Straight into Darkness

by Faye Kellerman

  Calm down, Berg. Breathe slowly.

  Cutting through the chilly, dark veil of a foggy evening, he walked the several blocks to his apartment. It had been an exhausting day: Mental gymnastics were often more tiring than physical labor. The streets were forlorn except for a single motorcar parked across from his building.

  He opened the door to the foyer, collected the mail from his box, then slowly trudged up four flights in a stairwell made warm by dinnertime cooking. The welcome aroma of food wafted into his nostrils, making his stomach growl. He suddenly realized that he had barely eaten all day. Even during lunch with Ilse, he had eaten very little. His fatigue was undoubtedly brought on by his hunger. He was not simply hungry; he was famished.

  Down the hall to his apartment.

  Still plagued by his guilt over Margot’s death, he scarcely noticed that his front door was unlocked. That wasn’t really unusual. They knew all their neighbors. Doors were often left open, especially at suppertime . . . someone always borrowing something—an onion or a turnip or a teaspoon of salt. Delicious smells came from inside. Britta was a fantastic cook.

  It wasn’t until he was inside that he noticed something was very wrong. His wife and children sitting on the edge of the couch, terrified looks on their faces. Britta in the middle, hugging Monika and Joachim with tears escaping from her eyes.

  Berg looked up from his family.

  Behind them stood the man who had occupied his every thought for the past hour. Images raced through his brain like a child’s animated flip book. Taken singly, the pages held static drawings. But when the edges were flipped quickly, a scene was played out.

  He was holding two guns, one in each hand: a Luger P.08 and a Mauser C96.

  “Hello, Inspektor.”

  “Kommandant . . .” he whispered.

  “Come in and close the door. You don’t want to catch a draft.”

  Berg did as he was told. Then he took a step forward, but stopped as soon as he heard the hammer draw back and the pin click.

  The Mauser was pressed against his son’s temple. He was as clever as he was evil. A son was what a man treasured most in his life. The Kommandant had already killed a helpless little girl; certainly an older boy wouldn’t trouble him.

  “Do not move unless I tell you to do so.”

  “Yes, sir,” Berg answered.

  “Ah, a good policeman you are.” Stefan Roddewig waved the gun in the air. “Take a seat, why don’t you.”

  Berg moved toward the couch.

  “No . . . not there.”

  Berg stopped.

  “In your chair, Inspektor. Across from your wife, your son, and your daughter. That way I can see you . . . face-to-face.”

  Berg sat on his chair.

  “Put your hands in your lap so I can see them.”

  Berg complied.

  “I received a visitor today,” Roddewig said. “A fine citizen of Munich who was very perturbed. It seems you’ve upset his mother by poking into private matters.”

  Berg didn’t say anything.

  “Old family matters.”

  Berg remained silent.

  “You do know who I’m talking about.”

  Berg was still quiet.

  “Answer me!” Roddewig shot the ceiling with the Luger, and plaster rained down. Monika let go with a piercing scream, but Britta wisely clamped her hand over her daughter’s mouth. “The next time I shoot, it will be the lad. I don’t like to be ignored.”

  “I apologize for my impudence, Herr Kommandant.” Berg’s voice was surprisingly strong. A quick glance at his family to make sure they were still whole. They were suffused with dread but otherwise all right. He focused his eyes on the Mauser. Roddewig’s hand was sure and steady. “I believe you are referring to Rolf Schoennacht. I certainly didn’t mean to upset him or anyone else, especially you.”

  “Oh, is that so?” The Kommandant appeared calm and in control. Only a slight tic in his eye gave any hint of a crack in the steel demeanor. “Then you have failed miserably.”

  “Again I apologize.”

  Roddewig exhaled angrily. “If the problem had only been that idiot Rolf, we could have handled this in office. Just you and me, Berg, and that would have been that. But you got his mother involved!”

  Rolf wasn’t the idiot. I was an idiot. Of course, Hannah would tell her son about the visit.

  “What were you thinking?”

