Zons Crime.

Fatal Puzzle.

Shepherd, Catherine.

I.

Present.

"When you're sad, look up at the stars, then close your eyes. The stars will tell you a story. Their soft gleam will embrace and comfort you and lead you confidently toward your goals."

Wandering through the streets of the small medieval town of Zons on a frigid winter's evening, Anna smiled as she remembered her grandfather's words. Although the icy air made her shiver, she sat down on one of the many benches along the bank of the Rhine. She thought about following her grandfather's advice, and tears filled her eyes.

No, she told herself sternly. She wouldn't let the pain overwhelm her for more than a brief moment. She didn't want to rehash the past any longer, didn't want to be reminded of the sorrows that had turned these last few months into a living h.e.l.l-there was no other way of putting it. For weeks now she had tormented herself with a stream of self-pitying thoughts that she couldn't seem to banish. She was ready to look ahead and regain her equilibrium at last.

When would she be able to leave the past behind and move on with her usual poise and calm, easily mastering her life as she normally did? Granted, she'd never been one of those people who seemed to court good luck wherever they went-but she certainly couldn't complain of chronic misfortune, either. Well, except for the past few months, during which everything that had been dearly important to her had almost entirely vanished.

Taking her grandfather's advice, Anna turned her head toward the sky. Clouds were moving in quickly to cover the moon and stars, but for now the stars were so bright they almost blinded her. She stared up into the sky for several minutes and then closed her eyes. Gradually, her thoughts dissolved in the glistening bounty, and Anna felt herself lifted upward, her body nearly weightless. For a fleeting moment, the world around her fell away. As if drawn by a vision, Anna drifted deep into the night, engulfed in a bright gleam. She had no thoughts, no feelings. The tears in her eyes splintered the light into countless separate beams, leading Anna toward a glittering palace of shining rays. Perfect indifference flooded her body. If only this sensation would last forever!

Icy gusts of wind made Anna's body tremble and brought her back to earth. Snowflakes swirled in the air, draping her in a white veil. She must have fallen asleep. She wanted to rise quickly, but her stiff limbs ached with even the slightest movement. Her cozy apartment wasn't far; in less than ten minutes she could be comfortably back in her heated room, protected from this ghastly cold. She made herself stand and slowly trudged down the deserted street. The snow was falling so heavily now that she could barely see the tips of her shoes.

Suddenly she noticed a man's silhouette directly in front of her. She stopped abruptly and stared into the stranger's face; dark-brown eyes stared back at her. Blond strands of hair peeked from beneath his hood, and Anna could tell he was attractive.

"May I be of a.s.sistance? At this late hour it is rather dangerous for such a fair lady to be strolling about unaccompanied."

How old-fashioned his language is, Anna noted. "Oh, thank you," she said. "But I'm almost home. It won't take long."

He insisted nonetheless, and Anna, who usually made a point of not allowing a stranger to walk her home, accepted on a whim. They walked swiftly through the quiet cobblestone streets and soon reached Anna's building at Rheinstrae 4. He smiled when he said good-bye and disappeared into the darkness.

II.

Five Hundred Years Ago.

The miller in Zons had six sons, the youngest and the smartest of whom was named Bastian. Tall and muscular, he would have made a great miller himself-but from an early age, Bastian was educated by the priest in reading and writing. The boy turned out to be a curious and intelligent student. Both Father Johannes and the commander of the City Guard were impressed by his talent for solving all kinds of mysteries and riddles. That was why Bastian was appointed to the City Guard's squadron at the beginning of the year 1495 and charged with dealing with murderers, con men, and other criminals.

Nestled between Cologne and Dusseldorf on the banks of the river Rhine, Zons had long been a small, peaceful village where not much of anything happened, let alone crime. But in 1372, almost a hundred years earlier, Archbishop Friedrich von Saarwerden of Cologne had authorized Zons to levy a toll on ships transporting cargo on the river-a privilege formerly held by the considerably larger neighboring town of Neuss. Only one year later, Saarwerden granted Zons its town charter. Things had never been the same since then. Criminals of all sorts invaded the city, suddenly bringing in dangers like muggings and robberies.

