Desert Fire

by David Hagberg

  “In here,” Roemer called back. “BKA.”

  A uniformed officer in a heavy green leather jacket, his service revolver drawn, appeared at the bedroom door. Others were crowding into the small apartment, while still more pounded up the stairs.

  Roemer held his badge up to the cop. “Roemer, BKA. For the moment I am in charge.”

  “Yes, sir.” The uniformed cop nodded. “Sir, you’ve been hurt.”

  “I’ll get to the hospital on my own, Patrolman. As soon as a KP officer shows up, have him report to me. In the meantime, I want you people out of here and all entrances secured.”

  The cop was confused. “The man out there is dead … Shall we call for the coroner?”

  “This is a simple suicide, for the moment. The victim is not German, and what’s more, he has diplomatic immunity.”

  “The woman … she was armed.”

  “She too is not German. Return her weapon to her, with my apologies. She will be allowed to remain in the apartment.”

  “Very good, sir.” The cop turned on his heel and began issuing orders.

  Roemer quickly searched the bedroom, beneath the mattress, in the drawers of a large chest and in the Schrank. But there was nothing else of interest.

  The apartment had quieted. Leila stood in the doorway, looking very angry.

  “Have you called your embassy?” he asked.

  “They are on their way.” She held out her hand. “I want it.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever it is you found in here. Letters. Notes. Files. They are of no concern to you, and in fact may contain information classified by the State of Iraq.”

  “A pretty speech,” Roemer said.

  “I demand …”

  “You’re in no position to demand anything, Fräulein Kahled. You are on German soil now.”

  “There will be a lot of trouble over this, Investigator.”

  “The name is Walther Roemer.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “You would be surprised at the extent of my knowledge.”

  Someone called his name from the corridor. Roemer walked out to the living room as Lieutenant Manning, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his long tan overcoat open, charged through the open door.

  “Guten Morgen, Lieutenant,” Roemer said wearily.

  Manning took in Pavli’s body, Leila just behind Roemer and the wound in Roemer’s arm.

  “He’s dead,” Roemer said. “Self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

  “Has an ambulance been called for you?”

  “I’ll manage on my own,” Roemer said. “The boy is Ahmed Pavli, an Iraqi citizen, with, I’m told, diplomatic immunity. However, he was, and this scene is, material to our investigation into the Sharazad Razmarah murder.”

  Manning looked at Pavli’s body. “Did he kill Sarah?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Manning looked up. “The woman?”

  “Leila Kahled. An Iraqi who also enjoys diplomatic immunity.”

  “You’re a cop?” Manning asked her.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Leila said. “And I wish this apartment to be secured immediately.”

  Manning’s eyebrows rose. “Has your embassy been contacted, Fräulein?”

  “It has.”

  Manning looked at Roemer, then back to Leila. “Very well, we shall wait until the proper diplomatic authorities arrive. But I will have to ask you to remain on the scene. There will be questions.”

  “Naturally,” Leila said gruffly.

  “And now, Investigator Roemer, if you would care to step outside, I would like to have a word with you,” Manning said.

  “Sure.” But before Roemer left he hunched down over Pavli’s body.

  “Do not touch him …” Leila started, but then she realized Roemer was just closing the man’s eyes.

  Roemer followed Manning outside. A crowd had already formed, and the uniformed police were busy dispersing it.

  “Are you all right?” Manning asked. They stopped at his unmarked car.

  “Just a superficial wound. Hurts like hell, though.”

  “What happened up there?”

  “The man shot himself.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “He was Sarah Razmarah’s boyfriend. I came to talk to him.”

  Manning nodded. “And the woman?”

  “I think Pavli telephoned her this morning.”

  “Iraqi Federal Police,” Manning said. “You two should have a lot in common.”

