Finally Heller dared to raise his head. The people all around had thrown themselves to the ground or were crawling for cover while others ran off. He saw flashes coming from rubble in the distance. More rounds struck all around the car and into the wall behind them. Someone yelped from getting hit.
“Grenade!” Zaitsev shouted. Hand grenades exploded. Heller ducked down between the seats again, hands over his head for protection. Shrapnel clattered against the side of the car. A single shot rang out, another. Then it was suddenly quiet. Someone shouted in Russian.
Zaitsev pulled himself up, and Heller dared to leave his cover too.
He saw someone lying among the rubble. The attacker had tumbled out from the hiding spot where he’d been lying in wait. Yet no one ventured over. The shooter could have accomplices or might only be playing dead. Zaitsev shouted an order, gave his soldiers signals, and two, then three of them advanced while crouching and circled the man.
From the corner of his eye, Heller noticed someone exiting the shadows of a burned-out building and running up to the assassin. It was the young woman in the gray overcoat.
“Stoi!” barked Zaitsev, as he shot into the air. “Don’t move. Do not get any closer!”
But the young woman had already reached the man on the ground and was tugging at his jacket. She looked up and, seeing the Red Army soldiers approaching, ran back inside the ruins.
Heller worked to climb his way free from the demolished car and bent over the dead driver, who was staring up into the blue sky. Heller then hurried over to the dead assassin.
Zaitsev had already ripped an MP 40 submachine gun out of the man’s hands and seized two grenades. The man wore a nondescript gray suit and a flat cap that a head shot had left in shreds.
“Goddamnit, I wanted him alive!” growled Zaitsev.
Heller bent down, ignoring the blood and chunks of brain, and turned the dead man’s head his way. “I know this man. It’s Peter Strampe, assumed dead long ago.”
“What?” Zaitsev held his shoulder. Blood trickled out between his fingers.
“Supposedly he and my superior were both killed in that first big air raid.”
Zaitsev started bleeding heavier. He had to be in pain but wasn’t showing it. “Well, someone had the story all wrong, at least as far as that man goes. Why did he attack us? Was it meant for you?”
Heller didn’t have an answer. He bent down to the dead man again and sniffed the odor coming from his jacket. “You smell that?”
Zaitsev went down on a knee and had Heller hold part of the jacket up to his face.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Heller said. “Smells like a mortuary.”
“He could be wearing a dead man’s clothes.” Zaitsev shuddered and stood.
Heller stood as well. All he could think of was that night when Strampe emptied the whole magazine of his submachine gun, and of that bicycle going right into his sidecar. Had that bike even belonged to the Frenchman? It was odd how focused Klepp was on shelving the whole case so quickly. Heller was staring at the ground, lost in thought. He remembered Zaitsev and looked up.
“Come on, Zaitsev, we need to get you to a doctor. I’ll tell you about Klepp on the way.”
“Fine. Then take me to this Dr. Schorrer.”
Dr. Schorrer didn’t let on whether he was glad to see Heller still alive. He acted distant, and never bothered asking why they had sought out him of all people.
Zaitsev took off his shirt. His upper body was more wiry than muscular, with a large burn scar on his back. Schorrer pulled on rubber gloves and disinfected the bullet wound. The slug had struck his upper right collarbone and exited cleanly through shoulder muscle.
“You lucked out,” Schorrer said.
The Russian kept silent, watching the doctor without emotion.
“It’ll need stitches,” Schorrer said.
“Go ahead.”
Schorrer had the nurse hand him the right instruments and first sewed up the back wound. Zaitsev didn’t even make a face. The doctor then sat facing him, to inspect the entry wound.
“Were you in the Nazi Party?” Zaitsev asked.
“I was not.” Schorrer had to know what was at stake here. But he didn’t let it show and kept doing his job.
“In the SS?”
“I was the head doctor in an army field hospital, in Poland. I was stuck in the rear,” Schorrer said.
