Rosa

by Jonathan Rabb

  Hoffner stepped from the shadows and said, “I’m sure.”

  A HERO OF THE REPUBLIC

  Rosa lay quietly in the outline that had once been Mary Koop’s. They had done their best to scrub her clean of the grease. They had even clothed her. Even so, her hair was still slick, and her face had an odd shine to it, especially in the torchlight: she looked as if she had been swimming.

  Hoffner was kneeling by her side, his coat heavy from the rain. He had been like this for several minutes, replaying the dream and the pebble and the sun in his eyes as he had tried to find her. Odd, he thought, to be alone with her now. She had been words to him, an image in his head, alive and defiant: here, she seemed so much less than that. This was death, a body—a tool—nothing more. She was being used again, and for that, Hoffner felt his only remorse.

  He heard the sound of footsteps approaching from beyond the cavern’s opening, and he slowly tightened the grip around his pistol: he kept it low, hidden behind Rosa’s torso. From the sound of it, there were several men making their way back. Hoffner tried to pick out the exact number: it was the only way he knew to keep his mind focused.

  A light began to grow, the beam bobbing to the rhythm of the steps as they drew closer. Hoffner heard a whispering of voices, indistinct words dulled by the wood and dirt. A single “There” broke through, and a moment later two young soldiers—Freikorps from their uniforms—stepped into the shadowed chamber. Immediately they raised their rifles, keeping Hoffner in their sights. Braun was directly behind them; he stepped past them as a second man appeared at the opening. The man had a strikingly handsome face and carried a small jar in his hands.

  Braun spoke with his usual charm: “What a surprising sense of symmetry you have, Herr Oberkommissar. The Rosenthaler Platz. Wouters’s den. One might even say there’s a sentimental side to you.” Hoffner said nothing.

  The second man now stepped forward. His focus was on Rosa. He seemed agitated. “They’ve removed the unguent.”

  Braun put up a hand to stop him. “Step away from the body, Herr Oberkommissar.”

  Hoffner remained where he was. “You can tell Herr Doktor Manstein that I’m quite harmless, Herr Braun. Especially when I’ve got two rifles aimed at my chest.”

  Braun showed only a moment’s surprise. “And what else did you learn on your trip to Munich, Herr Oberkommissar?”

  Hoffner spoke across to Manstein. “Your father-in-law did excellent work creating this little haven for Wouters, Herr Doktor. Naturally the idea was yours.”

  Manstein studied Hoffner. He said nothing.

  “I’m guessing the engineer Sazonov wasn’t much of an expense,” Hoffner continued. “Or his family. No reason to pay the dead.” Hoffner saw a glimmer of confirmation in the eyes. “Must have been difficult being away from Munich all that time. The only one who knew how to apply the Ascomycete 4 to Frulein Koop, the only one who could placate Wouters with the appropriate injections between escapades, though I’m sure Herr Direktor Schumpert was delighted to have his daughter and grandchildren in the city for such an extended period of time.”

  Manstein stared at him without a trace of emotion. “Am I meant to be impressed?”

  “But that’s not all you were good for, was it, Herr Doktor?” said Hoffner.

  Manstein’s gaze grew colder still. “Can we shoot him now and get on with this?”

  Hoffner looked at Braun. “That would make it quite a day for you, wouldn’t it, Herr Braun?”

  “Even with your back up against it,” said Braun. “I will give you that.” Braun unclipped his holster. “You’re going to be my second carver, Herr Hoffner. Quite a story for the papers. Killing your own wife. Now, what kind of mind does that?” Braun began to pull out his pistol.

  Without warning, six of Pimm’s men emerged from the shadows, their guns drawn. Two had appeared from just outside the opening and now had their pistols pressed up against each of the soldiers’ necks. The rifles were quickly handed over. Braun had turned at the sudden movement, and when he looked back, the barrel of Hoffner’s pistol was staring him in the face. Hoffner reached over and took Braun’s gun. He then nodded him over to a pair of chairs that Pimm was placing at the center of the cavern. Braun showed remarkable restraint as he made his way over.

  “So tell me,” said Braun as Zenlo tied off his hands behind him. “How is little Franz?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Hoffner. “He still thinks he was helping you.”

