Ring of Fire IV

by Eric Flint

  He reached into his own jacket and pulled a small Bible from an inside pocket. He handed it and the fragments to Demcker and said, “Laurentius, compare these, if you would.”

  Gotthilf moved over by the table and watched as Demcker leafed through the Bible and found the matching passages, then compared them to the fragments. One by one, they matched as to page and format. He raised his gaze to look at Schönfeldt, but said nothing.

  “Dr. de Spaignart was born in Torgau, in Saxony, and still has family in that region. He often travels to the Leipzig book fair, and he did so last year,” Schönfeldt said. “He returned with many books, including several copies of that small Bible. He gifted one to me, and to Laurentius, I know. I don’t know where the others went.”

  Schönfeldt leaned forward slightly. “I will say that the paper of the fragments matches the paper of my copy. The type-face matches my copy. From what I can tell, the ink matches my copy. So there is perhaps a way to cast a net and ensnare this man, by finding those who received other copies.”

  Gotthilf flipped to the front of the small Bible, and noted the details about the printer and the edition.

  “That will not be so much of a help as you might think,” Demcker said. “I had just started as Dr. de Spaignart’s assistant when he made that trip. Not only did he bring copies back, he also arranged for a local printer to order a shipment of them and sell them here in Magdeburg.” No doubt receiving an honorarium from each copy sold, Gotthilf observed to himself. “So there are more copies than you know of, Simon. And,” Demcker hesitated, “there is some small issue here as well. I, uh, lost my copy.”

  “What?” from Gotthilf.

  “Oh, Laurentius,” from Schönfeldt.

  Demcker shrugged. “I had it here in the church, and misplaced it not too long after Dr. de Spaignart gave it to me. I was quite upset about it for a while.” He shrugged again. “I finally concluded that someone else needed a Bible more than I did.”

  Gotthilf looked at Demcker, who returned his look with a clear gaze of his own. If the man was lying, Gotthilf thought, he was remarkably good at it. Not that Gotthilf thought that a pastor was above lying if the cause was strong enough, but Demcker had not impressed him, in their short acquaintance, as being someone who would have any facility at prevarication.

  “Well,” Gotthilf said, “I suggest you try to find it. Being able to prove your copy is at hand and intact may be something you want to do in the future.”

  Both pastors looked scandalized at the thought. Gotthilf gave them his best sardonic stare. “If Judas, called by Jesus himself to be one of the Twelve, could turn his back on our Lord and betray him, none of us, including you, are above suspicion.”

  That brought a blush of anger to meld with their scandal, but both finally ebbed away. Schönfeldt sighed. “Truth, Sergeant Hoch, no matter how little we would like to hear it.” He nodded to Gotthilf. “I assume you will wish this conversation to remain under seal?”

  “You may tell anyone who asks that I asked for your help about identifying certain scripture passages. Do not disclose your observations about the killer, or the information about the fragments to anyone, not even your superiors, unless and until I or my superiors approve it.”

  “I will not lie for you,” Demcker said with a stern look.

  Gotthilf smiled. “I’m not asking you to lie. Simply don’t say anything about this to anyone. Let them draw their own conclusions.”

  Schönfeldt nodded, and said, “Agreed.”

  “One last thing,” Gotthilf said, pulling the smaller envelope one of the fragments had come in from the larger envelope in his pocket and handing it to Archidiakon Demcker. “Do you recognize this handwriting?”

  Demcker studied the envelope with care, Schönfeldt looking over his shoulder. They both looked up. “If this is from someone I know, he is disguising his hand well. I cannot say that I know it at all.”

  Gotthilf received the envelope back with a bit of disappointment; but not much, because he hadn’t expected anything.

  As Gotthilf retrieved the Bible fragments and restored them to his envelope as well, Schönfeldt said, “And now I really must be off. Sergeant Hoch, I wish I could say I enjoyed our conversation, but I do hope and pray you catch this fiend soon. Laurentius, I will see you next week, if not before then. Goodbye to you both.”

