The Strangler's Waltz

by Richard Lord

  At the morgue, the four witnesses were further advised of what they were about to see and how they might deal with it. This was standard police practice, though it almost never seemed to soften the blow.

  The sister-in-law and all three servants immediately identified the corpse as their much-loved Anneliese. One of the servants swooned and another one asked if she might use the toilet. An orderly took her by the arm and they did a three-legged trot to the Ladies.

  Afterwards, the four were led out of the room in shock and wrenching sorrow. A police department doctor and nurse were waiting just outside the doors to offer some awkward grief counseling to the witnesses.

  Karsten von Klettenburg’s sister Constanza said she would contact her brother and break the news to him. Dörfner and Stebbel offered all the assistance they could provide to the other three ladies and they all nodded numbly. The inspectors had no idea if the three were registering anything being said right then. But before taking their leave, they did take down the full names of the identification party and secured permission to get in touch a few days later to ask questions about the murdered woman.

  Having left the four mourners in the safekeeping of the doctor and nurse, the inspectors headed back up to their office. As they waited for the paternoster, Stebbel gave a world-weary shrug.

  “Well, at least we know a little more than we did this morning. For one thing, our victim was not a prostitute.”

  “No. I guess I was totally off the mark on that one,” Dörfner conceded. Then, after a few moments pause, he added, “Still … Why was a woman like that walking around in that district, late at night, dressed the way she was and with all that choosey-floozy makeup?”

  Stebbel did his best imitation of the nasal-toned Dr. Gressler: “Answering that question, gentlemen, is your sphere, isn’t it?”

  Dörfner responded with a look that was a mix of amusement and frustration. He took one more quick glance at the preliminary report, thinking he might see something important he’d overlooked earlier. He was no more enlightened when the paternoster carriage arrived and the two climbed in. As they started their ascent, Stebbel tapped the side of the car, indicating that his mind was already burrowing into the case.

  “And there was one other thing that doesn’t fit here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Those three rings she was wearing. Not one of them was …”

  With this small prompt, Dörfner himself saw the point. “A wedding ring!”

  “Yes,” said Stebbel. “So why was she out for the evening, dressed up like that, but without her wedding ring?”

  “That’s sticky and unpleasant, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Of course, it could be that the wedding band was the one ring the killer did take from her. Maybe that was the only thing he was really interested in.”

  “Or else, he pulled that one off, was about to go for the other three when he was interrupted by somebody and decided it was time to haul his ass out of there.”

  “Also possible.” They hop-stepped off the paternoster. “Or we could go with the easiest explanation of them all.”

  “Which is?”

  “She wasn’t wearing one. She just decided to go out last evening without her wedding ring.”

  Dörfner face twisted into a depressed expression and, as always when frustrated, he rubbed the back of his head with a full, open palm. Everything had now become so much messier.

  Chapter 7

  The inspectors sat down across from each other to write up a report on the von Klettenburg case with everything they’d gathered up until that point. They handed their handwritten remarks to the secretarial officer, who typed out the report. Their next stop was to the district commander, to apprise him of the known facts of the case.

  District Commander Gustaf Schollenberg was aghast when he heard that the victim was Anneliese von Klettenburg. “I can’t believe it. Such a beautiful young woman. So charming, too. I danced with her, what, two years ago at one of the pre-Lenten balls. A benefit for the police department.”

  The two inspectors expressed their sympathy that the commander had lost someone he knew and had obviously admired. They then handed him a copy of their report and provided some fine details not listed in the report. At one point during the rundown of these additional details, Commander Schollenberg looked like he was going to retch. But that quickly morphed into a grimace of low-boil anger.

  “Okay, none of these details – the sordid ones I mean – can get out. Even Herr von Klettenburg must be kept in the dark about some of this; at least for now. Understood?”

  “Of course, Herr Commander.”

  “And I certainly don’t want the jackals in the press getting even a scrap of this. I expect both of you to make that crystal clear to everyone in your division who has had any contact with this case. Crystal clear. If I see any one of these sordid details mentioned anywhere in the press, there will be consequences, gentleman. Severe consequences.” He paused to take an imperious snort. “I think we all understand what’s meant here, don’t we?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Commander,” they both said, one right after the other.

  The D.C. then banged his fist on the desk as a trailing thought came to him. “But they will be asking questions. Dozens of them. The husband sits on the privy council, for heaven’s sake. So we need some damn thing we tell the press, the police commissioner, those weasly politicians. We can’t say that she died of a heat stroke.”

  Stebbel was ready to cover this one. “A robbery. Or rather, an attempted robbery that went awry. Frau von Klettenburg resisted, she fought back, and the thief strangled her to stop her from defending herself.”

  Dörfner then jumped in. “And he must have heard someone coming just at that point, so he ran off before he could get the best stuff.”

  The commander mulled this over for a short time, then nodded. “Yes, that’s it. That sounds very good. That’s the story we tell everyone. An attempted robbery that went all wrong. Horribly wrong. Good work, Stebbel.”

