“They had something going on!”
“No, she’d mucked things up. The patients from the concentration camp, they croaked because of her. She was trying to pin the blame on Schorrer.”
“They had something going on—I seen her come out of there before.”
“True, I did see them sitting together before.”
“I heard she made someone go away who tried to nab a head nurse job from her.”
The people were growing more and more agitated. Everyone thought they knew the true story. Heller couldn’t take it anymore. “Be quiet!” he thundered. Silence reigned in the hallway.
“You, with the lamp, come with me.”
Rita’s room wasn’t locked either. The room was clean, with two books on the table, a jug, a cup. Heller opened her locker but found only a few items of clothing, a blanket, a piece of hard bread and equally hard cheese. In the lower compartment was a piece of soap. Heller gently ran his fingertips along the slightly dusty board.
“She took off,” someone whispered. Assorted onlookers had gathered at the door again, pushing and shoving.
In a side compartment at the back of the locker, Heller discovered a little cardboard box. He carefully shook it. Something light was inside, rattling against the cardboard. He lifted the lid, and stared with interest at the long, narrow brown object, held it between his thumb and forefinger, pressed it, and smelled it.
“Dried meat,” someone whispered.
Heller sucked in air. Klara Bellmann’s tongue? He put it back and closed the lid.
“All right, who here last saw Rita Stein?”
A woman pushed through the group. “She was sitting on that low wall outside where the Russians always smoke. Schorrer and her were sitting together. He was holding her. I said good evening, and he nodded. They took off, I’m telling you. She even had a handcart with her.”
“When was this?”
“Hardly an hour ago.”
May 19, 1945: After Midnight
“Come, come. Davai, davai!” Heller impatiently waved the Red Army soldiers along. They spread out among the rubble, climbing over hills of debris and shining lights into cellar vaults and craters.
“Zhey can be anyplace,” said a visibly bored female Russian army doctor.
“True, but they can’t be far from the hospital. They have a handcart with them, plus the curfew is on. They’re sure to be hiding out somewhere. You don’t have any more people than this?” Heller was growing anxious and concerned. And he was angry at himself—for letting himself be so fooled.
“Zhey not leave city. All guards veell know.”
“What about Zaitsev? Have you called for him?”
The doctor clearly didn’t like Heller’s tone. “I haff! So now, you let us do vork!”
Suddenly headlights were on them. A truck raced up and braked hard. Zaitsev jumped out and ordered everyone off the truck. Soldiers jumped down and lined up, and Zaitsev had them spread out. He then exchanged a few words with the female doctor.
“I never trusted that Rita Stein from the start,” he whispered to Heller. “But you? You were in love.”
“Don’t go talking nonsense.”
The Russian nodded. “You still are. Show it to me!” He thrust out a hand, and Heller gave him the box with Klara Bellmann’s tongue. Zaitsev looked inside and snorted before handing back the box. “And yet you are still in love with her.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Heller said, lost in thought, his finger feeling at the rough cardboard.
“What do you think? Yesterday afternoon, when Schorrer bandaged my wound and I felt so bad after, was he trying to kill me? Maybe he put something in my water?”
“From the questions you were asking, he could’ve suspected you were on his trail.”
“And he killed those liberated concentration camp inmates because he was afraid one of them might recognize him. Does that make sense?”
Heller nodded, thinking it over. He still wasn’t sure what all this had to do with Rita Stein. What had she been up to with the doctor? What about the blood on her clothes that time Heller surprised her naked in the washroom? Had it been fresh blood? Was she only faking not feeling well? And why?
“But if that’s Klara Bellmann’s tongue and Rita had it, what about Harald?” Heller asked.
Zaitsev held up two fingers. “This only means there are two murderers. Rita Stein killed the Bellmann girl, that maniac Harald killed the other women.”
“What about the human skin? Why was it in Schorrer’s room? And the corpse of Irma Braune?”
“Heller, you still don’t get it. People like Schorrer are insane. They aren’t just crazy, like that Harald, they’re worse. With Harald, you know what you get. Never with people like Schorrer. You had the dead bodies taken to him, and he kept the skin. Did you know that in Auschwitz they made lampshades from human skin? Maybe this Braune girl knew about Klara Bellmann.”
