Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(62)
“Yes, of course.” She gave a slightly disapproving smile. “You can’t miss her, the way she dresses! Besides, she works with my daughter at the Black Horse.”
Pia nodded and jotted down a note. Once again her boss was leaving her totally in the lurch, standing next to her absentmindedly and not saying a word.
“So what do you think could have happened to the girl?”
Margot Richter hesitated a moment, but her eyes twitched to the right, and Pia knew immediately who she suspected, because from her spot behind the cash register she had a clear view of the Golden Rooster. The gossip about Terlinden’s son was only a smoke screen. In reality everyone in town suspected Tobias Sartorius, who had done something like this before, after all.
“I have no idea what could have happened,” Margot Richter said evasively. “Maybe she’ll turn up.”
* * *
“Tobias Sartorius is in great danger of being lynched,” Pia said, seriously troubled, when they got back to K-11. “Last Friday night he was attacked and beaten up in his barn, and his father is still getting anonymous threatening letters, not to mention the graffiti smeared on the wall of his house.”
Ostermann had already confiscated Amelie’s laptop and diary, which to his dismay was written in a secret code that he couldn’t decipher. Kathrin Fachinger and Frank Behnke had met with Bodenstein and Kirchhoff at the same time and had nothing really helpful to report. Amelie had no close girlfriends. She kept to herself and on the school bus talked only with the two girls in her class who also lived in Altenhain. The two girls did say that Amelie had been showing a lot of interest in Tobias Sartorius and the horrible events of eleven years ago. She kept asking questions about it. And yes, she had probably even talked to that guy more than once.
Ostermann came into the conference room with a fax in his hand. “We got the call list from Amelie’s cell phone,” he announced. “The last call was on Sunday evening at 10:11. She called a landline number in Altenhain, and I already checked it out.”
“Sartorius?” Bodenstein guessed.
“Right. The call lasted only seven seconds, and apparently no words were spoken. Earlier she had dialed this number twelve times and hung up immediately. After 10:11 p.m. her cell phone was turned off, so her movements can’t be tracked, because the phone’s signal was captured by the only cell tower in Altenhain, which has a radius of about five kilometers.”
“But incoming calls were captured, weren’t they?” Bodenstein asked, and Ostermann shook his head.
“What did you get from the computer?”
“I haven’t cracked the password yet.” Ostermann frowned. “But I looked through the diary, at least the parts that I could decipher. Tobias Sartorius, someone named ‘Thies,’ and ‘Claudius’ were mentioned often.”
“In what context?”
“She seemed to be interested in Sartorius and this Claudius. I don’t know yet what sort of interest she had.”
“Good work.” Bodenstein looked at the other team members, and his old decisiveness had returned. “At present the girl has been missing for less than forty hours. I want the whole program: at least two hundred people to do a ground search, dogs, and a chopper with an infrared camera. Behnke, you organize a special team; I want every available officer to canvass every resident in the village. Fachinger, check out the bus connections and taxi companies. The time period in question is between ten p.m. Saturday till two a.m. Sunday morning. Any questions?”
“We should talk to this Thies and his father,” said Kirchhoff. “And to Tobias Sartorius.”
“Right. The two of us will do that right away.” Bodenstein looked around the room. “Oh yes, Ostermann. Press, radio, TV, and the usual entry in the missing persons list. We’ll meet here again at six p.m.”
* * *
An hour later Altenhain was swarming with police. A canine unit with specially trained “man-trackers” was on the way; these dogs could pick up and follow a scent up to four weeks old. One hundred riot police were systematically combing the meadows and edges of the woods surrounding the village, mapped out in quadrants. A helicopter with an infrared camera flew low over the treetops, and the criminal police officers from the “Amelie” special team rang the doorbell at every house and apartment in Altenhain. Everyone involved was motivated and full of hope that the girl would be found quickly and unharmed. Each of them was also aware that the pressure to produce rapid results was enormous. Oliver’s phone rang off the hook. He had turned over the driving to Pia and was concentrating on coordinating the entire effort. Roadblocks on the street in front of the Fr?hlichs’ house were set up to keep away the press and curious neighbors. The canine units would begin their search at the last place Amelie had been seen, the Black Horse. Yes, a friend was allowed to visit the Fr?hlichs, and the pastor too. Yes, the surveillance footage from the police camera at the entrance to the village would be checked. No, civilians were not allowed to help in the search. Just as they pulled up to the Golden Rooster, Dr. Engel called and wanted to know the state of things.
“As soon as there is something to report, you’ll be the first to know, of course,” said Bodenstein curtly, ending the call.
Hartmut Sartorius opened the front door but peeked out with the safety chain on.