  “Thank you, sir. Inspector Dörfner and I had discussed this earlier.”

  “Alright, that’s all for right now. This copy is for me, isn’t it?” The two underlings nodded, then turned to leave as the commander dismissed them with brusque “thank you” punctuated with a nod.

  At the door, they heard him bark out another afterthought, “And please be sure you find this perpetrator very soon. The best way to heal the wounds of her husband and all her family and friends is to tell them that the culprit has been caught and will soon pay for this crime with his own life.”

  The two inspectors again voiced their obligatory agreement, dipped their shoulders in limp bows, and made their exit.

  Back in the cramped, oversized cupboard that served as an office for the two inspectors, Dörfner and Stebbel went over their session with the District Commander. It could have gone worse, they both agreed. Much worse.

  “Old Scholli seems to be happy with that story about a robbery going awry,” Dörfner said.

  “He’s easy to make happy, as long as you don’t make things complicated,” Stebbel replied. “But when you think about it … a botched robbery might be the truth.”

  “Yeah??”

  “It’s as good an explanation as any other.”

  This time, Dörfner merely nodded, but his mouth was twisted in a gesture of uncertainty. Stebbel elaborated.

  “Our killer corners a wealthy woman in a lonely lane, tells her to hand over her money and jewelry. She starts making noises, so he throws his mitts around her throat to shut her up. She starts to fight back, maybe scratches him, so he squeezes harder to show his displeasure. A minute or two later, she’s dead, he’s scared, and then someone opens a window or door not too far down the lane, so he runs. It all works.”

  “So what do we do now? Start dragging in all the muscular thieves running around Vienna?”

  Stebbel shook his head. “We wait for more clues to surface. Who knows, maybe the ki
ller did manage to grab something off the poor lady before he got scared. If some valuable item of hers turns up, we’ve got our next lead.”

  * * *

  As a languid April twilight settled across Vienna, the streets started filling up with the office workers heading home after a long day of work along with those just heading off to work. Amongst the latter was the corps of streetwalkers who would line the shadowy side of the Ringstrasse across from the Vienna Opera House or the side alleys in the theatre district.

  But most of these women were heading into Spittelberg, that singular section of town that had become the capital’s prime red-light district. For Vienna’s often ridiculed Morality Police Division, Spittelberg was a hands-off zone where the sex trade had become a free market paradigm that might warm the hearts of the Vienna School economists just coming into renown at that time. But for a small group of policemen in the Homicide Division, it was the scene of a baffling murder that needed to be solved as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  It was the shallow side of midnight. Hitler should have been tired, already in bed even, but he was still filled with energy. Nervous energy, the kind that propelled him into his best work. He was again caught up in copying work – but this time he was not copying models from some other artist, but his own work. Hunched eagerly over his desk, he was making copies of the two sketches he had done the morning after the murder.

  The woman’s face was now seen from different perspectives: from slightly to the left, slightly to the right, arched from above. And then straight on, as if the perspective of one lover looking entranced into the eyes of the other.

  He then took on the sketch of the killer. This time, he tried to delve more deeply into the psyche of the man and capture that. He dashed out one drawing, then another, each one calibrated to explore another shade of the man’s personality, the hidden lines of cruelty within the face.

  When he was finished, Hitler spread all the sketches out in front of him. He inspected the work with what came as close as he could manage to a critical eye. His assessment: the work was brilliant, and he himself was clearly a major artist. That great promise he always knew he possessed was now being realized.

  And as he readjusted the position of some of the sketches, he could hear music playing … in his mind. It was the crescendo of a favorite Wagner piece, a strident surge signaling a moment of triumph, a moment of great triumph. He slapped the desk and whispered, “Yes, this is why fate brought me to Vienna. This is where I prove that art is a powerful weapon!”

  Chapter 8

  Senior Inspector Rautz entered the room where the district’s other seasoned inspectors had assembled for their Thursday morning briefing. Though the room was not very large and the eleven junior inspectors all turned and looked at him at he entered, Rautz still lifted his chimes to his chin and tapped out a signal with a tiny hammer.

  “So, gentlemen, if you will just lend me your ears for a short time … Your attention please, gentlemen, your attention.”

  He looked around the room and when everyone there was looking sufficiently uncomfortable, Rautz smiled and began his spiel.

  “A body was fished out of the Danube early this morning. A male body, 38-years-old. Our first impulse was to rule it a suicide. The deceased had motive for such an act. That’s all I’ll say for now. So we might be tempted to just file it away as a suicide. Except ….”

  Rautz looked around the room again, his way of soliciting even more attention. He then pulled at both sides of his moustache, as if he had hidden the other facts there and was now about to pull them out.

  “Except that the dead man had a large bruise on the back of the head, right side. Now this large, ugly bruise suggests that our unfortunate fellow had been intentionally hit on the head by somebody and then dumped into the Danube for a fatal swim.

  “But there is, of course, another possible explanation for that big, ugly wound: Our man did commit suicide by jumping into the river, but on his way down, he hit his head on the side of the bank, on the stone wall there, and that was the cause of his injury.

