by Richard Lord
“How?”
“Remember, Karl-Heinz, that we’re not even sure our Herr von Klettenburg was really behind these murders. Zingler could have been making that part up.”
“Why?”
Stebbel shrugged. “Maybe he had a grudge against the Geheimrat. A deep, ugly grudge. They worked together for some years. That’s a lot of time for a rich and arrogant man to sow some nasty grudges.”
“Ja, maybe.” He took a contemplative snort. “So what’s this chance to find out the full truth?”
“From a man who has his sights set beyond mere earthly justice.”
Just after noon, Inspector Stebbel entered St. Bartolemus Church. He hesitated before going further, dipped his fingers in the holy water fount, looked towards the altar and genuflected. Then he hurried down the side aisle where he found Father Wenzel rearranging hymnbooks in the middle pews. His approach obviously surprised the priest.
“Good afternoon, Father.”
“Oh yes. Inspector …”
“Stebbel.”
“Of course. What can I do for you, Inspector?” Stebbel hesitated for just a moment. “I take it that you’ve heard about the passing of Herr Zingler.” Stebbel nodded.
“I was there at his side at the end. I gave him the last rites.”
“I thought you did that the first night.”
“I did.”
“What, does the absolution wear off after a day? You have to keep on applying it?”
Father Wenzel gave a reluctant smile. “Who knows how he might have sinned in thought over the next two days.” He then smiled more easily, as if preparing to share a secret. “Anyway, the final sacrament, especially administered repeatedly, is often more for the dying person and his family than for the forgiveness of God.”
“I see.”
“But I don’t. I am pretty sure that you didn’t come here for a lengthy discussion of the sacraments.”
“What did he tell you, Father? When he was confessing his crimes. Did he tell you who else was involved? Did he go through the details of the crimes?”
“You know I can’t reveal that. You are a Catholic, aren’t you, Inspector?”
“From time to time.”
“Then you are well aware of the absolute seal of confession.” Stebbel nodded. “Everything that Herr Zingler told me about those crimes was conveyed during the sacrament. I am bound by the rules of our Church to keep those details secret. Even unto and beyond death.”
Stebbel stared at the priest hard. “Father, I suspect you know this doesn’t just involve our Herr Zingler. There may be someone else involved in those horrible murders. Someone who was actually the man pulling the strings. And that man may just walk away absolutely free, never pay any price for those crimes. He will, in fact, profit from all those crimes.”
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?”
“You have no regard for earthly justice?”
“That is your responsibility, not mine, Inspector. I must think of the next world.” He paused for a moment. “We all should think more about the next world.”
“Thank you, Father. I may see you at the wake.” Stebbel turned and started walking angrily back down the aisle. The priest took a deep sigh.
About ten meters down the aisle, Stebbel stopped and turned back.
“Father, would you give absolution to that other man? The one pulling all those strings? The man who pulled the strings that strangled five innocent women?”
“It is my duty as a priest to give absolution to anyone who comes to me in full contrition.”
“So, no justice in this world or the next, as long as the swine comes to you before dying and pretends to have contrition?”
“There is always purgatory. There, we are still bereft of the presence of God, and the punishment for all our sins, even those forgiven in confession, will be rendered from the judgment of the one flawless judge.”
“I see.”
He turned and started walking away again. A few steps along, Father Wenzel called out to him. “Inspector!” Stebbel stopped and half-turned. The priest walked up to him quickly. “Inspector, I have the sense that you have many things that are troubling you. Things that go beyond the body and into the soul. If you should ever like to make a full and profound confession … I would be honored to serve as your confessor.”
“Thank you, Father. I will keep that in mind.”
Stebbel then turned one last time and strode out of the church. The priest watched him until he disappeared into the vestibule, from where his footfall carried echoes of deep resentment.
Chapter 49
An hour later, Stebbel and Dörfner were sitting in the Café Henslich. Dörfner was halfway through a tall Dobos torte; Stebbel, who could only manage a few nibbles from a cherry strudel, had just signaled for another Franziskaner-style coffee.
“So you weren’t able to get anything from this priest?”
Stebbel shook his head. “Anything of importance that Zingler had told him was given under the seal of confession. The priest was bound to silence.”
“The seal of confession? Oh, hang on a minute – isn’t that like the seal of silence between a perverted psychiatrist and his perverted patients?”
Stebbel cracked a slight smile at Dörfner’s sardonic twist of their earlier discussions. Dörfner then slipped back into his morose tone. “So, he couldn’t tell you anything?” He expressed his frustration by spearing a chunk of the Dobos torte.
“Couldn’t … wouldn’t. The important thing is, my trip was totally wasted. I think he wanted to tell me that von Klettenburg was involved, but he … couldn’t.”
“So that where it stands. And that’s where it ends too. I guess.” He shoved the chunk of torte into his mouth and swallowed it after two rough bites. “The rich bastard gets away again.” He grabbed his coffee cup brusquely, spilling some out of the side as he did.
“I guess we should console ourselves with the possibility that he wasn’t really involved after all. Maybe Zingler was lying.”
