Coming Clean in Lerpe

By R. Jimon

What do a thirty-something American woman of German-Irish descent, a three-quarters Nahua Mexicano who loves to cook, a consummate business woman who morphs into a biker chick in her free time, a tattooed grandfather with many, many piercings, a middle-aged German clean freak, a crotchety old man suffering from dementia, and a German Shepherd named Paris all have in common?

Murder!

And the charming German village of Lerpe, as well.

Because before a patina of dust settles on the desk in her new home office, clinical study monitor Becca Keck feels her German-Irish temperament flare up. The bane of her existence—a clean freak whose compulsive cleaning is even too much for other Germans—has moved in across the street and is living in opulence. Scheisse! The situation between the two women peaks after Becca inadvertently befriends the crotchety, senile owner of the house where her nemesis is staying. She helps involve the old grump in a clinical study on a new medication for dementia, but when his quality of life improves, it gives someone nearby a reason to become very nervous. Becca gets a chance to shove her nemesis off her high horse after the man is found frozen to death on her property. Proving the clean freak murdered him is now number one on Becca's bucket list.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. Jimon
• Release date: Apr 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301393183

R. Jimon

R. Jimon has a master's in German literature and linguistics from the Technical University of Darmstadt and has lived over 20 years in Germany; about 1/2 of them in a village similar to the one where Becca Keck lives. Coming Clean in Lerpe is the first book of the Becca Keck mystery series. Mama's Boys Need Not Apply is also out now, and both works are in the process of being translated into German.

Book preview

COMING CLEAN

IN LERPE

R. Jimon

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction and the characters, incidents, and dialogue come from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, or to actual events is entirely coincidental.

COMING CLEAN IN LERPE

Copyright © 2013 by R. Jimon

Smashwords Edition

Book cover art copyright © 2013 by R. Jimon

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To my mother

and to Jorge, Leon, Naoufal, Kenza and Marla

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A huge DANKE SCHÖN to Christian

for answering ALL my questions

Chapter 1

It’s always the big Cuban that wakes me up. Even though he’s shut in the chicken coop with the rest of my husband’s fine-feathered friends, I can hear the muffled sound of him beating his wings and drowsily wait for his phlegmatic crowing to sound in the little wooden hut in the backyard. The other three roosters start in right after him, and it’s impossible to sleep anymore since the chicken coop is at most ten yards away from my bedroom window. I’m usually wide awake by the time silence rolls around again.

Stupid birds!

But not today. Today I obviously slept so deeply that I missed the first several rounds of crowing, until Paris, my dark gray German shepherd, decided it was her job to interrupt my dreams. She was grunting with the effort of trying to bury her prickly muzzle under the down-filled blanket where she could burrow under my feet like a rutting pig and flip them up with a jerk of her head. Try to sleep when you have that going on. I half-heartedly shoved her away with my foot but moved to get up. I learned the hard way that when Paris needs to go out, it’s a good idea not to make her wait. And since I was the only one home right now, I’d have to get up and do it.

The sun was streaming into the bedroom through half-open Venetian blinds, giving me a hint it was much later than I usually got up. I took my rimless glasses from the night stand, so I could check the clock, noting with surprise it was after eight-thirty. It’s rare that I get to sleep in so late, not only due to the roosters but to the fact that my household is made up of several children and various other animals, all needing care.

Though on this Sunday in November, I only had the animals keeping me company. All three of my children had slept somewhere else, and my husband stayed late at work for a meeting with clients yesterday evening. Isidro didn’t know how late the meeting would run, and because there was a good chance everyone would be going out for drinks afterwards, he accepted the company’s offer of a hotel room for the night. He would probably end up having a lunch meeting or something today, too, since that’s the way things usually turned out.

I was happy for the relatively empty house since I had an important job interview the next morning and planned to enjoy the day while all were still gone. That meant: sleeping in, watching the shows I want on television, and generally lazing around—stuff I never get to do since being overwhelmed by motherhood.

I took thick socks from a drawer in the dresser next to the bed and pulled them on before I realized they were my husband’s—too late now. I shoved my sock-clad feet in my slippers and stood up. Our floors are made of parquet and tile, and the only rug we have is the dark blue and cream oriental in the living room, which we got because Isidro was the highest bidder on eBay. We don’t have floor heating, and I always feel cold from October until around the end of April, and this November in Bergisches Land was having its typically frigid periods.

