Garden of Beasts (8 page)

Chapter Six

“A what?” Paul Schumann asked.

Morgan sighed. “
Sturmabteilung.
Stormtrooper. Or Brownshirt. Sort of the Party’s own army. Think of them as Hitler’s thugs.” He shook his head. “And it’s worse for us. He’s not in uniform. That means he’s a Brown Elite. One of their senior people.”

“How did he find out about me?”

“I’m not sure he did, not you specifically. He was in a phone booth, checking up on everybody on the street.”

“I didn’t see him,” Paul said, angry with himself for missing the surveillance. Everything was too damn out of kilter here; he didn’t know what to look for and what to ignore.

Morgan continued. “As soon as you started into the alley, he came after you. I’d say he just took it on himself to see what you were up to—a stranger in the neighborhood. The Brownshirts have their fiefdoms. This must’ve been his.” Morgan frowned. “But still, it’s unusual for them to be so vigilant. The question is why is a senior SA man looking into ordinary citizens? They leave that to their underlings. Maybe some alert has gone out.” He gazed at the corpse. “In any event, this is a problem. If the Brownshirts find out one of their own has been killed they won’t stop searching until they find the murderer. Oh, and they
will
search. There are tens of thousands of them in the city. Like roaches.”

The initial shock of the shooting had worn off. Paul’s instincts were returning. He walked from the cul-de-sac to the main portion of Dresden Alley. It was still empty. The windows were dark. No doors were open. He held up a finger to Morgan and returned to the mouth of the alley, then looked around the corner, toward the Beer House. None of the few people on the street seemed to have heard the shot.

He returned and told Morgan that everything seemed clear. Then he said, “The casing.”

“The what?”

“The shell casing. From your pistol.” They looked over the ground and Paul spotted the small yellow tube. He picked it up with his handkerchief, rubbed it clean, just in case Morgan’s prints were on it, and dropped it down a drainpipe. He heard it rattle for a moment until there was a splash.

Morgan nodded. “They said you were good.”

Not good enough to keep from getting nabbed back in the United States, thanks to a little bit of brass just like that one.

Morgan opened a well-worn pocketknife. “We’ll cut the labels out of his clothes. Take all his effects. Then get away from here as fast as possible. Before they find him.”

“And who is ‘they’?” Paul asked.

A hollow laugh from Morgan’s lips. “In Germany now, ‘they’ is everybody.”

“Would a Stormtrooper wear a tattoo? Maybe of that swastika? Or the letters ‘SA’?”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“Look for any. On his arms and chest.”

“And if I find one?” Morgan asked, frowning. “What can we do about it?”

Paul nodded at the knife.

“You’re joking.”

But Paul’s face revealed that, no, he wasn’t.

“I can’t do that,” Morgan whispered.

“I will then. If it’s important he’s not identified, we have to.” Paul knelt on the cobblestones and opened the man’s jacket and shirt. He could understand Morgan’s queasiness but being a button man was a job like any other. You gave it one hundred percent or you found a new line of work. And a single, small tattoo could mean the difference between living and dying.

But no flaying was required, as it turned out. The man’s body was free of markings.

A sudden shout.

Both men froze. Morgan looked up the alley. His hand went to his pistol again. Paul too gripped the weapon he’d taken from the Stormtrooper.

The voice called again. Then silence, except for the traffic. A moment later, though, Paul could detect an eerie siren, rising and falling, growing closer.

“You should leave,” Morgan said urgently. “I’ll finish with him.” He thought for a moment. “Meet me in forty-five minutes. There’s a restaurant called the Summer Garden on Rosenthaler Street, northwest of Alexander Plaza. I have a contact who’s got information about Ernst. I’ll have him meet us there. Go back to the street in front of the beer hall. You should be able to get a taxi there. Trams and buses often have police on them. Stick to taxis, or walk, when you can. Look straight ahead and don’t make eye contact with anyone.”

“The Summer Garden,” Paul repeated, picking up the briefcase and brushing dust and grime off the leather. He dropped the Stormtrooper’s pistol inside. “From now on, let’s stick to German. Less suspicious.”

“Good idea,” Morgan said in the local tongue. “You speak well. Better than I expected. But soften your
G
’s. It will make you sound more like a Berliner.”

