Ring of Fire IV

by Eric Flint

  The fingerprint department was a couple of older men who had recently been sent to Grantville for training. Mostly they took fingerprints with ink of convicted criminals or people arrested for various issues. This was only the second or third time they would be asked to try to develop prints from an object.

  Gotthilf pulled out a handkerchief and swaddled his hand before gingerly picking the envelope up at a corner. He didn’t expect much either, but it was worth trying.

  * * *

  He was back in less than an hour, carrying two familiar looking scraps of paper now somewhat smudged with fingerprint powder. “No visible prints on the envelope, and nothing clear on these,” he reported.

  “So what did we get this time?” Byron asked. “As if I can’t guess.”

  One was another newspaper article from the Magdeburg Times-Journal.

  Another mysterious murder of a woman has occurred in Magdeburg. The body of Anna Seyfart was discovered yesterday in an alleyway off of Canal Road in Greater Magdeburg. She is survived by her mother, Maria Züchner. Frau Züchner and Fräulein Seyfart’s friends ask for prayers for the soul of Fräulein Seyfart. “She was a good girl,” her mother said.

  The word “good” had been crossed out.

  As with the previous mailing, the second scrap of paper was a portion of a page from the Bible, again neatly cut out with a knife. And again, a block of text was outlined.

  And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

  “So what do we do next?” Gotthilf asked when Byron looked up, jaw muscles clenched and anger obvious on his face. The confirmation that they had been right to fear the presence of a serial killer in their city was not a good thing.

  “Wasn’t the pastor at St. Ulrich’s one of the pastors on the list Mayor Gericke said we should contact?” the up-timer asked through barely parted lips.

  “Yah.”

  Byron pivoted and grabbed his jacket. “Get the pictures and the other messages from the files, and then we go interview the pastor at St. Ulrich’s, is what we do.”

  “Right.”

  * * *

  “So talk to me about this Dr. de Spaignart,” Byron murmured as they waited in the narthex of St. Ulrich’s church.

  “Dr. de Spaignart is a very learned man, quite the writer,” Gotthilf replied. “Strong preacher, really well connected through both his family in Saxony and his connections with the congregation here. St. Ulrich’s parish is for the most part the eighth quarter of Old Magdeburg, and most of the wealthy and influential people live here.”

  “First Baptist Church,” Byron muttered. Gotthilf looked confused. “Never mind. How old is he?”

  Gotthilf shrugged. “I don’t know. He looks to be early forties.”

  “What kind of man is he supposed to be?”

  “According to my father, he’s a smooth talker, and really is smart about politics and economics in addition to theology. And he’s been known to argue with Matthias Decennius, the Caplan im Dom—the head pastor at the cathedral—at length over doctrinal issues.”

  “Not afraid of confrontation, then,” Byron said.

  “Definitely not,” Gotthilf replied.

  “You know him?”

  “A little. My father knows him better. This is our church.”

  “Shoulda guessed.” Two men, one older than the other, entered the narthex from an interior door. “You take the lead.”

  Dr. Christian Gilbert de Spaignart was an impressive man. Physically he was broad across the shoulders, with iron gray hair and a matching short-trimmed beard. He was shorter than Byron, but taller than Gotthilf, which was a description that covered most of the men in Magdeburg.

  He also dressed well; very well. By Gotthilf’s estimation—informed by more instruction from his mother than he cared to remember—the suit the good doctor was wearing was made of the finest wool he had ever seen, and probably cost more than all of Gotthilf’s clothing put together. Put that together with the way de Spaignart carried himself, and it was easy to be impressed.

  “Guten Tag, meine Herren.” Dr. de Spaignart spoke very precise German, if with a Saxon flavor. He was definitely not going to be conversing in Amideutsch, Gotthilf decided. “Mayor Gericke gave me to understand that you might be arriving for a conversation. With what may I be of assistance?”

