Heller was about to answer, then stopped and grabbed Oldenbusch’s sleeve. “Werner, turn around slowly and look up Alaunstrasse. I think that’s the young woman you chased down yesterday.”
The young woman was strolling in a seemingly aimless way among passersby and onlookers. She still wore the long thick overcoat that made her look oddly plump; her hair was covered by a cloth, knotted at her forehead. She’d wrapped rope around her boots, which were coming apart at the seams. She looked like she was concealing something under her coat.
Oldenbusch tilted his head sideways, then frowned. “Not sure; lots like her running around. Should I trail her?” It was clear from his tone that he didn’t think it was necessary.
The woman was farther away now, and passersby kept blocking their view of her. She was sure to notice anyone following her down the narrow street.
Heller conceded. Something else was on his mind. “Gutmann says it might have been some newly organized resistance group. Werewolves.”
“Werewolves?” Oldenbusch frowned again. “That’s a bunch of hogwash. You can see the shooter wasn’t experienced from the bullet holes alone. Most of his shots hit the ceiling because he wasn’t used to the recoil jerking him back every time he fired.”
“Russian hand grenades but German machine guns?”
“There are plenty of both lying around. Hidden, or simply tossed out. They must have churned out millions of those guns.”
“It’s not inconceivable that Gutmann’s competition was getting envious of his business. I got a look at his stocks—it’s pure paradise, Werner.”
“I know, he was serving coffee. The real stuff. I wasn’t expecting that. Nearly keeled over.”
“He also doesn’t seem bothered about his place getting destroyed.” Heller pondered that again.
“He doesn’t do his main business inside his own joint. He’s a racketeer, the king of the black market.”
“Well, if he is, we haven’t snared him on a raid. That face and build would have stuck in my mind. And that nice-sounding name. Gutmann.”
Oldenbusch bent down and plucked another shell from between the cobblestones. “Number twenty-nine,” he announced with pride. “No, a guy like that doesn’t ever hit the black market himself. He’s got people for that. Maybe you should talk to your young friend about it, you know, that one-legged fellow.”
Heller immediately knew whom he meant. Heinz Seibling. He jotted the name down in his notebook. It was a good idea. A boyhood friend of Heller’s son Klaus, Heinz lived in the neighborhood and was all eyes and ears.
“Which also raises the question of whether the assailant was intending to kill Gutmann or if he hoped the place would be cleared out so late at night.” Heller stared at Oldenbusch, waiting for his thoughts.
“If he’d intended to kill him, he would’ve broken in and emptied that magazine right into Gutmann. I’m thinking what you’re thinking, Max. He only meant to scare the man.”
“But apparently the prospect of killing someone was an acceptable consequence.”
Oldenbusch blew air from his cheeks. “Well, that’d be a matter for the public prosecutor.”
Heller knew what Oldenbusch was getting at. They both still had lots to do, and it was very cold. Heller turned up the collar of his overcoat.
“Keep me informed, Werner. I want to go ask Dr. Kassner if they have anything new on that severed head.”
It took Heller nearly an hour to reach the municipal hospital in the Friedrichstadt district. There wasn’t a vehicle available, so again he went by streetcar; he might as well have walked.
Inside the hospital he wasn’t able to find Dr. Kassner in the pathology department and kept getting sent from one place to the next. After running around to three different buildings, he returned to pathology and simply waited inside the door for the doctor.
Dr. Kassner eventually came in.
“You been looking for me long?” he asked Heller as they started up the stairs.
“You could say that.”
The coroner was around forty, with combed-back dark hair and a narrow mustache that, along with his thick-framed black glasses, gave him a stern look. He had returned safe and sound from the Russian Front after only arriving in the fall of ’44, but he had lost his wife and child in the Dresden air raid. He never spoke about it and didn’t let it show. He was one of those who endured their losses without lament, while others spent years mourning their living room credenza.
“I had a report sent to you at the police department,” Kassner said.
“I haven’t been there much,” Heller said, “with so much going on around town.” He was mad at himself for not making a quick stop at the office below the ruins of police HQ on Schiessgasse. There he could’ve used one of the permanent field telephones the city had allocated to the police and saved himself the long trip over.
“You’re telling me. In the last three days my table has seen four fatalities from gunshot wounds and two from stab wounds. All robberies. People are bashing each other’s skulls in. Since you’re already here, should we take a look at that head?”
“Of course.”
“Then come with me.” Kassner took rapid strides down the long corridor. Heller followed.
“You working that incident involving the Russians?” the coroner asked, their footsteps echoing off the walls.
“I’ve been more or less forbidden,” Heller said. Kassner didn’t need to know what he’d discussed with Medvedev.
“What a disgrace! The Russians only have themselves to blame for no one liking them. There’s hunger and distrust everywhere. In Cossebaude, people overturned a horse cart full of cabbage that was being delivered to a business. The poor driver had to sit and watch his cabbage being pilfered by moms, cripples, children, truly all kinds. Some started eating the cabbage raw, right there, standing in the middle of the road!” The doctor shook his head, looking dispirited. “The outrage is spreading. Here alone we see about ten deaths a day from typhus, and rising. The freezing cold is making everything worse. People are dropping like flies.”
