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

by Frank Goldammer

  He told Frau Bohle what he needed, and listened to her response. He fell silent, his face hardening. He couldn’t believe this: Klepp’s secretary had just informed him that the corpse of Claude Bertrand had vanished.

  “How is that even possible?” Heller demanded. She didn’t know. “Put in an urgent call to the city undertakers.” He ground his teeth. “Frau Bohle, I know how awfully much you have to do, but this is crucial. See to it that the body is returned. Thank you.”

  Heller hung up. He saw Schubert standing there. “Bertrand’s superior—what’s his name?”

  “Ewald Glöckner, as far as I know.”

  Heller perked up. “Glöckner? Was he ever here?”

  “Sure. We play cards together. Skat.”

  “So was it Glöckner who would send Bertrand out on his errands?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Did Glöckner have good knowledge of all the affairs going on at the nurses’ quarters, and did he talk about it?”

  Schubert pursed his lips, which shifted his bushy mustache.

  “I’m just doing my job,” Heller said. He felt bad for always having to say that. Yet Schubert was also wearing a Nazi Party pin, while he was not.

  “This or that detail did come up once in a while, yes.”

  “He ever mention the name Klara Bellmann?”

  “With regard to Claude Bertrand?”

  “Or at all?”

  Schubert shook his head, but Heller wondered why Schubert had first answered with another question. He kept at it. “You know, the nurse from Berlin.”

  “Oh, right, her.” Schubert acted as if this were just dawning on him. “He did, yes. Once he was quite angry because she’d blamed something on him. He didn’t like having to take that from the likes of her.”

  “The likes of her?”

  Schubert hesitated, looking unsure how to talk himself out of this. “Well, she was generally regarded as, as—”

  “A floozy?” Heller said.

  “You could put it like that, yes.”

  “What did she try blaming him for? What was the situation?”

  “He didn’t exactly tell me.”

  Heller didn’t believe him. When people felt unjustly treated, they tended to report every detail. Maybe Glöckner had been rejected by her, a supposedly easy girl. Men turned down like that all too often got insulted, had their precious honor wounded.

  Two hours later, Heller was sitting in his office, staring at the wall. His zeal had waned. No one had been able to locate Glöckner. Now he felt drained and extremely tired, his arms heavy.

  Seeing the ever-growing masses of refugees had sapped him of his energy. The Russians were getting closer all the time, the flood of refugees never ceasing. What then? Would he and Karin have to flee too? And where would they go?

  Yet that was so far off, so unreal, that he couldn’t even picture it. What bothered him far more was the missing body. No one knew where the dead Frenchman was, and no one knew who’d arranged for him to be taken away.

  If only Heller had some confirmation that the blanket hadn’t suddenly appeared in Bertrand’s room only hours before, then he could accept that the man was guilty. Otherwise, he still had his doubts. The teeth imprints didn’t match, and Bertrand didn’t appear to have exhibited any oddly profuse salivation. But Heller had no idea how to express his doubts without putting himself in another dangerous situation. He had the inescapable feeling that someone was manipulating the case—and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  He jumped when his phone rang. He picked up. Klepp was expecting him, Frau Bohle told him.

  “Finally got this off the table!” Klepp said, giving Heller a crooked grin. Outside, the air raid sirens had started. “Lonely guy, this dead Frenchman, couldn’t tolerate the German girls not wanting to mess around with him. If only he could’ve suffered more. But now there’s calm, Heller, I promise you! Or do you still have your doubts?” Klepp glared as if goading him.

  “No more doubts,” Heller said in a placating tone. It was clear that Klepp would not accept any more doubt.

  “I have told both SS Gruppenführer von Dahlen and Mayor Nieland about your extraordinary work. Both were very pleased. They want to honor you with a very important post. You’ll be taking over the management and oversight of our trenches being built along the eastern parts of Dresden. I’m giving you a full transfer to the regular police force for this. Frau Bohle will hand you all the plans and documents as you leave. You’ve been assured a personal car and driver. As I understand it, a company of army trucks and drivers has been assigned for the job along with a troop of State Labor Service workers, all of them at your disposal. Your superior will be”—Klepp pushed some papers back and forth—“ah, here: Sturmbannführer Seibelt. Know him?”