  “Which means he’ll know you were the one to pull the trigger when I end up dead, won’t he?”

  Hoffner holstered his gun and said, “Now, why would I want to do that?”

  Pimm nodded over to the men by the soldiers. “Get the two of them out of here. Keep them busy for a few hours. Shoot them if you have to.”

  Hoffner waited until the Freikorps boys were gone before speaking. He picked up the jar and said, “Your private stash, Herr Doktor?” Manstein remained silent. “It was the only way I could think of getting you back here. How long do you think before she needs another slathering?”

  Braun said, “If you’re not going to kill us, Herr Oberkommissar, then this is going to be a very long night.”

  Hoffner nodded as if in agreement. “I said I wasn’t going to kill you, Herr Braun. I can’t speak for my friends, here.” Hoffner hurled the jar against the wall and watched as the glass and grease shattered to the ground. “Wouters,” he said, again nodding to himself. “That was such a clever choice, wasn’t it? Old women and lace. Luxemburg and Jew-baiting, all in one.” He turned to Manstein. “It must have taken you months to find him . . . all the way back to June of ’18. But then, you were already familiar with Sint-Walburga and their intriguing new patient, weren’t you?” Hoffner saw a moment of recognition in Manstein’s otherwise implacable stare. “Did they call you in to consult on the original case? Or was it a letter from a colleague that introduced you to Herr Wouters?” Manstein’s silence was confirmation enough. “Very impressive, Herr Doktor. You knew the war was lost, the Kaiser was on shaky ground. And we were suddenly at peace with the Russians—who knew what to expect from the socialists after that? But to see all the way through to November, to revolution . . .” Hoffner looked across at Pimm. “That was very impressive, don’t you think?”

  Pimm perked up at being included. “Oh yes,” he said with a nod. “Very.”

  Manstein snorted dismissively.

  “It wasn’t very impressive, mein Herr?” said Hoffner.

  Manstein refused to look at Hoffner. “Just because you don’t understand a thing doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.” His voice had a refined quality: schools, breeding, a sense of entitlement. Manstein did nothing to hide his contempt. “It was a precautionary measure.” He now looked up. “Evidently it was a precaution worth taking.”

  Hoffner said, “So you did all of this just to cover up killing Luxemburg?”

  Manstein looked genuinely perplexed by the question. “Is that what you think, Herr Policeman?”

  It wasn’t, but Hoffner needed to engage the man. Braun saw what Hoffner was after and tried to stop it. “Herr Doktor, you don’t have to say anything—”

  “Shut up, Braun.” Manstein continued to stare up at Hoffner.

  Braun held his own. “You’d be wise to let me take care of this.”

  “I’m tied to a chair in an excavation pit. I think you’ve done all you can.”

  Braun insisted: “He hasn’t an inkling of what’s going on here.”

  “He has her,” Manstein cut in. “And I don’t think he’ll be giving her back.” It was a cold, unflappable stare that now peered at Hoffner. “You won’t be giving her back to us, will you, Herr Oberkommissar?”

  Evidently the marriage between the Thulians and the Polpo had been one of convenience. Hoffner knew he needed to take full advantage of that. “Did you enjoy the work, Herr Doktor?” he asked.

  For the first time, uncertainty flashed through Manstein’s eyes. “Excuse me?”


  Hoffner gave Braun no time to interrupt: “It’s a shame you didn’t study your patient more closely. I imagine you were a bit too clever there, as well.” Hoffner watched as the uncertainty grew. “For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why Wouters’s knife work was so smooth while the second carver’s was so jagged and angled. I assumed it was someone like Tamshik, or even Braun here, but then the accuracy of the lines on the back was too good—too close to the original—not to be someone who actually had some skill with a knife. But to make it look too good, that would have been a problem, wouldn’t it? So you had to alter your hand. After all, Wouters was mad, and didn’t madness imply a kind of frenzy with the cutting? You must have watched him, seen him slice up the backs of those women, so you’d know how to re-create the pattern. But you didn’t watch him closely enough, did you? This was an art for him. Battered and bloody hands hadn’t stopped him as a boy from creating the most delicate lace patterns. His work was pristine.” Hoffner paused. “Unlike yours.”

  Manstein stared coldly ahead.

