“And you’re just telling me this now?”
“I had no idea you were gunning for Klepp.”
“What did he look like? What sort of build did he have?”
“Built like his father—flabby, I’d call it. Ungainly, wide face. Dark hair, I believe.”
“So, do you believe he’s capable of committing murders like these? You met him, after all.”
Schorrer didn’t answer right away. He ran his fingers through his gray hair. “How does anyone really know what someone’s capable of? It could very well be. His father was a butcher. He might have apprenticed with him, could’ve learned how to use knives that way. After the second murder, Klepp phoned me and asked how the investigation was progressing. He mostly asked about what you were finding out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Heller asked, angry now. So Klepp was inquiring about him—maybe he’d been getting too close with his investigation. Did Strampe truly empty his whole magazine that freezing January night intending to hit an escaping Frenchman, or had he actually meant to kill Heller?
“You do know Professor Ehlig was campaigning against me behind my back. I was looking to keep my options open and was hoping Klepp might be inclined to back me if push came to shove. You can’t trust anyone anymore, as you know. Every man for himself. And please, don’t act so indignant. You yourself are the one setting the example.”
“What does this mean—‘gunning for’?” Zaitsev asked on the way to Klepp’s villa.
Heller was having a tough time keeping up with him but didn’t want to admit, not even to himself, that their long trips on foot were becoming more and more of a burden. His breakfast had been a lumpy milk soup, and a delayed nausea was spreading through him. On top of that, his guilty conscience was plaguing him—because of Karin.
“It’s a figure of speech. Just means that you’re watching someone.”
Zaitsev side-eyed him doubtfully, eyebrows raised.
“That you’re suspicious of someone,” Heller clarified. “You really can’t find us a working vehicle? And more people, if possible? Maybe even German speakers? And I’d really like to let my wife know where I am.”
Zaitsev said nothing. He obviously had no intention of fulfilling Heller’s requests.
Heller was unfazed. “If we’re going to intercept Ludwig, those guards need to be withdrawn from around the villa.” As they walked he detected movement from the corner of his eye, but among all the ruins it was hard to tell if someone was following them. Deep down, he was still reeling from Strampe’s failed attack from the day before. “And don’t let your men shoot him dead,” he added.
Zaitsev pulled out a cigarette. “Believe me, I’m more interested in keeping the fellow alive than anyone.”
Zaitsev was of course assuming that Rudolf Klepp was still alive, and he wanted to nab him. Whether Ludwig was the psychopath they sought was beside the point for Zaitsev. Heller couldn’t hope for otherwise—he had to take what he could get. Meanwhile, Karin had probably been worrying to death about him and didn’t have a thing to eat because he wasn’t earning anything or bringing home marks. They should’ve moved to Langebrück, out in the country.
“Herr Heller, Herr Detective Inspector!” A woman came up alongside him. Heller winced. Why was she shouting his name so loudly? “Herr Heller?” She was probably fifty or older, had a cloth wrapped around her head, and wore a homemade dress of coarse fabric. “It’s me, Hedwig, you know—Hedwig Borcher.”
Heller, slowing, recognized his former neighbor from the building next door. “Frau Borcher?”
“My Otto was arrested. I don’t know where they’ve taken him. He’s been gone for two days. And he didn’t even do anything!”
Her Otto, as Heller knew, had been the Nazi Party’s local group leader.
“Herr Heller, you’re such a good man. Tell them Otto’s a good man too. He’s helped so many, never did anything evil!” She tried to hang on to his arm. People were staring at them. Zaitsev pressed on, unmoved.
“He never hurt a single fly! I’m asking you, I’m pleading with you!”
Sure, good old Otto, the same one who immediately snatched up the apartment on the second floor just as soon as the Grünbaums were taken away. No one said a thing about it—otherwise some stranger would’ve gotten the apartment. Borcher, Leutholdt, none of them had done a thing.
“Frau Borcher, let go of me. I can’t do anything for you.” He could simply have lied, just so she’d leave him alone, could’ve just said, “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Herr Heller, they’re probably taking him to Siberia.”