  “I am Gotthilf Hoch,” Gotthilf responded, pulling out his badge wallet and flipping it open for display, “Detective sergeant in the Magdeburg Polizei. This is my partner Lieutenant Byron Chieske.” Byron had his badge out by then.

  De Spaignart glanced at both badges, then returned his gaze to Gotthilf. “Are you related to Johann Hoch?”

  “My father,” Gotthilf replied as he put the badge away.

  “Ah. I thought I recognized you. I have seen you in our congregation, have I not?”

  “Yah,” Gotthilf confessed, steeling himself for the next comment from the pastor.

  “Although not as often as I should.” De Spaignart’s eyes seemed to twinkle, and there was a hint of a smile flirting with the moustache and beard that framed his mouth.

  “Mea culpa,” Gotthilf said. “I plead that my work as a policeman has kept me extremely busy.”

  “It is a worthy work,” the pastor said, his smile broadening a bit, “but if you are so busy you cannot come to at least at least one service a week, you are perhaps busier than the Lord ever intended for you to be.”

  Gotthilf felt himself smiling back. “I will keep that in mind, Pastor.” He turned his gaze to the other man. “And this is?”

  “Ah, please excuse my oversight,” de Spaignart said. “This is my archidiakon, Laurentius Demcker.”

  Byron looked a bit confused until Gotthilf said, “That would be the assistant pastor, Byron.”

  Demcker, who looked to be a few years older than Gotthilf, said nothing but simply nodded.

  “I do not wish to appear impolite,” de Spaignart said, “but I am supposed to be in another meeting soon. What is it you wished to speak about?”

  Gotthilf pulled the two close-up photographs from his folder, tucked it under an arm, and held the pictures up before the two pastors. “Do either of you recognize these two women?”

  “Is there a reason why I should?” de Spaignart asked.

  “Because both of them were members of St. Ulrich’s congregation,” Byron spoke up in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Were?” de Spaignart was quick to notice. “Has something happened to them?” His eyes switched back and forth between the two detectives.

  “Do you recall reading the news stories of the two women recently murdered and found in alleyways in the exurb?” Gotthilf responded.

  “Yes. What—” de Spaignart stopped in mid-phrase as the connection occurred to him. “Are these the ones…” his voice trailed off.

  “Whose eyes were gouged out of their heads? Yes, sir,” Byron continued in the matter-of-fact tone.

  Demcker looked nauseated. De Spaignart controlled his face better than his assistant, but even his eyes widened.

  Gotthilf continued to hold the photographs up, and after a moment the senior pastor leaned forward a little and peered at them closely. “No,” he said after long scrutiny, “I do not recognize them. Laurentius, do you know them?”

  The younger man swallowed hard, then leaned forward and gave the photographs a long study of his own. At length he reached out and touched one of them. “Her,” he murmured. “I recognize her. She would come early to the mass and stay afterward, praying. She knew all of the songs, and sang loudly. Although not well.”

  Gotthilf turned the picture around. “Margrethe Döhren. Are you sure?”

  Demcker nodded. “Every Sunday, and sometimes during the week as well.”

  “Ah,” de Spaignart. “She is the one who would stand as close to the pulpit as she could get. Now I remember her.”

  “Can you tell us anything about her? Or about he
r friends?” Gotthilf asked.

  “I’m not sure I ever spoke with her outside of a service,” de Spaignart said. He looked to his assistant. “Have you, Laurentius?”

  The younger man thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I cannot think of anything at the moment.”

  Gotthilf pushed the other photograph forward a bit. “This is Anna Seyfart. Can either of you tell us anything about her?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  Gotthilf returned the photographs to the folder. “Thank you for your time, Dr. de Spaignart, Archidiakon Demcker, and please, if you can think of anything about these two victims, anything at all, please send a message to the police station. It might prevent another tragedy.”

  “Another?” the senior pastor pounced. “Is there a risk of another such murder?”

  Byron nodded. “Until we catch the murderer, there is a very real chance he will do it again.”

