More Beer

6

Anastas’s office was in a stylishly renovated old building. I walked up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor. Anastas stood in the doorway, smiled, shook my hand.

“I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

“Why?”

“Miss Reedermann told me about your encounter.”

“Encounter is funny.”

He led the way to his office through a mirrored entrance hall. Several stacks of files covered his desk, in front of which stood four worn leather armchairs. Except for one cheap lithograph, the walls were bare and white. Carla Reedermann stood leaning against a radiator, perusing the daily papers. She looked up briefly and gave me a nod. Anastas asked, “Coffee, beer, wine-what would you like?”

“I’ll take a beer.”

While he went to get it, I stared out the window.

“That Rabbit I was driving belongs to the owner of my auto repair shop. I gave him Anastas’s address. Is that OK?”

“Uh-huh.”

The little lawyer returned, handed me a glass and a bottle of beer, and sat down on the edge of his desk, his legs dangling.

“Now, Mr. Kayankaya, I have to apologize, and then I have to explain a few things to you.”

He folded his hands solemnly. I sipped my beer and listened to things I already knew. Then he cleared his throat and looked at me expectantly. Carla Reedermann was also watching me, her eyelids lowered.

“Have you found the camping enthusiast and his friend?”

A brief pause.

“Oh, I see, ha, ha …” His laugh sounded silly. “Mr. Kayankaya, I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay with the case.”

He jumped down off the desk and shook my hand again. After he had calmed down and seated himself behind the desk, even Carla Reedermann granted me a smile. I asked myself if anyone except for me was at all interested in who had shot Bollig, and whether Anastas’s clients didn’t deserve their time behind bars. I lit a cigarette.

“Well, is he coming here or isn’t he?”

“He said he’d be here at nine o’clock.”

“Good. Let me take a look at those files until then.”

I went up to the desk, and Anastas explained the contents of the files. First I looked at the autopsy report. Four nine-millimeter bullets. Two in the stomach, one through a lung, one grazing the top of his head. Fired from a distance of circa ten meters. The assassin must have been a beginner, or else drunk out of his mind. Time of death, between midnight and half past. I copied the doctor’s address, and went on to study the defendants’ dossiers. All four of them were in their mid-twenties and had made an early start working for one cause or another in various groups, without attracting particular attention. One of them came from Doppenburg, the other three from Frankfurt. I copied their addresses. According to their statements, they had grown tired of handing out leaflets in vacant pedestrian malls, knowing that no one read them anyway. Then came the idea of a big bang to wake up the people, and they obtained explosives from a chemistry student. They refused to answer questions about the fifth man. When, on the morning after their act of sabotage, they heard about Bollig’s murder, all of them wanted to leave the country and go to Greece. After prolonged discussion, they discarded that idea and waited for further developments. Three days later, the police arrived. They didn’t look like killers to me.

“Another beer?”

“Yes, please. None of them gave a more detailed description of how they got the idea to blow up that pipe?”

“No.”

“One of them must have thought of it first.”

“They claim they developed the idea collectively.”

“Developed the idea! Bullshit. I have to talk to them.”

“They don’t want to do that under any circumstances.”

“Then think of something. You’re the attorney. Put pressure on them. How am I supposed to get on with my job?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kayankaya, but I don’t want to put any strain on my relationship with my clients. You must understand that.”

“They’re facing fifteen years in prison, and you’re talking about relationships? Once they’re convicted of murder, you’ll have to find another outlet for your interpersonal horseshit … How did the cops find out so quickly? Someone must have squealed. As soon as they realize that, they’ll denounce that someone. If they don’t, they’re idiots. But if they aren’t, and they still won’t talk, I can stop playacting the clever detective. Because if that’s the case, they did snuff Bollig. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Anastas paced about with a furrowed brow.

“You may be right. Let me get you that beer.”

I looked at Carla Reedermann.

“And what do you think we should do? Collect signatures? Print up a leaflet? How about a hunger strike? We could shackle Anastas to the courthouse fence for a week.”

She smiled. It was a pretty smile.

The doorbell rang. A moment later, Anastas returned with a young man wearing jeans and a sports jacket, followed by a knock-kneed blonde with no ass. Both of them looked as if this was their first time away from home after nine in the evening. We shook hands, and Anastas made introductory remarks. Alf Duli and Anita Weiss had been engaged for a year and planned a wedding for next summer. Alf Duli was finishing his apprenticeship as a bank clerk. He guided his fiancee to the window, sat down in an armchair facing me, leaned forward, and beamed. I asked Anastas and Carla Reedermann to leave the room.

“On the night of the twenty-second of April, you put up a tent on the factory grounds of Bollig Chemicals?”

“Next to the factory grounds, not on them.”

“All right. By the lake. Tell me what it was like.”

Alf told me that his parents had discovered that lake a long time ago, opined that it was surely all right to spend a night together in a tent without a marriage certificate, and went on to explain how many cans of provisions they had been able to fit into his Rabbit. I interrupted him.

“Mr. Duli, what woke you up in the middle of the night?”

“The explosion, of course …”

“Any gunshots?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Before or after the explosion?”

“Ah … More or less at the same time … No, right after. Bollig came running after he heard the bang, didn’t he?”

“I’m asking you if you heard any gunshots, and when you heard them. I’m not asking you for your conjectures.”

“Well, I’m really not totally sure, but it stands to reason …”

I turned to the little blonde.

“What about you?”

“I can’t remember anything except for that explosion.”

“But Anita-”

“Please! So, Ms. Anita, you heard no gunshots?”

“No. I didn’t hear any.”

“What did you do after you heard the explosion?”

Duli made a fist. “I grabbed my knife, and then I-”

“I’m talking to your friend.”

His Boy Scout smile froze. He leaned back, clenched his jaw, and looked offended.

“Yes, Alf rushed out, and I followed, and we could just still see those four running away.”

“Those four? Not five?”

“Oh yes, a little while later one more ran across the field.”

I lit a cigarette.

“Could it be that one of the four had turned around, and that you just saw him twice?”

“If so, he must have been running damn fast.”

“All right. And then?”

“We waited there, by the tent, for about fifteen minutes. Then the police came.”

Duli couldn’t stand it any longer. He demanded center stage.

“I wanted to go after them right away, see what they were up to. I knew they were up to no good. But Anita, you know how women are, she got scared, and so-”

“Yes, all right.” I turned back to the girl. “Did they take statements from you?”

“They took our names and addresses, and the next day we had to go to the station. Two weeks from now we have to appear in court as witnesses. That’s all.”

“Did you know the Bollig family?”

“No.”

“That’s all. Many thanks.”

I got up and shook hands with them. Alf Duli demonstrated one more time what a guy he was by almost crushing my hand. I called for Anastas, and he escorted the couple to the door. Carla Reedermann came in and sat down on the edge of the desk. In her tight skirt, she did that really well. Her long legs swung gently. I watched her and pondered what kind of a test this might be.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Why do you ask? I’m sure you kept your ears glued to the door. Didn’t you?” She stopped swinging her legs, shrugged. “We did.”

I leafed through papers on the desk. Then Anastas came back and set a bottle of beer on the desk.

“You don’t have anything on Bollig’s private life?”

“Just the usual. Born, married to, and so forth. Why?”

“The most revealing thing about a murder is its motive. And the most revealing thing about a motive is the victim. It’s as simple as that.”

I finished my beer and took my leave, reassuring them that they would be hearing from me.