Eternal Life Read Free

America goes, Zell’s a tiny speck. But so far as Pinzgau’s concerned: forty hotels, nine schools, thirty mountains over 3,000 meters high, fifty-eight ski lifts, one lake, one detective.
    The detective doesn’t actually belong to Zell, though. He was only there, of course, on account of the lift scandal. The two Americans froze to death on the chairlift in Zell at the end of December. And here it is, beginning of September, and the detective’s still here. He was slowly starting to get the feeling that he wouldn’t be getting out of here any time soon.
    Like it creeps up on you, that kind of feeling. Or like when you get lost in a labyrinth or you get married and have kids. This is that detective, Brenner’s his name. Woke up in a panic a few nights already. Because he dreamed he was prohibited from leaving Zell until he’d solved the hopeless case of the two Americans.
    But then he did solve it, even though it’d seemed hopeless to everybody. Now, it was a good three-quarters of a year after the fact, you’ve got to keep that in mind. Last December, the corpses, and now the next winter season’salready at the door. The police gave up before the month of January was out.
    Brenner was still on the police force back then. They’d popped up from the city end of December, made a mess out of everything, and by the end of January they’d split again. Nothing and hopeless. Only the
Pinzgauer Post
stayed on it a little while longer. Till mid-February maybe. But, then, done and forgotten.
    And beginning of March, all the sudden Brenner turns back up again. But not as police, no, as a detective. Thanks to the insurance company. The deceased were the American in-laws of Vergolder Antretter. About them, you should know, they were stinking rich. Both in their eighties and just filthy rich. Vergolder himself’s stinking rich—far and away the richest man in Zell, way above Eder, way above the mayor, leagues above Fürstauer. But, next to his in-laws, a penniless bum.
    Needless to say, the Zellers were surprised. First he takes off as police—Brenner, I mean—and then turns back up three weeks later a private detective. Then it comes to light that it’s an insurance story, on the Americans’ end of things, because for them what it was about was a whole lot of money. Yeah, what do you know. The insurance company doesn’t send over their own detective from America, though, because A of all, language problems, and B of all, just easier not to. And cheaper and more efficient and—anyway, they hire a local detective agency. So, they contracted with a detective agency in Vienna. Meierling Detective Agency, it was called.
    Now, coincidentally, it turns out that police officer Simon Brenner, Detective Inspector, or whatever his rank was, has quit the police. Now, you should know, he’d been on the force nineteen years. Because he was twenty-five when he started and now he’s forty-four. But he never really got anywhere with the police. That wasn’t the real reason why he quit, though, because he’d never been especially ambitious. More the quiet type. A nice guy, actually, I’ve got to admit.
    Now, about three years ago, he gets a new boss—Nemec, who turned up here in Zell back in January, too. And him I wouldn’t necessarily have wanted for a boss, either. Me, personally, I don’t have anything against Wieners—you know, the Viennese—they’ve got nice ones down there, too, and there are so-and-so’s everywhere you go. But he was just such a typical Wiener. Anyway, the two of them just didn’t get along at all. Nemec was young and ambitious, and his department just had to be the absolute best. And Brenner, what can I say. Not that he was a bad police officer, certainly not. But, more quieter, low-key, and, well, right off the bat, Nemec just wasn’t having it.
    He started in on the comments Day One—this was three years ago now—and here in Zell where the whole month of January—well, nothing was going