Private Berlin (Private 5)

Stranger still, Ilse had gone straight to her room and called her sister in Berlin, which was very unusual. According to Tina Hanover, Ilona Frei was the bane of Ilse’s existence. Ilona was a methadone addict who’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia. She’d been in and out of institutions and was forever hounding her sister for money.

“How did you know Ilse called Ilona?” Burkhart asked.

Tina Hanover blushed and squirmed in her chair. “I…uh…” She turned defensive. “I listened at her door. She was so upset, I couldn’t help it.”

“What did she tell her sister?” Mattie asked.

Ilse Frei’s roommate fidgeted again before replying, “I didn’t catch all of it because the doors are pretty thick. But I caught the gist of it. She’d recognized someone from their past. She called him Falk and seemed terrified. I mean absolutely terrified of him.”

“Falk?” Burkhart said. “Are you sure?”

Tina Hanover nodded and Mattie looked at Burkhart, puzzled.

He said, “The man who ran the slaughterhouse was named Falk.”

“But he couldn’t…” Mattie said, and then she remembered. “He had a son.”

“He had a son,” Burkhart said, nodding.

For the first time since she’d gotten word of Chris’s disappearance, Mattie believed they were homing in on the killer. “Did you tell Chris all this?”

Tina Hanover nodded. “He seemed to know who Falk was.”

“What did he say?” Mattie pressed.

“Say? Nothing. But you could see it in his body language. He knew him.”

There was a moment of silence in the room before Burkhart said, “So where did Chris go from here? Ilse’s law firm?”

“The law firm?” Tina Hanover said, surprised. “No.”

“But you said she recognized Falk at work,” Mattie said, confused. “Was Falk a client at the firm? Someone she saw at the courthouse?”

“No, no,” she protested, her face flushing. “Ilse…she…”

She got defensive again. “Ilse stopped working at the law firm eighteen months ago when she found out she could make more money in half the time working at the Paradise FKK club north of town. She was a licensed, professional sex worker.”

CHAPTER 78

THE PARADISE FKK club was situated amid agricultural fields on ten manicured acres north of Bad Homburg. Trees and a white wall surrounded the compound. Despite the dismal weather there were fifteen or twenty high-end cars parked in the lot and taxis were traveling to and fro.

Mattie and Burkhart walked on a cement path past gardens appointed with pale Grecian statues of naked men and women in erotic poses. They came to a white building with columns that supported a portico over a grand entryway.

“A little over the top, don’t you think?” Mattie cracked uncomfortably as two men leaving the building walked by, staring at her.

“I told you to stay in the car,” Burkhart replied.

Mattie’s cell phone rang and she answered it.

“You stole a car?” Katharina Doruk shouted in her ear.

Mattie cringed and held the cell at arm’s length a second before replying, “We were chasing Chris’s killer. He was getting away.”

“You’re not the police!” Katharina shouted. “You don’t have the right to commandeer vehicles! Frankfurt Kripo is going ape-shit. You’re wanted for questioning and—”

Mattie turned off her phone. “I’ll deal with her later.”

“When she’s calmer,” Burkhart agreed.