“And Rita recognized Schorrer as one of her own?” Heller stared at the Russian in disbelief. It just didn’t seem plausible.
For once, Zaitsev didn’t blame Heller for being skeptical. He even very briefly placed his arm around his shoulder. “Come on, let’s see if we can find Rita. Then you can ask her yourself.”
It seemed unlikely to Heller that Rita Stein and Dr. Schorrer would hide out in the burned-out cellar where Erika Kaluza died, of all places, but it was his only lead, and they had to start searching somewhere. Zaitsev followed him in silence as they crossed Blasewitzer Allee and turned into fields of rubble. To find the cellar on Reissigerstrasse, they again used Trinity Church to get their bearings. Before they went inside the cellar, they drew their weapons. But the cellar was empty. Nothing pointed to Schorrer or Rita Stein being there. Where should they look now? Maybe the boathouse, where this all began? Heller went back outside. “Let’s head toward the Elbe.”
“There’s no point, not in this darkness,” Zaitsev said as he stepped out of the cellar.
“Come on, let’s keep looking,” Heller insisted. He was uneasy. Every second counted.
“Heller, the whole area is surrounded. Those two can’t get away.”
“What am I supposed to do? Just go home?”
Zaitsev snorted. “There it is: that vaunted German perseverance. Never giving up. Fighting until the bitter end.”
Heller whipped around. “Stop it.”
“I can’t, Heller. You will all hear this for decades.”
“But you can’t live like that. You can’t go on hating forever.”
“Sure I can. When there’s nothing else left. And I have nothing left. Not a thing. Understand? Nothing! No people, no place, nowhere to return, no future. Only my hate . . .”
Zaitsev fell silent. Heller couldn’t tell what the young Russian was doing. Was he wiping his eyes? Heller went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Zaitsev glanced up, trying to smile. His expression suddenly stiffened. He stared into the darkness over Heller’s shoulder. “Move real slow,” he whispered.
Heller turned around.
“See that bent steel beam, about twenty yards away? Look to the right of it.”
Against the night sky, Heller saw the silhouette of a stooped figure, swaying back and forth and pacing around like a captured animal. Harald.
“We sure could use Ludwig Klepp right now.”
“He will never get out of prison,” Zaitsev whispered. “And I will nab this one too.”
Heller held him by the arm. “Don’t kill him.”
“Why, because you promised that Nazi wife?” Zaitsev shook free of Heller. The figure noticed him moving and disappeared. Zaitsev sprinted off.
“Don’t shoot him, Zaitsev!” Heller said once more but stayed where he was. It made no sense to give chase through all this rubble in the dark. They should’ve tried to lure Harald in.
Heller heard a rattling sound to his right. He whirled around and drew his pistol, accidentally dropp
ing the little box from his pocket.
“Harald!” he shouted. The mentally disabled young man was creeping over the rubble toward him. Only about ten yards was left between them.
“Oh-oh, ah,” Harald grunted.
“Harald, stay calm. Everything’s all right. You be a good boy.”
Heller heard a dull sound he couldn’t identify. Then he saw that Harald was banging his head against a chimney, over and over.
“Stop that!” Heller ordered, and slowly bent down to pick up the box. His fingers felt that same strange powdery sensation as on the attic handrail at the second crime scene. And he recalled those dusty streaks on the broom handle near Klara Bellmann’s body. Not dust—talcum powder. Now Harald was bounding down the slope of rubble, bringing rocks and dust with him, and charging fast at Heller with his arms swinging wildly. Right before Harald reached him, Zaitsev suddenly arrived and tackled Harald. Harald bleated like an anxious calf, flailing away, crying, resisting.
“Zaitsev!” shouted Heller. “Alexei, let him go!”
“Help me!” Zaitsev had restrained Harald but couldn’t get up without letting go.
“No, Alexei. He’s the wrong man. It’s not him!”
“Who else can it be?”
