salad that still seemed to be in its prime. Max chose a yogurt with canned fruit.
“So, what do you think?” Lina asked after they had sat down at
a window table and had satisfied their most immediate hunger and
thirst.
“Hm,” responded Max and slowly swallowed a piece of pineapple.
“It sounds as if Birkner had more reason to be mad at Jensen than the other way around.”
“But Birkner pulled himself together again; Jensen didn’t.”
“But that’s not Birkner’s fault,” Max replied. “I’m afraid Frank
Jensen sees himself too much as a poor, innocent victim.”
Lina nodded. It seemed strange to her as well that a well-trained
programmer couldn’t find a new job—regardless of what happened
before. “I wonder whether there’s any basis for his allegation that
Birkner was behind it.”
Dead Woods
Max fished a mushy piece of apricot out of his yogurt. “I doubt it.
There’s too much of a risk of being found out or harming his reputa-
tion.” He put the piece of fruit in his mouth and swallowed. “But let’s just assume that he was involved. He’d have asked for a ton of money, which he’d have to hide from the revenue office. How would he launder the money?”
“Maybe his domestic partner helped him?” Lina said between
bites. “After all, she’s a management consultant. She gives a few seminars and consulting sessions for company X, and rakes in an arm and
a leg for it.”
Max grinned. “You really don’t like that woman.”
“Why don’t you let go of that? She could have laundered the
money. Isn’t that possible?”
Max had to agree. In Katja Ansmann’s line of business, “consulta-
tion” could mean all types of selling and packaging. After thinking it over briefly, however, he shook his head. “We’ll get nowhere speculat-ing. We’re not investigating industrial espionage but a murder. And all we’ve got there is the fact that Frank Jensen is going through a rough patch and holds Philip Birkner responsible for it.”
“But why does he only kill him now and not two years ago?”
Max put down the spoon next to the cup of yogurt on the plate.
“Maybe he believed until recently that he could pull himself together, but now he has nothing more to lose. No job, no money, no wife.”
“No apartment,” Lina added and reminded Max of the district
court notice on Jensen’s desk.
“So maybe all his pent-up rage boiled over again.”
“And his shoe size fits,” Lina said while looking at her watch. “I
asked forensics to give us priority treatment.” She grinned. “Hartmann just laughed.” But she knew her colleague well enough to know he
would do his best.
69
Maria C. Poets
“But even if he was in the forest, who was with him? It seems clear
that there were several perpetrators,” Max said. “One of them could
have been a woman.”
“Maybe Katja Ansmann.”
“Stop it. You don’t really mean that,” said Max.
“Well, the two know each other.”
“But Jensen doesn’t seem to like her. Would you commit murder
with someone you didn’t like?”
Lina had to laugh. “Did you hear what you just said?” She got
serious. “He could be pretending he can’t stand her. A smoke screen.”
“Well, I’d rather put my money on the unknown woman who left
the Waldschänke with Birkner.”
“Maybe Jensen drove to the woods with one of his drinking bud-
dies,” Lina said and sipped her espresso. “He’s telling his sob story, an idea sparks to life—to give that bastard Birkner what he deserves—and off they go.”
Before Max could answer, someone shouted, “So that’s where
you’re hiding!”
Hanno waved to them, got himself a Coke, and finally came
wheezing to their table. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said, sitting down and looking at them. “And? How’s Jensen coming along?”
“Moving along,” Max said and told him about the interrogation.
“He hasn’t confessed, but he has a motive and his alibi is iffy.”
Hanno nodded as if he had expected this. “I checked whether we
have anything on file about him,” he said and fumbled in his jacket
pocket for a piece of paper on which he had scribbled information.
“Two years ago, Philip Birkner filed charges against him because of
suspected industrial espionage. The investigation is still open. By the way, the name Philip Birkner rang a bell on the computer.” He looked reproachfully from one to the other. “Why didn’t anybody check this
yesterday? He was involved in a murder investigation fifteen years ago, just marginally, though. Birkner was nineteen when a young girl from 70
Dead Woods
his school was murdered, Julia Munz, eighteen years old. She and
Philip Birkner had been an item for a while. They separated a short
time before her death.”
“Who killed her?” Lina asked.
“The killer was never found. Birkner was initially on the list of