  15

  BONN WAS ACTUALLY three cities in one. Premier among them was the former parliamentary metropolis of 300,000 people, with its Bundeshaus and other government buildings, as well as the secondary residence of the Federal President at Villa Hammerschmidt in the Adenauerallee. Then there was the ornate town with two thousand years of history: Ancient buildings competed with the modern; castles overlooked the Autobahns; the spires of baroque churches stabbed the same gray sky as radio and television towers. Finally, at the center was the middle city of libraries and gas stations, of supermarkets and the Sears store, of police barracks and the hospital.

  It was not quite noon when Roemer was discharged from the hospital’s emergency ward, three stitches just above his left elbow, his arm in a sling. His shoulder had been thrown out of joint by the force of the .357 magnum slug.

  “You are lucky, Investigator, let me tell you,” the doctor had said cheerfully as he stitched. “If it hadn’t been a steel-jacketed slug, you might not have an arm.”

  “I feel very lucky by comparison with the one who did this to me,” Roemer grumbled.

  He was in a foul mood. He was tired and hungry, and angry that he had been dragged into this business. Pavli’s diary was still in his jacket pocket. It would be so easy to blame the murder on him and leave it at that. That would make Whalpol happy.

  Manning would accept the verdict. The Iraqis might put up a little fuss. But Pavli had been using the girl as much as she had been using him. Soon the furor would die down, and even Gretchen would be pleased.

  But he couldn’t, could he? Whalpol had counted on it, just as Gretchen knew it was inevitable: his stupid sense of dedication. Or was it simply that he didn’t like loose ends?

  His jacket thrown over his shoulders like a cape, Roemer walked down the hospital driveway to his car on the street. There was a parking ticket on the windshield.

  He grabbed the ticket, crumpled it up and threw it in the street. “Goddammit to hell,” he roared.

  Two nurses who were passing by looked up, startled, and quickly crossed the street. He was being a fool. He had a choice here. He could walk away from this business. Lay it in Schaller’s lap: “Here, Chief Prosecutor, I am not the man for this.”

  Whalpol had maneuvered him so easily. Of course they knew about his father. And of course they’d make use of the fact. It was a wonder Simon Wiesenthal’s people weren’t already camped on his doorstep. The sins of the fathers would be visited upon their sons. Wasn’t that the line?

  Perhaps this weekend he would drive down to see his father. There weren’t many hours left.

  Roemer went back to the hospital and took the elevator down to the basement, to the city morgue. He rang the bell at the security door.

  The door was opened by the forensics man who had been on Manning’s team at Sarah Razmarah’s apartment. Roemer knew of him. His name was Stanos Lotz and he was one of the best in Germany.

  “Investigator Roemer, I wondered when you’d be showing up,” Lotz said. His lab coat was dirty, and his thick glasses, which had slipped to the end of his nose, were flecked with blood.

  “Is Dr. Sternig here?”

  “At lunch, I suspect.”

  “Has he finished his report?”

  “On the Razmarah girl?” Lotz smiled briefly. Then he shook his head. “You are too optimistic. Perhaps tomorrow, but then the weekend will be upon us. Monday would be more likely.”

  “I need it now,” Roemer said. He felt d
angerous.

  “I thought as much. Come in.”

  Roemer followed Lotz down the corridor, through glass doors into a long, narrow operating theater. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Two steel tables were illuminated by overhead lights. Next to them stood several instrument tables and equipment stands on rolling carts. At the center of the room were laboratory benches. One wall contained two dozen body boxes. The room was cold and smelled of antiseptic. White-tiled and stainless-steel sterile. Here, death was a business.

  On one of the tables lay a body covered by a white sheet.

  Lotz crossed to the table and took the edge of the sheet. “Was there something specific you were interested in, Investigator? Some fact, some bit of pathology?”

  “I want to know who killed her.”

  “A strong, right-handed male military officer.” Lotz flipped back the sheet with a flourish. “Sharazad Razmarah.”

  Roemer’s stomach did a turn, and the room got warm. He used to confide in his wife, and later in Gretchen, about his squeamishness. He had learned to keep his mouth shut.

  “Only a strong man could have broken her jaw with one blow,” Lotz said.