  “The Tiergarten whore,” said Hoffner. “You got impatient. The Polpo wanted you to wait, but that was unacceptable. Wouters wasn’t killing fast enough, and he was staying in the wrong part of town. You needed him in the Westend so you could get the kind of hysteria you wanted. Such a perfect spot, the U-Bahn station at the zoo. The threat of east coming west. Tell me, Herr Doktor, was it only the carving, or did you do the killing, as well?”

  Braun had heard enough: “Don’t let him do this.”

  Manstein ignored Braun: “More efficient that way, wouldn’t you say, Herr Oberkommissar?”

  With sudden venom, Hoffner cracked the back of his hand across Manstein’s face. Manstein showed almost no reaction, while Braun flinched. Manstein’s lip began to bleed and he licked at it with his tongue. “Does that make you feel better, Herr Oberkommissar?”

  Hoffner was doing all he could to maintain his self-control: how easy it would be to beat this man to death, he thought. “Why Luxemburg?” he said.

  Manstein spat a wad of blood. “You seem to be doing so well on your own. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Braun tried again. “This is exactly what he wants. How is it that you’re incapable of seeing that?”

  Manstein spat again. “Never the larger picture with you, Braun, is it?” Manstein wiped his chin on his shoulder and then looked up at Hoffner. “Go on, Detective. See if you can figure this out before Herr Braun here manages it.”

  It was clear that Manstein wanted to be pressed: that Hoffner had yet to figure out why was no reason to disappoint him. “She was a means to an end,” he said.

  Manstein offered another snort of contempt. “If we’re going to state the obvious, I’d prefer the bullet.”

  Hoffner was inclined to grant the request, but that wasn’t why he was here; instead, he tried to imagine where Jogiches might have taken things now. “All right,” he said. “Berlin on edge . . . Rosa’s body discovered . . . not much of a stretch to stir up fear of a Red reprisal for her killing. The Reds ready to strike . . .” Hoffner was building momentum. “Enter the Freikorps. Naturally the government gives them free rein to eliminate the problem—we can thank your former General Nepp in Defense for that—and you kill two birds with one stone. The socialists are purged, and your military wing gets a foothold in the political door, and all in the name of reestablishing order.” Hoffner knew there were too many holes in the theory to count. His only hope was that Manstein had found it equally unimpressive.

  “A dead Luxemburg?” said Manstein. “Triggering socialist reprisals with the design etched onto her back? And that makes sense to you, Herr Oberkommissar?” Ego was always so transparent with men like this. “Wouldn’t that, in fact, have done just the opposite—allow the Reds to stop worrying about who had killed their beloved Rosa because, now, she would have been nothing more than another unfortunate victim of some madman?” Manstein seemed almost disappointed by Hoffner’s attempt. “Nothing gained there. No one to blame, Herr Oberkommissar. No reason to bring in the Korps.”

  It was an odd choice—the word “blame”—thought Hoffner. He tried to see beyond it. If not Wouters, then who? Even Manstein had to admit that the Jews were too vague a target, lace designs notwithstanding. No. Manstein had made it clear that someone else was meant to take responsibility for her death. That was the key. That was why the bodies were piling up all over again. Someone who could . . .

  Hoffner stopped. Of course. He looked across at Pimm, and the words came back to him. This was a crime like any other, no matter how intricate its planning: and like all crimes, misdirection lay at its core.

  Hoffner suddenly understood where he had gone wrong. He had been focusing on what these men had been trying to keep hidden, the layers to be peeled away: that was what made for conspiracy. But what if it was the other way round? What if the key was in what they wanted revealed?

  Hoffner looked again at Manstein. “You wanted the Kripo to dig deep, didn’t you, Herr Doktor?”

  Mantein’s expression seemed to soften. “Dig, Herr Oberkommissar?” He sounded almost encouraging. “And what was it that you were meant to find?”

  Hoffner began to see it. “It’s really quite brilliant, isn’t it? Because it’s exactly what it appears to be. Wouters unleashed on the city. The murders as a ruse to create hysteria. All to cover up Luxemburg’s killing. You wanted it all to come out because it was all meant to lead back to one place. Nepp. Your man in the Defense Ministry.”

