Heller nodded. He could only imagine what his sons must have thought when they heard about the bombings. They would have expected the worst.
“Wait,” Heller said.
Seibling had already turned to go, so he pivoted back around on one leg.
“They arrested someone?”
“The man they arrested told them he’d only found her that way. He must be some kind of imbecile.”
“Imbecile how?”
“Don’t ask me. I just heard he chopped her up. You know how people talk.”
“Which people?”
Seibling raised his crutch and drew a wide circle with it. “People around here.”
“You said she was a nurse, right?”
Seibling nodded. “Silesian. Came from Breslau, had volunteered to be a nurse. I’d seen her around here a few times.”
“The Fright Man,” Heller muttered. But he had to be dead. How could he have escaped all those bombs raining down? Not to mention that Heller had shot the man.
“What’s that?”
Heller looked up. “Nothing. What else are they saying about him?”
“He apparently had blood all over him. He’d surely lost his mind at the front. I know a few who’ve lost their minds.” Seibling laughed as if it were all a big joke. “Hey, tovarish!” he shouted with a wave.
A group of Red Army soldiers had just been dropped off by a truck. One of them waved back, aiming his submachine gun. “Rat-a-tat-tat-tat,” he said, imitating gunfire.
Seibling dropped his crutches and grabbed at his amputated leg, then he jumped forward on his good one and made the Russians laugh. His performance over, he picked up a crutch. Heller bent down for the other one.
“If you want to eat, you got to make friends, Herr Detective Inspector,” Seibling whispered, winking at Heller. He hobbled off toward the Russians, taking long strides with his crutches.
Heller watched as the Russians let Seibling take two drags off a cigarette and slipped him something wrapped in paper.
Yet Heller’s thoughts were elsewhere. He hadn’t thought about the Fright Man since he tumbled down into that cellar that night. And now he of all people had supposedly survived? And the Russians arrested him? Just like that?
It’s not my problem anymore, he told himself. A murderer had been arrested and would be punished. Heller’s job now was to get some potatoes, wheatmeal, a little ground meat, or any sustenance at all into his mess kit through skill or begging.
Two buildings over, he spotted a small mobile field kitchen. A soldier crouched atop the two-wheeled trailer with a big ladle. More soldiers leaned against walls or stood off to the sides, policing the event by aiming machine guns with drum magazines. Hundreds of people were standing in line, silent, everyone hoping something would be left when their turn came. Each received a ladle of porridge without having to pay or show anything. Heller got in line. It moved forward in small steps, and the Russian was already having to reach deep into the large kettle even though there were about thirty people before Heller.
“They come at a new time every day,” someone behind him grumbled.
“The clocks just run differently with them.”
“Or not at all!” Restrained laughter broke out.
Heller turned around. “Did you hear about that murder?” he asked the old man behind him. Maybe he knew more. Rumors were practically the elixir of life in times like these.
The man gestured with his chin in the general direction of Johannstadt. “Supposedly she was found in the ruins, somewhere under there, in some cellar.”
“Was it a nurse?”
The old man indicated a hospital building to their right, its busted windows patched up with wood and cardboard. “Go ask them if you’re so interested. Now keep the line movin’!”
When Heller’s turn came, the Russian gave him a dollop of porridge in his mess kit and accidentally spattered some on Heller’s hand, then waved Heller on without caring. Heller stepped to the side, licked off his hand, and closed his mess kit. It would suffice as a meal for Karin and Frau Marquart.
Without thinking, he headed toward the hospital building.
A Russian soldier blocked Heller’s way. “What do you want?”
“To speak to the head physician—a Professor Ehlig.”
“Nyet! Go away!”
Heller didn’t dare contradict the soldier. He stepped away, not knowing what to do.
“Are you sick or injured?” an older nurse asked. She’d just come out of the building and looked haggard, drained.
“I wanted to find out about the one who died—the woman from this morning.”