“Frau Borcher, we’re on our way to important police business. Please leave me alone.”
She finally let go, eyeing him with disappointment and anger. Heller hurried to catch up with Zaitsev.
At Klepp’s villa, Zaitsev dismissed the guards. They hadn’t noticed anything conspicuous during the night.
He and Heller agreed not to hide inside the villa. Heller found a spot in the ruins across from the villa, behind a stretch of brick wall, at about the height of the second floor. Zaitsev had climbed up into the closest house. They made sure that they had eye contact.
If Heller didn’t pull himself together, his drowsiness would overpower him.
It was the middle of the morning. Farther down the street, someone had strung up a clothesline, and a woman sat next to it, watching over the wet laundry—a sheet, two pairs of underpants, stockings. On the other side of the street, someone was cooking outside using a primitive oven. Children were running around with tires, shooting each other with stick guns, playing hopscotch. Leaves rustled, and the fire-damaged stumps of trees were sprouting twigs and new greenery. Grass was growing in again. There was hammering and shoveling. A returning private with a gray backpack navigated his way down a narrow lane between collapsed buildings, taking careful steps. Heller watched him go. Then Zaitsev was waving forcefully at him, pointing at two trees near them. A large man in a white shirt and cardigan was standing between the trunks, as if about to relieve himself. Yet he just stood there, staring ahead. Then he continued on. Heller watched the man travel in a large arc, as if intending to take a back way into the property. He gave Zaitsev a signal, and then pulled back into the shadows. The villa was now blocking Heller’s view. He climbed down the ruins and leisurely crossed the street so as not to attract suspicion. He crept around the villa’s right side, keeping pressed to the wall. The man in the cardigan wasn’t in sight. Heller had no other option but to keep going and really would’ve liked to know exactly where Zaitsev was. Then he heard a gentle rattle from inside the house. He couldn’t make out what was going on. Was Zaitsev inside? Suddenly he heard a shot.
“Heller!” Zaitsev shouted.
A young man tumbled out the window, landing awkwardly on his feet and dropping his pistol. Heller now recognized him as Ludwig Klepp. As Ludwig bent down to retrieve his weapon, Heller charged. Ludwig spotted him and tried to sidestep, but Heller anticipated the move. They both toppled onto a mound of debris and shards, frantically wrestling for the gun until Heller was able to kick it away into tall grass.
Heller shouted for Zaitsev. “Alexei!”
Ludwig struck Heller’s face with his forearm, then jumped up. But Heller had a tight hold on his leg. Ludwig quickly freed himself.
Gunshots rang out from the house. Heller, his view blurry, watched Ludwig run off, his arms whirling like a windmill. Heller pulled himself up and ran after the young man, intentionally putting himself in the line of fire.
Beyond the backyard was a mountain of rubble. Ludwig could scale that no problem. Yet no sooner had he scrambled up the hill on all fours than his jacket got caught and he tore at it, kicking loose rocks that tumbled down toward Heller.
Zaitsev sprinted up and passed Heller.
“Get down! Over there, cut him off!” ordered the Russian. Heller slid back down and ran along a cleared narrow path and soon had Ludwig in his view. Once Ludwig noti
ced him, he changed direction and headed off the path. Now Heller had to return to the ruins, which he’d really wanted to avoid.
“Zaitsev?” Heller shouted.
“Here!” he heard from the rubble.
Heller scaled yet another hill, balancing unsteadily on bricks and wood. In the distance, he could see Ludwig’s white shirt slip between the remains of a wall. Zaitsev was about twenty yards behind Ludwig, stones scattering under his feet. He shouted something in Russian. Ludwig stumbled and disappeared, then Heller saw him climbing down into a cellar. Zaitsev ran right by the opening.
“No, Alexei, wait!” Heller shouted. The Russian stopped, looking around for Heller. Heller had already jumped down from the hill of rubble, cutting his hand on a sharp piece of wood. He now stood panting next to the Russian.
Heller pointed at the opening.
“Think it’s a way through?” Zaitsev whispered.
