Ruins of War (7 page)

F
rau Eva Hieber shuffled through the slush on Karlsplatz. The damp cold had crept through her wool overcoat hours before. Last winter she had her ermine fur coat to keep her warm, the one that Friedrich, her husband, had bought for her in 1938. But she had exchanged that, along with her grandmother’s set of china dinnerware, the antique grandfather clock, and much of her jewelry, on the black market for food and clothing for her nine-year-old son and eleven-year-old daughter.

She had no deep attachment to those things, not like her wedding ring or the very last gift Friedrich had given her for her birthday, the upright piano. Those things she refused to sell. She and Friedrich would play duets together on many nights before the war, before Friedrich was killed in Italy.

Most of the food she’d bartered for a few weeks earlier was already gone. She tried hard to ration the amounts and had relinquished her share for the children. The worst of winter was yet to come, and she knew she would eventually have to give up the piano.

Today was the second time she’d walked all over the city posting notices and scanning through the untold thousands of others. Trees, lampposts, and boards erected in the large intersections and
community centers were covered with little squares of paper, some with photos: “The Frieder family of Goethestrasse is searching for Lily Frieder—16 years old.” “Manfried Jung, if you read this, please come to 22 Denisstrasse. Your wife, Margo.” “Ilse and Werner are looking for their mother, Frieda Hoffmann. We live on 16 Briennerstrasse. Please help us.”

Eva shook her head at all the sad messages. She hoped her brother-in-law had left one for her. He’d been missing for five days. On a community board next to Karlstor she unpinned a message rendered unreadable from time and weather and stuck up her own in its place.

She barely had the pin sunk into the board when she saw it. On a board on the opposite side of the street was a large black-and-white notice with a sketch of a man. Even from that distance, she could tell it was her brother-in-law. Even though the sketch showed a man who was completely bald, she could never mistake the face.

Dread made her legs leaden as she approached the notice. It looked official, which always meant bad news. Halfway across the street she could read the block letters:
IF YOU KNOW THIS MAN PLEASE CONTACT OBERINSPEKTOR BECKER AT POLIZEIPRÄSIDIUM, 2–4
E
TTSTRASSE
.

She started to cry, the warm tears burning her icy cheeks. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her legs buckled and she fell to her knees.

Oh, Richard. Please, not Richard.

He had been the only stabilizing person in her war-torn existence, and the last remaining member of her husband’s family.

People gathered around her, inquiring if she was all right. She didn’t hear them. She simply didn’t know how she could go on.

•   •   •

M
ason sat at his desk, rubbing his forehead while listening to the other end of the phone line. Wolski entered with his coffee cup and leaned against the file cabinet.

“What was that, sir?” Mason said. He looked up at Wolski and rolled his eyes. “Could you spell that for me? V-i-t-r-u-v-i-a-n. Da
Vinci and Cosmology.” He finished noting the conversation. “Right. Thank you, sir.” He hung up the phone.

“What was that all about?” Wolski asked.

“I’ve been getting a bunch of calls about the sketch we sent out showing the killer’s arrangement of the victim’s limbs. That was a major over at OMGB, a professor of art history and philosophy. He said the arrangement is a copy of a Da Vinci drawing”—Mason checked his notes—“the Vitruvian Man. And some nonsense about cosmology and man’s body proportions in relation to the universe.”

OMGB stood for Office of Military Government for Bavaria.

“Now there’s a stretch. You hear back from the division chaplain’s office?”

“He said the limbs and stakes symbolize . . .” Mason had to look at his notes again. “Chi-Rho, a Christian cross from Roman times made with the first two letters,
X
and
P
—our
ch
and
r
—,of the Greek word for Christ.”

“That makes a little more sense.”

“Wait, I’m not done yet. I also received calls saying it’s an ancient Egyptian symbol, a Celtic Taranis wheel, and a Buddhist dharma wheel.”

The phone rang, and Mason said, “This’ll probably be the Chinese interpretation.” He answered the phone, listened a few moments, then hung up. “Better finish your coffee. We’re going out. Becker’s got something for us.” He stood and walked over to the coat rack and put on his overcoat. “What did you dig up?”

“Have you been to the CID records room? It’s cold, damp, and dark. And whoever set up the system should go back to filing school.”

“Why do you think I sent you?”

“I’ve gone through most of the arrest records involving U.S. and Allied doctors and medical staff, but most of them only go back to June of this year. Everything else is at the main records archives in Frankfurt.”

“Anything promising?”

“Not much. There’s a major accused of bondage murders of
prostitutes, but his file has been sealed—at least to someone of my pay grade. The story is he managed to elude arrest and is rumored to be back in the States. A couple of other homicides, but nothing that comes close to our killer’s methods. I couldn’t get anywhere near Medical Corps personnel files.”

“I’m working on that one.”

Mason and Wolski walked out of his office and headed for the stairs.

Colonel Walton leaned out of his office door and called after them, “I assume you’re following up on a lead about that train robbery.”

