The Ice Queen--A Novel by Nele Neuhaus

Author:Nele Neuhaus
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466836914
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Sunday, May 6

The ringing of the telephone next to her bed jolted Pia out of a sound sleep. It was pitch-dark and stuffy in the room. She pressed the switch on the bedside lamp and fumbled for the receiver.

“Where are you?” her ex-husband grumbled in her ear. “We’re waiting for you! You were the one who was in such a hurry for the autopsy results.”

“Henning, my God,” Pia muttered. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s quarter past nine,” he informed her. “Hurry up, please.”

He hung up. Pia squinted her eyes and looked at the alarm clock. He was right. Quarter past nine. She threw off the covers, jumped up, and staggered to the window. Last night, she must have pulled down the shades inadvertently, and that’s why her bedroom was as dark as the inside of a coffin. A quick shower put some life into her, but she still felt like she’d been run over by a bus.

The DA had granted authorization for an immediate autopsy to be performed on the corpse of Robert Watkowiak, although not until Pia had more or less talked him into it. She’d argued that the medications the victim had taken, either deliberately or accidentally, would decompose and no longer be detectable if they waited too long. Henning had not been happy when Pia called, begging him to do the autopsy the next day. To top it all off, when she’d finally gotten home a little after 9:00 P.M., she’d discovered that her two yearlings had broken out of the paddock and were sampling the unripe apples in Elisabethenhof, the next town. After a sweaty chase, she’d managed to get the two prodigals back in the stable and then staggered into the house, totally exhausted. She’d found only a past-due container of yogurt and half a Camembert in the refrigerator. The only bright spot had been a call from Christoph before she collapsed into bed like a dead woman. And now she had overslept and might miss the start of the autopsy. One look in her dresser drawer told her that her supply of fresh underwear had dwindled to nothing, so she hurried to stuff some dirty clothes in the washing machine. No time for breakfast, and the horses would have to stay in their stalls until she came back from Frankfurt. Tough.

It was almost ten when Pia showed up at the autopsy and once again ran into Löblich, who was representing the DA’s office. This time, the DA was wearing not a stylish suit, but jeans and an oversize T-shirt, which Pia easily identified as one of Henning’s. It wasn’t hard for Pia’s exhausted psyche to connect the dots.

“Now we can finally get started” was Henning’s only comment. All of a sudden, Pia felt like a stranger in this room where she and Henning had spent countless hours together. For the first time, she realized that there was no place for her in his life anymore. Sure, she was the one who had left him, and she had to accept it if he was now doing the same thing and looking for a new partner.

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