Densmore glanced around at nothing while his hands fidgeted in his pockets. “Look, the methods are not the same, but if—I’m just saying if—you set aside the method of murder and consider the idea that these guys are pros, then, yeah, I can see the possibility.”
“Then there’s the three German gang leaders. Same execution-style murders, probably with silencers, a quick in and out, without anyone seeing. And think about this: They had to know of an imminent bust at the Steinadler, and know to wait out back and let Giessen, Bachmann, and Plöbsch come to them.”
“Oh, come on. Now you’re reaching.”
“Then you’re not going to like the next part. I believe that an ex-OSS agent and an American major managing the Casa Carioca are in league with some ex-SS officers in taking over the black market operations in this town—hell, this whole area. And my bet is there are more behind them. In fact, I was betting you were getting kickbacks to cover it all up.”
Densmore’s face twisted in anger. “I ought to break your neck.”
“I wouldn’t recommend trying.”
“I don’t know what you’re playing at here, but I’m going to make a point to not give a damn.”
Mason decided against saying any more. He’d let Densmore dangle a bit from the hook.
Densmore said, “Word of your antics has gotten to the provost marshal of Bavaria, Colonel Walton. He’s making noise about getting you out of Germany.”
“Yeah, Colonel Walton’s threatened me before, back when I worked under him in Munich. Said he was going to bust me down to private and transfer me to a border patrol in the mountains. He likes to blow a lot of hot air.”
“Well, he blew it our way, because Colonel Udahl is ordering you to his office. I’m not expending energy to keep you here out of the goodness of my heart. I need an experienced investigator. You go, and all that’s left of my CID detachment are kids still wet behind the ears. I’m asking you as a fellow cop, don’t screw this up any more than you already have. Okay?”
Densmore walked away, and Abrams asked, “What do you think? Did we net one?”
“I don’t know. First he’s trying to throw a monkey wrench into this case, and the next minute he’s just trying to save his skin. He’s afraid of something, and he knows more than he’s letting on.”
“I don’t see him having the ambition or imagination of a big player,” Abrams said.
Mason nodded as he considered that. “Continue to supervise here. Try to put on some pressure. One of them might talk. I’ll go see what the colonel has up his sleeve.”
“You think he’s slipped into our net?”
Mason shook his head. “He’s one of the good guys.” He started to go, then turned back to Abrams. “At least, I think he is.”
* * *
Colonel Udahl’s office was on the top floor of the Rathaus. As a regional military governor, Udahl had been awarded the former mayor’s office, though it was said that he rarely occupied said office. Instead, he was often absent, touring his domain, attending numerous ceremonies and political forums. A real hands-on kind of man, some said, while others claimed that “his highness” left the running of his kingdom to others while enjoying the royal perks of the job.
Colonel Udahl’s sergeant secretary snapped to when Mason entered Udahl’s outer office. “I’ll let the colonel know you’re here.”
The colonel’s outer office was meant to impress visitors. Framed photographs filled the walls, all of the colonel, of course: several with the colonel in African hunting gear kneeling before a dead lion or a rhinoceros with his high-powered rifle; the colonel reading a map with attentive staff; the colonel in uniform as the governor, inspecting troops in Munich or speaking at a podium to a large group of German businessmen; the colonel shaking hands with the man himself—Ike. Curiously, none from the war. Then, in one corner, completely incongruous with the rest of the décor, hung an intricately carved Black Forest cuckoo clock. The clock reminded Mason of a similar one belonging to the depraved killer he’d hunted in Munich. The memory almost made him shudder.
The sergeant came out again and announced as if admitting someone to the king’s court, “The colonel will see you now.”
Mason entered a large office with wide windows overlooking the town and the inky black silhouette of the mountains. A sofa and chairs—austere considering the colonel’s reputed champagne taste—sat at one end, with a boat-sized desk at the other. Colonel Udahl and, to Mason’s surprise, General Pritchard, sat enjoying cigars in the high-backed chairs like two men at a gentlemen’s club discussing the stock market or world domination.