“He’s not the murderer. He’s like a child, has no idea what he’s doing. It’s just all fear. Don’t you see?”
Zaitsev had his hands full keeping control of Harald. “Goddamnit, Heller, who else could it be? Come give me a hand!”
Heller went over to Harald and placed a calming hand on his head. Harald rolled his eyes to look up at him and turned more docile.
“Here, look.” Heller pulled out the little box. “You yourself said it had to be someone who knew everything the whole time, who knew what I was doing and how the investigation was coming along. In the locker where I found this, there was a fine layer of dust. At least I thought it was dust. But now I see it was talcum powder—from rubber gloves. I also found it at the crime scene of the second victim. Schorrer was awfully alarmed when he discovered those bites on the third victim, and now it’s clear why: those were Harald’s bites.” He grabbed Harald’s mouth and pulled his lips open. His incisors were deformed, one of them all crooked. “Zaitsev, I’m telling you, Rita didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s Schorrer, and now he’s got Rita under his power.”
“How exactly do you know this?”
“Schorrer doesn’t come from Görlitz—he’s from Berlin, like Klara Bellmann. She knew things about him, and that’s why he killed her. And then Rita was onto him. She’d gone to Klara Bellmann’s relatives and found something there.”
“But people saw them sitting together.”
“Maybe Schorrer was forcing her, or she was drugged. She’s in danger. Let Harald go. Maybe he can lead us to Rita.”
Zaitsev shook his head. “He’ll just run away.”
“Alexei, I’m twice your age. Just trust me for once. Please.”
Heller watched Zaitsev struggle with the decision.
“If this is true what you say, then Rita is long gone,” Zaitsev said, yet he let go of Harald and stood.
Harald crawled away, but he didn’t flee. He cowered in a corner, pulling his knees to his chest.
Heller approached him gently, crouching down beside him. “Harald, did you see the bad man?”
“Oh-oh!”
“Harald, do you remember? A woman? Like Magdalena, but younger?” Heller wondered how long chloroform kept a person drugged. He was certain that Schorrer wanted his victims to be conscious, with their eyes open. It might not be too late.
Harald grunted, covering his face with his hands.
Heller took a deep breath. “Can you see the blood? Do you know where the blood is?”
“Ha-ah, ha-ah.” Harald slapped his hands together.
“Harald, you’re a good boy. Show it to me. Show me the blood!”
They didn’t have far to go. Harald moved fast and knew the way. He took shortcuts over collapsed buildings and through openings and cellars, confidently leading Heller and Zaitsev through the rubble wasteland. Soon they were standing before the destroyed St. Andreas Church on Striesener Strasse. Harald knew the entrance into the catacombs. There lay a handcart, tipped over. Harald giggled and wanted to go down inside. But Zaitsev rushed in front, grabbed him, and held his mouth shut.
“Heller, go! I’ll follow!”
Heller, hesitating at first, forced his way through the narrow opening, which had been dug in order to rescue people buried under debris. A path descended deeper and deeper, to a crevice hacked out of the foundation’s masonry. Heller wriggled through. It smelled like soot and stone grit. A dim beam of light showed him the way. He reached a vaulted cellar with dozens of columns and walls of roughly hewn fieldstone and sandstone. He ran, ducking, to the nearest column, crouched in its shadow, and looked around. A small light flickered—a kerosene lamp. And then he saw her, Rita Stein, tied to a column. Her head hung down, motionless. She was naked. He moved to the next column and looked around. Where was Schorrer?
“Rita,” Heller called to her in a faint whisper. “Rita!”
She didn’t move. Her arms had been wrenched back around the column, the ropes throttling her wrists. Seeing her from the side, Heller realized her mouth was gagged. He looked around again and decided to take the chance. He crept up to the column from behind and tried to untie the knots. They were too tight, he couldn’t do it, and he didn’t have a knife on him. He moved around the column, running the risk of stepping into the light, and to his relief realized that Rita was still alive. She looked up at that moment, seemed to recognize him, and, her face contorted with fear, rolled her eyes to the left.