  Heller nodded. It was pure mockery. Klepp was humiliating him, and Heller had to take it. He couldn’t refuse.

  “Full alarm siren!” Frau Bohle shouted from the outer office. “It’s an air raid!”

  “Well, let’s get to it.” Klepp took one last look at his documents, then one of the building’s air raid wardens came running up.

  “Herr Obersturmbannführer, you must get into the cellar!”

  Klepp strapped on his pistol belt, which had been hanging over the back of his chair. “Come on, Heller!”

  Heller looked at his watch: early afternoon. Not a typical time for the English; the Americans flew by day. He wasn’t rattled, though; he was too depressed for that. He only hoped that Karin was down in the cellar at home, which gave him a sudden guilty conscience—he hadn’t been home since his night shift.

  Loud, rapid footsteps sounded along the hallway. Frau Bohle had been down in the cellar awhile now, and as Heller headed down the stairs with Klepp, he wondered whether the Americans knew where the police headquarters was located.

  “They need to team up with us,” Klepp said in a low voice, “if they’re going to take on the Russians.”

  Heller sped up, as Klepp was a couple of steps ahead. “Come again?”

  “You heard me. Bolshevism is the greatest evil on earth, and the Allied powers in the west will soon regret having teamed up with the Russians. They’ll be begging us to keep fighting so we can finally get those subhumans under control.”

  What about the Jews? Heller really wanted to ask. Weren’t the Jews the greatest evil? But he kept quiet. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to sit next to Klepp the whole time. Maybe the all-clear siren would sound before they got down there.

  It got more crowded as they entered the cellar. This allowed Heller to shift to a different part of the room than Klepp, and he found a spot at the end of a long bench.

  “Herr Detective Inspector!” A man about his age said hello to him. Heller nodded, trying to recall who the man was.

  “It’s Durig. We were in vice together awhile under old man Rust, God rest his soul.”

  “Durig, right. How are you?” Heller only faintly remembered his face, since all their current troubles were dulling his memory. It must have been twenty years.

  “I’m getting by. Heard about your case. Can you believe it? This war’s letting plenty of evil stuff reach full boil. Although, wasn’t there a situation like this before the war? In Berlin, but even so. They called him the Slasher. Went down around ’39, if I remember correctly. Hey, I hear you’re under Klepp now.”

  Heller nudged him and gestured at Strampe sitting about four yards away on a stool with his back to them. People in the cellar were talking loudly from all their nervousness, but young SS Sergeant Strampe definitely had good hearing.

  “Strampe,” Durig whispered.

  “I know, I know,” Heller whispered back.

  “Klepp’s ‘iron fist,’ they say. Got a real thirst for blood. Sic him on a scent, and he never lets go.”

  Heller wished he could slap a hand over Durig’s mouth. Strampe was sitting rigid, hadn’t moved a millimeter. Could he hear them?

  “He has no parents, went right from the orpha
nage into the SS. Klepp took him under his wing in Poland.”

  “Hey, Durig, you’re married, aren’t you?” Heller asked, loud and clear.

  “Long time now, got two kids. Sent them with my wife to the country, out to Dippoldiswalde. Oh, hear that? It’s the all clear already. Who knows where they dropped their load this time.”

  Durig rose while Heller remained seated. He wanted to see what Strampe did, if he would look around. But the young SS sergeant just stood up, patted his pants, straightened his jacket, and left the cellar. Heller wasn’t surprised that he didn’t even deign to look at him.

  January 16, 1945: Late Afternoon

  Heller stood there half-frozen as he watched the men digging. Older men, with yellow stars on their chests. Young men, captured Red Army soldiers, emaciated, their mirth sometimes concealed, sometimes not. Many sang and joked as they wasted their labor down in the trenches that crisscrossed the city.

  “Boss man, makhorka for me?” one shouted and laughed, although he knew Heller would never give up a cigarette.

