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

by Frank Goldammer

  “Who’s there?” Heller asked.

  “Ha-ah,” it groaned.

  “Who are you? Glöckner, is that you?”

  The shadow moved, and something struck the wood of the railing. Bam, bam, bam. It was its head.

  “Stop that!” Heller stayed against the wall. It gave him support, kept his back safe.

  The creature began panting and crawling on all fours, away from Heller’s line of sight. Then he heard it approaching again, coming around the railing. He peered around frantically for a way out, a weapon. Then it was standing in the doorway.

  “Ooh! Oh-oh! Ah!” The voice rumbled and gurgled and sounded full of phlegm and snot. Saliva spattered on the floor. It kept panting.

  “Go away!” Heller blurted. The bad dream was here, and he saw no chance of driving it away.

  “Ooh.” The figure came toward him, head lowered, its hair and beard wild and tangled, hands contorted at the joints, fingers clawing spastically, its back all crooked.

  “Go away!” Heller said, and gasped.

  It kept panting, laughing and crying at the same time. From the corner of his eye, Heller noticed a beam of light on the street and heard tires crunching.

  “Hey, nemets! Max?” It was Zaitsev.

  “Ah, oh!” the creature roared and swung hard, hitting Heller with a stinging blow that left him half-stunned. Then it pounded frantically on the wardrobe, pushed it over, and rushed out.

  “It’s coming down, Alexei, watch out!” Heller said, holding his chin. He got to his feet and staggered toward the door. Yet there it was again. It grabbed him by the jacket, lifted him up, and tried to bite his face. Its teeth were black, the stench from its throat revolting. Heller pressed his forearms to the creature’s face, and it bit him on the knuckles. Then it let go of him and stormed into the next room.

  Zaitsev came running up the stairs. Heller was holding his bloody hand. “The window!” he shouted at Zaitsev. A dull thud confirmed his hunch. Zaitsev stormed back down the stairs and took off in pursuit.

  Heller dragged himself out to Zaitsev’s jeep, which was still chugging idly, and sat in the passenger seat. Zaitsev soon came back, jumped into the vehicle, threw it into gear, and wheeled them around, the tires grazing rubble.

  Heller asked, “How did you know I—”

  “It occurred to me that you didn’t have your watch anymore,” Zaitsev explained, surprisingly calm. “But my comrade returned it to me after I asked nicely. I was going to bring it to you.”

  “Did you go see Karin? Did she tell you where I was?”

  “You weren’t there. That told me enough.”

  “Where are we heading?” Heller asked.

  “To see Magdalena Klepp. So she can tell us about this beast.”

  May 18, 1945: Just before Midnight

  They had no problem getting access to Magdalena Klepp. Glaring light bulbs lit up the basement corridor, and the guard opened the door to her cell. Magdalena was lying on a cot.

  “My God,” Heller groaned when he saw her. Her face was battered, both eyes swollen shut, blood running from her ears. Her right hand was bloated and blue. She lay doubled up under a thin blanket, her other hand pressed to her crotch.

  “She, she needs to see a doctor,” Heller said.

  Zaitsev stood at the cot and touched her shoulder. “Frau Klepp.”

  She screamed in shock, pulled back, and pushed herself up against the wall in panic. Heller shoved Zaitsev aside and sat on the edge of the cot.

  “Magdalena, it’s me. Heller. I want to help you. But you have to tell me who this creature is. I’m not supposed to hurt him, is that right? Is that what you want?”

  “Please don’t hurt him,” she whimpered. “He doesn’t know any better.”

  “Who is he? Tell me!”

  “My little Harry. My Harald.”

  “Your son?”

  Magdalena felt for Heller’s hand. Warm blood stuck to her fingers. “He’s Hilde’s son. My sister. He was such a tiny baby, and he saw the world with these unbelievably huge eyes. He’s never understood a thing. Even today he doesn’t understand. And yet he laughed and he cried and he was still a human being. She gave him to me so I could protect him. She trusted me with him, with her little darling. Oh, you should have seen him.”

