“But you do understand what I’m trying to accomplish?” Heller asked in a gentle yet firm voice.
Schorrer nodded. “Of course. It’s very clear to me. What you’re doing involves rules and laws that need to be obeyed. All for the sake of order. God help us if our beloved order perishes. Now will you excuse me?”
Schorrer didn’t wait for an answer. He simply left. The swinging door banged back and forth in his wake.
Dr. Schorrer had been transferred to head a hospital clinic for good reason, Heller figured. His experience at the front undoubtedly made him the right man to help steer this hospital through tough times. Yet that didn’t make him a detective.
Heller waited a moment before going over to the dissecting table. He carefully studied the deceased woman’s right hand. He found rubber gloves on a shelf and pulled them on. He cautiously raised her hand and turned her palm upward. She had several abrasions on her palms and wrists, the type someone would get falling from a bicycle and landing on their hands. They looked fresh. Heller leaned across the table, lifted the other hand, and found the same scrape wounds. She must have been riding that Diamant bike and either fallen or gotten knocked over. The bicycle might still be lying near the crime scene, along the Elbe. Normally, he would’ve already had someone out searching for it, just as he would have someone out talking to the Schurig family. But all that would have to wait.
He leaned over the dead body again so he could see her face. He inspected it thoroughly and cautiously opened the mouth. He started. She was missing her tongue. How could Schorrer overlook this? Heller now wondered whether the doctor had given her any more than a few minutes of his attention. Heller pulled out his notebook, fumbled to find the right page with rubber gloves on, and wrote down his observations.
Next, he held the deceased woman’s chin and forehead with both hands and turned her head back and forth in the light. He saw something in one of her nostrils and grabbed long, narrow forceps from the dissecting instruments. He used the forceps to remove a fine white thread, barely two millimeters long and as thin as a hair. Both ends looked frayed. He had no idea what that could mean. He fished out a little paper baggie from his pocket and dropped the fine thread inside. Then he pressed the baggie inside his notebook.
When he left the dissecting room, he found two nurses waiting for him. “What should we do with her?” one asked. “Should we let burial services have her, or her relatives?”
“She needs to remain here. And please tell me where I can find a phone.”
“Down the hall, to the left.”
Heller nodded and started off in search of the phone. He needed to call for a driver. As he headed down the hallway, his heels clacking on the cold polished floor, it suddenly occurred to him that neither he nor Schorrer had used the Hitler salute.
A driver wasn’t available, of course, so Heller had to take the no. 3 streetcar and then the 9 to reach Jägerstrasse, which was no picnic. The cars were packed, the air was thick, and many people were coughing. All the world was on the move, and everyone had handcarts and backpacks. Among them were refugees going around begging, ragged and dejected, far from the transit camps at the main train station. The locals eyed them with suspicion.
Fallen leaves covered the damp cobblestones on the Jägerstrasse, making it slippery. Heller pressed on gingerly, step by step, keeping an eye on his feet. He turned for the entrance to the building numbered 17.
“Who you looking for?” an elderly woman shouted down from the fourth floor.
“The Schurigs,” he shouted back.
“Not home. Been out since this morning. Should I pass a message?”
“I’ll wait, thanks,” Heller said.
“You’re not really going to stand down there the whole time, are you?” the woman said, her voice resonating with a slight horror. “If you’re here for that new girl, she’s gone too.”
Heller stepped back so he didn’t have to crane his neck so much. “What new girl?”
“I’m sure you know better than me. This used to be an upstanding neighborhood!” The woman slammed the window shut.
Heller wasn’t about to wait now. He entered the building and climbed the three and a half flights of stairs before reaching a door with “Werker” on the nameplate.
“Not opening this door,” squealed a woman from inside. “I’m calling the police!”
Heller stood so close to the door his forehead nearly touched it. “Frau Werker? I am the police.”
“You are?”
“I’ll show you my ID—feel free to take a peek through the mail slot.” He held his ID before the narrow flap. Sure enough, the chain came down and the door opened. Heller stepped into the large entryway and was amazed at the size of the place. At least four large rooms, not including the kitchen and bathroom. Frau Werker was a gray-haired lady, about sixty.
“May I use your telephone?” Heller asked. “It’s urgent.”
Frau Werker nodded. Heller had himself connected to police headquarters on Schiessgasse and again requested a driver from the motor pool. This time he was in luck—they’d found one. “Have him wait out front,” Heller instructed, then hung up.
A large portrait of Hitler adorned the wall in the entryway. All around it were photos of a man in uniform, the largest with a black mourning ribbon in one corner.
Heller asked, “What can you tell me about Frau Bellmann?”
“She was married to a Jew and came from Berlin, bombed out apparently, but who knows if it’s true? Only been living here two days and already had a man visiting. Can you even imagine? If my husband only knew. Such low standards!”
Heller could smell coffee, the real stuff. He hadn’t had any for months. Frau Werker surely noticed him sniffing away, since she quickly positioned herself between him and the kitchen as if frightened he might confiscate the good stuff.
“Could you describe the man who came visiting?”
