Dead Woods - maria c. poets Page 0,14

to shake his head when Lina showed up at the door

with a cup of coffee in her hand.

“Come to my office. Team meeting,” Hanno grumbled.

Lina rolled her eyes.

It was cool in Hanno’s office; the window was tilted open and one

could hear traffic noise from outside. Alex, a lethargic man in his midforties who loved to hide behind paperwork but was otherwise quite

agreeable, was still on vacation. Sebastian, a man with a handlebar

mustache, the beginnings of a paunch, and a bald head, was already sitting in one of the chairs and shamelessly staring at Lina’s breasts. Lina ignored him and eased her knapsack to the floor without putting down her coffee. Hanno was watching her intricate maneuver suspiciously,

fearing for his carpet.

When everyone was finally seated, Hanno cleared his throat and

checked the sheet of paper in front of him. “Now, what have we got

so far?”

Max summarized what clues had been found at the scene of the

crime. Philip Birkner had lived thirty-four years. He died the previous night between eleven and three, most likely from a head wound

caused by a blow with a blunt instrument. An abundance of differ-

ent footprints had been noted at the scene of the crime. The rinsed

and replanted plant was something neither he nor his colleagues could explain.

“Could it have been gang related?” Sebastian asked, concentrating

on the most obvious clue: the many footprints.

“It’s possible, but neither money nor IDs were missing,” said Max.

“If all they wanted was to whack someone, money was of no inter-

est to them,” commented Hanno. “They wanted to have their fun and

Birkner crossed their path by accident.”

“Out there, in the woods?” asked Lina. “The spot where we found

the body is pretty far from any subway station. Besides,” she added

quickly before anyone could say anything, “he probably wasn’t alone.”

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Dead Woods

She told them what she had found out at the Waldschänke and from

Antje Niemann.

“This might be the woman he called shortly before the concert

began,” Max said and told them about the number on Birkner’s call list that he had used quite often. “I’ve tried to reach her, but so far I’ve only gotten her voice mail. The number is registered to a Tanja Fischer, but nobody was home at the address in Eimsbüttel. I met a neighbor, but

he’s never seen the woman.”

“It’s also possible that the returned ticket was just for show,” said Lina. “All three of the women I talked with thought Birkner and the

unknown woman must have known each other. In any case, they soon

got very intimate.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And at the end of the evening, both disappeared, quite inebriated, into the forest.”

“When was that?” asked Hanno.

“About half past eleven.”

“Could both of them have been attacked and only the woman

escaped?” asked Sebastian.

“Why wouldn’t she call for help?” objected Max.

“Maybe she doesn’t have a cell phone,” Sebastian suggested. “There

actually are people who don’t.”

“But at one point she would have been near a phone. I mean, the

Niendorfer Gehege isn’t that big. And at that time, there still must have been people around.”

“Or she’s lying dead or injured somewhere in the woods and

nobody has found her yet,” Lina said.

The room filled with an uncomfortable silence. “I can’t imagine

that,” Max finally said. “The Niendorfer Gehege is pretty small and

busy, and there’s almost no dense underbrush, at least not near the

scene of the crime. If she were lying injured somewhere in the forest, she would have been found by now.”

“There remains the possibility that she lured Philip Birkner into a

trap,” Hanno said, thinking out loud. “She picked him up at that bar, 35

Maria C. Poets

got him drunk, and then lured him into the forest where her accom-

plices waited for them.”

“And the motive?” Lina’s question echoed in the room. Nobody

had an answer.

“Paid thugs? Russian mafia?” Sebastian finally speculated.

“Hm,” grunted Max.

“Why not? It’s happened before,” Sebastian continued.

“But the woman doesn’t fit in that scenario,” Lina said, backing up

her colleague’s doubt. “According to the descriptions I got, the woman didn’t look like Russian mafia. More like a ‘tree-hugging chick’ as one of the servers called her.”

Hanno’s expression was pensive. “Max, you continue trying to

reach this Frau Fischer. If we’re lucky, she’ll turn out to be the unknown woman. Lina, did you get the list with the advance reservations for the concert?”

Lina nodded and knew what was going to come next.

“Good, call them all. If we’re lucky, the two women are on the list.

If not, maybe someone will be able to describe them accurately,” he

said tartly, “or at least give a description that matches one of the three we