Lina got up in a good mood on Monday morning, took a shower, and
drove to police headquarters after a quick breakfast. Yesterday, after her visit with Katja Ansmann, she had driven to her place in Ottensen, the district where she had grown up and where she still felt most at home despite the various changes it had undergone, from endearingly quirky to snobby chichi. She had no idea whether any of her colleagues had
been in the office on Sunday afternoon, but she didn’t care, either.
After her talk with Frau Ansmann, she felt so euphoric that she fol-
lowed up on her original plan for the Sunday and arranged to meet
Lutz at the Elbe.
Sitting in the subway, she wondered how long it would take to
get a search warrant from the judge. She could hardly wait to turn the apartment in Rothenbaum and the office of the management consultant upside down. In her eyes, Katja Ansmann was very suspect, much
more so than Frank Jensen.
She cheerfully greeted Max in the office, tossed her knapsack on
the floor next to her desk, and fired up the computer. Max looked up and frowned. “What happened to you? Are you in love?”
Maria C. Poets
Lina laughed. “No, but I found out some interesting facts about
Katja Ansmann yesterday. She has—”
Max raised a hand. “Stop. Before telling me every little detail,
you should probably see Hanno first. He’s already asked for you.” He motioned to the half-open door to the neighboring office.
“That’ll work. I wanted to talk with him anyhow,” Lina said. And
with that, she jumped up again. She had almost reached the door,
when Max said in a low voice, “Don’t be too excited. He didn’t look
very . . . happy.”
Slightly more subdued, she knocked on the door and entered her
boss’s office. She had no idea what to expect, but she figured she must have forgotten some crummy regulation, filled out a form incorrectly, or ruined a document with her abominable scrawl. She left the door
open and walked toward his desk, smiling. “Mornin’,” she said, before she saw Hanno’s expression and her good mood flew out the window.
“Why don’t you close the door,” he said.
Ouch. Lina turned back and closed the door carefully, as if it were
made of the thinnest glass. She sat down on the visitor’s chair in front of the desk and tried to interpret Hanno’s mood. All she saw was that there was trouble.
Hanno Peters stared at her for a while, but such games got nowhere
with Lina, not even if they were played by her boss. She raised her chin and stared back. He finally shook his head and propped his elbows on the desk.
“What kind of mischief did you get into this weekend?” he asked her.
Lina fought to keep it together. While she was small and looked
younger than twenty-nine, she wasn’t a naughty teenager, as Hanno
seemed to think. With his sixty-one years, he was old enough to be her father, but she was not going to tolerate this tone. “I was working,” she replied curtly.
102
Dead Woods
Hanno was sighing. “And why did you go to Katja Ansmann’s?”
He looked at a piece of paper in front of him. “And why did you insult and threaten her?”
“Insult and . . . Where does that come from?”
“Answer my question first. What did you want from her?”
“My investigation led to some questions I hoped she could clarify.”
Hanno’s bald patch seamlessly ended in a sleek short haircut, and
he had carefully nurtured the belly one could see behind the desk.
He had been a policeman for a long time, more than thirty years. He
now scrutinized the short, energetic person in front of him. “And that couldn’t have waited until today?”
Lina shrugged. “I was curious how she would react.”
“React to what?”
“For example, to the fact that I knew she lied about her alibi. She
claimed to have been at a lecture when she was actually with her girlfriend.” Hanno was listening. “Or to the question about what she plans to do with three million in life insurance money.”
Hanno raised his eyebrows. “You’re sure about that?”
“I am, indeed.” Lina briefly told him what she had found out on
Sunday, but didn’t mention her father’s call. She made a point to tell Hanno the name Evelyn Riemann.
“You mean the Evelyn Riemann who . . .”
Lina nodded.
Hanno dropped back into his chair and exhaled audibly. “And Frau
Ansmann is the daughter of Johannes Ansmann from Blankenese?”
Lina nodded again and Hanno frowned while perusing the notes
in front of him. “May I finally find out what this is all about?” she asked.