She waved aside the notion. “He came in the dark, so no. Wait, listen. Here they come.” She rushed to the door and flung it open. “Waltraud, the police are here for you!” she shouted down the stairs.
“For us?” Frau Schurig replied with disbelief.
Heller pushed past Frau Werker to the stairway and went down the steps. Herr and Frau Schurig were entering their apartment with the day’s booty. Their tin milk can glug-glugged and their baskets were full, though it was just potatoes. The sight made him wonder yet again if he wouldn’t have been better off spending his time standing in line for food instead of chasing after a killer who’d likely escaped the city. He was hoping he wouldn’t regret this, but not for his own sake. It was for Karin, who did nothing day and night but hit the shops hoping to find something, anything, with their ration coupons.
“Are you here because of Klara?” asked Herr Schurig, a little gray man the same age as the Werker woman. Breathing heavily from all the carrying, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.
Heller entered their apartment without asking and closed the door behind him. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that Klara is dead. She was murdered. So I’ll have to ask you a few questions.”
“Murdered?” Frau Schurig said. She was a haggard woman with hard facial features.
“Did Frau Bellmann have any visitors? Any men come by?”
“She’d only been living with us a few days,” said Frau Schurig.
Heller raised his chin and gave Frau Schurig a stern look.
“No. We didn’t know of any visitors.”
“She was very reserved,” added her husband.
“Did she mention anything along those lines? She have anything planned? Was she expecting to meet anyone?”
The Schurigs glanced at each other. The husband shrugged. “Well, she did seem to be interested in those ads in the newspaper—you know, from marriage seekers. Maybe she got mixed up with some kind of swindler.”
“A murderer, you mean,” Heller added. “Did she mark up the ads?”
“No, definitely not. We would’ve noticed that.”
“Where are the newspapers?”
Frau Schurig nodded at their oven.
“Which paper do you read?”
“Dresdner Zeitung.”
Heller took out his notebook and wrote, “Check ads.”
“So did she come home from her shift the day she disappeared?”
“No, she never returned from work.”
“Frau Werker thinks she saw an unfamiliar man out on the street.”
Frau Schurig shook her head. “She also talks to her late husband, that one.”
“I’ll need to take a look at Klara’s things.”
The Schurigs showed Heller to Klara’s room. It had just enough space for a bed and a wardrobe. Heller opened it, reaching into compartments and pulling out drawers, but only found a few articles of clothing and a small bundle of documents: registration forms for Berlin and Dresden, confirmation that she’d been bombed out of her home, a certificate for emergency vocational training, and a copy of her divorce document. Her ex-husband was named Daniel Kohn.
Heller wrote that down.
“Do you know who initiated the divorce? Was Frau Bellmann forced into it?”
Herr Schurig shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“What’s your relationship to her?”
“She’s the daughter of a cousin. Or was she a second cousin?” Frau Schurig looked to her husband for the answer, but he didn’t know either.
“So she didn’t say anything? No suggestion she was being followed, that someone was lurking around? Any reason at all that could’ve made her move here from the nurses’ quarters?”
The Schurigs just stared at him, clueless. They obviously weren’t very interested.
“I’m leaving you a telephone number. If something occurs to you, ask for Detective Inspector Heller.”
“Well, there is one thing,” Frau Schurig said. “It’s about her ration cards. We get to keep hers, right? I mean, no one’s going to take them from us, are they?”
Heller took a deep breath. “No, you go ahead and keep them.”
Heller waited outside the building for several minutes before the driver rode up on a BMW motorcycle. It was Strampe again. The SS sergeant stopped, didn’t salute, and glared through his goggles at Heller, who climbed into the sidecar.
“All right, where to?” Strampe asked, his tone brazen.
Heller was already freezing in the cold, wet air and would’ve preferred to head home, since he was gradually becoming aware of how pointless his endeavor was. He was also none too pleased with how this kid kept speaking to him. But then he recalled what Karin had said about acting stupid. So he restrained himself.
“To the hospital,” he said.
“Weren’t you just there? Waste of gas.”
Strampe drove off, shooting into the first curve far too fast. Heller slid down into the sidecar as much as his long legs would allow, pulled his cap down over his forehead, and held it there. Strampe nearly lost control of the bike turning into Bautzner Strasse, almost defiantly so, and could only steer it fully back on track once the road straightened. People along the street jumped out of the way, shaking their heads.
Heller rode hunkered down in the sidecar as they roared on, watching people scurry away with bags and packs in hand because they must have believed the rumor that today there was lard at the butcher’s, red beets at the grocer’s, coal briquettes at the fuel seller’s. The war didn’t interest them in the least—they only wanted food and a warm oven, nothing more. Long gone was the euphoria of those first few years, that firm belief in Adolf. And somewhere among them was someone who attacked a woman, tied her up, gagged her, and sliced open her still-living body without even trying to conceal the act. Had the killer intended for her to be found like that?
Heller tapped Strampe on the leg, and he bent sideways a little without slowing.