Heller couldn’t help thinking about Frau Marquart being sick. “Tell me, doctor, how can you tell it’s typhus? Is there a fever?”
“Yes, it jumps up quickly, but the pulse keeps steady. Congestion, stomach pains. Later, little spots. Typhus is caused by dirty water, and people get infected orally or from contact with feces. Spotted fever is transmitted by lice.”
They had lice at home even though they used lice powder everywhere. And they were getting their water from the pump at the nearest intersection ever since a frozen pipe burst. Toilet paper was scarce. They had gotten shots for typhus, but there was probably nothing they could do for spotted fever and so many other illnesses.
“Heller, is someone sick at home?”
Heller nodded, which made Kassner raise both hands in defense.
“Typhus needs to be treated with penicillin. And before you ask, I don’t have any. I couldn’t even tell you where you could get some.”
Heller was disappointed but tried not to show it. They’d finally reached the temporary rooms that Kassner used for forensics. The doctor pushed the door open and greeted a colleague, whom Heller acknowledged with a nod despite the man’s face mask. Heller looked around. The doctors here had plenty to do. Corpses lay on several dissecting tables, and Heller raised his scarf to his face. But Kassner handed him a face mask and helped him tie it on.
“The head, please,” Kassner said to a female assistant. “We’re taking another look.”
To Heller he said, “This dual burden is getting to be too much. I can’t be working for both the hospital and the police. And I recently kicked a man out of my department because a colleague denounced him as a Nazi Party member. That’s not the way this should work, Heller. Lots of people were forced to join the Nazi Party. People like me and surely you as well. They can’t go locking everyone up, or there won’t be anyone left.”
“I’ve never belonged to a part
y. Never.”
Kassner recoiled and gave Heller a surprised look.
“Well, be that as it may,” he said, “we’re very busy cataloging the various epidemics. We see many frostbite victims and lots of organ failure due to malnutrition. See, the body begins to break down muscle once it has no more fat reserves. The same happens with the heart muscles. Once that happens, the end comes fast.”
Kassner’s female assistant pushed in a rolling cart with the head under a cloth. Once she was gone, Kassner leaned close to Heller.
“Did you hear about the autobahn to Berlin? Last night two cars were held up, and the occupants killed and robbed. Supposedly seven dead. I’m telling you, there’s going to be another war if the Russians keep letting people starve like this.”
Heller took a deep breath. “We shouldn’t forget whom we all have to thank for this.”
Kassner nodded. “The Führer, that crook!”
But that wasn’t what Heller meant. For many, Hitler had become the accepted excuse. Hitler was the guilty one, people simply said, and then didn’t have to think about how guilty they themselves were. Hitler drove us into the abyss, they’d lament, as if a single person could be solely responsible for all misery everywhere.
Heller pointed at the cart. “Show me the head.”
Kassner pulled off the cloth. “Male, age fifty, judging from the condition of the teeth. Appears to be in good health, no symptoms of deficiency. Cause of death unclear. No sign of poisoning, nor strangulation; hyoid bone is still intact. We know that the head was severed a considerable time after death. The body must have been lying on its back for a fairly long while as evidenced by the pressure marks here on the back of the head.” The doctor turned the head around and separated the thinning hair, so Heller could see the dark spots where the blood had collected under the skin.
“Here, on the face, are two small scars that suggest he served in the war. They look like shrapnel wounds. The man could have been quite tall if you consider the size of the skull. The head was crudely separated from the torso, as if the perpetrator had been trying out different tools. There are signs here of a hatchet being used. These incisions here, clearly from a knife. The neck vertebra was first cut with a saw and eventually broken in two. Shows a certain brutality and steeliness.”
“So between death and the head getting severed, how much time?”
“At least a day.”
“Are there signs of a bayonet? Stabbing?”
“No, none. Have you made any progress identifying the victim?”
“Oldenbusch took photos. I’m hoping we’ll be able to make them public. Possibly in the newspapers or with a public notice.”
Kassner waved a finger. “Niesbach will never let you do that. He bows down to the Russians. Preemptive obedience.”
“I think he’s a little more capable of asserting himself than that,” Heller said. “After all, he spent years in Moscow and surely learned how to handle the Soviets.”
As head of the Criminal Investigation Division, Niesbach had mostly stayed in the background. Heller wasn’t sure what to make of the man. Heller always had to think twice about how to state what he needed so he didn’t make his boss look like some layman. They had selected Niesbach to become a police officer in a kind of crash course where his Communist Party membership and political training in Russia had proved the most critical factors.
“Bear in mind that Niesbach belongs to the Russians,” Kassner added. “You shouldn’t ever view him as one of our own.”
One of our own, Heller repeated to himself. Kassner must feel quite safe in his job to go around trumpeting his opinions so loudly.
“In that case, I’ll go see which prosecutor’s heading the case. Have him take a shot at it. There must be some way of getting a dead man identified.”
