he resembled a ranger at first glance. But his shoes were simple and worn, and he smelled as if he hadn’t washed himself or his clothes for days. Lina guessed he was in his late fifties. While the ranger bent down to the man, Lina turned to the woman again. “Frau Leyhausen, can you hear
me? Everything’s all right. You’re safe now.”
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The screaming turned into sobbing and finally the woman opened
her eyes.
“I’m Lina Svenson. We just talked on the phone. It looks as if I
arrived in time.”
The woman said nothing, but she still sobbed quietly. Tears were
streaming down her face. She had a scratch on her right cheek, and
her light T-shirt was covered with twigs, leaves, and dirt. The jeans had dark spots on the knees and the shoelace of the left hiking boot had come untied. A shabby knapsack lay about six feet away, among nettles and ashweed, and Lina noticed a broken cell phone on the footpath.
She only listened with half an ear to what the ranger said to the man on the ground. She also saw the woman she had just passed on her run to the crime scene. She stood cautiously at a distance and watched the spectacle with big eyes.
“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked in a gruffer tone than she
intended. The woman nodded. “Then make yourself useful and call an
ambulance.”
Franziska Leyhausen straightened herself with difficulty and looked
over to the man she had whacked with a stone. She turned pale when
she saw him motionless on the ground. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
An hour later, Lina was back at her office at Bruno-Georges-Platz. She had just gotten herself a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and sat down to recharge after the chaotic events when the door was flung open and Hanno came rushing in.
“Well done, Lina!” her boss exclaimed. “If ever there was perfect
timing. One or two minutes later, and we’d have had another corpse.”
Lina could feel herself blush. To make matters worse, she saw that
Max noticed, and her face got even redder.
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“This Frau Leyhausen is sitting in the hall with one of our patrol
officers. It seems she has a lot to tell us, and the doctor has no objec-tions.” Hanno was bursting with energy. “Lina, go and question her
right now, with Alex.”
“What about the man, Hinrichsen?” she asked. “Isn’t he the wit-
ness Max interviewed before?”
Hanno nodded. “He’s still in the hospital. He needed stitches, but
the wound’s not dangerous. They want to keep him for observation
until tomorrow.” He scratched his head. “But there might be some
problems with the guy. He’s completely freaked out and they can’t get a sensible word out of him. He’s also quite obstinate. When they wanted to take off his filthy clothes in the hospital, he resisted vehemently.”
He looked at Max. “I think you should probably talk with him. You
already know him and besides . . .”—Hanno paused, seemingly unsure
how to express himself—“. . .you’re our go-to guy for difficult cases.”
“Is that so?” Max raised his eyebrows, but Hanno had already dis-
appeared, with as much bluster as when he had arrived—an unusual
sight for the pot-bellied man who was more than six feet tall. Max and Lina looked at each other.
“Well, well. So you’re our man for difficult cases.” Lina grinned.
“How did he figure that out?”
Max shrugged. “A vivid imagination.” He grabbed his jacket. “By
the way,” he said with a grin of his own when Lina had already thought the danger was over, “you look good in red.”
The female police officer who had waited with Franziska Leyhausen in the hallway brought the witness to Lina’s office. The biologist was in her midthirties, of medium height, and she had long dark brown hair
peppered with the first streaks of gray and healthy, lightly tanned skin.
She had washed her face and hands, but her T-shirt and jeans were still 152
Dead Woods
soiled from her time in the forest. She was holding a paper cup, though the coffee was probably cold by now. Lina asked whether she wanted
anything else to eat or drink, but she shook her head.
“Now then, Frau Leyhausen,” Lina began, “please tell us what the
altercation with Herr Hinrichsen was all about.”
Franziska Leyhausen put the cup down and wiped her face with her
hands. “I . . . think that he saw me with Philip in the woods Thursday night.” She didn’t dare look at either Lina or Alex, who had comman-deered Max’s desk chair.
The two exchanged a glance. Lina’s heart was pounding. “So you’re