Bad Wolf (8 page)

“Okay, now take off the dirndl.” Papa put the shopping bag on the table and took out the dress. Uncle Richard set her on his lap and helped her put on the dress and the genuine silk stockings, the kind that Mama wore. The others laughed because she was so clumsy attaching the garters, which were fastened to a belt. That was fun!

But the most beautiful thing was the dress—a real princess dress in red. And the red shoes to go with it, with high heels.

She looked at herself in the mirror and felt so proud. Papa was proud, too; he led her through the living room and up the stairs, as if they were at a wedding. Uncle Richard led the way and opened a door. She was amazed to see in the room a genuine princess bed with a canopy.

“What are we going to play now?” she asked.

“Something that’s a lot of fun,” replied Papa. “We’re going to change our clothes, too. Just wait here.”

She nodded, then climbed onto the bed and began hopping around. They had all admired her beautiful dress and were so nice to her. The door opened, and she uttered a frightened cry when she saw the wolf. But then she had to laugh. It wasn’t a real wolf after all; it was only Papa, who had put on a costume. How lovely it was that she was the only one to share this secret with Papa. Too bad she could never remember anything afterward. That was really sad.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Hanna Herzmann had not slept well. She’d had one nightmare after another, and in one of them Vinzenz had been on her TV show, making her look like a fool with the cameras running. Then Norman had threatened her, and in her dream he suddenly turned into that man who’d been stalking her for months, until he was picked up by the police and sentenced to two years in prison as a repeat offender.

She finally got up at five-thirty and rinsed off the sticky sweat of anxiety in the shower. Now she was sitting at her computer with a cup of coffee. As she’d feared, the Web was full of the crazy story.

Damn! Hanna massaged the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t too late for damage control, but it would have to be done fast, before more unhappy guests on her show started encouraging people to do the same thing as Armin V. and Bettina B. Unimaginable what the consequences might be. Even if her broadcast wasn’t yet under threat, station management wasn’t going to back her up forever. It was too early to call Wolfgang, so she decided to go for a run and come up with some new ideas. She always thought better when she was running. She put on her exercise clothes, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and slipped on her running shoes. In the past, she had run every day, but now that her foot problems had grown worse, she ran only occasionally.

The air was still fresh and clear. Hanna did some deep-breathing exercises and stretches on the front steps, then turned on her iPod and looked for the music she wanted to hear. She walked down the street to the corner by the parking lot, then turned into the woods and began to run. Every step hurt like hell, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep running. After only a few hundred yards she had a stitch in her side, but she kept on going in spite of it. She wasn’t going to give up. Hanna Herzmann never gave up. All her life, she’d regarded any headwinds or problems as nothing but a challenge and incentive, never as a reason to stick her head in the sand. Pain was purely a mental matter, and she wasn’t going to let it affect her. If she were a different sort of person, she never would have chosen such a career for herself, or been so successful. Ambition, persistence, endurance—these qualities always got her through hard times.

Fourteen years ago, with her investigative reporting program
In Depth,
Hanna had developed a completely new, revolutionary format that had caused a furor (as well as dream ratings) in the German television world. The concept was simple and inspired: a wide-ranging mixture of explosive and topical reportage that had an impact on people in the state of Hessen, including personal stories, human drama, garnished with prominent guests—all in ninety minutes of prime time. There had never been anything like it on TV before. Success brought out the copycats, but no show with a similar focus was as popular as hers. And her media presence had a number of thoroughly lucrative side effects: She was one of the most recognizable faces on TV and was always in demand. If the money was right, she was willing to moderate gala broadcasts and award shows. She also developed ideas and concepts for other formats, and was well paid for her efforts. Ten years ago, she had founded Herzmann Productions, and she now produced the show herself.

The flip side of her professional success was her screwed-up private life. Obviously, there was no man who could stand to play second fiddle to her fame. Meike’s words from last night shot through Hanna’s mind. Was it true? Was she really a tank running right over everyone else?

