Puzzle People (9781613280126) (18 page)

East Berlin

Who had died?

Stefan kept a safe distance from the mourner, following her down the quiet street.

He had spent the past twenty minutes walking around Elsa’s neighborhood, trying to work up the courage to talk to her, trying to think of what he could say to keep her in the East. He had to keep moving because loitering on an East Berlin street corner was the best way to draw the attention of a dozen sets of eyes. So he walked for several blocks before swinging back around. That was when he saw Elsa emerge from her building, dressed in black. Her veil was drawn away from her face, or he might not have even realized that the woman in black was her. He fell into step behind her, putting enough distance between them to avoid detection.

He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her. He certainly couldn’t give away that he knew she was plotting an escape soon. If she guessed he had been spying on her, whatever relationship they had would go up in smoke. But he had to find a way to convince her to stay in the East. For one wild moment, he actually considered proposing marriage, but that could be just as effective in ending their relationship. She would think him insane.

Stefan passed by a mother walking hand in hand with a small boy clutching a balloon in his other hand. He smiled at the boy, who glared back at him as if to warn him to stay away from his balloon. Stefan dug his hands in his pocket and kept walking. Up ahead, Elsa took a right turn around the corner of a building, and he picked up his pace, afraid of losing her. She might duck into a store, and then she would be gone.

Stopping at the edge of the building, Stefan shot a quick look around the corner, and he spotted her waving down a taxi. He watched, wondering if he should talk to her before she hopped into the vehicle. But he still had no idea what he could say to convince her to stay east with him. A gray Trabant, a taxi, pulled up to the curb, wheezing like an emphysema patient. If he was going to do something, he had to do it now. Quickly.

The door was open, and Elsa was getting in. He bolted around the corner, sprinted down the sidewalk, and caught the door before she could pull it closed.

“Elsa! I thought that was you.”

She stared out of the car, obviously shocked. She didn’t say a word.

“Can I share the taxi with you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. That alone raised suspicions in Stefan’s mind. Finally: “Oh yes, by all means.”

He climbed in—a snug fit in the back of a Trabant. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Her face felt cold to his lips. Clearly, she was not happy to see him.

24

Berlin
July 2003

Annie was back inside the car again, upside down and crying for help. She looked across the vehicle, past the blue twist of metal, and saw Jack, motionless, almost as if he was asleep. But she knew he had gone beyond unconsciousness. She didn’t know how she knew, but she was sure he was gone. It was surreal, seeing Jack lying there and knowing that he wasn’t really there anymore. Only an hour ago, he had been laughing at something he read in the newspaper and talking about grilling hamburgers; it was such a fine day. But now? Where was he? His face had already taken on a waxy aspect, a body without a life inside. She tried to reach out to him, but the seat belt held her back, and the slight movement sent a blaze of pain across her shoulders. He was gone, and sirens were blaring. She smelled gasoline in the air, but she didn’t care if everything went up in flames. If this car became a funeral pyre, maybe she and Jack could continue their day together somewhere better. But if she survived, how long would they be apart? Ten years, twenty, thirty?

Annie shouted herself awake.

After devouring a bowl of chocolate ice cream for breakfast, she dressed quickly, not taking the same care she usually did on her makeup or dress selection. Why bother? She didn’t think she had much of a future with Kurt. Not now. Too much suspicion, too much past to make much of a future.

Kurt had been snooping in her desk. She was sure of it. And if he had been snooping, that meant Frau Holtzmann was right. He was no better than a spy.

“You feeling all right?” he asked as she flung her purse on her desk. Her lip gloss popped out, rolled across her desk, and she tossed it back inside with obvious disregard.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“I’m sorry. Can I get you something from the break room? A Pepsi to keep you alert?”

“No, thank you.” She surveyed the field of white scraps all across her desk, and then she looked down at the big brown sack, still overflowing with the past. It seemed so fruitless. She opened her center drawer and pulled out her double-stick tape. Then she opened the main drawer.

Inside was a gift: a small box, neatly wrapped in gold paper and a red ribbon. Stunned, she looked up. Kurt was pretending to be absorbed in his work, smiling to himself.

