Holes in the roof: Frankfurters, #2

By Van Mokum

A former policeman finds himself hungover in an apartment with a dead body. It's not a nice way to start your day.

Did he kill him? It looks like it...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Van Mokum
• Release date: Feb 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224332748

Book preview

- 01 -

What a mess! The empty beer bottle must have shattered on the balding head and left a chaos of cracked skin, glass and clotted blood. Most of the blood splatters on the floor and walls were dried up in a gooey mess and showed all shades between brown and rusty red.

Metallic green flies the size of bumblebees gathered on the cratered skull and had to be sent abuzz to prevent them from a feeding frenzy, while their number seemed to multiply exponentially every minute. They must have originated from the overfilled trashcan in the corner, but this fresh corpse had more attraction to them than the gory trash.

About twenty of those flies winged roaring around, but inside of his skull, it was thundering too. What had happened here? How long ago did it happen and did he have any involvement in this situation himself?

The bottleneck started to feel sticky in his hand. Engrossed by its stickiness he threw it against the granite countertop of the sink with force. Nevertheless, the small glass tube did not break into smaller pieces like the ones which already were shattered around all over and which belonged to the rest of the bottle it once was a part of.

A memory floated up. Slowly, like a whale.

He got aware that yesterday after closing time of the bar, he was invited by the awkward old geezer which was only known by his nickname 'the Pharmacist', who promised him something good from under a cork...

His thirst must have been bigger than his initial disgust of the little wrinkly fellow since where he found himself this morning could be nothing else than the kitchen of the Pharmacist's apartment.

What and how much did they imbibe that night and what all happened after that? Only one thing became very clear to him: he had no business in this kitchen and the wisest he could do now, was to scram it.

Fast.

––––––––

Outside the morning freshness of the street, he felt eyes burning into him; people were watching his moves. He saw how his mirror image stooped by in the panes of a shoe store and became aware of the brown stains on the collar of his shirt. Too much blood to be caused by a close shave. Was it the Pharmacists blood?

He was disturbed by the thought of his own stupidity. How in the world could he just have walked out of an apartment with a dead body, without checking himself?

He just left it and slammed the door behind him, closing off the possibility to go back inside and erase the trails and marks he might have left during his stay there. Should he have to go back to break in and torch it?

Because of all these engaging thoughts, he was not consciously aware of how he ended up on the stoop of his apartment building. It was not that far anyway, since he lived not much further than 600 yards down the same street, diagonally across, just in the next block.

According to physical laws, the favourite watering hole of both men was supposed to be found about halfway the distance and that turned out to be indeed where it was, on a corner on his side of the street. A gory and smoky establishment with the name 'Zur Laterne' ('At the Lamp Post').

Did 'Aale' ('the Eel') the barman see him pass by just now, or had he seen how or when both men left yesterday?

His observational skills must have been worn by the booze – because he had not been aware of it in both cases. That was just plain stupid, he was not himself anymore. Former police 'Kommisar' Gruber stood in front of his building and dug in his jacket for his keys.

It was about three months ago when he moved to this decrepit neighbourhood, consisting of narrow streets with four and five-story buildings from the turn of the twentieth century. His apartment was three floors up, over him was another floor and on top of that were some even smaller apartments in the attics. His two-bedroom was less than half the size of the thirty-year-old little bungalow in the suburbs, which he bought a year ago and left to his wife and son. A divorce was somewhere in the works, only stagnated by his own stubbornness and heavy drinking.

––––––––

Shortly after the move he felt liberated from the pressure to dominate his family into orderliness and regularity, the kind his about to be ex insisted on, because of his position as a halfway up-there police officer.

An impossible thing to deliver with the ever-changing time schedules and the need to work overtime on top of overtime in certain seasons.

It also was the same kind of order his eldest son tended to have absorbed somewhere else, based on the philosophical musings of the late Adolf Hitler; someone he found easy to despise and who he since long held personally responsible for the beginning of a rift between him and his family.

According to his wife, he betrayed his flesh and blood through a lack of authority and subversive thoughts, which in her opinion had nothing to do with responsible police work. Ultimately, he saw no way to extend the last bit of his love into madness. There was no other way to go, than out. He took some clothes and left everything else behind, including his practically new and paid-for car. If it were possible at all, he would have left his memories (including the ones from better times) behind there too.

