Free Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus Page A

and he pressed his lips together to a tight line. Then he carelessly tossed the paint roller into the paint can and went to the gate of the farmyard. The detectives exchanged a brief glance and followed him. The yard looked like a rubbish heap. Suddenly Oliver uttered a suppressed cry and abruptly stopped. Pia turned to her boss.
    “What is it?” she asked in astonishment.
    “A rat!” Oliver gasped. He had turned white as chalk. “The thing ran right over my foot!”
    “No wonder, with all the filth in here.” Pia shrugged and wanted to keep going, but Oliver stood there like a pillar of salt.
    “I hate rats more than anything,” he said, his voice quavering.
    “But you grew up on a farm,” Pia countered. “There must have been an occasional rat there.”
    “That’s exactly why.”
    Pia shook her head in disbelief. She never would have thought her boss would have such a phobia.
    “Come on,” she said. “They’ll run away when they see us. Garbage rats are shy. My girlfriend used to have two tame rats. But that was different. We used to—”
    “I don’t want to hear it!” Oliver took a deep breath. “You go first.”
    “Okay, okay, no problem.” Pia smirked as Oliver followed on her heels. Ready to flee at any moment, he suspiciously eyed the heaps of trash on both sides of the narrow path that led to the house.
    “Yikes, there’s another one! And a fat one at that,” said Pia, stopping short. Oliver ran into her and looked around in a panic. His usual composure was gone.
    “Just kidding,” Pia said with a grin, but Oliver didn’t see anything to laugh about.
    “You do that again and you’ll be walking home,” he threatened. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
    They moved on. Tobias Sartorius had gone inside, but the front door was standing open. Oliver caught up with Pia at the stairs and climbed the three steps to the door like a hiker relieved to have solid ground underfoot after slogging through a swamp. An elderly man with stooped shoulders appeared in the doorway. He was wearing worn-out slippers, stained gray pants, and a threadbare knit cardigan that hung loose around his skinny body.
    “Are you Hartmut Sartorius?” asked Pia, and the man nodded. He seemed just as run-down as his farm. Deep furrows were etched into his long, narrow face, and the only similarity with Tobias was his unusually blue eyes, although they had lost all brightness.
    “My son tells me it’s about my ex-wife.” His voice was feeble.
    “Yes,” said Pia with a nod. “She had a serious accident yesterday.”
    “Please come in.” He led them down a narrow, dim hall into a kitchen that could have been cozy if it weren’t so dirty. Tobias stood by the window with his arms crossed.
    “Dr. Lauterbach gave us your address,” Bodenstein began. He had rapidly regained his composure. “According to witnesses, late yesterday afternoon your ex-wife was shoved over the railing of the pedestrian bridge at the Sulzbach North S-Bahn station, directly into the path of an oncoming car.”
    “Good Lord.” All color drained out of the older man’s gaunt face, and he grabbed for the back of a chair. “But … but who would do such a thing?”
    “That’s what we want to find out,” said Bodenstein.”Do you have any idea who might have done this? Did your ex-wife have any enemies?”
    “My mother didn’t,” said Tobias Sartorius from the background. “But I do. Just about everybody in this damned town hates me.”
    His voice sounded bitter.
    “Do you have anyone particular in mind?” asked Kirchhoff.
    “No,” Hartmut Sartorius replied quickly. “No, I don’t believe anyone would be capable of something so terrible.”
    Pia’s gaze fell on Tobias Sartorius, who was still standing by the window. With the backlight she couldn’t really see his expression, but from the way his eyebrows raised and his mouth twisted she could tell that he disagreed with his father. Pia could almost feel the angry vibes