Ruins of War (11 page)

A
t ten
A.M.
the next morning, Manganella dropped Mason off in front of the morgue. Wolski was waiting for him.

“I see you finally got my message,” Wolski said.

“What’s up?”

“The ME has his autopsy report, and Becker is bringing in the victim’s two roommates to identify the body. Where’ve you been?”

“Over at the JAG office talking to a lawyer about a major, a surgeon, who went nuts in Bad Tölz and killed two civilians.”

“Anything promising?”

Mason shook his head. “He made regular trips to Munich, but not the days around the killings.”

They entered the front offices of the morgue and proceeded down the hallway.

“How did the meeting with the brass go last night?” Wolski asked.

“The good news is we’re going to get a contingent of investigators to work with us and an operations room.”

“And the bad news?”

“We have to solve it fast or we’re off the case. Plus, I let slip that we’ve been snooping around Medical Corps personnel files.”

“You were an agent in military intelligence and couldn’t keep that under your hat?”

Mason shot him a dirty look, but Wolski ignored it. He seemed quite content with the artful jab to Mason’s ribs.

Mason and Wolski descended the stairs and found Major Treborn in the morgue.

Major Treborn greeted them. “Inspector Becker should be here any moment with the girls. I’ll give you a rundown of what I’ve found while we wait.”

“Do we have to look at the body?” Wolski asked.

“Nothing you haven’t seen already,” Treborn said with a sly smile. “Doesn’t matter. I fixed up the remains for the girls.”

Treborn retrieved a file off a table. “The time of death, best I can figure it, was about twenty-four to thirty-six hours before discovery. I found the same contusion on the back of the neck. The victim suffered the exact same wounds—tortured, dismembered. The only difference is, as you know, her lungs were surgically removed. The rest of her organs are intact. She has the same abrasions from being strapped down. . . .”

“Any sign of sexual assault?” Mason asked.

“None. However, there is one thing I noticed. One of her legs is shorter than the other. Sometime in her not-so-distant past, her left leg was severely fractured. The surgeon didn’t do a very careful job. Looked rushed. I don’t know if that has any significance.”

“Meaning she had a limp,” Mason said.

“With her leg like that, there’s no doubt.”

Mason thought a moment. “Dr. Hieber, the victim from the factory, you said he had arthritis in his lower back and hips, right?”

“Let me check,” Treborn said and went over to the shelves full of files. “I’ve seen so many bodies come through here, it’s hard to keep them straight.” He found the file he was looking for and opened it. “Yes, advanced arthritis, especially in the hip joints. There was wear on the knee joints from trying to compensate.”

“Then in all likelihood, he limped, too?”

Treborn looked up at Mason over his reading glasses. “Yeah, he probably would have. What are you thinking?”

“The killer chooses his victims for a reason. Could be a coincidence, but maybe something about the limping touches off the killer.”

Mason was about to say something else when the door to the autopsy room opened. Becker led in the two women and introduced them. They both looked to be in their midtwenties. Gisela was tall and thin with an angular face and black hair. Though she held tightly to the other woman, she gave the Americans a defiant expression. The other’s name was Irma, a pale, frail-looking woman, with softer features, who stood only to Gisela’s shoulders. They wore what were probably their best clothes, which showed signs of wear and were stiff from the crude detergents they were forced to use.

Mason greeted them in German and introduced Wolski and Major Treborn. “Major Treborn is the chief pathologist. He and Herr Oberinspektor Becker will accompany you to view the body.”

Becker placed his hands on their shoulders. “Are you ready?”

They both nodded. Irma shuddered. Gisela maintained her steely expression, though Mason could tell she was as frightened as her companion. Major Treborn led the way. They proceeded slowly past the desks and shelves and into the autopsy area. Mason and Wolski stayed behind and watched as the group approached the middle examination table. Becker stopped the pair six feet from the table. Major Treborn waited for Becker’s signal, then pulled back the sheet just enough to uncover the victim’s face. It was steely Gisela who cried out and turned away. Irma became the strong one and tried to comfort Gisela.