  The top of Sarah’s skull had been sawn off, the cap laid back in place. An incision had been made from her sternum, between her breasts, all the way down to just above her pubis, and then had been sewn back up with long, looping stitches. She looked terribly mangled.

  “I understand that, Lotz,” Roemer said.

  The little forensics man softened his expression. He replaced the sheet. “Sorry. I tend to get caught up in what I’m doing. They’re like big anatomical models. No basis in reality—in life, if you know what I mean.”

  “A strong man or a dedicated, well-trained woman?”

  “Not unless she was a woman with very big fists. The bruises are too large.”

  “Right-handed?”

  “The angle of the fractures.”

  Roemer couldn’t keep his eyes from the form beneath the sheet. She looked worse here than she had at the murder scene. Twice violated, he thought. Once out of passion. The second time out of curiosity.

  “Why are you involved in this case, Roemer? Why the BKA?”

  Roemer looked at the man, who, after all, was a personal friend of Manning. “I’ve got a job to do, just like you.”

  Lotz smiled wryly. He glanced down at the form on the table. “Right-handed, strong male. Now you want to know why I’m making the military connection.” He reached beneath the sheet and uncovered Sarah’s right hand and forearm. Her fingers were open, and most of the flesh in her palm was missing, exposing the muscles and tendons. “She grabbed something from her killer. A bit of jewelry. Held it tightly. So tightly, in fact, that the object was pressed into her flesh. She died like that.”

  Lotz covered her arm. “When we die, we stop sweating, of course. Everything, at least most things, are held then in stasis. Makes it easy for us. Silver nitrite, a little black-light photography, and we have lifted an impression. The American FBI taught us that little trick.”

  Lotz stepped around the table and went to one of the lab benches, where he rummaged through a stack of file folders. He pulled out a couple of strange photographs.

  “The woman’s right palm,” Lotz said, holding up one of the shots. Three sets of points showed up, side by side, some of them connected with faint, blurry lines.

  He laid the photo on the table, pulled a pen from his pocket and quickly traced lines between each of the points, making three small stars in a row.

  Roemer nodded.

  “A cuff link, probably,” Lotz said. “Gold. We found the flecks of it embedded in her skin, which means it was probably twenty-four-karat. Expensive.”

  “Could these have been octagons?”

  “No. Some of the connecting ridges were there as well. Her killer was a three-star general.”

  “What else have you got for me?”

  Lotz replaced the photo in the file folder, then took off his glasses and carefully rubbed his watering eyes. “One last thing, Investigator. One last nasty, ugly, unfortunate thing. The girl was in her first trimester.”

  “What?”

  “Sharazad Razmarah was pregnant. Seven, perhaps eight weeks.”

  “Shit.”

  “On a general’s pay he could have done better by her, don’t you think?”

  But Roemer wasn’t listening.

  Sarah’s killer may have been an officer, but not necessarily a general. Three small stars in a row was the national symbol of Iraq.

  16

  FROM HIS CAR, Roemer telephoned Manning at his office and asked if Sarah Razmarah’s automobile had been located. Manning had just got back from Pavli’s apartment, and, sounding angry, he asked Roemer to come over.

  Manning’s office was in a new wing of the Bonn Kriminalpolizei Building not far from the hospital. The Interpol office was just upstairs, and to the east was the City Prosecutor’s office.

  They were waiting for him when he arrived. A lot of the cops nodded in respect. Manning had a reputation, but so did Roemer.

  His arm and shoulder were stiff and sore. He wanted nothing more than to go home, take a long, hot bath and go to bed for a few hours. The painkiller the doctor had given him made him nauseated.

  “How is your arm?” Manning asked. “I understand they wanted to keep you for a day.”

  Ignoring the question, Roemer followed Manning into his office, which smelled of sweat and stale cigarette smoke. A cigarette was burning in a nearly full ashtray on the desk. By the window was a large chalkboard. A piece of white paper taped to the frame covered whatever might be written on it.

  Manning poured them both a cup of strong coffee. Roemer slumped down in a chair. “I called about Sarah Razmarah’s car.”

