Page 35 of Views
Michael and Yasira leave the house through the shattered door and make their way to the garage. Meanwhile, a small crowd of curious Dürrhahnbach residents has gathered outside to watch their neighbor being handcuffed and locked into the cage of a prison van. Of course, the first ones are already taking photos and filming.
Yasira points at the people. She doesn’t have to say anything. The head of operations, who has followed them out of the house, just nods. He walks toward the onlookers. You can tell from the way he walks that they are in for a cold shower of police authority.
RED FOX
Laying in the middle of the garage is a dead Black man. Riedel had pressed his gun to the back of his kneeling victim’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet exited under his chin. The man’s face is still intact and, seen in light, he is obviously not one of Lena’s rapists. Apart from the cap, the only thing he has in common with them is the color of his skin.
“Shit,” mumbles Yasira.
“Do you think,” Michael asks, “Red Fox just kidnapped the first Black guy with a cap he came across?”
Yasira sighs. “If he didn’t even put the cap on him himself.”
“He probably had to drive quite a way for that,” Michael says. “Hard to imagine he found the poor guy right here in Dürrhahnbach.”
“Think of all the false leads we’ve gotten from the public,” says Yasira. “In their Telegram groups, the members of the Active Homeland-Protection also send each other tips.”
“And they’re probably just as wrong,” mutters Michael.
Yasira glances at the dead innocent in the garage.
“Obviously.”
The victim is quickly identified because his papers are in his jacket. One of the forensic experts, who arrived simultaneously with Yasira and Michael and are already swarming over the crime scene, hands them to Yasira. The victim’s name is Tesfaye Yemane, a twenty-one-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea.
Later, during the interrogation, Yasira’s suspicions are confirmed that Red Fox is not the brightest candle on the cake, or—if you want to stick with the theme—not the brightest torch on the march. But he is defiant. His reaction to Yasira is particularly hostile.
“I’m not talking to someone like that...” he hisses. He leaves it unclear whether his problem is that Yasira is a woman—or if he just doesn’t like the color of her skin. Normally, that alone would be reason enough for Yasira to press the dirtbag even harder. But in this case, her sole focus is to get as much information as quickly as possible. So she leaves the interrogation to her colleague and just observes.
Red Fox shows no remorse whatsoever. Even when Michael makes it clear to him that he has definitely shot an innocent man, he just says: “One less is all that matters.”
He probably knew from the start that he was dealing with an innocent man.
Yasira hates the guy. As far as it’s within her power, she will make his life a living hell. The Katjas should find out which German prison has the fewest white inmates. There she would put the asshole. But of course that’s just a fantasy. It’s not up to her where the scumbag ends up.
“So, what do you think?” asks Yasira as they leave the interrogation room.
“I’d bet my dinner that this guy is a loner,” says Michael.
“Aren’t foxes loners too?”
“I think so.”
“So, a copycat?” Yasira asks.
“The only connection to Bear, as far as I can tell, is that he watched his videos obsessively—almost manically.”
“You could say the same about us...”
“In a way,” says Michael, “we can be thankful to the Red Fox. After all, he has given us our first real investigative success.”
Yasira snorts.
“At least that’s how we can present it externally,” Michael continues.
“Even if his deed really has nothing to do with the Lena video, other than having seen it,” grumbles Yasira.
“Still,” says Michael.
