She would have been his only defense witness, because she had seen Stefanie late that evening, but her testimony was not heard by the court. Everybody in Altenhain knew that Maria suffered from dementia and was also half blind. Back then she must have been at least eighty, and he was sure she must be in the graveyard by now.

Next to her property was that of the Paschkes. It bordered directly on the Sartorius land and was as neatly kept as always. Old man Paschke was in the habit of instantly spraying chemicals on any weed that poked up its head. He used to work for the city of Frankfurt and had access to the city supply depot. His neighbors who had worked for chemical giant Hoechst AG also had no qualms about using company materials to build and renovate their houses and yards. The Paschkes were the parents of Gerda Pietsch, the mother of Tobias’s friend Felix. Everyone in the village was related to someone who lived only a couple of blocks away, and everyone knew the family histories of everyone else. They also knew the darkest secrets, and liked to gossip about the transgressions, failures, and illnesses of their neighbors. Because of its geographically unfavorable location in a narrow valley, the village of Altenhain had been largely spared new construction. Hardly anyone ever moved there, so the village community had remained more or less the same for the past hundred years.

Tobias had reached the cemetery and pushed with his shoulder against the small wooden gate, which opened with a tormented screech. The naked branches of the mighty trees standing among the graves whipped back and forth in the wind, which was blowing up a storm. He walked slowly along the rows of graves. Cemeteries had never given him the creeps. He thought there was something peaceful about them. Tobias approached the church as the clock in the tower struck twelve times for midnight. He stopped, tilted his head back, and for a moment looked up at the squat tower built of gray quartzite.

Wouldn’t it be better if he accepted Nadia’s offer and moved in with her until he could get back on his feet? People didn’t want him in Altenhain, that was obvious. But he couldn’t just leave his father in the lurch. He was deeply indebted to his parents, who had never turned their backs on him, even when he was convicted of killing those two girls.

Tobias walked around the church and entered the vestibule. He gave a start when he noticed a movement to his right. In the weak glow of the streetlight he recognized a dark-haired girl, who was sitting on the arm of a wooden bench next to the entry portal and smoking a cigarette. His heart skipped a beat and he could hardly believe his eyes. Before him sat Stefanie Schneeberger.

* * *



Amelie was no less startled when a man suddenly entered the church. His jacket was wet and shiny, and his dark hair hung dripping wet into his face. She had never seen him before, but she knew at once who he was.

“Good evening,” she said, taking her iPod buds out of her ears. The voice of Adrian Hates, the leader of her absolute favorite band Diary of Dreams, squawked from the earbuds until she shut off the iPod. There was total silence except for the sound of the rain. A car drove by on the street below the church. For a split second the beams of its headlights flitted across the man’s face. Without a doubt, this was Tobias Sartorius. Amelie had seen enough photos of him online to recognize him. He actually looked rather nice. Attractive even. Not at all like the other guys in this dump of a town. And not at all like a murderer.

“Hello,” he answered at last, scrutinizing her with a peculiar expression. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Listening to music. Having a smoke. It’s raining too hard to walk home right now.”

“I see.”

“I’m Amelie Fr?hlich,” she said. “And you’re Tobias Sartorius, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am. How do you know that?”

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“That’s no surprise, if you live in Altenhain.” His voice had a cynical ring to it. He seemed to be considering how to categorize her.

“I’ve lived here since May,” Amelie explained. “Actually I’m from Berlin. But I didn’t get along with my mother’s new boyfriend, so she sent me here to stay with my father and stepmother.”

“And they let you just run around like this at night?” Tobias leaned against the wall and looked her over carefully. “When a murderer has just come back to town?”

Amelie grinned. “I don’t think they’ve heard anything about that yet. But I have. I work evenings right over there.” She nodded in the direction of the restaurant located on the other side of the parking lot next to the church. “For the past two days you’ve been the main topic of conversation.”

“Where?”

“At the Black Horse.”

“Oh, right. That wasn’t here when I left.”

Amelie remembered that when the murders took place in Altenhain, Tobias Sartorius’s father ran the only restaurant in the village, the Golden Rooster.

“So what are you doing here this time of night?” Amelie dug a pack of cigarettes out of her backpack and held it out to him. He hesitated a moment and then took a cigarette and lit it with her lighter.

“I’m just walking around.” He braced his foot against the wall. “I was in the joint for ten years, where I couldn’t exactly do that.”