Another shout. The siren grew closer. “Oh, Schumann—if I’m not there in an hour? The radio that Bull Gordon told you about, in the embassy building they’re working on?”

Paul nodded.

“Call in and tell them that you need new instructions.” A grim laugh. “And you may as well give them the news that I’m dead. Now, get out of here. Keep your eyes forward, look casual. And whatever happens, don’t run.”

“Don’t run? Why?”

“Because there are far too many people in this country who will chase you simply because you are running. Now hurry!” Morgan turned back to his task with the quick precision of a tailor.

The dusty, pitted black car pulled onto the sidewalk near the alleyway, where three Schupo officers stood, wearing spotless green uniforms with bright orange collar tabs and tall green-and-black shako hats.

A middle-aged mustachioed man in a three-piece, off-white linen suit climbed out of the passenger side of the vehicle, which rose several inches, relieved of his considerable weight. He placed his Panama hat on his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, which was swept back, and tapped the smoldering tobacco from his meerschaum pipe.

The engine stuttered, coughed and finally went silent. Pocketing the yellowing pipe, Inspector Willi Kohl glanced at their vehicle with some exasperation. The top SS and Gestapo investigators had Mercedes and BMWs. But Kripo inspectors, even senior ones like Kohl, were relegated to Auto Union cars. And, of the four interlocking rings representing the combined companies—Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW—it was, naturally, a two-year-old model of the most modest of those lines that had been made available to Kohl (while his car ran, to be generous, on petrol, it was telling that the initials “DKW” stood for the words “steam-powered vehicle”).

Konrad Janssen, smooth-shaven and hatless like so many of today’s young inspector candidates, emerged from the driver’s seat and buttoned his double-breasted, green silk suit jacket. He took a briefcase and the Leica case from the trunk.

Patting his pocket to make sure he had his notebook and evidence envelopes, Kohl wandered toward the Schupos.

“Hail Hitler, Inspector,” the older of the trio said, a familiarity in his voice. Kohl didn’t recognize him and wondered if they’d met before this. The Schupo—city patrolmen—might assist inspectors occasionally but they were not technically under the command of the Kripo. Kohl had little regular contact with any of them.

Kohl lifted his arm in a semblance of a Party salute. “Where’s the body?”

“Through there, sir,” the man said. “Dresden Alley.” The other officers stood at half attention. They were cautious. Schupo officers were very talented at traffic offenses and catching pickpockets and holding back crowds when Hitler rode down the broad avenue of Under the Lindens, but murder today called for discernment on their part. A killing by a robber would require them to protect the scene carefully; a murder by the Stormtroopers or the SS meant they should disappear as quickly as they could and forget what they’d seen.

Kohl said to the older Schupo, “Tell me what you know.”

“Yes, sir. That’s not much, I’m afraid. A call came into the Tiergarten precinct and I came immediately here. I was the first to arrive.”

“Who called?” Kohl walked into the alley then looked back at the other officers and impatiently gestured for them to follow.

“She gave no name. A woman. She heard a shot from around here.”

“The time she called?”

“Around noon, sir.”

“You arrived when?”

“I left as soon as my commander alerted me.”

“And you arrived when?” Kohl repeated.

“Perhaps twenty minutes past noon. Perhaps thirty.” He gestured down a narrow offshoot that ended in a cul-de-sac.

Lying on his back on the cobblestones was a man in his forties, over-weight. The wound in the side of his head was clearly the cause of death and he’d bled profusely. His clothes were disheveled and his pockets turned out. There was no doubt he’d been killed here; the blood pattern made this conclusion obvious.

The inspector said to the two younger Schupos, “Please, see if you can find witnesses, particularly anyone at the mouths of this alley. And in these buildings here.” He nodded to the two surrounding brick structures—noting, though, that they were windowless. “And that café we passed. The Beer House, it was called.”

“Yes, sir.” The men walked off sharply.

“Did you search him?”

“No,” the senior Schupo said then added, “Only to verify that he was not Jewish, of course.”

“Then you
did
search him.”

“I simply opened his trousers. Which I refastened. As you can see.”