Heller wasn’t certain, but he guessed that the many single-family homes and villas around here were not connected underground. So he got an idea. He reached for a fist-size chunk of stone.
“Ludwig Klepp, come out with your hands up! I’m warning you. The Russian has a grenade!”
“Come out, or I’m throwing the grenade,” Zaitsev shouted, playing along but not daring to stand in front of the opening. “I will count to three. Raz, dva, tri!”
Heller threw the stone into the gap.
Ludwig Klepp let out a roar, crawled frantically to the opening, and forced his way through. Zaitsev grabbed the young man and pulled him out. He threw himself onto Ludwig, frisked him for weapons, turned him onto his stomach, and wrenched his arms behind his back as Ludwig panted.
Heller bent down, ripped Ludwig’s shirt out of his pants, and yanked down the waistband. Zaitsev gave him a questioning look, but Heller nodded with satisfaction: there was a clear scar over his kidneys. This was the man he’d shot the night of the air raid.
“Stand up!” Zaitsev ordered. He’d drawn his gun and aimed it at Ludwig Klepp. Ludwig stood up awkwardly, then thrust his trembling hands into the air.
“Don’t shoot, please, please, please, don’t shoot.” The corners of his mouth quivered, and his eyelids fluttered as if he were anticipating a loud bang. “I didn’t do anything, not ever, not to any Russian, not to anyone. I’m good for nothing. I just wanted a look.”
Yet he swiftly whipped around and knocked Zaitsev’s gun from his hand. Heller grabbed Ludwig by the wrist.
“Drop it!” shouted a hard female voice.
Heller turned around. A woman had stepped out of the shadows. She wore men’s pants, an army tunic, and a green beret. She carried an MP 40. And from the way she was standing, she knew how to use a submachine gun.
Zaitsev had paused, crouched halfway down, about to raise his pistol. He stood slowly, not taking his eyes off the woman.
“Hands up, both of you. Ludwig, come here!”
Heller still held Ludwig’s wrist. “Are you his mother? Magdalena Klepp?” She had seemed so gentle in her wedding photos, yet here she looked so tough and full of fight.
She ignored him. “Let him go!” she insisted. And Heller was now certain that this was Rudolf Klepp’s wife.
“Do you have a gun?” Zaitsev whispered to Heller.
“It’s back at the house,” Heller whispered back. Zaitsev gave him an incredulous look.
“Quiet!” Magdalena Klepp barked at them. “You two get away from each other. You, Heller, stand by this wall.”
Heller did as he was ordered.
“My family has suffered enough,” she said. “Leave the boy in peace. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“You be quiet, Heller. People like you are worse than the enemy. You never did grasp the greater good! And now you’re working for the enemy, for Bolshevism, just like Rudolf said. Ludwig, will you get yourself over here already?”
The young man nodded and went over to his mother.
“Your son is a murderer,” Heller said.
“He’s nothing of the sort. He’s just scared. He’s not meant for war. Come get in front of me, come on, both of you, this way. And Ludwig, grab that pistol there.”
“Where are we going?” asked Heller.
“You really have no idea?”
Into their villa dungeon, Heller realized with wild shock. God, no, anything but that.
“Put your hands up, over your head. Anyone tries anything stupid, I’ll shoot.”
Zaitsev went first, hands over his head. Heller followed, with Magdalena and Ludwig behind them.
“Faster, go!” Magdalena ordered. Heller could see Zaitsev stealing looks around. Just then he lunged off to the side, threw himself into a deep crater, and was gone without a trace before the woman could react.
“See that, Heller? Such a true friend. Gone. Now I need to find something different for you. Go in there, to the left.”
A large dark opening appeared in the busted-up cellar wall before him. Was she going to shoot him in there?
“In with you! Do it. Ludwig, you have to keep an eye out. I don’t trust that Russian. Shoot to kill if you see him.”
Heller was about to carefully grope his way into the hole when Zaitsev grabbed Magdalena from a dark recess. He hauled her to the ground, punched her twice. They wrestled for the gun.
“Do something!” she shouted at Ludwig.