To better protect the city, the archbishop ordered a giant wall erected around the perimeter of Zons, complete with an impressive Zollturm-a toll tower transported from Neuss-and several other watchtowers. Viewed from above, the wall resembled a gigantic, right-angled trapezoid. Each corner featured at least one watchtower. Soon enough, the playful people of Zons took to calling them "pepper grinders." From the small windows in the upper stories of the towers, hot pitch and rocks could be scattered on the town's enemies like pepper.

The Zons mill was situated at the southwest corner of the city wall. From there, it was a short walk for Bastian to get to the small marketplace and the church, where he felt thoroughly at home. Over the years, the priest had become like a second father to him.

At only twenty-three, Bastian was already considered one of the most honorable citizens of Zons, and soon he would be a wedded man. Only a few weeks earlier he had finally dared to propose to his darling Marie, the baker's daughter who lived in the house right next to the huge Zollturm. Bastian and Marie had grown up together. Ever since he was a little boy, Bastian had known that one day Marie would be his wife.

Her head felt heavy, as if she had drunk a whole barrel of wine by herself, although she couldn't recall having drunk even a single goblet. A warm liquid ran over her face and mouth, and when she licked her dry, chapped lips she noticed a metallic taste. She tried to move her hands but couldn't. A wave of panic rushed through her body. She wanted to scream, but immediately a pair of stinking, coa.r.s.e hands covered her mouth, m.u.f.fling even the slightest sound. Where was she? Who was this reeking man? The last emotion Elisabeth would experience during her short life was astonishment.

Bastian was dreaming of his father's mill. The millstones were grinding loudly against each other. Then a roaring sound and a forceful throbbing reached the edge of his consciousness. Tons of pure, white flour thundered to the ground of the first floor, where workers poured it into huge linen sacks. Bastian lifted one of the bulging sacks on his strong shoulders and loaded it onto the horse-drawn cart waiting in front of the mill. The roaring of the grindstones grew louder and louder, and suddenly, the throbbing returned.

Something wasn't right. Hopefully the grinder hadn't broken. Abruptly, Bastian sat up and realized that he was not in the mill at all. It was dark, he was in bed, and he had been dreaming. Downstairs someone was hammering frantically against the door and calling his name. What was going on?

Suddenly Bastian was wide-awake. He hurried down the stairs to open the door and found Wernhart, his friend from the City Guard, panting and out of breath.

"We found Elisabeth. By G.o.d, hurry up, Bastian. She's dead-and mangled so badly I hardly recognized her."

With lightning speed, Bastian threw on his clothes and followed Wernhart. The two friends ran down Muhlenstrae and turned right into Schlossstrae, which led them to the segment of the city wall directly behind the Schlossplatz, the castle square.

Bastian saw what could easily be taken for a sagging flour sack dangling by a chain from the parapet of the watchtower. At second glance, though, he saw that it was a human body wrapped in a linen gown, hanging from one arm and idly swinging back and forth. A pair of tied-up feet peeped out from beneath the gown, and when a gust of wind blew off the hood that covered the body's head, Bastian recognized Elisabeth. All her hair had been shaved off. Her shoulder appeared to be dislocated, and her other arm wasn't visible.

Bastian's colleagues from the City Guard had already arranged for several torches. But even with their light and a bright, full moon, it was still too dark to examine the body.

"Take her off that chain at once!" Bastian called to the men from the City Guard. "Wernhart, go fetch the doctor. Tell him we'll be right here with Elisabeth. I want him to take a look at her and see if he can tell us what happened."

He thoroughly familiarized himself with the crime scene, and then he drew a little sketch of the victim and the chain in the first page of his new notebook. Why did such a catastrophe have to happen during his first three months on the job? Wasn't it up to him to make the city safer and to prevent such atrocities?