“Go to Gneisenaustrasse first!” Heller shouted into the wind, and Strampe sat upright again without any indication he’d heard him.
Yet Strampe did go to Gneisenaustrasse, where Heller struggled to get out of the sidecar. “You drive on back. I’m walking from here.”
Strampe tapped at his left wrist. “Off duty at five!” he said, and revved the engine as he sped off.
Heller took out his notebook and searched for the boy’s name and address. Alwin Trautmann lived in building 4, where the front entry door had been left open. Heller checked the nameplates in the foyer. He had to go up to the fifth floor.
A hardy-looking woman with ashen skin and a head scarf answered on the first ring.
“Frau Trautmann? I’m a police detective, Heller. Is your boy here? Alwin?”
“In his bedroom. He won’t dare go outside after yesterday.”
“Were you the one who told him about the Fright Man?”
Frau Trautmann shook her head. “The children started telling themselves that story.”
Heller nodded. “Has Alwin told you anything else?”
“No, he’s gone quiet, like when he’s getting sick.”
“I’d like to see him.”
Alwin’s mother gestured toward a door. Heller went inside. Alwin was sitting on a chair and peering out the window. His wooden dummy rifle was on his lap. Heller stood next to him and peered out with him.
“What are you looking for?”
“Keeping watch for Yankee bombers.”
“Spotted any yet?”
Alwin shook his head, still looking at the sky.
“Were you able to sleep last night?”
The boy didn’t answer.
“What’s bothering you? Was it seeing that woman? Or the Fright Man, maybe?”
Silence.
“Who told you about him? The other boys?”
Alwin nodded.
“What does he do?”
Alwin whispered something, and Heller had to lean down to hear.
“He creeps around after the air raid sirens. And if you don’t make it into the air raid shelter in time, he comes and snatches you up and makes you die like that woman.”
Heller straightened back up and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “That’s hogwash, Alwin. I’m a policeman. I know. What happened to that woman is something else entirely. But you will need to help me find the murderer.”
“Help? How?” Alwin eyed him anxiously.
“By telling me some things you know. Are you boys at that boathouse a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you’ve never seen anyone lurking around? A man? Anyone at all?”
The boy shook his head. “We never tried going inside before.”
“Did you ever see a bicycle there? Say, a woman on a bike, in the days leading up to it?”
Alwin shook his head.
“And that door in back, had it been open like that long? Or did you boys go inside that day because you just discovered it had been pried open?”
“It was that day, like you said—Gustav, he spotted it so we went in.”
Something else was eating at Alwin. Heller could tell.
“You can hear him sometimes, though,” the boy whispered.
“Who?”
“Him! He creeps through the night, and sometimes he laughs and giggles or howls at the moon.”
Heller tensed. “Enough of that now, boy.”
“But I heard him, I really did. Mother too. Isn’t that right, Mother?”
Heller looked over to the doorway, where Alwin’s mother stood. She gave them a hapless shrug, as if she wasn’t sure she could still trust her own mind.
December 1, 1944: Midday
The hospital grounds acted like a giant funnel. People poured in from all sides, plunging through the gates, gathering before building entrances, filling every space and path in between. Ambulances arrived from the center of town, bringing sick people writhing with coughing fits, most looking as if they’d just endured a long journey marked by utter deprivation. The National Socialist People’s Wel
fare served hot soup and tea from large pots while Red Cross workers rushed around writing down names and symptoms, separating out the most severe cases. Disputes flared up about who should be allowed in first.
Heller fought his way through the throngs, heading for the nurses’ quarters, and was more than relieved to finally get inside with the door shut behind him. Calm prevailed here. Only a few footsteps sounded now and then. Heller was crossing the entry hall to the first-floor mezzanine when he spotted a nurse heading up to her room.
“Excuse me!” he called to her.
The nurse hesitated but came over. Heller showed her his police ID. “Did you know Klara Bellmann?”
“The one from Berlin? I didn’t really know her very well. Is it true she was murdered?”
Heller nodded. “Do you know anyone who was good friends with her? Apart from Nurse Rita?”
“You could ask the gals on the fourth floor, or there’s also the building caretaker who lives in the cellar—he’s been here the longest.” The nurse curtsied and darted off.
Heller pursed his lips as he considered the options, then took the stairs to the cellar.
Down in the cellar, he saw signs pointing to the air raid shelters. On the walls hung fire buckets filled with water and sand. Neat stacks of blankets were everywhere, with fire swatters, gas masks, and goggles close at hand. He knocked on a door labeled “Boiler Room / Workshop.” No one answered, and he heard nothing. But he wasn’t about to get discouraged, having dealt with building caretakers many times before. He pounded on the door again, much harder this time.
An older man in work overalls finally opened the door.
“Yes?”
“Heller, detective. And you are?”
“Glöckner.”
“You’re the caretaker?”
“Air raid warden, boiler man, caretaker, you name it.”
“May I come in?” Heller asked, and Glöckner stepped aside. Heller made him lead the way, noting the man’s limp as he followed him through a workshop to another door, which opened to a comfortably furnished living room.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 3
