The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1)

by Frank Goldammer

  “Prepare yourself,” said Oldenbusch as he followed Heller up the stairs. “It’s a woman again, quite young, at least according to her face.”

  Heller’s head emerged into semidarkness, and he took his time climbing the final steps before entering the attic. It had wooden floorboards, and washing lines spanned its beams.

  He first thought it was a curtain with all its fabric shredded. A nearly black drapery, appearing to hover between two wooden posts supporting the roof truss. A dark, sinister dragon, spreading its wings.

  “Lord in Heaven,” Heller blurted once he realized what he was seeing.

  He recognized the arms spread out. The thin rope tight around the wrists. Tied to the posts and pulled taut, so the victim’s toes just brushed the floor. Her blood had seeped down the ropes and through the floorboards. Her head lay on her left shoulder, her eyes wide open, two bright white stars amid this ominous scene. Her dark hair was down and framed her stained face.

  “We found her clothes tossed into a corner. From the looks of it, she must’ve been a refugee. Found no papers, not one piece of info. He used a clothesline to tie her up. I was able to take five photos before running out—”

  “Stop,” Heller said. Oldenbusch was only giving him these details so he wouldn’t feel completely powerless. This was his job. He had chosen it and wanted it even before he was drafted into the war. It was why he had studied and overcome all the odds that should have made him a tax official, an accountant, a salesman.

  What all these types in their uniforms with their skull badges didn’t understand was that it wasn’t about status or title for him. It was about steering people in the right direction, providing them with justice, maintaining the values that constituted a good society. And the more he saw society going to the dogs and how little value human life now held, the more he would stand up for it.

  This was exactly why he now forced himself to step closer to endure this horrific sight that was more than enough to rob him of sleep for nights on end. It was also why he reached out to close the woman’s eyes—the least he could do for her. But he shrunk back in horror when he saw that it wasn’t possible. That her eyelids had been cut out. He kept shrinking back until he stepped on Oldenbusch’s foot.

  “Work of a madman,” Oldenbusch said, pretending not to notice Heller’s sheer horror. “You think it’s meant to represent something? An angel maybe?”

  “Can you please keep quiet!” Heller tried to pull himself together. Compared with the overall condition of the corpse, the eyes were actually a minor thing. Yet it told him just how twisted the murderer really was.

  “Werner, please go downstairs and help that cop gather everyone who’s been up here. Tell them we’ll be questioning witnesses.”

  Oldenbusch squinted at him. “You think the killer would dare try to blend in with them?”

  Heller gave him a stern look. “We’ll talk later, Werner.”

  Oldenbusch nodded and rushed down the stairs.

  Heller turned back to the victim and took in the whole sight. He was trying to get accustomed enough to it that it might eventually become just one of many images he kept stowed away. Only retrieved when utterly necessary.

  He noted how sharp the knife must have been. And that it seemed as if the killer brought a certain expertise. Was it the same killer? This looked somewhat different. The woman was even more mangled than the first victim. But maybe the killer had been interrupted when murdering Klara Bellmann, which would have prevented him from finishing the job. Maybe he’d succeeded this time and felt more satisfied with his work.

  Heller would have preferred to lower the body. He wanted to cover her face, her nakedness. Yet how could he manage without touching her, without her hitting the floor when he loosened the rope? Suddenly a fear overtook him that the corpse could start moving, might flap its arms like an angel of death. He felt a pressure tightening his chest, as if someone was watching him from one of the attic’s dark corners. He must keep his head on straight. He couldn’t dare think of fleeing. Nobody else was there. No enemy, no madman, no Fright Man. This was not hell—this was an insane person murdering women. Heller forced himself to do his job. He stepped closer to the dead woman’s face, searching for a white thread, for other clues. But he couldn’t find anything without good light. He stuck around for a few more minutes. That, he knew, would be enough. Then he could leave without feeling like a coward.