  Heller gave him a brief twitch of a smile and went back to losing himself in his thoughts.

  His new posting was a pure waste of time. One of the supervisors could easily get it done. All he did was walk back and forth, never knowing if and how he was supposed to speak with the Jews. Regular cops stood watch everywhere as civilians rushed past, dumb and blind to it all. The only ones content with their fate seemed to be the Red Army prisoners; that, or they’d given in to it.

  “No sad, boss man,” the young Russian shouted. “When you my prisoner, I give makhorka!”

  Heller looked up. “I’m not sad—I’m thinking.”

  “Ah, yes. I try that, thinking. But it never fill stomach!” The young Russian winked at Heller and got back to devoting himself to his work. Heller chuckled.

  Then he heard someone all worked up in a high voice: “Hang you lowlife Jews is what they should do!” A boy was standing near the Jews, wearing a Hitler Youth uniform and the insignia of a flak-gun helper. Wouldn’t be long before he was drafted.

  “Keep moving, march!” Heller barked at him.

  Lunch break was next, and Heller never felt good about getting his hot meal ration from the canteen while the Jews had to eat the cold potatoes they brought with them.

  Suddenly the sirens sounded. “Air raid warning!” shouted one of the cops. “Head for the shelter!”

  “Jews out!” someone shouted angrily as they filed down into the air raid bunkers near the Zeiss Ikon factory. “Go find your Jew shelter!”

  Heller looked for a spot between all the strangers. He didn’t look up, didn’t want to talk. In his head, he was with Glöckner, with Bertrand, and with Rita Stein. Had she told him everything about Klara Bellmann? Glöckner’s fingerprints would still need to be taken and compared with any from the crime scene. Medical vehicles drove from the hospital to refugee camps every day, so it wouldn’t have been hard for Glöckner to ride along on one of those trips and lure a young Silesian with a chocolate bar. Forensics would need to recheck each crime scene for red fibers, and Glöckner’s cellar dwelling as well. Heller stared at the floor. It occurred to him that he still had the small towel from Rita’s room in his overcoat pocket. It was torn from a sheet, fraying at the edges and leaving behind millimeter-long white threads, just like those in the nose of the first victim.

  “What’s that?” he muttered, and listened intently.

  “Airplanes!” replied a man from a far corner. It had grown so quiet that he’d heard Heller’s faint question. A buzzing, like a massive swarm of bees, was nearing them. And then they heard a faraway rumbling, of bombs striking.

  “Far from here,” someone whispered.

  “No flak guns,” said someone else.

  The buzzing grew louder, making the cellar vibrate. The bombing strikes weren’t coming near, remaining far away. Hopefully far enough from Karin too. She’d wanted to go into the city today, Heller suddenly remembered.

  The buzzing faded, but the sirens didn’t sound the all clear. Instead, an announcement came over the radio that a second wave was coming. At least they had a radio here. Without one, they’d be cut off from the outside world. The mood grew gloomy, everyone sitting slumped, heads hanging. It was clear that the factories were the target, whether they were producing artillery shells, locomotives, sewing needles, or camera lenses. Heller now wondered if those Russian POWs were still laughing and singing. Here it came again, a faint roar like persistent storm winds. Louder this time? Why hadn’t they heard any bombs hitting? And then they came. Heller counted along, but gave up after a dozen. Just what were they hitting? Then he realized: the train stations.

  The all clear sounded eventually and only then did Heller look at his watch: more than an hour had passed.

  “Heller?” someone shouted. “There a Max Heller here?”

  “Here!” Heller shouted back.

  A uniformed cop came up to him. “Orders from Local Group Leadership East. Your men are being withdrawn to clear debris and put out fires. Have them fall in. Trucks are coming.”

  “Just the Russians or the Jews too?”

  The uniformed cop hesitated. “Just the Russians. The Jews are to report to the duty station.”

  “They hit anything? Anywhere?”

  “Friedrichstadt,” the cop replied, and pointed toward the western part of the city, where black clouds of smoke were rising into the sky.

