A Thousand Devils (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 2)

by Frank Goldammer

  He finally reached the spot where the body lay. It was so gray and dusty that at first he couldn’t make out a thing. Only one bare foot fully stuck out of the loose debris and fabric. Heller pulled away pieces of wood and placed them to the side, removed stones, and rolled some larger brick sections off the pile. One slipped out of his hands and fell.

  “Look out!” Heller shouted, then heard the bricks crash and tumble. Finally, he could unwrap the fabric with the foot sticking out. It was a very small foot. Heller feared the worst. Since he didn’t know how else to manage it, he grabbed the fabric with both hands and tugged. That made the rest of the piled-up stones start to slide, and they too plummeted off the other side. A cloud of dust rose up and was driven away by the wind.

  Heller now faced his next problem. He had no knife or scissors to open the bundle and couldn’t just roll the corpse out.

  “Herr Oberkommissar?” shouted the policeman from below. “It might take a while for the fire department to get a telescopic ladder here.”

  “Come up here,” Heller shouted.

  It took a while for the policeman to make it. He stared at Heller in amazement.

  “You can stay there, but take an end from me once I’m on the stairs so we can carry it down together.” Heller bent down, grabbed the head end of the large bundle, and dragged it toward the stairs. He needed to make sure he didn’t step in a hole or onto some especially unsteady spot. The policeman decided to come all the way up. He grabbed onto the foot end, and without wasting any words the two men hauled the bundle down the stairs, through the cellar, and back up the crater.

  Panting heavily, they finally laid their load on solid ground.

  Heller, looking for an end of the fabric, found it and unrolled, pulling fabric away from the dead body with each turn.

  “Such a goddamn disgrace,” the cop muttered once the frozen body lay exposed.

  Heller, kneeling, only nodded. It was a girl of fourteen, maybe fifteen. Her eyes and mouth were still open, her hands and arms bound with a long rope that had been repeatedly wound around the body. All she had on was a short dress and underwear. The foot sticking out of the debris was bare, but the other had a sock and a shoe.

  Heller took several deep breaths, then leaned over the dead girl. He looked her over and couldn’t determine a cause of death. There were no wounds or strangulation marks. Yet her expression indicated that she must have suffered, her rolled-back eyeballs showing only the whites, her tongue swelling out of her mouth. Agony.

  “Let’s turn her on her side,” Heller ordered. The cop helped him, and Heller inspected her back. He didn’t spot anything unusual here either. The girl’s long hair was hard and stiff and stuck to her skull. It had frozen oddly flat at the back of her head.

  “It must have been wet there, then froze. She was wrapped in the fabric later.”

  “Did she drown?”

  Heller considered that, then pulled a handkerchief from his overcoat. He rolled it into a point and used it to wipe at the inside of one of her nostrils. The tip of his hanky turned black. He stood and patted the dust off his coat.

  “Have the body brought to the hospital in Friedrichstadt, to a Dr. Kassner in pathology. Use a stretcher. You do have a truck outside?” The policeman nodded and left. Heller figured Kassner must have examined the two dead Russians by now. He hadn’t received a report yet, but he was certain it would be on his desk today. Kassner was very reliable.

  Heller waited with his shoulders hunched up and hands in his pockets until the policeman came back with a colleague. They lifted the dead girl onto a long board since they lacked a stretcher. They scrambled along the path out of the rubble, through the building passageway, onto the street. It wasn’t a simple undertaking and required the help of four men at various spots. Heller followed at some distance and looked at Gutmann’s bar as he did so, at those small barred windows to his storeroom and the larger, also barred windows to his back rooms.

  A crowd of onlookers had already gathered, jostling for a look, by the time the policemen exited the courtyard and reached Alaunstrasse. The children’s eyes bulged as much as anyone’s.

  “Anyone know the girl?” Heller asked in a loud voice. “Anyone know her name, where she lived?”

  “She’s not from around here,” replied a man.

