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

by Frank Goldammer

  “Is everything all right?” Karin asked. Heller nodded. He didn’t want to tell her anything in front of Klaus. Then he remembered the pills. He fished the paper bag out of his overcoat and gave it to her. She took it, along with his hand. “Max, what is this?”

  Heller tried signaling her with his eyes, but Klaus had already noticed and stood up. “I’ll go see how Frau Marquart’s doing.”

  “No, Klaus, you stay, please,” Karin told him. “You can put the barley in the water; it’ll take a little while for it to swell. I’ll go see her. Her fever wasn’t quite as high today.” She went upstairs.

  Heller faced Klaus. “I’m not trying to hide anything from you, Klaus. It’s just that I still haven’t gotten used to any other way. Under the Nazis, we couldn’t ever say the real truth in front of you boys, for fear you might accidentally betray us.”

  Klaus came over to him from the stove. “I could always hear you two. Even what you told Mother about the Gestapo. I knew who I was going to war for.”

  Heller lowered his head. What a burden that must have been for his sons, having heard all of that yet knowing they couldn’t speak to anyone about it.

  Klaus sat back down next to Heller. He looked upset but was trying to keep his composure. “I can’t believe how everyone talks!” he blurted out. “Everywhere, in offices and agencies, standing in line, on the street. They still have so much Nazism stuck in their heads. They whisper about Jews, that they’re all going to come back and buy everything up, but they also talk about the Russians and how Hitler was betrayed. They believe Göring’s the one to blame for all their misery, and Goebbels. They still don’t get it, none of them!” He pounded on the table.

  Heller nodded, trying to find the right words. Yet everything he could think of sounded like excuses and justifications. Everyone was trying to take care of themselves while not attracting too much attention. There were only a few who dared to resist openly, compared to the many who overacted—denunciating, profiteering, murdering. “They’re not all like that,” he said eventually, to at least say something. But it wasn’t much comfort after having stared reality in the face all day.

  Klaus wouldn’t calm down. “Is it really so hard to understand? They really don’t get where all this misery comes from, who caused it? All they do is whine and moan.”

  Not all, Heller wanted to say, but Karin had come back. She’d heard what Klaus just said.

  “But the Soviets are going about things so clumsily,” she said. “They have enough to eat, sure, but they don’t share any of it. They let us go hungry. And they take away everything we have—bicycles, cars, machines, whole factories. They shouldn’t be surprised people are upset.”

  Klaus looked up at his mother. “You didn’t see what happened in Russia!”

  “And people are still being arrested daily.”

  “Yeah, that’s because there are still so many Nazis around acting as if nothing happened.”

  Heller saw his son tensing up. Karin sat at the table with them.

  “But what if they take away everything we have at some point? Or arrest everyone?”

  Klaus bristled. “You weren’t there, Mother. You should be happy they’re even letting us live. They have every right to wipe out our whole country. I saw the beasts, and they were German beasts. I saw what they did—”

  “Klaus!” Heller warned him.

  “And they weren’t just there, these beasts, they were here too, in our homeland, our own country. You didn’t know about the camp at Hellerberg? Father never told you about the Gestapo’s torture cells? Don’t act so stupid, Mother!”

  Klaus sprang up and stormed out of the kitchen, but he stopped out in the hallway. He released a stifled sound and seemed to be falling apart. Heller looked to Karin, who sat frozen in horror. He had never felt so helpless. Even though he could sense what Klaus had seen and gone through, he still needed to make it clear to him that they, as a family, had to stick together. He rose beside the kitchen table.

  “Klaus,” he said softly.

  Klaus returned to the kitchen looking remorseful. He placed a hand on the back of his mother’s neck. Then he bent down to her, to hug her tight, feeling embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a low voice.

  Karin nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s all right. But promise me you’ll never talk to me that way again.”

  “Max, what’s going on with you?” Karin whispered once they’d finally gone to bed. Heller stared at the ceiling a long while. He turned toward her. It always took time for the down blanket to warm up, and he’d had to rub his cold feet together so much that he regretted not putting socks on. Despite how cold the bathroom was, he had still washed himself, from head to toe, his hair as well. It had taken all the energy he could muster, and yet he considered it a luxury.

