The Strangler's Waltz

by Richard Lord

  “Yes, we’re from the Vienna Police Department. I’m Inspector Dörfner and this is Inspector Stebbel. We’re here on privileged business. We have an appointment with Guido Albern.”

  This spun the gatekeeper around 180 degrees. “Oh, yes, right. You’re …” He picked up a sheet with various things written on it and read through too quickly. “You’re Inspectors Stebbel and Doofner.”

  Stebbel stepped in here. “Stebbel and Dörfner. Would it be at all possible for you to hurry this up a bit. This is a very busy afternoon for us and we need to see Herr Albern urgently.”

  “We’re investigating some very serious matters,” Dörfner added for emphasis.

  “Of course, of course. Indeed. Let me send you right along to Herr Albern.” He then grabbed the tube whistle hanging from his shoulders, turned around and shot out an ear-splitting signal. This brought a young guardsman cadet trotting towards them.

  “Jawohl, Herr Corporal?” He snapped a salute.

  “Take these two gentleman to Herr Albern. And be quick about it, will you. These men are very busy and they can’t afford for you to move at your usual drag-tail pace. They’re here on important business.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Corporal.” Then, turning to the two visitors. “Gentlemen.”

  He led the two visitors to a squat building sitting a short distance away, on a small hill. He guided them to the office of the Master of the Guards, Albern, tapped on the door and held it opened for the visitors when Albern responded.

  Albern had been anticipating this visit, but he wasn’t sure what the two inspectors wanted. Introductions and other preliminaries were kept to a bare minimum, and then the inspectors got down to business.

  Stebbel pulled Hitler’s sketch out of its protective envelope. He reached over and handed it to Albern.

  “Do you know this man?”

  Albern studied the drawing for a short time before speaking. “Brunner. Arnold Brunner.” He looked up. “Is that right?”

  “Actually, we have no idea who it is. That’s why we came to you. All we know is that he was most probably in the Imperial Guard. You say his name is … Brunner?”

  “Yes, Arnold Brunner.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure? Well, not so sure that I’d want to bet my pension on it.” He took another look, his brow crunching tightly as he did. “But it does look a lot like Brunner.”

  “No other member of the Guard that it could be?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Is Herr Brunner on duty right now?”

  “On duty?” He gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. “No, of course not. Brunner left the service about a year and a half ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was dismissed actually. He had been caught drinking while on duty several times and even got into a few fights with other members of the Guard.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah, one of his fights, the other man had to spend about a week in the hospital. Well, you know, Brunner is a big guy, pretty strong.”

  “Big, broad hands?”

  “I guess so. Anyway, he’s not someone you’d want to pick a fight with. But according to the reports, Brunner himself started most of those fights. Or at least took a tense situation and pushed it into a good dust-up.”

  “So he was dismissed … a year and a half ago?”

  “Unofficially dismissed. The official records say that he received an honorable discharge. On medical grounds.” He sputtered out a cynical laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say he had his fair share of medical problems. Not too many of his fellow guardsmen were happy to hear that, I can tell you. They all thought he should just be tossed out on his tin ear. But somebody up there decided that he should go out with an honorable.” He pointed towards the main palace building.

  Dörfner reacted immediately. “Someone in the emperor’s inner circle?”

  Albern shook his head. “I don’t think they paid any attention to the matter.” He leaned his head back and tried to recall the rumors spilling out at that time.

  “No, I think they were saying it was someone in the Interior Ministry. The Imperial Guard comes under them, you know. Or else, it was somebody in the Justice Ministry … or the privy council, some group like that. Anyway, our friend Brunner is sitting back somewhere collecting a nice pension that I’ll probably have to wait twenty years to draw. Maybe I should start drinking on duty, then pound on a few of the cadets out there.”

  “Sitting around somewhere? Do you have any idea where that somewhere might be?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Stebbel stepped in. “Do you have a current address for Herr Brunner?”

  Albern shook his head to show total ignorance. “I always assumed he went back to his home town. He was from Kärten originally. Give me a few minutes, I’ll see if I can find an address for you.”

  He then stood, went to a shiny grey file cabinet and started looking for Brunner’s file. While he was at that task, Stebbel and Dörfner exchanged charged looks. This interview was turning out even better than they had hoped. They both felt the investigation had taken a huge leap forward.

  Stebbel pulled out his small notebook and started writing down a message. But before he could finish and slip it to Dörfner, Albern spun around clutching a file.

  “OK, I found it. So let’s see what we have.” Settling back in his chair, he opened to the back of the file. His face grew intense as he read the yellowing sheets.

  “Hmm.”

  That ‘hmm’ had the two inspectors sitting like patients waiting for a bad diagnosis from the doctor. As if Albern could sense this, he added another ‘hmm’. And then another.

  “It would seem that we have no address for former Guardsman Brunner.” The faces of the two policemen dropped two storeys, in syncopation.

  “It looks like everything has been sent to his sister.”