  When the municipal undertakers reached the top floor, Heller instructed them to take the body to Dr. Schorrer. Heller was planning to go meet him.

  Two of the undertakers’ three workers, gaunt and ashen-faced men of indeterminate age, were wearing Jewish stars on their jackets. Heller took the third man to the side. He was stocky and starting to go bald. “Have those two been with you long?” Heller asked in a whisper.

  “They were assigned to me a couple weeks ago. I’ve had four employees drafted.”

  “Do they have any experience?”

  “One was a doctor. The other . . . not sure. We’re doing all right. People get used to it. I had two others up until a little while ago, but they’re gone now.”

  Gone. Heller slowly gazed up at the attic. “Up those steps is something else altogether. Take your time. And bring everything. We need to ascertain if . . . if anything’s missing.”

  “Oh, I see.” The man made a face. “Well, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. You go on ahead—we’ll handle it.”

  Heller nodded and went down the stairs, a hand on the railing. When he reached the landing, he noticed a narrow strip of dust on the inside of his hand. He took a good look around. The landing was clean. The killer had wiped it down. Heller smelled his hand, and he rubbed the fine white powder between his fingertips, yet he saw no good reason to believe that it was anything other than dust.

  Down on the street he took a deep breath, relieved to be taking in this air that now felt so fresh, almost chilly.

  “Is it true he peeled off all her skin?” asked a woman.

  Heller ignored her, turned away, and waved Oldenbusch over.

  Oldenbusch was holding a notebook. “We have fifteen people. Eight women and five children among them. That leaves two men, neither of them near the building. Others had snuck away when they realized we were checking papers.”

  “Would you rule out the women?”

  Oldenbusch nodded but wasn’t sure. “He did have to carry the victim up there, after all.”

  “Or she went up with him willingly.”

  “Why would she?”

  “I believe a person will do just about anything these days to get some food.”

  “Even us Germans?”

  “Even us, yes. So did any of the residents notice anything?”

  “They’re all spouting the same nonsense. They all think they heard something. Sounded like an animal.”

  Heller pursed his lips. These tales couldn’t really be true, could they? A Fright Man? No. Impossible. There was no point looking into them. People absorbed these things like sponges and passed them on as if they’d experienced it themselves. Come tomorrow, the whole neighborhood would be claiming they’d heard the noises.

  December 18, 1944: Midday

  Heller ran into Rita Stein outside Dr. Schorrer’s office. She looked exhausted, distracted. “Anything new?” she said without a hello.

  The nurse’s abrupt tone surprised him again. She fascinated him for some reason. Maybe it was her tough and matter-of-fact way of dealing with life.

  “Bad news,” he said.

  “So it is true.”

  “You already heard?”

  “The word’s getting around. I guess it wasn’t the Jew after all?”

  She sounded bitter, and Heller didn’t get why she was speaking to him like this. The face he made had to speak volumes.

  “It says in the Dresdner,” she said, “that the Jew Kohn had taken revenge on Klara in ‘bloodthirsty fashion.’”

  Heller had read that too. He’d shown the articl
e to Karin yet neither wasted a word discussing it. Klepp’s officers had found two men on their big raid, hiding in the false floor of a small apartment building. They were Jews. Klepp’s men supposedly discovered blood on the men’s hands and under their fingernails. But Heller never got to see their faces. He certainly didn’t know if either was Daniel Kohn. All he’d been told was that they got hauled half-naked to headquarters, where Klepp’s men beat them up and took them straight to Münchner Platz for sentencing and execution, along with the building’s four unfortunate residents, who were charged with knowingly hiding the Jews.

  “What can I say? My boss used to be a butcher,” Heller said.

  He thought he saw her face brighten a second.

  “Maybe my new boss used to be a butcher too,” she remarked, keeping her voice low. “As surgeons go, it’s pretty clear Dr. Schorrer has been on the front lines awhile.”

  “Well, he is a pathologist, not a surgeon,” Heller reminded her.

