Widow Killer

by Pavel Kohout

  "Morava, don't exaggerate."

  So Morava described the incredible picture of the witness pulling down his long underwear during the interview.

  "He can't remember anything. He was still walking around in his slippers when I got there. Even our doctor couldn't get anything out of him. He insisted that the raid took down the building right next door, and he'd even begun to persuade himself that the bomb did it to her. He remembers that he met a man on the steps, but that's all."

  "Is it really?"

  Morava was on guard because Beran's expression announced he had missed something crucial.

  "Except that it was a man...."

  "So how did he know the man was Czech?"

  Uh-oh, Morava thought, his heart sinking. I should have been a postman instead....

  "I don't know ...," he admitted humbly.

  "Which of the Germans said so? The head?"

  "No, their detective. Of course, he could have been bluffing."

  "Where's the caretaker?"

  "At home, I guess…"

  "Have Jitka get us a car."

  Thank God for the "us," Morava consoled himself as he left the office; he could have just sent me packing on a burglary case. The girl smiled warmly at him as always and his heart began to thump. Does she feel sorry for me, he wondered; has Beran told her what a loser I am? It was depressingly clear he would never impress either of them.

  As he wiped the plate with the last bit of dumpling he felt so wonderful that he remembered her again. Something yummy for your tummy, she used to say. Their Moravian cabbage really hit the spot; how had they learned to make it in Prague? He wasn't a beer man, but even this fairly weak stuff had a kick to it—astonishing in wartime—that spoke of kegs stored deep underground and well-maintained pipes. The pub was nearly empty; a pair of regulars huddled by the tap. Their loud argument triggered his memory. The raid! There had been an air raid....

  He racked his brain, trying to recall what had happened. Yes, he could see himself doing it, wading through glass shards which appeared out of nowhere to cover the carpet. There he was, passing a house recently leveled by aerial bombardment; how could he not have heard anything? Strange. No matter how hard he tried, everything that happened just before and after it was gone; the only thing remaining was it itself.

  The cemetery—yes, that he still remembered. His act had even drowned out the bombs. No coincidence that they began falling here today.

  Of all conceivable feelings, only relief and pride made sense. So why was he suddenly uneasy? And why was his stomach still growling so unpleasantly? Why was the tension he'd released at noon building up inside him again? What was his brain trying to tell him? After all, he'd done the deed, gotten the approval. Suddenly he knew. The man!

  The one who'd appeared out of nowhere on the staircase. He'd been so surprised he'd just let him pass—even said hello to him! This was the one person who could ruin everything. How could he have let him go? To fulfill the mission he had to remain anonymous. He'd have to get rid of his comfortable army coat and his favorite bag before he went a step further. And what if this man had a good memory for faces?

  What could he have been thinking? The man must have been going to see her; where else could he have been headed? She had no husband; they had been seeing each other. Yes, of course he'd have wanted to drop by after that scare. Like a pig in rut. And people like that deserve punishment!

  But who was it? Where would he find him? Now that he knew the source of his discomfort, the fog lifted and he could think clearly. The fellow had been in slippers and a shirt, no jacket, in February. Probably from the same building, then. But those apartments were for the wealthier classes; the man certainly didn't belong there. And why trudge up the stairs instead of taking the elevator?

  Of course. The caretaker.

  He rose to pay and perform the deed.

  The building's service apartment consisted of a tiny kitchen and a small living room. Small details revealed the caretaker to be a widower who tried to maintain order and cleanliness. They could see him from the sidewalk, repairing the shattered windowpanes with tape—the same kind the murderer used, Morava remembered. The old man opened the door for them with the light off, and then shuffled away to pull down the shades. Morava was intrigued by the way Beran was sniffing. Could he smell the underwear?

  The caretaker was still unable or unwilling to remember what the man on the staircase had looked like. To distract him, the superintendent asked a few questions about the baroness. He gleaned only a couple of superficial observations; no one in the von Pommeren family knew Czech, and the caretaker's German consisted of barely two dozen indispensable expressions. The general had been transferred here from Berlin just after the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Both he and his son had fallen on the front, and the baroness had had both urns buried at the Vysehrad cemetery nearby, where she visited them every day.

  Morava followed studiously as Beran reeled in his line, bringing the conversation back around to the morning's events.

  "You greeted the man first, right?"

  "Yep," said the caretaker without hesitation.

  "How?"

  "Well... 'dobrej den,' I guess. Just 'hello.' "

  "And he said?"

  "The same. He said, 'Dobrej den.' Yep, I'm sure of it."

  "So that's exactly what you remember?"

  "Well, he said it sort of strange like...."

