The Mansion (Detective Olaf Bauer) by Nick Buckets

Author:Nick Buckets [Buckets, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

THE NEXT MORNING, THE SUN HAD just appeared over the horizon when a gray sedan pulled into the parking lot. Olaf sipped his coffee and watched the driver guide the car into the spot designated for employees. A middle-aged woman stepped out. Short blond hair, square glasses, and a look of annoyance at his presence.

“We don’t open to the public until nine,” she said.

“Good morning to you too,” Olaf said, holding his badge for the woman to see. “Just show me the way and I’ll stay out of your hair.”

The woman rolled her eyes and began unlocking the front door. “That’s what they all say.”

She led him to a desk with a computer. “The system is intuitive, and all you really need is the search function. You can look up dates, names, and places, and optionally, the type of items to find. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, write the item identifiers and call me. Everything clear?”

Olaf responded with a salute gesture and got down to work.

The information they had about the Mansion was a mixed bag of the dry, financial elements the real estate company provided and Sommer’s personal memories. In other words, they knew next to nothing about it. Last night’s events begged for an explanation, so Olaf headed to the one place that should hold more info. The city archives.

The database system turned out to be less efficient than what the woman advertised, returning several results irrelevant to the Mansion. It was only after he added the building’s address to the query that he started getting useful hits.

The first mention of the Mansion was in an article from an esoteric magazine published in the early nineties. “Ten under ten,” the headline read, and the columnist went on listing ten haunted places in Berlin where you couldn’t last over ten minutes. The Mansion made the list, but the article didn’t provide any obvious reasons. It just talked about the building’s dark atmosphere and haunted past.

The second hit was a newspaper article about the recent murder of the couple who had moved to Berlin and bought the house to live in. The journalist briefly mentioned the Mansion’s history, but again, the article provided no actual information.

Olaf scanned the short list of results, each more disappointing than the last. Several people were aware of the Mansion, writing and talking about it, but no one seemed to have a clue exactly what had happened there. It reflected Sommer’s take on it. Everyone knew about the house and its dark past, with rumors spreading like wildfire and turning it into an urban legend. But the building’s true history remained hidden.

“Unhappy with the system?” the woman asked from behind him. “That’s not a reason to slam the desk.”

“Your system works, but the results aren’t what I hoped for.” He sighed. “I feel like I’m chasing ghosts, anyway.”

“Then maybe that’s exactly what you should look for,” she said, and went on her way.

Olaf watched her turn on the other computers and set up the desks for visitors.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.