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

by Frank Goldammer

  “You want this too?” Heller asked, holding out the rest of his bread crust.

  The child grabbed hold and before Heller could add a word it ran off, darting like lightning between people’s legs, and soon disappeared from view.

  Heller straightened up and gave the plate back to the kitchen lady. “Hey, my spoon!” he blurted.

  “I told you! Didn’t I tell you?”

  February 9, 1947: Early Afternoon

  Heller left the police station on Katharinenstrasse feeling unusually gratified. He had gotten coffee, ersatz of course, with sweetener instead of sugar, and the beverage was now warming his stomach. Even more pleasant, though, was that his phone call with Speidel had gone far differently than he had expected. He’d been preparing for a tough battle, for threats and recrimination and cynical reactions.

  But the public prosecutor had turned extraordinarily obliging and friendly. They were getting off on the wrong foot, he told Heller. He intended to have Gutmann brought into police headquarters for questioning that very day—and intended to order a house search as well. Medvedev certainly had a hand in this, Heller supposed, or maybe he hadn’t. He didn’t waste any more time thinking about it, not wanting to spoil this small victory.

  He pushed up his sleeve and checked his watch. It would take some time for all the forms to be signed and the operation organized. So Heller decided to stake out the Schwarzer Peter. He was certain that Gutmann was holed up there. If he left anytime soon, Heller could follow him. That might also reveal if there was an informant within the police. Or the judiciary.

  Heller stepped behind the wooden fence along the grounds of the metal shop, searching for a good spot among all the objects people had left behind. He looked at the opposite building, his hands deep in his pockets.

  After a few minutes, a window opened above him.

  “Clear out of there, you old bastard!” shouted an angry man.

  “I’m with the police,” Heller shouted back.

  “Ah, I see, I just meant, people are always doing their business there; it’s an outrage!”

  “Shut that window,” Heller yelled. “You’re interfering with a police operation!”

  It took nearly an hour. Heller stepped in place, trying to keep warm. The effect of the ersatz coffee had long faded, as had the nourishment from that barley soup. Finally, Heller heard an engine approaching. Policemen ran up from the nearby station. Heller stepped into the street to intercept the cops, showing them where to keep watch in the inner courtyard and the various possible side exits to both streets.

  Six more policemen rode on one of the trucks that rolled up; one carried a battering ram. Oldenbusch jumped out the passenger side and pulled two reports from his briefcase.

  “It’s blood on the tools, from two different people,” he told Heller in a rush. “Kassner’s trying to determine the blood groups so we can at least confirm Swoboda’s. The ring’s inscribed with ‘Rosmarie, 08/16/1931.’ I’ve already arranged for the city and church registrar’s offices to check who was getting married on that date. Kassner examined the girl as well. Clear case of asphyxiation. The lungs full of flue gas. Also syphilitic, secondary stage.”

  “For God’s sake!” Heller blurted. “The fire hoses! That’s why her hair was frozen. She must have been in Gutmann’s house. Did Speidel know? Does he have Kassner’s report?”

  Oldenbusch raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  Heller was disappointed. Did this mean Medvedev had interfered and Speidel’s backing down really had nothing to do with Heller? Heller needed to pull himself together.

  “You four, come with me,” Heller ordered the policemen. “The others, spread out. We might encounter some resistance.”

  Curious onlookers were gathering yet again.

  Heller crossed the street and hammered on the front door of the Schwarzer Peter.

  “Police!” he shouted. “We’re searching the building!” He pressed an ear to the door. “Open up, Herr Gutmann, or we’ll break down your door!” Heller counted to ten, then stepped away from the door. “Bust it down,” he ordered the cop with the battering ram.

  The policeman was just about to swing the heavy iron when Gutmann said, “I’m coming already!”

  They heard rumbling from inside, then the door opened. Gutmann looked at Heller with a disparaging gaze. “You’re going to regret this,” Gutmann barked at him. “Really regret it! I warned you. Which vehicle am I riding in?” He tried to push past Heller.