  “Not true, I’d seen her,” countered a boy of about ten.

  “Where was that?”

  “Just around, in the neighborhood. Running errands. Getting water.”

  “You don’t know where she lived? Maybe in the rubble here?”

  The boy shook his head. “Nah, no one lives in there.”

  “But where was she taking the water?”

  “Dunno, maybe it wasn’t her?”

  “She’s one of Gutmann’s, see? That’s who she is,” someone else said.

  “Who said that?” demanded Heller. A man separated from the crowd. He looked old and gray, wore a tattered overcoat, and had a thick scarf wrapped around his head and neck.

  “You live here?”

  “Yes, in Louisenstrasse, in the metal shop. Little room under the roof, even got a little oven.”

  “What did the deceased have to do with Gutmann?”

  “She belonged to him.”

  Heller tried to simplify his questions. “She live there? She have a room in the building next door?”

  “Nah, guessing she lived with him.”

  “With Gutmann? In the bar?”

  “I think so, yeah. Never saw her come out of the building next door.”

  “But it’s not his daughter, right?”

  The man gave Heller a quizzical look. The other people had stepped to the side.

  “You don’t know?” Heller added.

  “No, how could I? He’s got other girls there sometimes. That’s what people say.”

  People. It’s always just people, Heller thought, as if you’re not one of us. “So what are people saying? That it’s a bordello?”

  “That the girls work there. Young things. You know, to get by.”

  Heller guessed what the man was getting at. He took him by the arm. “I’ll need your name and age.”

  “Koch, Fritz. Born 1902.”

  Heller looked up, astonished—the man was younger than he. “Were you in the army?”

  “Nah, was doing time in prison.”

  “Political prisoner?”

  “Nah, nah, nothing political.”

  Heller gave up; he had more important matters. “So you think the girls were working as prostitutes?”

  “Hookers, that’s right. But not no more.”

  “Not anymore? Why not?”

  “Not since Franz disappeared.”

  “The Franz? Franz Swoboda? The one-handed man?”

  “He was probably keeping ’em in line. But they aren’t there no more, all cleared out.”

  “You can see all that, from your window?”

  “Sure can.”

  Heller was certain this man wouldn’t be found on the official witness list. “But you never saw the attack, did you?”

  “Gutmann probably did it himself. Him or Franz, because they were having this fight, see?”

  “Fight?”

  “That’s what people say. But that Franz, he don’t take no half measures, and he makes short work of it. Maybe he torched the place because of that.”

  “Do you know Swoboda?”

  Fritz Koch stared at Heller, puzzled.

  “That Franz,” Heller emphasized. He glanced at the policemen. They had reached the truck and were setting the board with the dead girl on the pavement.

  “’Course I know him. He was in Serbia, lost his hand there too. Crushed somehow. So it was back to the home front for him. They didn’t mess around there.”

  “Well, a one-handed soldier isn’t a whole lot of good to the military.”

  “Nah, where he was, I mean. They didn’t mess around. Made real short work of things there. Bumped ’em off, hanged ’em. Told me one time
when he had a drop too much. And sometimes he got . . .” Koch tapped his forehead.

  “What?” Heller said.

  “Y’know, crazy, raving, twitching, could hardly speak. The man was real bonkers, I’m telling you. That’s why people kept out of his way.”

  “All right,” Heller said. “Wait here.”

  Heller ran over to the truck and yelled, “Hey!” because a man in a black suit was bending over the dead girl and about to touch her face.

  “Stop that!” Heller grabbed the man’s hand, then shouted at the uniformed cop standing there, “You’re not supposed to let anyone near the body!”

  “That’s the pastor,” the policeman said. “From Martin Luther Church.”

  “Doesn’t matter. No one touches the corpse.”

  When Heller looked at the pastor’s face, he was surprised to see how young he was. He was indeed wearing a collar. “You’re not allowed to touch the body,” Heller explained. “We have to examine it first.”