“Poor Erika, my God. She’d come from Silesia and was staying at the main train station. It’s not advisable for a woman to be out alone in the city.”
“What about the man the Russians arrested?”
“He’d been our boiler man since mid-December. Wait, no, mid-January. A young man from the Eastern Ore Mountains, unfit for military service—stiff leg or something. He was always very quiet. He must’ve lured her into the ruins. Maybe he’d stolen some food and wanted her to . . . well, you know.”
Heller knew. When a person was hungry, they would do anything for something to eat.
“Mid-January, you said? Do you know if he’d been in the city before that?”
“I don’t. He’d been with us a couple weeks before I knew of him.”
Heller nodded, suddenly not feeling well. Talking about last January brought back too many memories of his night patrols. “Do you know where it happened?”
The nurse crossed her arms. “Why are you so curious?”
Heller figured it was about time to make a little sacrifice. He reached into his overcoat and pulled out a cigarette from the tattered pack in his inside pocket. “I’m a . . . was a detective.” He handed the cigarette to the nurse, who snatched it up and hid it inside her smock.
“With the police, huh? Don’t let the Russians hear that.”
Heller waved for her to continue.
“So they found her in a cellar at Dürerplatz, corner of Reissigerstrasse. He was calling for help.”
“Who was?”
“Uhlmann. The boiler man.”
“He was calling for help and the Russians arrested him?”
“That’s Russian efficiency for you.”
Heller knew this brand of efficiency all too well; it wasn’t only Russian. “The dead woman—is she here? Erika, and what’s her last name?”
“Erika Kaluza. Russians took her away.”
“And the boiler man, Uhlmann—first name?”
“Erwin. But he’s done for, believe me. They’ll have made short work of him.”
Out of habit, Heller patted at his pocket for his notebook and pencil, but he’d lost them the night of the air raid.
It didn’t take Heller long to lose his way in the desert of stone debris. He found a road sign on the ground that told him he might be on Dürerstrasse, but the sign could just as well have flown through the air a good half mile. Once again, Trinity Church provided his only bearings. He reached a larger open area less covered by debris and guessed this was the square that used to be Dürerplatz. But he had no idea where Reissigerstrasse was. He saw two little boys plucking cigarette butts from the street. As he approached, they snatched up a few more butts and ran off. He found tracks in the dust—boots and the wheels of a truck—then he spotted the hole leading down into a cellar under a mountain of rubble. He bent down hoping to see something, but it was too dark. He’d have to climb down there. He hesitated for a long time. In his dreams, he was constantly running yet kept getting boxed in by fire and always ended up in one of these cellars, couldn’t find a way out. He eventually mustered the courage, took a deep breath, rubbed at his stubbly chin, and, crouching, squeezed himself through the narrow breach in the wall.
This cellar hadn’t saved anyone’s life. Its walls were black with soot, and it stunk like boiled tar. The floor was sandy. Black chunks of rock and st
eel beams deformed by heat stood every which way, leaving no clear path through for a tall man like Heller. Yet it didn’t take long to locate the spot where the woman had been found, hanging from the rafters. In that split second it all returned to him, that feeling of anxiety, that pressure bearing down on him, that urgent need to hit the streets, that knowledge of not having done enough. Blood had run onto the sandy soil and turned black. All other clues had been wiped away or tread over.
The killer had been caught, they said.
But could the Fright Man really have survived that night of bombing? Without any air raid shelter to protect him, and wounded by Heller’s bullet? And why would he have called for help only to wait for the Russians to show up? Had they nabbed him by accident? Had he only been trying to talk his way out of it? Heller refused to accept it.
He crawled out of the cellar hole, his heart beating heavily, his stomach aching. He felt guilty again, because of his wife. He knew that he always carried through on his plans. And what he was planning now was sure to land him in hot water.
He needed to go see Erwin Uhlmann.