  But Heller grabbed his arm. “Spare me the nonsense,” Heller said. “And keep talking tough, see if I care.”

  Heller forced his way past Gutmann and into the bar.

  “Smells like something burning,” he said.

  Oldenbusch sniffed. “He’s trying to destroy something.”

  Heller hurried toward the smell until he reached Gutmann’s room, where he spotted a small book on the floor, half-burned and still smoldering. He knelt down, slammed it shut, and smothered the rest of the embers with the cuffs of his overcoat.

  He handed the book to Oldenbusch as he entered the room. “Keep this safe, Werner. There must be more rooms in here somewhere, and I intend to find them. We’ll tear open that walled-off stairwell if we have to.”

  Heller went back into the hallway, looked around, and pulled open a heavy curtain. It concealed a shelving unit fit into a recess, holding cleaning rags and linens. He rattled the shelving unit and noticed how easily it moved. He pulled it away from the recess with ease. This revealed a wall that was actually a door, which led to the walled-off part of the stairwell.

  Heller blew air out his cheek in anger. He should’ve noticed this earlier. He stepped through the opening and looked around, using the weak daylight streaming down through gaps in the roof far above.

  The way outside to Alaunstrasse had been blocked by a recently built wall, and the cellar appeared to be buried in rubble, but the stairs leading up were unobstructed and in use. Every third step held a candle, and the large amount of dripped wax indicated that many such candles had been burned here. Footsteps and dragging marks showed in the dust. Heller climbed the stairs to the second story. It was bitterly cold up here. The floor was covered with frozen puddles from the fire hoses, the walls dark from soot. Black icicles hung from the ceiling. It still reeked of smoke. Heller entered an open apartment. He stood at the first doorway, on the inner courtyard side of the apartment. He heard noises behind him, recognized Oldenbusch from the way he snorted when exerting himself, then listened to him squeeze by the shelving and narrow passage to the doorway before heading up the steps.

  “This way.” Heller waited for Oldenbusch, then pointed at the open door. Beyond it was a cramped, windowless room. He could make out a small stove, a bed, and a low shelf with a washing bowl. A thick layer of soot covered everything.

  “Look at this, boss,” Oldenbusch whispered and pulled the door all the way open with a finger. The soot-covered inside of the door revealed the tracks of fingers and hands, running from chest height down to the floor. Even lying on the floor, the girl must have tried in vain to open the door or make her presence known. From the ice made by the fire hoses, it was clear to see where she had lain. A shoe and sock were still stuck in the ice. Heller swung the door back and looked at the other side. It had been locked from the outside, the key still sticking out.

  Heller wiped his face and forced himself to tame his rage. He really wanted to storm out and punch that filthy bastard in the face. Right after the fire, while he sat downstairs with Gutmann playing the injured victim, she had been up here, fighting for her life.

  “Are there more rooms?” Heller asked, his voice raw. Oldenbusch went down the hall, propping himself against the wall so he wouldn’t slip on the ice. “Two, but they’re empty.”

  Heller nodded and took a deep breath. The girl might have lived if Gutmann had just come upstairs and unlocked the door.

  Shaken now, both he and Oldenbusch stared at the ghostly imprint of the girl’s b
ody on the floor. They could clearly make out her calves, the folds of her dress, her arms, and even a few strands of hair that had frozen in the ice. It was eerie, as if she were still lying here.

  “The firefighters should have checked,” Oldenbusch muttered.

  “They couldn’t tell, not with the stairwell walled off,” Heller said, though he’d had the same thought. The firefighters shouldn’t have assumed anything and should’ve checked. Out of principle. It was always about principle. Yet he had to blame himself as well, for getting careless. The building should have been thoroughly searched the first day.

  Heller tried to collect his thoughts. “We have some real hard work ahead of us, Werner. I need statements from everyone in the neighborhood. I need to know who saw the girl, how many girls were working here, how many Soviet officers were coming in.”

  Oldenbusch nodded. “No one’s going to utter a peep; they’re all too scared.”

