Free Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus

Lauterbach. Pia had a hard time concentrating. She was still worried about the letter from the zoning office. Demolition order! That was the last thing she had expected. What if the city was serious and forced her to have the house torn down? Where would she and Christoph live then?
    “Are you listening to me at all?” asked Oliver.
    “Sure,” said Pia. “Sartorius. Neighbor. Altenhain. I’m sorry, but we didn’t get home till four in the morning.”
    She yawned and closed her eyes. She was dead tired. Unfortunately she didn’t possess Oliver’s iron constitution. He never seemed the least bit tired even after all-night stakeouts and exhausting investigations. Had she ever seen him yawn?
    “The case was all over the headlines eleven years ago,” she could hear her boss saying. “Tobias Sartorius got a maximum sentence for one count of murder and one count of manslaughter after a trial based solely on circumstantial evidence.”
    “Ah yes,” she murmured. “Now I remember. Double homicide with no bodies. Is the guy still in prison?”
    “No. Tobias Sartorius was released last Thursday. And he’s back in Altenhain, staying with his father.”
    Pia thought about this for a few seconds, then opened her eyes.
    “You mean there could be a connection between his release and the attack on his mother?”
    Bodenstein cast an amused glance at her. “Unbelievable,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Your shrewd insight never fails even when you’re half asleep.”
    “I’m wide awake,” said Pia, fighting off another yawn.
    They passed the sign at the town limits of Altenhain and found the address on the main street that Dr. Lauterbach had written down. Bodenstein turned into the unpaved parking area in front of the former restaurant. A man was busy applying white paint to cover up some bright red graffiti on the façade. It said HERE LIVES A RUTHLESS KILLER . The red letters still shimmered through the white paint. On the sidewalk near the driveway stood three middle-aged women.
    “You murderer!” Bodenstein and Kirchhoff heard one of them yell as they opened the car doors to climb out. “Get out of this town, you piece of crap! Or you’ll be in for it!”
    She spat on the ground.
    “What’s going on here?” Bodenstein asked, but the three women paid no attention to him and simply walked away. The man had totally ignored the taunts. Bodenstein greeted him politely and introduced himself and Kirchhoff.
    “Why were those women yelling at you?” Pia asked with curiosity.
    “You’d better ask them,” the man said brusquely. He gave her an indifferent look and went on with his work. Despite the cold he wore only a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, jeans, and work boots.
    “We’d like to speak with Mr. Sartorius.”
    Then the man turned around, and Pia thought she recognized him.
    “Weren’t you at Mrs. Cramer’s apartment building in Neuenhain yesterday?” she asked. If the man was surprised, he didn’t show it. He stared at her with his extraordinary sea-blue eyes, without smiling, and she felt suddenly flushed.
    “Yes, that’s right. Is there something wrong with that?”
    “No, of course not. But what were you doing there?”
    “Visiting my mother. We had agreed to meet at a certain time, but she never showed up. I was worried.”
    “Oh, so you must be Tobias Sartorius.”
    He raised his eyebrows and his lips twitched derisively.
    “Yes, that’s me. The killer of young girls.”
    He was quite attractive in an unsettling way. The narrow white scar that ran from his left ear to his chin made a well-chiseled face more interesting instead of disfiguring it. Something in the way he looked at her prompted a strange feeling in Pia, and she wondered what might be the cause.
    “Your mother had a serious accident yesterday afternoon,” Bodenstein said. “She was operated on last night and is now in intensive care. She’s in critical condition.”
    Pia saw how Tobias Sartorius’s nostrils flared for a moment,