Tiedemann glanced at Springer. His lieutenant had a satisfied smirk on his face and was watching haughtily from nearby. Something had happened between them. Tiedemann didn’t know that he cared what it was, but he approved of the change in demeanor and wondered if it would provide leverage for getting more information. Perhaps she had simply come to realize how much she and her family were in trouble.
“Don’t you have something to do, Herr Springer?”
“Jawohl!” the lieutenant snapped. But before Springer led the young fräulein back out of the room, he handed Tiedemann a small, folded envelope. “Herr Hauptsturmführer, I found this on the girl’s person as we were making rounds. You may want to take a look at it.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure what it’s all about, sir. It’s, uh… a love letter of sorts.” Springer’s expression betrayed his amusement. “In German.”
“This is hers?”
“Yes, sir.”
A French girl with a German boyfriend. Perhaps there was hope for her soul after all.
“Very well. I’ll take a look after I’m done eating.” He tossed it on the table with his other work. Then he turned to the girl and, with his head cocked to the side, narrowed his eyes in thoughtfulness. “And I thought your father was the only one who understood what we were saying all this time. Very interesting.”
Gabrielle lifted her head to steal a glance at Tiedemann but quickly resumed her meek posture. It was clear she was listening, though.
Very interesting indeed.
His stomach rumbled.
“Thank you, Herr Obersturmführer. Dismissed.”
The rain was coming down harder by the time Tiedemann finished eating. Bread crumbs lay scattered across the table next to a chipped bowl that had been emptied as quickly as it had been brought. The stew hadn’t been particularly tasty, just some vegetables and turnips with some bits or meat in a broth, but any change from the food German soldiers received in the field was a victory. And the bread… anything the bread did to soak up the leftover alcohol in his system was a Godsend.
It was amazing how much better he felt after just a little bit of a meal. Turning back to the hand-scrawled notes spread alongside his dishes, Tiedemann reconsidered everything they had learned to this point about the murder.
Everything was circumstantial. While they had mused on motivations, timing, and locations, there was nothing that provided a definitive indicator of guilt. The Cartwright, Marc Rimbault, and Robert Conti were still the prime suspects, with Cartwright in the lead. None of the suspects had any marks from a struggle except for possibly Cartwright, who had been battered and bruised when he was discovered in the kitchen. Those marks could have been from his parachute jump as the Englishman claimed. Or they could have been from hand-to-hand combat with broken wine bottles in the cellar. Hard to tell.
Scratching his head absent-mindedly, Tiedemann glanced over at the letter Springer had discovered. On a whim, he opened the envelope and pulled out the paper inside. The stationary was very worn, as if it had been folded open and closed many times. The upper left corner of the paper had a jagged triangle torn off and missing. An unsent letter that Gabrielle had never mailed?
With a half-hearted effort, Tiedemann began to read.
12 April 1942
W—
It is difficult for me to write these words. We have been together for so long, yet we have also been apart to the point that our relationship has lost meaning. If anything, you taught me that we must be true to ourselves if we are to be able to suffer through this world.
I am leaving you. I have found someone else that is not away fighting a far off, distant war. Someone who can give me the attention and time that I need as a companion, and more of the love that I once had with you that is now gone. I am in love with him. He is in love with me. I need to feel that companionship, that warmth of touch when someone holds you, that bonding of minds and souls, and he gives that to me. We are going to get married. I have already filed the papers for a divorce between you and I, and I ask that you accept the inevitable and capitulate.
I know that it is not your fault that you are not here. I still respect you and what it is that you are doing. But there are certain undeniable needs in a woman’s life, and love is paramount. I care for you, but I do not love you anymore. And I must be true to myself. Please understand.
G
Tiedemann rubbed his forehead. How odd.
Did Robert Conti know that his only daughter was already married? Tiedemann managed a sarcastic smile at the thought of a secret wedding to a conquering soldier, though it was unfortunate that it seemed to be ending. Perhaps she was upgrading to someone in the SS.
In any event, the letter seemed irrelevant in the respect that it was dated some months ago and was still in her possession. A letter never sent may as well not have been written. The wear and tear suggested a good deal of ambivalence about it. But in what way could he use it?
Tiedemann tossed the paper on the table and leaned back in the one chair still in the Conti library. It was of a great size, with faded red upholstery and sporadic rivets of tarnished brass that held it together over flimsy padding. To the German officer it seemed one of the most comfortable pieces of furniture in which he could remember sitting.
The rest of the room appeared to have been splendid as well—once. Half-empty bookshelves smelling heavily of dust lined the south wall from floor to ceiling, while wallpaper patterned with a rich red and gold covered the remaining walls. All of it was faded except for the rectangles where great paintings and other works of art must have once hung. Many of the books had likely been burned for heat since oil was horded by the great German war machine. Aside from Tiedemann’s chair, the only remaining piece of furniture was a large, oaken table that had contained deep gouges on the surface.
Such was the price of war. Tiedemann dared not dream of the day when combat would be over and the Reich reigned supreme. The more likely outcome would be that he and his men would die at the front lines long before. But if he did survive, against whatever odds, Tiedemann could picture himself retiring to the countryside and living in a chateau much like this one. In peace and away from the killing.