  “Shocking!” de Spaignart declared. “What is our world becoming, that such things will happen in the streets of a civilized city?”

  To which neither Gotthilf nor Byron responded. What could they say? The ability of man to kill or torture mankind should not be a surprise to someone who was well-read in the Bible, after all.

  “I really must be off to my meeting,” the senior pastor declared. “Good day, Lieutenant Chieske, Sergeant Hoch.” He nodded, then swept through the outer door.

  Demcker lingered for a moment. “Did these two…unfortunates…leave any family behind that we should be tending to?”

  Gotthilf nodded. “A sister for one, and a mother for the other.”

  “I will examine our rolls,” the archidiakon said. “We should look after them. Good day.” He turned and reentered the church proper, leaving the two detectives looking at each other.

  September 1635

  Gotthilf stared at the two files on his desk. Almost two months since the first murder and mutilation; over a month since the second one. No solutions yet. No one arrested. And despite the cooling of the Magdeburg weather as the seasons turned toward autumn, he and Byron were feeling the heat. The mayor’s office had asked for weekly updates; Frau Schneider and her customers—including his own mother—were keeping public interest stirred up; and there was a rumor that the Committees of Correspondence were taking note of the lack of closure of these two cases.

  The CoC. That was all they needed.

  Captain Reilly stepped into the room, looked at Byron and Gotthilf, and jerked his head toward the hallway. “My office. Now.”

  This time the two detectives were left standing after Reilly settled behind his desk.

  “Where do we stand on the murders?” the captain growled.

  “Döhren and Seyfart?” Byron asked.

  “No, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony,” Reilly snarled. “Of course Döhren and Seyfart. Do we have anything on them? Any leads? Any prospects of leads? Any hint of a suspect?”

  “No,” Byron shook his head.

  Gotthilf just looked at the In-box on the captain’s desk. There wasn’t much he could add to this conversation.

  “Why not?” The captain’s voice had an edge to it that would cut glass. It was doing a pretty good job of flaying them, Gotthilf thought.

  “Because we don’t have the forensics capabilities we need for a case like this,” Byron replied.

  Gotthilf decided to interject a comment. He couldn’t let Byron take all the heat. “And because the murderer is stone cold silent.”

  Reilly’s eyes swiveled to him. “What do you mean?”

  “He has said nothing to anyone,” Gotthilf said. “After this long a time, almost always we get some kind of feed, some kind of hint from the rumor mongers on the street. With this one, everyone is afraid, everyone is talking, but there is nothing that could be from the murderer. The only voice he’s given us are the two Bible verse excerpts he cut out and mailed to us.”

  “This guy is unnatural,” Byron picked up. “He’s not talking to anybody. And he’s sharp enough to not leave evidence behind. Nothing that we’ve been able to find. Photographs, magnifying glasses, primitive fingerprint kits and autopsies can only give you so much. Even if we had access to those DNA tests they were starting to roll out back in 2000 before the Ring fell, I doubt we’d have found anything that we could test.

  “Captain, we’ve done everything right,” Byron continued. “We’ve interviewed the family and friends, even casual acquaintances. We’ve canvased the neighborhoods along their usual paths. We’ve grilled the employers. We’ve been reduced to asking for rumors from the street people. I’m about to start taking out ads in the newspaper.”

  Byron ran his hand through his close cropped hair. “I’m absolutely certain that the same person committed both murders. I think the autopsy evidence proves that. I’d swear that there’s a sexual angle to this, but there is no evidence of rape: no semen, no signs of sexual activity at all, much less any bruising or abrasions or other signs of being forced. No indication even of penetration with foreign objects. Dr. Schlegel had to study up on it, but he was consequently very thorough in the autopsies. Nothing. Zip. Nada.”

  He sighed. “There’s a sexual agenda in play here. I can feel it. But I can’t figure out what it is.”

  Gotthilf watched Captain Reilly absorb all of that. Muscles played along the captain’s jawbone.