Becker asked them if they knew the victim. Through their tears, they both said yes, and again yes when Becker asked if they were sure. Major Treborn covered the victim and asked if they would mind going to his office so that the detectives could ask them a few questions.

As Becker passed Mason and Wolski, Mason said, “We’ll give them a few minutes.”

Back up on the ground floor, Mason, Wolski, and Treborn waited in Treborn’s office. Treborn kept looking at his watch.

“I’ve got three days’ worth of work to do between now and eight o’clock.”

“You fixed up the victim’s face nicely,” Mason said.

“I couldn’t have those poor girls see their friend looking like she did when she came in. What that young victim went through . . . I have a daughter about her age.”

Becker opened the door and brought in the women. Gisela and Irma sat in chairs facing Treborn’s desk. Treborn took his place behind the desk, while Becker sat on the desk facing the girls to give them moral support. Mason and Wolski stood off to one side near the wall.

In a soft voice, Becker said, “Would you please tell these detectives what you told me?”

Gisela stared straight ahead and said nothing. Irma took Gisela’s lead and did the same thing.

Becker urged, “Gisela, Irma, please.”

“We don’t talk to Americans,” Gisela said.

“They are trying to find the killer. The more they know, the better chance of finding him.”

“I told
you
what we know. Now you can tell them.”

Becker said to Mason, “The victim’s name is Agneth Lehmann. She was a roommate of these women. They live in the Maxvorstadt district and have been together for two years.”

“Did Agneth say anything about someone following her? Someone who may have threatened her or wanted to harm her?”

Again, a wall of silence. Mason tried to check his temper. He sensed Wolski tensing up as well. Irma was about to say something, but Gisela put her hand on Irma’s arm. Irma stopped.

“I’m sure you have your reasons for not liking Americans,” Mason said, “but we’re here to stop these killings.”

Gisela snorted. “Why don’t you arrest the Ami soldiers who raped me? Then we’ll talk about helping you.”

Mason noticed Wolski bristle even more at the word “
Ami
,” a term Germans used to express contempt or animosity for Americans. He gave Wolski a shake of his head then said to Gisela, “If you can give me their names, or identify them, I promise you they will be arrested.”

Gisela snorted again. “The same answer I received from the other American police. They promised, but did nothing. Why don’t you Americans leave us alone? Go! Haven’t you done enough? My mother and father are dead. My brother is rotting in one of your prisons. And then I am raped.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Wolski said, still with anger in his voice, “but right now, we’re here to talk about Agneth. This is about finding whoever did the horrible things to her and punish the killer. It’s about stopping him from doing the same thing to another innocent victim.”

Mason stepped up to the desk. “If you withhold information that could help us find the killer, and the killer murders another young woman, you will regret it and feel partly responsible.”

Irma looked down at her lap. “Agneth said she thought—” Gisela squeezed Irma’s arm, but Irma yanked it away. “No.” She looked at Mason. “The last week or so she complained that she felt a man was following her.”

“Did she describe him?” Mason asked.

“The man always wore a long, dark blue coat and hat, so she never saw his face. She said he was tall with broad shoulders. She kept getting glimpses of him in reflections of windows and the like. After that, she started walking to work or home with a group. She only walked one short street alone before reaching the apartment building. It was just a short street—two, maybe three minutes after leaving the group. I warned her to take the long way around, but it has been so cold the last week.”

“Where did she work?”

“At the Ludwig-Maximilians University Hospital. She was a nurse.”

Mason felt a blush of excitement. Maybe they had a pattern. “Did she know or ever work with a Dr. Richard Hieber?”

Gisela looked up at Mason with alarm. “She didn’t, but I met him a few times. Do you think he is the killer?”

Mason shook his head. “He was another victim of the same killer, like Agneth.” Mason wanted to avoid fueling rumors about a chain killer loose in Munich, but it seemed the surest way to get Gisela to talk.

“Another victim like Agneth?” Gisela said. “What do you mean?”

“Agneth and Dr. Hieber were tortured and dismembered in exactly the same way. One man killed them both.”

Both women stifled cries of alarm and held each other’s hands.

“Do you understand now why it’s so important to find Agneth’s killer?” Mason said. “We don’t want him to do the same horrible things to anyone else.”