In the meantime, poor Elisabeth's body had been placed on the bed of a cart. Bastian approached her to take a better look. He knew he would have to wait until daylight to examine her more closely, but he held a torch above her body to a.s.sess what he could. Her hands and feet were dirty, and gruesome injuries covered her scalp, as if someone had carved a b.l.o.o.d.y pattern into it with a knife.

III.

Present.

Emily could hardly believe her luck. She had gotten the job! She gazed at the gray envelope containing the contract. She was so happy she almost jumped up and down like a little girl. She was a pert and pretty young woman with deep brown eyes and curly, dark hair. Even on a normal day, Emily's smile and warmth could light up a small room; today she was positively radiant.

It might be only a small gig, but it was her first real one. She was in her last year of journalism school at Cologne University, and she had just been a.s.signed to write an entire feature series for the daily newspaper the Rheinische Post. And what's more, the series would be about her favorite topic, the medieval Zons murder cases. While many journalists from the region would have preferred to write for the more prestigious Handelsblatt based in Dusseldorf, Emily had little interest in writing about finance; the quest for money and power was too dry for her taste. As an undergraduate she had majored in history, and when she decided to get a graduate degree in journalism, she knew that her interest in the past would somehow lead her to the most fascinating stories.

Emily had been riveted by her studies in medieval history and had even dedicated several years to studying old German handwriting and scriptures. Something about that dark and mystical era held a magical attraction for her. Even as a little girl she'd preferred playing with toy knights to Barbie and Ken. Every summer she used to spend a couple of weeks in Italy with her grandparents, who lived next to a Franciscan monastery in a.s.sisi. Often she would visit the small medieval chapel on the monastery grounds to hear the monks praying.

She would have to tell her family the good news, but first she had to fill Anna in right away. Though her best friend wasn't in the best of spirits these days, Emily knew that Anna would certainly share her joy.

Poor Anna. A few months ago, she had finally mustered the courage to propose to her boyfriend, Martin, and that had triggered a huge catastrophe. First Martin asked Anna for three whole days to think it over. Then, at the end of those three days, he came out to Anna as gay, leaving her utterly devastated as well as perplexed. To make things almost tragically worse, Martin's lover turned out to be Christopher, Anna's and Emily's best friend.

The three had been close friends for years and spent a great deal of time together. In recent months, however, Christopher had gradually withdrawn from both Anna and Emily. The days of hours-long shopping trips and entire afternoons spent in coffeehouses, laughing about anything and everything, had dwindled to nothing. At first the two girls had thought Christopher must be lovesick, but he wasn't at all forthcoming whenever they tried to discuss his withdrawal from them. Eventually, they decided it was best to give him some s.p.a.ce and leave him to his own devices. More and more often they went out without Christopher, but they never gave up hope that he would one day be a part of their lives again.

Now it turned out he was indeed a part of their lives, but in a way they could never have suspected and that injured one of their group to the core. Although Anna tried hard to pull herself together when Emily was around, her laughter seemed hollow and forced.

Emily had never particularly liked Martin and had always felt that Anna deserved someone better. But she hadn't seen this coming. At least the happy couple had moved to Berlin, where they hoped to indulge without restraint in their newfound bliss, so Anna and Emily didn't have to worry about running into them on a daily basis.

Emily fished around in her purse for her cell phone and called Anna. They decided to meet up later that afternoon at Anna's apartment in Zons, which worked out incredibly well for Emily. Anna's apartment was in a tiny house on the right side of the medieval Zollturm, which had been built in 1222 and later moved to Zons. Emily swiftly collected all her materials about the fifteenth-century murder cases. Betting she'd get the a.s.signment, she had already begun her research and was now eager to examine the crime scenes more closely in light of what she'd learned.

She quickly skimmed her doc.u.ments. The first victim had been one Elisabeth Kreuzer, age eighteen, who had lived in the house next door to the tower called the Krotschenturm, located in the northwest part of the small town. According to the records, her body had been found the night of December 15, 1495, by Wernhart Tillman, a local resident and member of the City Guard. Bastian Muhlenberg had been head of the investigation. The murder must have been extremely brutal; the young woman had been tortured, raped, and finally left dangling on an iron chain from the Krotschenturm. On her scalp, the investigators found a carving of symbols and letters that initially couldn't be deciphered. Emily knew that the county archive in Neuss still owned a copy of a sketch of that carving, together with other case-relevant doc.u.ments. She simply had to get her hands on those papers. She would ask Anna to accompany her that afternoon to the Zons branch of the county archive, which was located at Schlossstrae 1.