  The pastor looked at him with glassy eyes, not giving the impression he’d understood. He had to be freezing in his simple cassock. He didn’t even have a cap on.

  “Did you know the girl?” Heller asked him.

  The pastor tightened his lips and shook his head.

  “Did you happen to be passing by?”

  The pastor wiped at his mouth and chin. “I was told someone had died. I wanted to see if I could do something.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I could pray for the salvation of her soul,” the pastor said softly.

  Heller waited a few moments. “You don’t know her? Do you know if she had family nearby or where she lived?” he added.

  The pastor gave Heller a look of despair and helplessness. “I already told you: I don’t know anything. Except that these aren’t good times. Not at all.” He suddenly turned around and walked away. The crowd parted for him.

  Heller gave a signal, then watched the cops load the body onto the truck and drive off. Only two policemen stayed behind to disperse the onlookers. Heller looked around for Fritz Koch, but he couldn’t find him. He started walking toward the little metal shop on the opposite corner and still didn’t see the witness. At least Heller had noted his residence. He took another look at the Schwarzer Peter. The bar was barricaded. He studied the sooty wall and the blackened icicles on the windowsills. He definitely had to question Gutmann. But considering both the good relationship the bar owner cultivated with the occupiers and the poor relationship Heller had with the public prosecutor, it was questionable whether Gutmann could even be summoned, let alone made to appear before a judge. The odds of a search warrant were grim. If what Fritz Koch said was true, then Gutmann’s place wasn’t just a prostitution ring—minors were being abused as well. Breaking that news to the Soviets would prove tricky. It surely meant that Soviet officers were playing a decisive role. Niesbach wouldn’t help, that was clear. He’d probably just file the matter away and ride it out. So if Heller wanted to get Gutmann, he would need to take a different approach. The murder of Franz Swoboda provided his best chance.

  Heller looked at his watch, which confirmed what his stomach had been telling him for a long time: it was far past lunchtime, and he was incredibly hungry. The next soup kitchen wasn’t far, and he had a few coupons in his pocket. Nevertheless, he went to Gutmann’s bar and pounded on the door.

  “Herr Gutmann?” he shouted. “Police detective!” He heard nothing from inside. He gave up and headed down Görlitzer Strasse to where the public kitchens had been set up.

  After making the short march up the slight incline on Louisenstrasse, he realized he was too late—again. There wasn’t anything left.

  He looked around for Heinz Seibling but didn’t spot him. So he continued on, following the secret route through building entranceways and inner courtyards until he stood at the one-legged man’s hiding place. The wall hatch was open. Heller stayed a few yards back.

  “Heinz?” he called in a muted voice. Heller wanted to at least give him a chance to hide whatever needed hiding.

  “Herr Heller!” Seibling stared out the opening, looking pleased. “Come on in.”

  Heller stepped closer but only squatted at the entrance—today wasn’t a day for crawling inside. “Listen, what else can you tell me about Gutmann’s bar? Do you know anything about the girls?”

  Seibling’s smiling face transformed into a woeful one. “Why must you always burden me with such things, Herr Heller? Can’t there ever be something good?”

  “Actually, yes. Klaus came back.”

  Seibling’s face brightened again. “That’s splendid! He’s all in one piece, then?”

  Heller nodded.

  “Give him my best regards.”

  “Gladly. Now, Heinz, this is important. What about the girls? What are people saying?”

  “Please, my dear Herr Oberkommissar, I don’t want to get dragged into this.”

  “Franz Swoboda—what else do you know about him?”

  “Nothing, nothing, I know nothing about him.”

  Seibling pulled back inside and looked busy, as if searching for something.

  “Heinz, you don’t have to be scared of him anymore. He’s dead.”

  Seibling popped up, crawled back to the opening. “Dead? Actually dead?”

  “Dead in a way only a man without a head can be. Heinz, you must have heard about the dead girl. Found only a few blocks from here just this morning. Someone said she belonged to Gutmann. She wasn’t even fifteen.”