Zaitsev raised his head. “Did you ever take part in any Waffen-SS operations?”
“No. They had their own medical units.”
“Was it hard for you to transfer back to Germany?”
“Well, for one, I’m not exactly young anymore. This isn’t the only war where I served my country. And two, you didn’t need to get shot just so you could interrogate me. I’m always happy to come down to headquarters or meet in my modest lodgings. So please let me finish my work now.”
The Russian fished a cigarette out of his jacket, stuck it in his mouth, and gave Heller an urgent look. Heller looked to Schorrer, who nodded. Heller lit Zaitsev’s cigarette with a match. Zaitsev took two long drags, made a face, and offered Schorrer a smoke. The doctor shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”
Zaitsev took another drag. “Do you know Obersturmbannführer Klepp?”
“Yes, I knew him. Heard he was killed.”
“He might not have been.”
Schorrer paused a second. “That so?”
“Strampe, his driver and bodyguard, was the one who shot at us today,” Heller explained. “He was supposed to be dead already.”
Schorrer had the nurse hand him gauze and bandages and started wrapping Zaitsev. “Thus all that shooting I heard. So, Klepp, huh? So the man left his post, turned deserter. And an Obersturmbannführer at that. The biggest blowhards are always the first to run.”
“The last thing Klepp told me,” Heller said, “was that we needed to team up with the Americans, to . . .” He fell silent. Zaitsev laughed and waved for them to continue—the discussion seemed to interest him.
Schorrer snorted. “Klepp saw how the winds were blowing—coming in hard from the east. He had plenty to answer for. Sounds like he made off at just the right time to save his skin and would have done so even if he were only half the weasel I took him for. A Jew recently told me that Klepp had been the most vicious of all the SS tracking them down in Dresden.”
“So you think he got away?” Heller said. “Then why is Strampe still here? Why did he fire at me?”
Schorrer, now finished bandaging, held up his hands. “As I told you way back last winter, I’m a doctor, not a detective. Maybe Strampe still had a score to settle with you, or—”
“Or . . . ,” Zaitsev interrupted. He was sitting up now, pulling his shirt back on. “Klepp is still here and has something to hide. Heller, you know where Klepp was living?”
“I think it was on Königsteinstrasse. But first we really need to find out whether this Irma Braune has been seen anywhere.”
May 17, 1945: Evening
Nurse Irma Braune still hadn’t shown up for work. And those bullets in Zaitsev’s car left it unfit to drive. The commissar couldn’t find a replacement right away, so they had to make their way on foot.
Heller’s right ankle was becoming more painful, and he was all worn out. The soup and thick slice of white bread Zaitsev obtained for him didn’t help much—he’d refrained from eating the bread so he could bring it home to Karin later in the evening.
The shortest-possible route was turning into a major challenge for Heller. Only narrow paths had been cleared between ruins, which meant the straightest line was often over the rubble. It was already pushing evening when they reached Königsteinstrasse, and Heller could only assume that he wouldn’t be getting home tonight because of curfew.
He’d been going over the Strampe incident in his head the whole way over. He was fairly certain that the attack was meant for him, and that he was only alive because of that unlucky driver who got in the way of the bullets. Did Heller have to
be wary of a sharpshooter at every turn, waiting to finish the job that Strampe had started? He snuck glances to all sides as they walked along.
“You are limping,” said Zaitsev. He was smoking one cigarette after the other, which had made several children start following them. They wrestled over the half-smoked butts Zaitsev flicked away. “War wound?”
Heller nodded. “Nineteen fifteen, Belgium. I probably owe my life to it—for getting me home.”
Zaitsev nodded again, and Heller was starting to think he did that whenever he didn’t understand. A sliver of wood the size of a bread knife had gored his ankle back in 1915. For a while, it looked like they’d have to remove his foot—anything to get away from the trenches.
“Do you have children?”
“Two boys.” Heller stopped. “It must be over there.” He pointed at a large villa with a collapsed roof.
