It’s hot as hell in here, Willi thought, unbuttoning his coat.
“In Ephesians two, one to three, the Bible tells us, ‘And you were dead in the trespasses in which you once walked … carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.’”
That phrase again. It shot through Willi’s body. The gray gaze seemed to fix on him, as if the reverend knew precisely why Willi had entered those doors.
“What this passage means is not that people are evil, but that people are not capable of loving God as God wants to be loved. People’s fundamental instincts lead them to be selfish, to ignore God. But without God, even the good a person tries to do is corrupt. Only God can overcome man’s inability, his total depravity. It is through divine grace that children of glory can be fashioned from children of wrath.”
Willi’s cheeks burned.
He waited until the last parishioners had exited, then walked up to the pulpit. The reverend was gathering papers. When he saw Willi, he cocked his gray head, squinting curiously. “You’re new here.” He seemed to be trying to peer into Willi’s soul. “Have you been drawn to us? Did something I say touch you?”
Normally Willi preferred being ethical with people. But when solving crime was the name of the game, deception was often a valuable tactic. Rather than unveil his badge, he sensed he might get further with this chap by stroking the ego a bit.
“Very perceptive of you, Reverend. Yes. I’ve come face-to-face with a truly horrifying evil. When I spotted your billboard, I was drawn to see if you could help me understand. It’s incomprehensible to me that human beings, with so much love and kindness and desire to do good, can be, as you put it, so … depraved.”
“What’s your name, dear fellow?”
“Willi.”
“Willi. Come to my study, won’t you? Join me in a glass. I always need a little sustenance after my lectures. They take so much out of me.”
Slapping Willi’s shoulder, he led him into a sparse apartment behind the chapel. “People aren’t as depraved as they could be.” He motioned Willi to sit. “Everyone has a little good in him.” He poured them each some peppermint schnapps. “You can’t deny that.” He clinked Willi’s glass and smiled before downing his in a single gulp.
Willi partook in a little sip, as long as he had nothing particular to do at the office.
“But even though they’re not entirely corrupt”—the reverend coughed, knitting his gray brows—“what corruption they have extends to every part of them, and everything they do. Consider this.” He pointed at the bottle.
“Most delicious by the way.” Willi was grateful for the minty warmth flowing through his chest suddenly. Quite a wallop. He took a longer sip.
“Just my point. Add a single drop of cyanide, though—and we’d both be dead.” The reverend smiled sadly. “Because even though the bottle isn’t filled with it, that single corruption spreads to every part. Catch the analogy? People may not be completely evil, but the original evil they’re born with extends to everything they do. That’s what’s meant by Total Depravity.”
That Willi declined a second drink didn’t stop the reverend from pouring himself one. “Might it not be possible, though”—Willi watched him dump it down his throat again in one long gulp—“that some people have no goodness at all. That they really are totally depraved?”
The reverend pounded his chest several times and blinked at him. “I don’t get what you’re driving at.”
Willi was suddenly feeling the schnapps too, surprised by how strongly it was blanketing his brain.
“For instance, those who commit violent crimes.”
“You mean, like Cain and Abel—”
“I mean, Reverend Braunschweig, today, right here in Berlin—someone’s murdering little boys.” He hadn’t exactly planned to blurt that out, but liquor always made him loose-tongued. “Boiling their bones and using their dried muscle to bind them together into bizarre—”
He halted, seeing he’d pushed too far, too fast. The reverend was losing color. All that warmth in Willi’s heart transformed into trepidation. He was out of bounds here, he realized. If word ever reached headquarters he was trespassing on Freksa’s case, it wouldn’t be pretty. But screw it, he thought. The schnapps may have started it, but he’d be damned if he was going to stop now.
Besides, Freksa’d never follow this lead.
“Reverend, is there anyone you can think of, in your congregation, or at your lectures, or who showed any interest at all in the topic of Total Depravity who might be capable of such a—”
The reverend went white with confusion. Willi realized he’d left out the part about the Bible in the burlap bag, the circled passage from Ephesians: children of wrath. But it was too late. Braunschweig suddenly looked as if he feared the murderous maniac might be Willi himself.
