“And Anna’s killer,” Franz added.
“Right. Deal?”
“Deal.” He clanked his beer against hers. “Prosit!”
“Prosit!”
She noticed the fly rods hanging from the wall across from her, and remembered Jake taking her to Montana to his favorite rivers. The beauty was undeniable. Even for a city girl like her. But Jake seemed to fit that place, the sensuous motion of the fly rod drifting over his back, the line flipping out effortlessly and the fly landing in the perfect spot on the river. She, on the other hand, had been hopelessly inept with a fly rod — catching more trees and grass than fish. Yet, Jake had remained patient with her. The mountains calmed him. It was no real surprise he had moved to Innsbruck, with the gorgeous surrounding mountains and the river running through the city. If Jake had to live in Europe, there was almost no better place for him. Vienna was a surprise, though. Jake must have been in love to move there. A great city, but not for Jake.
They decided to stay the night at Jake’s place, Toni hoping the proximity to his stuff would give her some insight as to where he’d gone. She didn’t like it when Franz insisted she sleep in Jake’s bed, while he took the sofa with a blanket and pillow, but he was persuasive, saying he’d be getting plenty of rest soon enough when he was dead.
As she lay in Jake’s bed, her eyes on his high ceiling, she could smell him, and that nearly drove her crazy. They’d both been fools over the years, spending more time considering the fate of their country than the destiny of their relationship. A relationship that no longer existed. Jake had moved on with Anna, and Toni had gotten married. And now she saw her husband about as much as she would have seen Jake. The closet was open and she noticed Jake’s favorite leather jacket hanging there. She got up and went to it, feeling through the pockets. Nothing. She ran her hands over the soft black leather, and thought of his strong arms and chest inside. She’d bought the jacket for him in Italy years ago. With great reluctance, she crawled back into bed and pulled the covers to her neck.
Seconds later she heard footsteps coming down the hallway and she reached for her gun under the pillow. A light knock on the door.
“Toni. You still awake?” It was Franz.
“Yeah.”
The door opened slowly. “Sorry to bother you,” he said, his head around the door but not looking in at her. “But I just got a call from my friend. They found the car Jake had taken from the Serbs.”
“Where?”
“Garmish.”
She mulled that for a moment. “He’s not there.”
“No, I agree. But could it give us a direction?”
“I don’t know. Let me sleep on it.”
He started to pull his head back but stopped and said, “Oh. He took out a German Polizei.”
She shifted up onto her elbows. “He didn’t kill him.”
“No. Just embarrassed the man. Dumped coffee on his lap and then knocked him out.”
Laughing, Toni said, “Sounds like something Jake would do. Use what you have. Had the cop stopped Jake in the Serb’s car?”
“No. It was early this morning at a bakery. The Polizei had found the car and ran the plates. He was calling it in when Jake took him out. Turns out the guy had been to one of Jake’s counter-terrorism lectures.”
“What took so long for you to be notified?”
“Well, Jake took the Serb car and hid it in a residential area. They only found it a few hours ago. Are you sure we shouldn’t go there?”
“Yeah. He’s long gone.” But she had an idea which direction he might have traveled. “Let’s get some sleep and take off early in the morning.”
“Wunderbar.” He closed her into the room alone.
Now she had direction. Sleep came fast.
11
Gustav Vogler got a call that a body had been found a few blocks from Karl-Marx-Strasse by a young woman walking her dog. That was an hour ago, when he still lay in bed with his newest girlfriend. He quickly showered, slapped a new nicotine patch onto his arm, shoved enough gum into his pants pockets to last all day, and jumped into his Polizei car. Not even time for coffee or food.
Now he stood with his assistant, Andreas Grosskreuz, in deep thought as he gazed down at the body of the man in the center of the park. His stomach growled enough for his assistant to stare at Gustav’s gut. It didn’t take a medical genius to see that the dark-skinned man’s neck had been broken. The man’s skinny neck was bruised and swollen and skewed awkwardly like a snake that had swallowed a boomerang.
With latex gloves on, Gustav searched the pockets of the man. This was much different from the other bodies they’d found over the last two months. Those had all been shot and dropped in the Spree River. Found sometimes a week or more later in various states of decay. This body wasn’t even close to the river or any other water. Maybe the killer wanted this man to be found sooner, Gustav pondered.
“What do you think, sir?” his assistant asked him. “Is this one related to our case?”
Damn good question, Gustav thought. He chewed on the large gob of nicotine gum in his mouth. “Could be. Although it doesn’t match the others.” Still stooped down, he gazed around at the scene and his eyes wandered to the edge of the small park. He’d ordered his men to cordon off the entire park and his officers were now carefully walking at arm’s length combing every meter for evidence. They would also photograph the onlookers again. Just in case. Even though they hadn’t gotten any clues like that recently.
Gustav continued his search of the body.
“With the others they could have been shot and simply dumped in the Spree,” Andreas said. “Perhaps the killer was interrupted before he could haul away the body.”
“Perhaps. Ah.” Gustav produced a wallet from the man’s back pocket. In a minute he’d searched every item within the leather wallet and then dropped those into an evidence bag held open by his associate. This made no sense at all, he thought. This was the only body they’d found with identification. Some of those found in the river had eventually been identified, but three men still remained unknown. This identification was too easy.
“A Turk,” Andreas said, viewing the man’s driver’s license through the plastic. “That’s a change.”
“Too many changes,” Gustav said. He wasn’t completely certain this was part of their case, but he had a gut feeling it was. “What do you suppose the killer is trying to tell us?”
Andreas crouched down lower to the level of his boss. “Well, maybe he decided it was time to make us think a little harder. Maybe he wants us to know he can strike anywhere in Berlin, and he doesn’t need to shoot them.”
“But what’s his motive?” That had bothered Gustav from day one with this case. As far as he could tell there was no motive — other than to kill for the pleasure of killing.
“Do sick bastards need motive, sir?”
Gustav searched one more spot on the body, the inside pocket of the man’s jacket. There he found a train ticket from Innsbruck to Berlin. One way. “He just got to town last evening.” In deep thought now, he postulated the meaning of this find. “This makes no sense, Andreas. A man makes a straight line from Austria to Berlin and ends up dead in a small park nowhere near a hotel. A Turk.”
“Maybe he was traveling from his home to see a relative here in the city,” Andreas said uncertainly.
The both of them stood again. Gustav placed the ticket stub into an evidence bag and handed it to Andreas.
“I don’t think so,” Gustav said. “The Orient Express still runs from Istanbul to Venice, and then you can catch a train north through Innsbruck, but it’s not the best route unless you have other business there. It’s better to go Istanbul to Bucharest to Budapest to Vienna and then head north to Berlin. Better yet, take a flight. Plus, he has no bags with him. Unless the shooter took his things.”