His small apartment was still cool inside, his steps sounded hollow in the barren space. On his way up he had met none of his neighbours, not even the multiple children from the friendly Turkish Taylor who had a store at street level and lived in a three-bedroom apartment on top of that.

After darkness Gruber would open the window and take the plummet towards the bus stop, saving the world from his problems.

––––––––

Understand that even molecules and atoms are aware of love.

Don't you see how they attract each other?

––––––––

The 'Pharmacist' got his nickname because of his habit of making rounds on which he emptied abandoned glasses and bottles into his glass, creating a random mixture he had no trouble pouring down his throat. What he imbibed every session therefore determined the size and the quality of the next day's hangover.

For the regulars the Pharmacist was as familiar as the rickety furniture in 'Aales' digs; most ignored him and his weird habits, because he saved anyone from the task to retrieve glassware. Aale left him alone since the old man forced all other drinkers to speed up or to fill up quite a bit more than what might have happened otherwise.

It only took a bit more than a week before Kommisar Gruber got absorbed into the crowd of drinkers. Initial reserve against him because of being a 'Bulle' (‘Bull’ slang for 'copper' or pig), seeped away with every glass that followed another one.

Nevertheless, he kept very much to himself and barely got sought out for company. It was an ideal situation for one whose only desire was to wallow in his alcohol-soaked misery while sitting at the sticky bar; behind a half-empty glass or bottle, sparsely illuminated by a blue incandescent bulb inside of a fake oil lamp.

Until the events of yesternight, he wrongly believed there was no bigger misery than the one he had been consuming for the last few weeks. The only way to get out of this dark valley would have been a pathway leading up, towards daylight; a route he was not ready to go yet.

The reality however proved him wrong again; he must have been only at the beginning on his way to hell since he found himself dropping head over heels at increasing speed into a very dark and very deep well at the bottom of the valley, which he must have overlooked all the time.

Spite his plan to leave the world for its entirety, Kommisar Gruber took off all his smelly clothes and stepped into an ice cold shower. If he had to go out with a bang, he never the less had no desire to smell.

Since about three months ago he stopped showing up at his job, and he did not even bother to have a telephone line connected to his new place. The mobile phone once at his disposal, must be collecting dust somewhere in his old office, or had been designated to someone else's vehicle.

There have been a lot of misunderstandings and arguments, even his superior Haupktommisar Krall had lost his temper towards him several times. There was a lot of pressure to make him take a personal leave since his situation was growing to get overly complicated and was in the need to be straightened out with some (maybe even professional) assistance. His financial status did not allow either solution and his drinking habit was not much of a help either.

Since he was able to ignore his past the last month, it seemed that all his old co-workers and friends had forgotten about him as well. The last weeks he had been left alone by any one of them.

The shower got colder and colder, digging out the darkness and depth of the narrow well he was slithering down in, head first. Infinite darkness closed in, nearer and nearer until he almost got stuck on his way to the bottom.

––––––––

I do not like the light of those luminescent tubes.

I prefer the warm glow of an honest incandescent bulb.

A tube like that provides nothing more than an accentuation of the same darkness it is supposed to push away, sixty times every minute, again and again.

––––––––

"The last two days he just sits in a chair, looking at something imaginary in front of him. He barely speaks a word, let alone about the murder he may have been involved in. According to the prison doctor, it's very likely that he is going to maintain this behaviour for quite a while. They do not know precisely yet what has drugged him except for the booze and some of it is still in his system.

We need to get to him in a clear mind soon, any delay will be to his detriment. Until now he is the only suspect in that murder case down his street.

He would have been a dead suspect on top of that if the fall out of his window had not slowed down because of an open canvas sun shade at the tailor shop below. He's also seen by quite a few in certain locations to connect him to the murder, not to speak about the physical evidence."

The sturdy man with a three-day beard in mismatched clothes who spoke was Gruber's superior Haupt Kommisar Felix Krall. He turned away from the windows and looked straight into the narrow wrinkled face of Ober Kriminalrat Jugenal, who sat slumped in his leather swivel chair behind a paper-filled desk and resembled a muskrat in a burrow.

