Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(27)

“Richter. Margot Richter.”

At that moment the man from the back courtyard came stomping into the store carrying three crates of fruit and noisily set them down.

“Lutz, they’re from the criminal police,” Margot Richter told him, before Pia could even open her mouth. Her husband came closer. He was tall and corpulent, with a cheerful face, his nose swollen and red from the cold and exertion. The look he gave his wife betrayed the fact that he was totally under her thumb and wouldn’t have much to say. He grabbed the photo with his big paw, but before he could look at it, his wife plucked it out of his hand.

“My husband doesn’t know this guy either.”

Pia felt sorry for the husband, who must not have much to laugh about.

“Allow me.” She took the picture from Mrs. Richter and held it out to her husband before she could protest again. “Have you ever seen this man? On Friday he pushed your former neighbor in front of an oncoming car. Since then Rita Cramer has been in intensive care in an induced coma, and we still don’t know whether she’s going to survive.”

Richter hesitated briefly, seeming to weigh his answer. He wasn’t a good liar, but he was an obedient spouse. For an instant he glanced uncertainly at his wife.

“No,” he said at last. “I don’t know him.”

“All right then. Thank you very much.” Pia forced a smile. “Have a nice day.”

She left the store, followed by Bodenstein.

“They all knew him.”

“No doubt about it.” Bodenstein looked down the main street. “Over there is a beauty shop. Let’s try there.”

They walked the few yards along the narrow sidewalk, but when they entered the small, old-fashioned salon the hairdresser was just hanging up the phone with a guilty look on her face.

“Good morning,” said Pia, nodding toward the telephone. “I’m sure that Mrs. Richter has already told you why we’re here. So I can probably skip the question.”

The woman gave them a clueless look, her gaze shifting from Pia to Oliver and stopping there. If Bodenstein had been feeling more himself today, the hairdresser wouldn’t have had a chance.

“What is it with you?” Pia asked Oliver, slightly miffed, when they were out on the sidewalk a minute later. “All you had to do was flash that hairdresser a smile and she would have melted and probably given us the name, address, and telephone number of our suspect.”

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said lamely. “I’m just not really with it today.”

A car rushed by down the narrow street, then a second one, then a truck. They had to step back against the wall of the building so as not to be hit by a side mirror.

“At any rate, this afternoon I’m going to requisition all the old files on the Sartorius case,” said Pia. “I swear, this is all connected.”

An inquiry in the florist’s shop was just as fruitless as those at the kindergarten and the office of the elementary school. Margot Richter had already disseminated her instructions. The whole community had closed ranks and was practicing a real Sicilian code of silence in order to protect one of their own.

* * *



Amelie was lying in the hammock that Thies had specially arranged for her between two potted palms. She was swaying from side to side. Outside the mullioned windows the rain was pouring down, drumming on the roof of the orangerie, which was hidden behind a large weeping willow on the spacious grounds of the Terlinden villa. In here it was warm and cozy. It smelled of oil paints and turpentine, because Thies used the long building as a studio as well as the winter refuge for the delicate Mediterranean plants from the park. Hundreds of painted canvases were lined up along the walls, arranged precisely by size. Dozens of brushes stood in old jam jars. In everything he did, Thies was compulsively orderly. All the potted plants—oleanders, palms, lantana, and dwarf lemon and orange trees—stood in rows, also arranged by size. Nothing was arbitrarily placed. The tools and equipment that Thies used in the summertime to take care of the large park hung on the wall or stood in rank and file on the floor. Sometimes Amelie would intentionally move something or leave a cigarette butt somewhere just to tease Thies. Each time he would correct this intolerable disturbance without delay. He also saw immediately if any of the plants had been moved.

“I think it’s totally exciting,” said Amelie. “I would love to find out more, but I don’t know how.”

She didn’t expect an answer, but still cast a quick glance at Thies. He was standing in front of his easel painting with great concentration. His pictures were largely abstract and done in somber colors—not the best choice for the home of anyone who was depressed, Amelie thought. At first sight Thies looked completely normal. If his expression weren’t so stony he would have been a rather handsome man, with that oval face, the narrow, straight nose, and the soft, full lips. It was easy to see the resemblance to his beautiful mother. He had inherited her dazzling blond hair, and big Nordic blue eyes, and thick, dark eyelashes. But what Amelie liked the most were his hands. Thies had the sensitive, delicate hands of a pianist, and gardening work had not damaged them at all. When he was excited they would flutter here and there like startled birds in a cage. But right now he was quite calm, as he almost always was when he was painting.

“I keep asking myself,” Amelie went on with her musing, “what could Tobias have done with those two girls? Why didn’t he ever tell anyone? Then maybe he wouldn’t have had to stay in prison for so long. It’s weird. But for some reason I like him. He’s so different from the other guys in this dump.”