On the way to the back door, I took a detour to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine which I always set up the night before, so I just have to push a button while I’m still half-asleep in the morning. Then I continued down the long hall where I could hear Paris’s claws tapping nervously as she pranced around, buzzing with doggie energy. Typical for German house construction, all of the rooms in our house open onto a common hallway, and all of the rooms have doors, even the living room. Our house is a ranch style with a made-over basement housing the laundry room and two of the kids’ rooms.

I went into the large room at the back of the house which consists of living room on the left side and dining room on the right, with the glass door to the patio marking the point between the two. I could hear the coffee maker start to burble and was impatient for my morning’s obligatory caffeine jolt. The coffee here is ground so finely its texture is similar to cornmeal, and it releases the most wonderful aroma when it’s dripping through the coffee maker, even the cheap supermarket stuff. You don’t need to grind your own when coffee like that is available.

Paris was waiting for me in front of the glass door. She gave me a hopeful look, her body shuddering in anticipation of her first outdoor romp of the day. I opened the door and Paris shot over the patio and flew through the bushes growing around it.

Shivering in the chilly air, I quickly exchanged my slippers for the old sneakers I keep right outside the patio door in case I have to go into the backyard, which is more muddy than green during the colder months. The perpetually green rhododendron surrounding the patio is lush and attractive, but it also blocks my view of the back yard. If I don’t keep an eye on the dog, Paris takes advantage of my absence to run away. We’ve made the hapless discovery more than once that she’d rather do her business in one of the neighbors’ yards if she gets the chance.

I hurried around the bushes to follow Paris. A thick layer of frost covered everything. It was so heavy I used to mistake it for a thin layer of snow when I first moved to the region. The stone path leading from the patio to the backyard was slippery, so I had to take my time and go carefully. It was probably too cold to snow right now. The frosty mountain air burned in my nose, and my eyes began to water while I silently urged Paris to finish quickly—I was freezing! She finally hunkered down, and I went back to the patio to pour some dog food in her bowl. Paris is banned from eating in the house due to her lack of etiquette and propensity to dig through the kitchen garbage.

As soon as Paris finished, she would gallop to her food bowl. I kicked my sneakers off, jumped back in the house to escape the icy cold, and waited in front of the glass door, so I could call her back inside after she finished eating. My glasses fogged up in the sudden warmth, and I wiped them off on my pajama top.

I could see the surrounding mountains of our part of Bergisches Land over the tops of the gray roofs of the houses across the street. Here you don’t find the typically German red-brick shingles well-known from postcards since the material isn’t native to the region. The majority of roofs in the area are covered by anthracite-colored shingles, and most of the houses were constructed post-World War II, replacing those destroyed during the war. The region happened to be a favorite target of Allied bombings due to the steel industry and railroads which were functioning at peak capacity at the time here.

According to our usual ritual, Paris should show up any second. She didn’t, though.

I opened the door and called, Paris, come here! in German and waited to hear the rustling of the bushes when she plowed through them on the way to her bowl.

I heard nothing.

Scheisse!

I whispered some Anglo-Saxon expletives and then some Teutonic ones; German being such a good language for cussin’. I impatiently pulled on my sneakers again and went onto the patio. I listened for a moment and kicked Paris’s bowl while shaking the bag of dog food, hoping to lure her to me with the usual sounds signaling her breakfast. I listened intently again, certain I would hear her claws on the sidewalk on the other side of the high hedges bordering the yard. This would mean she hadn’t gotten very far yet. I didn’t hear anything, though.

Paris! I called loudly.

Nothing.

I went as quickly as I dared along the slippery stone path until I could see the entire backyard. Nowhere did I see that dog. Great. Today of all days she disappears. I could say ‘auf wiedersehen’ to my relaxing morning.

I stood there in pajamas with tangled hair, it was minus who-knows-what temperature outside and slippery at that, and I had to catch my stupid canine before I earned the disapproval of the neighbors. My German-Irish temperament flared up, and I cursed some more in my second language with each careful step I took on the slippery stone path. I considered taking a minute to get dressed first, but I discarded the idea since Paris couldn’t have gotten very far. Maybe if I went around the house and called her, she would hear me and come back.

Our property is on the corner of Bonner Strasse and Langenfelder Strasse. It’s protected on the sides facing the two streets by hedges more than two-and-a-half yards high. The hedges are a topic of friction several times a year with the township due to their height, but only because Detlef Bohler works there. Since we’ve let the hedges grow so high, he can’t spy on me sunbathing naked in the backyard from his house across the street anymore —ha! The way to the front of our house, which faces Langenfelder Strasse, is blocked by a pile of summer tires next to an old kennel filled with the kids’ bicycles and yard equipment. This is supposed to serve as a makeshift blockade between the hedges and the house for the migrant Paris. Is supposed to.