Mason had expected a sharp reprimand for turning the town upside down in arresting the German suspects, the excessive use of valuable MP manpower, or bamboozling Major Gamin. Instead, Udahl offered him a cigar, which Mason declined. They invited him to sit. He declined that as well, thinking it bizarre to deliver a report about the five murders at the Kantos house, including a child, as if recounting an amusing story with a couple of the old boys. They insisted, so he sat in a chair facing Udahl, still refusing the cigar. Pritchard took the honorary spot on the sofa.
“You wanted to see me, sirs?” Mason asked once he’d settled into the plush cushions.
Pritchard gave him a serious look. “General Clay has expressed great interest in your investigation.”
“General Clay?” Mason said, stunned. As the deputy military governor of Germany’s American zone of occupation, General Clay was the second most powerful American in the country.
Pritchard arched an accusatory eyebrow. “Someone sent him copies of your daily reports.”
“My . . . I don’t get it. Who would do that, and why?”
“We were wondering the same thing,” Udahl said. “In fact, we suspected you, knowing your reputation for ignoring the chain of command.”
Mason trolled through the handful of people familiar with the case, but couldn’t think of who would have done such a thing, unless . . . Gamin, the old, crafty buzzard, knew more about what was happening around him than he let on.
“You haven’t answered us, Mr. Collins,” Pritchard said.
“It wasn’t me, and I have no idea who would.”
Pritchard said, “Considering General Clay’s acute interest, I thought it prudent to come down here myself and converse with Colonel Udahl about the situation. As you know, I’ve been interested in your case from the start, but now that General Clay is concerned, I am doubly so. In fact, I’m so interested that I halted the shipment of Agent Winstone’s remains back to the States and ordered an immediate autopsy.” He looked directly into Mason’s eyes. “They found the missing parts of Hilda Schmidt’s face.” He paused. “They were in Agent Winstone’s esophagus and stomach. Unchewed. In fact, by the lacerations and swelling in the back of his mouth and throat, it’s clear that he was forced to swallow them.”
A moment of silence passed. Mason tried to push away the images of those last horrible moments in Winstone’s and Hilda’s lives.
Udahl broke the silence. “Obviously Agent Winstone was murdered, and we want you to do everything in your power to find his killers. We’re behind you all the way.”
Pritchard said, “Because we have copies of your reports sent to General Clay, we’re up to speed on your investigation.”
“These recent arrests of Germans,” Udahl said, “I assume you have something on these men to keep them in custody.”
“Nothing specific, but they’re all known offenders. Plus, all of them were identified by a reliable informant. And, please, sirs, don’t ask me to tell you who—”
“Is it Adelle Holtz?” Udahl asked.
That stopped Mason cold.
“She was with you the evening of Winstone’s death, was she not?”
“Yes . . .”
“What do you personally know about Fräulein Holtz?”
“I haven’t seen her since that night,” Mason said, lying instinctively, though unsure why.
“Well, if you had any plans to do so, you should know her background,” Udahl said as he reached around the chair and plucked a file off a small table. He handed it to Pritchard, who opened the file and began to read:
“Adelle Katrina Holtz, a.k.a. Elizabeth Hertz, a.k.a. Katrina Hirsch. To her credit, she was kicked out of the girls’ version of the Hitler Youth, but then she married an SS lieutenant. After his death, she was sent to a labor camp. She got out of that by becoming the mistress of a particularly fervent Nazi thug, the deputy gauleiter of Salzburg, Josef Klee. That is, until she was caught with the man’s personal valet. After the war, she was arrested in Munich for black marketeering and jailed for four months. She came to Garmisch in September of last year.”
The idea that Adelle had been intimate with a high-placed Nazi shocked and disappointed Mason. It seemed in this town, lies and deceptions were everyone’s game. “One of my main suspects is a Frieder Kessel. He’s the assistant manager at the Casa Carioca. Do you have anything on him?”
