At last, he sighed, his cheeks still rosy, his eyes bloodshot. He tossed his branch off to the ground and slowly raised his hands.
Leoni and Adele moved in quickly, and, within seconds, they had Mr. Von Ziegler cuffed and began leading him away, back beneath the shadow of his treehouse and toward the waiting vehicle with the Austrian police officer.
“What’s this about?” Mr. Von Ziegler said, his words slurred.
“I think you know,” said Leoni, pushing the man forward, not roughly, but with a guiding hand toward the waiting cruiser. They managed to maneuver the cuffed man into the back seat of the squad car, and waited for the Austrian police officer to take his driver’s seat again. Leoni would sit in the back with the suspect, and Adele in the front. Before she shut the door, though, Adele looked at Mr. Von Ziegler. His bloodshot eyes gazed out at her, equal parts scared and belligerent.
“You’re fools, all of you. I didn’t do this, whatever you think I did. I’m not a criminal!”
Adele frowned. “Perhaps not. But you have intimate knowledge of three crime scenes where we found bodies. According to your website, it almost seems like you’re glad the victims were killed.”
His bloodshot eyes blinked a couple of times, and his rosy cheeks twitched. Then his eyes suddenly widened in a slow, snail’s pace of realization. His words were still slurred as he said, “The Monument Killer? You’re joking. That wasn’t me!”
“We’ll talk down at the station, watch yourself.”
Adele slammed the door shut, cutting off Mr. Von Ziegler before turning and moving around the hood of the car toward the front seat.
He fit the bill. Was he the killer, though? And if he was, would she be able to prove it?
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The interrogation room they’d been provided in the Austrian precinct was large enough for Leoni to pace the back of the room, while Adele sat in the chair opposite their travel expert. They had confirmed Mr. Von Ziegler’s identity, bringing up a picture from a previous arrest record for a drunk and disorderly.
“Mr. Von Ziegler,” Adele said, softly, “I appreciate you coming in with us.”
He snorted, but didn’t comment.
“We wish to talk to you about some of your more recent website posts. Are you the author of Days Away: A Travel Guide to Europe?”
Mr. Von Ziegler crossed his arms and glared out at her from beneath hooded eyes. His wrinkled features were stretched, and his bloodshot gaze had narrowed. “So what if I am? It’s not a crime. It’s just like the government to try and censor speech! That’s what this is. You’ll hear from my lawyer!”
“We hope to,” Adele said. “But we’re not interested in the book. We’re interested in the comments you made about the Monument Killer’s victims. We’re wondering what you have been doing over the last few days.”
The eccentric travel expert snorted, leaning back in the metal chair. He tapped his feet against the floor and muttered a few choice insults beneath his breath before saying, “I need a drink. You want me to talk, I need to clear my mind.”
Adele glanced at Leoni, who gave a small shake of his head. She looked back at Mr. Von Ziegler and said, “Tell us what we want to know, then you get you a drink.”
“Something strong,” he said.
“Water,” she retorted.
“Then I’m not talking.
“Are you sure you don’t want to? Is this you?” She reached to the table, picked up her phone to the prepared screenshot, and began to narrate from the most recent post on Mr. Von Ziegler’s website. “…and while taking the life of anyone might be frowned on by most, only a couple hundred years ago, such treatment of places like this would end in a far more painful death than what these sheep suffered.” She looked up. “Was that you?”
He glared back at her, seemingly caught between his boycott of questions until he was given something to drink and a flicker of recognition at his own web post.
Even half drunk, the author seemed to realize it didn’t paint him in a particularly good light.
“You’re a heavy drinker, sir,” said Leoni, stopping his pacing long enough to lean over Adele and look across the table at their suspect. “You had several public outbursts in the last few months, drunken tirades against tourists if I’m not mistaken.”
The man shrugged. “Just because people are disrespectful, stupid, doesn’t mean I kill them.”
Adele shook her head. “Well, I still would like you to tell me if you were anywhere in the last week or so. As an author, I imagine it’s easy for you to go weeks without seeing anyone.”
He grunted and stared at his fingers, crossing them in front of each other.
She waited and could feel Leoni pacing again behind her.
“So what?” he said. “I was at home. Getting my work done. That’s not a crime. No more tourist books,” he said, grunting. “Fiction now. Thrillers.” He smiled in a gritted teeth sort of way. “Can’t deal with tourists anymore. Selfish, self-absorbed, littering, obnoxious bastards. All of them.”
Adele swallowed. She hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming. For someone who prided himself on his ability with words, he sure wasn’t careful with them.
“Are you telling me you have no alibi for the last week?”
“I’m telling you,” he said, his voice still a bit slurred, “that I am an author.”
He said the last word with a flourish of his voice, as if presenting something fascinating, or alluring, like the climax of a magic trick.
Adele was unimpressed. “So you were cooped up in your home, writing, is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t chase the muse, the muse chases me,” he replied.
Adele was beginning to dislike him for entirely separate reasons than the potential of being a suspected murderer. “Right, so no alibi. A history of tirades against tourists, and direct ties to victims of the last three murders. You wanted to see them dead. You practically gloated.”
“I did not gloat,” he snapped.
Adele scrolled to the next screenshot on her phone, quoting again, “A noose is far too good an end for such desecraters as these. Were I the one to snuff their lights, it would be with the full vengeance and fury of Ares…”
“I don’t remember that,” he said, surly now.
Adele pushed away from the table. “If you have no alibi, no explanation for those posts, I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep you here for little bit longer. Your place will be searched.”
“Bah!” he snapped. “You won’t find anything there.”
Adele hesitated, frowning at this odd phrasing. You won’t find anything there. Not I have nothing to hide. Not you won’t find anything. Rather, he’d said, You won’t find anything there.
“Where might we find something then?” Adele said, cautiously.
But Mr. Von Ziegler seemed to realize he’d said too much. He just snorted in her direction and then dipped his head into his hands, his fingers pushing against his dyed locks, tangling in the thin mess.
“Mr. Von Ziegler,” Adele said, quietly. “You need to talk with me. Help me clear your name.”