“You’re so involved with your investigation that you’ve forgotten about everyone else.”
Oppenheimer felt misunderstood. “Please tell me what’s going on!”
“Dr. Klein got his evacuation papers the day before yesterday. Now that his wife passed away, he is no longer classified as privileged. He hoped he would be sent to Theresienstadt, but they want to take him to Poland because he’s not sixty yet. They’re fetching him tomorrow. So he gave away all his things today. I have a feeling he’s going to take Veronal. I don’t think the Gestapo will find him alive when they come for him.”
The taste of the chocolate seemed to change in Oppenheimer’s mouth. Shocked, he swallowed the rest. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling. Somewhere up there, Dr. Klein was just swallowing a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Oppenheimer felt the urge to do something. He wanted to put an end to this madness. But what could he do? As much as it went against his instincts, he had to accept that it might be better not to intervene. Dr. Klein would spare himself further abuse, wouldn’t have to dig his own grave before he was shot or gassed or whatever other atrocities the National Socialists might come up with. The only option he had to demonstrate his freedom, to not capitulate in the face of this extermination machinery, to not resign himself to his fate that the wretch whom the people called führer intended for him, was suicide.
The air in the room had suddenly gone thick and stale. Oppenheimer opened one of the windows and looked out onto the rain-drenched street. He no longer felt like eating chocolate.
* * *
The cemetery caretaker swore. He hadn’t switched on his flashlight, although it was pitch-black all around him. He could find his way around the cemetery in the dark. If he was unlucky, then one of these hoodlums would still be lurking around here somewhere, and in that case, he didn’t fancy attracting their attention. He considered himself quite fit for sixty-seven. Should anyone cross his path, he would try to sneak up and overpower him. At the thought of this, the caretaker gripped his hoe even tighter. It was good to have it with him, just in case.
After the all clear came through, he had just gotten comfortable in bed when he had been called out again. He would have noticed early in the morning, when he opened up, that the gate to the cemetery was ajar and that the chain had been cut. But now he’d been obliged to go out into the pouring rain to fulfill his duties. He’d seen Ms. Becker in the neighborhood several times before. He thought she was a silly goose, although she had a nice bum, you had to hand it to her. Out of sheer spite, he’d sent her to the nearest police station to report the break-in right away. Her expression when he said that he had to secure the grounds until the police arrived was simply priceless. Well, yes, one had to have one’s revenge. He would have preferred to be in bed now. Maybe even with Ms. Becker.
It was nearly impossible to search the entire cemetery in the darkness. The grounds were almost half a square kilometer. And the damp air was unpleasantly clammy, which was why the caretaker decided to go down only the wide path to the water tower. He told himself that then he would’ve done his duty well enough. He secretly hoped Ms. Becker hadn’t gone to the police after all, so he could get some more sleep for a couple of hours. The intruder couldn’t really do much here anyway. Maybe steal some flowers. Was there even a black market for that? Otherwise, the most you could do here was desecrate a grave. Not worth mentioning. And this was what they chased him out of bed for. The caretaker shook his head moodily as he walked along the crunching gravel. He could just about make out the huge tower ahead of him at the end of the path. When the sun shone, the cylindrical building’s red bricks outshone the entire cemetery. But during these early hours, the colors were hidden in the black night sky.
The caretaker reached the end of the path and the bottom of the tower and was about to turn back, but suddenly, he froze. There was something there. Had he really heard a rustle? Or was his mind playing tricks on him? He listened carefully, but he couldn’t hear anything apart from the large flags flapping above his head. It had probably just been a startled bird. Or could someone be hiding out here after all?
The caretaker raised his hoe, his muscles tensed, and he prepared himself for an attack. He would show this villain that an old man like him was not a defenseless victim. He slowly began to circle around the tower, moving forward with extreme caution. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but the damned gravel crunched with his every step.
He didn’t have to go far to discover the body. The caretaker was just passing the memorial hall at the base of the tower when his foot encountered an obstacle right outside the main entrance. He stopped in alarm. Something he couldn’t quite make out was lying in front of him in the darkness. That thing hadn’t been lying here yesterday.