  “So, suicide or murder? Well, if we want to pursue the possibility of the latter, some of you here in this room will have to carry out a long investigation with almost nothing to start on except that bruise and the victim’s identity.

  “But I want you gentlemen to help me decide if we should go forward and investigate this case as a murder. Mind you, it will take a lot of hard work to come up with any resolution. If there is, in fact, a resolution at the end of the whole thing.” The senior inspector then turned to the next oldest officer in the room. “Herr Stegmeier – are you looking for some new assignment to keep you busy?”

  “No, Herr Inspector. I have enough to occupy me right now.”

  Rautz nodded, then asked two or three others before turning to Dörfner and Stebbel. “So, Herr Dörfner, Herr Stebbel. Are you two looking for some additional work?” Stebbel put his hand up as if politely refusing a second portion of potatoes at a dinner party.

  Rautz then asked two other inspectors, before smiling mischievously as he shook his head. “So, it was a suicide. Just as I thought. Thank you, gentlemen, for helping us close out this case. This is the kind of thing that warms my heart: a clean and efficient division that solves most cases very quickly and neatly, without headaches of any sort. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Rautz then read out a few department notices, asked for questions, and dutifully gave inadequate answers to the first four questions that were tossed at him. Finally, Andreas Glotz raised his hand and asked who the suicide was and why the department reckoned it was a suicide.

  “The dead man was one Leopold Scherling. A successful businessman. Formerly successful, I should say. In exports or something like that. Anyway, he filed for bankruptcy at the end of January, and I imagine he hadn’t been in a very cheerful mood since then.

  “The fellow had every cause to kill himself. He was already drowning in debt, so I guess he decided he might as well be drowning in the waters of the lovely blue Danube.” Rautz then laughed at his own lame joke and about the half the room joined in – after a tense interval of silence.

  The senior inspector ended by asking if there was any more business and, getting no reply, he called the meeting to an end. As the juniors filed out of the room, Dörfner turned to Stebbel and Glotz, walking just to his side. “That Scherling fellow – I wonder if he went to that Bankruptcy Ball they threw during the Carnival season. Should have given him a free ticket, the way I reckon.” The other two loupes shrugged and slipped through the meeting room door. They all had much work to attend to.

  Chapter 9

  The two inspectors had started putting together a portfolio on the von Klettenburg family to see if they could discover anyone who would want to kill the wife. Perhaps, Stebbel suggested, it was someone wanting to get back at the husband for something he’d done as a privy counselor. Dörfner was much more in favor of the theory that it would have been one of his business activities. “I’m sure that a rich banker is never at a loss for mortal enemies.”

  Stebbel started working the privy council angle. As he discovered, von Klettenburg had only been a member of the privy council for four years. In fact, there was quite some surprise when he was selected for that body. Most speculation was that he had lent the government, in particular the emperor’s office, large amounts of money. The privy council appointment was his reward for: first, his generosity, and second, his patience when the government had its usual delays in repayment.

  But one colleague, Hecker Knoll, then recalled another account making the rounds: that von Klettenburg had used his key business connections to help the emperor’s mistress secure her latest flat – a sprawling, elegant apartment at the edge of the theatre district.

  Inspector Knoll then elaborated, “Tja, I heard he arranged for her to get the place, helped get her moved in, and all without a sniff of the palace in the transaction. That’s why he was granted the seat on t
he council.”

  Stebbel smirked. “So hiding Franzi’s mistress qualified as his ‘contribution to the good of the empire’?”

  “Not too unlikely,” threw in Inspector Andreas Glotz from the other side of the police archives room. “But evidently, he’s not too much of a nuisance over there. I heard he never turns up at any of the council meetings.”

  This brought a chortle from Dörfner. “I’ll bet if you took him to the Hofburg and gave him two hours, he’d never even be able to find the Privy Council Chamber.”

  “Probably not. No, the only thing von Klettenburg and all those swells like him really care about is having the title ‘Geheimrat’ to swing around. (Geheimrat being German for privy counselor.) The title lets them get the best tables at fancy restaurants or those special seats at the theatre and opera,” added Glotz.

  They all nodded. Vienna was one of those cities where the table where you sat was a prime factor in whether you enjoyed your meal or not, so anything that secured one of the best places was an honor worth having.

  Stebbel and Dörfner were more relaxed after this little bit of mockery. One characteristic typical of police inspectors in the last years of the Habsburg monarchy – actually of all those in middle-level positions of any kind – was that they always preferred to piss up rather than down. But being a little more relaxed did not bring them any further along in solving the murder. And they knew that for many reasons, they had to solve it as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  Further investigations turned up very little about Karsten von Klettenburg that could help the inspectors open a crack in the case. He may not have been a model privy counselor, but he was an exemplary businessman. The son of a wealthy family whose wealth on both sides went back a few generations, he had started his working life in the bank that his father and uncle ran. In fact, he started high up in the hierarchy and quickly moved to even higher positions.