“Reverend, I’m Sergeant-Detektiv Kraus, Berlin Kriminal Polizei.” He belatedly revealed his badge.
“A cop?” Braunschweig reeled as if he’d been hit by brimstone. “How dare you deceive me like that? Pretend you were here for spiritual guidance! And not even a Christian.” Color returned, bolting through his cheeks. “The moment you walked in, I thought, what’s this Jew doing here? Now I see. A most underhanded way of approaching an investigation, I must say.” His gray brows knit with indignation. “Perhaps that’s all one can expect from you people.”
“I might remind you it’s illegal to withhold information from the criminal police. Except, of course, in the case of the clergy. So I can’t order you to talk. Nor will I attempt to amend your beliefs about what to expect from me or ‘my people.’ But I do assure you little boys are being murdered in this city, Reverend. And that a very sick individual is on the—”
“Get out.” Braunschweig all but spit.
Willi picked up his hat. “Okay then.” He shrugged. “Thanks for the schnapps.”
As he reached the door, though, Braunschweig suddenly changed tunes.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake … I really didn’t mean that, Detektiv.”
Willi paused.
“You caught me off guard is all. You oughtn’t surprise a guy like that. Stay for another drink, Sergeant. Sit.”
The man, Willi saw, had something on his tongue.
The reverend quickly downed another schnapps, then another.
“I sure as hell don’t know anyone who’d fit the bill of horrors you just presented, but I can tell you this.” He looked at Willi, coughing, bleary-eyed but definitely aching to spill something. “Every congregation has its nuts. Over the years I’ve seen my fair share, believe me.” He took a moment to glance outside as if they were all there again, lined up outside his window. “Normally I pay no attention once they’re gone, but in this case…” He turned to Willi. “Several have joined what sounds like something straight out of a tawdry novel, only it’s not. It’s all too real.” His bushy eyebrows arched dramatically. “A satanic love cult. Yes, it’s true!” He leaned forward. “And the things that go on there, I’ve been told.” He had to steady himself on the table. “With children too.” His speech was slurring.
Braunschweig tried to aim his bloodshot gaze at Willi, but had a hard time fixing it there. “Their leader’s terribly charismatic, a very depraved figure … a former member here, a rather important one I’m ashamed to admit.”
With an uncertain mixture of gratitude and horror, Willi stuck a hand in his coat pocket. Was all this just a drunken rant? It sure sounded like it. But then again … He pulled out a notebook. “Go on, Reverend. You have no idea how much I appreciate this. What’s his name?”
“It’s not a him, Kraus. It’s my former wife, Helga Braunschweig.”
Six
Vicki stuck her head in the bathroom. “Ban’s been lifted.”
Under the shower spray, Willi wasn’t certain he’d actually heard right. “Huh?”
“Sausages … back on sale.”
His eyes widened so far shampoo dripped in. “Ow.” H
e hurriedly rinsed them. “You positive?”
“Just on the radio. They found the bacteria. Save some hot water for me, will you, darling?”
It would have been nice had someone informed him. Willi shut off the shower.
Over toast at breakfast, Erich looked at him with great, brown eyes.
“Vati, I’ve made a decision.”
“Have you.”
“Yes. I know what I’d like for Hanukkah.”
“And what might that be? Mind your crumbs.”
“A model Fokker triplane, like the Red Baron flew in the war.”
At least he was over the aquarium, Willi thought. “Well, I think that’s very wise, Erich. There’s a whole department for model planes at KDW. Surely they’ll have the Red Baron’s. We can go Saturday when I’m finished with work.”
“Can I come too?” the little one wanted to know.
“Of course, Stefan,” Willi assured him, though he realized Saturday was the day he’d hoped to poke around that preposterous “love cult” the reverend had told him about. Could it possibly be true? It seemed too outlandish. Even for Berlin. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Braunschweig had said, though: “With children too.” What exactly could that mean? He was almost too afraid to imagine. Clearly the line between fact and fiction got blurred under all that booze. But he’d given Willi an address card. A completely insane-looking thing with all sorts of pentagrams and Egyptian symbols on it: DIVINE RADIANCE MISSION, 143 BLEIBTREU STRASSE. CHARLOTTENBURG. A swank enough neighborhood. Still, the kids came first. Question was, which kids? His, or the ones whose bones had been boiled by a lunatic still on the loose? What he really ought to do was turn the whole thing over to Freksa.
