The Ice Queen: A Novel (50 page)

“Thank God,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’m so happy you’re back.”

“You couldn’t have missed me that badly. I’ve only been gone for less than twenty-four hours,” Pia attempted sarcasm to get the awkwardness she was feeling under control. “You can let go of me now, boss. I’m all right.”

To her relief, Bodenstein decided to match her tone of voice.

“Twenty-four hours was clearly too long,” he said with a grin, and let her go. “I was afraid I’d have to write all these reports by myself.”

Pia grinned, too, and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face.

“So all the cases are wrapped up, right?”

“Looks that way.” He nodded and gestured for her to take a seat. “Thanks to this vehicle-tracking software, our colleagues were able to arrest Vera Kaltensee and also Anja Moormann at the Polish-German border. Anja Moormann has already confessed. She killed not only Monika Krämer and Watkowiak but also Thomas Ritter.”

“She confessed just like that?” Pia rubbed the sore bump on her temple that the barrel of Anja Moormann’s automatic had left, and thought with a shudder of the coldness in that woman’s eyes.

“She was one of the best spies in the GDR and has quite a long record,” Bodenstein explained. “With her statement, she has incriminated Siegbert Kaltensee. He was namely the one who gave her the kill orders.”

“Really? I would have bet that Jutta was behind it.”

“Jutta was too sly for that. Siegbert has already confessed to everything. We were able to uncover the personal possessions of Anita Frings at Mühlenhof, including the items they palmed off on Watkowiak to throw suspicion onto him. And Mrs. Moormann also described how she killed Watkowiak. In the kitchen of her house, by the way.”

“My God, what an ice-cold monster.” Pia realized how easily her encounter with Anja Moormann could have turned out deadly for her, too. “But who put the body in that house? It looked like the work of a dilettante. If they hadn’t swept up and put him on top of a mattress, I probably wouldn’t have been suspicious.”

“It was Améry’s men,” replied Bodenstein. “They don’t have a lot of brains.”

Pia suppressed a yawn with difficulty. She was longing for a hot shower and twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. “I still don’t understand why Monika Krämer had to die.”

“It’s simple: to make Watkowiak look even more suspicious. The cash that we found on him was from Anita Frings’s safe.”

“What about Vera Kaltensee? Wasn’t Siegbert just acting on her behalf?”

“We can’t pin the murders on her. And even if we could, it wouldn’t do him any good. But the DA’s office is going to reexamine Eugen Kaltensee’s death and also investigate the murder of Danuta Watkowiak, with Vera Kaltensee as the prime suspect. The girl was in Germany illegally at the time, and that’s why nobody reported her missing.”

“I wonder if Moormann knew what his wife was up to,” said Pia. “Where was he the whole time, anyway?”

“His wife locked him in the cold storage, where the trunks were kept,” Bodenstein replied. “Naturally, he knew about his wife’s past; he was in the Stasi, too. Like his parents.”

“His parents?” Pia rubbed her sore temple in confusion.

“Anita Frings was his mother,” Bodenstein explained. “Moormann was the Little Tomcat, the man who visited her so often and pushed her wheelchair around the grounds.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

For a while, they sat there in silence.

“What about the trace-trace hit?” Pia asked with a pensive frown. “The unsolved cases in the East. That was male DNA. How could it have come from Anja Moormann?”

“She’s a real pro,” said Bodenstein. “On her hits, she wore a wig of real hair and deliberately left a hair at each scene. As a red herring.”

“Unbelievable.” Pia shook her head. “By the way, Dr. Engel had my back with the Polish colleagues. They were definitely not happy about our unauthorized action.”

“Right,” said Bodenstein. “She behaved very fairly. Maybe she’s going to be a decent boss after all.”

Pia hesitated a moment and looked at him. “And the … um … other problem?”

“It’s over,” Bodenstein said lightly. He got up, went to his cabinet, and took out a bottle of cognac and two glasses.

