Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four

After a proper tea, a little bowl of sugar-free muesli, and a shower, the next morning Martin was feeling fit enough to continue the investigation. I felt beat and was grumpy because I had no idea how to proceed. Dr. Strangelove and Il Papa were phantoms (actually I had wanted to say they were as hard to detect as cum stains on a shower curtain, but I’ve been making serious strides toward improving my language here) who turned up in stories, or who killed people but left no evidence you could trace back to them, but Martin was of an entirely different view.

“We have one clue as to where we have to go to search for the two of them,” Martin said.

“Where?” I replied in a huff.

“Where you stole the car,” he said with satisfaction.

“Great,” I said. “Then let’s stroll down to the Cologne Congress Centre that thousands of people go in and out of every day and ask whether Dr. Strangelove or Il Papa may have heard one of the numerous presentations or attended any seminars on that illustrious day.”

Martin could not be dissuaded by my bad mood.

“We’re going to find out what events were being held that day, and then we’ll decide what direction to go next.”

“And what direction would that be?” I asked.

“If there was a presentation for entrepreneurs, say, that might give us a clue about Dr. Strangelove,” Martin said. “We might even be able to find an employee who remembers an attendee with that unusual car.”

The idea wasn’t totally stupid, I had to admit. And the likelihood was not exactly remote that a pimply trainee banquet server would have found out about a rocket ship like our SLR being parked out in the lot. People always go and take a look at nice rides, and some pompous guy who works there will always know who it belongs to…Hmm, maybe we really were going to be able to find out the owner’s identity this way. The owner who presumably murdered me! I got hot and cold at the idea.

We ran back through all the details of the information we had about the two men in question: Dr. Strangelove had to be strange in some way, although we didn’t know if his name referred to how he looked or something else. He was an entrepreneur involved somehow in steel. He had several cars. He lived in Cologne, was a widower, and had two grown daughters, so he had to be at least forty, maybe even fifty or older.

Il Papa was married, stayed in Cologne only in a second apartment because he had business here. Maybe his nickname had to do with getting on in years. Maybe Semira christened him that just because he called her “my child” or something; we just didn’t know. Maybe he was Italian and an old fart and he called her “my child.” No idea. We’d have to keep our eyes and ears open. Vámonos.

On the way we were still thinking about what reason to give for asking about the events that had been held on the illustrious day, but after batting around a few ideas and not being able to agree on anything remotely believable, Martin ended the conversation with a wave of his hand.

“We’ll just act like it’s the most normal thing in the world to ask about past events, and we won’t give any reason.”

No sooner said than done—but it didn’t work.

“May I ask why you need this information?” the pretty receptionist asked in her pretty short-skirt suit with her pretty smile on her pretty face. Martin blinked stupidly at her.

“It has to do with an inquiry into a death,” he said after a brief moment. He whipped out his business card, held it out for the pretty little mouse to read, but pulled it away again when she reached for it.

“Shouldn’t the police be handling the investigation?” she asked cautiously.

“No problem,” Martin said with a friendly smile, looking only the tiniest bit pinched. “If you’d like to have the police come out, I can arrange that with a single phone call. We—that is, the investigative team I’m part of and I—were thinking it would be somewhat more discreet for you if I just popped in here quickly for the information. It was easy for me to stop by because you’re on my way to my next appointment, you see.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Um—wait a second,” she said.

She vanished into the office behind the counter and reappeared two minutes later with a few still-warm sheets of printer paper.

“Here you are.”

Martin briefly looked through the papers, tucked them into his pocket, nodded at her, and walked back to the trash can, which was parked around the corner. With a car like that you simply cannot park right in front of a convention center and not attract attention.

We got into the trash can and read through the printout. It’s positively dreadful what all topics people hold conventions on. “Feminizing the World Experience of Preschool and Elementary School Children” was a symposium with a panel discussion by some association of preschool teachers.

We didn’t expect either Dr. Strangelove or Il Papa to be among the preschool teachers. So we kept reading.

“ Traduttore, Traditore: Language Professionals’ Self-Conception between Taking Sides and Risking Lives.” Hmm. Translators, right? Maybe interpreters? We lacked both certitude and mutual agreement, but nonetheless the two of us shared a rather gloomy expectation of finding the friend we sought amid the illustrious world of polyglots. Although Il Papa did sound quite Italian…But we decided to keep looking for now.

“Germany as a Place for Business: Is Globalization Passing Us By?” Woo hoo, that sounded promising. Could our steel entrepreneur Dr. Strangelove be interested in globalization? Martin added a checkmark. Truly a systematic person. We continued through the list.

The “Annual Meeting of Speechwriters” didn’t inspire us, and with a snort Martin dismissed the “Christian Lifestyle League: Uncompromising Action in a Society in Moral Decline.”

“I actually do consider myself a Christian,” he said, “and I even dutifully pay my church tax. But if ‘uncompromising action’ means forgoing organ transplants or medically necessary procedures because they desecrate the inviolability of the person, to say nothing of wanting to ban forensic medicine to avoid disturbing the dead…”

He interrupted himself mid-sentence, which is not at all like him, and he gaped at the paper, which he was holding perfectly still as though he were playing jackstraws and feared losing if he so much as twitched.

“Have you turned into a pillar of salt there, speaking of being a good Christian?” I asked, proud that I was able to leverage one of the two stories from the Bible I know. The other is the one with the ark. I always liked that one a lot. Two of every sort, then everybody gets the boat rocking by screwing until the sun comes out. What a great image.

“Christian,” Martin whispered. Was he lost in some kind of religious trance? Or was he just engaged in some intense reflection? I couldn’t make out any supernatural waves, so I cleared my throat loud and clear.

No reaction.

“What now?” I asked after a while, hoping my words would get me further than coughing.

“Dr. Eilig,” Martin mumbled.

“No, Dr. Strangelove,” I said, correcting him. Was he getting all mixed up now, already?

“No,” he said. “There is a Bundestag representative whose name is Dr. Christian Eilig.”

“Ah ha,” I said. Active listening. We covered that before, remember?

“He’s against organ transplants, and lately he’s come out against autopsies, too,” Martin said.

“Rings a bell,” I said, because I vaguely recalled some discussion along those lines in the break room at the Institute.