Every inch of the smoky room was occupied by papers; paper snakes and dragons crouched around every piece of furniture and tried to scale the walls as well. Even pieces of paper and notes were wedged into slots of the computer, his box fan and television. A small empty spot on the wall showed dozens of pinholes, evidence that despite appearances, sometimes documents and photographs got discarded and only stayed around for a reason.

This whole case shows very little in Gruber's favour. If we abandon him, our little friend may not have any chance at all to get out of this mess. You know that as well as I do, if not better.

Krall sat himself down in the only available chair across Jugenal, igniting the cigarette he just had been rolling while watching out of the window. Jugenal spoke up:

Yes, Felix. They do not give us much choice, so we have to find someone from outside, qualified enough to investigate this matter. In any other case, they will nail Gruber and us both with the same nail onto the inside of the bathroom door. We both have been too close to him to initiate a direct investigation. The rumour circuit is running at full speed and that does not work in his favor either.

Gruber and Krall had been working together for almost fifteen years, climbing through the ranks in the homicide unit or the department of 'heavy crime' as it has been re-labelled recently.

Jugenal did his work in the same unit as Krall for a little over ten years, in which they slowly befriended each other. The practically humourless and precise Gruber was almost an outsider but has been liked and appreciated because of his incredible memory for facts, events and numbers and his steadfast reliability until he started to fall apart a few months ago. It was always hard to figure him out in some way, except for his unwavering loyalty to the police force and his love for his city Frankfurt and the local soccer club Eintracht Frankfurt.

It was quiet for a while, the kind of silence between two men when they are occupied with their thoughts; it broke when a ping pong game on the computer started to play a round against itself as a screen saver because no one ever bothered to get rid of the annoying thing. Felix Krall broke the relative silence some minutes later.

Do you have ANY idea about someone from outside we can put on this case? If we don't watch it, they will send us the son of our former police president Kaesebrot, who misses all the wit of the old guy and only inherited the machinations of his daddy.

Jugenal dug out a small and worn-out notebook from somewhere and was flipping its pages until he held it close to Krall's eyes. It was a bundle of bill paper from a Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam.

On the back Krall saw Jugenals' handwriting, nicely surrounded by the decorative and cryptic scribbles from the Chinese waiter who must have been the original owner of the notebook.

Effther Kofftoffky? read Hauptkommisar Krall with a lisp and mimed a clear question mark with an eyebrow.

Yes. Esther Kostowsky. Absolved the five-year course at the Police University a little over a year ago and is ready to rock and roll to be at least an inspector, but no one seems to want her. At the moment she is stationed in Hamburg's drug crime unit, to fill in for someone who is going to return to his job pretty soon.

'A woman. A young one on top of that. How do you think that's going to work out? Until now women seemed to steer clear of our department, but that also may be on our former Polizei president's account. Do you know anything favourable?"

To be honest, I only know her because I was one of her examination judges. I took effort to write down her name for later reference, for all that's worth.

Felix scrutinized the deadpan face of Jugenal for a while and had no other choice than to say: See to get her here soon, you usually only remember people for a reason.

I warn you Felix, we may get stuck with her. First because of being under quota with qualified women in this department, secondary because Gruber's spot has to be filled if we need to replace him. Even when he came back, he was about in the position of taking over Kommisar Riesenhuber's job, which means she will be part of our secondary team pretty soon. As you remember, that is something we both have been working on for almost a year...

Krall's expression was somewhat uneasy as if he became aware of the incredible novelty of ending the all-male dominance in their department.

You better hurry, your honour... I want to see her here tonight when that's possible. And if she is a no good, she will be gone twenty-four hours later. Write that down!

Slowly the Kriminalrat lifted the receiver from its cradle and dialled a number, but stopped halfway to give his friend the last possibility to bring in other thoughts if any were around.

We have to go forward with it Felix. In the name of everything, including progress. As soon as she walks into the front door, there is no kicking out of the back door. She is going to stick around here like a piece of band-aid, like or not.

––––––––

Darkness comes in two different qualities.

One pushes, the other pulls.

