Grantville Gazette, Volume XII

by Eric Flint

  He mused as he scraped the blade over his cheeks, flicking the suds and bristles against the nearby wall. The razor and the mirror were all he had left of his grandfather, the man who had practically raised him. Old Grandpa Horace had been a hard man, but he'd made sure that Harold had grown up strong. The old man seemed to live forever, but when he died, all that Harold had wanted from his effects was the razor and the mirror. He remembered watching Grandpa shave on Saturdays: the careful stropping of the razor, the ritual of mixing the shaving soap in the mug and brushing it on the sunken cheeks and knobby chin, the watchful examination of the face in the small mirror and careful movements of the hand with the razor. He wouldn't say that he missed the old coot, but something had left his life when they put that pine box in the ground back behind the hill country house where he'd lived and died.

  The mirror was very old now, and the silver backing was clouding and pulling away from the glass. Harold wouldn't use anything else though. Sometimes he thought he saw Grandpa Horace looking back at him from that tarnished image with an expression like those he used to have when he would take that razor strop to Harold. Sometimes he shivered, sometimes he laughed, but always there was a cold feeling to his spine.

  There was a noise behind him. In the cloudy glass he saw the unlocked door of his room open—stupid mistake, Harold, he thought he heard his grandpa say—and Death step through.

  * * *

  Benedikt looked at the body of Harold Baxter lying at his feet, and cursed roundly and soundly and at great length. "Dead, just like Vogler," he said through clenched teeth, "and just as useless to us." He looked to where Ebert was holding up the length of copper rod, examining the blood and hair on it with every evidence of interest. "Ebert!" Startled, his brother looked to him. "Drop that."

  "Okay." The rod clanged to the floor.

  The room was a mess. Some of the furniture had been overturned; filth was everywhere. Benedikt looked around. "He said he would have the merchandise here this morning. Now where . . ." His eyes lit on the strange chest sitting on the bed. The smile that had started to blossom turned into a thunderous frown instead when he saw the locks on the chest. They had to be up-time work. A close look confirmed that, and also confirmed that they would be hard-pressed to open them. The chest, on the other hand, looked to be less strong.

  "Ebert, bring that rod here."

  "But Ben, you told me to drop it."

  Deep breath. "Ebert, bring me the rod."

  "Okay."

  Just as Benedikt was about to take the rod in hand, there was a click-click from the doorway.

  * * *

  Gotthilf muttered to himself as they turned away from Master Glöckner's shop. He assumed his expression was sour. It should be, to match his feelings.

  Byron looked over at him as they started back up the street. "Hey, so we missed Baxter. They said he was going back to his room."

  "But if I hadn't taken that wrong turn, we would have seen him on the street."

  "It's okay, partner. If that's the only thing that goes wrong today, we'll be ahead of the game."

  Gotthilf was still frowning when they arrived at the inn where Lang said Baxter lived. They found the innkeeper, who told them which room was the up-timer's, then inquired as to whether he was in some kind of trouble. "Because if he is, take him away. I'll miss his silver, but not his custom."

  They had just started up the stairs, when they heard a clang sound. Byron reached for his pistol, so Gotthilf followed his partner's lead. They soft-footed it up the stairs and down the hall to Baxter's room. It was no great surprised to find the door standing open. The sight of the body lying on the floor was a bit of a shock. It wasn't the first dead person Gotthilf had ever seen, though—working with Byron, it wasn't even the third or fourth.

  He watched as Byron edged around to where he could see more of the room. Byron waved him over, so Gotthilf stepped over to stand beside his partner. They could see two blond headed men in the room, standing next to the bed, with one of them holding some kind of stick or club. When Byron cocked his pistol, Gotthilf did as well.

  "Police!" Byron yelled, and they burst into the room. "City Watch! Up against the wall! Hands on the wall!"

  They moved the shocked suspects away from the bed and over to a blank stretch of wall, where they forced them to face the wall and put their hands on it. Paying no attention to the babbling from one of the men, Byron stepped back over to the bed. "Hmm, up-time footlocker, has to be from Grantville. And it's got Harold Baxter's name stenciled on it, so . . ." Gotthilf kept his attention—and pistol—on the two men, but watched out of the corner of his eye as Byron turned to the corpse, ". . . this must be the illustrious Mr. Baxter. Let's see if there's anything to confirm that."

