Dead Woods (14 page)

“No,” the woman said. “As I already told you . . .” She looked up and Lina didn’t find out what she had already said. Instead, she heard the entrance door open behind her. She turned around and saw a man in front of her who was no taller than five feet seven. His hairline was receding, and his suit jacket didn’t manage to hide his beer belly. He had thin, mouse-gray, slightly greasy hair and a pale face, and he appeared nervous.

“Lukas, this is Frau Svenson from the police.”

Herr Birkner started to tremble and wiped his face with his hand. He looked miserable and Lina was ready to buy that he was mourning his brother deeply. “Have you . . . ,” he started, but his voice broke and he had to clear his throat. “Did you find the person who . . . Philip, my brother . . . I mean . . .”

“No, Herr Birkner,” Lina said soberly. “We still don’t know who did this to your family.”

It wasn’t obvious at first glance that Lukas and Philip Birkner were brothers. Even though Lina knew the older one only as a corpse, the difference was striking. While the tall, handsome Philip exuded the success he had made of himself, his brother didn’t seem to have been that lucky with his insurance agency. He looked at least ten years older than thirty-three, and must have aged that much even before the previous week. He scrutinized Lina while walking around the desk and then standing behind his wife. Sonja Birkner did not look at her husband, but stared at the desk in front of her. Her eyes were larger than before, almost like those of a deer. Lina knew this look. The woman was afraid.

She hesitated. It wasn’t her preference to interrogate Birkner about his brother’s sex life in front of his wife. She suddenly felt as if she had stepped into a minefield, where any step could cause a catastrophe.

“Herr Birkner, during our investigations we found out that your brother had a lover.” She stopped. “Did you know about it?”

The man was staring at her. His fingers, with which he clutched the back of the desk chair, were white. “No, I don’t know anything about that. I also don’t believe it. It doesn’t sound like Philip.”

Sonja Birkner seemed to duck her head.

“But it’s the truth. I’ve spoken with the woman,” Lina said.

“Maybe she’s lying, to cast a bad light on Philip. Have you considered that angle?” he replied.

Lina pretended to consider his comment. She suddenly wished Max were at her side, Max with his clear, deep voice, Max who seemed to embody and radiate serenity. It didn’t matter what she was going to say; Lukas Birkner wouldn’t accept any fault in his brother. It wouldn’t matter how much proof she showed him. With every dark spot about Philip she was going to reveal, Lukas would retreat even more. He clung so blindly to the image he had created of his brother that he could not accept anything else. The only one who could get through to someone like Lukas Birkner would be Max. Lina was as sure of this as she was certain that Philip Birkner wasn’t the man his brother thought he was.

She drove back to headquarters deep in thought. She had to question this couple again. It had been obvious that Sonja Birkner, if not lying outright, had withheld a lot of information. And she was afraid of her husband. Had Philip Birkner hit on his brother’s wife as well? Had she gone along with it—and had Lukas found out?

Hanno listened with only half an ear when she tried to tell him what she’d found out. Sebastian had just finished with the teens from the subway station. “The patrol swept up three guys, all minors.” Hanno shook his head. “One of them kicked Sebastian in the shin. I could hear his screams all the way up here.”

Lina could vividly imagine the scene and was glad she wasn’t one of the boys. She had once seen how Sebastian treated a suspect who had dared to be rude to him.

Hanno cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go down and help him out with the boys.”

Lina stared at him in disbelief. “You want me to work with Sebastian . . . Listen, haven’t you noticed that we can’t stand each other?”

“How could I miss that?” Hanno replied in a peeved tone. “But Max is still in the field, Alex already went home, and I can’t get away from here.”

“But why . . .”

“Someone has to go down to stop what’s going on. He’ll get himself into hot water otherwise.” This was Sebastian he was talking about, and Lina couldn’t care less about him. On the contrary, she sort of liked the idea of Sebastian getting into hot water for a while. She glared at her boss, who at least had the decency to look away. He was busy! Sure! Counting the pages of a report? Something equally important? Furiously, she slammed the door behind her.