  “Is he insane? Mentally retarded?”

  “They would’ve killed him, because in their eyes he was inferior! That institution near here, up at Sonnenstein Castle in Pirna. They would’ve killed him. I made Rudi swear that he’d protect him. My Rudi didn’t mind. He’s a good man. He really would do anything for me.”

  Heller changed the subject. “Tell me about the dungeon in your cellar.”

  Magdalena moaned. Her mental agony seemed worse than her physical pain.

  “We needed to lock him down there. We could barely control him anymore. You couldn’t explain anything to him. He always felt such fear, he hit and he bit. He missed his mother.”

  “So where is your sister?”

  “She’s dead,” wailed Frau Klepp. “She died in an air raid, in Freital. How was I supposed to explain it to him? He cried and felt such despair and was always wanting to go look for her. We had to lock him in at night. He wasn’t always this angry, you have to believe me. He’s only recently become this angry. Don’t hurt him, please, don’t hang him! He didn’t really mean to kill them. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing. Don’t kill him, please. Please give him a kiss from me. Oh, dear Lord, what have we done?”

  Magdalena Klepp was beyond distraught, her face in her hands, sobbing and trembling, smearing blood all over herself.

  Heller saw Zaitsev about to intervene, but he held up a hand. Then he gently pulled Magdalena’s hands from her face. “But if he was locked up,” he said, “how did he get—”

  “I let him out whenever the air raid siren sounded. I never slid the bolt when Rudi was gone. If the bombs happened to hit us, I simply could not allow him to die in that hole. And sometimes he’d run off. We couldn’t stop him. We had to go out there and search for him before Rudolf came home. Ludwig usually found him. Ludwig knew how to lure him back with chocolate. But my Harry went missing after that big nighttime raid. At first we thought he was dead. Then he came to visit at night sometimes. He brought food with him and . . . sometimes he brought home . . . arms or a leg. He’d found them in the rubble.”

  Heller looked to Zaitsev, who subtly shook his head. He didn’t want to believe it.

  Magdalena tried to sit up. “What about Rudi? Have you found him? Don’t kill him!”

  “He’s dead,” Heller said.

  A terrible, nearly animal scream rose from her throat, as if her soul was trying to force its way out. “Oh God, my dear Lord. It’s my fault. I made him stay here, until Harry was back for good.”

  “Did Rudolf know that Harry sometimes used to take off?”

  Magdalena sighed. “There were two or three times, yes, when we couldn’t find Harry in time before Rudi came home. So he went out and helped us catch him. It’s tough to subdue him when he’s afraid or angry.”

  Heller was now able to piece everything together into a logical picture. This was why Ludwig had run from him during the air raid that night. It was why Klepp had been so exhausted and had that scratch on his face. It was why he didn’t leave the city, for the sake of his wife. It was why he had manipulated the investigation, because he’d wanted to protect Harry.

  “And the young woman, Constanze Weisshaupt?”

  “She was following us, obsessed. She wanted to wreck everything. We lured her into the house and knocked her down.” She grabbed Heller’s hand again. “They didn’t torture Rudi, did they?”

  Heller threw a quick glance at Zaitsev, then he shook his head.

  “We will take you with us, you and Ludwig,” Zaitsev said in a low voice. “We must find this Harald.”

  “I can’t,” Magdalena whispered. “I’ll die.”

  She pushed back the blanket, and Heller saw that her lap was
soaked with blood. The straw mattress was sopping from it.

  Heller shot up. “She needs a doctor, now. This makes you no better than the Nazis,” he fumed before Zaitsev could even shake his head. “I understand your need for revenge, Alexei, I do. That’s part of being the victor, you have the power. But this is about being humane.”

  Only now did Heller notice that he’d grabbed Zaitsev by his jacket and was shaking him. The guard at the cell had unshouldered his rifle and stood ready to fire. Heller let go of Zaitsev’s jacket, and Zaitsev yanked it down taut.

  “Do you know where Auschwitz is?” Zaitsev asked Heller.

