More Beer by Jakob Arjouni Read Free Book Online Page A

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. Düli, 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. Böllig 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?”
    Düli 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.”
    Düli 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 Böllig family?”
    “No.”
    “That’s all. Many thanks.”
    I got up and shook hands with them. Alf Düli 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 Böllig’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.
7
    I parked by the fence and walked over to number five. A wet wind swept down the street and struck my neck like a spray of cold water. Number five was a building from the fifties with a fluted glass door. I rang the bell and waited. Heinzel, Lechmann, and Schmidi. Heinzel and Lechmann and their two buddies were now behind bars, tending their relationship with their attorney Anastas. That left Schmidi, if he was home. The buzzer sounded, and I pushed the door open. Schmidi stood in a doorway, in T-shirt and underpants. He was overweight but not obese; still, his thighs certainly did not indicate a macrobiotic diet.
    I wished him a good evening, and he responded but did not budge from the door.
    “What’s up?”
    “Kayankaya. I work for Dr. Anastas.”
    He scratched his hairy belly and