May 16, 1945: Afternoon
“Wait, Herr Seibling, wait!” shouted Heller for the third time as he followed the young man. Seibling had just exited the hospital and was heading toward the Elbe, swinging his crutches along. Heller was relieved to find him here among all the people working and hanging around. He didn’t want the Russians taking notice of him again today.
“Herr Seibling! Heinz . . .”
The young man finally heard him and stopped, his open expression encouraging Heller, who could walk more slowly now, less conspicuously. He pulled a second cigarette from his smashed-up pack.
“Please do.” He offered the cigarette to the young man. Seibling accepted it, fished a box of matches from his overcoat, and lit up. He took a deep drag, then raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
“Bulgaria Sport. Where did you rustle these up?”
Heller smiled. “The elderly lady we live with has no need for them now. Her husband fell in the fall of ’44.”
Seibling grinned. “Bulgaria Sport—you remember the line? ‘Our Dear Adolf’s oh-so-wonderful Wonder Weapon . . . just the thing for slaying the Soviet Satan!’” he said, laughing along and waving his cigarette like a composer.
Heller rubbed his neck, glancing around. He never did care much for slogans. But he couldn’t blame the young man. Despite his happy way, Seibling seemed to be bearing more than enough worries under his long overcoat.
“Tell me something, Heinz. Where are the Russians detaining people? Could you find that out from your Russian friends?”
Seibling took another drag, nodded and laughed, then coughed. “I know where,” he said. “Been there myself. Was trying to rip off an officer, which was not a good idea. You know the Heidehof? That hotel on Bautzner Strasse?”
Heller nodded. It was on the opposite side of the Elbe, a long way by foot if he hoped to get back home on time. A bicycle would be worth its weight in gold right now, yet the one he used to own lay buried somewhere underneath rubble, and using one without a permit was now a punishable offense.
Seibling rubbed his eyebrows. “You’re not thinking of going there?”
Heller reached into his coat again, and gave Seibling another cigarette. “Here, for you. Thanks so much.” He hoped Karin wouldn’t find out about this. He could have gotten some food with those smokes. Information never filled anyone’s stomach.
“You’re welcome.” Seibling rubbed his wrist, suddenly looking quite serious. “Herr Heller, you should let it go. I know you’re a good man. I heard the Thomas Goldmann story. But the Russians don’t know that. They’re looking to do you in and wouldn’t bat an eye.”
Such warnings weren’t new to Heller. Though it intrigued him as to what and how people knew about the Goldmann situation. Back in November of ’44, he’d given Thomas Goldmann’s mother a clear hint that the Gestapo was about to arrest her son. He’d done nothing more. It was only because he knew the Goldmanns—that, and he was sick of Gestapo shitheads. Yet considering all the mistrust that Klepp would soon harbor for him, it now seemed far more dangerous than he had supposed at the time. Sure, the Russians might have a reputation for brutality, but those creeps in the Gestapo had been working on a completely different level.
“The thing with Goldmann wasn’t that big of a deal. And I only need to see this Uhlmann once, maybe talk to him if I can.”
“Herr Heller, please. How are you going to make that happen? It’s teeming with soldiers there. No one’s going there by choice. No one ever returns.”
Heller patted Seibling on his forearm. “You got out.”
“Yeah, but only because I’m so foolish all the time. I’m a clown. They laugh at me and knock me down. I even lost my leg because I was fooling around. But you? You’re no clown. And all because of some murderer? You don’t know anything about this Uhlmann.”
“What if he ends up not being the murderer?”
Seibling made a face. “So what? Herr Heller, so many haven’t come back. And how many are now in Siberia? You shouldn’t risk your life over this.”
“You’re right, my dear Heinz. Some of us are already bowling again, and others are beating out their carpets as if nothing ever happened. Too many others have gotten killed. But every person is different. You know what I mean? That’s always been true. Because the so-called masses, they just happen to consist of all of us individuals—even if they did try to convince us otherwise for twelve long years. Tell me something, Heinz: Where are you living now? Just in case I want to see you again.”