The caretaker knew how easy it would be to ambush him here. He was fully exposed. He suppressed his first instinct to examine whatever lay by his feet. First, he had to check that the coast was clear.
Nothing moved. No telltale light in the bushes. Nor was there anything coming from the portico of the memorial hall. No shadows waiting behind a pillar, no unusual sounds penetrating his ear. It was just him and the dark something or other on the ground in front of him.
Once he’d made sure there was no one in the vicinity, he focused his attention back on the dark object. If he wanted to be able to see anything, he had no choice but to switch on the flashlight. He adjusted the beam of light down toward the ground and saw what was lying in front of him. He’d seen similar things at the front, but all his war experience could not have prepared him for this human body that had been grotesquely mutilated by crude violence. The caretaker quickly switched the flashlight back off and just about managed to suppress his urge to vomit. Despite his hoe, he felt defenseless.
* * *
Oppenheimer had not been able to sleep all night. This time, it wasn’t the air raid that got him out of bed. Lisa had gone straight back to sleep when they returned to their flat, but Oppenheimer tossed and turned. The thought of Dr. Klein preyed on his mind. He felt a bitterness inside that he couldn’t shake off. He lay in bed and couldn’t do much more than stare into the darkness.
Suddenly, a muffled sound. Steps. Someone was in the stairwell, coming up to their floor. A few seconds later, the kitchen door opened. Steps approached their room. Was it the Gestapo? Another search? Oppenheimer held his breath. Then someone knocked on the door.
“Oppenheimer?” a voice asked.
Hesitantly, Oppenheimer pulled on his trousers and opened the door. Hoffmann was standing in the brightly lit kitchen. “Mission,” he said curtly. Oppenheimer knew what that meant.
“Hell and damnation!” he mumbled. The perpetrator had struck again. He’d killed another victim. In moments like these, Oppenheimer hated his job.
* * *
The rain had ceased when Vogler arrived outside the entrance to the Bergstraße cemetery at daybreak. His face took on an extremely unhealthy color in this light, but Oppenheimer was certain that he probably didn’t look much better either. “We have a witness!” Vogler said with a broad grin.
Oppenheimer’s eyes widened in excitement. “What did he see?”
“She. I’ve sent two of my officers to the police station. The witness will be held there so we can interview her straightaway. As far as I understood from the cemetery caretaker, she saw someone fiddling around at the gate just before the body was found.”
Vogler then explained that the cemetery’s northern portal consisted of a large iron gate, flanked by two smaller gates. The caretaker usually locked the main gate with a chain. The intruder had cut through one of the chain links, probably with a bolt cutter.
Vogler led Oppenheimer along the wide path straight across the cemetery grounds. Splendid gravestones that had been built shortly after the turn of the century were positioned alongside more recent plain stones, but their contours were still blurred in the shadowless twilight of dawn. The flat-roofed structure they were walking toward seemed rather bulky co
mpared to the brick water tower construction that rose up above it. Oppenheimer vaguely remembered that this tower had never fulfilled its original purpose as a water reservoir. The NSDAP had found better usage for this representative and simultaneously pointless building—namely, a memorial for the fallen of the First World War and the National Socialist movement.
A sudden flashbulb explosion from the direction of the memorial hall. Doubtlessly the police photographer was in the process of securing the evidence.
“Up there?” Oppenheimer asked, quickening his steps. Vogler seemed surprised by Oppenheimer’s sudden agility.
“Right outside the main portal,” he said and hurried after Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer rushed past an SS man guarding the site, a gun on his shoulder. When he turned around the corner of the portico, he saw the tarpaulin. The photographer was just placing it back over the body. Only a few red curls could be seen poking out of the tarpaulin. The body was near the main stairs that led to the entrance of the building.
The same pattern, Oppenheimer thought. Once again, the body was lying in front of a sort of sacrificial altar, only this one rose up about forty meters above the ground. Before he lifted the tarpaulin, his heart began to pound.