“There on his deathbed? Calling you out there in the middle of the night to make a final confession? And then he’s going to lie about the swine who was behind the whole thing.”
“Not very likely, of course. I just said it was possible.”
“Well, as far as anyone else knows, the case is closed. We caught the killer and he paid for his crimes with his own life. It all ended very clean, neat and efficient, as Rautz would say. Just the way he likes to see a case wrapped up.”
Stebbel gave a look halfway between a wince and a smile. “Very neat and clean indeed. Too damn neat and clean.”
“Well, I guess we can’t really complain: we’re heroes, and Rautz is a model senior inspector and …”
“And Karsten von Klettenburg is a grieving widower whose terrible grief has been at least partly assuaged by our heroic work finding his poor wife’s murderer.” He shook his head sadly. “So, it was all too true what he told us at that first meeting: his wife also played the game, but not as well as he did.”
Dörfner had just gobbled down the last piece of his torte and tossed his fork onto the plate. “I would like to know for sure though. That it was von Klettenburg behind everything. For sure, without that shadow of doubt scraping at the back of my head.” He stared over at Stebbel, who seemed swallowed up in his own thoughts. He then glanced down at the plate in front of Stebbel.
“Are you going to finish that strudel?”
He slid the plate across the table. “No, no; you have it.” At that same moment, he came out of his private thoughts and his mood seemed much brighter.
“You know … you know, there may be a way that we can find out. We can trick von Klettenburg into telling us himself.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I think I may have just come up with a way.”
“I think I would be happy with that. Just to have him tell us himself.”
“And that may just be within our gra
sp.”
Chapter 50
On the morning of Oswald Zingler’s funeral, Mother Nature showed no measure of sympathy for the occasion. The weather was completely out of sync with any funereal mood. It was, in fact, a glorious day, the most beautiful so far that year as full-bloomed spring showed off all its powers.
Not far from the graveside where an Augustinian priest was reciting the prayers of burial, groups of children ran around cheerfully, using tombstones as shields while they played tag and pass-the-waffle.
At the sleeve of the hill overlooking the service, the sun shone off rows of tombstones and a modest mausoleum, making each one look like a thick gem lodged in the ground.
Inspectors Stebbel and Dörfner waited a respectful distance away from the service, trying to calibrate the feelings of the mourners. After the priest threw the required handful of dirt into the grave, the funeral attendant guided the mourners to the grave one-by-one so they could toss their roses into the pit and give their final farewells to the departed.
Geheimrat Karsten von Klettenburg was the first after the family members to be escorted to the grave. He threw in his rose, bowed his head, made the sign of the cross, turned and headed back to his motorcar where his chauffeur and another servant waited to help him in and then back to the center of town.
As soon as he had left the graveside, Stebbel and Dörfner moved quickly. They intercepted him about ten meters before his waiting car. The Geheimrat was thoroughly surprised to see the two loupes there.
“Inspectors. Did you also know the deceased?”
Stebbel spoke. “No, not really. We’re here on some official business.”
“Oh … indeed?”
“But you yourself … was the deceased a friend or a business partner?”
“Both actually. Our relationship had started out on a strictly business basis. But then certain dealings brought us closer together. By the end, we had become quite close in many ways.”
“Ah, so I can understand your feelings of sorrow then. And you’ve certainly had more than your fair share of sorrow lately.”
“Yes, that’s very true. So if you don’t mind – ”
“He shot himself, didn’t he? Why do you think he did that?
Von Klettenburg took a deep sigh. This was going to drag on a few more minutes, so he had best make the best of it.
“Well, he had actually been rather depressed for the last few years. Following the death of his wife. And he did apparently have some serious health problems. He was often in considerable pain these last months. It pained me to see him suffering. And that was every time we got together recently. I imagine everything just came together and became too much for the poor man.”
He turned to look back at the burial plot. Those at the tail end of the mourner’s queue were tossing their flowers into the grave. “But now he’s together with his beloved wife. And I console myself with that thought: that he has found a level of happiness which he was lacking over the last several years.”
“And no one knows better than you the pain of losing a beloved spouse. Especially when that spouse is taken away so abruptly, so … cruelly.”
“Yes, that’s very true. And now I lose a long-time friend. So if you don’t mind, I really would like to get back to my home and – ”
“Of course. We’ll let you get on your way in just a few minutes. But as I said, we are here on some official business. We were hoping you might be able to help us. In fact, it involves the loss of your dear wife.”
“Oh?”
Now Dörfner spoke for the first time in the trap round. “Do you happen to know this man?” He pulled out one of Hitler’s sketches of Brunner from a thin folder he’d been holding since their arrival.
Von Klettenburg took the sketch and looked at it. He was obviously taken aback, very much so, at seeing Brunner’s face there. It was clear that he knew immediately who it was. But that’s not what he said.
“No. No, I have no idea who this man is.”
“Are you sure? Are you quite sure you’ve never seen him before?”