Pritchard set down Adelle’s file and looked to Udahl, who turned and pulled out another folder from his short stack. “Hauptsturmführer Frieder Kessel, the Ninth SS Panzer Division, awarded the gold German Cross and Knight’s Cross. He was captured in Austria and held for six months. He’s clean as far as war crimes go—unless you count him being a member of the SS. Nothing to indicate he’s taken up a life of crime.”
“Do you have any other suspects?” Pritchard asked.
“I don’t have concrete evidence linking anyone, yet,” Mason said, “but I’m looking at Kessel and a Major Schaeffer running criminal operations out of the Casa Carioca—”
“The Casa Carioca?” Udahl said. “Impossible. Do you realize how many of the army’s top brass and MG officials go in and out of there? It’s sponsored by, and for, the U.S. Army. It’s like saying that because there are a few crooked congressmen, Congress is a criminal base of operations.”
“I tend to agree with that idea, but that’s another subject.”
“Investigate whom you like, but don’t involve the club.”
“I’m sure Mr. Collins can be discreet,” Pritchard said and turned back to Mason. “Investigate whom and where the case calls for. We’ll not stand in your way.” He turned to Udahl. “Why don’t we show Mr. Collins what we have on Major Schaeffer?”
Udahl reached for Schaeffer’s folder. “This file is classified. You will not share this information with anyone, refer to it in written reports, or use it as evidence without General Pritchard’s or my permission. Is that understood?”
When Mason nodded, Udahl continued, “Major Frederick Walter Schaeffer, born in Berlin in 1905. Emigrated to England in 1913, then to the U.S. in 1920. Joined the army in ’26. In 1940 he trained with the British Special Operations Executive in Canada, and then joined the OSS two years later. He participated in several operations behind enemy lines in France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, employing anti-Nazi Germans and escaped Polish and Russian POWs in demolition, sabotage, and targeted assassinations. Some of his methods are reported to have been excessive, even cruel. He was accused of theft and extortion, kidnapping and murder, but nothing was ever corroborated. However, he was such a successful operative that these allegations were dismissed, and he was awarded the Silver Star and Legion of Merit.”
Udahl looked up from the file. “You’d better have more than hunches and innuendo to go after this man.”
Mason said nothing, though he thought plenty: The man was an expert in espionage, sabotage, and assassinations, and he recruited ex-POW Poles. Skills he had carried out in the service of his country also made him formidable and dangerous in times of peace.
“As a matter of fact,” Udahl continued, “General Clay is very concerned about you mentioning in your reports that you suspect high-ranking officers are involved in this crime spree. I want to emphasize again, if it looks like you’re pushing against the army hierarchy, we want to be able to show them irrefutable evidence as to why. You run everything by me or General Pritchard. Everything. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Mason said and pointed to the stack of files. “I don’t suppose you have a file on a Sturmbannführer Ernst Volker, do you? An ex-Gestapo interrogator and a war criminal?”
Udahl shook his head. “I don’t recognize that name.”
“Is he one of your suspects?” Pritchard asked.
Mason told them about his suspicion that Volker had identified him at the Steinadler, and he recounted Volker’s brutal interrogation techniques during the war. “He’s associated somehow with this gang turf war. My informant puts Volker and Schaeffer together on one occasion.” Before either of them could voice another warning about hunches, Mason asked, “What about a Lester Abbott? Possibly ex-OSS, as well?”
Pritchard looked at Udahl. Something passed between them. Udahl asked, “What do you have on him?”
“His name keeps coming up in my investigations. But no one can give me a description or tell me where I might find him.”
“We’ll check out his name and get back to you,” Pritchard said.
“Another classified file?”
“I assume you have no evidence linking him, either,” Udahl said.
“I find it interesting that both Schaeffer and Abbott were OSS.”
“Because they were in the same organization does not make them guilty by association. The same could be said about you and Agent Winstone being in G2 together.”