Heller understood her warning at the last second and dove behind the column. Schorrer reeled past him, his ax barely missing Heller. The force of it threw him off balance, but he didn’t fall. Schorrer recovered swiftly and lunged at Heller. Heller raised his gun to shoot, but Schorrer reacted lightning fast and hit Heller’s arm with the ax handle. Heller’s pistol flew into the shadows, far from his reach. Heller turned and feinted, planting his feet right as the ax blade clanged against the wall behind him. Then Heller dove out of Schorrer’s reach. Schorrer spotted the pistol and picked it up.
“Goddamn snoop,” Schorrer said.
“Give it up. Help’s coming any second.”
“Who? That crazy kid?”
“You’re the crazy one, Schorrer.”
“I’m not crazy at all. I’m a genius. Haven’t you noticed what a wonderful thing a human body is? What it can withstand? People think a human always has to die, since we practically collapse from every little boo-boo, yet meanwhile we’re being attacked by billions of bacilli day after day. It endures so much—hunger, cold, fire, pain—and your standard human is capable of enduring so much more. Isn’t it marvelous beholding the body so clearly, so cleanly, finally liberated from all that bothersome skin? How it twitches and throbs under there, how the lungs rise and fall, the diaphragm quivers, how the heart beats. Ba-bump, ba-bump.”
“Is it true what Zaitsev says? Is it true what you did to people in the camps?” Heller asked.
“Of course it’s true. Yet not even those running the place could fully comprehend all that I can do, all that I know. There, among all those maniacs wanting to kill for killing’s sake, I was like a god in the flesh, a white, radiant god. I paid homage to the human body, to this divine creation. The others were just chasing a dog gone wild, bellowing ‘Heil,’ trying to make me believe I was the one who was mad. Just like you, Heller. Step into the light. Come and see what I’ll do with her. I’ll let you take part. All it takes is a little ammonia, some adrenaline for the heart, a little Novocain.”
Heller ducked down low inside the shadow of a column. He knew he had to keep Schorrer engaged in conversation, to distract him. “You killed Klara Bellmann because she knew you from Berlin. You were afraid of being found out. Why? Had you murdered others in Berlin? Are you the Berlin Slasher?�
�
“I don’t murder. Understand? And Klara Bellmann was a nuisance. She was sticking her nose in things that didn’t concern her. Asking around about me in the personnel department. She even forced her way into my room and stole my files. I simply couldn’t allow that.”
“You could’ve just thrown her into the Elbe. Her murder never would’ve come to light. Why leave her corpse lying there? And now you bring Rita Stein here to torture her instead of running for your life? That’s something a person does when they’re not in their right mind.”
“I’m always in my right mind. Always!”
“You need to stop this, Schorrer.”
“Why? I’m a dead man. I will complete the work I’ve started here. I will create the perfect being, all bones and flesh, the machine without its shell. And if you don’t come out of there, I won’t wait until she’s conscious—I’ll start slicing her up right now.” Schorrer set the ax down, pulled a scalpel from his breast pocket, and held it to Rita’s stomach. Rita’s eyes opened wide, wild with panic.
This was the moment. Heller came out from hiding.
He suddenly heard grunting and giggling near him.
“Oh-oh!” echoed through the cellar.
Schorrer whirled around. “Not you again,” he screamed. “You idiot!”
Heller tried to grab the ax, but Schorrer seized him by the shoulder and pressed the pistol into his neck. Schorrer shoved him toward the entrance.
Heller broke out in a sweat. He felt cold shivers down his neck, knowing that Schorrer had nothing to lose. What happened to Zaitsev? Was he dead? And Harald? Where was he?
“Where are you, you stupid oaf?” the doctor called out.
“Oh-oh,” came a squawk from the darkness.
“Come here, you stupid ape, come here, and I’ll teach you to take a bite out of one of my masterpieces.”
Schorrer tightened his grip on Heller’s shoulder and hauled him through the darkness, between the columns, along the narrow passage.
“Ah, ah,” Harald said, suddenly right behind them. Schorrer was furious, but also less sure now. He yanked Heller around and shoved him back into the church’s catacombs, facing the light streaming in.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 26