  Heller was irritated the Russian had remained so calm. “In Poland,” he finally said.

  “I was there, in the concentration camp . . .” Zaitsev fell silent for a moment. Then he continued. “One cannot describe what happened there. If you saw it, Heller, you would never wish to be a German anymore. They killed people there. With purpose, according to a system. Their goal was to kill as many human beings as possible with the least effort and expense. And they did this right up to the day before we arrived. They did not know what to do with all the dead after a while. There were mountains of them! Mountains of dead, Heller! They were doing research on the prisoners. Performed experiments on them, tortured them. Tested how much a human being could endure. They cut off their legs and infected their wounds. There are no words for what I saw there. Because that did not belong to this world. I do not believe in God, Heller, not as a good Communist. But I do believe in the Devil, in human form. And he wears a German uniform. There are many, many such devils. So do not tell me what is humane.”

  Zaitsev took a deep breath. He was having trouble acting clearheaded again. “We must catch this maniac,” he said. “I will take Ludwig Klepp with me. You go with her to the doctor—I will get you a driver. Heller, you are taking full responsibility for her.”

  “Don’t hurt him, please, don’t kill him!” Frau Klepp pleaded again.

  “I must have the whole region combed through. But you, Heller, must do me a favor after: Dr. Schorrer. He is mine.”

  “Schorrer? What does he have to do with this?”

  “I have my reasons, Heller.”

  “Then just have him taken away.”

  “I do that, and Ovtcharov from the NKVD gets him. But he belongs to me! And you’re on good terms with Schorrer.”

  “So I’m supposed to sound him out? Spy on him? Why?”

  Zaitsev was already in the doorway. He came back over. “There was no large field hospital near any suburb of Warsaw. But at Auschwitz-Birkenau, there was a Berlin doctor with the name Schorrer. He applied for a transfer out at the beginning of ’44, and it was granted that June. Yet there are no documents placing him in Auschwitz, no photos, just one mention in a personnel file. There will be no more honor among thieves—to borrow your own words, Herr Detective Inspector.”

  Droves of insects hovered around a spotlight on the hospital grounds. The diesel generators chugged away. Heller had handed the severely battered Magdalena Klepp to the sentry in charge with an accompanying letter signed by Zaitsev. The man then made a call, which produced two extremely sleep-deprived nurses and a female Russian doctor who took Frau Klepp with them.

  Another guard stopped Heller at the next building, but one glance at the paper he showed was enough for him to pass. Heller went up the stairs to the second floor. A night nurse approached him in the hallway.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Detective Inspector Heller. I need to see Dr. Schorrer.”

  “He’s not on duty.”

  “Then open up his office for me.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if—”

  “Do what I say!” Heller demanded. He needed to get Zaitsev answers. The fact that the Russian had loaned him another pistol showed just how vital the matter was to him.

  The nurse obeyed, opened up the office, and went swiftly on her way.

  Heller switched on the light and began searching Schorrer’s desk and cabinets. He found numerous documents about medical matters as well as instructions and guidelines from the Red Army that had been translated into German. Next to nothing personal. Under a stack of forms, he spotted a few faded photographs from the First World War. He could barely recognize Schorrer in them, assuming it was the doctor he was seeing.

  He recalled his first conversation with Schorrer. The doctor’s Fifth Guard Grenadiers regiment belonged to the Fourth Division, which was stationed in Berlin. Schorrer came from Görlitz, as he had told Heller. It wasn’t necessarily unusual for someone from Görlitz to serve in a Berlin regiment. There were more than Dresden men in his own 101st Grenadiers.

  A noise made Heller spin around. His hand automatically slid into his jacket pocket, where he had the pistol.

  It was the night nurse. “Do you need help with anything? Did Dr. Schorrer forget something?” she asked.

  “Forget?”

  “For his trip to Berlin. For his training.”

  “For training? He’s traveling to Berlin?”

  “That’s what he said when he left. Apparently the Soviets instructed him to, on short notice. Probably for political indoctrination. He had a suitcase with him.”

  Heller leaped up.