“Dr. Hieber . . . he came to the hospital a couple of times every month,” Gisela said. “He would come to consult and help with particularly difficult cases. He was a very good epidemiologist.”

“You work at the hospital, too?”

“We all do. We are all nurses. Irma and I, and the group that Agneth walked with to the hospital and back home.”

“We’d like to talk with the rest of the group. Maybe they noticed something.”

Mason looked back at Wolski, but he saw that Wolski already had his notepad out. Between Gisela and Irma, they named four other nurses.

While notating the information, Wolski asked, “Can either of you think of any doctor or other staff at the hospital who you think might fit Agneth’s description?”

They both thought a minute. “There’s a male nurse, Siegfried . . . I don’t remember his last name,” Gisela said.

“He’s not tall,” Irma said.

“But he’s very strong.”

“He is rather odd. Very sad, I think.”

“Can you blame him for that?” Gisela said.

“What do you mean?” Mason asked.

“He was a soldier on the Russian front. He was badly burned on the face and arms. He had wanted to be a surgeon before the war, but he lost three fingers on his right hand.”

“He is bitter, but quite gentle, I’ve found,” Irma said. She brightened at remembering something. “What about Dr. Scholz?” She looked at Gisela, who nodded in agreement. Irma said, “He’s a surgeon at the hospital. He’s tall, maybe forty years old. . . .”

Mason snapped his head to look at Wolski, who nodded back. It was time to move.

T
he Ludwig Maximilian University had taken numerous direct hits from the bombing raids, and the LMU hospital was no exception. Composed of a series of wings, the university’s buildings branched out in every direction, and the majority of the three-story structures of granite blocks and arched windows were blackened from incendiary bombs. Here and there along the front, other bombs had taken large bites out of the façades, and Mason wondered how they could still run a hospital amid so much damage.

Mason had come over in the jeep with Manganella. Wolski and an MP pulled up next to him. Mason instructed Manganella and the MP to keep watch on the doors.

“You see a tall, forty-year-old surgeon hightailing it out of here, and you tackle him,” Mason said.

“How are we supposed to know he’s a surgeon?” Manganella asked.

“He’ll be the only tall guy in a white lab coat trying out for the hundred-yard dash.”

Mason and Wolski entered a large lobby of wood and marble. The smell of disinfectant hit them immediately. To their right, a large area had been allocated for the enormous number of people seeking care. With the exception of the Schwabing hospital taken over by the U.S.
Army, most of the other Munich hospitals had suffered almost total damage, leaving the university’s hospital to serve the majority of the local population. Women with frail children; the elderly; and those suffering from severe malnutrition, the cold, and limited sanitation had taken every available bench, even the surrounding floor. There were a few ill or injured men, most among them ex-soldiers with missing limbs or mangled bodies. Babies crying, moans of pain, and chronic coughs echoed in the great hall.

Mason and Wolski hesitated and looked over the crowd. Mason knew the worst was yet to come, when deep winter set in and long-term malnutrition took its toll. Even in mid-December there were the sporadic sights of the dead, those who had collapsed on the sidewalk or died in a hovel, only to be laid on the sidewalk for collection by burial details.

They walked up to the receptionist’s counter. A nurse stood behind the counter and talked on the phone. She kept her back to them as she spoke. Mason cleared his throat to get her attention, but she shot up her index finger for him to wait without turning around. The area around her desk was decorated with photographs and postcards depicting bucolic scenes of the Bavarian countryside: a deer in the trees, a rugged cabin on a hill overlooking a sapphire blue lake. Probably her way of coping with the ruins she had to face every day. She finally hung up and turned to Mason. A flash of fear passed across her face when she saw two U.S. soldiers.

“Where can we find Dr. Scholz, please?” Mason asked.

“He is seeing patients at the moment. If you would like to wait, he should be finished in an hour.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We would like to see him right away. If you could please direct us . . .”

“He is very adamant about not being disturbed while making his rounds.”

Mason held up his CID badge. “We are United States military police. We must insist on disturbing him.”