  “Very good, Herr Oberkommissar.”

  Hoffner plowed on. “Nepp was the one to give the orders to separate Luxemburg and Liebknecht that night.” Another flash of clarity. “And he was the one responsible for getting Wouters out of Belgium, wasn’t he?” When Manstein said nothing, Hoffner continued, “Oster’s orders. The ones to get him over the border. They were signed by General Nepp, weren’t they?”

  Manstein was actually enjoying this. “Excellent.” Again Braun made a motion to speak, and again Manstein stopped him. “Go on, Herr Oberkommissar.”

  “You created the conspiracy with the sole purpose of laying it all at Ebert’s feet. The tragedy of the last two months—it was all meant to be seen as little more than a highly elaborate scheme by the government to get rid of one of its more dangerous enemies. Rosa. Innocent women killed—”

  “The city terrorized,” Manstein added with a strange satisfaction.

  “Except it’s not you and your Thulian friends who get the blame. The conspiracy comes to light, and it’s Herr Nepp who makes certain to implicate the Social Democrats when he falls on his sword. The government is sent reeling and the Freikorps steps in to bring us all back from the brink.”

  “No wonder you managed it so quickly with Wouters,” Manstein said.

  Backhanded compliments aside, Hoffner needed to fill in the missing pieces. “So why hold on to her?” he said. “Why not have Rosa’s body discovered in late January? Everything else was in place.”

  “Why not indeed?” said Manstein. “Perhaps Herr Braun would like to answer that one?” Braun had given up trying: he sat with a vacant stare. Manstein continued: “Braun underestimated you. He convinced us it would take you several months to find Wouters. By then the city would be in a panic, the murders would be front-page news every day. You had managed to keep the case hidden throughout the revolution. We needed time to build the hysteria, to let Frulein Luxemburg be our crowning jewel, the focus of the conspiracy to come. Unfortunately, you tracked down Wouters too quickly.”

  “So why not stop Wouters from taking his victim to the Ochsenhof that night?” Hoffner pressed. “I don’t catch him and the killings go on.” Manstein waited for Hoffner to put it together himself. “You didn’t have Wouters by then, did you?”

  “The Koop girl,” Manstein said. “Once you took her, there was nothing to bring him back to the site. The little engineer Sazonov was cleverer than we thought. And once Wouters was gone, he needed to be dead. Tossing Luxemburg
out after that, without a captivated public—and with you a hero—would have meant nothing. She would have been the victim of a crime already solved, and without any link to Nepp.”

  Something didn’t sit right. “But she was tossed out. The Kripo found her floating in the Landwehr Canal.”

  Hoffner had hit a nerve. Again Manstein’s expression soured. “You can thank Rifleman Runge for that.” Manstein shook his head. “The boy got overexcited. Killed her too quickly. The knife work had to be done directly after death, otherwise the skin would have lost its elasticity. I managed to get to him in time, but then that mob you’ve been hearing so much about actually stumbled upon us. Down by the river. No choice but to find an embankment and hide her. Your comrades discovered her before we could get back. Braun was actually something of a help there.”

  Hoffner’s mind was racing. Everything to set up Ebert’s government. Everything to place the blame where it least belonged.

  “And Eisner?” said Hoffner. “The assassination? Berlin hysteria wasn’t enough? You had to bring it home to Munich, as well?”

  “That,” said Manstein, “had nothing to do with us. We wouldn’t have sent a Jew to do our dirty work.”

  No need for a coup, thought Hoffner. No need for an assassin’s bullet. With Nepp in place, it had all been much subtler than that. Hoffner said, “And then the digging went too far.”

  “Yes,” said Manstein, lingering with the word. “Your trip to Munich was something of an eye-opener. Not that it was as much of a problem as you might think. It was time to start leaving bodies again, build up the hysteria.” Manstein peered directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “That was where we managed two birds with one stone, Herr Oberkommissar. Your wife seemed the perfect choice.”

  There was something dead inside Hoffner, and no amount of goading could stir it to life. He said, “You’re taking this all very calmly, Herr Doktor.”

  “As are you, Herr Oberkommissar.”

  Hoffner said nothing.

  “In fact,” Manstein added, “if you think about it, I’m handing it to you, Detective, not taking it.”