Zaitsev wasn’t done. “Where are your sons?”
“Klaus was in Russia. Erwin was sent to the Ardennes in ’44.”
“Good,” Zaitsev said. Then he whipped around and drew his pistol at the children. “Go away! Now!” he shouted. They turned and ran off.
Klepp’s villa had four floors. A large overgrown yard surrounded the house, and there were two tall, fire-ravaged poplars. The fences were busted, all the windowpanes were shattered, and drapes still hung out the windows as if the air raids had happened yesterday. A part of the roof had fallen in, and a section of exterior wall along with it, as if a large and hungry beast had taken a bite out of it. A home like this had been well guarded, even during the final months of the war—any plunderers could assume a death sentence. Yet the same homes had been left unprotected after the Red Army started occupying the city.
Zaitsev stepped over a toppled wooden fence onto the property and began to circle the house. Heller followed at a distance. It worried him that they had no backup should someone be waiting for them inside the villa.
“I’m not sure what I hoped for,” Zaitsev admitted once they were standing back outside the entrance. Apart from the destroyed section, the villa was more than habitable by present standards. Its proximity to the vast grounds of Grosser Garten park had protected it from the firestorm. “Why would Klepp go and hide out? Most members of the SS didn’t do that.”
Klepp had certainly not reacted like a typical SS man. Right after the air raids, Heller had seen the Nazi Party apparatus, the SS-controlled police, and the other agencies react by helping out, coordinating emergency efforts, and feeding people. Extra personnel had even been sent from Berlin to Dresden to help run things. That had all functioned well. At the same time, word was quickly spreading that leading party comrades and SS figures were often the first to flee from the advancing enemy. Yet none had probably absconded as early as Klepp, nearly three months before the war ended. Klepp must have either speculated that the end was coming much sooner, or he had been hiding something from his own people.
“Come on. We’re going in.” Zaitsev leaped up the first few steps.
“I’d feel better if I had a pistol,” Heller said.
“So you can shoot me in the back?” said the Russian. He drew his gun, undid the safety, and crept into the foyer.
Klepp’s home was a small palace. In the grand foyer, the floor was appointed with black granite tiles, and two curving stairways led up to the second-floor balustrade. Two huge sets of double doors opened to a salon on the left and a den on the right. Tracks in the dust hinted at stray animals and people, likely homeless and starving, in search of anything to eat. Nothing indicated that Klepp was still living here.
Zaitsev pressed himself to the wall, checked that the stairs leading up were all clear, and gave Heller a signal that he hadn’t spotted anything suspicious. They started their tour of the ground floor. The study looked untouched—complete with swastika flag and Hitler bust still standing—but the kitchen and laundry room were completely destroyed, their ceilings fallen in. In the salon, the buffet cabinet doors had been flung open, the dishes and glasses either missing or shattered. The table had been smashed to bits by collapsed masonry.
They ended up back in the foyer. Zaitsev waved and pointed upstairs. Heller followed him, tiptoeing up the steps. Here were the Klepps’ living areas—large, bright spaces, all cleared out or plundered, more footprints in the dust. Bedding and mattresses were missing from the bedrooms, the chandeliers had fallen from the ceiling, and papers lay scattered all over the floor. Heller bent down and saw tax assessments, insurance documents—nothing he could use.
Zaitsev seemed angered. “No one lives here. Doesn’t look like Klepp was staying here. There’s no point climbing all over. See that? Stairs to the next floor don’t exactly look safe.”
Heller didn’t want to give up yet. He knelt in the dirt and looked under cabinets and beds. He then stood on a chair. “No one has taken shelter here. Which is strange. Every habitable location and building is being used, the spots under the bridges are overcrowded, and this place is just standing empty?”
“What did you expect to find here?” Zaitsev asked.
“I never expect anything. Otherwise, I only find what I want to find.”
Zaitsev nodded, then shook his head. “My party, it finds what it wants to find . . .”