A knock on the door gave Tiedemann a start. He briefly considered pulling his boots back on, assuming his feet would allow it after four days of travel across France. Lethargy and a full stomach made it too challenging to move.
“Enter.”
Obersturmführer Eppler appeared in the doorway, his deeply tanned face an ever-present reminder of his not-so-distant service in North Africa. He had changed out of his uniform with the wine stain around the armpit and was now wearing a new tunic that was merely drenched from the rain outside.
“Herr Hauptsturmführer, we’ve discovered something that you need to see.”
“What?”
“Another building here on the grounds. A storage building. But it has a tunnel that goes underground to the wine cellar.”
Tiedemann leaned forward. Was this a clue that would point more clearly at one of their suspects?
He reached over to his boots with borrowed vigor and pulled them on his feet. Then he grabbed his rain gear and followed his lieutenant out the door.
The rain was falling hard again from a dark and angry sky. Tiedemann and Eppler hugged the walls of the house for shelter as they trudged around to the back of the grounds. They ended up in a large rectangular courtyard, with cobblestones separated by tufts of grass paving the broad ground in front of them. A large barn squatted some fifty meters from the main house on the other side of the courtyard. Tiedemann kept his head down and did not observe much beyond the splashes of water from his boots as they sprinted across.
The barn structure was built from bare stone that did wonders to keep out the weather, although an occasional burst of wind would gust through the wide open doors and chill to the bone. The interior was an open layout and one could dimly see the underside of the roof some six meters a
bove cloaked in shadow. Tiny glass windows sat high on the walls and allowed in weak rays of light. At ground level, four huge, wooden vats sat massively at one end of the room, ostensibly used for the storage of fermenting grapes, and there was a large cabinet with glass doors that contained chemistry equipment for monitoring the process. Rows of oak barrels and empty bottles formed a tidy arrangement a few meters from the far wall.
Two German soldiers whom Eppler had left behind snapped to attention as Tiedemann surveyed the building. Tiedemann ignored them. When they had first entered the wine growing regions on the way to Perpignan, Krauss had talked incessantly about the art of wine production. It drove most of the officers to the brink of insanity. Tiedemann now wished he had listened more.
The facilities here were unfamiliar, and Tiedemann could only remember bits and pieces about what some of the equipment was for. There was a great wooden trellis, for example, that was supported horizontally over the vats. Krauss had elaborated on how French winemakers would grab the horizontal bars with their hands and hang themselves down into the vats, using their own bodies to stir the grape juice to promote more homogenous fermentation of the must. The huge amounts of carbon dioxide produced from the chemical reaction of the yeast and sugars presented a continuous danger to those that undertook this activity, and there was always the possibility that the person would pass out and drown in the vat.
Tiedemann shook his head. Only the French could love wine so much that they would risk their lives during its creation. A German would have invented a machine to take care of it.
He wandered over to the oak barrels. Eight of them sat horizontally in a long metal rack that Tiedemann was sure could be melted down to make a lot of bullets. Several small wooden crates also occupied the ground nearby, each filled with corked wine bottles and handfuls of straw for shipping. Tiedemann lifted one of the bottles. To his surprise, the contents did not move.
“This bottle is filled with something solid.”
Eppler moved close and picked up another. The two men compared the bottles. Each had an identical label and heft. A gentle shake confirmed that whatever was inside was not wine.
“Open this, please,” Tiedemann said.
Eppler produced a utility knife and laid it edge up against one of the barrels. He raised the bottle in his other hand and smashed the neck against the blade.
Tiedemann smelled it immediately.
“God—that stench!” Eppler spat. “These are the worst winemakers in France!”
“No,” Tiedemann said. He took the bottle from Eppler’s hands and allowed for a careful sniff. “That’s ammonia you smell.”
“Ammonia?” Eppler was clearly puzzled. “For cleaning the wine vats?”
“I don’t know.” Tiedemann wasn’t sure why a cleaning agent would be in solid form. He would have to come back to this. “Show me this tunnel you found.”
Eppler immediately wheeled on one of the guards. “Where is Hermann?”
“He went back down the ramp to secure the bottom.”
Eppler jerked his head to the side and led Tiedemann behind the row of wine barrels. In the ground was a long, rectangular opening, with sturdy wooden planks forming an incline from the barn floor down into the depths below. Tiedemann walked to the end of the rectangle and squatted down to see if he could view the bottom. The ramp sloped down at a shallow angle, reached an intermediate platform, then turned one-hundred-eighty degrees and continued its descent. There was a dim yellow light that seemed to filter up through the darkness.
“Herr Hermann? Are you there?” Eppler shouted.
The light grew stronger as footsteps approached. An older SS soldier holding a flashlight appeared at the bottom of the ramp, nearly twenty meters beneath the ground. “Jawohl?”
“Where does this go, Herr Eppler?” Tiedemann said.