  Gotthilf watched him leave. “A good man, that,” he said quietly.

  “Indeed,” Demcker said, rising from his chair. “One of the best. And I need to be about my duties as well, Sergeant. Is there anything else?”

  “I think not,” Gotthilf said, as he started to turn away. A thought occurred to him, and he turned back. “Except…who is the biggest gossip in your congregation, Archidiakon Demcker?”

  Byron showed up at work the next morning with dark circles around his eyes. He headed for the department coffee pot as soon as he walked in the door and poured a cup of what he usually sneered at with comments like “liquid sludge.” He took a long drink of it before he headed up the stairs to the detectives’ office. No word had yet been spoken, and even for the normally terse up-timer that was unusual.

  Gotthilf followed him up the stairs and through the doorway.

  “Rough night last night?”

  Byron growled. There was no other word that could describe the sound. Then he said, “Yeah. I made the mistake of going by my sister-in-law’s place to give her and her husband a warning.”

  “Warning?” Gotthilf was a bit confused.

  “Yeah. Marla has blue eyes.”

  “Oh.” The import behind that crashed into Gotthilf like a brick dropped from the roof of a church. “You told her she needed to stay home and be safe.”

  “Yeah.”

  Gotthilf had met Marla. He suppressed a guffaw with difficulty. “And how did she take that?”

  A sheepish smile played around the corners of Byron’s mouth. “Not very well. She wouldn’t have taken it well at any time, but at seven months pregnant…” He winced. “She let me know in no uncertain terms what I could do with my suggestion.” The smile faded. “But I told her to watch out anyway. Franz was there, and he heard. I can trust him to keep her safe.”

  Marla Linder was the most well-known musician in Magdeburg, and one of the most well-known up-timers as well. Byron’s wife Jonni was her older sister. Gotthilf hadn’t met Jonni yet. She hadn’t yet made the move from Grantville to Magdeburg. Something about children in school, Byron had said. But she and the children would be coming soon.

  “Girl’s even stubborner than her sister,” Byron concluded.

  “That couldn’t have taken the entire evening,” Gotthilf noted.

  “Nope,” Byron conceded. “But running down Gunther Achterhof did.”

  Gotthilf looked at him in surprise.

  “It took me most of the evening to find him, and I had to drink more bad ale than I can remember seeing before in order to get my message to him without blabbing it before the entire town.”

  “Message.” Gotthilf kept his tone level, although he wanted to grab his partner by his shoulders and shake him.

  “I gave him a hint that any woman he knows who has blue eyes should be escorted until this case is closed.”

  Gotthilf sat back in surprise. “You did what?”

  Byron shrugged. “I talked to Captain Reilly about it yesterday in our meeting. It’s a risk, but we both thought that giving the CoC an unofficial heads-up could work to our advantage. And if it keeps even one woman from this guy’s hands…” His own hands clenched and unclenched.

  “Point,” Gotthilf said. He mulled on the idea of the CoC being even indirectly allied with the Polizei. That would take some getting used to.

  Byron slugged back the last of his coffee, and shuddered. “Crankcase drippings would taste better than that.”

  Gotthilf chuckled. “What was it you used to say about the lowest bidder?”

  “I know.” Byron scrubbed his hands over his face, then looked up. “So, wha
t did you find out yesterday?”

  It took Gotthilf about ten minutes to fill his partner in on everything he had picked up from the pastors. Byron was wide awake by the time he was done with the recital. “That’s kind of scary,” he said.

  “Yah,” Gotthilf replied. “But I think Archidiakon Demcker is probably right.”

  “Yep,” Byron said. “And that’s part of what scares me. A righteous fanatic can be a lot more dangerous than just a general nut case.”

  Gotthilf considered that thought, and considered some of the men who had passed through Magdeburg in the last five years.

  “Point.”

  “So where does this lead you next?” Byron asked.

  Gotthilf grinned. “We have a date.”

  * * *

  “You sure about this?” Byron asked as they walked up to the door.