Mason turned to face Colonel Walton as he walked. “Yes, sir.”

Colonel Walton eyed him with skepticism, but Mason quickened his pace and shot down the stairs before Colonel Walton could ask any more questions.

•   •   •

O
berinspector Becker waited for Mason and Wolski by an open manhole in the middle of a wide plaza bisecting Ludwigstrasse. A phalanx of German policemen surrounded Becker and the manhole, while another squad of German police had spread out to the nearby buildings to canvass the occupants or to control the gathering crowd of onlookers.

Wolski parked the jeep under the shadow of the ragged remains of the Siegestor, Munich’s version of the Arc de Triomphe. Mason had been around small groups of German police, but this was his first experience with so many gathered in one place. He couldn’t help a feeling of unease. The green police uniforms were mostly cannibalized Wehrmacht uniforms, and seeing these men barking orders or standing at attention in perfect lines in the plaza made the hairs of the back of his neck stand up.

“Gives me the creeps walking around a place with so many Germans in uniform,” Wolski said.

“You read my mind,” Mason said.

The feeling dissipated, however, when several of the policemen nodded respectfully and Becker smiled as they shook hands.

“What have you got?” Mason asked.

“I’ll let you see for yourself.”

“In the sewers?” Wolski said.

Becker began to climb down the metal ladder. “We don’t have to go too far.”

“Ah, the glamour of police work,” Mason said.

“My uncle had a pig farm. Nothing could smell worse than that,” Wolski said.

They followed Becker down the ladder and met him in a man-sized tunnel of timeworn brick. Mason detected a pungent-sweet odor just below the sulfurous miasma of sewage. A small stream of brackish water trickled along the bottom of the tunnel.

“This way,” Becker said.

Mason and Wolski turned on their flashlights and followed Becker.

“There has been another development in the last hour aside from what you are about to see,” Becker said. “A woman by the name of Frau Hieber came into our precinct this morning and said she recognized the victim from the sketch we posted throughout the city. She identified him as Richard Hieber, her brother-in-law. She said he has been missing for five days. He was a doctor with a small private practice. He also worked at a clinic on Rheinstrasse. I telephoned the clinic. Several nurses confirmed that he hasn’t been seen at the clinic since his shift on Friday.”

“A doctor killing a doctor,” Wolski said.

“There could be any number of reasons why the killer chose him,” Mason said, “but it’s something to keep in mind. Did Frau Hieber know of any rivalries with another doctor, or him receiving threats of any kind?”

“Both Frau Hieber and the clinic staff said he was a kind man. Everyone respected and had great affection for him. He had no enemies that anyone knew of, and he was rather reserved, spending most of his time at the clinic or helping his sister-in-law with her children. He studied at Berlin University. He was a surgeon in the Luftwaffe with a rank of major, serving mostly on the eastern front. We are
trying to obtain his records, but we have to request Luftwaffe records through the American army. The amount of red tape . . .”

“We’ll take care of that,” Mason said. “What about a wife or immediate family?”

“His parents died before the war. His wife and daughters were killed in the Battle of Berlin.”

A moment of awkward silence passed between them—the tragedy of it all, the loss of so many families.

“I have Frau Hieber’s address,” Becker said. “She has consented to another interview if you have additional questions.”

Mason shook his head. “Sounds like you covered everything.”

“She drew out his usual path to the clinic and listed the places he visited on a regular basis. I’ll give you everything once we’re done here.”

“Good. I’d like to talk to the clinic staff.”

“Of course.”

The tunnel ended, and the three detectives climbed down a short ladder that descended into a large square chamber of concrete and brick. Two sets of stairs led to platforms at various levels. Pipes and electrical conduits covered much of the ceiling and snaked into smaller tunnels. Twelve feet below, dark water rushed through an open trench. A group of German police stood in the corner of a platform, while others searched the area with their flashlights.

Mason identified the odor he’d detected in the tunnel: the unmistakable stench of putrefaction.

“This is a maintenance area accessing several sewer branches,” Becker said over the sound of the rushing water. “A couple of workmen made the discovery this morning. The last time anyone came down here was a month ago.”

Mason and Wolski followed Becker to the corner where the policemen were gathered. There, next to an intricate metal grid, lay a limbless corpse. The skin had turned greenish yellow and black. Much of the torso had gouges or chunks missing. The eyes and nose were gone. The mouth gaped wide.

Mason felt his stomach contract. Wolski turned away for a moment. Mason tapped him on the shoulder and eyed the ladder behind them, but Wolski indicated that he was okay.

“Unfortunately, the rats have feasted on the corpse for some time now,” Becker said.

“Looks like the body’s been there two or three weeks,” Mason said.

Becker nodded. “You see the Y incision is the same.”

“He cut open the rib cage, but didn’t distend it like in the other victim. Since the organs are in pretty bad shape, we’ll have to wait for an autopsy to see if he removed any of them.”