“This ramp extends underground into a very large cave that contains hundreds of wine barrels. It’s the same cave that’s further down the corridor from the wine cellar beneath the house. That means there are two ways into the cellar—one from the kitchen, the other from outside. Someone could have entered the cellar unseen by our guards.”
Tiedemann scratched his chin again. Could one of the Conti men have climbed out a window, darted unseen across the courtyard, and made their way down to the cellar from the outside of the house?
More importantly, would there be a reason they would do such a thing?
Why?
“Show me what’s down there.”
The two soldiers in the barn remained behind as Eppler and Tiedemann descended below ground. They met up with Hermann and continued down the second ramp until they reached a small vestibule embedded into the limestone rock. It was quite dim; the sporadic placing of electric light bulbs hanging from the ceiling was laughably insufficient. But Tiedemann could distinctly make out rows upon rows of barrels stretching into the blackness. Some of the rows were stacked three high, effectively building a mazelike labyrinth in which it would be easy to hide.
“Has this area been secured?” Tiedemann asked.
“Yes, sir. We made an initial sweep of the cave and found no one, and there are two more guards posted at the far end near the cellar. The barrels fill about half the cave. The rest is largely open, empty space. There are odds and ends stored about—unused bottles and so forth.”
“Lead the way, Eppler.”
Eppler took the flashlight from Hermann and walked carefully into the main cave. The air was cool and it was difficult to see, and not just because of the poor light. The stacks of barrels were oppressive. Wooden casks were arranged in long rows and were set upon sturdy wooden timbers that acted as supports and guides for their storage. Every twenty or so meters there would be a break in the aisle for a cross path that could be used to traverse laterally across the cave. Tiedemann fought the feeling of being ambushed and had to resist unfastening the snap on the holster that held his Luger.
Eppler turned left past the end of yet another row of barrels and led the party to a small corridor exposed in the limestone wall. There appeared to be light coming from the far end.
“Schimpff! Peterson! We’re coming through to your end,” Eppler barked.
A distant Jawohl was the reply from the guards at the far end of the corridor.
Eppler led the way, followed by Tiedemann, and Hermann bringing up the rear. The corridor was tight, not even a meter wide and with a low ceiling. It took about a minute for the group of men to reach the end with the guards. Tiedemann very quickly found himself in another dimly-lit hallway. This time, he recognized the broken plaster and exposed brick of the corridor outside the wine cellar where Hoffman had been killed.
“Interesting,” Tiedemann had to admit. Another way to the scene of the crime.
But there were always other possibilities. Tiedemann cleared his throat of the cold, wet air. “It could have worked in reverse, could it have not? Someone could have hidden down here, been surprised by an unsuspecting Hoffman, committed the murder, and then joined the family upstairs as well.”
Eppler looked puzzled for a moment before the understanding sunk in. “Someone like the Englishman?”
Tiedemann shrugged before turning to Shimpff. “You. Go find Obersturmführer Springer and bring him down here. He needs to see this as well.”
As the soldier hurried off, Tiedemann had Peterson and Hermann assume guard duty at this end of the corridor and nodded for Eppler to walk with him the short distance down the hall to the wine cellar. Tiedemann spoke in a low tone so that the words were only available to Eppler’s ears.
“What do you make of all this, Eppler?”
The lieutenant frowned his deeply tanned face. “Sir?”
“I’m asking for your opinion. Yes, I know that’s not something the Wehrmacht does, but it’s what I do. Tell me what you think these findings mean.”
“It means anyone here could have escaped the scene of the crime.”
“Quite a hike, though, from the cellar to
the barn, and then to the house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who do you think would be up for it?”
Eppler thought. “Robert Conti. Or the Englishman.”
“I think Cartwright. The servant has a gimp leg, and I don’t see the women measuring up. Plus the Frenchmen have an alibi of sorts. Even though he doesn’t remember it well, Springer saw Conti and Rimbault arguing inside late into the night.”
“A good conclusion. You have the motive and the means with that man.”
For the first time in what seemed like ages, Tiedemann smiled. “We’re getting there, Herr Eppler. The pieces are starting to fall into place. But I can’t decide why Cartwright would have been so sloppy with the murder. Wouldn’t you hide a dead body?”
“Perhaps,” Eppler said, speaking slowly. “But it is my opinion, sir, that you can’t explain all things all the time. Who’s to say why people behave the way they do.” His eyes glimmered with a strange intensity.
“True.”
“All I ask, sir, is for permission to participate in the punishment of the guilty party. This has become a personal matter for me.”
An unexpected comment. “How so?”
“I found out the other day from Gohler that Hoffman had a duty station at the work camp in Bad Tölz back in ‘41. That’s my hometown. I did not know him personally, but I am sure that we must have had friends in common, and I had been looking forward to comparing notes with him.” Eppler took a sad, deep breath. “That chance is gone forever now.”
“I didn’t know that.” Tiedemann could scarcely believe Eppler’s bad luck. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Herr Hauptsturmführer.” The glimmer in his eyes returned for a moment. “This war has taken so much away from me. From all of us. I will be glad when it’s over.”
“As will I, Herr Eppler, as will I.”
The Hazards of War Page 11
