Self's Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

child of Germany’s boom years, if you know what I mean. But you’re right: it can’t be easy for him without Stephanie and the children—and it was only a few years back that his parents died in a car crash.” He shook his head. “Here you have a man who had everything you could wish for in life, and then …”
     
     
     

— 8 —
     
Women!
     
     
    T hat evening I cooked some polenta with pork medallions and an olive-anchovy sauce for Brigitte and Manu. We sat at the large table in my kitchen.
    “A man has a wife and two children, and together with his wife a whole lot of money. One day husband and wife go hiking in the mountains. He comes back alone.”
    “He killed her,” Manu said, flicking his index finger across his neck. He’s always been outspoken, and even more so since his voice broke. This worries Brigitte and, single mother that she is, she expects me to stand by her and be a sensitive and steadfast male role model for her son.
    She eyed us severely. “Perhaps it was a tragic accident. Why are you both always jumping to—”
    “How come you didn’t cook spaghetti?” Manu cut in. “I don’t like this yellow stuff.”
    “It might well have been an accident. But let’s suppose that he did in fact murder her. Would it have been for the money?”
    “Might he have had a paramour?” Manu proposed.
    “What?” We had underestimated the range of Manu’s vocabulary.
    “Well, a woman he was screwing.”
    “Nowadays one doesn’t have to murder one’s wife because of a paramour. You can divorce your wife and marry the paramour,” Brigitte said.
    “But then there goes half the money. Gerhard just told us that they had a lot of money together. And why marry a paramour?”
    “I really like the polenta,” Brigitte said, “and the meat and the sauce, too—and you cooked for us and got the merlot I like. You’re such a sweetheart.” She raised her glass. “But you men are fools. He came back alone, you said?”
    I nodded. “That’s right. And her body was never found.”
    “There you go!” Brigitte said. “She’s not dead. She had a lover and went off with him. And as for the husband who never cared for her, serves him right.”
    “Nice try, Mom,” Manu chimed in. “But it doesn’t pan out. If everyone thinks she’s dead, how does she get at the money?”
    It was my turn. “That’s the last thing on her mind. Even if her lover is only a golf or tennis pro, he’s the love of her life, and love is worth more than all the money in the world.”
    Brigitte looked at me pityingly, as if among foolish men I were a particular fool. “It wasn’t just the money the husband and the wife had together; they also ran the business together. And the wife—I’m sorry to have to put it this way—happens to be the cleverer: she siphons off money behind his back and opens an account in Costa Rica. That’s where she’s living with her lover, a young painter. And because she can’t sit still, she’s back in business and has made a fortune supplying the Costa Rican market with chocolate marshmallows.”
    “Why Costa Rica?”
    “Astrid and Dirk went there and loved it. Why don’t we ever go to such places on vacation? Both Manu and I speak Portuguese, and the only thing down there that got on Astrid’s and Dirk’s nerves was that they had to speak English and everyone took them for gringos.”
    “Mom?”
    “Yes, Manu?”
    “What about the children? If the wife goes to Costa Rica with her lover, does she just forget her children?”
    Manu had been raised for many years by his father in Brazil. Brigitte has never discussed with him why she allowed his father to take him there, nor has Manu brought up how he felt about it, then or now. He peered at her with his dark eyes.
    She peered back at him, and then at her plate. When her tears dropped onto the polenta she said, “Oh, damn!” and picked up the napkin from her lap, put it beside her plate, pushed her chair back, got up, and left