  The alarm clock was ticking next to him. He could hear Frau Marquart’s rattled breathing through the wall, and Klaus was sleeping downstairs on the sofa. The wind blew outside, making the branches of the old cherry tree tap at the window. The last time he’d looked at the thermometer, it had read 1 degree outside.

  “I was in the heath today and discovered a group of children,” Heller finally said.

  “Children?”

  “War orphans. They’re led by a young man and a girl. He’s maybe sixteen; she’s just fifteen. Most are sick and riddled with lice. They live in tents and shacks made of branches, leaves. But you won’t believe this—they’re all armed, even the small children, and are determined not to be taken to a home.”

  It was quiet for a time.

  “Can you do anything for them?” Karin eventually asked.

  “Not without the Soviets’ help. I don’t have access to any such resources.”

  “So you can’t tell them?”

  “I can’t,” Heller said, and the way he stated it told Karin not to keep asking.

  “Is it a lot of kids?” Karin asked.

  “Ten, maybe more. The youngest are around three.”

  “Only three? For God’s sake.”

  “And the girl, Fanny, she delivered her own baby. From a Russian.”

  Karin sat up. “She has a kid? A baby?”

  “Yes, a boy. She just had him a few days ago, all on her own, there in a tent. A tiny little thing.”

  “What age did you say? Fifteen?”

  “At the most. She doesn’t even know herself exactly.”

  “Bring her here, Max.”

  “What?” Heller turned to face Karin.

  “You should bring her here. She has a newborn. A baby!” Karin sounded resolute.

  “Karin, I don’t know if I can trust her. She could rob us blind if we let her in the house.”

  “Don’t you dare go thinking like that, Max,” Karin whispered, upset now. “You go there tomorrow and bring her back. It will all work out.”

  Heller put up more timid resistance. “You said earlier that we needed to start worrying more about ourselves.”

  “But a baby, Max, just a few days old. You don’t want to be responsible for it dying, do you?”

  Heller couldn’t help thinking about that mound of earth with the cross. “No,” he said.

  “You bring her here. Promise me.”

  “All right, Karin, I will. I’ll go back tomorrow.”

  Where were they supposed to put a girl and a baby? he thought. What were they supposed to eat? Could he trust her? That was the big question, and he already knew the answer: he couldn’t. But he couldn’t just leave her there in the woods with a newborn either.

  He had returned to lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. The alarm clock on the nightstand ticked away. Frau Marquart was breathing easier. His feet were still cold.

  “Max,” Karin said, and her warm hand traveled under the blanket to him. “Come, Max. Come here to me.”

  February 10, 1947: Early Morning

  Oldenbusch was very punctual the next morning, waiting at Heller’s front door. After a quick hello, the two men
fell silent until they reached the former regional court at Münchner Platz. A Soviet military guard let them pass through the gate so they could park the car in the inner courtyard. After the nearly half-hour entrance procedure, they were finally sitting across from Frau Schlüter in a small interrogation cell.

  She wore the same clothes as when she was arrested two days before. Her face was ashen, her hair pulled back tightly but visibly unkempt, her hands shaking. Heller gave Oldenbusch a nod to offer her a cigarette. She grabbed one, looking grateful, let him light it, and took a deep drag. Then she wiped the corners of her eyes with the thumb of the hand holding the cigarette.

  “Look what you’ve done to me,” she said in a faint and hopeless voice.

  “You could have spared yourself,” Heller said, “by telling us about your son in the first place.”

  “Sure, and for what? So the Russians would arrest him and take him away? I can only hope the boy’s smart enough to take off. I’ve already lost everything anyway. None of it matters anymore—none of it!” Frau Schlüter took another deep drag.

  “Let’s try to be constructive, Frau Schlüter. Not all is lost. Not even Friedel. You have to cooperate with us. We need to know what crimes he’s committed, if any. If we find Friedel, if he appears before a German court as part of our criminal prosecution, we could point to mitigating circumstances. Your son’s still young. He’ll get one or two years in prison, no more. But this is assuming you cooperate.”