  “We found it this morning, no problem,” Manning said, perching on the edge of his desk. “In the parking lot at KwU, where she left it the night she was murdered. Where she had to leave it. The coil wire was pulled loose. Someone sabotaged her car.”

  “The killer drove her home, then?”

  Manning shrugged. “The thought has crossed my mind.” He lit a cigarette. “Have you been to the morgue?”

  “I saw the photographs.”

  “Of her palm? Of the impressions?”

  Roemer nodded.

  “What do you think?”

  The coffee was bad. It was upsetting Roemer’s stomach. He put it down. “May I have a cigarette, Lieutenant?”

  Manning gave him a cigarette and impatiently held out his lighter. The first drag nearly made Roemer vomit.

  Manning leaned forward. “An Iraqi killed her. One of the crew working at KwU.”

  “You’re not supposed to know about that.”

  “Shit.” Manning sniffed. “Who the hell are you trying to kid? You’re the fair-haired boy, and I’m hamstrung here. I can’t get a fucking thing done. Everywhere I turn I’m blocked. Diplomatic immunity is the term of the hour. I can’t even get cooperation from my own prosecutor.”

  “Have you tried Chief Prosecutor Schaller?”

  Manning laughed derisively. “He’s not interested in the likes of me. But I’ll tell you one thing, Roemer, I’ll find that girl’s murderer, no matter how many toes I have to step on. Even yours.”

  “That’s commendable. Anyone at KwU see anything?”

  Manning stared at Roemer. Finally he shook his head. “Nothing yet, but my people are working on it. That is to say, we’re being allowed to speak with a few supervisors. The Iraqis are off limits. They’re not even there. Nobody will even admit that much.”

  “You don’t like them.”

  “Frankly no, Investigator. But you probably do, considering who their primary enemy is.”

  Roemer was out of his chair. “You bastard.”

  Manning was taken aback. “Sorry, Investigator. I meant nothing by it.”

  “We both have a job to do, Lieutenant,” Roemer said. He had overreacted.

  “I und
erstand my job, but I do not understand yours.”

  “Finding Sarah Razmarah’s murderer.”

  “Ahmed Pavli,” Manning said. “The girl’s child was probably Pavli’s. They were lovers.”

  “But I don’t think he killed her.”

  “Neither do I, really.”

  “Then why did you say so?”

  “That is the official line for now. It’ll be in the papers this afternoon.”

  “Schaller will block it.”

  Manning threw up his hands. He stepped to the chalkboard and flipped up the paper cover. Two columns of notes had been written on the board. It was efficient, unimaginative standard police procedure.

  “You’ll not share with me, so in the interest of justice, I’ll share with you,” Manning said.

  The left column showed the strong leads; the right listed the basic topics.

  AHMED PAVLI BIRTH

  TALL THIN MAN SCHOOL

  1986 OPEL EMPLOYMENT

  LEILA KAHLED FRIENDS

  AUTOPSIES NEIGHBORHOOD

  There was nothing new or out of the ordinary, except for Leila Kahled’s name. She would be off limits to Manning’s investigation, but crucial to Roemer’s.

  “What have you got on the Kahled woman?”

  Manning tapped the chalkboard. “She was at Pavli’s apartment. She knew Sarah Razmarah. Which brings us to you, Investigator. Goddammit, what are you doing in this business?”

  “Investigating.”

  “Then help me.”

  “I will, if and when I come up with something I think you will be able to use. Believe me.”

  “Scheiss.” Manning looked out the window. “I could have you followed, you know.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Then you take the case. I’ll turn everything over to the BKA. I’ll personally bring everything we’ve come up with over to your office.”

  “It wouldn’t be accepted. Find the murderer, Lieutenant. If I can help you, I will.”

  “In the meantime, what will you be doing? Cozying up to the Arabs, perhaps?”

  Roemer went to the door.

  “I just hope to God it wasn’t one of them who murdered her,” Manning said softly.

  Roemer hesitated a moment. “If it comes out that way, I’ll kill the bastard myself.”