'Cabbage stuffed with minced meat.'
'Yum,' he says. 'Are there any Pizza Huts nearby?'
It's after dinner. The dirty dishes and the Pizza Hut box are still on the table. Erich has gone to bed. McGrave is sitting on the couch, having a Coke, which he drinks out of the bottle. Maria brings out some bedding and some men's clothes and sets them on the coffee table.
'I'm sorry you didn't like dinner.'
'I loved it.'
'I meant the Kohlrouladen,' she says.
'I'm not big on foreign foods.'
'Your pizza was made here with local ingredients.'
'But it tastes just like home,' he says.
She motions to the clothes. 'Those are clean clothes. They should be about your size. You can keep them.'
'Isn't your husband going to miss them?'
'If he did, he would have picked them up months ago,' she says. 'We're divorcing.'
'Any particular reason why?'
She sits down next to him and sighs. 'Over the years, we became very different people. I became a police detective and Karl became a homeopathic doctor.'
McGrave snorts. 'You mean he tells people they'll get better if they eat herbs and roots and stuff.'
'More or less.'
'So he's not a doctor,' McGrave says. 'He's a salad chef.'
Maria tries to stifle a smile and fails. McGrave smiles, too.
'So where does the kid fit into this?' he asks.
'In the middle, unfortunately. My ex-husband and I are fighting for custody. Karl says my job 'creates an unstable and violent living environment that's unsuitable for raising children.''
McGrave nods. 'I didn't fight my ex for custody of my daughter. I knew Maddie would be better off with her. And I was right.'
'How old is your daughter?'
'Seventeen.' McGrave reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and shows her a picture.
'She's beautiful,' Maria says. 'What's the real reason you chased Richter all the way over here?'
'It's my job.'
She shakes her head. 'Try again.'
'He threatened to kill my family,' he says. 'And the bastard executed my bulldog.'
'Richter killed your dog?'
'He was my partner, too.'
McGrave's wallet is still open in his hand. Maria tugs out the photo that's behind the one of his daughter. It's a creased, yellowed picture of McGrave when he was a young uniformed officer astride his police-issue Harley- Davidson.
'What's this?'
'A picture from my days as a patrolman before I made detective. Sometimes I really miss them,' he says. 'How about you?'
'Miss what?'
'Don't you ever wish you were back in uniform again, rolling on calls, working the streets?'
'I was never a patrol officer.'
McGrave stares at her in disbelief. 'Then how did you become a detective?'
'The usual way,' she says. 'I studied for two years at the Akademie fьr Verwaltung und Rechtspflege and was hired as a Kriminalkommissar upon graduation.'
She gets up and starts clearing the dishes from the table. McGrave gets up and helps her.
'You didn't spend any time in uniform?'
'In Germany, the uniformed officers, the Schutzpolizei, are a separate force from the investigators, the Kriminalpolizei. You don't serve as a Schutzpolizei in order to become a Kriminalpolizei.'
McGrave can't believe what he is hearing. 'So everything you know about being a cop you've learned from books?'
'Of course. That's how it's done.' She takes the dishes into the kitchen.
McGrave follows her. 'No, it's not. You can't develop instincts from a book. You've got to be out there, on the streets, living it.'
'That's ridiculous,' she says, taking the dishes from him and putting them in the sink. 'Officers prevent crimes and protect people from danger. Detectives investigate crimes and pursue the offenders. They are two entirely different skills. A detective must be highly educated.'
'Where I come from,' he says, 'the university is the street.'
'Where I come from,' she says, 'the university is a university.'
'That explains a lot about the police work I've seen from you today,' McGrave says.
He regrets the remark almost the instant he's said it, but it's too late.
'Likewise,' she says. 'Good night, Detective.'
She leaves the dishes in the sink and marches off to bed.
The squad room is busy. Maria is at her desk, reviewing a file. Stefan is working the phones. Heinrich is doing something on his computer and eating chocolate somethings from a yellow bag with a picture of what looks like five pieces of horse crap on the front.
McGrave strides in wearing the too-small shirt that Maria gave him under his leather jacket. The pants are a little tight, too. He's holding a huge box of Dunkin' Donuts.
'Look what I found. Some real cop brain food.' He sets the box down in front of Heinrich and opens it up to reveal dozens of mixed doughnuts as if they were gold bars. 'Feast on this, my friends, and you shall solve all the world's crimes.'
'No, thank you,' Heinrich says. 'But you are welcome to one of these.'
He offers McGrave the open bag of Zetti Knusperflocken Vollmilch Schokolade mit Knдckebrot.
McGrave peers inside the bag and shakes his head. 'What is it?'
'Knusperflocken. One of the few treats left from the GDR. I have to order it on the Internet now.'
'You lived there before the wall fell?'
'I was a Volkspolizist. Duke was, too. In the East, it was different. The people didn't dare break the law. The police were respected and feared. Here there is much lawlessness and they spit on our shoes.'
'Do you miss it?'
'No, the police should not be feared. But I miss the strict adherence to the law. And the food was better.'
McGrave takes a doughnut. Heinrich has another piece of Knusperflocken.
Neither of them is ever going to change.
'What have you got on Richter?' McGrave asks.
'He goes all over the world staging major heists and doesn't mind killing. He was reportedly trained by the Bundesnachrichtendienst.'
'What's the Bundy-what's-it?' McGrave asks.
'Our CIA,' Heinrich says. 'That explains why he's never been caught. Richter probably still does a few jobs for them, so in return they make sure he doesn't show up in the system.'
'Richter said he's prepping a job right now,' McGrave says.
Stefan hangs up the phone. 'That fits with what the detectives in the robbery division just told me. There's rumors floating around that somebody is looking for alarm specialists, tunnelers, and a wheelman for a big job.'
'Are Richter's two gun monkeys saying anything?' McGrave asks.
'Not a word,' Stefan says.