IV.

Five Hundred Years Ago.

His hands shook the way they always did when he thought of his father.

"Say the Lord's Prayer! Say it once more. Speak evenly and stop trembling, d.a.m.n it!"

With every prayer, the whip in his father's hands would crack down on his naked back. His trousers were worn through at the knees from the innumerable times he had crouched in front of the home altar, hoping that G.o.d would hear his prayers. But He never did.

His father had beaten him ever since he could remember. He was supposed to pray every hour of every day, and every hour the whip flayed his back. Now and then, a club replaced the whip, and as he grew older, his father used a cat-o'-nine-tails, in which each "tail" was equipped with a tiny metallic spike. By then his back was strewn with scars, and his skin had long since turned numb. It was a good thing that the scar tissue was thicker now than the tender skin of a young boy. The scars didn't break open so easily, and it took longer before they started bleeding.

One time he fell over because his sore knees couldn't hold him up any longer. His father had grabbed a huge club covered with iron nails and whacked the boy's left leg so relentlessly that he had limped ever since. His father must have felt sorry, because after the limp developed, he stopped using the club-or maybe it was only because his son could no longer help in the fields. But the abuse continued, and still G.o.d didn't answer his desperate pleas for a better life. Finally, when he was fifteen, deliverance came-not through G.o.d but through the plague, which terminated his old father's s.a.d.i.s.tic life in just three days. Now he was truly alone; his mother had died in childbirth, leaving him at the mercy of his brutal father.

Having never known love and with n.o.body to comfort him in his fear and desperation, he had begun exacting revenge at a young age. If he couldn't punish G.o.d for his birth into such a miserable life, at least he could take vengeance on G.o.d's creatures. Why not try and see whether the dear Lord would have mercy and save just one victim from his actions? But it never happened.

He started out killing small birds. He remembered his first sparrow with particular fondness. It was winter when he'd lured it, with a handful of grains, inside the house, where he grasped the bird and twisted its little neck without flinching even one bit. He pulled so fiercely that he tore off the sparrow's head. As he stood there, the bird's head in one hand and the tiny, lifeless body in the other, he felt a tremendous sense of power. For once, he was in control. Quite literally his hands ruled over life and death.

A number of birds followed, but eventually the sensation of power waned, and he began to tackle larger animals. A cat fell for his tricks, and he tortured it for several days before finally killing it. He waited for G.o.d to save the creature, but again G.o.d didn't interfere. G.o.d let him go about his evil deeds. Maybe this was his calling. The reason he had suffered so much was to make others suffer. That thought eased his pain.

He began to think that G.o.d was with him all the time after all, that it was precisely G.o.d's will for him to become a strong, hard-edged warrior-someone who was forever free from pain and would retreat from nothing. He prayed regularly and took to flagellating himself until he firmly believed that he was strong enough to be G.o.d's chosen warrior.

V.

Present.

Anna was already waiting outside the little house next to the Zollturm, where she lived in an apartment on the upper floor.

"What are you doing out here in the cold?" Emily asked.

"I felt cooped up and needed some fresh air," Anna replied. "Don't give me that look! I won't die of cold air."

At least her green eyes sparkle with mischief again, Emily thought, and she took Anna's arm. Laughing, the two friends walked south on Rheinstrae to Schlossstrae, where they stopped in a small corner cafe and chatted away. The time pa.s.sed quickly; it was as if nothing had changed.

How funny that Anna's sadness seemed to have vanished almost entirely, Emily thought, as she listened to her friend tell her how, a few days earlier, she had gone for a walk along the Rhine and had almost fallen asleep on one of the benches at the promenade.

