Chapter 6: Mistakes

Marcus: Motherfucker shot me in the ass, man.
Mike: Who shot you in the ass?
Marcus: Who? That 'Who' would be you.
Mike: Me? I shot you? I mean, I was shooting. I did a lot of shooting. But I'm not saying I shot you in the ass ... but I'm not saying I didn't shoot you...
Mike: But damn! Somebody shot you in the ass!
Marcus: Tell me about it.
-- Bad Boys II (2003 Movie)

Friday, July 22 2011
Munich, Germany

The last evening, Rebecca and Daniel had not talked much at all; they just went to sleep as far apart as was possible under the bridge. Even though, Daniel was fascinated by the girl. She seemed to send so many mixed signals. Sometimes she seemed so strong, then again vulnerable. Sometimes she seemed happy and upbeat, and then her eyes showed a deep sadness. He wanted to know more about the complex homeless girl who sold sleeping places under bridges.

Daniel was back in his rhythm and woke up at 6:17 am. He spent a few minutes just watching the girl sleep, and then decided he needed to go jogging. It would help against the stress, and he needed to do some reconnaissance of the area in case the meeting later in the day went wrong. He had no running clothes, so he went in the street clothes he had worn yesterday and overnight. He put that on the top of the list of things to organize once he got settled somewhere. Hopefully he would have the chance to find somewhere to live for a few days, later in the day.

It was almost an hour later when he returned. Grinning, he saw that his landlord was still asleep. It was an opportunity to get the sweat of his body, so he went down to the river, got naked and went in. He had just reached out to his soap when he heard her voice calling out.

"No soap allowed in this bathroom! It's bad for the river!"

"Err, alright. You're the boss. And a good morning to you, too!" he shouted back.

Couldn't she have waited to wake up until he got his clothes back on? Oh well, he would never see her again, so what. He washed himself as well as he could without soap, then walked out of the river, dried himself and put on a new set of clothes.

"My name is Daniel, by the way" he told her as he went up to her.

"That's nice," she said. He thought that was all she would say until, after at least ten seconds, she said a short "Rebecca."

"It's nice to meet you, Rebecca. So, what are you doing here if I may ask?"

"I'm living here. And you may ask but you might not get an answer."

"Yes, you are obviously living here. I was wondering how you ended up here." He grinned, showing her she wouldn't get away so easy.

"Well, you know, my stepfather killed my mother and I ran away. Any more questions?"

She went for the shock value, and was satisfied that it worked as well as it always did. It took some time before Daniel had recovered and could answer.

"I'm sorry about that."

"It happened and now it's too late to change it" was the bitter reply.

They sat there for ten minutes, just staring out at the river and not saying anything. Finally Rebecca restarted the conversation.

"So what are you doing here?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm just waiting for a friend of mine. How long have you been here?" he asked, hoping to lead the discussion away from him. It was a pretty transparent maneuver, and Rebecca realized what he was doing but decided to let him get away with it.

"I think it's been almost one and a half years now. Time goes pretty fast out here."

"How do you survive? It doesn't seem like an area where you would get many donations. Is there somewhere to get free food?"

"Yes, there's an organization called Munich Table that distributes food. But I'm a prostitute" she told him, waiting to see the look of disgust on his face. It didn't come.

"Really? It's a hard job. Do you like it? Or does it at least pay well?" he asked.

"I sometimes like it, but most of the time I don't. And the pay is usually enough to buy food, but not always."

"What's your hourly rate?" he asked, grinning.

"Interested in booking my services? You'll have to talk to my secretary for a free spot on my calendar" she shot back.

"No, just wondering."

"I usually get ten Euros per hour. That is if the customer even pays. But I'll make you a special rate at only twenty Euros per hour."

"Nah, thank you. Jen wouldn't like that very much."

"Who's Jen?"

"Err, nobody. Forget about that."

Rebecca looked sideways at him, wondering what his story was.

When the Detective got the call, he already knew what would await him at the scene. This would be number twelve. There had already been eleven drug deaths that week. Somebody sold bad heroin on the streets. So far they had no leads on the seller. He briefly wondered if his life wouldn't be much easier if they just let him continue and thus reduce the numbers of junkies he had to deal with. He immediately felt bad when he caught himself with the thought.

The body lay between two big garbage containers that were standing on a sidewalk. The coroner was already there and had begun his work. As was his habit, he stood a few meters away for a few minutes and let the scene get into his mind. He noticed the big number of people moving by, some of them shortly glancing at the body and just walking on, as if nothing unusual had happened. It made him sad.

"I would say she's been dead for about twenty hours," the coroner told him as he stood next to the body. "There's no indication she has been moved, so this is probably the place of death."

It had taken twenty hours until somebody cared enough to at least call the police. What had the world come to?

The Detective saw the needle still sticking in her arm. He was sure the report would read the same as the eleven reports before. Putting on leather gloves he started to search the body. He found her identity card, money, and a cell phone. At least this one had a name, so he could notify the family.

The photo on the ID card didn't look much like the body. But that's what drugs and death did to you. He checked the name on the Card: Sabrina Vogel, living in Freiberg.

Unit Seven HQ, Germany

Lieutenant Müller had not slept very well, and thus was pretty testy. The only thought that improved his mood at least a little bit was that the men of Group 19 had not gotten any sleep at all. The interrogators had all assured him that the only one that at least knew something was the deputy team leader. His was the interrogation room he now entered.

Looking at the prisoner, he noted that with the exception of his dead eyes he looked pretty unharmed. Well, except for two of his fingernails, he wondered what had led to that. The interrogation methods these days were designed to leave no outward signs, it was mostly drugs anyway. He grimaced. Interrogation? It was torture and everybody knew it, so why not call it that? At the sight he once again wondered what had become of Unit Seven in the last few years. It had been a good and important project, once.

Well, at the moment he had no time for this thoughts, so he approached the interrogator.

"Are you done?"

"Yes. This one has raped and killed a girl. She's buried, I found out where. It seems that the team leader was a bit jealous and decided to kidnap a girl and bring her here to rape. He sent the rest of the team ahead, so that's why they were not together. That's about all my subject knew, and he doesn't think the rest of the team knows even that much. I'll get my report to you within the hour, but that's the gist of it."

"Thank you. Dispose of the prisoner and send me the report. I'll be in my office."

Munich, Germany

Rebecca had offered Daniel some breakfast, but he didn't want to take her hard earned food. Instead he offered to take her to a restaurant, which she declined, telling him she had something to do and was already late. Assuming she had to work, he said nothing about it and went to a restaurant alone.

When he was gone, she went to visit Sabrina. She was shocked to see that she was even worse than the day before. She had stopped shivering, and was now hot and sweating. She just moaned slightly when Rebecca touched her head to feel the temperature. It was way too high. Rebecca went to get some towels she soaked in cold water. Putting one of them on her head and two others under her arms, she hoped to get her temperature down a bit.

Sabrina wasn't very responsive, only answering to some of her questions. She decided to wait until the afternoon, but if she wasn't better by then she would bring her to a hospital, consequences be damned. She wouldn't have another member of her family die.