He was presented with a gruesome sight. The woman’s pelvic area had been positioned to face the monument, her legs spread. The injuries seemed to be identical with the first three victims. Similar to the other sites, there was little blood. There was no doubt that this was the same perpetrator. And yet Oppenheimer’s first impression had deceived him. The pattern was not identical. Something was missing this time.
“What does this mean?” Oppenheimer asked in bewilderment.
“He cut her arms off,” Vogler explained. “We’re already searching the area to see if they are lying here somewhere.”
“No arms?” Oppenheimer thought out loud. Only now did he take in anything besides the injuries. The woman lying on the ground in front of him was dressed entirely in black. The rain had almost washed away her makeup. As if by magic, the woman’s face did not show the unimaginable torments that she must have gone through.
Oppenheimer stayed crouched next to her. Anger rose inside him. Anger and despair. She could still be alive if he hadn’t failed so dismally. He had wasted the last weeks. The murderer had made him a culprit. He remained an enigma to Oppenheimer. Each time he believed that he could make some sense of the facts, something happened and threw everything overboard.
“Has anyone been reported missing?” Oppenheimer asked.
Vogler, leaning against one of the pillars, shook his head. “Not yet.”
Oppenheimer got up, went to the top of the stairs, and looked at the grassy area that stretched out below him. “Right, well, the lady doesn’t seem to have anything with her that might identify her. So we’ll have to find out ourselves. She looks well cared for; I don’t think she works the streets. She is wearing expensive jewelry, and as far as I can tell, she uses perfume. This is too classy. I think you should send someone to the brothels with her picture. If there was some sort of SS connection, we’ll soon find out. I doubt no one will miss her. Right, now where is the witness?”
“I believe she’s at the police station.”
“Then I’ll go and question her myself. She’s probably the best thing we have right now.”
* * *
Elfriede Becker looked at Oppenheimer with red-rimmed eyes. She’d been in the police station for four hours now, sitting on a wooden bench, exhausted, with her jacket rolled up as a neck support. “I don’t want to complain, but your colleagues have already questioned me. I spent half the night in the bunker, and I have to go to work soon.”
“It won’t take long,” Oppenheimer reassured her and sat down next to her. “So you were on your way home and saw the suspect? In Bergstraße, right by the entrance?”
Ms. Becker adjusted her glasses, pulled the jacket from behind her head, and folded it carefully. Her movements were mechanical. “I don’t know if it was the perpetrator. Before I got to the gate, I saw a figure there.”
“How far away were you?” Oppenheimer automatically moved closer, observing her. Ms. Becker was too tired to notice his behavior.
Her head lowered, she answered, “Maybe fifteen meters. I thought it was odd that the man ran away.”
“What did he look like?”
Ms. Becker let out an annoyed groan and leaned back. “I’m afraid I can’t say. I couldn’t make out much because of the blackout. It was light only for a brief moment because the moon came out from behind a cloud. The light quickly disappeared again, and then I just heard steps. He probably crossed the road or disappeared behind the trees, I don’t know. Anyway, by the time I got to the gate, he was gone.”
“But you did see him during this brief moment, correct?”
“Well, seeing is going too far, but yes, I was able to get a brief glimpse of him.”
“What can you say about his appearance?”
“Normal height, maybe five foot seven. Long coat. No hat.”
“If he wasn’t wearing a hat, what color was his hair?”
Ms. Becker looked at him uncertainly. “I would say light. I can’t really remember.”
“Light? Do you mean his hair was white?”
“No, it was shiny. Like Jean Harlow in the American films.”
Oppenheimer tried to square the image of the peroxide blonde with the suspected perpetrator but couldn’t quite picture it. Ms. Becker must have caught Oppenheimer’s incredulous gaze. Apologetically, she added, “I think I might be rather tired. I just couldn’t see any more than that.”
Oppenheimer had learned through experience that every witness can be influenced. Many of them started doubting their own powers of observation after being repeatedly questioned and simply just confirmed what they had been told. He realized that they had almost reached that critical moment.