A quick glance around the corner of the house was enough for me to know Paris hadn’t disturbed the pile of tires. That meant she either had squeezed through the hedges and was now strolling around the neighborhood or had decided to inspect the chicken coop. I turned around and went in the other direction to the backyard, which was mostly grassy yard with an asphalt-covered lot at one end, full of hope she was visiting the chickens.

Since we live on a steep hill, our property is on a slope leading from Langenfelder Strasse to the back of the house. The slope is steep enough that, if I were so inclined, I could clean the windows at the front of the house by standing on the ground outside, but the windows at the back of the house are two stories high.

I slipped suddenly and almost fell on my tush in the slippery grass, which gave me a fresh chance to demonstrate my fluency in German. I was not only half-frozen and ticked off now but had gotten my pajama bottoms completely filthy as well. I slapped at my muddy butt in annoyance while I made my way towards the chicken coop at the edge of the yard by the asphalt lot.

The chicken coop actually used to be a large garden shed. It’s made of wood painted a dark brown, has narrow windows on three sides, and leans at an alarming angle to the left. It’s an ancient and ugly thing which the former house owner used exclusively for storing rusted gardening equipment and breeding spider webs.

Isidro cleaned it out and reinforced it a bit to ensure it won’t topple over in the strong winds we sometimes get. Then he converted the inside into several smaller compartments in order to create an appropriate space for his favorite hobby: chickens. Mainly varieties of chicken not often found in Germany: Cuban, Spanish, Mexican—breeds familiar to him from his childhood when he spent summers on his grandfather’s farm in Cuernavaca.

Hatches in the walls of the chicken coop allow the animals to spend time outside in little pens constructed out of chicken wire while still keeping the roosters separated from each other. It’s of the utmost importance to keep the roosters apart, or they fight with each other otherwise. Each pen contains a rooster with one or two chickens to keep him happy. After the birds go into the coop to bed down for the evening, we close and latch the hatches, so the neighborhood has peace and quiet in the early morning. Since roosters can’t tell time, headlights at two in the morning tend to set them off.

I could hear the chickens clucking softly in the hut. I had to let them out soon, but it was more important to catch Paris at the moment. What the heck did that dumb dog think she was doing? I rounded the side of the house and could see something moving on the asphalt a couple of feet away from the chicken coop where my husband had dumped a load of gravel—Isidro always has some project or other going. Paris’s dark rear-end was swinging back and forth, peaking out from behind the gravel heap. She was obviously very busy with something hidden from me behind it.

Before I could work my way around the gravel pile on the slippery asphalt, my elderly neighbor Manfred burst through his backdoor and hurried to the low wooden fence separating his backyard from our lot.

Is he okay? he yelled.

The glottal stops of the regional dialect emphasized his agitation, and his eyes were open wide in panic. I stood still and stared at him, my mouth hanging open. I had no idea what was going on. Manfred jumped very agilely over the fence, which really surprised me because I have never seen him move very fast. The times I do see him, he’s usually sitting comfortably on his patio in nice weather, drinking either the regional kölsch or weizen (wheat beer) and shooting the breeze with his pal Bernd, another retiree.

I hurried around the gravel pile, hoping Paris hadn’t nabbed something from his property that she was now in the process of chewing to bits. I rushed at Paris and then suddenly froze with shock. A shudder ran through my body which had nothing to do with the frosty temperature.

The gravel pile had hidden the still figure of a man. Paris was sniffing and pawing at him.

Stop! I cried with a hoarse voice and shoved her forcefully to the side.

Paris remained standing next to me and watched me with doggie nervousness. She yelped softly, and I pushed her farther away.

My heart racing, I squatted next to the figure and desperately tried to remember my CPR course from last year. What was I supposed to do first? The man lay motionless on his side, his face and chest against the gravel heap. He was wrapped in a cloth winter coat which was bunched up under his arms, displaying a short, plaid bathrobe covering the light-colored pajamas he wore underneath. The thick wool socks and work boots he was wearing clashed with the style of the rest of his clothing, but he always wore those boots when he went for a walk. I couldn’t remember ever having seen him in any other shoes. His back was to me, and I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who he was. A crop of short, silver hair covered his head, the frost on singular hairs sparkling in the sun.