  Gotthilf turned a little so he could see Byron roll the corpse to one side and pull something from a pocket on the back of the trousers. "One up-time wallet, complete with expired West Virginia driver's license made out to one Harold N. Baxter. Harold," Byron intoned, "you weren't very pretty at your best, but you're definitely pretty sad now that these two reshaped your head for you."

  "We did nothing, I tell you!" one of the suspects shouted. "He was like that when we got here."

  "Right." The sarcasm in Byron's voice was so thick it was almost visible to Gotthilf. "You just stopped in to see an old friend, and just happened to be holding what looks like the murder weapon when we came in. Tell that to the magistrate."

  * * *

  The magistrate! Benedikt's thoughts were whirling. If this had happened to someone else, he'd be laughing right now, but unless something happened soon it looked like he and Ebert were going to hang for a murder they hadn't committed. The irony of the fact that he had been fully prepared to kill Baxter almost sickened him. How could they get out of this? Even in his extremity, he wasn't thinking of letting Ebert take the blame alone. There had to be a way out.

  "Baxter's dead," the tall one repeated. Then came the interruption.

  "Baxter's dead, just like Vogler," Ebert recited.

  Benedikt watched as the two watch men first stared at Ebert, then turned to stare at each other. Seizing the moment, he pushed off from the wall and caromed into the short one, sending him flying into his taller partner. He grabbed his brother's arm. "Run, Ebert!"

  * * *

  Gotthilf rolled off of Byron and looked up in time to see the last of the suspects going out the door. Byron sprang to his feet and sprinted after them. Gotthilf looked around for his pistol, and saw it on the floor near Byron's .45 automatic. He grabbed both and ran for the stairs.

  He saw Byron leap from the top of the stairs, and arrived in time to see him land on the talkative suspect just as he was about to make the turn for the final steps and run for the outer door. They sprawled on the landing, and the suspect yelled again, "Run, Ebert."

  Gotthilf hurried down the steps, but couldn't get past the two men wrestling on the landing. He looked up, expecting to see the one named Ebert running out the door. Instead, there was a loud crack as the man wrenched the end banister post loose from the stairs and lifted it, obviously intending to use it as a club.

  "Stop!" Gotthilf yelled. "Stop!" He raised his pistol. The large man ignored him, lifting the post.

  The sound of his pistol firing surprised Gotthilf, and again it fired. He hadn't been conscious of firing the double-tap that Byron had drilled him in. Two red dots appeared in the chest and abdomen of his target, and began to spread. The post dropped from hands that seemed to lack strength. The big man staggered a step, said, "Ben . . ." and collapsed on the steps leading up to the landing.

  "A little help here, partner," Byron yelled. Gotthilf shook off his shock, stepped down another step and leaned forward to point his revolver between the eyes of the other suspect. "Care to make it three bodies?" Byron asked.

  With that, the man went limp, head twisted toward the other suspect, tears running down his cheeks.

  * * *

  After additional police arrived to
take charge of the two suspects, living and dead, Byron and Gotthilf returned to Baxter's room. The disarray, the filth, the twisted corpse, all seemed surreal to Gotthilf, especially on the heels of what had already happened. Byron had him stand in the doorway to keep others out while he tried to gather what little evidence there might be besides the copper rod with clotted blood and hair.

  "He hasn't been dead long," Byron pronounced. "No signs of rigor mortis yet. The blood on his face is still a bit tacky, even. Hello, what's this?" Gotthilf watched him pick something out of the corpse's right hand. "An old-fashioned straight razor. Not exactly the weapon I'd choose for a fight to the death, old man, but it looks like you got surprised, and you use what you have, I guess. Got any of that waxed paper, Gotthilf?"

  He shook himself, and pulled a couple of sheets of the stuff from a pocket and handed them to his partner.

