‘This is urgent,’ he said. ‘I gave this memo to Ortsgruppenleiter Mecklinger three days ago. But since you are here, I don’t see any harm in giving it to you too.’
One SS Mann read through the memo and passed it to the other. They exchanged meaningful glances.
‘When did you last see this Juncker?’
‘The night of the murder. That would be last week, Thursday night.’
‘What do you know about Karl Juncker, beside your suspicions?’
‘Not very much. He’s very secretive and not very friendly.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘He’s a bit taller than you, wears glasses, has a mustache. He’s arrogant. Thinks he’s better than everybody else.
‘Do you know if he is employed?’
‘I wrote in the memo …’
‘We know what you wrote, Herr Schleiffer. We would like to hear it in your words.’
‘I don’t know if he is employed or not.’
‘Do you know whether he has ever been employed as a policeman?’
‘A policeman?’ said Heinz, astonished.
‘Or a detective?’
‘Are you serious?’ Heinz remembered the rosette in Juncker’s lapel.
‘Please answer the question, Herr Schleiffer.’
‘No, I can’t imagine that he ever was. No, impossible,’ said Schleiffer. ‘Was he?’
‘Herr Schleiffer, we’d like you to come to headquarters with us to look at some photos.’
They allowed Heinz time to change into his uniform. He had never been to Gestapo headquarters in Briennerstraße. There he sat at a wooden table and leafed through a book with pages and pages of photos of men, six photos to a page.
‘This could be him,’ said Heinz.
‘Are you sure?’ said the man standing over him.
‘Pretty sure. It looks like him.’
Heinz was driven home in an official car. He hoped everyone saw him. Frau Schimmel certainly did. That afternoon as he was washing the front windows, she came back from shopping, pulling her grocery cart. ‘Herr Schleiffer, could you help me up the stairs with my cart?’ Heinz was glad to do so. He used the opportunity to warn her about their dangerous neighbor.
‘Herr Juncker? Dangerous?’ said Frau Schimmel. ‘I hardly think so.’
‘Extremely dangerous,’ said Heinz.
‘Come in, Herr Schleiffer. Please. I’ll make us some tea, and we can have some of the strudel I made yesterday. Pear this time. The apples didn’t look especially good.’
‘No, thank you, Frau Schimmel. Really …’ He always refused her invitation and Frau Schimmel never accepted his refusal.
She took him by the arm and walked him into the kitchen. ‘Come in, sit down.’ She cut off a slice of strudel and put it on a plate on the table in front of him. She got a bowl of whipped cream from the ice box. She poured them both tea.
‘I’m serious, Frau Schimmel, Juncker is not what you think.’
‘Oh, he seems like a very nice man.’
‘Frau Schimmel, take it from me, he is a suspect in … a very serious matter.’
‘You must be mistaken, Herr …’
‘No, Frau Schimmel, really. Believe me. I know what I’m talking about.’
‘Would you like another slice of strudel?’
He did not refuse.
‘Frau Schimmel, I’m not supposed to say anything. But I expect him to be arrested very soon. I was briefed on it this morning.’ Before ten more minutes had passed, and with very little prompting on her part, Heinz had told her all about his trip to Gestapo headquarters, how Karl Juncker – not his real name – had once been a police detective, and how he was now the lead suspect in the serial killer case.
The Lion and the Hyenas
Lola had bought that green dress, but Willi would not see it for a very long time. He was now being hunted from several directions at once by Reinhard Pabst and the Gestapo and SS task force he had assembled, as well as by the police in the person of Detective Sergeant Hermann Gruber. Gruber was the only one so far that knew Lola was connected to Willi. The address for Lola Zeff in the logbook led him right to her door.
Both Lola and Willi had been warned by both Bergemann and Frau Schimmel that something was afoot and that Willi should disappear. They didn’t think Lola was in immediate danger, since no matter where his suspicions might have led him, Gruber didn’t know anything for sure of her life with Willi, and neither did the Gestapo or the SS. She might get a visit, but it shouldn’t amount to more than that.