The young man was clearly overwhelmed. He aimed the pistol clumsily at Zaitsev yet couldn’t shoot without possibly striking his mother. Heller bent down for a board lying at his feet, whirled around, and struck Ludwig on the head.
Ludwig fell. Heller snatched Zaitsev’s pistol and helped the Russian subdue the fuming woman, who resisted with astonishing strength. It took both men to wrestle the gun from her. In her rage she dragged her fingernails down Zaitsev’s face, cutting him with two nasty scrapes. Zaitsev punched her in the face, and she sank to the ground, unconscious.
The Russian had lost his peaked cap in the fight, and he picked it up, then stood there cursing and spitting and shaking out his aching fist.
“The gun!” he said, thrusting out his hand, and Heller handed over the pistol. Zaitsev eyed him with mistrust. “You really have no other?”
“I already told you—it’s at the house.”
“You better not be lying,” Zaitsev said.
Heller sighed and opened his overcoat, under which he wore his only shirt, now filthy and fully soaked with sweat. He turned out the pockets of his coat, and only then was Zaitsev satisfied. He then frisked the still-unconscious Magdalena Klepp for other weapons, finding a jackknife and a handful of ammo, which he stuffed into his pocket.
Ludwig was the first to come to. When he saw the Russian tugging at his mother, he let out a grunt and tried to crawl over and help her.
“Don’t move!” Heller ordered. “Tell me, right now: What do you know about the dead women? Why the dungeon in your house? Was it you who locked her down there?”
“No. I didn’t kill her. Those aren’t women in there. No, none of it’s true.” Ludwig was twitching uncontrollably, his upper body quivering.
“There was a woman down there. You two locked her down there!”
“No, she was just . . . she’d been spying on us.” Ludwig’s eyelids fluttered—he wasn’t telling the truth, and it was tough for him.
“You fled that night of the air raid. Why did you run away?”
“I was scared.”
“But you do know who I am.”
Ludwig nodded. “A policeman.”
“And you knew that back in February during the air raid?”
Ludwig nodded again. He had a large lump on his head from getting hit with the board. It had split open and was starting to bleed. Ludwig grabbed at the damp spot, and his eyes widened with shock when he saw the blood.
“Why did you run off? Did you have a girl with you somewhere, a young woman?”
“Don’t tell him anything!” Magdalena had
come to. But Zaitsev hauled her up, wrenched one of her arms behind her back, and held her mouth shut with his other hand.
“He won’t do anything to her, Ludwig,” Heller said, and glared at the hard-nosed Russian. This was no time to be distracting the young Klepp. “So why did you run away?”
“Father couldn’t know that I was outside.”
“You’d rather get shot?”
Ludwig nodded. “Father was very angry at me, because I’m a disgrace. I wasn’t supposed to leave the house.”
“So why were you outside if your father forbade you?”
“Just because . . .”
Heller eyed the young man suspiciously. One of Ludwig’s hands had started shaking uncontrollably.
“Where were you the last few nights?”
“Here in the rubble. I was looking for food and sleeping in a shack; that, or here at home.”
“Where were you three nights ago? When another young girl was killed?”
“I was here.”
“And you didn’t lure Erika Kaluza from the hospital?”
Ludwig smiled at the ground, embarrassed. Then he shook his head. Magdalena Klepp was still trying to free herself from Zaitsev’s strong grip.
“You didn’t knock her down, drag her into a cellar, cut her open?”
“Cut her open?” Ludwig repeated, as if he’d never heard the words before.
“Peel her skin off?”
Ludwig tried fighting it, but his lips contorted into a wide smile.
Heller moved a step closer, keeping his eyes on Ludwig. “Did you cut off her eyelids so that she saw what you were doing to her? Did you let her bleed out like a pig?”
Ludwig grinned. “With pigs, you bash their skull in, hang them up by their legs,” he explained, “and you stab them in the neck—in the carotid artery.”
“Did you apprentice with your father?”
“With grandfather.”
“And you learned how to use knives? A person has to learn it, right?”
“The knives must be sharp, always!”
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 21