  She gazed at the tiny windows of her cell. “A German court? Don’t make me laugh. Germany doesn’t exist anymore. We’re a Russian colony, nothing more. An enslaved people.”

  “Frau Schlüter, your son’s life is at stake. If we can’t prove his innocence, the Soviets will pin it all on him—the attacks and the murders of Swoboda, the two Soviet officers, and possibly even Armin Weiler.”

  She stared at Heller in horror. “Murder?”

  “Yes, murder. He’d receive fifteen years in prison from a German court. How old is he—fifteen, sixteen? Who can say what the Soviets would do with him? Maybe take him to Bautzen or Siberia. No one knows.”

  “But he didn’t kill anyone!”

  “Tell us what you know. Is he responsible for the attack on the Victims of Fascism meeting at the Münchner Krug? We found the same type of hand grenades, as well as leaflets, among the items he was trying to remove from your cellar. Do you think he’d improperly write the word ‘Bolshevism’ with two s’s before the m?”

  Frau Schlüter took another drag of her cigarette. “He was so excited that someone had attacked that Russian bar. ‘Someone’s finally doing something,’ he said.”

  “You didn’t tell him not to do anything?”

  Frau Schlüter lowered her eyes. “What good would that do? He would’ve done it anyway. He would have attempted something or other. But he didn’t want to kill anyone; I know that. He threw the grenades so they’d miss on purpose.”

  Heller had his doubts about that, but he didn’t voice them. “Where did he get them?”

  “No idea. I didn’t even know he had them.”

  “So he’s not responsible for the attack on the Schwarzer Peter?”

  “He was at home, asleep on the sofa. And he didn’t kill any Russians. Friedel is no murderer.”

  “Do you know Armin Weiler?”

  “He worked for us, in accounting.”

  “We found a bag in Friedel’s hiding spot. Inside were bloody tools and sawed-off human hands that belonged to Weiler.”

  Frau Schlüter’s eyes widened. She forcefully shook her head. “No, no! Stop this! I don’t believe that—it’s all a bunch of lies! No one’s going to pin that on him.”

  “He’s fully steeped in Nazi propaganda. You yourself were a committed National Socialist; still are. You used Jews as forced labor and denounced people in your neighborhood for not displaying the flag correctly.”

  “That’s what that Frau Dähne wants you to believe!” Frau Schlüter shot back. “That old bag isn’t exactly on the straight and narrow herself. She’s crazy! Who knows what’s going on inside her place? I saw young girls going inside there. Wouldn’t be surprised if she was procuring hookers for those pigs.”

  Heller had resolved to ignore Frau Schlüter’s moaning and complaining, but this made him take notice. “What makes you think that?”

  “That one-handed man, who works for that Russian bar—Franz the Stub. Everyone in the neighborhood knows him. He used to go in and out of Frau Dähne’s. And everyone knows what was going on there wasn’t exactly legitimate. I wouldn’t be surprised if Franz the Stub had torched that bar himself. That or the Russians, trying to cover something up. And so now they need someone to take the blame.”

  “You saw girls going in and out of Frau Dähne’s? What kind of girls?”

  “All kinds. Nobodies. Filthy little sluts. They live in the woods or who knows where and rob people blind. They’ll do anything for a meal.”

  Heller looked over at Oldenbusch and glanced at his notes. Then he gave his junior partner a slight nudge, for him to offer Frau Schlüter another cigarette. She grabbed it without thanks and let him light her up again.

  “Where’s Friedel?” Heller tried once more.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Frau Schlüter, you have to trust me. Tell me where he is.”

  She leaned forward. “I do not know,” she said, stressing each word.

  Heller leaned forward now too and looked Frau Schlüter in the eye. “We’re the only ones who can help your son. The only way he can be saved is if we find him. Think hard. Where could he be? Does he have a hiding place? Do you have relatives in the city? Or is he hiding in the woods?”