  “Yah,” Gotthilf replied. “What have we got to lose? At best, we might learn something. At worst, we waste a little time listening to an old woman ramble.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it, then.”

  Gotthilf raised his hand and rapped the bronze door knocker against the door twice. They stood for a long moment, but just as he was about ready to knock again Gotthilf heard a latch being drawn and the door opened. A slightly stooped frail-looking woman with gray wisps of hair slipping out from under her cap looked at them; first at Gotthilf, then up at Byron. She smiled.

  “My, you are a big one, aren’t you?”

  “Good morning. I am Lieutenant Byron Chieske of the Magdeburg Polizei, and this is my partner Sergeant Gotthilf Hoch.”

  They both presented their badges. The woman looked at them, and her smile widened.

  “Sorry lads, I couldn’t read those if I wanted to. Don’t see as clearly as I used to. With the Polizei, you said?”

  “Yes,” Gotthilf replied. “Are you Frau Maria Backfennin verheiratet Weygoldin?” Since he had never met Frau Backfennin before, Gotthilf was being very formal, addressing her as “Frau Maria Backfennin married to Weygold.”

  “That I am,” she said. “Come in, lads, come in. I don’t want to let the warm air out.”

  They stepped across the threshold, and followed the woman into a small room with several chairs in it. She settled in one, propped her feet up on a stool, and picked up some knitting, folding short wrinkled fingers around the needles and the yarn.

  “Sit down, lads, sit down,” she said, needles beginning to move. “And tell old Frau Maria why you’ve come calling? Who sent you my way? Was it Pastor de Spaignart?”

  “No,” Gotthilf said. “It was Archidiakon Demcker.”

  The old woman giggled, and for a moment he could see the ghost of her face as a girl, with a wide smile and bright eyes. “And I’ll wager he told you I was a horrible old gossip.”

  “Well…”

  She giggled again. “And so I am, lads, and so I am. But with Michael dead all these years, and my eyesight fading, what else do I have to keep myself busy? You can only knit so many scarves and socks, after all.” She lifted her hands with their work for a moment, then dropped them back into her lap. “So what is it you want to know?”

  “Tell us everything you know about Fräulein Margrethe Döhren, Fräulein Anna Seyfart, and Frau Justina Hösch.”

  The knitting needles slowed, then stopped. “Those are the women…”

  “Who were murdered and mutilated,” Gotthilf completed the sentence. “Yes, that’s correct. What can you tell us about them?”

  After a moment, the needles started working again. There was a long moment of silence, then Frau Backfennin said, “I don’t know that last one. She must not attend St. Ulrich’s.”

  “She doesn’t,” Gotthilf said. “She attends—attended—Heilige Geist Church.”

  “Ah.” The needles continued moving, small clicks of sound happening as they did so. “The other two, them I knew. Fräulein Döhren, she should have been a nun. She would sing all the songs, as loud as she could. And she would stand as close to the pulpit as she could, staring at the pastor as if he was Jesus himself.”

  “Did she have any friends?”

  “Not many.” The old woman’s mouth twisted in distaste for a moment. “I never knew her from before the sack. She started coming to St. Ulrich’s a couple of years ago. She never really seemed to make friends with any of the other women. Not that very many of them would have wanted to be her friend anyway.”

  “She was unpleasant?”

  “She was poor,” Frau Backfennin said sharply. “The kind of woman the others would accept at church so they could feel pious about having the poor in their midst, but not the kind of woman they would invite to share a meal or ask her opinion of things. Sanctimonious old harpies, most of them,” she muttered.

  Gotthilf bit the inside of his cheek for a moment to keep from laughing. He could tell from Byron’s face that he was struggling, too. When he felt in control again, he asked, “Did she have any men friends?”

  “Was anyone courting her?” The old woman snorted. “No.”

  Byron spoke up. “Were there any men who…”

  Frau Backfennin snorted again. “Did she whore herself out, either on her own or by some pimp? Not that I saw or heard. Unlike that Seyfart woman.”

  “Ah,” Gotthilf said. He got his notepad and pencil out. “Tell us about Fräulein Seyfart, then.”

