Markt station. They harassed a woman who got out of one of the trains. That was around
eleven. The tapes don’t tell us how the story ended, since the whole gang left the station. Our colleagues in uniform didn’t know about the harassment, but did know the gang—the local tough-guy wannabes.
I’ll get their names today, at least for the ones who have a record.”
“Good. Stay on the story. Max, did you hear anything new from
forensics?”
“Yes, they really hustled this weekend,” Max replied. “They found
one of the weapons that was used, a sturdy wooden stick—horse chest-
nut. They found tiny traces of blood and some hair on one end and
were able to secure DNA evidence from the other.”
“You mean, if we find the perpetrator, we can nail him with this?”
Hanno asked.
Max nodded. “At least one of the responsible parties. Fact is,
though, the death blow was not executed with this stick.” He looked
at his notes. “Hartmann also found out that the replanted plant is an Aaron’s rod.” He smiled, recalling how disappointed Hartmann had
been that Max already knew that. “They also paid close attention to
the footprints at the crime scene and have determined that, apart from the dead man, at least three other people were there around the time 106
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of the murder.” Max took a sip of tea. “One wears size 41 shoes, one size 43, and the third one size 44.” Max looked up. “Hartmann came
across something strange. In some of the prints of the size 43 shoes, they found traces of fiber from a plant that grows near the brook, the Kollau, several hundred meters away from the crime scene.” He looked at his notes. “It’s called Himalayan balsam, to be precise. It doesn’t grow at the scene of the crime itself. So it seems that the person in size 43 shoes went to the brook while everything went on and came back
again. One can assume that this person dug up the Aaron’s rod, went to the Kollau, washed it there, and then returned and replanted it.”
They tried to imagine the scene, but it didn’t make sense to any of
them. Who would dig up a little plant in the middle of the night, in the middle of a fight, clean it, and then plant it again?
Max continued, “Before he died, Birkner was on his knees, pos-
sibly before he received the fatal blow. They found handprints that
definitely are the dead man’s. While there are tracks of size 43 and 44
shoes above those prints, there are none from the size 41 shoes.”
“Since Birkner was also kicked in the balls,” said Lina, “it’s possible that he sank to his knees after that and propped himself up with his hands.”
The men all grimaced, thinking about it. “That’s it,” said Sebastian.
“That hurts like hell.” Then all were silent for a moment.
“How do the autopsy results mesh with the evidence at the scene?”
Alex asked.
Hanno fished for the mail he had received on Saturday. “Two
wounds on the back of the head, most likely caused by the weapon
retrieved from the scene and three wounds on the right upper temple, which were caused by a still unidentified object. Hartmann guesses it was a steel pipe or a heavy flashlight.”
They mulled over the info and tried to imagine what happened.
“Looks like one of your typical group attacks,” Sebastian said. “One 107
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of them starts and then lets his two buddies finish. My money’s on the juveniles from the subway station.”
“How many were there?” Hanno wanted to know.
“Six.”
“And what were the other three up to in the meantime?” Lina
interjected. Sebastian shrugged.
“Isn’t it possible that one person did all the hitting?” Max sug-
gested. “He or she grabs a stick and beats the man twice, isn’t satisfied with the result, and looks for another stick. Maybe that’s why that
person went down to the brook.”
“In the middle of beating someone to death? And then he decides,
since he’s there anyway, to wash the plant?” Hanno shook his head.
“No. Unless he was at the brook twice. But your basic point is correct: we don’t know how many people were beating the man.”
“Or how many people were there,” Sebastian said. “It’s possible
that all six from the subway station were there, but only three attacked Birkner. The others waited on the path and that’s why we found no
tracks from them.”
“I can’t imagine that the youngsters had anything to do with it,”
said Lina. “How does the replanting fit in? Why would they do that?”
“Who knows?” Sebastian said, shrugging. “Maybe one of them is