Annie reached in and plucked out the gift. A small card read, “To my Annie Oakley.”

Her mouth hung open. “From you?”

Kurt grinned. “Who else? You almost caught me, you know.”

Almost caught him?
Did he mean she almost caught him slipping this gift into her desk?

“Did you suspect me?” he asked.

Annie couldn’t help but notice the irony of his phrasing. “No, I had no idea.” She had to lean on her desk to keep her balance.

“I’m glad. I really wanted it to be a surprise. Aren’t you going to open it?”

The gift was wrapped with precision, with edges so sharp you could cut yourself on them. She tugged at the ribbon and carefully peeled away the wrapping paper. Her mother had taught her to preserve wrapping paper, not rip it.

She opened the box, and nested inside was a small silver cross—Southwestern-style—with a round turquoise stone in the center.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s Navajo. You said you misplaced your other cross.”

“Yes. Always losing things. But I won’t lose this. I promise.”

She pulled it out, dangled it in the air, and Kurt came around from his desk. “Here, let me.” She pulled her hair away from her neck while he clasped the necklace from behind. His hands settled on her shoulders for a moment before she turned to display the gift.

“I love it,” he said.

The way that he looked at her, she was suddenly afraid he might say something about loving
her.

He didn’t.

She was so confused. Only a half hour ago, she was afraid that Frau Holtzmann was right and that Kurt had a Stasi past. And now this. The turnaround was blinding and disorienting, and Frau Holtzmann’s rumor suddenly seemed so blatantly ugly and false.

She could sense that Kurt was expecting a physical form of thank-you, so she got up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Still nothing on the lips. She couldn’t go there. But Kurt seemed content with that.

Knowing that he hadn’t been snooping lifted her spirits, and the day moved along with a greater degree of normalcy. Annie even considered mentioning Frau Holtzmann’s Stasi gossip to Kurt, just to be completely honest about everything, but she couldn’t work up the nerve. Instead, she brought out Frau Holtzmann’s other pet theory.

“I was talking to Frau Holtzmann the other day,” she began. “She was talking to me about Frau Kortig.”

“Frau Holtzmann is still very upset, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but it’s not just that. She thinks maybe . . .” She played with her new cross as she thought about how to say what she had to say. Just be direct. “She thinks Frau Kortig was murdered.”

Kurt jerked his head up from his work. “Murdered? Why would she think such a thing?”

“No suicide note, for one.”

“But not all jumpers leave notes. Especially not someone like Frau Kortig, who didn’t have many people close to her.”

“That’s just it. Frau Holtzmann said she did. She said Frau Kortig was in love, the happiest she had ever seen her.”

“But why would anybody want to kill her?”

Annie shrugged. “That’s what I asked. Frau Holtzmann said strange things had been going on in the office, but she didn’t say what.”

Kurt bit his lip as he processed this information. “Right before Frau Kortig died, you said she seemed worried and upset. And she wanted to talk to you about something important. Maybe she carried deadly information.”

“But what could she want to tell me that might’ve led to her murder?”

He motioned toward the scraps of paper all over his desk. “These puzzles contain the kind of information that some might kill for.”

“You think Frau Kortig knew something from these files—something that got her murdered?”

“I have no idea. But it’s a possibility.”

“Then . . . do you think she could have been pushed to her death?”

“We can’t rule it out,” said Kurt, his voice traveling directly into the earphones of the large man in the brown suit. The man clutched a half-eaten hard-boiled egg in his left hand and a pen in the other, scribbling with speed and jotting down select sentences.

The man listened as Kurt and Annie’s conversation meandered around the subject of murder, throwing out possible scenarios of what might have happened on the sixth floor. When they finally went quiet and returned to their work, the large man in the brown suit popped the rest of the egg into his mouth, picked up his cell phone, and speed-dialed.

“Ostermann here.” As he spoke, flecks of egg landed on his jacket. “You aren’t going to believe this. They’re talking murder now.”

He listened for about twenty seconds as the voice on the other end poured anger out in large doses. Then the large man nodded and said, “I agree. We may have to do something soon.”