Wolski took a step back, suppressing a gag.

“I need you to contact headquarters and the ME’s office. Get them down here right away.”

Wolski gave Mason a weak but grateful smile and left.

“What about the arms and legs?” Mason asked.

Becker led him to an upper platform on the other side of the chamber. Two legs and an arm lay on the platform in a haphazard fashion. Rats had consumed much of the flesh and muscle.

“If the killer arranged them in a similar pattern, we’ll never know,” Becker said.

“Did he leave a note?”

Becker shook his head. “And, fortunately for the sewer workers, neither did he engineer a booby trap.”

“His method is cruder, and he didn’t display the corpse like before. But it’s him. It looks like he’s refining his techniques. The torture and butchering aren’t enough. He wants his killings to be a spectacle.”

Becker turned to look at Mason. “Then what are we to expect from his next one?”

H
is excitement filled him with a surge of energy and strength, the cold having no effect whatsoever. He fought to maintain a somber appearance, emulating those around him, their heads held low by the burdens of subjugation. It had been his punishment to wander among the masses of oppressed and oppressors, among the ruins, amid the suffering, step past the rubble still hiding the dead, tramp upon the ashes of the incinerated.

Today was the day, and he was ready, the sap in his left coat pocket and the bottle of his mixture of diethyl ether and chloroform in his right.

He kept pace with the Chosen One, ten meters behind, with his hat pulled down on his lowered head. His left hand clutched his coat tightly under his chin, with the collar high across his cheeks and mouth, as if protecting himself from the wind and blowing snow. But he was not cold. An electrical heat radiated deep inside, and his groin was engorged with hot blood.

Dusk still illuminated the sky. The place where he would strike lay another kilometer away. He knew the path the Chosen One traveled at this hour of the day, and in ten minutes he would quicken his pace. She would stay on Schellingstrasse, a large street cutting across the Maxvorstadt district, then turn on a narrow street of ruined buildings.

The crowds of pedestrians grew thicker as they approached an intersection. Women carried children bundled in their arms. An elderly man pushed a cart with sacks of weeds to make a thin soup. A group of ex-Wehrmacht soldiers huddled around a barrel fire.

U.S. Army jeeps and olive drab sedans roared by. On the corner, American MPs randomly checked identity papers. German police stood alongside them or patrolled the streets in pairs. The voices placed many obstacles before him, trying to prevent him from attaining his salvation. But he had spent months learning Munich’s damaged landscape. He had memorized every street, the areas where he could trap his prey, the routes for taking the bodies back to the place of sacrifice. And now he knew the places where he would make altars of the sacrificed for beatification, each one more glorious than the last, pleasing the dark spirits that held him on this odious sphere. It must work. He longed for an ending to it all, an ultimate sacrifice that would culminate in his resurrection.

This time
They
had led him to a Chosen One in female form, frail but tall, with a broad nose and eyes black as soot that matched her full, wavy hair. But most of all,
They
had sent him One with one leg slightly shorter than the other. He judged that the defect had not been present at birth but rather had resulted from a fracture, an injury that had shattered bone and, once healed, left her to limp the rest of her life. He knew well the type of injury; he knew the source. After all, he was a doctor. He had treated enough shattered and abused bones to know. Her face and her limp—how perfect. How magnificent for him to discover One so like those he had sinned upon in the past.

She left her companions on the final segment of her journey home, turning onto this forgotten street. It was supposed to take her home the quickest way. He knew she shared the apartment with two other women, only two blocks from the end of this narrow and dark street, a mere hundred meters of burned and crumbling structures. He imagined her being warned not to use this street. A warning unheeded—another sign she had been chosen for him.

The woman glanced behind as she entered the street, but he had already slipped into a shell of a building where he had previously cut a path through the ruins. He moved quickly, knowing he had only a few seconds to reach the spot. She always quickened her pace as she walked along the broken buildings. He knew the path by heart and moved in almost total darkness. At one moment he got a quick glimpse of her as she passed a hole in a building’s outer wall. Fifteen meters to the doorless entrance. There the street took a sharp angle.

At last, he slipped out onto the street and waited behind a recess in the wall. A pile of rubble shielded him from view by anyone arriving from the opposite direction. If his timing was precise, no one would see. The woman would simply vanish.

Four seconds later she passed him. He allowed her to take two more steps. With silent motion, he swept his right hand from his left coat pocket. He knew exactly where to strike with the sap. She barely had time to react to the noise, the zip of fabric on fabric, before the elongated sack full of ball bearings struck her at the base of the skull. A faint cry of pain escaped her lips before she fell dazed to the cobblestones.

He had to be quick. He lifted her by her armpits before she completely settled on the ground. It took only five seconds to drag her back into the depths of the ruined building, then another five to pour the chloroform-ether mixture and smother her face with the soaked cloth. Just the right amount would put her in a deep sleep. He needed her quiet for two hours.

After that, it wouldn’t matter how much she screamed.