Von Klettenburg’s look of mild shock now morphed into one of exasperation. “Look, I’m a businessman. I have the bank and several other enterprises. I also meet many people at various functions. I can’t possibly remember all of them. So it is conceivable that I may have met this man at some point or other. But if I did, he clearly did not make any lasting impression on me.”
He took another sigh, this one a relaxed sigh; he felt he had wiggled out of an uncomfortable corner. “But for all practical purposes, we can say that I do not know this man.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. We were hoping you might be able to help us identify him. You see, we have reason to believe that this man may have been an accomplice in the murder of your dear wife.”
“You …” He pointed towards the sketch. “But that is … I mean, I thought you had already caught the killer. Hunted him down and made him pay for his crimes.”
“Oh, we did. But this fellow here is still out there somewhere. And we have sufficient reason to believe he was an accessory to Brunner in his crimes. That’s why we want to find him now and bring him in for some heavy questioning.”
Von Klettenburg suddenly looked very confused, fully disconcerted. It was clear to the two loupes that he recognized Brunner from the sketch, that he knew him all too well, that he was shaken by the recognition.
The two loupes had all the proof they needed of his central involvement in the murders, so they wrapped up their questioning quickly, then escorted him to his car. They thanked him for his patience and his cooperation and extended their condolences for his loss of a good friend.
Von Klettenburg was helped into the back seat of his car by the second servant as the chauffeur climbed into the front. Stebbel and Dörfner started walking ahead, barely concealed smiles on their faces as they walked. Their trap had worked beautifully.
As von Klettenburg’s car drove past, the Geheimrat stared out at them, a stiff anxiety etched in his features. The car then picked up speed and the two inspectors watched as it raced off into whatever refuge the deeply privileged could still rely on.
“So it was him,” Dörfner said.
Stebbel nodded. “Nobody who didn’t already know Brunner would have recognized him there. The press never published any pictures.”
“I’ll tell you, I almost broke out laughing when we told him we suspected the man in the sketch was ‘an accomplice’. That confused look on the bastard’s face: like a rat stuck in a maze, half his tail up his ass.” And at that point, Dörfner did break out in a deep, triumphant laugh.
“I never had too many doubts. Not since that night at Zingler’s bedside. I just wanted to be sure. I needed that.”
Dörfner shook his head sadly. “Doesn’t do much. Our being sure won’t stand up in court and get him convicted.”
“Not at all. He wouldn’t even be indicted. But at least we know. That’s worth something. And he knows we know. That’s worth even more.”
Dörfner nodded. “Right.”
They started walking off to the front gates of the cemetery, where a police motorcar was waiting for them. The day seemed to have become even brighter, the air more luscious.
But suddenly another consideration clouded Dörfner’s bright mood. “Yeah, he does know, doesn’t he? And that might not be too good for us.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, we know this swine is not above hiring killers to get rid of people he wants to get rid of. We might be his next targets, don’t you think?”
“I guess we’ll just to sleep with one eye open for awhile.”
“For the rest of our lives?”
“We’re policeman, Dörfner. We have to get used to little inconveniences like that. After awhile, we may even find it hard to sleep with both eyes shut.”
“Just what I’ve always dreamed of.”
They walked on in silence for about one hundred meters. Just before they reached the cemetery gat
es, Dörfner spoke. “So this is what earthly justice feels like?”
Stebbel shrugged. “It’s a taste of it. Just a taste.”
“Ja; something like a thin soup,” Dörfner suggested.
Stebbel nodded. “Wait till we get to dessert.”
Dörfner shrugged. “Alright. But I’m afraid it’s going to be a long wait.”
Chapter 51
All the loupes were gathered in the briefing room for their weekly rundown from Senior Inspector Rautz. The senior went through all the past week’s crimes, latest police department business, and asked for questions. Then, as the briefing seemed to be ending, he added one last morsel.
“One other thing, gentlemen. I know that several of you got to know the respected Geheimrat Karsten von Klettenburg recently because of the tragic murder of his wife. I think a number of us were moved by the sorrows this man had to endure, losing such a wonderful woman at such a young age, and under such horrible circumstances.
“Well, there’s one more bit of sad news to tie up this saga. It seems the sorrows finally became too much for the Geheimrat. He was found dead late last night in the park near his home on the Shubertring. A suicide, it seems. From a self-inflicted bullet wound in the head.”
Rautz pointed his own finger to the side of his head, just east of the ear, and mimed pulling a trigger. “Bang! One shot, clean through, no chance for second thoughts.”
He then took a deep breath and seemed to be stifling a giggle at the same time. He re-imposed his somber look before speaking again. “I’m sure that our thoughts and prayers are with this unfortunate gentleman and his surviving family and friends. The only consoling thought out of all this is that Herr von Klettenburg is now probably reunited with his beloved wife. They have their peace and can resume their relationship in another realm.’ He then took a somber snort. “Any questions?”
Inspector Delling raised his hand. “Was there any suicide note?”
“Nothing that we’ve found so far.” Rautz shrugged. “But I guess none was needed. The reason for the suicide was so clear in this instance. There’s just so much sorrow and stress any one man can shoulder. At some point, it just brings us crashing down.”