  "Thanks." Before wrapping the razor in a piece of the paper, Byron looked at it pretty closely. "Hmm. Well, I don't see any cuts on your face, old man, so the blood I see here must have come from whoever you were fighting with." Byron stopped in mid-wrap. "Gotthilf, did you see any cuts on those two?"

  He thought for a moment. "No, no cuts or blood before they went down the stairs."

  "Hmm. Okay, that's odd."

  Byron started back to the body, then stopped dead in the middle of the floor. He pulled a large pair of tweezers from a pocket, bent down and picked something up with them. "Gotthilf, come see what you make of this."

  It was a piece of flesh, flat, not too thick, smooth on two sides with mostly rounded edges except for the raw edge that cut in a diagonal. "I don't know," Gotthilf replied after looking at it closely. "What do you think it is?"

  "I think it's an earlobe," Byron said. "And I think it was cut from the ear of Baxter's attacker with this razor." He muttered something.

  "What?"

  "It looks like our boy downstairs may have been telling the truth. They may not have killed Baxter. No cuts, no mutilated ears." He wrapped the piece of ear in another sheet of the waxed paper.

  Gotthilf felt as if he had been pole-axed. "I shot an innocent man?"

  "No." Byron wheeled and stared at Gotthilf intently. "You shot a man in defense of your partner. Make no mistake about it. If he'd hit me with that piece of oak, I'd be a body downstairs on the floor instead of what's his name—Ebert. They may be innocent of Baxter's murder, but they're guilty of something, I'd stake my life on it. In fact, I already have, and I owe you for the fact that I'm still breathing."

  Gut churning, Gotthilf relaxed a little. "All right. But if they didn't do it, who did?"

  "This was a crime of passion," Byron said. "Look at Baxter." He pointed to the corpse's head. "It's all beaten in. Someone beat him well past the point of his death. That only happens when there's a relationship of some kind. Someone who knew him."

  "Okay," Gotthilf focused his thoughts on the issue. "So who knows him? Lang," he answered his own question.

  Byron frowned. "I doubt it. First of all, I don't think the man could muster this much passion about anything." Gotthilf nodded. "And second, we've had someone watching him all day, remember?" Gotthilf nodded again with a rueful expression. "How about Leonora or one of the other streetwalkers?"

  Gotthilf thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, she was too afraid. And even if she wasn't, she'd have used a knife—any of them would."

  Byron started muttering to himself again. Gotthilf's focus wandered, until it lit on the copper rod, now slightly bent, lying on the floor. The blood and hair proved it was the murder weapon. Copper . . . copper . . . copper . . . He stiffened, then headed for the door. "Come on. We may be too late."

  * * *

  For once, Byron had to hustle to keep up with his shorter partner, whose legs were churning and driving him down the streets. Gotthilf gasped out enough of an explanation as they ran for Byron to understand his reasoning and where they were going. They slowed to a walk when their destination came into sight. Gotthilf grabbed Byron's sleeve and pointed to blood drops on the threshold and a blood smear on one of the door posts, about the height where someone would rest a hand. Byron clapped his partner's shoulder in congratulations, then pounded on the door.

  "Police! City Watch!"

  No response.

  Another thunder of fist on door. "Police, Meister Glöckner. We know you're in there. You really don't want us shouting our business to the entire neighborhood." And the neighborhood was definitely paying attention.

  After a moment, the door opened to reveal the glowering visage of Meister Alaricus. "Come in, then, if you must."

  "I'm afraid we must." Byron brushed by him, Gotthilf following close behind. Once inside, Byron pointed to Gotthilf.

  "Meister Alaricus, be so good as to call your apprentices and journeymen into the shop, please."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it," Byron said in a voice of iron.

  The master's glower intensified, if that was possible, but he stepped through a curtain and rattled off a list of names. Within moments, several boys and youths were present. Gotthilf went to each, tilted their heads this way and that. No cuts, no mutilations. He stared at the master's head. No cuts, not mutilations. He started to glance at Byron in bewilderment, but then a thought occurred to him.

  "Meister, be so good as to call your children in, if you please."

  The goldsmith's complexion now verged on dusky purple. "I will not! The impertinence of this! Explain yourselves, sirs. I will complain to the Burghermeisters about your conduct, indeed I will. I . . ."