  What had I been thinking? But then Berg realized something. How could Hannah have talked to her son when he was supposedly in Paris or America? Either Rolf had cut his trip short or he had never left Munich. That meant he could have been in the city when Edith and her little girl were murdered. Maybe Roddewig and Schoennacht were perpetrating the murders in tandem.

  “I’m . . .” Berg forced himself to remain calm, even managing a quick smile for Joachim. The boy was too paralyzed to respond. “I’m very sorry. Deal with me however you want, Herr Kommandant, but please leave my family alone.”

  The wrong thing to say. A smile played on Roddewig’s lips. “Ah, so now you are a good family man, settling for your wife now that your mistress is dead.”

  Berg closed his eyes, not daring to look at his family. Then, he snapped them open.

  Don’t take your eyes off the gun, you idiot.

  Berg jumped as he heard a soft click, as if a gun with an empty chamber were being fired.

  “Something the matter, Inspektor?”

  Berg looked at Roddewig’s Mauser, which was still aimed at his son’s temple. Now he was hearing things. The brain playing tricks on him.

  “Nothing.”

  “You jumped.”

  “A chill in the room.”

  “Sit still. You make me nervous when you jump. You don’t want me nervous, do you?”

  “No, sir, not at all.”

  “Good.” Roddewig smiled. “Now I understand why Martin insisted that you lead the Mordkommission. You are exacting. You make his command look sharp. Your meticulous and dogged pursuit of the killer has been impressive. But not as impressive as all the details that you have miraculously unearthed, constructing a plausible story from nothing but fragments.”

  Berg’s natural instinct was not to answer, but he knew he had to say something. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You were so close, my good man, so very close.”

  Berg licked his lips. “You give me too much credit—”

  A shot rang past his shoulder. The Luger pointed in his direction, a bullet discharged before he could finish his sentence. Berg was startled, but somehow managed not to move.

  “You’re not a fool, so don’t act like one. While you may know some things, Berg, you don’t know everything. Shall I fill you in?”

  There was the eye tic. Not as pronounced this time. He was becoming calmer as time passed.

  “I’d like to hear whatever you’d like to tell me,” Berg said.

  Roddewig nodded. “Good answer. You may not report directly to me, Inspektor, but I know what’s going on. Records do tell an interesting story, don’t they?”

  Only two people knew he had been to Records this morning. One of them was in the hospital. The other was Volker. How stupid and naive he was to trust the Kommissar with his game plan.

  “If you had kept your sights on Rolf, if you had investigated him, you would have realized that he was in town at the time of Edith’s murder. His alibi about going to America would have made him look very, very guilty.”

  “I’m sure I would have found that out, sir. And I would have charged him—”

  “No, no, no!” Roddewig’s tongue clucked. “Don’t insult my intelligence! As soon as you spoke with my dotty aunt, I knew it was only a matter of time before you discovered my identity.”

  There it was again. That distinct click. It wasn’t imaginary! Berg tried to keep his face expressionless and his brain focused. The sound was coming from behind him. Someone else in the room? He dared not turn to look over his shoulder. Instead, he gazed past his
wife’s head at Joachim’s charcoal drawing on the wall, the one that he had framed himself and covered with glass. In the reflection, he failed to see anyone in back of him.

  But the click was real! If it wasn’t from someone in the room, it had to be coming from the other side of his front door.

  The unlocked front door.

  Someone was trying to come inside but being very quiet about it. With any luck at all, he would live long enough to find out who it was.

  Stall the bastard!

  And remember to duck!

  Berg cleared his throat. “We still can blame all the murders on Schoennacht, sir. He was the one who knew Regina Gottlieb. Regina worked for his wife. Schoennacht hated Jews. It would make perfect sense for him to murder her.”

  “He did murder her, you dunce!” Again, Roddewig’s mouth turned upward into a sickly grin. With the eye tic, it would have been comical if the man hadn’t been armed. “Rolf Schoennacht . . . my favored older brother . . . the one my mother held up as an example of sophistication and taste. The one for whom my mother ached even though it was she who had deserted him . . . though to hear Mother explain it, nothing was ever her fault, the gutless harlot.”