The interrogation rooms where Sebastian had the boys brought were in the basement. Each was sparsely furnished, without windows, with three chairs and a table safely screwed into the floor, video cameras in the corners, and spy-holes on the doors. In front of one of the rooms, Sebastian was loudly quarreling with two colleagues in uniform.

“Man, Sebastian, get a hold of yourself,” Lina heard one of them say. She didn’t know him very well: Stefan Melzer, a calm man with a mustache, approaching sixty, who could easily have played the part of the kind neighborhood policeman in a TV spot. Lina didn’t know the second officer, a younger man, at all.

“The little shit kicked me again, damn it! I can’t just let that slide!” Sebastian cried out.

“My god, the boy’s fourteen! You can’t slap him around like he’s a thug from the Reeperbahn.”

Sebastian shook off his colleague’s hand and ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. He looked up and saw Lina watching the scene, arms crossed.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped.

“Hanno sent me. I’m supposed to help you.” She added sarcastically, “In case you can’t handle the kids.”

“Thanks, I can manage on my own.”

“Sure, by beating them up.”

“I didn’t beat anyone up.”

The two men in uniform looked away. The younger one looked at the floor and Stefan Melzer studied the ceiling.

“Now fuck off.” Sebastian spat at her. He had a look on his face that made her think he wouldn’t mind slapping her around a bit, as well.

“Sebastian, cut the crap! I was sent here to question the boys and that’s what I’m going to do,” Lina said and took a deep breath. “Now, chill out. Grab a cup of coffee in the cafeteria, take a short break, and then—”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job,” he said. His face was red and the arteries in his neck were bulging. “Since you’re dying to do it, why don’t you go in and have the asshole shellac you? Have fun!” With that he took off, flung open the door to the next room, and slammed it noisily behind him.

Lina stared after him, frowning, and then looked at Melzer, who shrugged. He wasn’t going to tell her what had happened here. Lina swallowed her anger and asked. “And who is that dangerous thug?”

Stefan Melzer scratched his head. “Marcel Niemann, fourteen. He was picked up once before, a few months ago, when he was hanging out with some other youngsters. They were running wild at the Tibarg Center, stole stuff and harassed customers.” He pointed with his head at the heavy steel door. “Last Thursday he was at it again. Well, you saw the video from the station. It looks as if he’s the ringleader now, even though he’s the youngest.”

“Any specific offenses?”

Melzer shook his head. “So far we can’t prove anything.” He shrugged. “It’s probably a matter of time.”

“How about drugs?”

“We found some dope on his buddies. He had only cigarettes.”

Lina didn’t believe that the kid would politely decline when a joint went around. It was either a lucky break or he had set up the others.

“Has Sebastian questioned him already?”

Melzer shook his head. “No. The kid made such a fuss when we arrested him that we let him stew for a while.” He stopped for a moment. “When Sebastian went in, the whole ruckus started again.”

Lina nodded. “What was the name again?” she asked, her hand already on the door handle.

“Marcel Niemann.”

The name sounded familiar to her and she mentally scrolled through the list of witnesses in the Birkner case. She remembered Evelyn Riemann, the state councilor. Maybe she was misled by the similarity of the names.

She entered and shook her head when the young policeman wanted to follow her. “Just let it be. Wait outside, okay?” Her colleague shrugged and retreated. He hadn’t once opened his mouth this whole time.

Marcel Niemann slouched in his chair, held his hand to his left cheek, and scowled at Lina. Lina could see a vivid red area under his hand. Sebastian had really hit him hard, even though the youngster was of slight build and only a few inches taller than Lina. Quite frail, actually, which meant that the kid must have street smarts if Melzer’s assumption was right that he had become the boss of the Niendorfer gang. The term
Niendorf
set off a lightbulb. Antje Niemann—she was that witness from the Waldschänke whom Lina had visited and questioned at home. She had at first thought that Lina had come because of her son. Marcel.

Marcel watched her silently when she sat down at the table across from him. Lina looked back at him without saying anything, either. It seemed to irritate him that she was small, a woman, that she had come in alone, and now wasn’t saying anything. But there was something else, something he was familiar with, though he couldn’t define it. It was the way she looked at him, provoking, testing, questioning, and at the same time conveying a message he couldn’t ignore: Don’t mess with me! He was confused. It was a facial expression he only knew from people he met on the street, people with the same background as his, people who spoke his language. Not something you’d expect from a bitch cop.

