Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four

“You are surrounded, resistance is futile!”

Had those dopes been struck completely blind? I thought. There’s a guy lying here in the mud slowly but surely bleeding to death, and these idiots are talking about resistance!

“He’s dead,” one of the policemen said as he approached, shooter drawn.

“He is not dead!” I roared as loud as I could. “Get the paramedics over here!”

They were already on the way, but those two minutes until they arrived felt like an eternity to me. They got a bag of blood set up and flowing into Martin right away, and I was able to talk his little soul into at least staying close by his body and not taking the direct route to heaven. The cops waited until Martin had been carried off, half-dead. Then the forensic squad arrived, and the whole shebang that would last for hours began.

From the various conversations among the police I learned that the cops had been sent to the site by a traumatized dog owner who, while out for a walk, had unwittingly been witness to a stabbing. Martin was taken under police escort with his life-threatening injury to the hospital where emergency surgery would hopefully avoid his delivery as a corpse to the morgue. A mysterious ring was in his pocket, which Olli had certainly not deposited there as a memento of a pleasant evening.

I came down on myself hard. I was the only reason that Martin had gotten stuck in this situation, and I was the only reason he had lost his girlfriend and his reputation—and maybe even his life. This couldn’t be happening!

I couldn’t do anything to save his life. And maybe I couldn’t do anything about his girlfriend, either, but I could at least try to save his reputation. After all, apart from Martin I was the only good guy left who knew the whole story. And I had to tell the story somehow, because Martin couldn’t talk, and even if he could no one would have believed him. The only question was to whom and how should I recount the events of the past two weeks. Except for Martin I still hadn’t found anyone who could hear me. But I’d have to come up with something—that much was clear. I owed him that.

I zoomed faster than a jet back over to the Institute, because I was hoping people there had heard about the events and I could get some news. But it still took a few hours before Katrin came running distraught into the break room, yelling, “Martin was stabbed and is in surgery in critical condition! The police had him under surveillance.”

Awesome, he wasn’t dead yet—that was my first piece of good news all day. Katrin continued by saying they were currently looking for the man who had tried to kill him. Everyone was shocked. No one could imagine Martin being involved in any kind of crime. On the other hand, everyone at the Institute had noticed how weirdly he’d been acting the past few days. People had been doubting Martin’s innocence more and more, but now suddenly people’s suspicions also started sticking to him like dog shit to treaded soles. Martin couldn’t defend himself. It made me sick.

I felt like being close to Martin again, so I slunk over to his desk, where I stared into space in gloom.

“Assholes,” I mumbled.

The screen flickered on, and the word “assholes” appeared.

I couldn’t believe it. One look confirmed my hope: before Martin left the office on forced leave, he had left his computer just as it was. With his dictation software ready to go and his cordless headset activated. Apparently no one had checked whether his power guzzler here had been turned off or was just on standby. Hallelujah!

I tried it again: “…are what you call everyone who doesn’t believe Martin.”

Now I had a plan. I floated in front of the screen, close enough to be able to read well, and I started dictating: “I hope you’ll read this account from top to bottom…”

That was about twenty-four hours ago. I dictated for twenty hours, with little breaks here and there. Now I’ve been hanging around here for four hours hoping that someone would finally look at this screen. I cursed the way everyone’s cubicles were organized, because Martin’s desk was the last one back by the wall with a view out over the whole room, meaning that you could see his screen only if you were standing back by the wall.

In the meantime I’ve learned that Martin is alive and on the road to a full recovery. He’s not allowed to have any visitors, and no one has any idea yet what kind of business he’d gotten mixed up with, but the signet ring that has since been identified as the property of the murdered Moldovan is casting an extremely negative light on him. There are rumors that an arrest warrant is about to be issued for Martin for the murder of Semira’s brother.

The mood in the office is depressed, and so far everyone has stayed clear of Martin’s desk. I can only hope that will change soon. I keep writing an extra sentence once in a while so that the power-saving mode doesn’t turn off the screen, because otherwise no one will ever see what I’ve written here.

I’m slowly getting nervous. What if no one…Ooh, here comes someone, exactly the right person. Yes, yes! Come over this way! Farther, past the other desks, back here to the last desk, to Martin’s desk, yes! And now look at the screen!

HELLO KATRIN!!!

From a strictly chronological perspective my first word of thanks goes to my elementary school teacher Helene Grimm, who in 1977 wrote in my friendship book: Übermut tut auch mal gut (“It does you good to be cocky sometimes, too”). I’ve stuck to that advice ever since.

From a more current perspective my thanks must go to Dr. Frank Glenewinkel, my contact in the world of forensic medicine. He not only answered all my questions with patience, but—neither intentionally nor consciously—he also gave me the idea for this book. Anyone who gives a talk in front of a group of women authors simply has to be prepared for anything…

But the ultimate megathanks are due to my editor Karoline Adler, who for years has harbored an unshakable faith in our shared future. Without her I would never have made writing my profession and this book may never have come to be.

Jutta Profijt was born in 1967 in Ratingen, Germany. After finishing school, she lived abroad working as an au pair, an importer/exporter, a coach to executives and students, and a business English instructor. She published her first novel in 2003 and today works as a freelance writer and translator. Her first novel featuring coroner Martin Gänsewein, Morgue Drawer Four, was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.

Erik J. Macki worked as a cherry-orchard tour guide, copy editor, Web developer, and German and French teacher before settling into his translation career—probably an inevitable choice, as he has collected foreign-language grammars, dictionaries, and language-learning books since childhood and to this day is not above diagramming sentences when duty so calls. A former resident of Cologne and Münster, Germany, and of Tours, France, he did his graduate work in Germanics and comparative syntax. He now translates books for adults and children as well as nonfiction material from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his family and their black Lab, Zephyr.