Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four

“I already knew that before I stopped by your lot,” Martin said, correcting him.

“And where do you know all of this from?” Olli asked.

Martin wrestled with himself. Should he tell him that he had contact with my immortal soul? He decided to tell the truth because he couldn’t think of a suitable lie. That is pretty much the most dim-witted reason for telling the truth, but my own creativity was totally hamstrung by this special situation, so I couldn’t blame him.

Olli reacted as expected. In an already-quivering voice he asked, “Is that really true? Like Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost ?”

Martin nodded.

And then the tears started flowing from Olli’s eyes again, his double chin jiggled, and the entire man started losing it.

This was presumably our last chance!

“Take off,” I urged Martin. “Fast, while he’s still distracted.”

Martin didn’t want to. He wanted answers—all of them. He was acting as calmly and rationally as he does in his autopsy room, examining a body for as long as it takes to definitively find the cause of the death. He was welcome to do that normally, of course, but here his doggedness was inappropriate and imperiling his life. I begged and pleaded, for naught. He seemed unable to perceive me at all, he was so focused on solving the various deaths and blackmailings.

“You could have blackmailed Dr. Eilig without killing Pascha,” Martin suggested.

“I did not murder that little shit,” Olli sniffled, blowing his nose. He was pulling himself together. We missed our chance.

In view of this new information, Martin thought briefly but single-mindedly about the case, and then came to a realization: “Then Semira’s brother killed Pascha?”

Olli grew pale as the wall. “You know her name?”

“Of course,” Martin said. “Semira’s brother actually came to the Institute to have her body transported back home. He had her papers with him.”

“Semiiira,” Olli wailed, and started weeping again.

Martin stared at him in disbelief, but then we both simultaneously remembered what Semira’s neighbor had told us. She mentioned a man who came to visit Semira. A fat man with fat cars. Olli!

“You were Semira’s pimp,” Martin said.

Olli shook his head. “Agent,” he mumbled.

“Did Semira’s brother know how his sister was earning her money?” Martin asked.

“Of course not,” Olli cried. “He would have killed her. And then me right afterward.”

“How did her brother find out Semira was dead?” Martin asked.

Olli dropped back onto a ledge on the wall, drained and limp. “I obviously took a picture of the body in the trunk because I couldn’t let Eilig get away with it,” he began. “But Sjubek discovered the photo.”

“And?” Martin asked.

“And, what? He obviously wanted revenge, to kill the guy who killed his sister,” Olli said as though he kept having to explain to a child that you spread jam on your bread, not on your hands.

“And you of course didn’t want Sjubek to kill Dr. Eilig,” Martin said smugly.

Fortunately Olli didn’t have a feel for such nuances at the moment, otherwise he’d probably have felt provoked. “Of course not,” Olli said. “I wanted to blackmail the guy, right? And dead people don’t pay. Make sense?”

Martin nodded. I could feel that Martin was starting to seriously doubt his own mental health. Here he was standing in an industrial wasteland across from a rotund car smuggler who was explaining to him how much sense it makes to prevent a murder—not for humanitarian reasons but to blackmail the potential murder victim. Martin was wondering who here was normal and who was nuts.

“I still don’t understand why Pascha had to die,” Martin said after he thought his way back to me.

“Sjubek was out of his mind. He had to avenge his sister’s death, and he needed a scapegoat.”

“But his sister actually died from an allergy to hazelnuts,” Martin said.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Olli said dismissively. “Anyway, I put it into Sjubek’s head that Pascha felt guilty about offing his sister. That’s how I kept Sjubek busy: he got to act on his thoughts of vengeance, and Pascha couldn’t get in my way anymore. I assumed Pascha knew there was a body in the trunk; he would have come up with the idea of blackmailing the guy as well.”

“How convenient,” Martin said. “Killing two pesky birds with one stone…”

“Shit,” I said. “I would never have come up with the blackmailing idea, not even in my wildest dreams.”

None of us said anything for a moment.

“And why did Sjubek have to die?” Martin asked.

“That idiot was making a big fuss because we let his sister’s body go missing,” Olli said. “He absolutely wanted to give her a proper funeral.”

Martin nodded; even I could understand that. But not Olli, apparently.

“When the body turned up again, because that brain-dead Kevin just wrapped it and dumped it somewhere instead of burying it, Sjubek went to the cops so he could transport Semira back home, even though he didn’t have proper immigration papers. He was even risking a visit to the pen and deportation just for Semira’s funeral.”

“And then at the Institute he found out his sister hadn’t been killed after all?” Martin guessed.

Olli nodded. “He came to me and wanted an explanation.”

“And then you killed him.”

“Of course.”

This was all very interesting, but in the meantime even our naïve little Martin had to have realized that he was standing opposite a man who had committed multiple murders, who was confessing all of his foul deeds down to the last detail—and that it was high time to end this amicable conversation and bail!

Happily, the same thought finally occurred to Martin. He took an awkward step backward.

“Just a moment,” Olli said. “The attaché case.”

Martin handed it to Olli, who took it with his left hand.

In a lightning-fast motion I wouldn’t have thought him capable of, Olli suddenly shot his right arm forward. For a fraction of a second I could see the glint of the cold steel, then it sunk into Martin’s duffle coat fairly accurately, right where his heart should have been.

Olli slowly shook his thick head. “I’m really sorry, man, but you know way too much.”

Martin stared at fat Olli, surprised.

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend, too,” Olli said. “But, you know. At least she got her BMW back.” He sounded like he meant it.

Martin staggered, then he grabbed the left side of his chest and collapsed. I was speechless, aghast, horrified. Even I hadn’t expected this. I’d never seen Olli with a weapon. Car smugglers are in principle friendlier sorts of criminals.

As though through a thick fog I could see Olli pick up the case with the money and turn to go. Then he stopped, slipped a thick signet ring with a striking black stone off his pinkie and stuck it into Martin’s pants pocket, then disappeared through the derelict building he had just emerged from.

Martin stayed behind—in the middle of the night, in a shady location, with a flashy ring that didn’t belong to him, and a life-threatening injury.

I hovered close over Martin, trying to get hold of his thoughts, and I found myself suddenly confronted with an incorporeal soul floating over Martin at the same altitude as I was. Martin!

“Hey, get out of here!” I yelled. “Get back into your body!”

“Oh, but it’s so calm and peaceful here,” Martin’s ghost slowly said. “Down there is nothing but pain and suffering.”

“Enough of this horseshit—go back!” I bellowed at him. “You can take that tiny bit of pain!”

As Olli disappeared with his cash and the sound of a fat engine revving up pealed through the abandoned site, Martin’s soul and I furtively watched each other like two gamecocks, although I was the only one actually acting aggressively. Martin’s soul was acting solemn and placid. I didn’t know how this trial of strength would have turned out if at that very moment a voice hadn’t bellowed out from a megaphone.