Salzburg Crime Stories

Brigitte Lenz

Salzburg

Crime Stories

Three short crime stories in one book

Ebozon Publishing

Bibliographic information from the German National Library:

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

1^st edition October 2020

Copyright © 2020 by Ebozon Publishing

a brand of CONDURIS UG (haftungsbeschränkt)

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ISBN 978-3-95963-758-9 (PDF)

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ISBN 978-3-95963-757-2 (Mobipocket)

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A Stony Assistant

It was early morning and still tranquil in the narrow street of a Salzburg garden suburb. It was lined with well-kept homes.

It had rained the night before. You could feel the wind and smell the damp, rotting leaves in the wet grass – a scent of autumn.

The fallen leaves rustled in a garden with a wrought-iron gate.

Carlo, a tomcat who everybody in the neighborhood knew, crept through the grass. He was black and white, well-fed, and had a bushy tail.

Loudly hissing, he crept to the gate and squeezed under it, all the while furtively watching.

Something was wrong here. With his keen ears, he listened attentively in all directions. There was nothing to be heard.

He had not had his breakfast yet; his feet were wet from the grass – and now this!

Something was wrong…it was too quiet here…

He sat upright, his bushy tail wrapped around him.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise, shrill barking, ear-piercing yelping.

In the parklike garden of the house on the opposite side of the street, the schnauzer Rufus was howling and wildly running back and forth between a large biotope and a wide freestanding staircase that led to the door of the house.

Tomcat Carlo crept over the street to the fence of the large garden. Even more noise…the heavy door slammed shut…

“Spoiled dog! Have you gone mad? Are you feeling your oats? I have work to do! Stop it!”

A chubby elderly woman wearing an apron came running down the stairs. She gave a shrill scream! “O Holy Mary, help me!”

She was apparently a housekeeper. Arms upraised, she ran back up the stairs screaming, and the door slammed shut.

Outside the fence, the fat tomcat Carlo could finally see the key figures in this scene. For a long time, he stood there motionless, staring at the garden and the pond. His infallible intuition told him that there was a dead person there.

Police inspector Martin Buchholz slammed the car door shut and ran through the open garden gate to the biotope.

“Sorry for the slight delay, I spent nearly the whole night in the studio.”

His colleague Sandra Steiner brushed back her shoulder-length brown hair and rolled her eyes.

“Good morning!”

“Good morning, Picasso the Second”, said Dr. Hofbauer, the physician, a big man with sideburns.

“Two shots in the chest at close range; he died on the spot. Preliminary time of death – about nine in the evening. We’ll know more after the autopsy. Goodbye now.”

The deceased lay on the stone slabs surrounding the pond – a haven for water lilies and many other aquatic plants. He was a tall, thin man in a blue lounge suit. It was not a pretty sight; there was blood everywhere.

The forensic department had already arrived and started to work. They were a good team, but the rain the night before had probably washed away all the clues.

“My God!”, Buchholz cried suddenly and knelt next to the corpse.

“Do you know him? His name is Mark Vogel; he lives at Linzergasse 12. Keys, Wallet with money, driver’s license, credit card. Is he a friend of yours?”

“An acquaintance. A young musician…”

“The housekeeper found him because the dog wouldn’t stop barking”, Sandra said. “Yesterday she had a day off. She came back at six in the morning; it was dark, so she did not see the corpse right away. I think the crime took place where they found him. We didn’t find a murder weapon.”

The sun had emerged from the clouds and its reflection glowed in the pond. A scene of ethereal magnificence, Buchholz thought.

The wind drove through the large old trees on the other side of the pond, and the leaves swirled in the grass.

They laid the deceased in a coffin.

“I think the Hohenbergs are filthy rich. A two-story art nouveau mansion in a small park; they must have had a garden designer…”

“Good morning, inspector!”

Mrs. Hohenberg descended the stairs, enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke. She was wearing a dark red trouser suit with black, high-heeled shoes.

“I have taken a tranquilizer, but it doesn’t help me. He was so young!”

“Do you know the deceased?”

“Of course! He’s Mark Vogel, he played the piano at our New Year’s Eve party. He was a musician. Like so many of them, he didn’t have a real job.”

She stamped out the cigarette and lit a new one. Her hands were shaking.

“Where were you last evening?”

“I went to bed early and took a tranquilizer. My husband told me he had to go to his company. He hasn’t returned yet, and he doesn’t answer the phone.”

“Please come to police headquarters tomorrow. We need to file a report.”