  “That’s true. And he is good at running things.” Rita was backpedaling now.

  “I’m here to see him, about the new case.”

  “You hear what people are saying? There’s a demon lurking around.” Rita scoffed at that, then she was all business again. “Dr. Schorrer isn’t here today, unfortunately. Dr. Reus sent him home. He’s been battling a virus for a few days now.”

  Heller still wanted to get back to that nearly confidential tone they’d shared moments ago. “I get the impression you don’t like him,” he tried.

  “He’s my boss now” was all she said.

  “All right, well, I’m having the corpse brought to him. I’m hoping he’ll find time to examine it as soon as he’s back. Also, could he please let me know what he finds?”

  “I’ll give him the message.”

  Klepp was looking a little harried when he received Heller in his office. He gestured for Heller to take the chair in front of his desk, marched past Heller, and sat down, only to stand back up. He suddenly seemed to recall the role he was playing and clasped his hands behind his back. Then he strutted over to the window, past the Saxony police standard and the swastika flag, and ended his little tour by pausing face-to-face with his Führer, who stared out into the room from the picture frame with that stern expression of his.

  “It’s just like I told you, Heller: there’s a copycat killer!”

  Klepp had said nothing of the sort. This meeting was already proving pointless, Heller realized. He never should’ve bothered getting his hopes up.

  “So what are you going to do?” Klepp added.

  Heller looked up. Was this helplessness the SS man was voicing? Klepp wasn’t showing his face. He kept gazing at his Hitler portrait.

  Heller took a large, deep breath.

  “We need to thoroughly question witnesses so we can find out whether any strangers were frequenting the neighborhood and behaving unusually. The killer had studied the crime scene; he didn’t choose the spot randomly. And there must be a reason why both homicides took place in the same area. We need to search the attic more thoroughly. The killer must have stepped in some blood or had blood all over himself. There must be fingerprints. He could’ve left something behind, like hair, clothing fibers. In addition, I’d keep looking into Klara Bellmann. It seems the killer’s act fulfilled a certain purpose and unconsciously served as a trigger for impulses that had been well suppressed until now.”

  “There’s nothing to look into. That first case is over with!” Klepp pivoted, his boots glistening. “We’ll focus only on the case in the attic. What do you need to get the job done?”

  Heller knew Klepp would never admit being wrong about the Bellmann case. The only thing Heller could do was make the best of the situation.

  “Three men,” Heller said. “A vehicle. Camera flashes. And we have to send for a medical examiner—a proper one.” This was already pushing it.

  Klepp finally turned around. Heller spotted a scratch on his face, running from his left temple down to his cheekbone.

  “I’ll give you one man, who’ll serve as your driver. I’m assigning Oldenbusch to other matters. Between you and me? I’m only letting you work the case so people see that we’re taking care of it, that things are happening. So go out and make yourself seen. Question anyone you want. Our Reich is facing the toughest times it’s ever seen. In order to thrust the final dagger into our enemies’ heart, all our forces must become unified. In the west, the Ardennes offensive has been under way for two days, and our forces keep advancing. But the enemy is trying to block us by attacking from the rear. They’re setting off bombs, disrupting transportation lines, committing sabotage—”

  “I don’t understand,” Heller said in a firm voice, “what any of this has to do with the case.”

  “You don’t need to understand. You were only a common soldier in the Great War. I know what you went through—it’s the only reason you’re still here. But that’s far beside the point. What we’re dealing with here is enemy agents. What happened there in that attic, it’s sabotage, you understand? It distracts and stirs up fright among the population. The more horrific the act, the greater the advantage. But we can’t let ourselves be distracted. We must keep our eyes trained on the higher goal. We will clean up this mess here, but not until all our enemies are facedown in the dirt. Dismissed!”