25

East Berlin
June 1962

“Where to?”

The taxi driver, a man much too large for this compact Trabant, craned his thick neck around and tossed the question to his two passengers in the backseat. His breath smelled of onions, and his breathing was as labored as the car’s exhaust system.

“St. Boniface Cemetery,” Elsa said. Her voice cracked, as it often did when she was nervous. She couldn’t believe that Stefan had chosen this very moment to appear out of nowhere and jump into her taxi. Coincidence? Not likely, but she couldn’t back out now.

“And you?” The taxi driver cast his rheumy eyes on Stefan.

“Could you take me to Paul-Robeson-Strasse near Schönfliesser Strasse?”

Good.
At least Stefan wasn’t getting out at the same place. She was afraid he was going to suggest that he accompany her to the cemetery and spend the afternoon together. They were shoulder to shoulder in the backseat. She didn’t say a word as the Trabant wheeled away from the curb, kicking out a belch from the exhaust system that was so loud she felt the vibration through the floor. As the taxi made a sharp left turn, Stefan leaned in to her, and his eyes landed on the bouquet of flowers in her lap.

“I’m sorry. Did a relative of yours pass away?”

She stared down at the flowers, as if they had suddenly sprouted from her hands.
What’s my story?
Her mind went blank—for a few seconds.

“My cousin. He passed on a year ago today. I go to St. Boniface and leave flowers every few months.”

Stefan nodded silently.

“What do you have planned for today?” she asked. But the moment she said the words, she wished she could snatch them back. She didn’t want to talk about his plans for the day. He might ask her to spend time together.

Which he did.

“Just visiting an aunt,” he said. “But I have time to spare. Would you care for company at the cemetery?”

Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips. “That is very considerate of you, Stefan. But I’m sorry, I need to be alone when I go to the cemetery. I hope you understand.”

His eyebrows went up in resignation. He put a hand on hers. “I do. I just want you to know that I’m always here for you.”

She nodded and gave him a quick kiss. “Thank you.”

He would always be there for me.
In less than an hour, she would no longer be there for him. She would be long gone. She had no choice.

Stefan stroked Elsa’s hand and peered out the taxi window. He smiled, trying to hide his nervousness as the taxi drove up to the vine-entangled wrought-iron gate leading into St. Boniface Cemetery. The car sounded as though it was going to pass out, choking on its own exhaust as it chugged to a stop.

Elsa started to dig through her purse, but he waved her off.

“No. Let me take care of this.”

She didn’t protest as he extracted several marks from his wallet and handed them over to the taxi driver.

“Thank you, Stefan,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

She had been acting very strange, very awkward during the entire taxi ride, and he was getting increasingly suspicious. He knew she had been making contacts with runners from the West. Something was in the works, but he had no idea what. This could very well be the day of her escape, and he felt a rising panic. He couldn’t lose her like he had lost Katarina. He wouldn’t let it happen.

“Can I call you tonight?” he asked as she stepped out of the taxi.

She didn’t answer immediately. Why did she pause? This level of ambivalence wasn’t like her. All at once, her eyes lit up, and she smiled—too broadly, as if she was acting onstage and needed to project to the back row.

“Oh yes! Call me. Do call me.”

She leaned in through the window and gave him a kiss—firm and decisive, but artificial. All the while, the taxi driver was craning his neck around, wheezing and watching and waiting for her to step away from his vehicle.

Finally, she said her farewell and hurried to the cemetery gate, where she turned to wave. He waved back, and the taxi lurched away from the curb. He stared out the back window and noticed that she didn’t budge from in front of the gate. She kept watching the taxi, as if waiting for it to disappear before she made any move into the cemetery.

That didn’t seem normal.

Stefan patted the back of the front seat to catch the driver’s attention. “Please make a right here and drop me off a block down.”

“But you said—”

“Change of plans. Just around the corner here.”

With a shrug, the driver made a sharp right turn; he didn’t seem to be capable of anything but sharp turns, and centrifugal force pinned Stefan to the door on his left. One block down, the car swerved to a stop, bumping up and over the curb.

“This good?”

