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I tried it again: “…are what you call everyone who doesn’t believe Martin.”

Now I had a plan. I floated in front of the screen, close enough to be able to read well, and I started dictating: “I hope you’ll read this account from top to bottom…”

—•—

That was about twenty-four hours ago. I dictated for twenty hours, with little breaks here and there. Now I’ve been hanging around here for four hours hoping that someone would finally look at this screen. I cursed the way everyone’s cubicles were organized, because Martin’s desk was the last one back by the wall with a view out over the whole room, meaning that you could see his screen only if you were standing back by the wall.

In the meantime I’ve learned that Martin is alive and on the road to a full recovery. He’s not allowed to have any visitors, and no one has any idea yet what kind of business he’d gotten mixed up with, but the signet ring that has since been identified as the property of the murdered Moldovan is casting an extremely negative light on him. There are rumors that an arrest warrant is about to be issued for Martin for the murder of Semira’s brother.

The mood in the office is depressed, and so far everyone has stayed clear of Martin’s desk. I can only hope that will change soon. I keep writing an extra sentence once in a while so that the power-saving mode doesn’t turn off the screen, because otherwise no one will ever see what I’ve written here.

I’m slowly getting nervous. What if no one…Ooh, here comes someone, exactly the right person. Yes, yes! Come over this way! Farther, past the other desks, back here to the last desk, to Martin’s desk, yes! And now look at the screen!

HELLO KATRIN!!!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

From a strictly chronological perspective my first word of thanks goes to my elementary school teacher Helene Grimm, who in 1977 wrote in my friendship book: Übermut tut auch mal gut (“It does you good to be cocky sometimes, too”). I’ve stuck to that advice ever since.

From a more current perspective my thanks must go to Dr. Frank Glenewinkel, my contact in the world of forensic medicine. He not only answered all my questions with patience, but—neither intentionally nor consciously—he also gave me the idea for this book. Anyone who gives a talk in front of a group of women authors simply has to be prepared for anything…

But the ultimate megathanks are due to my editor Karoline Adler, who for years has harbored an unshakable faith in our shared future. Without her I would never have made writing my profession and this book may never have come to be.

Jutta Profijt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

© privat

Jutta Profijt was born in 1967 in Ratingen, Germany. After finishing school, she lived abroad working as an au pair, an importer/exporter, a coach to executives and students, and a business English instructor. She published her first novel in 2003 and today works as a freelance writer and translator. Her first novel featuring coroner Martin Gänsewein, Morgue Drawer Four, was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Erik J. Macki worked as a cherry-orchard tour guide, copy editor, Web developer, and German and French teacher before settling into his translation career—probably an inevitable choice, as he has collected foreign-language grammars, dictionaries, and language-learning books since childhood and to this day is not above diagramming sentences when duty so calls. A former resident of Cologne and Münster, Germany, and of Tours, France, he did his graduate work in Germanics and comparative syntax. He now translates books for adults and children as well as nonfiction material from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his family and their black Lab, Zephyr.

Forthcoming by Jutta Profijt:

Morgue Drawer Next Door

Morgue Drawer for Rent

Dirt Angels

Copyright

Text copyright © 2009 by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG

English translation copyright © 2011 by Erik J. Macki

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Morgue Drawer Four by Jutta Profijt was first published in 2009 by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG in Munich, Germany, as Kühlfach 4.

Translated from the German by Erik J. Macki.

First published in English in 2011 by AmazonCrossing.

Published by AmazonCrossing

P.O. Box 400818

Las Vegas, NV 89140

ISBN: 978-1-61109-032-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011901818