  Oldenbusch thought of something. “Maybe he knows those kids?” he whispered in Heller’s ear.

  But Heller ignored the comment. “Frau Schlüter, your son’s life is at stake. He needs to eat, sleep. He might need you for something and come back. He’d end up running right into the arms of one of those policemen posted around the house. He might come creeping up at night and get shot dead by a Soviet soldier. All sorts of things could happen, and sooner or later one of them will.”

  Frau Schlüter showed no reaction. She considered her half-smoked cigarette as if just now realizing she was smoking it, contorted her mouth into a bitter smile, and stubbed out the butt on the tabletop. “We’ll see about that.”

  Heller chided Oldenbusch after the interrogation. “Can you just keep your thoughts to yourself until we’re alone?”

  “Sorry for that. It suddenly hit me and came out before I knew it.”

  The two walked down the long corridor, passing the cells where two years ago people had sat waiting for the sentencing that would condemn them, all because they’d supposedly hidden Jews, shown themselves “hostile to military power,” spied, uttered defeatist comments, or behaved in other ways damaging to the Third Reich. Now people sat waiting here again under lock and key. There certainly were actual criminal Nazis among them, yet many had simply been denounced and had no real way of defending themselves against the seemingly arbitrary Soviet denazification process.

  “That Frau Schlüter is really stubborn,” Oldenbusch said to mitigate their gloomy mood. The car didn’t want to start on the first try.

  “She doesn’t trust us. And maybe she really doesn’t know,” Heller said. He had calmed down and was glad Oldenbusch hadn’t gotten his feelings hurt.

  “What about what she said about Frau Dähne? Should we look into it?”

  “I’ll go see her.” Heller thought about that and went over his list of tasks for the day. “I definitely need to go back into the woods, to that secret camp. We have to speak with Gutmann again, and I want to see Kasrashvili too. And I can’t forget to go to the coal office.” He vacillated a moment before reaching a decision. “Wait here a moment, Werner,” he ordered and stepped out of the car.

  Ovtcharov poured tea into his cup. “People have told me that you always find a way to get your voice heard.�
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  “Well, since I was already here I thought it was worth a try.” Heller caught himself staring at the warm tea and made himself look away.

  Ovtcharov’s office wasn’t nearly as large and imposing as Medvedev’s. It was a normal office, with filing cabinets and metal shelving full of folders and binders, dull yellow curtains over the window, and a portrait of Stalin on the wall, a fatherly smile dancing on his lips. It smelled like stale smoke. The red flag behind Ovtcharov was the only dash of color in an otherwise drab backdrop.

  The Russian stirred his tea, then pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  “So what do you want? To make a report? A strong woman, this Frau Schlüter.”

  “She is, yes.”

  Ovtcharov smiled. “It’s admirable, all the pride you have, and how tough you are on yourself. I like that, Comrade Oberkommissar.”

  “The term ‘pride’ isn’t of much use to me. Pride only creates suffering.”

  Ovtcharov was about to disagree, then gave it another thought. He pointed at Heller. “What do you want? I haven’t been able to learn any more from this Schliter woman.”

  “I’d like something else from you.”

  Ovtcharov sat down and looked at Heller with amusement.

  “I have to get a better picture of what sort of dealings the two murdered officers had. Cherin and Berinov. I have to know who they were friends with. When and how often they visited the Schwarzer Peter, and who else was with them. On top of that, I have to request that you provide me with a report on Captain Kasrashvili’s conduct, anyone he surrounded himself with, his habits. I’m also requesting that you proceed with caution and discretion.”

  “This is what you request? Do you suspect Kasrashvili of something? And why so cautious?”

  “His name comes up repeatedly in connection with my investigation. There’s solid suspicion that he’s peddling medication from Soviet stocks.”

  Ovtcharov didn’t look convinced. “Kasrashvili has gotten himself into trouble many a time. He’s been demoted twice already for negligent behavior. There were suspicions that Russian officers lost their lives because of his misdiagnoses and improper treatment, but these could not be confirmed. The concerns of the Soviet Union certainly don’t seem to interest him all that much.”