Heller left the hospital, heading for Friedrichstrasse, and as he turned toward the gutted Yenidze tobacco factory, he noticed a jeep with a long antenna idling across the street. Heller knew the vehicle. The man in the passenger seat stood and waved at him.
“Comrade! Idi syuda!” yelled Colonel Ovtcharov, far too loud and jovially.
Heller looked both ways and crossed the street in front of a horse and cart. The animal snorted out white puffs of steam, struggling with the weight of the overloaded cart.
“I’m starting to think you’re shadowing me,” Heller told the secret service colonel.
“I was told I could find you here. Where you heading?”
“Police headquarters.”
“Splendid. Me too!” Ovtcharov chirped, whistling his S. “I like this word. Sssplendid. Come on, I will take you there.” The colonel stepped out so Heller could squeeze by his seat and into the back, then sat down again.
Heller made room between the cardboard boxes and crates, and as a precaution turned up his collar, pulled his cap down, and wrapped his scarf tighter. The driver yanked the wheel and gave the engine gas.
Ovtcharov turned around to Heller. “After the attack on this bar so popular with the officers, we have to assume the attacks on Berinov and Cherin are assassinations directed against members of the Soviet Army. We’re up against an organized band of insurgents. This is what you should investigate.”
Heller squinted against the freezing wind, and the rough driving kept making him grab at the metal bodywork. He wanted to disagree, since he could think of a few more plausible motives. But all that cold air took his breath away. And Ovtcharov wasn’t the right man for such a discussion anyway. Why would the colonel stalk him simply to tell him this? Perhaps the Russian was mistrustful and wanted to discover exactly what Heller had discussed with Medvedev at SMAD.
“The mood of the population is not good,” Ovtcharov said.
Was it a question or a statement? Heller couldn’t tell. He nodded.
“These are tough times, and tough times require tough measures. The people must see that we will not back down, and that the German police and judicial system are working closely with us. The Nazis must be exterminated; any resistance that flares up needs to be stamped out. Socialism in this land is a delicate little plant that must be tended with care. You have not yet joined the SED? You amaze me, Oberkommissar, truly. You are a very straight-ahead man. But everyone must overcome their pride at some point and conform to certain inevitabilities. This country needs men like you. You don’t talk, you act. People look up to a man like you.”
“It’s called ‘straightforward,’” Heller corrected. The driver kept hitting the brakes to traverse the many stopgap repairs made to the Marienbrücke, and they drove over the bridge’s metal plates and plywood at a crawl. “And it has nothing to do with pride. I simply don’t think it’s essential for me to belong to a political party in order to serve the people.”
The driver made it over the bridge, turned right, gave the jeep gas again, and raced by the destroyed Japanese Palace, heading toward the Justice Ministry. He stopped there. Ovtcharov jumped out so Heller could climb from the jeep. Just before he did, the colonel reached back into one of the boxes and pulled out a small package.
“It does have to do with pride, Oberkommissar Heller. False pride. You might think the war is over, but it is not. It has just begun, and you must soon decide what side you are on. Here, take it.” He handed the package to Heller.
Heller took it. He touched the Russian’s arm as he went to climb back into the jeep. “Tell me, would you maybe have some penicillin?”
Ovtcharov laughed and landed on his seat. “Dear Comrade Oberkommissar, do I look like a doctor to you? Do svidaniya.”
February 7, 1947: Afternoon
Niesbach, head of the Criminal Investigation Division, lifted a paper from his desk and placed it to the left, and then to the right. He was a slim man, balding, yet seemed younger than he was. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose, then picked up the paper again. Heller politely looked away until his superior was done sorting things out.
“You do know I’m not a policeman,” Niesbach began.
At least he was able to recognize that, Heller thought, unlike Heller’s previous boss.
“Before I went into exile in Russia, I’d learned to be a slaughterman, or ‘butcher’ as you call it here.”
“A butcher?” This had to be a sick joke. Heller’s superior in the Third Reich, SS-Mann Klepp, had also been a butcher.
“Yes. We say ‘slaughterman.’ I come from the Rhineland.” Niesbach had placed the paper to the side. He nodded and took a wistful glance out the window, looking down at Carolaplatz.
“You see, I view myself as a functionary in this position, a link between party and police. And, Comrade Oberkommissar, I’m afraid I must deny your request. Or at least I cannot authorize us to seek the identity of the dead man in the newspapers. I would first have to get authorization from Police Chief Opitz, or better yet from the Soviet Military Administration. It’s a political matter. You understand?”
“No, honestly, I don’t.” Heller didn’t want to view things that way, and it was becoming a pain to keep explaining that he wasn’t their comrade. It seemed pointless trying to explain to this Communist, who had such a confident view of his role, that the police should be independent of any political party.
“It’s not an easy situation. Those Nazis still among us are spreading rumors, inciting the population, fomenting unrest. So we must carefully consider what to make public. Everything is political in principle, Comrade Oberkommissar. I know you don’t take me for one of you.”
Niesbach raised a hand to stop Heller, who’d straightened up in his chair, about to reply.
A Thousand Devils (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 2) Page 5