There was some art on the walls of Karl Juncker’s apartment these days, along with a few vases of artificial flowers. But there was no sign that anyone had lived there recently. There was no food in the kitchen closet or in the ice box. There was no clothing in the wardrobe or the entry closet. The SS came to search the place on several occasions. Each time Heinz Schleiffer went with them and unlocked the door. But Karl Juncker had disappeared.
Bergemann knew how to send Willi messages – they had a system of signals and drops around the city – but he kept his messages to a bare minimum. Frau Schimmel could warn Willi too using a code they had agreed upon. Different objects in her window had different meanings. The blue vase on the left side of the window signaling imminent danger now remained in place.
When Lola said she had no idea of Willi Geismeier’s whereabouts, it was not a lie. Detective Sergeant Gruber pressed the issue. ‘Isn’t it true that you and he are close? When did you last see him?’ he asked.
‘Of course we’re not close,’ she said. ‘How could we be? I haven’t seen him since we were children.’ Bergemann had warned her that Gruber would be coming to question her. Though she was nervous about the interview at first, she was prepared now and quite calm. ‘You probably don’t remember, Sergeant, but I actually came to your precinct once trying to find him.’
‘Oh, Frau Zeff, of course I remember that. That is how I was able to find you now.’ Gruber seemed quite pleased with himself.
‘Well, I never found him,’ said Lola. ‘You must know that as well.’
Gruber tried to trick her. ‘You were seen together, Frau Zeff.’
‘Whoever told you that, Sergeant, is mistaken.’
‘And remind me, please, Frau Zeff, why were you looking for him?’
‘I told you: we were childhood friends. I was fond of him; I would like to see him again. That’s all.’
‘And yet you gave up looking for him?’
‘Sergeant, if you, with all your detective skills, haven’t been able to find him, how should I be expected to?’
Gruber was pleased to have his detective skills mentioned, but he would not be distracted. ‘Are you political, Frau Zeff?’
‘Political? No. I can’t afford to be political in my work, Sergeant.’
Gruber had been his usual careless self. He knew nothing about what sort of work she did.
‘I work at the Hotel zur Kaiserkrone, Sergeant. In fact, if I don’t leave shortly, I will be late for my shift.’
‘Well, Frau Zeff, why don’t we go there together, and we can continue our conversation on the way?’
Lola and Gruber walked side by side, and he imagined for a moment that they might be lovers, which made his head swim a little. He had forgotten how wonderful it felt having a pretty woman walking beside you. They got to the hotel and went in the service entrance, then through a narrow, dimly lit service corridor past the kitchen. ‘Here we are,’ said Lola. She opened a swinging door and they stepped through. Gruber found himself behind the bar in the very grand Mahogany Room with its high ceilings, its enormous chandeliers and mirrors, and colorful tapestries and paintings in gilt frames. He and Lola faced a long row of SS officers arrayed along the bar. They were young and fit. They were among their own, laughing, or deep in earnest discussion, completely at ease.
‘Who’s this then, Lolly, a new boyfriend?’ said a grinning lieutenant.
‘You know, Jürgen, you’re my one and only,’ sai
d Lola with a laugh.
Gruber was knocked off balance. He was somewhere he hadn’t expected to be and definitely didn’t belong. The SS were an elite aristocracy and they regarded his sort of official, with his big belly and his ill-fitting brown uniform, as the fascist underclass. The storm troopers were thugs. Yes, they were useful for some tasks. But they were not serious political warriors, like the SS, highly trained and prepared to both kill and die for the Führer. The SA was the old guard, thick around the middle, out of shape, the remnants of an earlier, pre-Third Reich world. Gruber tried to laugh along with Lola’s joke, but the SS men just looked at him with their killer eyes.
Gruber would have liked to say he had stood with the Führer since the early days, when he had been an enforcer and they had been schoolboys. He had knocked heads in the Bürgerbräukeller. He had been part of the putsch. He thought of himself as one of the old lions, and these SS types as hyenas. They were after Willi Geismeier too – Gruber knew that from his various inquiries. He also knew that if he got to Geismeier first, they would soon be there too, circling, trying to steal his prey. And determined hyenas could kill a lion.