  "Strange in what way?"

  "I dunno...."

  "Did he stutter? Hesitate? Mumble? Mutter? Did he have a lazy r? A hoarse voice? Or a high one?"

  Morava was amazed at the stream of possibilities his boss poured forth, but the caretaker kept shaking his head.

  "What was so strange about it?"

  "Dunno ... something just wasn't right."

  Morava dared to enter the game.

  "Something about his clothes?"

  "Maybe.. . ."

  Beran lunged into the gap.

  "So how was he dressed?"

  "If I knew, I'd tell ya.... Look, I had enough for today; did this young feller tell ya what happened to me? Crapped in my pants."

  He sounded almost proud of it. The superintendent decided to call it a day and stood up. Morava had a flash of inspiration.

  "So you definitely said to him ... how was it?"

  "I said, 'Dobrej den.'..."

  "And he said ..."

  "The same thing."

  "And could he have said it slightly differently, maybe 'dobry den'? So, 'dobry' instead of 'dobrej'?"

  "Yeah. That's what he said. Just like you said it. Like how they teach us in school, in books, you know?"

  Beran's gaze suddenly turned respectful. Morava warmed to his task.

  "And something about his appearance didn't fit with how he spoke?" I suppose ...

  "What would have fit?"

  "Urn ... what you're wearing: a hat, a winter coat..."

  "And what wouldn't have?"

  Morava was encouraged by Beran's continued silence.

  The caretaker looked briefly down at his thermals.

  "What I'm wearing...."

  "So was he dressed in something similar?"

  Morava had noticed long ago that when people of low intelligence were forced to think hard, the exertion made them suffer almost physically. When the man finally spoke, there was a pained expression on his face.

  "Look, lemme sleep on it, I'm worn out today."

  The superintendent had the caretaker let them into the baroness's apartment. A bitter cold welcomed them. They pulled the brocaded drapes closed over the blown-out windows and turned on the lights in the now darkened apartment. Beran walked around the table, the glass crunching under his feet as he sniffed, doglike.

  "Did someone change the carpet here?" he mused.

  "We didn't touch a thing," Morava protested.

  "From the way you described it I expected pools of blood."

  "I told you, he knew what he was doing. He got all her blood t
o run out into that ficus container. I sent everything to Pathology."

  "The breasts too, and the ... intestines?"

  For the first time ever, Morava saw his boss shiver.

  "Yes. The guys there were horrified by it; they said they'd put in a rush order."

  " 'Scuse me," the caretaker called from the entrance hall. "I think I'm gonna be sick again; could you lock up after yourselves?"

  "We'll go with you," Beran decided.

  Back downstairs the man had regained some color but was still distressed.

  "How'm I gonna sleep tonight?"

  "Surely you're not the only one here."

  "But I am! The dentist who lived upstairs left for the country; his office was on my floor."

  "And on the other floors?"

  "Used to be Jews living in those apartments. Now the Germans have some offices there or something."

  Morava opened his mouth and closed it again when he caught Beran's warning glance. The caretaker opened the main door. Outside, the darkness reeked of ashes. The firemen had left; only a few curious onlookers were hanging around near the ruins.

  "Good night," said the superintendent. "My assistant, Mr. Morava, will come by tomorrow morning to see if you've remembered anything overnight. Litera, step on it."

  The caretaker nodded and glanced longingly into the car at them. Beran wrinkled his brow as they drove off.

  "I think we can forget about him. Even if we put the perp right under his nose, he's too frightened to recognize him."

  "Which our murderer doesn't know," Morava realized.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I'm surprised he let him go. Almost an eyewitness. Must have been an oversight that he let him slip away."

  "Good point, Morava. So logically... ?"

  "The murderer will certainly be back."

  Beran nodded.

  "Make arrangements right away. Then come to my office."

  At Bartolomejska Street, Morava stopped to transmit Beran's order. Back in the anteroom of Beran's office, he was surprised to see Jitka at this late hour and could only manage a loopy smile.

  "Hi... what are you still..."

  "I thought maybe you'd need something ..."

  Well, yes: he needed to touch her, to confess that for months he'd been thinking only of her; she was the only reason he hadn't fled when he realized that he'd be saddled with mutilated corpses from now until retirement. But despite his recent success with Beran, he still couldn't find the courage, so he blurted out an inept question instead.

  "Like what?"

  "I brought a bit of soup from home; I'm heating it up for the superintendent, if you'd like some too ..."

  Suddenly the stench of blood and smoke was gone, replaced by one of his favorite childhood smells.

  "Sausage soup!"