  “Do I need to assign someone else to this case?” the captain finally asked.

  Byron shook his head slowly. “No. We’ve kept the other detectives informed, in case they ran across anything that might apply. But they haven’t been able to think of anything else to add.”

  A long moment of silence passed. Gotthilf was starting to get very uncomfortable when Reilly finally said something.

  “You two are the best detectives we have. You have got to crack this case, and soon. The political pressure I’m getting on this is getting worse by the day. And the mayor let something slip this afternoon: if there’s another murder, if this isn’t solved soon, he may bring troops into the city to patrol the streets.”

  “God, no, Captain,” Byron blurted out an instant before Gotthilf did. “That will kill the Polizei if he does that. Nobody will believe us or trust us after that!”

  “Exactly,” Reilly ground out. “So I don’t care what you have to do, I don’t care whose coattails or skirts you have to lift, I don’t care whose tender feet you step on. Find. Me. This. Killer.” He stared at them for a moment. “Now.”

  Another long moment passed. “Is that clear?” the captain’s tone was level, but Gotthilf really didn’t want to be around if the captain ever spoke like that again.

  “Yes, sir,” the two detectives responded in unison.

  “Get it done. Now get out.”

  Next morning, Gotthilf found his steps slowing as he drew near the police station in the early morning light and saw Byron waiting for him by the wagon and driver they usually used. This time Nathaniel the photographer was waiting along with Byron, his kit already in the wagon.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said when he stopped next to his partner.

  “Okay,” Byron responded. “But get in.”

  They climbed into the wagon. Byron must have already instructed the driver where to go, because he shook his reins and clucked his horse into motion without a word from them. The horse was wheeled around and headed back east on Kristinstrasse, until the next corner, then turned north. They traveled six blocks, then stopped at the mouth of an alley.

  “Come on,” Byron growled as he jumped down and headed into the alley.

  Gotthilf and Nathaniel followed. “Where’s your assistant?” Gotthilf asked the photographer.

  “Flat on his back,” Nathaniel responded. “Fell off a step and broke a bone in his leg.”

  Gotthilf winced.

  “I think the lazy lout just got tired of carrying all this rig,” Nathaniel continued with a grin as he set his case down well away from the body.

  Gotthilf stood well back from the
body as Nathaniel unpacked his camera and set to work. Another young woman, laid out carefully with clothing neatly arranged. Looked like another working-class girl. Clothing was drab; from what he could see her shoes were worn. Ice gathered in his stomach as he saw that her face was round, and what he could see of her hair was either dark blonde or very light brown. He couldn’t see her face clearly yet, but at this point he was willing to bet she was missing her eyeballs.

  He and Byron were silent. There was nothing to be said at this point. Gotthilf took one look at his partner, but the narrowed eyes and the bunched muscles at the back of the jaw told him all he needed to know about the up-timer’s frame of mind.

  Of course, he realized as he felt his own teeth clenching that his mind was in the same state. He clasped his hands tightly behind his back to keep his fingers from unconsciously flexing, seeking to find the neck of the killer in their grasp.

  Gotthilf came out of his rage enough to realize that Byron had drifted over to stand beside him. He looked at his partner.

  “Was the captain really that angry yesterday?”

  Byron nodded, but said nothing for some time, watching Nathaniel work. He finally said, “Yeah, he was pretty pissed. Not so much at us, although he’s not happy that we’re taking so long. But the political heat he’s taking must be getting really bad, or he wouldn’t have let so much of it drop on us. And the bit about the army…”

  “That’s not good,” Gotthilf responded.

  “Nope.”

  “We’ve got to solve this case, and soon.”

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe we’ll find something with this one.”

  Byron just nodded. They turned and watched the photographer.

  Nathaniel seemed to take forever with his photographing, although Gotthilf figured it probably wasn’t any longer than any other crime scene “shoot,” as Byron called it. Finally he stepped back and started putting the camera equipment away.