The Widow Killer (31 page)

His nighttime despair and his contention with God were gone. He helped the nurses wash her and dress her in a clean white shirt, accompanied her on the stretcher to the pathology lab, kissed her on her still-warm lips, and then waited for an hour like an errand boy in a hallway reeking of disinfectant before he was permitted to see the examination results.

“Death from hemorrhaging into the mediastinum after a puncture wound to the aorta.”

Litera, who discovered him there, was the first person caught off guard. Before he could express his sympathy, Morava reeled off his plan for the day’s excursions, as if this were a morning strategy session after an ordinary night.

His other colleagues in the department found a man unchanged in appearance and demeanor from the day before. He returned their sympathetic handshakes just the way he would have at daily meetings; anyone who dared to express condolences got at most a nod.

The women at Bartolomejska, confirmed in their rejection of Operation Decoy, were especially shocked. Could this sorry young man really be that insensitive? The men were marginally impressed by his self-control, but it still seemed unnatural to them.

Morava understood what was happening. During that short nap by her bed, he had died along with Jitka. She had then sent him back to the living world to complete his task. During this temporary resurrection, he had resolved not to let anything impede his work.

Maybe it was the combined spiritual strength of all his ancestors, forged by unending blows of fate, that so mercifully numbed him. Otherwise, he knew, he would have gone mad.

He would have cried like a child, howled like a beast, stopped eating, given up sleeping; soon he would have set off aimlessly, half awake, half asleep, down the dark streets of a city ever closer to the front until, heedless of warnings, he would probably have been shot by German guards.

Instead, he resolved to forget that for three months there had been a woman he fell asleep and woke up with, constantly conscious of their child growing inside her, and decided to be only what he had been before: a criminal detective investigating the murders of Maruska Kubilkova of Brno, Elisabeth, Baroness of Pomerania, Barbora Pospichalova, Hedvika Horakova, Marta Pavlatova, Jana Kavanova, Robert Jonas, Frantisek Sebesta, and Jitka Modra.

He waited for Beran in his anteroom as if there had never been a third person there.

“Since we now know his identity,” he began with no preamble, “we can disband the special team. But I’d like to direct the investigation, and I want to start in Plzen.”

“Shouldn’t you get some sleep?”

“I’ve slept three months away already. I have to catch up.”

At first he didn’t know where he was. He felt refreshed, but all around was deepest darkness. Gradually he collected his thoughts until he could stand and grope his way to the blackout shades. A murky light passed listlessly through the dirty window and curtain. He thought of the neighbor who did the cleaning. Apparently she spent more time on the bed than in the rest of the apartment, except he couldn’t really imagine them…

He remembered the ferociousness with which his host had spoken about the Germans, soldiers and civilians alike, servants of the Reich sent to Prague and those who had been here for generations. From “exclude them” he’d progressed to “expel them” and then “exterminate them,” and he always added, “no exceptions!”

Krauts for him are like those whores for me!

This discovery fascinated him. He had to learn more. The empty bathroom didn’t surprise him; the guy would certainly have snuck out through the living room so as not to wake him up. But the empty kitchen made his blood run cold. He tore into the front hall in his underwear and pressed the apartment door handle down. Locked. He dashed to the window. Mezzanine, at least six meters of sheer wall.

So, A trap!

Once again that awful feebleness overpowered him, the one he thought he had banished the day before on the strafed train; he could thank her for it. As a child he’d developed it when he’d been in unlove. “Unlove” was her worst punishment; she wouldn’t speak to him and would look right through him, as if he were thin air. He felt so abandoned, so humiliated that… he almost… hated her! Once he’d grown up, he confessed this to her, and she was horrified that she’d made him feel that way. She never did it after that, but he never got rid of the reaction; in a crisis it would always sneak up on him and make the situation even worse.

What now?