  "Papa, enough." From another door way came a figure of a man, head wrapped in bandages, supported by a girl. From their faces, they were the goldsmith's children.

  "Dieter, I forbid . . ."

  "Papa, enough. I will not lie, nor will I allow you to lie for me."

  "Dieter Glöckner, I presume?" Gotthilf asked.

  The man sat on a stool, and his "Yes" was shaky.

  "I suspect that if I unwrap those bandages, I will find a severely gashed ear with a missing lobe. Am I correct?"

  Everyone in the room looked surprised. "Yes," admitted the young man.

  "We found your earlobe." Gotthilf pointed to Byron, who fished the waxed paper packet from his pocket and showed it to everyone. "We found it in the same room where Herr Harold Baxter was beaten to death. Before his death, however, he managed to wound and mutilate his attacker with a razor. That attacker was you, wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Tell us about it."

  Dieter took a deep breath. His sister wrapped her arm around his waist to support him. "Baxter raped Rosina. He threatened to kill her if she told anyone. I found out today, after he came to collect his chest that was stored here. She was so upset on seeing him, that I dragged it out of her."

  "So you went to confront him."

  "Yes. I wanted him to marry her, or at least provide some kind of compensation. Everyone knows he's been making money selling up-time goods to vendors, and spending next to nothing. He must have a pile of silver."

  "Tell me about the rod."

  Dieter looked a bit surprised. "Baxter is . . . was . . . a hard man. Everyone knows that. I was afraid that when I spoke to him, he might attack me. So I took a copper rod with me."

  "To defend yourself if you needed to."

  "Yes."

  "Tell me what happened."

  "I just wanted to talk to him at first, but with every step I grew more and more angry. By the time I arrived at his room, I wanted to kill him. So . . . I did." With that admission, Dieter sagged on the stool. His sister stood by him, tears streaming down her face, pale and wan, but nodding her head in affirmation.

  The audience to the confession all seemed stunned. For a long moment there was silence.

  Gotthilf at length cleared his throat. "Meister Alaricus, have you sent for a doctor?"

  The master shook his head.

  "Do so. We will allow his wounds to be tended before we arrest him."
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  * * *

  The rest of the day passed in a blur for the partners: getting the confessed murderer tended to and transferred to custody, writing reports, gathering other information to be ready for the magistrates. By evening, Gotthilf was numb from everything, which was at least partially a good thing.

  "Come on, partner," Byron said from the office door. "I'm buying."

  "No," Gotthilf sighed. "I'm buying. The first round, anyway."

  They made their way to The Green Horse. Gotthilf walked up to the counter and threw a coin on the top. "Ale. Two. Large." They made their way to the same table in the dark corner they had sat at on the night the Vogler case broke. Gotthilf took the seat with his back to the wall, and they applied themselves to the ale.

  He broke his silence once, when Byron brought the third refills back to the table. "It shouldn't be that easy to extinguish a man's life. May God never let it be easy for me."

  "Amen to that, partner," Byron replied.

  Two days later

  "This is where your brother's buried." The short policeman pointed to the patch of raw turned earth.

  The Magdeburg Polizei had taken turns interrogating Benedikt Schiffer yesterday until they were satisfied they knew everything that could be dragged out of Benedikt about Lubbold Vogler and his schemes. Yesterday had ended with an appearance before the magistrate, one Otto Gericke, who had pronounced judgment after all facts had been made known.

  "Herr Schiffer, thinking about committing a crime is no crime before this court. You will have to answer to God for that. And since the Polizei will not charge you with resisting authority, and in light of the unfortunate death of your brother, you are free to go after observing the following judgments.

  "First, if you had been a better brother to your brother, he might still be alive.

  "Second, you are free to go, as long as you leave Magdeburg and never return."

  This was Benedikt's last stop before leaving. The two Polizei officers who had arrested him had accompanied him to the grave. "Good luck, Herr Schiffer." With that brief farewell, they turned and walked back to the city.

  Benedikt's vision clouded as he looked at the grave. If he hadn't panicked, Ebert would still be alive. If he hadn't been obsessed with taking money instead of earning it, his brother would still be alive.