The receptionist turned to a nurse standing behind her and
whispered something in her ear. The nurse nodded and rushed off. “His office is on the fifth floor, east wing, room five-two-four. That nurse will notify the doctor that you are coming to his office.”

At the far end of the lobby two elevator cages sat next to a broad marble staircase. Mason and Wolski stopped at the elevators, but both had signs announcing they were out of order.

“How the heck do people who can barely walk get to the upper floors?” Wolski said.

“The old-fashioned way.”

On the fifth floor, they followed a series of corridors that led to the east wing and found room 524. Mason knocked and entered without waiting for a response.

Dr. Scholz sat behind his desk and, even sitting, he seemed to tower over it. Though colossal in frame, he possessed a disproportionately small head and a weak chin under a thin-lipped mouth. Mason and Wolski’s aggressive entrance startled him, but he recovered quickly, reverting to a stony expression as he stood to greet them. “Gentlemen, I would invite you in, but I see you don’t require it. How can I help you?”

Mason introduced himself and Wolski, informing the doctor that they were CID criminal investigators. He watched the doctor’s reactions carefully, but the doctor only returned a smug smile and flared nostrils. Before taking a seat Mason signaled Wolski with his eyes and nodded toward the coat rack standing in a corner of the room. On it hung a long, dark blue overcoat. Wolski arched an eyebrow then leaned against the wall and stared hard at Scholz.

“I’ll come right to the point, Herr Doktor,” Mason said as he took the chair facing Scholz’s desk. “We’re investigating multiple homicides, and we’d like to ask you a few questions regarding the case.”

The doctor drew his head back as if puzzled by the statement. “Ask me? What have I—”

“A nurse by the name of Agneth Lehmann was murdered three nights ago. She worked at this hospital. Did you know her?”

“No. But I am sorry to hear this. There have been so many deaths—”

Mason interrupted again. “According to one of her roommates, Agneth had complained of being stalked by a very tall man with broad shoulders before being murdered.”

“I don’t know what this has to do with me,” Dr. Scholz said. “I am certainly not the only tall man in all of Munich.”

“Another victim of the same killer came to this hospital on a consulting basis. Dr. Hieber. Did you know him?”

“Not personally, but I do know who he was. If I understand correctly, you suspect me, because both victims were associated with this hospital and murdered by someone described as a tall man?”

“What is your area of medical expertise?”

“I am a thoracic surgeon.”

“The reason I ask is that the victims were both surgically mutilated. Our medical examiner and chief forensics expert determined that the killer was medically skilled. A surgeon, perhaps, like yourself.”

“Nor am I the only tall man with surgical skills living in Munich.”

“You have to admit, the list of suspects gets pretty small when you put them all together, Herr Doktor.”

Scholz sat back and grabbed the arms of his chair. “You are questioning the wrong man.”

“Can you tell us what you were doing on the evenings of December ninth and twelfth?”

“This is preposterous. I have done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe you don’t understand how serious we are. Refusing to cooperate makes us suspect you even more.”

“You are no better than the Gestapo,” Scholz said. “You are harassing an innocent man. You have no evidence, no proof, yet you assume me guilty.”

Mason returned the doctor’s conceit with a smug smile of his own. “You know how many criminals I’ve busted who claimed they were innocent or said I was questioning the wrong man? We have enough circumstantial evidence to question you, and we will be forced to bring you into headquarters if you won’t account for those evenings.
We will search your home. Your family and the entire hospital will know what you are suspected of doing. Prove us wrong.”

The doctor’s gaze wandered the room. Mason could see a growing panic in his eyes. Time for a strong nudge. “Mr. Wolski, we’re taking this man to headquarters.”

Wolski came off the wall, withdrew his handcuffs, and approached the doctor.

“No, wait. Please. I remember now,” Scholz said. “The twelfth my wife and I went to a concert at the university.”

“Wife?” Mason said.

“Yes. Is that illegal for Germans now?” Scholz tried to regain his superiority even as he desperately patted the pockets of his pants. “I believe I still have the ticket stub in my coat.”

Scholz stood, and Mason backed off a step. Scholz pointed to his overcoat hanging on the coat rack. He tried to say something, but he was too flustered to get it out.