The phone made him jump. So early in the morning?
It was Frau Doktor Riegler.
“Sorry I didn’t inform you, Sergeant.” She sounded a little sheepish. “We only confirmed it yesterday. And then, let’s just say politics was involved.”
Willi didn’t even want to know what she meant by that. Only where they’d found the bacteria. “Was it a peddler?”
“There’ll be a news conference at ten. Ninety-two Thaer Strasse. Central-Viehof. You’ll want to be there.”
* * *
From the platform of the S-Bahn station Willi could see into the otherworldly landscape of the Viehof across a wide river of tracks. Entirely encircled by high brick walls to obscure its more unsavory aspects, the acres of glass-roofed market halls, immaculate stockyards, high ramps, tunnels, and ultra-efficient slaughterhouses were among the engineering marvels of Berlin. This was Willi’s second trip here. How vividly he recalled the first a few weeks ago, a real grand tour. Just two days after visiting Strohmeyer’s Wurst works, it had completed his picture of the city’s meat industry, animal to sausage.
Viehof director Gruber himself had met him at the station in a shiny Daimler, confessing his admiration for the criminal police and a hopeless addiction to detective novels. It was a usual enough tactic to try to sweet-talk Kripo agents who were poking around your backyard, Willi knew. But Gruber had laid it on thick. “You boys at the Alex are the best.” He’d pumped Willi’s hand as if he were meeting a movie star. “And we at the Viehof—not so very different, if I may sing our own praises. Healthy meat’s no more a luxury these days than law and order, don’t you agree? We all labor for the public good.”
An elephantine man with a thin mustache, he oozed professional pride.
“Before 1882,” he proclaimed as they were chauffeured down Eldenaer Strasse toward the Viehof entrance, “anyone could butcher animals wherever they wanted to in Berlin. Quite a mess, actually. Then everything was brought here, into one municipally run facility. Today we have nearly eleven hundred operators, large and small, leasing space under our rules and supervision. A most propitious arrangement.”
Past the main gates, the avenues, filled with trucks and carts and horse-drawn wagons, were lined with handsome buildings in traditional North German brickwork, from deep reds to honey golds. Gruber pointed out the administrative center, the telegraph offices, the archives, the commodities exchange, the veterinary labs. There were cafeteria-style restaurants, coffeehouses, beer halls. Stores selling every sort of supply from cleavers and hooks to hip boots and aprons. Even a kiosk of Loeser & Wolff, Berlin’s best-known tobacconists, if Willi cared for a cigar.
“We have fifty-seven buildings on a hundred and twenty acres. Fifteen miles of paved streets. Five thousand people who earn their daily bread here. The Viehof itself employs veterinarians, meat inspectors, sample takers, even our own fire department.”
On the east side were the stockyards and sales halls. On the west, the slaughterhouses and by-product installations. Joining the two, a series of tunnels enabling livestock to be herded from one to the other. It was Wednesday, market day, so Gruber suggested they stop by and see how it all worked.
The glass-roofed cattle market was so enormous Willi had barely been able to see the other end, and so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. Endless rows of corrals were filled with countless varieties of steer, and an equal number of men in hats and overcoats screaming offers and counteroffers. Gruber’d pointed out how the butchers’ agents examined the gaze, the mouths, even the breaths of the livestock they were interested in. A healthy cow had bright eyes, a moist nose, easy breathing. A sick one had crusty nostrils, heavy eyes, a hanging tongue. The moment a sick beast was detected, it was sent to a special quarantine ward. Executed. Sterilized. Sold to the poor as Freibank. But few sick ones ever made it this far, Gruber assiduously assured.
Like everyone on this case, the Viehof Direktor had been trying to convince Willi the Listeria outbreak could not possibly have originated here—an entirely understandable impulse.
“Our animals arrive from all over Europe. Veterinary and meat inspections are an integral aspect of our work. Before any livestock ever reaches the stables, much less the trading floors, every animal is inspected at the ramp. Come, I’ll show you.”