  “She was a nasty piece of work. She had no friends at St. Ulrich’s either, but not because she was poor. No, she was everyone’s friend to their face and their worst enemy behind their backs. Most women learned that about her the hard way, and usually quickly. But she was so adept at flattering those who could help her that she managed to stay close to several important and influential women in the church.” The old woman worked her mouth as if she was tasting something unpleasant.

  “Frau Schneider,” Gotthilf prompted.

  “Her and others,” Frau Backfennin shot back. “All of whom should have known better but were taken in by sweet words and a devil’s smile.”

  Gotthilf bit his cheek again as he made notes.

  “And the men?” Byron prompted.

  “The men were even bigger fools than the women,” she said tartly. “She would play with all of them; flatter the old men, tease the young ones.”

  “Did she…”

  Frau Backfennin frowned and ran her fingers along the knitting. “Tch. I got so worked up about Fräulein Seyfart I dropped a stitch.” She grasped the yarn and pulled on it to carefully unravel half a line of the knitting. “If you go by the standards of Matthew chapter 5, she committed adultery or fornication in her heart with every man of the church. But actually making the beast with two backs? Not that I would swear to,” Frau Backfennin answered with a sour expression. “She was that careful, especially since many of the men were the husbands and sons of the women she was also flattering.”

  She started the needles moving again. “Both of them, though—Döhren and Seyfart both—I think would have gladly spread their legs for the same man.”

  Gotthilf’s eyebrows went up. “And who would that be?”

  “The archidiakon, of course.”

  * * *

  “I like her.” Byron chuckled as they started walking back to the station. “She reminds me of Grandma Pearl, my Grandpa Buck’s wife. Sharp as a razor but heavy as a hammer.”

  “Yah,” Gotthilf said. His mind was still whirling with the last revelation the old woman gave them. “And now we have a suspect. But not one I would have expected.”

  Byron sobered. “Yeah. I can tell you stories about erring preachers from our time. But I don’t think they’re exactly unknown here and now, either, are they?”

  “No,” Gotthilf replied. “But it is still not something you want to believe.”

  “Check it out,” Byron said. “You can’t accuse him or exonerate him without checking it out.”

  “Point,” Gotthilf sighed.

  * * *

  Gotthilf beat Byron to the police station the next morning, b
ut not by much. He had poured himself a cup of the execrable stationhouse coffee and was taking his first sip when Byron walked through the door. Byron had taken two steps toward the coffee maker when his name was called.

  “Chieske! You down there?”

  They both looked up to see Captain Reilly standing at the head of the stairs to the second floor.

  “Right here, Captain.”

  “My office! Now!”

  Gotthilf offered his cup to Byron, who gulped down the remainder of the contents and grimaced.

  “Come on,” the up-timer said, “let’s go face the music.”

  Gotthilf followed Byron up the stairs and down the hall to the captain’s office.

  “Shut the door,” Captain Reilly growled from where he stood with his hands behind his back looking out the window.

  Gotthilf did so, and took his place beside his partner. Reilly didn’t say anything for a long moment, but from the set of his shoulders Gotthilf could tell that he was not happy. The captain finally turned around and faced them, back to the window, hands still clasped behind his back.

  “Mayor Gericke is being pressured to bring in army troops,” he announced. “He really doesn’t want to do that, and God knows I’ve been arguing with him about it, because it will be seen as his failure as well as ours. But if we don’t catch this killer soon, he won’t have much choice. Some of the notables are already talking about appealing to the emperor.”

  “That would include most of the city council of Old Magdeburg, I would guess,” Gotthilf ventured.

  “He didn’t name any names,” Reilly responded, “but given how those guys just about have a collective stroke every time Gericke tells them they can’t do something, I’d say you’re right on the money. They haven’t been happy since Gustav appointed Gericke to be the mayor of Greater Magdeburg and restricted their authority to the area inside the walls. If they can take him down and maybe replace him with one of their own, they’ll go for it like a starving fox after a chicken.”