He realized in a panic that the guy was a provocateur and had gone to denounce him. At least he had time to break out and disappear! With shaking hands he put on his shirt and pants and prowled around the small apartment like a hunting dog until he sniffed out what he was looking for: A hatchet lay behind the top-fed wood stove. He slipped it under the handle of the front door and got ready to pry it open when he heard steps and the clink of keys. Fully on guard again, he sprang into the corner, where the open door would conceal him, raised the ax above his head, and waited.

The runt saw him and stopped dead in his tracks. His usual bovine smile turned to a desperate grimace, and he dropped his keys and string bag on the ground (fortunately there were only potatoes and bread in it).

“You ass!” his guest exploded as soon as he had slammed the door with his foot. “Didn’t you have orders?”

“I just… I thought…” He pointed pitifully at the floor. “I thought I’d make you—”

“You entered my unit of your own free will; you’ll follow my orders to the letter! How was I to know you weren’t a traitor?”

Only now did he feel the pistol pressing against him in his pocket. Why was he waving an ax around when he could just as easily have shot? Shooting’s like riding a bicycle, Sergeant Kralik had always said; you never forget how!

“I almost split your skull open so I wouldn’t alert the whole house!”

“Forgive me… I’ll never, ever… I swear…!”

The half-pint was sincerely devastated. He brewed some rye coffee, and dutifully repeated what he could and could not tell his neighbor before going over.

“One more thing,” he asked the little man at the last moment. “Does she have your keys?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Then get them back! I want to be sure no one comes in except you while I’m here.”

“Right, got it!”

When the door slammed shut, he began to sip the hot liquid carefully and reflect in peace. What will i do with him?

He had never written with lipstick on a mirror before. “Love,” he began, “my greates—” The softened stick snapped. He looked at his uncompleted confession and was still amazed at how much had changed in him since yesterday. Although he had barely slept, a shower refreshed him completely; his brain was like a letter knife, smoothly opening problem after problem until it reached a solution.

He had to retain his post at all costs. And at no cost could he give up his official contacts with the Czech police. In an emergency they were the only ones who could protect Grete—and him as well.

There was no point sticking his head in the sand and waiting until Meckerle had it pulled out for him. He went straight to Bredovska. After all, he had been right, and the colonel must see that. Would Meckerle punish Buback out of sheer jealousy as the water rose around the two of them? With Hitler’s death the precariously balanced upside-down pyramid of the Third Reich had come crashing down. Who had seized the highest office; who held in his hands the fate of the German nation, the life and death of millions? Was it the mysteriously vanished Goebbels? Admiral Donitz, brandishing a supposed last will and testament from the Fuhrer? Or Reichmarschall Goring, who was supposedly exposed in it as a traitor?

Each of them, as Meckerle must know, was a potential protector for Buback. But even the light of the Protectorate’s former polestars paled before the brilliance of another contender. Although only a guest in this region, and until recently almost unknown, he commanded the million-strong mass of soldiers which now threatened to overflow their ever-contracting territory like dough rising in a bowl.

Buback had once learned to play poker. In the days when confessions had to be extracted without torture, Dresden detectives had used it to train in their craft, leading shysters down a false trail. One after the other, they showed how to bluff suggestively—for instance, that a criminal’s coconspirators had long since confessed. Today, for the first time, Buback would use this skill to deceive his superior.

He entered his office, slamming the door open, contrary to habit. Kroloff, in the anteroom, snapped to attention even more furiously than usual. By the time a sign of defiance appeared in his eyes, he had lost his chance.

“Get me Schorner’s adjutant, on the double! Move it, man!”

His commanding tone and the rank of the man he was calling made a deep impression on Kroloff, who was eagerness itself as he reached for the receiver.

Buback leaned back into the armchair and waited. He was convinced that a call from the Prague Gestapo headquarters would not go unanswered—correctly, as it turned out.

“Oberstleutnant Gruner. What can I do for you, Herr Kamerad?”

“Did Lieutenant General Richard von Pommeren serve with you?”

“Confirmed. But if you’re looking for him, you’re in the wrong place. He fell at the start of the Russian campaign.”