He’d taken Willi to the Entladenbahnhof, the enormous rail station inside the Viehof linked directly to the Ringbahn, the system of rails encircling Berlin. Here, arriving tracks branched into multiple ramps, each capable of unloading a twenty-wagon freight train. A separate disinfection ramp contained a facility capable of cleaning empty train cars at a rate of fifty per hour. When it functioned as designed, the process went like clockwork, Gruber boasted.
The shrill shriek of a steam whistle turned their heads in unison. A giant black locomotive was pulling in with its load.
“I wish I could say I arranged it for you, Herr Sergeant. But these transports arrive with frequent regularity. Now you can see the whole show.”
The train of twenty wooden freight cars rumbled up, originating, Willi saw, from a town in Poland. The journey, Gruber told him, had taken eleven hours. An ear-piercing screech of brakes brought the whole thing to halt. Jumping from the locomotive, the conductor looked down the length of the train, and when teams of attendants were ready by each wagon, he blew a whistle. Simultaneously all twenty sealed doors were flung open, and like a dam burst, a flood of pink pigs poured from each car, squealing, snorting, screaming, grunting, driven by men with sticks. Channeled down ramps into single files, they were met by teams of veterinary police in long canvas smocks. Before they were allowed into a holding pen, each creature had to pass muster. Most made it inside, awaiting further herding to the stockyards and market day. The few who did not were driven down a ramp directly to oblivion. In either case their fate was sealed. Once they arrived, Gruber had chuckled, the only way an animal ever left the Viehof was in quarters, hinds, or cutlets.
They’d driven through a gate to the western zone, down avenues lined with giant redbrick structures, each several football fields long with towering smokestacks at the end. They might have been factories, machine shops, or tool sheds. But these, Gruber explained, were the slaughterhouses. Seven of them, processing eight thousand animals per day. Nearly 3
million per year. The shiny black Daimler halted.
Blocking the road in front of them, a herd of sheep had emerged from a tunnel fresh from the market halls. Baying and bleating by the hundreds, they were driven by men with sticks up numbered ramps—26, 27, 28—into the nearest brick building and forced one by one through swinging doors.
“Care to see how it’s done?” Gruber’d asked.
Willi looked at the fleecy, white bodies pushing up against each other as they pressed inside. A man wearing hip boots and a long, white apron was standing at the door smoking. His apron, Willi saw, was splattered with blood. He shook his head no thanks. He didn’t need to see. But for a guy who’d killed his fair share of humans, it was kind of embarrassing.
Gruber just smiled. “Most visitors don’t want to. I understand. I assure you, though, it’s as humane as we can make it. Basically, the animals never know what hits them. They’re isolated by sliding grates. Immobilized, stunned, suspended, bled from the throat. Then they’re flayed, scraped, gutted, hacked. Conveyed by overhead carriers to the cold chambers. Once there, each carcass is inspected for parasites and other signs of disease. Then they’re divided into meat and nonmeat parts. That’s one of the cold-chamber buildings there.” Gruber pointed to a massive windowless structure down the road.
“The temperature never rises above thirty-five degrees. Butchers rent separate areas and draw on supplies as business requires. After leaving the Viehof, the better meats go to the wholesale market across Landsberger Allee, where they’re purchased by dealers who ship them to the Central Market at Alexanderplatz or directly to retail shops. Beef, generally, is sold by the side. Pigs, sheep, calves, usually are transported as whole carcasses to be made into sausages, hams, or cold cuts in private shops.”
“What’s that?” Willi’d asked of the hexagonal tower rising seven or eight stories like a medieval castle.
“The old water tower. No longer in use. Kind of creepy, huh?” Gruber’d laughed. “Maybe we should rent it out for one of those vampire movies. The modern one’s over there, above the engine house. Five forty-eight-horsepower engines feed the whole hydraulic system. Naturally, we’re stricter than the army about cleanliness. All our facilities, slaughter, storage, stockyards, are equipped not only with excellent ventilation and light, but plentiful water at maximum pressure. Everything has to be constantly hosed down. Even the floors here have gutters so that drainage can be discharged.”
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