“If Nowak and Elard Kaltensee had been honest from the beginning, things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.” Pia watched as her boss poured exactly two fingers of cognac into each glass. “But I never in my life would have figured out that those two were lovers. My suspicions were really miles off.”

“Mine, too.” Bodenstein handed her a glass.

“So what are we drinking to?” Pia gave him a crooked smile.

“If you’re keeping count, we’ve solved at least … hmm … fifteen murders, including the two cases from Dessau and Halle. I think we’ve done pretty well.”

“All right, then.” Pia raised her glass.

Bodenstein stopped her. “Just a minute. I think it’s about time we behave like the rest of our colleagues all over Germany. What would you think if we were on a first-name basis from now on? My name is Oliver, by the way.”

Pia tilted her head and grinned. “But you don’t want to drink to brotherhood with kisses and everything, do you?”

“God forbid!” Bodenstein grinned, too; then he clinked glasses with her and took a sip. “Your zoo director would probably wring my neck.”

“Oh shit!” Pia lowered her glass in shock. “I forgot about Christoph! I was supposed to pick him up at the airport at eight-thirty. What time is it?”

“Quarter to eleven.”

“Damn! I don’t know his number, and my cell is probably somewhere in a Masurian lake.”

“If you ask me nicely, I’ll lend you mine, Ms. Kirchhoff,” Bodenstein offered magnanimously. “I happen to have his number.”

“Hey, I thought we were on a first-name basis now,” Pia said.

“You haven’t drunk anything yet,” Bodenstein reminded her. Pia looked at him, knocked back the cognac in one gulp, and grimaced in disgust.

“So, Oliver,” she said, “would you be so kind as to hand me your cell phone?”

*   *   *

Christoph’s daughters looked surprised when Pia rang the doorbell at eleven-thirty at night. They hadn’t heard from their father and assumed that Pia had picked him up. Annika tried to call his cell, but it was still turned off.

“Maybe the plane was late,” said Christoph’s second-eldest daughter, who didn’t seem too worried about her father. “He’ll call soon enough.”

“Thanks.” Pia felt miserable and deeply depressed. She got into her Nissan and drove from Bad Soden to Birkenhof. Bodenstein was now with Cosima, who had forgiven him for his slipup. Henning and Miriam were together in a hotel in Gizycko; she couldn’t overlook the fact that during the whole episode sparks had flown between them. Elard Kaltensee was at the hospital, holding Marcus Nowak’s hand. Only she was alone. Her vague hope that Christoph would have come straight to her house from the airport was not fulfilled. Birkenhof was dark, and there was no car parked in front. Pia fought back tears as she said hello to her dogs and opened the front door. He had probably waited, searched in vain, tried to call her on her cell, and then gone to have a drink with his attractive colleague from Berlin. Damn! How could she have forgotten? She turned on the light and let her shoulder bag drop to the floor. Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat. The table in the kitchen was set with wineglasses and the good china. A bottle of champagne stood in a champagne cooler with half-melted ice; on the stove were covered pots and pans. Pia smiled, feeling touched. In the living room, she found Christoph sound asleep on the couch. A warm surge wave of happiness flowed through her body.

“Hey,” she whispered, squatting down next to the sofa. Christoph opened his eyes and blinked sleepily in the light.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Sorry, the food is probably cold.”

“I’m sorry I forgot to pick you up. My cell phone got lost and I couldn’t call you. But we did solve all the cases.”

“That sounds good.” Christoph reached out his hand and stroked her cheek affectionately. “You look pretty beat.”

“I’ve been under a little stress the past few days.”

“I see.” He studied her attentively. “What happened? Your voice sounds kind of funny.”

“Not worth mentioning.” She shrugged. “The Kaltensees’ housekeeper tried to strangle me in a ruined castle in Poland.”

“Oh, right.” Christoph seemed to think it was a joke and grinned. “But otherwise everything’s okay?”

“Sure.” Pia nodded.

He sat up and opened his arms wide.

“You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”

“Really? Did you miss me in South Africa?”

“Oh yeah.” He wrapped her tightly in his arms and kissed her. “I sure did.”