"Honestly, my bones were so stiff when I first stood up that I felt like I was walking barefoot on a bed of nails. Suddenly there was this man standing right in front of me. I got really scared, of course-I thought he was going to mug me then and there! But he just smiled and asked me very formally whether he could accompany me home, given the very late hour. He actually called me 'fair lady' or something like that. At first I thought he was totally nuts-I wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. But he looked so serious and thoughtful that I simply couldn't bring myself to refuse."

"I see," Emily smirked. "And what's the name of your new crush?"

Anna blushed. "No, he's not taking Martin's place. He was just nice, that's all."

"Come on, Anna. Why don't you at least admit that he was your type? What did he look like?"

"OK, he was attractive. Actually, I couldn't see much of his face. It was quite dark out and snowing madly, and he was wearing a hood. All I saw was that he had brown eyes and blond hair and that he was very tall."

Emily nodded slowly and kept smirking at Anna, whose mouth kept threatening to break out into a grin, and then both of them burst into laughter. Emily was sure Anna was falling for this guy, given how deeply she blushed when Emily pressed her for more information. Emily was elated. At last Anna had taken her mind off that jerk Martin, who had never been worth all that sadness in the first place.

"How's the job?" Emily asked. "How's your fight for the filthy rich coming along?"

Oh, now she's mocking me again, Anna thought. She was well aware of her friend's distaste for everything involving money or capitalism in general. But Anna couldn't help it; she was a financier through and through. And after all, Emily wasn't complaining about the profits she had gained thanks to Anna's investment tips. It wasn't really the money itself that attracted Anna to banking. She simply loved the things she'd be able to do with the money someday. Like moving to an actual house and owning her own garden. She loved flowers, and it was her big dream to plant them on several acres of land, a patch of earth that belonged solely to her and where she was at home. She was doing well at her job as investment advisor with a major bank in Dusseldorf. Soon enough, she'd have enough savings put aside to make her house-and-garden dreams come true.

"Well, the job's stressful, you know that very well. Good for you that you're pursuing a second degree, so you can enjoy life a while longer without any restraints or obligations," she teased.

Emily changed the subject. She knew that Anna was a loveable and loving person. Her friend was simply more pragmatic than she was, tackling her goals with determination. "Now listen," Emily said. "I told you about my feature series. I really need a few more doc.u.ments from the county archive, and I wanted to ask you if you'd like to come with me. I could really use your help."

But Anna wasn't listening. She had jumped halfway off her seat and was gaping out the window. "Emily, I'm pretty sure I just saw Christopher walk by!"

"Nonsense. That's not even possible," Emily snapped. The sudden change of subject disappointed her. The last thing she wanted was to rehash that story for the gazillionth time. Not today. Not now.

"You know that they are both in Berlin. Why should Christopher return alone and then take a walk through Zons? That doesn't make sense. You must have confused him with someone else."

"Well, maybe I did," Anna said, not so sure anymore about what she'd seen. She shrugged. "I could have sworn it was him. But you have a point there: it wouldn't make any sense. I was probably wrong. Maybe my nerves. Rationally, I'm over this unbelievable thing between Martin and Christopher, but maybe my subconscious hasn't let go yet and is playing tricks on me." She sat down again. "You were just about to ask me something. Right, the county archive. Of course I'm coming with you. Let's go right now!"

She got up and left some money on the table. "My treat, you poor student!"

Half an hour later they stood inside the county archive. The air smelled terribly stuffy and the walls were covered with a grayish layer of dirt. Here and there the old wallpaper was peeling off. The figure that came limping toward them from one of the back rooms fit perfectly in the general setting. The archivist had thinning, gray hair; the horn-rimmed gla.s.ses on his nose were so huge they almost covered his entire face. His dull, dark eyes peered, bug-like, at Anna and Emily.

"How may I help you ladies?" Attempting a smile, his face contorted into a grimace, and the two friends could see that he was missing at least one of his front teeth.

"We're looking for doc.u.ments concerning the Zons murder cases from 1495."

"I take it you're looking for the so-called puzzle killer?"