––––––––

The stench in the cell was unbearable, also the light did not seem to work properly. It was practically dark because the window was covered with a blanket. Faintly visible was a mattress standing up in one of the corners. Kommisar Gruber must be hiding behind it because it was not possible to see him anywhere else. The prison guard had no other choice than to push the alarm and wait for enforcement before opening the steel door on his own.

The extra men arrived quickly, carefully one of them unlocked the door and opened it, while staying behind it. One tried to switch on the light, but that must have been on all the time.

It became clear that Gruber must have reached up with something tall (most likely a corner of the mattress) which he then used to rub his poop onto the light fixture.

Full on alert two of the guards moved towards the mattress, from behind which they heard breathing. They removed the mattress and found Gruber at attention, saluting all kinds of imaginary military superiors. On his head, he wore a beret made out of poop. It was a turd like you may see in a comic book, nicely coiled and pointing straight up in the middle.

We have to make a call to the psychiatrist on duty. Let's put this man somewhere he can not hurt himself.

––––––––

Except for the little bit of light running into the eyes, the space underneath the skull is dark by nature. We need to have an equilibrium between pushing and pulling darkness to be able to speak of a normal situation. Nevertheless, a situation like this is quite an exception and we will see that always one of the powers is dominant.

In extreme situations, we have to correct that. It is necessary to alternatingly cover one of the eyes or to release a flash of light in either one of the ears. Only in the utmost urgency, we may have to force a hole in the skull to eliminate the darkness in its entirety, before being able to start building it up anew more level-handedly as to get some workable equilibrium.

- 02 -

The Intercity Hamburg – Frankfurt was more crowded than expected at the late hour and delayed on top of that, caused by a gang of alcohol-infused soccer fans. Their unsophisticated style of humour included the growl of supporter songs and the continuous fumbulation of anything resembling switches, alarm buttons, cranks and emergency brakes.

Because of the short notice, the length of the trip and the miserable weather conditions, Esther Kostowsky was forced to travel with public transportation instead of using her car, which was not very reliable anyway.

At the moment it was about one thirty in the very early morning. The arrival at Haupt Bahnhof Frankfurt originally was scheduled for a few minutes past eleven in the evening. She had to use one of the public phones on this train to inform her new employer of her delay.

Still, another hour to go, since there were about a hundred kilometres to travel and the train was not running at its normal speed of 200 KmH or more.

The nightly freight trains on the same track kept the speed low, but there appeared to be no disturbances from sports fans anymore.

The Intercity got pummeled by blistering winds and hailstones, but the gentle heat of the climate system made her happy to have picked this mode of transportation despite all of the delays.

Her temporary job in Hamburg started as a complete bummer, where she had been parachuted unprepared between a bunch of guys who did not want to deal with her. Machismo runs deep in the drug world, therefore it is mirrored in the drug department where she was supposed to replace a hospitalized inspector for a few months. Two of the crew behaved like dogs, including the urge to soak anything remotely vertical with their verbal pee. A wolf whistle was the most innocent utteration of their supposed virility.

She ignored those signals whenever possible.

At first, there seemed to be a third dog, but he was able to turn his demeanour around since he was supposed to become her partner. Six foot and four inches, close to a whopping 300 pounds and practically no fat, he made her feel like a mosquito for the first time in her life, despite her not too impish five feet five and 170 pounds.

What do you want me to do, to have you appreciate me as an officer? she asked them halfway through the grinding first week.

Make coffee and give me a blow job! one of the dogs called out.

All right. You guys like it hot and strong, right? she yelled out and presented a mug of coffee so strong, that it seemed to be an extract of concentrated darkness with an ability to bend spoons and minds.

Under the eyes of his leering co-workers, there was no other choice for her partner than to drain it like a man. Some foul mouthing was to be expected, but within measure, since the head of the department was watching her scientific experiment as well.

I am supposed to drink THAT?

No. Dangle your willy in it for a while. It may take care of the mushrooms you prolly have growing there.

Kommisar Triton, the one who was ordered to partner up with her, had no other choice but to laugh himself into pieces, while accidentally bumping into his mate's coffee, which ended up on the floor. Since then the game was set and everybody was ready to play it from their newly conquered positions. Triton and Kostowsky were now officially a team, they just had to make it work.

It took only two days before they started appreciating each other. As a result, they became the butt of many