  “Where are his quarters? Building 14, right?” he shouted, already bounding out the door.

  Things were quiet around building 14. There were no guards, and the front entrance was open as it didn’t have a proper door anymore. Heller entered the dim, stuffy hallway. He started. There was something on the floor. At closer inspection, he realized people were camped out, sleeping—probably those who either had no other shelter or were sick and waiting for treatment. Someone coughed, and a head raised up. Heller felt his way along to the stairway and went up to the third floor. He counted the doors there, recalling that Schorrer’s room was the fourth on the left from the toilets. Here too people lay all along the hallway. He stepped over someone sleeping and knocked on the door. As a precaution, he’d drawn his pistol and kept it pressed to his pants seam.

  “Quiet,” someone hissed.

  The door wasn’t locked. “Dr. Schorrer?” Heller whispered as he entered the room. A faint ray of light came in through a crack in the window covering. He tore away the cardboard used to replace the shattered panes, and light from the spotlights beamed onto the ceiling.

  The spartan room had a simple table next to a long, low wooden box covered with a mat that served as both bed and seating. The open wardrobe had been moved from the wall and emptied. When Heller peeked behind it, he discovered a false rear panel, flung open. Whatever was stored back there, Schorrer had taken it with him and made a break for it. Zaitsev would not like that.

  Heller sat down. His only hope was that the Russian would react rationally and not accuse him of helping Schorrer flee. Sighing, he stood back up and knocked a heel against the bed box. It sounded hollow. He pushed back the mattress, felt for the lid, and lifted it up.

  He couldn’t see much, but he did make out a bundle of leather. He kept the lid open with one hand, bent over the box, and pulled out the stiff material. His heart skipped a beat. He was staring into a grotesque face, pale, its mouth wide open. He recoiled in horror, the realization hitting him like scalding water: what he’d thought was leather was the withered skin of a human. He let go of the lid and jumped back in disgust, despite all his years and training in dealing with ghastly things, and then toppled halfway over the table, which scraped across the floor.

  “Quiet, damn you,” someone yelled from the hallway.

  “Police!” Heller shouted. “Someone get some light in here, now!”

  It didn’t take long for a man to appear with a candle and a nurse with a kerosene lamp. The curious were now pushing their way into the room.

  “Stinks in here,” said one.

  Heller stood facing them. “Out, all of you—only these two with lights stay. Out!”

  “What is it? Something happen to the doctor?”

 
; “Shine a light, please, but don’t be frightened,” Heller told the man and nurse once the others had left the room. He lifted the lid. He hesitated a second, then grabbed hold of the dried-up skin and dragged it aside. A body lay beneath it.

  The nurse let out a gasp. “That’s Irma,” she whispered. “Irma Braune.”

  “Is she dead?” the man asked.

  The nurse nodded but bent down anyway and felt for a pulse. She pulled back her hand. “She’s cold.”

  “What’s that?” Heller asked, pointing at a bright bundle of fabric in the box next to the dead girl. The nurse hesitated, then pulled it up and out. It was a small pile of cloths from torn-up sheets, each four inches square. They were just like the ones Heller had found in Rita Stein’s room.

  Heller lifted out the pile of cloths and smelled them. The faint residue of a distinctive odor lingered. “What’s this smell like?” he asked, holding it up to the nurse.

  “Chloroform.”

  Heller nodded. “Right. Someone call in the soldiers. No one comes in here. Take care of it, please.”

  “Will do,” the nurse said.

  “Where are you going?” asked the man, clearly not wanting to stay behind.

  “I need to go see Rita Stein.”

  “She’s not here,” said the nurse, already halfway out the door. “She never came up after her last shift.”

  “She did too—she was here,” interrupted a woman from the hallway. An agitated, whispering crowd of people had remained around the door.

  “Never did trust that one,” said someone else.

  “So she was here?” Heller asked.

  “Yes, I ran into her today, right here on this floor. Even though she lives one floor up,” the other woman added. “I’m telling you, she was right there in Schorrer’s room and making some racket too.”