  The gun was still in Roddewig’s right hand, but it had slid from Joachim’s temple, the barrel now pointing at his jawbone. If it were to drop just a tiny bit more, Berg would have a chance, providing he was fast enough.

  “. . . the great Rolf Schoennacht crying like a baby.” The smile grew wider. “He came to me in a panic, hoping I could extricate him from the situation. But even his panic and fear didn’t stop himfrom having the Jew bitch . . . twice.”

  Berg swallowed. “He took advantage of her after she was . . .”

  “When the urge hits”—a wide smile—“but of course, you know that very well, Inspektor. Margot was quite lovely.”

  This time Berg didn’t dare close his eyes, although the temptation was very strong. The unadulterated look of hatred in Britta’s eyes was a knife through his heart. He deserved bitter condemnation. His stupidity had put his family in mortal danger. He couldn’t live with such guilt—he was better off dead. Most likely that was going to be the outcome anyway, but why did he have to take down his family as well?

  Roddewig was talking.

  “. . . out of our deep friendship, I told Rolf that I’d take care of it. Obviously I knew how the others had been slain. . . .”

  Because you had murdered them.

  “. . . replicated the exact marks on Gottlieb with the same necklace as on Marlena. I knew that the hook-nosed Jew Kolb would be shrewd enough to pick it up.”

  There it was. That click from behind again.

  Stall him.

  Berg had to make his plea. “The police and the public have already decided that Anton Gross was responsible for Anna’s death. All we have to do is make Schoennacht responsible for the others, Herr Kommandant. That will not be difficult at all.”

  “And that’s exactly what I plan to happen, Inspektor. Rolf will take the blame. Unfortunately, that will not help you at all. You know too much about the murders, and more important, you know too much about me. It is too dangerous to keep you alive. But I am a man of mercy, my friend. I’ll kill you before I kill your family, so you won’t have to watch. And as far as my aunt goes, she will meet with a very gentle death.” A grin. “Gentle because she is family.”

  The noise coming from behind had stopped.

  Keep stalling.

  “Just between us, sir. How did you intend to blame Schoennacht for the murders of Edith and little Johanna Mayrhofer?”

  “Rolf was supposed to leave for Paris. He didn’t. His change of itinerary makes him look utterly guilty.”

  “Why didn’t he leave?”

  “Hitler asked him to attend the rally. Schoennacht was honored. The man is a dupe for anyone of prominence. That is why we got on so well. He felt he had the police in his pocket, idiot that he is.”

  The gun fell off Joachim’s jawbone and was now pointed across his chest at Monika’s head. Berg could possibly save his son, but it would most likely kill his daughter. He’d have to be patient. “I see.”

  “Rolf Schoennacht is a bully, Inspektor . . . a very disturbed man. Once I bring official charges against him for the murders of Marlena and Regina, the public will have no problem believing the two other murders were from his hand as well. They will want to believe it, I think.”

  Roddewig was right about that. The citizens of Munich demanded answers. The problem was that any answer would suffice. If the police blamed Anton Gross for the murder of his wife, then Anton Gross was the murderer. If the politicians claimed the monster was Rolf Schoennacht, then it was Rolf Schoennacht. Honesty was a virtue, but if the truth was not easily found, a scapegoat would do. Such was the national mentality: a people too proud to admit defeat, too haughty to assign rightful blame.

  It was always someone else’s fault.

  Roddewig was talking. “. . . be regarded as a hero, as the one who has solved these terrible crimes and restored order to our city. I will be the one who has brought a murderer to justice. The politicians will flock to kiss my feet, the selfsame politicians who have lost regard for Herr Direktor Brummer because he failed to keep order at Hitler’s latest rally. Did you know that he is being asked to resign?”

  “And you will be the logical one to take his place.”

  “Just as you predicted this afternoon. I must admit, Berg, that you are a very clever man.”

  Predicted this afternoon?

  How could Roddewig know what I said this afternoon . . . to Georg?

  Unless . . . ?

  How could he?