“Is there some question as to my involvement in Winstone’s murder?”
Pritchard glanced at Udahl with a look of irritation. “I think we can move on. Have you made any progress in determining where Winstone might have hid his secret files?”
Mason shook his head. “A search of his office and safe didn’t turn up anything.”
“What about your informant? Could he yield more information?”
“I’m working on it,” Mason said with a look that said he would say no more.
Udahl looked at Pritchard, who shook his head.
“All right, Mr. Collins,” Udahl said. “That’s all for now.”
They stood and shook hands.
“Be sure to keep us informed,” Pritchard said. “And if you need help plowing through the army’s red tape, come to us. As we’ve said, General Clay has taken a keen interest in this case. Therefore, we’ve taken a keen interest, so don’t disappoint us.”
NINETEEN
Mason lit a cigarette as he moved down the sidewalk on Hauptstrasse. It was after eleven P.M., but the later hour had done nothing to thin out the crowd of revelers. People still packed the bars and restaurants, or were spilled out onto the sidewalks, and had now spent hours consuming ample quantities of alcohol. Couples or groups of soldiers staggered along, laughing or yelling over each other in drunken competition.
Before Mason returned to the chaos at the Sheridan barracks, he needed time to think. Learning about Adelle’s affair with a Nazi gauleiter weighed on him, but what occupied his mind more was that something puzzled him about the meeting with Pritchard and Udahl. It aggravated him like a buzzing around his ear. Usually he could pick it out right away, but not this time. Maybe he was slipping. Maybe it was because he had the unnerving feeling everyone had been being playing him for a sap—Winstone, Adelle, Densmore, Kessel . . . possibly even Gamin and Udahl—and being played had dulled his senses.
Mason came abruptly out of his thoughts when he had to dodge two army corporals and their German dates stumbling down the sidewalk and oblivious to their surroundings. One couple was so inebriated that they made a dash across the street in front of a moving car. The car screeched to a halt, the sound making Mason turn.
That was when he saw the car’s backseat window roll down just far enough for someone to stick out the barrel of a Tho
mpson submachine gun. Aimed directly at him.
Mason threw himself behind a parked car just as the machine gun fired. Bullets shattered the concrete wall where he’d been standing a split second earlier. The deadly spray followed his leap for cover. Bullets slammed into the car’s metal body and blew out windows.
Mason lay flat against the car’s rear wheel, curling his body for precious cover. Fragments of glass showered down. He could hear bullets, spent from piercing the car’s body, ricochet around the vehicle’s interior. What seemed like minutes had lasted seven seconds. Then the engine roared, and the shooter’s car sped down the street.
Mason leapt to his feet and pulled out his .45. He fired at the car’s back window. The window exploded inward, but the car continued on and disappeared.
Just above the ringing in his ears, he heard a woman screaming, people yelling as they emerged from the various bars and nightclubs.
Mason leaned against the car and noticed his gun hand shaking.
* * *
The skating show was in full swing when Mason blew past the Casa Carioca’s maitre d’. The man sputtered protests, but they were quickly drowned out by the band music. Mason wove through the standing-room-only crowd and between the tables. The waiters spotted him and stopped in their tracks. One of them put his tray down and tried to intercept him, but Mason held up his CID badge with such violence that the waiter hesitated.
Weissenegger, the boxer-turned-bodyguard, met him at the base of the stairs.
“Army business,” Mason said. “I don’t have a quarrel with you. Step out of the way, or I will arrest you.”
Weissenegger glared at Mason as he stepped aside. Mason bounded up the stairs. When he reached the landing, he looked back. None of the waiters or muscle had followed him, and the patrons were all paying attention to their drinks, their dates, or the show. Mason turned and entered the hallway. Kessel and Boris, his bodyguard, came out of Kessel’s office and stood in the middle of the hallway as if to block Mason from going any farther.
“You look upset, Mr. Collins,” Kessel said.
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