  "My family"—she dropped to a whisper as she admitted to a grave crime against wartime economic measures—"slaughtered a pig...."

  "I'd love some," he said softly. "I... thanks. Thanks, yes."

  He couldn't tear his eyes from her and so walked backward into his boss's office. Beran was just hanging up the phone.

  "I spoke with Pathology. The autopsy confirms your report. He dismembered her alive, almost to the end. But he took something as a souvenir."

  "What?"

  "Her heart."

  "My God!"

  "And also, of course,... ?"

  "What else?"

  "The straps he used to tie her up. Which means ... ?"

  Morava the student knew.

  "That he'll do it again."

  "Exactly. I'm declaring an emergency."

  Erwin Buback put the dead woman out of his mind. It wasn't his case. He probed for the contentment he had felt at noon and to his joy found it was still there. Not even the disgust he'd felt in the apartment—the worst ever in his career—could destroy this feeling. In his pragmatic way, he had broken the deed down into a series of colorless facts, just as the young Czech must have done.

  He had been sitting alone for over an hour at the end of the bar in the German pub Am Graben; his evident lack of interest in human contact kept the other patrons at a distance. As he sipped a mediocre brandy of suspect origin—oh, where was sweet France?—he considered, for the first time since he lost Hilde and Heidi, what he would do after....

  That unknown After. Would it bring sorrow or new hope? When would it finally come? What form would it take? And how should he prepare for it?

  Was he exaggerating his skepticism? Or was he dangerously deformed by a profession that made him disbelieve everything he heard?

  Why not give it a try? Admit, for a start, that the Furhrer could be preparing a gigantic trap, part of which was a false retreat on all fronts?

  If victory destroyed Europe's existing social order and made way for a new era in history, what would it bring for Chief Inspector Erwin Buback?

  If that fateful After came soon (it would have to, he thought, since they were running out of places to retreat to), it would find him just past forty, with a high-placed police job, an excellent salary—and alone.

  On the day an unfamiliar voice, callused by years of these messages, had informed him briskly that the two reasons for his existence had perished, a large part of him died as well. The women who tried to comfort him hit a wall of ice. It was his awkward attempt to strike a bargain with Fate, as if his faithfulness would allow Hilde and Heidi to rise miraculously from the ashes.

  Today's noonday bomb had made him whole again. When the building shook, his long sleep ended, and he realized that over the past few months Hilde and Heidi had quietly become part of his living self. Interrupted contacts met again, like severed nerves. He began to feel once more.

  If the Reich actually won the war—and if he himself did not die in it—he could not spend the rest of his life mourning them. The dead had to be replaced. Germany was paying a terrible price for victory (the lot of all great nations, he supposed) and would need new blood. If Hilde and Heidi had survived him, they would definitely have felt the same way. But which way was that?

  The bar was filling up quickly, the noise grew louder. To stay meant risking the company of one of Meckerle's thugs. They had the disturbing habit of drowning out their own fear with proclamations about the Final Victory; it would instantly make him doubt the very thing he was trying so hard to believe in. And starting tomorrow, he would be taking concrete steps to help bring it about.

  He gave a wide berth to the deserted, reeking remains of the corner building and walked as slowly as he dared past his house, guided by the balustrade that ran along the sheer drop down to the towpath. In the black of night no one would recognize him, but still he only glanced quickly up at the top floor. The memory of his achievement filled him with contentment. Now he would eliminate the remaining threat to his continued success.

  They were still working feverishly on the nearby bridge. Apparently a bomb had fallen there and tipped over a few statues. A crane lifted one of them off the tram tracks; it looked like a giant corpse. He halted and looked around. He was alone on the embankment.

  He set his bag down on the sidewalk, opened it, and rummaged deep inside for it. The wax-paper package was still soft; carefully he placed IT back in the corner of the bag, where it would be better protected. Then he groped with his fingers for the handle of the knife sheathed beneath his shirt. As he placed it under his jacket he took care not to cut himself. That was how his failure in Brno had begun.

  Across the street, a thin streak of light lined the bottom of the windowshade in the ground-floor window. He had it all thought out. He would ring the bell and say—if necessary—Luftschutzkontrole! Air-raid control! Better take off his hat and modify his voice, since he'd been stupid enough to speak to the man earlier. What else would he need? His foot, as a wedge; his elbow, as a crowbar; and, to be on the safe side, two quick blows. He had just stepped into the street when the sirens went off.

  The freshly wounded city reacted quickly. Shadow
s hurried from the bridge down to the shelters. The last echo had barely faded into the distance when the sirens wailed yet again, their strange rising and falling glissandos prophesying an air raid.