  Seeing the utter dismay on Berg’s face, Roddewig laughed out loud. “It’s a very sad state when strong alliances just can’t be trusted.”

  The betrayal was too much to fathom. Berg had worked with Müller for almost two years. They ate together, they drank together, they had even stolen money together. Their wives knew each other. Their children played together. Berg even knew the whores Georg frequented. How could Müller have perpetrated such an act of disloyalty . . . such treason?

  Roddewig smiled. “Müller has always had ambitious designs, but unfortunately he is very lazy. Did you know that he was quite put out when Volker assigned you to head the Mordkommission? Of course, it was the proper choice, but that doesn’t mean he accepted it. After all, he is five years your senior, and he is Bavarian and you are not. He came to me in secret, asking me how he could get promoted. I told him what he had to do for me, and we struck a deal. He was getting impatient, but then these murders came up. This entire episode was very fortuitous. With you gone and Storf incapacitated, he will be first in line for promotion.”

  Berg was numbed by Roddewig’s words.

  How could this be true?

  But of course, Roddewig’s invasion into Berg’s home bespoke the absolute truth. Again Berg heard a single click of the doorknob, followed by the very soft creak of the door opening. It snapped him back to the present, to how stupid and foolish he was for nursing betrayal when the lives of his family were at stake.

  Keep talking. Don’t let him hear what I hear.

  “So . . .” Berg cleared his throat. “Georg told you everything.”

  “He phoned the station-house emergency line the moment you were out the door. It was fortunate that it took you some time to come to the truth. If he had still been in traction, he would not have been able to get to the telephone so easily. Now he can sit up in a wheelchair.”

  Keep him talking.

  “So tell me, Kommandant, exactly how close was I to the actual truth?”

  “You were wrong about the murder of Regina Gottlieb.”

  “I know that now, but what about the others? What about Anna Gross? The child was yours, of course.”

  “I don’t know if it was mine, but it certainly wasn’t from the Jew.” Another smile. No more tic. He was perfectly comfortable. “The odd thing is, Berg, murder was not origina
lly on my mind. Marlena had always given me money. She thought I was a good Schwabing Soviet who was using it to promote Kommunismus in Munich. I had intended to use some of it to provide Anna with an abortion.”

  “But Anna refused.”

  “Yes.”

  “She threatened to tell Marlena.”

  “She did tell Marlena, the bitch.”

  “So there went your money.”

  “The bitch!” Roddewig repeated. “It was only after I proposed marriage that Marlena calmed down.”

  “But you couldn’t marry her.”

  “I couldn’t marry anyone. I was playing the role of Kommunist count to several ladies. If Marlena or Anna had found out about my position in the police department, all my funds would have been cut off.”

  “So you had to murder her.”

  “I didn’t want to, but . . .” Roddewig blinked several times. “I told Marlena I was planning a major Kommunist rally in Munich and needed a lot of money to finance it properly. I told her that if all went as planned, Munich would be in revolt, and then we’d be married.”

  “She believed you.”

  “I am from the Soviet Union. I can recite the Kommunist Manifesto verbatim. Why shouldn’t she believe me?”

  “You met her at her boardinghouse. You took most of the money but left some behind for the police to find. Then you killed her.”

  Roddewig’s eyes glazed over. “I was not assigned to battle during the Great War, Berg.”

  “You didn’t miss anything.”

  “On the contrary, I felt like an outsider. My idiot father used his considerable sway and money to ensure me a desk job. So unlike most of my Kameraden, I had never killed anyone before. I was surprised by how easily it can be done.” Roddewig paused. “I have this rare gift, Berg, to kill and not to feel. Keeping the money and murdering Anna seemed like a much smarter thing to do than giving this stupid girl an abortion. And things would have died down if Rolf hadn’t mucked it up by murdering that Jew bitch.”

  “And that’s when you decided to blame both Regina and Marlena on Rolf.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then why go after Edith Mayrhofer and her innocent daughter?”

  Roddewig’s eyes narrowed. “The appetite for Lustmord is very strong, Berg. You don’t know until you’ve tasted it.”