“And what if I am?” she murmured with a trace of spite. That’s the way she was. She didn’t need a man in her life.

At the first crossing in the woods, she decided to take the longer path and turned to the right. Her breathing was steady now and her gait looser. She had found her running rhythm and could hardly feel the pain. From experience, she knew that it would soon disappear entirely; just a couple minutes more before her body began producing the endorphins that would switch off the pain and fatigue. Now she could focus her thoughts on her problem and enjoy the nature surrounding her: the tangy smell that the forest exuded only in the early-morning hours, the springy ground, which was so much more pleasant to run on than asphalt. It was a little past seven when she reached the edge of the woods and saw the white dome of the Baha’i temple gleaming in the sun, which was already high in the sky. Although she hadn’t run recently, she wasn’t yet out of breath. She wasn’t entirely out of shape. It would take her another twenty minutes to go back through the woods to the community of weekend cabins. She was bathed in sweat as she resumed her pace, but this time it was more pleasant, real athletic sweat, not the anxious sweat of last night. And she had also figured out a strategy that she could discuss with Wolfgang at lunch. Hanna removed her earbuds and rummaged in the pocket of her jacket for her house key. As she ran past, she glanced at her car, which she hadn’t put back in the garage last night, but left parked next to Meike’s Mini.

What was
that
?

Hanna couldn’t believe her eyes. All four tires on her black Porsche Panamera were flat! She wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve and went over to take a look. One flat tire could be a coincidence, but not all four. As she examined the car more closely, she saw something even worse. She stopped short. Her heart began to race, her knees went weak, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes, tears of helpless rage. Somebody had scratched a single word into the gleaming black lacquer of the hood. Just one word, brutal and unequivocal, in big sloppy letters: CUNT.

*   *   *

Bodenstein set a cup under the spigot of the coffee machine and pressed the button. The grinder churned, and seconds later an exquisite aroma was spreading through the tiny kitchen.

Inka had driven him home shortly after midnight. As they were eating pizza, he’d done most of the talking, but he didn’t realize this until she dropped him off at the parking lot in front of the carriage house. After they had taken a look at the house, Inka had been more laconic than ever, and Bodenstein asked himself whether he’d said or done anything that might have made her mad. Hadn’t he adequately thanked her for picking him up at the airport and giving him a key to the house? In his euphoria over the liberated feeling with which he’d returned from Potsdam, he’d spent the whole evening talking only about himself and his mental state. That wasn’t like him at all. Bodenstein decided to call Inka later to apologize.

He finished his coffee and squeezed into the tiny, windowless bathroom. After the almost luxurious facilities in the hotel in Potsdam, it seemed darker and more cramped than ever.

It was high time to arrange a proper place to live, with his own furniture, a decent bathroom, and a kitchen with more than just two hot plates. He’d had enough of the two rooms in the carriage house, with their low ceilings and the tiny windows that were hardly bigger than fortress embrasures, and the door frames, barely high enough for dwarfs, on which he was always hitting his head. He was also fed up with being a guest in the house of his parents and his brother, and he knew that his sister-in-law was looking for a more desirable tenant for the carriage house than some relative who only wanted to split the costs. She kept asking bluntly when he intended to move out, and lately she had even brought potential tenants by to look the place over.

In the meager light of the forty-watt bulb above the mirror, Bodenstein shaved as best he could. To tell the truth, the house that he had looked at yesterday with Inka had haunted his dreams all night long. This morning, half-asleep, he had started furnishing it in his mind. Sophia would have her own room close to his, and finally he could have visitors again. The house in Kelkheim was as good as sold; it was due to close with the buyers next week. With his half of the proceeds, he was sure he could afford to buy the duplex in Ruppertshain.

There was some sort of commotion outside, and he heard voices. A second cup of coffee raised his spirits. He set the cup in the sink, grabbed his jacket, and took the car keys from the hook by the front door. In the parking lot, city workers from Kelkheim were unloading barriers from their orange truck. It occurred to him that tonight there was going to be a jazz concert in the courtyard. The town regularly rented out the historic estate for cultural events, and Bodenstein’s parents were happy to have the extra income. Bodenstein locked the front door and nodded to the workers on his way to the car. Someone honked behind him, and he turned around. Marie-Louise, his talented sister-in-law, pulled in next to him.