“We’re done,” he said. “Many thanks for your efforts.”
Without saying good-bye, Ms. Becker grumpily pulled on her jacket and left the police station.
18
MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1944–SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1944
Oppenheimer didn’t allow himself much sleep that morning. He merely lay down on the sofa in the flat in Zehlendorf and rested for a brief two hours amid the scraps of paper scattered all over the place. Although Vogler’s people had searched the entire cemetery and the surrounding area, the victim’s arms had not been found.
Vogler had made sure that the autopsy took place right away. They drove to the morgue early that afternoon to attend the examination. Dr. Gebert insisted on carrying out the autopsy himself. It was apparent that he was not very pleased to see Oppenheimer again so soon. His expression, already glum, darkened even more when he saw the body.
Oppenheimer was particularly interested in the surfaces of the cuts at the shoulders.
“Interesting,” Gebert said when he inspected the area.
“How did he manage to cut the arms off?” Oppenheimer asked.
“He probably used a knife. It’s quite straightforward. I’ll try to put it in layman’s terms. This is where the caput humeri, the upper arm bone joint, would normally sit in the socket of the shoulder blade.” Gebert pointed to the light piece of bone that was visible in the flesh. “There’s a hollow there. The perpetrator cut into the tissue here, and then he simply had to cut around the joint.”
“So he had some knowledge of anatomy?” Oppenheimer asked.
“You mean that he might be a doctor? Not necessarily. Animal and human joints are quite similar in their construction. The method he deployed here is also used to dismember cattle.”
Based on the body temperature, Dr. Gebert estimated that the murderer had killed the woman about eighteen hours ago. Her remaining injuries, including the steel nail in her ears, proved to be identical to the findings made with Inge Friedrichsen.
Oppenheimer had heard what he wanted to know and left the morgue even before Dr. Gebert had properly begun the autopsy
. He wondered what the murderer had done with the woman’s arms. Back in Zehlendorf, he contemplated the photographs taken at the other localities. He tried to find a pattern in the injuries that would fit with the severed arms. But hard as he tried, he couldn’t discover a reasonable connection.
At least the SD, which had been called in, had hit a bull’s-eye. Late afternoon, Vogler entered the room, grinning from ear to ear. “We’ve identified the body and know where she went about her business,” he reported triumphantly.
“So she was a professional prostitute?” Oppenheimer asked.
“You were right. The woman had too much class to be an ordinary streetwalker. I got Güttler to look into it. He took the photographs to the best-known upmarket brothels. He got lucky right in the first one—Salon Kitty in Giesebrechtstraße.”
* * *
The next day, Oppenheimer sat in the back of Vogler’s Daimler on the way to Salon Kitty. The SD man Güttler, who had discovered the dead woman’s connection to the brothel, was with him. He was a nimble, friendly man and almost bald, even though he was probably only in his midthirties. Oppenheimer himself couldn’t really say what had made him take Güttler along. Maybe it was the urge to have a chaperone in the shady establishment. Vogler had described him as a competent and reliable man, and Oppenheimer thought this to be an advantage in any situation. He had wanted to visit Salon Kitty already yesterday, but the owner, Kitty Schmidt, had asked him to come at a later time when the place wasn’t quite so busy. It was early afternoon now, apparently the ideal time.
The Giesebrechtstraße was on the southern edge of Charlottenburg. Officially, the salon operated under the name Guesthouse Schmidt, but because of the raucous parties in the dead of night and the big limousines that parked outside the house almost every night, all the neighbors knew that clients were being offered more than board and lodgings. It was quite a prestigious neighborhood; SS Gruppenführer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner lived right next door in number twelve. In his function as head of the Reich Security Main Office, he was also head of the Security Police and the SD. This also made him Güttler’s direct supervisor. Eduard Künnecke was also said to live on the street. Oppenheimer liked his operetta The Cousin from Nowhere, which was really funny and masterfully orchestrated with popular tunes. It was a nice change to the operatic tragedy that Franz Lehár had become addicted to and that had drained the swing he used to have in his earlier works.
Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin Page 22