Still, Gruber thought he had several advantages over the SS and the Gestapo. First of all, he had worked with Willi Geismeier for years, and knew how he operated. Second, he doubted they knew anything about his own investigation. For instance, he was sure they knew nothing about the precinct logbook or Lola’s connection to Willi. And he didn’t for a minute buy her claim that she knew nothing about Willi’s whereabouts. It was a bit worrisome that she was friendly with some in the SS. He would have to be more careful now when it came to Lola Zeff.
He started following Lola. He followed her to and from work a few times, although he never went inside the Mahogany Room again. He questioned the hotel manager, Alex Kusinski, who could say only good things about Lola. Kusinski said he was certain she didn’t have a partner or boyfriend. ‘I would know,’ he said.
‘Nobody in the SS?’ said Gruber.
Kusinski just raised his eyebrows.
Gruber followed Lola to her parents’ house. She went there – usually on Tuesdays, her day off – for an early supper. He stood and watched in the small park across from their building. It was rainy and cold, and by the time she came out an hour and a half later, he was soaked and shivering.
One Sunday he followed her to Tullemannstraße. After a half hour, she left in the company of a little old lady. Willi had taught Lola how to tell if someone was following her. But this was the first time Lola had noticed Gruber. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Frau Schimmel,’ she said, ‘but I think we’re being followed. It’s the policeman I told you about.’
‘So that’s who he is,’ said Frau Schimmel. She had noticed him when they left her building. She knew all about being followed from her old Berlin days. The two women walked arm in arm to a cafe where they drank coffee and shared a slice of Linzertorte.
Gruber had the feeling that whenever he was following Lola, Willi was lurking somewhere behind him. And the feeling grew stronger all the time. Gruber would turn suddenly, hoping to catch him, but of course Willi was never anywhere to be seen.
It occurred to Gruber that if he were to arrest Lola, Willi would have to come to her defense. He would have to arrest Lola somewhere public, at night maybe, just to make sure Willi was there. But under what pretense could he arrest her? And if he were to arrest her, and Willi wasn’t nearby, it would alert her to his suspicions. And it would drive Willi so deep underground that there would be no finding him, ever.
‘What the devil are you up to, Sergeant Gruber?’ It was unusual for one of his detective sergeants to be gallivanting around the city the way Gruber had been, and Captain Robert Wendt wanted to know the reason for it. The latest case-closure figures were out, and once again Gruber’s squad was at the bottom of the standings.
‘I’m working on a priority case, Captain,’ said Gruber.
Wendt pulled furiously on his mustache, a sign Gruber understood all too well. ‘Damn it, man, it’s not for you to decide whether a case is a priority or not,’ he said. ‘If you’re not up to the task of running a squad, I can put Bergemann or somebody else in charge …’
‘It’s Geismeier, sir,’ said Gruber.
‘Geismeier? What about Geismeier?’
‘He’s been spotted,’ said Gruber. This was a lie.
‘What? When?’ said Wendt.
‘A short while ago,’ said Gruber.
Wendt looked at his hapless sergeant for a long minute. He looked at the case board. There were six open cases on it, some dating back to the beginning of the year and even earlier. Wendt rapped the board hard with his knuckles. ‘Take care of these cases, Sergeant. I don’t want to hear another word about Geismeier. Leave Geismeier to the Gestapo.’
The easiest case on the board, a robbery, had all the earmarks of a gang of well-known villains. They often hung out at a pool hall on the outskirts of the city, a place where, unfortunately, Willi Geismeier had never been seen or been known to have any business. It was a cool April evening; a warm breeze was blowing from the south. Gruber, along with another detective and two uniforms, drove out to roust the robbers.