“So?” Lina said.

Nothing happened for long moments other than the passing of time. Finally Marcel looked away and Lina took an imperceptible breath.

“You know why you’re here, don’t you?” she asked.

The boy didn’t make a peep.
What do I care?
his body said, as did the gesture with which he wiped his sleeve across his face.

“What did you do Thursday night after pestering the woman at the Niendorf Markt subway station?”

No response.

“Maybe you took a walk in the woods?”

Marcel looked at her as if she were nuts.

“Did you want to pick your mother up from work?”

He was on guard immediately. “Leave my mother out of it.”

“Don’t worry. Your mother has an alibi. You’re the one who has to explain some things.”

He knit his brow slightly, in a way that might have been threatening if he had been a foot and a half taller and wider.

“Where were you Thursday night between eleven thirty and one?”

A shrug. “No idea.”

“Better think about it. This time we’re dealing with murder.”

He flinched. For the first time, there was something like fear in his eyes.

“Three of you—maybe even four, five, or six—beat a man to death. All I want to know is who exactly did it.”

“We haven’t clobbered anyone. Damn! What kind of shit is this?” His eyes were bigger now and his breathing was frantic.

“Why should I believe you? We have video showing how you went wild at the subway station and harassed a woman. And there’s all kinds of evidence at the scene of the crime. It’s only a matter of time till we know who was there.” It was a cheap trick, but Lina was always amazed how well it worked. Marcel’s forehead beaded with sweat and he fidgeted in his chair.

“We haven’t killed anyone; for real, yo. We weren’t in the woods, either, not really, only in the cemetery. Not even there. We wanted to go there but then that jerk in a BMW almost whacked Macki and so we beat it, sauntered up the Tibarg, but there was nothing goin’ on, and it was late by then, and then my mom got hold of me and dragged me home.” He finally took a breath. “We weren’t in the woods, believe me, and if there are some kind of prints, then someone’s tryin’ to plant something on us. For real.”

Lina looked at the teen with a frown. She believed him, and she never had thought that youthful hooligans had anything to do with Philip Birkner’s death, but Marcel didn’t have to know that yet. “What’s that with the BMW that almost hit you?” she asked.

Marcel shrugged. “No idea.”

“Well, I’m asking because it might be a witness who could confirm your statement,” she said and then started to get up from her chair, seemingly done with the interview.

“It was a dark one, an older model, BMW 3 Series, one of those cars for old geezers. It had an HSV sticker.”

Lina tried to guess at what age Marcel considered you a geezer, but couldn’t figure it out. “Did you recognize the driver?”

He shook his head.

“License plate?”

“Something with HH.”

How very helpful. How many dark 3-Series BMWs were registered in Hamburg? Definitely too many—even if one limited the search to those sporting a soccer club sticker, HSV.

Lina looked at the boy silently, with an unreadable expression. He stared back, chewed on his lower lip, and his nostrils trembled slightly with each breath. Then he dropped his head and Lina knew that she could get through to him now and that she had to say something this very moment before he retreated again, resigning himself to a fate that had only bad things in store for him, one he was already sick and tired of. She was just bending forward and opening her mouth when she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the heavy iron door next to her was moving. Then it creaked and the moment, that precious moment, was gone. Irate, she spun around, prepared to see Sebastian storming in, but it was just a colleague in uniform who flung open the door, looked from Lina to Marcel and back to her, tersely mumbled, “Sorry,” and slammed the door again.

Lina was boiling inside but tried not to let on. But the teenager’s defense systems were up once again. Again, he didn’t care about anything; let them lock him up for murder. How cool was that, yo. He even looked at her again, his head slightly tilted, his mouth downturned, as if he couldn’t take this short specimen of a cop sitting in front of him seriously anyhow.

Lina studied the slender boy. She remembered his mother, who obviously couldn’t handle him. What about the father, she asked herself, not saying it out loud since she was quite sure that the answer would be another shrug of his shoulders. She couldn’t detain the youngster, didn’t even want to, so she had no choice. She got up with a sigh, nodded, and said, “Okay, that’s it.”