Epilogue

SEPTEMBER

Marcus Nowak looked at the soot-blackened remains of the brick facade, the empty window frames, and the caved-in roof. But he didn’t see the sorry state of the ruins; in his mind, the castle appeared as it once had looked. The neoclassic facade, wonderful in its simple symmetry, the narrow center risalit flanked by two-story side wings, which were again flanked by huge pavilions with hood roofs and little openwork towers. Slim Doric columns in front of the main portal, a shady avenue leading to the castle, an extensive park with grand hundred-year-old red beech and maple trees. The expanse of the East Prussian landscape, the harmony of water and woods, had deeply moved him on his first visit two years before. This was the land of his and Elard’s ancestors, and the events that had occurred in the cellar of this castle almost sixty-three years ago had had a long-lasting effect on both their lives.

In the past four months, much had changed. Marcus Nowak had told his wife and his family the truth and had moved in with Elard at Mühlenhof. After two additional operations, his hand was almost as flexible as it had been before. Elard had changed completely. The ghosts of the past no longer tormented him, and the woman that he had believed was his mother was in prison, as were her son, Siegbert, and Anja Moormann, the professional killer. Elard had received his aunt Vera’s diaries back from Marleen Ritter. In a few weeks, coinciding with the annual Frankfurt Book Fair, the biography would appear—the book that had caused the death of its author and the downfall of the Kaltensee family. It had been making headlines weeks in advance.

In spite of all this, Jutta Kaltensee had been nominated as the lead candidate of her party for the state parliamentary election, which would take place in January, and had a good chance of winning. Marleen Ritter had taken over as CEO of KMF and was now busy converting the company into a corporation with the support of the company board. In the trunks from Mühlenhof they’d found documents in which Josef Stein, the Jewish former owner of the company, had provided for the reconveyance of the firm in the event of his return to Germany. In her arrogance, Vera—or rather, Edda—had never destroyed anything.

But that was all in the past. Marcus Nowak smiled as he saw Elard, the baron of Zeydlitz-Lauenburg, coming toward him. Everything had turned out better in the end. He even had in his pocket the contract for his company to restore the Old Town in Frankfurt. In addition, together they would realize their dream of a lifetime in Masuria. The mayor of Gizycko had already given verbal consent to the sale of the castle to Elard; not much more stood in the way of their plans. As soon as the purchase contract was signed, the mortal remains of Auguste Nowak, together with the bones from the cellar that had been partially identified by DNA comparisons, would be buried in the old family cemetery by the shore of the lake. So Auguste, together with her dear Elard, her parents, and her sister, would find her last resting place in her homeland.

“And?” Elard stood next to him. “What do you think?”

“It’s doable.” Marcus Nowak frowned in thought. “But I’m afraid it’s going to be insanely expensive and will take years.”

“So what?” Elard grinned and put an arm around Marcus’s shoulder. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Marcus leaned against him and looked over at the castle once more. “Hotel Auguste Viktoria by the Lake,” he said, smiling dreamily. “I can picture it already.”

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Claudia and Caroline Cohen, Camilla Altvater, Susanne Hecker, Peter Hillebrecht, Simone Schreiber, Catrin Runge, and Anne Pfenninger for reading excerpts and offering feedback on the manuscript.

Very hearty thanks to Professor Hansjürgen Bratzke, director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt, for detailed answers to my numerous questions about forensic medical details. For any errors of a technical nature, I take sole responsibility.

Thanks also to Chief Detective Inspector Peter Deppe of K-11 in the Regional Criminal Unit in Hofheim, who provided detailed answers to all my questions about the sequence of investigations and the work of the criminal police. Among other things, he drew my attention to the fact that Criminal Police officers are on a first-name basis all over Germany.

I owe a very special thank you to my editor Marion Vazquez. I have thoroughly enjoyed our work together on
The Ice Queen.

Thanks to my American translator, Steven T. Murray, and his wife, Tiina Nunnally, who have done such a great job for the third time.

Also, thanks to my publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and my editor, Daniela Rapp, for their trust and support.

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