Dead Woods by Maria C Poets Page A

when he was stunned by something somebody said. “Sounds like your group saw the police as the enemy.”
    Lina gave him an astonished look. “Of course we did! What did you think? Otherwise, the bet would have been a joke. The club sits smack in the middle of St. Pauli, right in the red-light district. Half those people I was with were politically active.” She shrugged. “Cops were public enemy number one. That’s how I grew up, and that’s how a few in the club still think today.” She took a sip of her beer, put her elbows on the counter, and stopped talking.
    “So why did you stay?” Max asked after a while.
    Lina remained silent. She wondered for a moment how she could sit in a bar with Max and tell him what she hadn’t told any other colleague, things she could only talk about with very few people. After a long time she said, “I found the training surprisingly interesting, and so I just stayed on for a while after the first four weeks. On one of the first operations during my training, we raided a brothel. We found three girls from Sri Lanka, none of them older than their midteens. They were here illegally, of course, and they didn’t know one word of German . . . except some pertinent jargon.” She laughed bitterly. “I saw the fear in their eyes. I heard what my colleagues came up with, not even under their breath, along the lines of ‘Pity we’re on call.’ I tried to calm the three girls the best I could. I tried to speak English with them, which they understood a little, well, better than many of my colleagues. But in the end they were still led away in handcuffs.” She shrugged. “Afterward I was singled out by our trainer. He claimed I had interfered with the investigation, done things on my own, without permission. I said that I simply felt sorry for the girls. ‘If you plan on staying with the police,’ I was told, ‘you’ll have to learn quickly that that’s exactly what such people want you to feel.’” Lina inhaled deeply. “I think that was the moment I realized that I was going to stay on. I saw the girls. I saw their fear. They didn’t want to play me—I’m sure of that. To help such girls, I could achieve much more if I was with the police than if I were working for some initiative or nonprofit against forced prostitution and human trafficking.” She grabbed the bottle and took a swig. “And so I stayed . . . much to the chagrin of some of my colleagues.”
    For most members of the police force Max knew, Lina was something exotic, something to be approached with curiosity, mistrust, or even open dislike, especially since she wasn’t one to keep her opinions to herself. He still remembered her first day with the homicide squad. She wore black jeans, heavy boots, and a hoodie. Her spiked hair was streaked with neongreen. Hanno’s eyes almost popped out. Alex just silently shook his head. Sebastian thought at first she was a perp who had escaped somehow from one of the interrogation rooms.
    Max knew it wasn’t easy for her and was about to say something, when a woman bent over the bar from the other side and said, “Hey, Andre said you wanted to ask me something.”
    Max looked up. The woman in front of them wore her hair in a ponytail. Her small, strong hands rested on the counter. This must be Michele, the woman who worked on Thursday and might remember Frank Jensen. Lina was lost in thought, so Max nodded and slid the photo toward the woman. “Have you ever seen this man?”
    Michele just glanced at the picture and nodded. “Sure, that’s Frank. He’s been here a lot lately. Always drinks more than is good for him.” She looked up. “Has he done something wrong?”
    “No. My sister’s looking for him,” Max said, smiling. Lina raised her head and looked at him. “Was he also here the day before yesterday?”
    “Day before . . . Thursday. Yes, I think so. Yes, for sure. He was talking with one of our other regulars. The two have become friends, I think.