  He looked at the next sheet and nodded. “Yes, all official correspondence to Brunner was sent to his sister’s address. We have no other address for him.” He looked back up. “Sorry.”

  “Where does this sister live?”

  Albern shrugged, as if the answer should have been obvious to anyone. “Here in Vienna. In the Geblergasse.”

  Both policemen immediately looked like they were men who had been drowning, then had a life preserver thrown to them and been hauled out of the sea.

  “Could you please write that address out for us. That could prove very helpful in our investigation.”

  “Of course, of course.” Albern grabbed a sheet of paper and carefully started writing down the name and address of Arnold Brunner’s sister. Then, as if the question had come to him for the first time, he looked up and asked. “By the way – what are you investigating here?”

  Dörfner took a deep breath. Stebbel stared at the muster master for two beats before thinking of the perfect answer.

  “We’re investigating people who may be cheating on government pensions – receiving more than they deserve.”

  As Stebbel and Dörfner reached the same side gate they had entered the Hofburg by, the guardsman saluted them and held the entrance gate for them. “I hope that your meeting was very successful, gentlemen.”

  Dörfner nodded. “Yes, very successful.” They then returned his salute, and with ear-to-ear smiles, strolled out. It suddenly seemed especially bright that afternoon. Dörfner was especially cheery: he insisted they go to the nearby Demel’s Café and celebrate.

  Chapter 28

  Two days later, the two inspectors climbed into a police squad car with three other officers, street officers fully armed. They travelled to the Währing district, where Frau Katherina Keuler, the sister of Arnold Brunner, lived in a third-floor flat.

  Frau Keuler was a widow, a status she had held for longer than she had been a wife. Her husband, a government railroad worker, had been killed in a freak accident during a storm some years earlier. Since then, his widow had been collecting a respectable pension from the state rai
lway system.

  The police came unannounced: if Brunner himself was up there, they wanted to catch him by surprise. But if he wasn’t and they needed to interrogate his sister, they wanted to catch her fully off-guard.

  They rang the front door bell, waited semi-patiently until Frau Keuler buzzed them in, and they all entered. The three hooks waited on the landing below, guns already drawn. Dörfner, who had told them where to place themselves, joined Stebbel and the two inspectors went to the door, rapped a few times, and were met by a confounded Frau Katerina Keuler. She was even more confounded when they introduced themselves as police inspectors.

  “Police? But I have done nothing wrong.”

  “Of course not. But we just need to ask you some questions.”

  “I’m not very good at answering questions. Maybe you should ask somebody else.”

  “Believe me, Frau Keuler, you are the best one to answer the questions we have.” She nodded, with a deep measure of resignation.

  Reluctantly, she invited them in. Actually, they invited themselves in and Frau Keuler acceded to their self-invitation. It was clear they had caught the poor lady totally off-guard and she was ready to accede to just about any request they made, as long as it was backed up by a badge.

  Her parlor looked like a shelter for abandoned furniture and ugly knick-knacks. The furnishings reminded Stebbel of the flat where he now lived, back when it was the home of his aunt and uncle. The same kind of stolid and ultimately dreary stuff dominated the room.

  Frau Keuler stood at an angle from her two unexpected guests, eyeing them cautiously. Stebbel fixed her with a sympathetic stare while Dörfner looked around the room and then peeked into the next room over, the dining room. To keep Dörfner in one place where she could keep an eye on them, she offered the policemen seats and then took one herself. Stebbel took his seat. but Dörfner first moved his slightly to the left so that the two men were now on different sides of Frau Keuler, with her square in the middle. This placement was strategic: by keeping her focus divided and then hitting her with questions from either side, they could keep the widow nicely off-balance. This gave them the best chance of squeezing out information that she might not be too willing to give them.

  With their first questions, as innocuous as they were, it was clear that they had made the woman fully uncomfortable, even there in the sanctuary of her own home.

  Stebbel felt bad about this whole process; he realized they were psychologically tormenting this obviously fragile woman, but he conceded that it was necessary. They needed to get all the information they could about her brother, especially where he was at that moment. The intense discomfort of this woman was of little concern when measured against the lives of any young woman out there on the streets who might become the strangler’s next victims.

  After a round of warm-up questions, they got down to the real task. Stebbel opened the probe. “Frau Keuler, we’re here to find out about your brother, Arnold.”

  “Arnold? Is he in any trouble?”

  “We hope not, but … that’s why we need to ask these questions. He’s not here right now, is he?”

  “Here? No, of course not.”

  Dörfner then jumped in. “He is your brother, isn’t he? You’re on good terms with him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. We only have each other now. Our parents are both dead, my husband … I’ve always got along with Arnold. I protected him when he was young. We remain very close.”

  “Do you know where he happens to be right now? Where he’s staying?”

  She looked from one inspector to the other. “No.”

  “No?”

  “You’re very close with your brother, but you don’t know where he happens to be staying?”

  She spoke very slowly, deliberately. “I … don’t … know … where … he … is these days.”