Seibling raised a crutch and pointed toward the vast fields of rubble.
“In the rubble?”
“I have my hidey-holes,” he said. “My treasures,” he added in a whisper and grinned.
“Aren’t you afraid of being robbed?”
“Not me. I have a guardian spirit.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
“Oh, I do, my dear Herr Heller. People say it’s all haunted here. Things reside in the ruins. I don’t believe in the dear Lord anymore, but in a place where so many have died? Something will always linger on.”
Seibling’s words went through Heller’s mind as he stood before the inn once known as Gasthaus Heidehof. It had taken him two hours to get out of the destroyed part of the city, across the Elbe, and up past the waterworks to Bautzner Strasse.
After crossing the river, he’d gotten the idea of first heading up to Weisser Hirsch to let Karin know what he planned to do. But he also knew she would never let him go, and for good reason.
He observed the chaos all around the large building, inside and outside the temporary wood-slat fence fortified with barbed wire, the jeeps and trucks coming and going, the couriers’ clattering motorcycles, the dark clouds of exhaust. The noise was unbearable. It smelled of diesel, exhaust fumes, food, and cigarette smoke. At the barrier to the front gate, some sentries looked bored and others alert. Orders were shouted out, mixed with laughter. Young women prowled outside the fence, trying to catch the Red Army officers’ attention while ignoring those advances from the common soldiers that always led to crude brawls.
Two trucks braked hard at the gate, and the sentries let the trucks onto the grounds after brief questioning. Heller craned his neck to see what was going on inside. Several Red Army soldiers leaped out from under the rear tarps and pulled down a half-dozen men with hands tied behind their backs as more soldiers came to grab them under the armpits and drag them into the building.
Heller looked at his new watch, which was given to him by Frau Marquart. It was already four in the afternoon. He hadn’t eaten anything apart from a little heel of bread with a strip of old bacon that morning. His stomach growled, but if he wanted to be back home before darkness fell, he was going to have to act now.
Tomorrow would be too late. Tomorrow he’d have lost his courage. Tomorrow Uhlmann might already be dead, if he wasn’t already. Heller took a
few deep breaths. Then he got going.
At the front gate was a bored young Russian soldier. He wasn’t carrying a rifle, though he did have a pistol stuffed into his belt. Heller cleared his throat.
“I would very much like to speak with the commandant,” he said, his voice shaking.
The Russian only sneered.
Heller stood more upright and hoped his voice sounded firmer. “Pardon me, I’d very much like to speak with the commandant. Please, good sir.”
The Russian tilted his head with curiosity. “Gut sure?” he recited. Then he shouted something to his comrade. During the conversation that followed, Heller kept looking from one soldier to the other, hoping to detect a lighter tone between the two. But it sounded serious. A third soldier in an officer’s cap came over, his manner domineering and his hands clasped behind his back. He’d probably learned that by watching German officers, or maybe certain people just had that demeanor inside them.
“Problaim?” the officer asked.
“I’d like to speak to the commandant. I’m here regarding Erwin Uhlmann.”
“Erween Oolmann? You be Erween Oolmann?”
“No. He’s detained here. I’d like to speak to the commandant.”
“What concern you Erween Oolmann?”
Heller took another deep breath. “I’m his father.”
The officer shoved Heller in the chest. “Go!”
Heller lowered his head and avoided looking the officer in the eyes. “I would please like to speak to the commandant. It’s very important.”
The officer drew his pistol. “Turn around!” He pulled off Heller’s backpack. “Paper!”
Heller spoke gently and hoped they didn’t notice how frightened he was. “I don’t have any papers. But I must speak to the commandant. It’s urgent.”
“Paper!” roared the domineering Russian.
Suddenly a window opened and a man shouted. The officer turned around, looked up, and replied to the man’s question. Heller, who’d understood nothing, kept glancing at both soldiers. The young one winked at him.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 16