The pool hall was on the second floor of what had once been a newspaper printing plant. They parked a block from the building. Gruber and the detective walked toward the building’s front entrance while the two uniforms went through an alley to get to the back entrance. As Gruber and the detective were about to enter the building, a bicycle approached from a side street. Willi and Gruber recognized one another at the same moment. Willi tried to swerve out of the way, but Gruber leapt and grabbed the handlebars, pulling the bike down on top of himself. Gruber hit Willi hard, then hit him again and again until he lay still. The other detective put the cuffs on Willi, and that was that. Dumb luck, thought Gruber. But that’s just how it works sometimes.
PART TWO
Dachau
The clouds were low and leaden. It was raining. Puddles formed here and there, turning the Appelplatz, the Roll Call Square, to mud. The weather, the cold rain, which outside Dachau was merely a nuisance, inside was a lethal menace. You had no protection from it. Your inadequate clothes soaked through and chilled your body and made you sick. Your broken-down shoes, which had already been worn out by someone else, collapsed into mush in the mud and rain, and scraped your heels raw so you walked in agony.
When you were not in Dachau you couldn’t imagine what life in there was like. Willi certainly hadn’t. And once you were in Dachau you could no longer remember what life was like out in the real world. These were two worlds apart. Eating, sleeping, walking, defecating, conversing, remaining silent, these were the banal and forgettable aspects of daily life out there. In Dachau nothing was banal or forgettable, and every aspect of daily life could mean the end.
The men had been awakened at four and had gotten their breakfast of thin gruel with a chunk of stale bread and coffee. They had straightened their beds, such as they were: a sack of straw, a threadbare sheet or light blanket, if you were lucky, laid out on wooden platforms stacked three high. There were about fifty men to a room, five rooms to a barracks, thirteen barracks altogether. More were being built by the current prisoners for all the new prisoners who would soon be arriving.
The men had cleaned their rooms, and now they marched in the rain down the alley between the barracks on the camp road that led to the Appelplatz. They were led by their kapo, a prisoner selected by the SS to oversee them. The kapos usually came from the criminal population who were all too eager to have advantages over the other prisoners. Their collaboration with the SS was rewarded with alcohol, drugs, even visits to the Dachau camp brothel, but, most of all, with being allowed to go on living.
The prisoners were required to sing while marching – folk songs, or Nazi songs, or anything else you could march to. You would be punished for not singing. Even music was a means of abuse and humiliation in Dachau. The kapo in charge decided what you sang. Today it was t
he Horst Wessel Song.
Raise high the flag! Our ranks are tightly closed!
The SA marches with a calm and steady step.
Our comrades, killed by red reactionaries,
March on in spirit with us in our ranks.
Make way the streets for all our brown battalions,
Make way the streets for all our SA men!
Millions look to the swastika with hope,
The day of liberty and bread is dawning now!
When they reached the Appelplatz, they stood at attention. Suddenly there was shouting and screaming behind them. Someone had fallen out of formation or looked around when he wasn’t supposed to. He was being battered and kicked to the ground. If you turned to look, the same thing might happen to you. You marched with your eyes on the neck of the man in front of you. You stared straight ahead while the roll was called. It could take hours, and you stood as long as you had to. You saw nothing, you heard nothing, except when a command was issued or your name was called.
Sergeant Gruber and his men had bundled Willi into the car and driven him back to the station. His head was bloodied, one eye was swollen shut. Just breathing hurt. He thought some ribs might be broken.
They put him in a holding cell, and handed him over to the Gestapo the next morning. The Gestapo sentenced him immediately to what was known as ‘protective custody,’ an arbitrary and indefinite sentence for the protection of German society from its ruinous elements. There was no trial. There never would be.
In Dachau, Willi’s personal information was taken down. His photograph was taken. He was stripped naked and given a perfunctory physical examination. Despite the huge purple and black bruises covering his body, his eye swollen shut, the cuts across his face, he was pronounced healthy and fit for work. His clothes were taken away. He was assigned a number, and given new striped prison clothes. The striped pants were too short. The striped jacket, also too small, had the red triangle badge and his number – 27944 – sewn on. The red triangle indicated he was a political prisoner, which meant that he, along with the Jews, was subject to the least consideration and the worst treatment.
The Constant Man Page 13