  “OK, good. But when was the last time you saw your brother?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A week ago … two weeks?”

  “Do you get a lot of people coming to visit you, Frau Keuler?”

  “No. I live a quiet life. I’m a widow.”

  “Of course. But if you don’t get a lot of visitors, shouldn’t you have a better recollection of when was the last time you saw your own brother – with whom you ‘remain very close’?”

  “Alright … two weeks ago. Arnold was last here almost two weeks ago. A week and … a few days, I guess. We had dinner together. I made a tafelspitz.”

  “Oh, I love tafelspitz. My colleague, Inspector Stebbel, he loves it too. Maybe you should invite us over for dinner one night. Have your brother there, too.”

  Frau Keuler was clearly flustered by the impudence of this self-invitation. But the look on her face suggested that her embarrassment was compounded as she wondered if she had somehow invited this impudence. Riled but confused, she tried to show the policemen they weren’t welcome for dinner at any time.

  “We are private people, my brother and I. We don’t have much social life. Very few guests.”

  “I see. Sorry.”

  By that point, they obviously had the poor widow squirming in a corner. They decided to press their advantage and hit her with a few more questions that might wring out of her just where her brother was holed up … or at least how often he came into Vienna. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to find out much. But Stebbel then decided to pursue another tack.

  “Frau Keuler, your brother is not married, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he ever married?”

  “No, he has always been a bachelor.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He never found the right woman, I guess.”

  “Well, there is no right woman – or right man. You finally settle for what you can get. Am I right?”

  “I am not an expert on these matters. You should ask someone else.”

  Stebbel continued, hoping to pin his theories, borrowed from Freud, onto that man Brunner.

  “Frau Keuler, I have to ask you: did your brother have trouble with women? Did he have trouble … building relationships with women?”

  And that’s where the inspectors hit the knot of resistance. Frau Keuler, until that moment utterly shy and defenseless, suddenly shot back with a sting in her voice.

  “Gentlemen, I do not think this is a proper question to be asking me. Or asking any lady. This is a private matter, and you have no right to come in here and ask me such things.”

  “But if – ”

  “Gentlemen – if you are at all deserving of that name – we should go on to other questions or you might want to call it a day.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Let’s bring it to a close here. There’s little more to say now.”

  The two inspectors stood. Frau Keuler looked as if they had both been standing on her chest and had just stepped off. She started resuming her normal breathing patterns. But Dörfner then momentarily knocked her off stride again.

  “Excuse me, but can I use your telephone?”

  “What?”

  He nodded. “Your telephone. May I use your telephone? There’s an important call I need to make.” He pointed up at an old clock staring down into the room. “I should have made it ten minutes ago already. So I would be very grateful if – ”

  “I don’t have a telephone.”

  “No telephone?”

  “I’m a widow. I don’t have much use of a telephone. But one of my neighbors upstairs has one. Or, if it’s so urgent, the drapery shop right across the road has a telephone.”

  Dörfner smiled with artificial sweetness. “Oh … it’s not really that urgent, I suppose. I can wait till we’re back at police headquarters to make the call.” Frau Keuler nodded as a look of relief started flowing back into her features.

  Stebbel now took the lead again. “As there’s nothing else to ask you, I guess it is time that we took our leave.” He paused. “But I think we should give you our official visiting cards.”

  They e
ach had their cards at the ready, which they handed to Frau Keuler. “You’ll find the telephone number of our office at police headquarters there. At the bottom. Now, if you have any more information about your brother, say if he contacts you, you should let us know as soon as possible.”

  “Immediately, I would say.”

  “Yes, immediately is the best way.”

  “And it is our duty as servants of the crown to remind you, dear lady, that withholding important information from the police is itself a crime. If you should hide anything from us, you will be subject to prosecution. And then probably a prison sentence.”

  “Prison?”

  “Oh yes. But don’t worry – it will be a woman’s prison. I’m told that they are not quite as bad as the men’s prisons.”

  Dörfner then took a pause, to allow the threat to seep into her heart. “But as long as you are honest and cooperative with the police, it’s not something that you have to worry about.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Anyway, you have our cards and our names. If your brother does contact you, please hurry upstairs to your neighbor with the telephone. And call us from there. We will be …”

  “Very grateful.

  “Yes.”

  The two policemen then gave their most respectful head bows and started out the door. The not very merry widow stared at the cards and wondered what she should do with them. Stebbel was already on the landing and Dörfner halfway out the door when she called out in as loud a tone as her soft voice allowed.

  “You have to understand … Arnold is not a bad person. He just sometimes gets into some trouble. It’s not really him though. He had many problems as a boy. I often had to protect him.”

  Stebbel took two steps back to the doorway. “We understand, Frau Keuler. And we also want to help your brother as much as we can. We do.”

  The two inspectors then took another bow and left. They were down to the next landing when they heard the door close heavily behind them.

  When they reached the next landing, where their backup waited, Stebbel put a finger to his lips and pointed down the stairs. All five policeman then headed to the front door of the building.