“Go ahead,” Mason said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wolski’s hand close to his holstered pistol. The doctor reached behind his chair for something. Mason was ready for any attempt at escape. Scholz towered over them. It would take both investigators to bring down a desperate man his size. But, to Mason’s surprise, the doctor brought a cane around in front of him and leaned on it heavily as he stepped around the desk toward the coat rack.

“What happened to you?” Wolski asked. “You injure yourself recently lifting something heavy?”

Scholz stopped and gave them an indignant look. “I’ve had chronic back problems for two years. A heavy beam fell on me during a bombing raid. It shattered my ninth and tenth thoracic vertebrae. It’s a miracle I can stand at an operating table, but it troubles me to walk, and lifting anything heavier than a book is out of the question.” Upon noticing Mason’s and Wolski’s looks of skepticism, he said, “Must I produce the operating physician and hospital records? Or shall I strip and show you my scars?” He limped over to the coat rack and fished
around in his overcoat pocket. He removed the two ticket stubs and showed them to Mason. “For the evening of the twelfth. An outdoor concert on the university’s campus.”

Mason’s disappointment made him speechless for a moment. “You understand that we will have to verify all of this. We’d like to talk to your wife.”

“Of course,” Dr. Scholz said. He hobbled over to his desk and wrote something down. He turned back to Mason and handed him a piece of paper. “My address. She will confirm everything I’ve said.”

Mason took the paper. “We’ll be in touch.” He then signaled for Wolski to exit. Mason stopped at the door and turned back to Dr. Scholz. “Herr Doktor, if we’d been the Gestapo, you’d have been arrested without proof, tortured for a confession, sentenced in a mock trial, and executed. I would advise you to keep that in mind.”

Mason was about to close the door, when Scholz said, “I apologize for the remark.”

That made Mason stop. “Forget it,” he said and shut the door.

Mason and Wolski walked down the hallway in silence for a few moments. Mason had to digest his disappointment, and he figured Wolski had to do the same.

“You should have made him show you his scar,” Wolski said. “He still could have injured himself lifting the body or rigging that damned booby trap.”

“I watched how he favored the cane to the left and his right foot. The rubber foot on the cane and his right shoe are worn down the same way. He’s had that injury a long time.”

“At least you could have kicked the cane out from under him for that Gestapo crack.”

At first Mason tuned out the persistent paging over the speaker system. That background noise came with every hospital. But by the time they reached the staircase the pager’s voice sounded more insistent:
“Paging Dr. Scholz. Please respond. You have an emergency in operating room four.”

Mason and Wolski exchanged a look of alarm and burst into a run back toward Dr. Scholz’s office. They rushed into the office, but the doctor was gone. Back out in the hallway, Mason intercepted a nurse. “Have you seen Dr. Scholz?”

“No,” the nurse said. “We’ve been looking for him everywhere. It’s not like him to disappear like this.”

“Is there another way down to the ground floor besides the main stairs?”

“There are fire exits at both ends of this wing. The closest is that way, behind you and to your right.”

Mason said to Wolski, “Take the main stairs and see if you can cut him off on the ground floor. I’ll take the fire exit stairs.”

They split up. Mason found the fire stairs, a narrow, winding staircase. His heart sank when he couldn’t hear any footsteps on the metal stairs. He flew down to the first floor and came out of the staircase by the emergency room entrance. Wolski ran up a moment later.

“Check the front. See if Manganella saw him exit that way. I’ll check the back.”

Mason dodged doctors and nurses as he ran through the emergency room. He blew out the back entrance and searched the small parking lot meant for ambulances and delivery trucks. An alleyway at the far end branched off in both directions. Then Mason saw two army-uniformed legs writhing between the ambulances. He ran up and discovered the MP, Private Wagner, gagging as he held his neck. Mason called out for a waiting ambulance driver to get some help.

Wagner sputtered, “Asshole got me with his cane. He took off that way.” He pointed to the alleyway off the left side of the lot.

Mason ran out into the alleyway and followed it until it emptied out onto the main street. He looked frantically left and right. Dr. Scholz had disappeared.