Trixie Trulla Kills Big Dörte · Chapter 8
Napoleon was a black Russian Terrier weighing nearly sixty kilograms. He possessed a massive head, taciturn dignity and paws that left the prints of small bears on freshly mopped tiles.
In Dürrenmatt’s The Dog, an enormous black hound with sulphur-yellow eyes accompanies an enigmatic preacher. In Frau Knobloch’s eyes, this literary record alone would have justified provisional detention.
There was also the fact that dog hairs had been found on Dörte’s coat.
Black ones.
“He attacked her,” said Herr Pahlke.
“He lived with her,” said Herr Yilmaz. “Of course there are hairs on her coat.”
“Then he had been planning the crime for a long time.”
Trixie, meanwhile, noticed something that made her uneasy. Whenever she passed the place with Napoleon, he stopped. He pulled towards the boundary post, sniffed the metal and nudged the ground with his nose. Then he looked up into the crown of an old lime tree.
On the third occasion, Trixie followed his gaze.
A red ribbon hung among the branches.
She rang Inspector Martens.
Forensics recovered the ribbon. It was a remnant of the fluttering plastic tape with which a construction company had cordoned off an open skip outside Trixie’s house a few days earlier. The skip had been collected on the night before Dörte’s death. A piece of tape had evidently come loose and caught in the lime tree.
“Is that the red plastic trace?” asked Trixie.
“Perhaps.”
“And the spring?”
“Perhaps it belongs to something that was damaged there.”
“A weapon?”
“A clothes peg would also be possible.”
Trixie looked disappointed. Even suspects expect a certain aesthetic consistency from a murder investigation.
Napoleon had meanwhile begun pacing the house. Again and again, he stopped in front of an old escritoire that Trixie had fetched from Dörte’s flat. Dörte’s niece lived in Canada and had asked by telephone for her aunt’s personal papers to be protected from inquisitive hands. She did not know that Trixie’s hands were considered the most inquisitive in the neighbourhood.
The dog scratched at the lowest drawer.
Trixie opened it. Inside were old programmes from The Blue Hour, photographs, letters and a battered notebook. There was nothing beneath the papers.
Napoleon continued scratching.
“There’s nothing there,” said Trixie.
He sat down.
She pulled the drawer all the way out. A flat envelope had been taped to its underside.
It contained copies of old building invoices, a report on defective foundations and a letter from Viktor Voss. There was also a recent note:
If anything happens to me, it may have something to do with the house opposite. Not with Trixie. With the house.
Trixie sat down on the floor.
Napoleon placed one paw on her knee.
“You’re a good dog,” she said.
At that moment, through a gap in the garden fence, Frau Söntgen photographed Trixie holding a secret envelope.
The photograph later appeared in the chat group with the caption: KILLER DESTROYS EVIDENCE.
