Children of Wrath (11 page)

“Listen, Kraus, when I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”

Willi noticed a small pin emblazoned with a twisted black cross on Freksa’s lapel. Since when was it permissible for officers to wear such emblems, spiritual, political, whatever, at work?

“No, you listen to me, Freksa,” Willi fired back before retreating. “Follow that canal—all the way to the
Viehof. Sturmwasser Kanal Fünf.
”

*   *   *

By midafternoon, the news was on the lips of every Berliner:

Homicidal maniac on the loose. Mass killer. Child murderer!

By late afternoon, the papers were competing to outdo each other with new details, hideous and almost entirely fictitious, about how the bones had been chewed, roasted, burned, charbroiled. So that with the last light of 1929 the Child Murderer was put to sleep. And to haunt Berliners into the new decade, when the first evening editions appeared, an even more ominous bogeyman was born:

Der Kinderfresser
. The Child-Eater.

Naturally he turned up at the Gottmans’ New Year’s Eve party.

“We know you can’t reveal secrets, but is it really all the papers are saying?” Vicki’s sister, Ava, a twenty-two-year-old university student, pressed. With her high cheekbones and long neck, her sparkly chestnut-colored eyes, she was almost as pretty as Vicki and every bit as sharp.

“Maybe not
all,
” Willi teased.

Despite the newspapers’ “inside” scoops, he knew from off-the-record talks with Dr. Hoffnung, for instance, that while the bones had been boiled, no direct indication existed of actual cannibalism. Still, questions completely outnumbered answers at this point, and Willi could only hope Freksa’d follow through on that damned storm canal. It might not tell them who or why but at least, perhaps, where.

“One can’t help but wonder who these children
are
.” Bette Gottman, Vicki’s mother, toyed with her colored beads. She was especially stylish tonight, in a shiny black dress edged with fringe. “Where are their parents? Why hasn’t anyone come forth to claim their remains?”

“There are so many homeless kids in Berlin, Mother,” Ava said.

She was highly stylish too tonight, her freshly bobbed hair short in the back and hanging over one eye. The Gottman women were seamlessly fashionable. Willi had a sister every bit as pretty, he thought, but far more concerned with politics than clothes. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising Greta’d joined a Zionist youth movement and emigrated to work on a dairy farm in Palestine. Four years ago now.

“I see these poor kids every day on my way to classes.” Ava pushed the hair from her eye. “They wander over from the Alex or God knows where, sit around Unter den Linden under the trees smoking cigarettes, some no more than Erich’s age. It’s heartbreaking.”

Bette wrung her hands dramatically, turning to Vicki. “Maybe Stefan and Erich ought to stay with us until they catch this madman.” Bette had been an actress in her youth and, in Willi’s opinion, never entirely abandoned the stage.

“Mother,” Vicki said. “Don’t be silly. They have school.”

Not that the kids would mind being out here, Willi mused. Vicki’s parents lived in a beautiful house in suburban Dahlem, with a huge garden out back, a veritable forest all around, and two golden retrievers the boys could never get enough of—Mitzi and Fritzi. Max Gottman had made a great deal of money in the lingerie business. If Vicki had married the kind of man her mother preferred—one of the scions of Berlin’s Jewish dynasties, a department store heir such as Wertheim or Tietz, or a publishing magnate, Ulstein or Mosse—she could have lived a lot better than in a two-bedroom apartment on Prussian Park. But Vicki had wanted Willi. And Bette Gottman could not complain that her eldest daughter was unhappy.

“Well, thank goodness your husband isn’t assigned to the case.” Bette readjusted her beads. “How awful. A child killer.”

“Willi has nothing to do with it.” Vicki looked at her mother as if she was becoming annoying, then shot Willi a weary eye roll as if exhausted by the melodramatics.

Willi, with a handful of peanuts in his mouth, sank back in his chair slightly, glad he didn’t have to respond. He’d never told Vicki about that day Freksa stole the case from him because he didn’t like complaining about the indignities he suffered on his job, even though he could have used her comfort. Now he wasn’t exactly sorry he’d kept it a secret.

“Besides,” Vicki went on, explaining to her mother, “the police assign these things very carefully. Detektiv Freksa’s a bachelor. Nobody has to worry about him, and he doesn’t have to worry about anyone else.” She took a rather long sip of champagne.

