The Zig-Zag Man by Marvin H. Albert

Author:Marvin H. Albert [Albert, Marvin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-04-09T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

By the time I’d taken Arlette back to her office and driven across the Italian border on my way to Genoa, Fritz Donhoff’s Lufthansa flight from Paris had landed him at Hamburg’s airport. He rented a car there and drove north into Schleswig-Holstein, the German part of the long peninsula that separates the North Sea from the Baltic—which Germany calls the Ostsee. Fritz took the number seven autobahn most of the way to Kiel, situated halfway between Hamburg and the narrowest point of the peninsula, where it becomes Danish Jutland.

The countryside he drove through stayed lovely without ever becoming spectacular. Flat farmlands and pastures grazed by innumerable cows. Patches of woodland and a lot of water from the seas on both sides. Rivers, streams, lakes, and low-banked fjords. Small, pretty towns that were quite old but so spotlessly clean they looked like Disney replicas. None of the stores in these towns were open. Because, although it was still bright daylight, it was a little past six o’clock in the evening. By law, no more shopping would be available until next morning.

Except at gas stations. There you could buy items like cigarettes, packaged foods, magazines, and even toys and socks. The strict early-closing law made an exception for gas stations. In a country where the export of cars accounted for a sizable portion of the national income, and where people saved their money, with a determination that verged on obsession, to rise from the humbling ownership of a Volkswagen to the prestige of a Mercedes, the automobile was king, and those who served it shared in its majesty.

Government offices adhere to the regulation of the general closing hour. But Fritz’s Interpol friend had arranged the appointment for him, by phone, and had made it a high-priority request. The man Fritz was to meet—Franz Regnault, an attorney who’d been a high official with the Schleswig-Holstein police for over a decade—had agreed to wait for him after hours, with the dossier on the Helen Marsh kidnapping case.

But when Fritz arrived at the closed ministry, there was no one in sight who looked like an attorney serving in an important government position. Germans do tend to match their dress and manner to their rank. Fritz went up the steps to a uniformed policeman on guard outside the entrance. The cop was young, with a big, strong build and intelligent, observant eyes. It struck Fritz that he himself had looked much like that when he’d been a young cop. He experienced a twinge of nostalgia as he explained about his appointment there.

“Herr Doktor Regnault instructed me to sincerely apologize to you for him,” the cop said, stiffening to attention. Anyone rating a sincere apology from Herr Doktor Regnault was clearly someone to be treated with respect. “His son became ill. He had to pick up his wife and hurry off to his son’s home.”

He gave Fritz a slip of paper with an address on it. “Herr Doktor Regnault regrets the inconvenience, but he asks if it is possible for you to meet him there.

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