  “Fritz Koch, that drunk living over in the metal shop? He’ll tell us something. People just need a little tempting. They’re practically bursting with curiosity and a need to talk to someone. It’s up to us to draw the right conclusions from all their talk.”

  Heller took another glance into the room that had become a death trap for the girl. He chewed at his lower lip, deep in thought.

  “Boss?” Oldenbusch asked.

  Heller looked up. “When are you going to stop calling me that, Werner? If this girl had syphilis like Kassner says, the johns could’ve gotten it too. Maybe that helps us somehow.”

  “That means I’ll have to question the Russians again.”

  “It does, Werner, and they’re not going to like it. But we should be calling them Soviets. Because not all of them are Russians.”

  Heller sat at one of the tables in the bar and used the light from a kerosene lamp to look over the book Gutmann had tried to burn. More than two-thirds of the pages had been completely burned up, the rest charred and browned. Gutmann had written in pencil, and Heller could only make out a few figures. This was likely Gutmann’s secret ledger that he used to record expenses or earnings he planned to hide from the taxman—many that Heller could read were in the single digits, possibly liquor or soup ordered. Other figures were higher. Gutmann had entered subtotals and totaled these up on a separate page. The date was still visible in places. One page drew Heller’s attention.

  Oldenbusch came in to show him something. “Look, I found these in Gutmann’s desk.” Oldenbusch put a small brown bottle on the table as well as a tobacco tin holding syringes and needles.

  Heller took a good look but couldn’t tell whether these were the same type of syringes he’d found in the doctor’s bag. He pointed at the little bottle. “So what’s this?”

  Oldenbusch lifted it so Heller could see the liquid in the light of the lamp.

  “My guess is Evipan or a similar preparation. The active ingredient should be the same. Hexo-something or other. Kassner will know. Hexobarbital, that’s what it was. But take a look at the labels.” He pointed at the Cyrillic script. “There’s more drugs in his desk. Penicillin, if I’m not mistaken, worth a mint, I’m telling you. Labeled in Russian as well. I can’t imagine this stuff getting diverted to Gutmann’s inventory in any legal way. If only we knew who had access to—”

  Heller raised a finger. “Hold that thought, Werner.”

  He ran his finger over the open page of Gutmann’s charred notebook, going down the rows of legible letters.

  . . . ov

  . . . nko

  . . . in

  . . . mann

  . . . da

  . . . ier

  . . . nov

  . . . ili

  These last three letters gave him pause.

  As Heller stepped out onto the street, the cold caught him off guard yet again. It had been freezing enough in the bar. He looked at his watch, saw it was two thirty in the afternoon. He looked down the street, at the people everywhere. A child caught his attention. It was a young boy, as far as he could tell from his thick disguise of overcoat, scarf, and cap. The boy walked slowly, with his hands in his pockets, looking around. Heller put him at six years old, with a thin face and a black bruise on one eye. Only as the boy neared did Heller see he wore one of those standard Soviet fur caps with earflaps that could be tied up over the head. It looked new; only the red star had been removed. Heller stood in the boy’s path.

  “Hey, you, tell me: Where did you get that hat?” he asked and tried to grab the kid by the arm. But the boy eluded him and ran off. As he did, something fell out of his coat pocket and hit the street with a soft clank. The boy stopped and tried running back to pick it up. But when he saw that Heller was following him, he decided against it and bolted. Heller picked up the object. It was a small narrow blade, its handle driven into a piece of carved wood and secured with wire. Heller was surprised to find how sharp the blade was. In crowds, thieves used these sorts of knives to cut open bags and coats. He shook his head. The boy wasn’t even school age yet. Heller pocketed the knife, intending to head toward the bar, when he suddenly caught sight of someone he thought he recognized. It was the girl with the overcoat from the slope. She must have gone right past him, and now she was walking up Louisenstrasse, taking oddly short steps. She looked exhausted. Heller was of two minds.

  “Werner,” he shouted across the street. “Werner!” But Oldenbusch was still inside the Schwarzer Peter and couldn’t hear him.

  “You there! Comrade!” Heller waved for a cop and kept glancing back at the girl, who had nearly reached the next intersection.

