Free Poachers Road by John Brady Page A

there’d be no wallpaper, retro chic or not.
    He pretended to be drowsy then, but still his thoughts played on, roaming farther, sharpening, and leading him back again to the woods above that farm. No longer were those meadows and trees just a background, like a mental postcard, typical sights you knew as far back as you could remember and just took for granted. Was it the shock of coming on those two, or did everything change when you were a cop? Nothing could go back to the way it was.
    He wondered about the Himmelfarbs. The boy the giant, he should start calling him might not leave the house for weeks now.
    He remembered Himmelfarb muttering, and Gebhart’s ways of trying to calm him. Ausländers, he had said, with some vehemence that Gebi had taken to be panic. Had he said something about gypsies too, or was Felix imagining that? But many people that age, especially the likes of the Himmelfarbs who’d lived up in God’s country all their lives, would have mental furniture like that. It was no secret.
    Felix moved his gaze to the ceiling. That didn’t help. The grey there became a screen for the images that swirled into his mind. He saw again the forensic team stooping, with those funny-looking white suits that almost glowed white against the trees, the camera flashes, the detective talking into a recorder of some kind. The big move had happened very late in the afternoon, getting the bodies into bags and carrying them to the wagon.They had not been asked to help. He had looked away. Gebhart, he knew, had not.
    So why, Felix wondered, was he thinking of his own father now? Maybe it had been the memorial yesterday, or the photo of the roadside taferl the Association had built for their fellow officer. As his eyes moved about the ceiling, he remembered this man who was his father coming into the kitchen after his shift, proud to wear his uniform home, and smelling a little of what he’d later know was a liqueur brandy. He’d tickle and then grab him, and soon he’d have Felix doing “the plane,” spinning at arm’s-length, the big hands on his ankles like a vice. Laughing, but being a bit scared too, the room flying by him.

NINE
    “Y OU SLEPT AT ALL ?”
    Felix wondered if he should surprise Gebi by telling him that young guys always slept well because they got laid.
    “Medium,” he said.
    Gebhart came over with a sheaf of papers. He separated them, and laid them out on the counter next to the armoury safe.
    “Come here.You’re involved here, okay.”
    Felix saw the first was a print out of the statements he’d filed on the computer last night. Another was a list of the changes for the court appearance of the burglary gang they’d caught up to back after Christmas. There were lists of the grundschules for the public safety visits.
    Gebhart tapped his finger on the list of schools.
    “This will be a decent change today. You’ll get a giggle out of this anyway,” he said. “The small kids actually will put up their hands to ask your permission to go ludeln.You better be wide awake for that. Actually, I learned you should ask the teacher if the kids have been to the klo first.”
    “What, they get agitated or something?”
    “Too true they do. They get scared some of them. They’ll stare at you.You’ll be taking reflective armbands or something, but they’ll be staring at you like you’re God, not hearing a word you say.”
    “As if they ever do,” said Korschak from the far side of the cabinets.
    “Fred,” Gebhart called out. “You have the biggest ears. I’m going to miss them.”
    Felix looked down the list. He didn’t recognize any of the teachers’ names.
    “The rumours will be flying today, I tell you,” Gebhart said, and nodded toward Schroek’s office. Felix looked up from the list.
    Gebhart had a printout of notes from yesterday.
    “You heard Himmelfarb?” Gebhart went on, scanning the paragraphs. “He went though the whole list, I think. Did he actually say Russians at one