“Good morning!” she called. “I’ve tried to call you a zillion times. Rosalie got invited to the Concours des Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs in Frankfurt! Actually, she wanted to tell you herself, but she couldn’t reach you. What’s wrong with your cell phone?”

Rosalie, Bodenstein’s older daughter, had decided two years ago not to take her university entrance exams, but instead to start an apprenticeship to become a chef. At first, he and Cosima had thought that the main reason for this decision was that Rosalie was secretly in love with a celebrity chef. They were sure that after a couple of months under the thumb of that strict Frenchman, she’d throw in the towel. But Rosalie had talent, and she’d tackled the job with enthusiasm. She had completed her apprenticeship with flying colors. The invitation to the cooking contest of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs was a great honor and a validation of her achievement.

“I haven’t had any reception all morning.” Bodenstein held up his smartphone with a shrug. “It’s funny, really.”

“Well, I don’t understand a thing about those gizmos,” said Marie-Louise.

“But I do!” Her eight-year-old son leaned forward from the backseat, waving his hand out the window. “Give it to me; I’ll show you.”

Bodenstein handed his cell to his youngest nephew with a hint of amusement, but his grin vanished five seconds later.

“It’s not working because you’ve got it in airplane mode, Uncle Ollie,” the precocious whippersnapper told him, sliding things around on the touch screen. “See, this is the airplane icon here. Now it’s working okay.”

“Oh … thanks, Jonas,” Bodenstein stammered.

The boy nodded to him from the backseat. Marie-Louise laughed, unable to hide her glee.

“Call Rosalie!” she yelled then, and stepped on the gas.

Bodenstein felt quite stupid. He was not a frequent flier, and the day before he’d used the airplane mode on his iPhone for the first time, and only because the man sitting next to him in the plane had shown him how to do it. On the flight to Berlin, he had simply turned off the phone.

As he was heading toward his car, his cell emitted a veritable cacophony of tones; a dozen text messages came in, requests for callbacks, notices of missed calls, and then the phone started ringing.

Pia Kirchhoff. He took the call.

“Good morning, Pia,” he said. “I just discovered that you tried to reach me yesterday. Is—”

“Haven’t you seen the news yet?” she asked, abruptly interrupting him, a clear indication that she was under a lot of pressure. “Last night, we pulled a dead girl out of the Main near the Eddersheim locks. Are you coming in to the office today?”

“Yes, of course. I’m on my way now,” he replied, getting into the car. He briefly considered calling Inka from the car but then decided to take her a bouquet of flowers that evening and thank her in person.

*   *   *

Driving a car got harder every day. If things kept up like this, Emma soon wouldn’t be able to fit behind the steering wheel with her big belly, and her feet wouldn’t be able to reach the gas pedal or the brake. She turned left onto Wiesbadener Strasse and glanced in the rearview mirror. Louisa was staring out the window. During the whole trip, she hadn’t made a peep.

“Do you still have a stomachache?” Emma asked her with concern.

The little girl shook her head. Normally, she babbled like a waterfall. Something was definitely wrong. Was she having problems in kindergarten? Trouble with the other kids?

A couple of minutes later, they pulled up in front of the day-care center and got out. Louisa was able to undo her seat belt herself and get out of the car on her own, and she was very proud of this. In her condition, Emma was glad that she didn’t have to lift her daughter out of the car.

“What’s the matter?” Emma stopped at the door of the day-care center, squatted down, and gave Louisa a searching look. This morning, she had been listless and offered no protest when Emma put the green T-shirt on her, although she really didn’t like it because, she said, it was scratchy.

“Nothing,” said the girl, avoiding her mother’s eyes.

There was no point in pressuring her. Emma decided to phone the day-care teacher later and ask her to keep an eye on Louisa.