  The uniformed cop reacted but, misinterpreting Heller’s wave, headed into the bar. Heller snorted in annoyance and started running after the girl before he lost sight of her altogether.

  The girl seemed to be walking aimlessly, first up Kamenzer Strasse, then back down Schönfelder Strasse, eventually turning onto Priessnitzstrasse and following that awhile, only to take a right onto Bischofsweg and soon a left onto Forststrasse. Heller followed her by zigzagging, keeping a good fifty yards’ distance. Once he bent down and fixed his shoelace when she looked around.

  The girl had now reached Nordstrasse. Heller caught up a little. He slipped between the trees lining the street, since there were fewer people around here to duck behind. The girl stopped within view of the Schlüters’ villa, then took cover behind one of the trees so she could watch the house. She soon stepped back out, sprinted across the street, and slipped into the overgrown bushes in old Frau Dähne’s yard. From there, she kept watch on the villa. Soviet Army men were still there, standing around looking bored, smoking, burning something outside in the yard. Several civilians were standing with them, likely getting food.

  Heller waited a bit before attempting a quick look. The girl was now gone. Frustrated, he stood in front of the yard. He heard a noise and ducked down quickly. Then he poked his head through the leafless branches of the thick hedges edging the ruins of Frau Dähne’s home. He soon spotted the girl, crawling out of an opening to the cellar of the collapsed house. She worked to pull herself out sideways, partially propping a hand against her puffed-out stomach or whatever stolen goods were under her overcoat. For a moment Heller wondered whether he should confront her, but then decided to keep watching.

  The girl darted back onto the path, moving with purpose now. Heller took pursuit again at a measured distance with no idea where she was going. He figured she lived in one of the old ramshackle buildings on the edge of Neustadt. Yet the girl kept marching farther. She turned off suddenly for a path into the woods, to Heller’s surprise, and followed that along Priessnitz Creek, continuing into the Dresden Heath.

  Heller fell back a bit. They weren’t the only people passing through here, but most who came out of the woods were loaded down with brushwood and branches. It was growing dim between the tree trunks, with little snow and plenty of shiny dead leaves. The droning of Russian trucks along Carola-Allee could be heard, yet the sound only reinforced Heller’s perception that he
had found himself in the middle of the wilderness. The creek was quite wide in spots, and it rippled and gurgled, ice lining the banks, its wide, flat bends frozen over. The girl was making good progress now. It was clear she knew her way around. Heller felt unsure. He hadn’t been in the heath for years. Up to the right of them had to be the barracks and the military cemetery. The vehicle noises were little more than a distant rush now. Instead, the twigs cracked under his feet and frozen leaves crunched. Heller fell back a little farther, and soon they were alone in the woods. He looked at his watch again. It was hardly 3:00 p.m., but it seemed as if hours had gone by since he’d taken up pursuit. The sun would soon go down, though. He’d lost sight of the girl and rushed to catch up, frantically trying to get back on her trail. Then he spotted her again. She was crossing the stream, leaping expertly from stone to stone as if she knew the way. Heller waited for her to disappear among the trees, then followed.

  He paused at the dark bank of Priessnitz Creek, eyeing the frozen mud, the icy water, and the protruding rocks, scarcely bigger than cobblestones. At the spot the girl had nimbly leapt across, he’d have to weigh his every step and hope his bum foot didn’t give out. He dared his first leap and immediately had to keep going as he realized he’d lose his balance otherwise. After five successful leaps, he was lucky to land in the high forest grass. He kept going up a slope, thinking he’d seen the girl disappear over it. But he had to watch out, since there was the possibility that she’d noticed him and was lying in wait.

  Yet the girl, who hadn’t looked back once, moved ever deeper into the heath. Somewhere, Heller knew, there was a moor here. Was that where she was going? Or to the old Heath Mill inn? Had they already passed Kannenhenkel Trail? Heller didn’t know where he was anymore. It would soon be dark, and getting lost in these woods with these temperatures could have fatal consequences. Yet he had to keep going, and it was obvious that the girl knew where to go.