“This is good,” Stefan said, jamming a few more coins in the driver’s hands before hopping out of the taxi and rushing to the corner where a phone booth stood.

West Berlin

Katarina brought her binoculars into focus and watched Elsa standing at the gate of the cemetery. When she had climbed out of the taxi, she appeared to be talking to someone in the backseat, which was strange. She was supposed to come alone. But she didn’t enter the cemetery until she had made sure the taxi had flown around the corner and out of sight. Smart girl. Katarina tracked her as she entered the gate and was met by Matthias, who led her into the small grove near the entrance. There, Matthias would let her know which gravesite concealed the tunnel and give her the grave pass.

Seeing Elsa for the first time in person, Katarina was struck by her long blonde hair, and it made her regret ever cutting her own hair. People had always complimented her on her long black hair, although her mother had nothing but criticism whenever she let it go natural and didn’t style it. After one of her mother’s not-so-subtle digs, Katarina had marched out of the house and had her locks chopped down to Audrey Hepburn length.

Katarina rebuked herself for such petty thoughts. She should be focusing on the mission at hand and nothing more, but she couldn’t keep out her stray insecurities. She couldn’t help but make comparisons between herself and Elsa and wonder if she had any hope with Peter once his fiancée was in the West. If Wolfgang knew what she was thinking about, he would be furious. He would say that this kind of adolescent jealousy was precisely why she should have sat out this particular escape.

Katarina hated to admit it, but his concerns were valid.

Focus, focus.
She made another scan of the area. No sign of the border guards, who had passed the cemetery five minutes ago and wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Elsa, flowers in hand, wandered out of the grove, a little disoriented until she spotted the tall angel statue—the one holding out the stone feather. She looked right and then left before picking her way across the cemetery, passing a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mary had her right hand extended, her gaze downward, and her left hand pulling back the stone fabric from around her face. Someone had placed a live flower in her extended hand.

Reaching the correct gravestone, Elsa removed the dead flowers from the gray vase and replaced them with her burst of color. Then she knelt on the ground, which was still moist from the rain a day ago, and waited for something to happen.

Katarina took another quick scan to make sure the coast was still clear. No sign of life in any direction. She pushed the button on her walkie-talkie. “All clear. Over.”

Jürgen confirmed the all-clear signal and was probably tugging on the rope at this moment, sending the signal to Alexander, who was crouched deep inside the tunnel just below the grave. Katarina found herself wondering again about the bizarre triangle that had developed among Peter, herself, and Elsa. Once Peter was reunited with his fiancée, would that be the end of whatever she and Peter had together? He had a deep sense of honor, and keeping his word might trump whatever feelings he had for her. Katarina wanted him, but she didn’t know if he would choose her. She didn’t mind taking risks, just not the emotional kind.

Katarina snapped out of her distraction and hurriedly put the binoculars back to her eyes. Someone was approaching! Another mourner was heading for the wrought-iron gate, a young man from the looks of it. Where did he come from? Katarina knew that if she had been doing her job and not dwelling on Peter and Elsa, she might have spotted the man sooner.

Her walkie-talkie was back to her mouth in a matter of moments. “Hold off! Another mourner has entered the cemetery. I repeat: Hold off. Over.”

Too late. The ground had just opened to accept the living.

“Elsa!”

Elsa was kneeling at the grave, watching the gravestone open up like a yawning mouth, when she heard the voice. Stefan’s voice. She shot a look over her shoulder. He was standing near the wrought-iron gate, and she couldn’t have been more stunned if she had just seen a ghost stepping out from one of the mausoleums.

She leaped to her feet and locked eyes with him. She went weak at the knees and nearly buckled.

“Frau Krauss. Frau Krauss.”

Elsa heard the man in the tunnel whispering, urging her to enter the darkness, but she couldn’t respond, couldn’t move. She should just ignore Stefan and scramble into the tunnel, but the sight of him gave her pause. She cared for him. Didn’t he deserve a word—some explanation? Then she saw something black in her peripheral vision, something moving with menace. It was a car, a black Wartburg, and it came screeching up to the cemetery gate.

Vopos piled out before the car had even come to a full stop.