  December 18, 1944: Night

  There hadn’t been as many air raid sirens lately, but tonight they had to go back down into the cellar. Herr Leutholdt turned the radio dial, searching for better reception since they couldn’t always rely on the sirens to sound the all-clear signal. He discovered a little music on one frequency and leaned back to listen. His wife gave him a shove, adding a quick nod in Heller’s direction. Yet it never occurred to Heller that Leutholdt might be listening to an enemy broadcast, seeing as how the man had been the first in the neighborhood to join the SA back in ’36.

  “I should have gone to the bathroom one more time,” Karin whispered to Heller.

  Heller nodded. He was now watching Frau Zinsendorfer, who was making the sign of the cross more fervently than ever, rocking back and forth like mad. He’d seen something like this once before—in an insane asylum.

  She was now staring back at him with a sinister look.

  “It’s the Devil!” she snarled at him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Devil walks among us, snatching all those souls he’s been promised!” She shut her mouth and crossed herself three more times. “He’s telling us that the end is nigh!”

  All faces had turned to them. A dozen people.

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” Heller said, and turned away.

  “The demons, they’re crawling out from every hole, howling in the alleys at night. Haven’t you heard them cackling and grunting? You don’t see them climbing up the walls and peering through every crack and crevice? Clattering along the roof with their claws? Soon they’ll be tearing away the roof tiles and coming inside.”

  “Quiet!” Heller shouted.

  “You’re all in league with the Devil, all of you! You and the whole gang. You’re the ones who called him here. All of you!” Frau Zinsendorfer stood and made a half circle with her index finger, and everyone pulled back as if her finger were some sharp weapon. Her overcoat had opened, exposing her nightgown. She turned to point her finger at Leutholdt and hissed, “He’ll take you all and peel your skin off, one after the other!”

  Leutholdt shot up and balled his hands into fists, his jaw grinding away. “You sit back down and shut your dirty mouth or I’ll report you for traitorous gossip harmful to the Volk and for undermining the war effort!”

  Heller was about to let them both have it, but Karin beat him to it.

  “Silence, both of you! Start behaving like adults. Fighting like this isn’t helping anyone. We’re stuck here together, and we’ll just have to get through it.”

  It was the same voice she used to break up their sons whenever their wild playing developed into a fight. I
t brought Leutholdt and, unexpectedly, Frau Zinsendorfer back to reason. Embarrassed now, the two stared at the floor as if they’d lost something, then sat back down again. Everyone was trying not to look at one another.

  December 19, 1944: Early Morning

  “Things are going well on the Western Front,” Dr. Schorrer said the next morning. He wasn’t looking great—it probably would’ve been better for him to take a couple more days off. Yet his lab coat was in proper shape, his collar unfashionably high and stiff, and his mustache freshly trimmed, though the doctor had two or three tiny shaving cuts. His face looked sallow, with dark rings under his eyes.

  He sounded more interested in Heller’s opinion of the war itself than in any actual details.

  Heller hesitated to respond. “I don’t know the details so I couldn’t really judge,” he said without changing his expression. He didn’t reveal that his younger son, Erwin, was likely somewhere on those very front lines, even though Schorrer’s casual comment had reignited that fear.

  Schorrer had turned away and was looking out the window. “I see this as our last stand,” he said.

  Heller couldn’t allow himself to be provoked into commenting. There was no leeway for voicing one’s opinion. No one could be trusted. It was even possible that Schorrer and Klepp were in contact. And Klepp was probably just waiting for that one rash comment as an excuse to get rid of him. Even if they only suspended him or put him on leave, it meant losing his food and ration coupons and being left with less to live on.

  Schorrer turned, and looked him in the eye. “They’d be better off seeking an armistice in the west and throwing everything at the Russians. But what do I know?”

  Heller returned the doctor’s stare, showing no expression. He had to keep quiet. Schorrer’s approach was far too bold even if he did mean it sincerely. The skull-badge gang was getting extremely nervous, and they had listeners everywhere. Just one word could cost a person their head.