Kohl wondered whether whoever had decided that the deaths of circumcised men were to be given low priority had considered that sometimes the procedure was performed for medical reasons, even presumably on the most Aryan of babies.

Kohl searched the pockets and found no identification. Nothing at all, in fact. Curious.

“You took nothing from him? There were no documents? No personal effects?”

“No, sir.”

Breathing heavily as he knelt, the inspector examined the body carefully and found the man’s hands to be soft, free of calluses. He spoke, half to himself, half to Konrad Janssen. “With these hands, trimmed nails and hair and residue of talcum on his skin, he doesn’t work labor. I see ink on his fingers but not much, which suggests he’s not in the printing trade. Besides, the patterns suggest the ink comes from handwriting, probably ledgers and correspondence. He’s not a journalist, for he would have traces of pencil lead on his hands and I can see none.” Kohl knew this because he’d investigated the deaths of a dozen reporters just after the National Socialists came to power. Not one of the cases had been closed; not one was being actively investigated. “Businessman, professional, civil servant, government…”

“Nothing
under
his nails either, sir.”

Kohl nodded then probed the man’s legs. “An intellectual man most likely, as I said. But his legs are very muscular. And look at those excessively worn shoes. Ach, they make my own feet burn just to glance at them. My guess is that he is a walker and a hiker.” The inspector grunted as he rose with some effort.

“Out for a stroll after an early lunch.”

“Yes, very likely. There is a toothpick, which might be his.” Kohl retrieved and smelled it. Garlic. He bent down and smelled the same scent near the victim’s mouth too. “Yes, I believe so.” He dropped the toothpick into one of his small brown paper envelopes and sealed it.

The young officer continued. “So, a robbery victim.”

“Certainly a possibility,” Kohl said slowly. “But I think not. A robber taking
everything
that the man had on him? And there aren’t any gunpowder burn patterns on the neck or ear. That means the bullet was fired from some distance. A robber would have been closer and confronted him face-to-face. This man was shot from behind and the side.” A lick of the stubby pencil tip, and Kohl recorded these observations in his crinkled notebook. “Yes, yes, I’m sure there are robbers who would lie in wait and shoot a victim then rob him. But that doesn’t fit what we know about most thieves, does it?”

The wound also suggested that the killer had not been the Gestapo, SS or Stormtroopers. The bullet in such cases usually was fired from point-blank range into the front of the brain or the back.

“What was he doing in the alley?” the inspector candidate mused, looking around as if the answer were lying on the ground.

“That question doesn’t interest us yet, Janssen. This is a popular shortcut between Spener Street and Calvin Street. His purpose may have been illicit but we’ll have to learn that from evidence other than his route.” Kohl examined the head wound again then walked to the wall of the alley, on which a considerable amount of blood was spattered.

“Ah.” The inspector was delighted to find the bullet, sitting where the cobblestones met the brick wall. He picked it up carefully with a tissue. It was only slightly dented. He recognized immediately that it was a 9mm slug. This meant it most likely came from an automatic pistol, which would have ejected the spent brass cartridge.

He said to the third Schupo, “Please, Officer, look over the ground there, every centimeter. Look for a brass shell casing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pulling his magnifying monocle from his waistcoat pocket and squinting through it, Kohl examined the projectile. “The bullet is in very good shape. That’s encouraging. We’ll see what the lands and grooves tell us back at the Alex. They’re quite sharp.”

“So the killer has a new gun,” Janssen offered, then qualified his comment. “Or an old gun that has rarely been fired.”

“Very good, Janssen. Those were to be my very next words.” Kohl put the slug in another brown envelope and sealed this one too. Writing more notes.

Janssen again looked over the corpse. “If he wasn’t robbed, sir, then why are they turned out?” he asked. “His pockets, I am referring to.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean he wasn’t robbed. I simply am not sure that robbery was the primary motive…. Ah, there. Open the jacket again.”

Janssen pulled open the garment.

“See, the threads?”

“Where?”

“Right here!” Kohl pointed.

“Yes, sir.”

“The label has been cut out. Is that true of all his garments?”

“Identification,” the young man said, nodding, as he looked at the trousers and shirt. “The killer doesn’t want us to know whom he has killed.”