“He still has a mother, doesn’t he?” Bette Gottman sighed. “Anyway,” she said, making a conspicuous effort to change subjects, “have you seen the Paris previews?” She yanked a magazine off the coffee table and showed it to her daughters. “Hemlines are dropping lower than stocks.”

Beneath her dark bangs, Vicki’s eyes winced as she scanned the illustrations. “I can’t believe it.”

“Three inches below the knee.” Her sister scowled. “Maybe there’ll be a big revolt and no one will wear them.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” her mother advised. “They’re calling it the New Femininity.”

“New? It’s like they’re turning back the hands of time.”

“They’ll succeed too. Mark my words—the days of the knee are
finis,
my dears.”

“The days of a lot of things are
finis,
” Max added gloomily. “It’s the end of an era.”

“You really think so?” Vicki squeezed his shoulder.

“I wish I could say it wasn’t.” He patted her hand. “But I’ve never seen anything like what’s going on now.”

The lingerie magnate’s eyes skipped out the window to the horizon, it seemed, and over a precipice no one else could quite fathom.

“Maybe because things were so damned good these last few years,” he said as one of the retrievers nudged him for affection. “Like we’d reached a plateau—stability, progress.” Gottman absently scratched Mitzi’s neck. “Now, the loss of confidence is so total.” The dog panted happily. “Everyone’s panicking. Hoarding. Too afraid to spend a dime. Prices are collapsing. Bankruptcies snowballing. It’s really … calamitous.”

They all sat still, not sure what to say.

“Really, Max, I’ve never heard you so glum.” Bette straightened on the couch, fidgeting with her beads. “After all we’ve been through. Whatever lies ahead, we’ll weather it as we always have, as a family, heads held high.”

“Everybody,” Erich called from the radio. “Chancellor’s on.”

“Chancellor! Chancellor!” Stefan jumped up and down.

They gathered around.

“My fellow Germans—”

Hermann Müller was giving his New Year’s Eve address from the Reichs Chancellory. A Social Democrat, he headed the Grand Coalition of liberal and centrist parties that had seen the republic through its years of greatest growth and stability. October, however, had rained duel blows on his government. Foreign Minister Stresemann, winner of the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for steering Germany into the League of Nations, had dropped dead at age fifty-one, leaving a major vacuum. And then the Wall Street crash. Müller was hardly an inspirational speaker, as Stresemann had been. But everyone leaned toward his voice.

“In his address from the White House tonight, American President Herbert Hoover has assured his people that the worst of the economic predicament is now behind us. That industrial output and world trade are positioned for a healthy rebound. I wish to assure our people likewise: Germany is poised for recovery.”

Willi could see that Max wasn’t buying it. But Bette paid him no attention.

“You see?” She opened her hands. “I say we have a toast! Willi, break out the champagne.”

Willi obliged with a little bow and poured them all a round. Then he took the lead in raising his glass to a happy and healthy 1930.

Nine

The new decade did not bear good tidings.

On January 2, on an icy shore of the Spree near Treptow, a trio of children’s leg bones washed up, bound together with an unnamed substance. Two days later, on the banks of Museum Island, right next to the National Gallery, a group of nuns stumbled upon a child’s skull.

Berlin reeled in collective shock.

If tainted sausages had caused fear,
Der Kinderfresser
unleashed horror. From one end of the city to the other—the swankest neighborhoods off the Tiergarten to the poorest in Neukoln—parents put children on tethers. Schools ordered doors and windows bolted, guards at all entrances. Children could travel only in groups. Since Willi regularly walked his boys to school and Vicki walked them home again, they soon found themselves escorting a convoy that included not only Heinzie Winkelmann but half a dozen other kids from the block whose parents couldn’t thank them enough.

The tension and stress were matched only by the wild speculation about who the bloodthirsty fiend could be. Neighbor looked upon neighbor askance, nobody above suspicion. With so few clues it could be anyone. And what about the boys? Why had no one reported them missing? Willi was sure his sister-in-law, Ava, had gotten it right: nobody reported them missing because nobody missed them. They had to be street kids, of which Berlin had no shortage. With the financial crisis, there were sure to be more. Whether Freksa was pursuing this angle, Willi had no way of knowing. And little time to find out, since he was still all tied up with
Listeria.
Kommissar Horthstaler, though, had gotten wind of the advice to Freksa about the storm canal and didn’t like it one bit.