Sandra said she would ask the neighbors if they had seen anything and made her way towards the entrance door of the mansion on the other side of the street. Tomcat Carlo was creeping around there. He meowed as if he wanted to tell her something.

Sandra took off her wet jacket. It had rained hard again that afternoon; the water was running down the windowpanes of the police headquarters.

“I’d like to know if that was genuine, or just feigned”, she said. “Susanne Altdorf had a hysterical attack – I wanted to call the emergency doctor.”

“You mean the reaction of Vogel’s girlfriend when they told her he was dead…. After all, she is an actress”, Buchholz said.

With her right hand, Sandra reached toward the coffee machine; with her left hand, she grabbed the chair.

“What did you find out?”

“Vogel had a bad relationship with his father. He told us it had to end that way. Mark studied music but had no job, no money, weird friends, took drugs and drank…”

“And his mother?”

“She died when he was ten. He didn’t get along with his stepmother.”HHw

“He was not to be envied”, said Ms. Feizelmeier, the secretary, whose hair was pinned and artfully knotted. She had a penchant for complicated hairstyles.

Sandra took a sip of coffee.

“Now I’ll tell you what I’ve found out: Last evening Susanne Altdorf and Vogel went to the ‘Kleine Nachtmusik’, a trendy pub in the Judengasse. They left at about eight in the evening. Vogel drove her home, saying he had an appointment with Hohenberg in his mansion.”

Buchholz pricked up her ears.

“Mr. Hohenberg is coming to headquarters today. We think he’s a drug lord. Our colleagues have been keeping their sights on him for a long time now.”

“By the way, what about your little girlfriend and her tomcat?”, Sandra asked.

“Nonsense, she’s not my little girlfriend! Do you really think I have nothing more to do than to get involved with an 18-year-old drug addict after my failed marriage? The tomcat belongs to my mother. Eva often takes care of him – animal therapy, so to speak.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bonifaz.”

There was a knock and an officer in uniform announced Mr. Hohenberg. A very thin, tall, balding man made his appearance.

“I’m truly shocked”, he began.

“Please take a seat and answer our questions”, Buchholz commanded.

“Where were you last evening between eight and ten o’clock?”

“When I left the ‘Kleine Nachtmusik’, I drove to my girlfriend, Ms. Moser, and spent the night there. Schwarzstraße 17. Do you have to tell my wife?”

“Yes, we do”, said Buchholz. “This is a murder case.”

“I am done for. A corpse in my garden, someone I know! My wife took sleeping pills and forgot to lock the garden gate. That wasn’t the first time. The housekeeper was off work on the first of October and came back on the morning of October the second.”

“In her police statement”, Sandra interrupted, “the victim’s girlfriend maintained that Vogel had an appointment with you in your mansion yesterday evening. Both of them were also in the ‘Kleine Nachtmusik’.”

“Yes, and as usual they quarreled. Susi is insanely jealous and makes…made his life a living hell. He probably told her he had to meet me so he could get away from her. I didn’t have an appointment with him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hohenberg, that will be all for now.”

“We’ll see him again soon”, Buchholz said. “I feel that. Anyway, I’m going to the ‘Kleine Nachtmusik’ this evening.”

I think Bonifaz will be there with his mistress.”

“Of course; Bonifaz has a cat basket that can be locked.”

“I imagine that your Eva also had a dismal childhood.”

“She is not my Eva, but you’re right about her family. We don’t know who her father is, her mother is an alcoholic; she stayed in a home for a while. Once she even mentioned something about abuse, but only briefly.”

“You studied sociology. That might prove to be helpful. Good luck!”

“Goodbye, till tomorrow”, Buchholz said.

“Maybe Sandra’s right. Perhaps I really am a little in love with that girl”, Buchholz thought to himself. “She is very attractive, and I’m too sensitive, I have too much compassion for others.”

The trendy Salzburg pub “Kleine Nachtmusik“ was bustling.

Everything seemed somewhat old-fashioned there – the furnishings, the note sheets, a portrait of Mozart…

Buchholz had to get used to the loud babble of voices.

“Lore, I have to talk to you”, he said to the young waitress who was balancing a tablet with drinks.

“A small round table is still free back there, next to the wall. I’ll come right away.”

“I remember yesterday evening exactly”, Lore said a little later. There was a birthday party. Vogel was there with his girlfriend; they quarreled the whole time. Hohenberg was also there with a colleague. He owns the Ascor Company – microchips! He’s as rich as Scrooge McDuck – rolling in money! I think the other guy was a manager or something like that. At eight, when they shoved the tables together for the birthday party, Hohenberg and that other guy had already left. The beer is coming right away.”