  Heller came home in the middle of the night. That was after a second air raid warning, which kept him in a cellar shelter near Postplatz until 11:00 p.m. No bombs fell that time, yet what Heller had already seen was enough for him. They had stopped trusting the Russian POWs for anything more than sweeping up shards, securing windows and doors with boards, and slogging water for firefighting even though every possible helping hand was needed for locating people trapped under rubble. The Russians weren’t singing anymore, yet Heller thought he could still read something in their eyes. A certain pleasure, a schadenfreude.

  When he opened the door to their apartment, Karin was there waiting.

  “Is it true—a couple thousand dead?” she asked, hugging him.

  “About a thousand, but it’s not official.”

  Anything “not official,” Karin knew, was only for her to know.

  “They bombed Friedrichstadt train station and the main station.”

  She let go of him. “You want something to eat?”

  “We have anything?”

  “I can fry some potatoes. Lehmann had set aside a piece of bacon for me. And I even got a hunter’s sausage today and nearly half a pound of butter.”

  Heller thought it over. “No, let’s not smell up the building right now. We’ll do it on Sunday, for lunch. I’m not really that hungry anyway. I’ll go wash, and we’ll get some sleep.”

  “Max, today’s only Tuesday.”

  “All right, then, tomorrow evening, how’s that?” Heller wondered why Karin was acting like this. Something was different. There was a slight hesitation, a glance for a little too long.

  “Karin, what’s going on?”

  “Didn’t you hear? Magdeburg got bombed today. It must be completely destroyed. Max, you do remember? Magdeburg, all those years ago . . .”

  Heller nodded. Magdeburg was a lovely memory that kept evaporating. Like a dream. A trip in May, so carefree, the boys still so young then, amazed at the steam locomotive, all the people so friendly. Now it was so different. Now it was war. And today he heard someone scream, “Jews out!”—a small red-faced man with thin hair and crooked legs.

  He felt Karin watching him from a corner of her eye, and he stroked her arm to calm her.

  “There’s still some warm water on the stove,” she said, and Heller went to wash up. He used the soap sparingly.

  A little earlier, a cart had passed him. Ten bodies were lying on it, maybe more. He had looked away. He’d seen enough dead in his life; he’d been carrying such images around with him for thirty years.
And then there was the building wall that collapsed on Adlergasse, a crackling sound at first, like gift wrap. A horrific sound. Everyone ran, and the gray cloud consumed them like an ocean wave.

  Bent forward at the washbowl, Heller paused. A thousand dead, he thought, and here he was worried about a single murderer.

  Heller’s eyes popped open. He lay on his back. He couldn’t remember awakening yet was now fully alert. Silence filled his ears. His heart beat hard, up in his throat as if it wanted to leap out of him. It was dark, except for a narrow strip where the window was. The blackout shade was not completely closed—Karin always opened it a crack after she turned out the lights. Hearing Karin sleeping beside him, he remained as still as he could, breathing evenly. She lay in a deep sleep.

  Why had he woken up? He hadn’t been dreaming about bombs or that ditch he couldn’t get out of his head ever since Klaus told him about it. He wasn’t down in the trenches either, as so often happened in his dreams. That constant, drumming barrage, sometimes lasting for days, had stayed away too.

  He still had not moved. He didn’t want to wake Karin; he wanted to listen to the night, to hear if anything was different. And something was. It was right here. In the room.

  Heller squinted so no one could see the whites of his eyes in the darkness. He’d learned that as a kid reading Karl May Westerns. Old Shatterhand did that when creeping up on someone. Strange that it occurred to him now. He shifted his eyes to the right, toward the door gradually showing contours—a brighter rectangle against the dark backdrop. It was open. But usually it was closed.

  He tensed up under their heavy down blanket and frantically tried to recall where he’d put his overcoat with his pistol. Out in the hallway, in the wardrobe there. He’d never contemplated taking the gun to bed with him. Now he regretted it.

  His next option was to get into the kitchen, where they had knives. Yet all was dark in the apartment, much too dark. Then came a sound, a soft click, like a grain of sand hitting the floor, or the moist blink of an eye, or a dry throat swallowing.