“It’s not about him, it’s about his spouse, who was brutally murdered in Prague. I’ve identified the killer with the help of the local detectives and now just need to catch him. Attempts are being made on our side to call off the operation, under the rationale that von Pommeren was not a notable military figure. Is your superior interested in having me see this through?”

“I’m surprised you need to ask. The field marshal is firmly convinced that the army is the last guarantor of German law and order. The opinion you have conveyed to me, whoever its author might be, is insulting and politically aberrant. Without even asking I can tell you that you should—no, you must—continue.”

“Thank you, Herr Kamerad,” Buback said, using the National Socialist title for the first time in his life. “In that case I request that you phone my superior immediately, so I’ll have a free hand for continued cooperation with the Protectorate police.”

“Let me take it down. His name?”

“Standartenfuhrer Meckerle.”

“Christian name?”

“Hubertus…” Buback remembered.

“No! Hubertus the Great! He was the head clerk at my bank at home. And no doubt will be again some day. I’ll call him straightaway. Heil…”

Pause. And then, in sincere confusion:

“What do we say from now on?”

When Buback dropped in at his Czech office to pick up his hat and raincoat, Beran turned to Morava in surprise.

“Could I have been wrong? What could interest him more than the situation in this building? Not the case, certainly? Keep his nose to the grindstone; it’d be damned awkward having him around here when we have our own collaborators to watch. Best of luck, but if things heat up in the meantime, back to me on the double!”

He dismissed Morava without further explanation, wordlessly squeezing both his shoulders.

On the way to Plzen, Buback informed Morava—as if nothing had happened in the meanwhile—about everything he had learned since yesterday.

“I’ve had a couple of cases in my career where we uncovered what could be termed a ritual. The perpetrators picked a ceremonial method of killing, out of a conviction that they were acting in a higher interest. This is clearly Rypl’s case; he became his mother’s instrument of revenge. Maybe Rypl believes he’s ridding the world of trash, and that’s why he’s not a depressive maniac, the sort that give themselves away. His coworkers and neighbors in the building described him as quite a pleasant person. Most of those women opened their doors to him trustingly. His shy inconspicuousness and serious demeanor will no doubt continue to cover his tracks.”

They were in Plzen just after noon and began by combing Rypl’s apartment again, looking for a portrait better than the five-year-old photo from his identity card application. After his mother’s death he had evidently had no one to take pictures for; they found absolutely nothing.

Then Morava assembled the entire theater staff and had them rack their brains. In vain. No, Rypl hadn’t gone to parties, when they were still permitted, nor had he gone on staff days out; no one had ever made up a staff photo album, or taken pictures at meetings, certainly not!

Buback spoke into the silence that followed.

“Was he ever in a performance?”

“No!” The manager dismissed this idea. “After all, he was a stoker and a jani—Wait a minute!”

He headed for the program archives, but before he had plowed through them the others remembered as well: To earn some extra money, Rypl had played a walk-on role as a servant just before the Czech theaters had been closed. A photo was found; it was sharp and those present agreed that it captured Rypl’s current likeness quite faithfully.

Two hours later, Plzen policemen had spread out across the city with photos reproduced by the local criminal section. Working from a plan they drew up quickly with Morava, they covered the various crucial points at which the suspect could have been spotted. Meanwhile, the Werkschutz log at the theater door showed that on the days murders were committed this year, Rypl had been either on vacation or supposedly running errands, but he always left and returned at times corresponding to train arrivals and departures.

“Why not yesterday?” Morava racked his brains. “Or did he come back and was warned? How? By whom?”

Buback was comparing the times as well.

“The ice,” he guessed. “He saw them carrying out the ice and figured they’d find the hearts.”

An hour later the supposition was confirmed by the conductor from the tram that had passed the theater yesterday. A bit later they had two witnesses, who recognized the picture: It was the man with nerves of steel, who sat through a bomb raid in the train without putting down his newspaper. Finally the railway ticket agent on the evening shift confirmed that a traveler he had previously seen only in the morning had yesterday quite exceptionally bought a ticket on the last train to Prague.