“I warned you to keep your big nose out of this, Kraus. I’m not warning you again.”

Although Willi had begun to prepare his report, the case would be difficult to complete without Dr. Riegler, and Willi couldn’t seem to find her. Hourly he phoned but got no answer. Heilbutt also didn’t pick up. Several times he went to the ministry and had no luck there, either. After days of this, he lost his temper and stormed into the office of Riegler’s superior, Dr. Knapp, insisting to know where Riegler and Heilbutt had vanished. The news was rather shocking: Riegler had been hospitalized, he was told. Werner had no idea where or why, only that he had received a phone call from her several days ago. She sounded quite ill and he didn’t want to press her. He hadn’t heard from her since. As for Herr Heilbutt, on December 31 he had retired. Was there anything else he, Dr. Knapp, could help the Sergeant-Detektiv with?

Willi was too perplexed to respond.

Outside, he put on his hat and looked down Wilhelm Strasse. All the granite ministry buildings were lined up as if on parade. The Foreign Ministry. The Finance Ministry. The Chancellory. The Presidential Palace. It didn’t make sense. Werner didn’t know which hospital she was in, or why.

Something really was fishy.

Part of him wanted to forget it, just do the best he could on the damn report and wash his hands of it. He never wanted to be on this case to begin with. Riegler’s report had recommended no criminal charges be made. He should just follow her lead. Only he couldn’t. He needed to find the Frau Doktor.

The dead demanded it.

Back at his office he called every medical center in Berlin. Riegler was not at any of them. Heilbutt was right, Willi realized, tilting backward in his chair. Something definitely stank here. And his suspicions about Riegler’s cheek had been justified. That twitch was trying to tell him something. Only what?

First thing next morning he went back to the ministry, upstairs to the lab, and requested copies of the reports showing the presence of
Listeria
in Slaughterhouse Seven. The clerk came back half an hour later and said they weren’t there.

“That’s ridiculous.” Willi had to contain himself. “They were only filed two weeks ago. This is a major criminal investigation.”

He invited Willi to look for himself, which Willi did.

The lab reports had vanished.

Rushing downstairs to demand the truth from Knapp, he learned the senior administrator hadn’t come to work today. His secretary refused to divulge information such as Dr. Riegler’s home address even under pain of arrest. Willi was just in the mood to haul her down to the Alex too, when he flashed on a conversation he’d had with Riegler during the sausage ban—about how her cat missed her favorite bratwurst from Schlesinger’s on Kant Strasse, around the corner from where she lived.

He dropped the secretary and hurried there.

The waiters knew exactly whom he was referring to, and the precise address—since the nice lady doctor often ordered food delivered up. It was a prestigious building with a doorman and concierge.

No, no, he was told, the Frau Doktor had not been seen for at least three days. Although someone thought she might have left her garbage out because there was a real—

Willi demanded to be taken up immediately.

The concierge fumbled to unlock her door. “
Mein Gott
. Such a nice lady. I hope she’s all right.”

When they stepped inside, though, the stench hit like a sledgehammer. Frau Doktor Riegler was about as all right as a three-day-old corpse could be. Stiff as a board. Purple-faced. Bloated. But peaceful in bed. Clutching a small glass vial stamped with a skull and crossbones. No note. Nothing. Just a hungry brown cat meowing on the windowsill. Willi stood there, overwhelmed with pity and then, gradually, anger. Surely it didn’t have to happen this way.

Only one person, he figured, knew why it had.

*   *   *

Heilbutt’s address was in the phone book, but he lived all the way out in God-knew-where. From the U-Bahn station Willi had to walk through a gale hunting for Heilbutt’s street. The ferocious wind brought him back for a second to that desperate winter of 1917, in the trenches. It was worse then, naturally. He was younger, true, but he didn’t know whether he’d be alive ten minutes later. Whereas now, he was pretty sure he’d find who he was looking for, get to the bottom of this, and survive.

Pounding on the buzzer marked
HEILBUTT
, though, nobody answered. The tips of his fingers were frozen numb. He hustled down the block to a tobacco shop. At least it was warm inside, but the guy had never heard of Heilbutt. And Willi had no photo. Not wanting to face the cold, he lingered, perusing the afternoon headlines: Hansa Auto laying off a third of its workforce … unemployment expected to spike … children reported missing across Berlin mostly turning up by the end of the day. He gulped down some heated air and forced himself back through the door.