  Seibling hesitated. Heller could see the inner conflict. He frowned with agony. “All right, yes, people were saying he had something going on there. He gathered them up and pampered them, and they worked for him. But Herr Oberkommissar, there’s nothing you can do. They’ll settle that with each other. You’ve seen it yourself. They’re killing each other.”

  Heller didn’t relent. “There was a dispute between Gutmann and Swoboda.”

  Seibling finally stuck his head out of the opening, looked up at the walls surrounding the back courtyard, then waved Heller a little closer.

  “Actually, they were more like buddies, real close. But that Swoboda was crazy. Sometimes it was like he was boozed up but even worse somehow. They say he sometimes beat the girls real bad and supposedly one got bumped off that way.”

  “Rubbed out?”

  Seibling nodded. “The two of them were probably fighting about it. But that’s only what I heard.”

  “So Gutmann wasn’t scared of Swoboda?”

  Seibling shrugged. “Apparently not. He did give him food and lodging.”

  “So when did Swoboda supposedly kill a girl?”

  “Just recently,” Seibling said.

  “Recently?” The dead girl didn’t look like she’d been beaten to death. But sometimes it only took one shot. An unlucky fall. Maybe her neck was broken. Kassner would find out. And why had Seibling kept this from him yesterday?

  Seibling held up his hands with regret. “I don’t know any more than that. Promise. Head cut off, huh? I’m sure he deserved it, the pig.”

  Heller wasn’t any wiser by the time he was standing back out on Louisenstrasse, and his stomach was no fuller. He had to go see Niesbach, or better yet Speidel, whether he wanted to or not. Gutmann had to see the dead girl, as Heller hoped to learn something from his reaction. The public prosecutor was certainly obligated to act accordingly—hopefully today. Heller decided to pay another visit to the police station on Katharinenstrasse.

  At the Görlitzer Strasse intersection, he pushed through the crowds. Acting on impulse, he went to one of the public soup kitchens and yanked a coupon from his wallet.

  “Anything left?” he asked a lady manning her serving station, just to see. She wore an apron over a thick jacket.

  “Barley broth an’ a hunka crust. Bread coupon an’ five marks fifty.”

  Heller pushed the money and coupon over to her, but the woman held up her hands for him to wait. “You got no bo
wl? No pot?”

  Heller raised his hands in regret.

  “Wait a sec.” The woman went in back and returned with a well-filled porcelain soup plate and a piece of bread.

  “Thank you. I have my own spoon.”

  “You need to eat it here, though, so you don’t go walkin’ away with that plate.”

  The soup tasted bland, the barleycorns bloated, turning the broth into porridge. There was no salt or pepper, pretty much the only things that could make the meal tasty. But it did fill his stomach in a pleasantly bloated way, which gave him some hope that the feeling might last awhile.

  Heller wasn’t quite finished eating when he noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. It was a child, about four years old, all bundled up in a much-too-large jacket, the seams of the sleeves stitched with wire. Its head was covered with what looked like a homemade cap cut out of a sofa cushion cover, filled with cotton, and sewn back together. The little face looked out, all grimy and smeared with soot. Heller couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a boy. Its big eyes looked up at him.

  Heller looked around, hoping to find who the child belonged to. But he couldn’t spot anyone.

  “Where did your mother go?” Heller asked.

  The child stared at him. Its mouth moved, the tip of its tongue appearing, then vanishing.

  “Is she not here?” Heller tried again.

  “Don’t talk to ’em, they’ll steal that hat right off your head!” warned the kitchen lady.

  Heller ignored her.

  “What is it, are you hungry?” he asked the child.

  The child nodded almost imperceptibly. Heller glanced at the rest of his soup and fought with his conscience. Then he held the soup plate tight, bent down, and extended the plate to the child. The child didn’t hesitate. It picked up the spoon and quickly ate the rest of the soup. It didn’t seem to chew at all, just swallowed all it could get in its mouth.