Heller had to keep himself from grinning. On top of one of the armoires, he’d just noticed a little wooden strongbox that he’d like to look in. But without Zaitsev. If he could only lose the Russian for a short time.
“Don’t stop now,” Heller said. “We’re only here once, so let’s use the light we have, give each room a thorough look.”
“In that case, old man, I’m heading upstairs anyway. If you hear something, do not shout. Better to hide and wait.” With that, the Russian was gone.
Zaitsev’s arrogance was getting to Heller, but at least it left him privacy to remove the shallow little box from atop the armoire. It was not locked. There were photos and letters inside. Heller took out a few letters and read them, then leafed through the rest. They were love letters from Klepp to his wife, Magdalena. He missed her so much, he had written from Poland, her voice, her laughter. Mixed in were small poems, pompous stanzas full of roses, throbbing hearts, eternal love. Heller was amazed that this cynical member of the “master race” obviously had a far different side to him; he never would’ve thought the man capable. Heller held the photos up to the broken window’s thinning daylight and recognized Klepp in uniform, in undershirt, with hunting rifle, with a dead deer, atop an armored car wearing goggles, shaking hands with a high-ranking officer, with a cow and six men in front of a country house, and Klepp in butcher’s clothes and a long white apron, hoisting half a pig in each hand, posing like a weight lifter, feet planted far apart. There were also photos of him with a slim young girl: Klepp in uniform, his wife all in high-necked white, the collar up to her chin, a gentle face.
Heller heard something. He set the photos down and crept to the door. But it was only Zaitsev making noise up in the attic.
Heller leaned closer to the window and started with the last photos. He went through them one more time from the beginning. In the photos showing Klepp in wartime, he thought he could make out Strampe. Despite his size, he looked more like a little boy under his dark helmet, given his childlike features. Heller separated the photos he didn’t find useful, which left him holding only a picture of Klepp with men from the butcher shop. Five of them were older, with massive walrus mustaches and flattops. A younger man was standing in the background, likely an apprentice. One of the older men looked like Klepp’s father, and on the far left Heller saw the face of a boy of thirteen or fourteen, smiling awkwardly, as if unsure that he belonged there. The photo was slightly overexposed and already a little yellowed. Heller leaned into the light.
“Keep leaning out that window and someone will finally shoot you in the head.”
Heller started and gave the Russian an angry glare.
“Just look at this,” Zaitsev said. He stuffed both hands into hi
s pockets, pulled them back out, and held them up to Heller. They were filled with rings, necklaces, and coins. “Hidden up in the attic, under the floorboards. There’s plenty more. Seems the Obersturmbannführer made himself rich from the extermination of Jews. Must have been skimming from Hitler’s war chest. Many wads of cash there, silver cutlery, candlesticks, watches, porcelain, everything a heart desires. Quite the treasure trove.”
Zaitsev put the booty back in his pockets. “So this is why he went underground? Afraid someone might discover this after the air raids, and now he doesn’t want to leave his treasure behind? Heller, you’re not listening. What’s with you?”
Heller, still looking at the photo, suddenly felt as if the walls were whispering to him, trying to tell him something. They would need to look in every possible corner. They would find something much bigger there in the shadows. This wasn’t like Frau Zinsendorfer lurking around his bed in all her madness. This was truly menacing. He held the photo up to the Russian. “That one, far left. That’s the one I was chasing, the one I shot.”
“Are you sure? He’s just a kid.”
Heller nodded. He still had the feeling, like someone was eyeing him with a cold stare.
Zaitsev grabbed the photo, folded it, and put it away. “It’s late. We need to figure out how to get home.”
“Where do you live?” Heller asked.
“I live—” Zaitsev began but raised a hand in warning, placing a finger over his mouth. He reached for his gun, then moved over to the door and listened. He waved Heller over. “Hear that?”
Heller turned his head. All was still. The sun had disappeared behind the ruins a while ago, and it was curfew soon. Anyone with a place to live had gotten there by now or should at least have found shelter for the night.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 19