Manfred squatted next to me, and together we turned the motionless man over, so he was lying on his back. Just as I thought—it was our neighbor Herr Weisheit, aka the King of Langenfelder Strasse. His eyes were squeezed shut and his face was pale gray. How long had he been lying here?

I fell to my knees and clenched my jaw against the pain as small stones bit into them. His glasses had pulled away from his face and were hanging by one ear. I unhooked them and quickly handed them to Manfred. Then I placed one hand on his forehead and the other under his head and tried to maneuver it into the correct position to check his breathing. His skin felt cold and doughy. I bowed my head to try to hear sounds of breathing, but Paris stuck her snout between my ear and the face of Herr Weisheit.

Go away! I yelled angrily, and she sprang back.

I held my ear over his nose and watched his chest in order to feel and see his breathing. I felt and saw nothing.

Is he breathing? asked Manfred.

I shook my head, and we looked at each other, our faces expressing the consternation we both felt. Manfred jumped up and ran towards his house with Paris close on his heels. She leaped and snapped playfully at his legs, thinking she could convince him to play with her. He managed to reach his door without tripping over her and called something garbled to me over his shoulder before he went into his house, still followed by Paris.

I hastily tried to open Herr Weisheit’s pajama top with frozen, clumsy fingers. Whether my memory served me well or not, I was going to begin the chest compressions. This was the first time I was trying this out on a real human being. Prior to this my only experience in CPR was in a much more relaxed situation with one of those rubber mannequins. I could only hope that despite Paris, Manfred had been able to call for an ambulance.

Thirty chest compressions and two breaths, thirty chest compressions and two breaths…I had begun the chest compressions for the umpteenth time when I felt Manfred’s presence next to me.

Your dog’s inside, he said.

At least that was one less problem. I nodded slightly to let him know I’d heard and was thankful to him for putting Paris inside my house. He’s done that before when she’s jumped the fence into his yard to say "guten tag." He doesn’t mind doing that since Isidro offers him a beer for his effort, and the two of them spend some time shooting the breeze with each other. Manfred has grown children and some grandchildren, but he’s a widower and alone most of the time.

I was shivering with cold and probably shock as well. I cussed once again, but this time only in my thoughts: where is the damn ambulance?

There’s no point. He’s gone, said Manfred softly.

I shook my head in answer, not wanting to lose count, and continued to apply pressure to Herr Weisheit’s chest: up and down, up and down. I was dizzy and sweating and had practically no strength left in my arms. At that moment I seriously considered having my hair cut. It was almost down to my hips, and with each chest compression, long strands of it fell in my face. My eyes were watering, my nose was running, and my glasses had fogged up again. My upper body was soaked in sweat from my efforts, but my lower half was so cold I might as well have been naked for all the warmth my pajamas were giving me. My knees burned as little stones bore into them.

Paris, the dumb mutt, had discovered the patio door wasn’t closed properly and was once again present. She seemed to understand, however, that at the moment no one wanted to play with her. She lay alert on the cold asphalt despite the frost and bits of gravel. I need a winter coat just like hers!

Paris growled suddenly and raised her head towards the driveway at the side of the house. She stood up, and Manfred grabbed her before she could bolt. Since my back was towards the driveway, I couldn’t see but figured the rescue team finally had arrived.

Move to the side, please, An urgent voice sounded over me.

Paris barked and tried to escape Manfred’s embrace. I waddled backwards a couple of steps and threw myself on my nervous dog. After a brief explanation to the rescue team that we just found the unconscious man and didn’t know what had happened, we left Herr Weisheit to their care. Manfred tapped me lightly on the shoulder and nodded his head towards my house. We both began to drag Paris to the front door.

As soon as we pushed her inside, Manfred trotted back around the house, and Paris raced to the bedroom to jump up and brace herself on the windowsill where she began to bark at the scene down in the lot. I limped to her as quickly as I could.

Knock it off! Stop it! I hissed angrily in German. Down!

She took her front legs from the windowsill and lay down with her ears pressed against her skull. She understood from my tone of voice that I had no more patience with her.

My knees ached from the bits of gravel, and the muscles in my arms and legs were stiff from the effort of performing CPR. I limped to the window and saw the rescue team working on Herr Weisheit. I cracked the window to call down to the busy paramedics that this was my house, and they could ring the bell if they needed anything. A young woman lifted her solemn face to me and nodded in acknowledgement.

Paris raised her head and growled again when car doors slammed at the front of the house, and new voices could be heard. After a moment, two policemen dressed in the olive green uniform of patrol officers came around to the back of the house, and one of the paramedics went over to speak with them.

I turned away from the window and hastily searched for something to put on. I fished a pair of jogging pants and a sweatshirt out of my wardrobe since bedrooms don’t come equipped with closets in this country, and pulled my pajamas off. I got dressed and quickly went into the bathroom to exchange my glasses for contacts. Then I remembered the patio door and sprinted to the living room to make sure the back door was closed properly, so Paris would stay trapped in the house. Back at the window, I noticed Manfred was talking to a policeman I recognized as our neighbor, Nils Keilbach. The ambulance had left in the meantime.

I wondered if the King of Langenfelder Strasse would survive.

Chapter 2

Apart from asking a couple of questions at the door, Nils and his partner didn’t need to hear a lot from me. Everyone on the street knows Herr Weisheit often comes uninvited onto our property because he likes the chickens.

I couldn’t believe Robert Weisheit would leave his senile father home alone since he knows his brother Karl-Heinz won’t take care of the old man. But Robert had been leaving him alone on the weekends often lately to go visit his girlfriend in the neighboring state of Hessen, and although the neighbors grumbled about it, no one said anything directly to him. Everyone on the street wanted to avoid getting caught up in the Weisheit family dynamic. Perhaps Nils would say something this time—if not as a neighbor, then as a responsible polizist.

I poured myself a mug of coffee and went into the guest room which is next to the front door, where I could look through the window’s sheer curtains at the happenings on Langenfelder Strasse. Paris sat next to me and stared at the wall under the window since she’s too short to see out of it without putting her paws on the windowsill—and that’s a no-no despite her inclination to do so. I bent down slightly and started rubbing around her ears in silent apology for the way I treated her during the urgent situation with Herr Weisheit. She raised her eyes to me, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth in happiness.

I gazed across the street at the stately abode of Herr Weisheit. It was my dream house; a sentiment most likely shared by everyone else around here, though you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’d admit it. The people on Langenfelder Strasse scornfully call it Burg Weisheit, meaning Weisheit Palace. It’s a fitting residence for a man the neighbors refer to as the King of Langenfelder Strasse—der König.

Weisheit Palace was built a little more than a decade ago and is decadent beyond reason. I’ve never been inside the house, but from what I can see of the outside, it screams of luxury. It’s several stories high and built of white-painted stones with a built-in garage at the side big enough for two large Mercedes. The garage door can be manipulated comfortably by remote control. There’s a circular driveway at the entrance of the house, and the entire façade is covered with lattice windows, in a country where most windows in modern house construction consist of a large pane of glass held within a frame. It isn’t your average Hugh Heffner villa, but for the village of Lerpe, which is home to around five thousand souls some nineteen miles east of Cologne and is pronounced "Lehrrrrpeh, not Lerp," it is definitely something out of the ordinary.

Unfortunately, the home owner was really in no condition to enjoy the house. A picture of the motionless figure in my lot flickered in front of my eyes. The thought ran through my mind that he might have been pronounced dead already.

I felt restless and wished I wasn’t alone at that moment. I considered calling my aunt Ilo, but she probably would be having breakfast with my six-year-old, Marianne, right now, and I didn’t want to disturb the two of them. Marianne was having quality time alone with Tante Ilo for the first time, and I didn’t want to end it prematurely. If I did call Ilo, she would want to come here immediately—if not to comfort me, then to drag all the details out of me. She’s a gossip-and-a-half and proud of it, thank you very much. Since Isidro was still in Aachen, and Tobias and Tamara were still asleep (probably) at their respective friend’s house, I was forced to come to terms with the situation alone.

Nothing moved across the street. I sipped my coffee and thought about what Isidro told me concerning the Weisheit family. Isidro knows the whole story of the Weisheits from his mother-in-law, who came from one of the founding families of Lerpe and told him a lot of juicy stuff about the neighborhood before her death. Isidro can even outdo Ilo when it comes to Lerpe gossip, thanks to his late mother-in-law, and his knowledge of the dirty laundry of the Lerpe generations has helped to integrate him fully into life in our village. Not that he spreads around the stories his mother-in-law told him, but because he’s proven himself to be very discreet by allowing the legion of skeletons to continue gathering dust in Lerpe closets (or, better said, wardrobes). The people around here trust him not to gossip, so paradoxically he’s the one who hears all the latest chitchat since everyone goes to him with the news.

Gossip happens to be as important as the air you breathe for a lot of Oberbergers, meaning people of the Oberberg, or upper region, of Bergisches Land. The area lies north of the Wupper River in the southeast of the