Ruins of War

by John A. Connell

  What a waste.

  Mason had very few photos from his childhood. His family never took pictures. No one had created a shrine to his youth. Whatever photos they’d had, his mother had burned during one of her alcohol-induced fits of rage. That was shortly after his sister’s untimely death . . . as his grandmother preferred to call it.

  Mason was born in Germany, but at the age of 5, and three years after his father was killed in World War One, his mother, along with her parents, had immigrated to Ohio. A year later his mother had married a manipulative and cruel man named Robert Collins. But just two years into the marriage, his mother had become a devotee to the god of alcohol, and his stepfather, whether because of his mother’s alcoholism or his long-time mistress, skipped town, never to be seen again. It took six years, but finally his mother’s liver gave out. It was his grandparents who’d raised him from the age of twelve. Stern and cold, his grandfather had little to do with him, but what his grandmother had lacked in affection, she’d made up for with gentleness and patience, tolerating and eventually mollifying his rebellious teen years. His grandfather died when Mason was in high school, so she’d become the only family member left in his life. He tried to keep in touch with her, writing letters from time to time. As much as he feared being heartless like his grandfather, he feared most becoming self-destructive like his mother. He felt the pull of both dark familial traits running like venom in his veins.

  All in all, home didn’t exist for him. Maybe home had become anywhere he’d stopped for more than a few nights and laid his hat—even this charred ruin of a city.

  FIVE

  December 10, 1945

  It is 765 days since the end of our being, since the descent, since the beginning of the black days, whereupon we sold our soul to the demons that haunt us now.

  We have so many sins to atone for, and that cry out to be released. We must act or the heavy burden of our sins will drag us down into the deepest pit where exists nothing but eternal pain and horror. We must act or we will be strapped upon a table and cut upon in eternal agony.

  It is so hard to carry on.

  The man set his pen down. His prayers and the entry in the diary had calmed him. Now he could concentrate once again.

  In the weak light of a gas lantern, he turned his chair, picked up a small metal file, and began to make the finishing adjustments on a delicate brass ring. The edge of the ring had an irregular pattern and was spanned by thin spokes. He held the ring up at eye level and examined his work. A smile signaled his satisfaction. He then turned to a two-foot-tall mechanical rabbit. It stood on its hind legs and held a violin to its chin, bow at the ready. The glassy eyes stared at a sheet of music poised on a music stand. A music box of polished mahogany served as the podium.

  He inserted the brass ring onto a brass shaft that held a series of similar rings. With a jeweler’s screwdriver, he fixed the shaft to a complex mechanism exposed in the rabbit’s back. It required an exacting hand, but he possessed both a craftsman’s touch and the deft fingers of a surgeon.

  What a great joy it had been to find this marvel in the burned ruins of a town house. It was no children’s toy, but a valuable automaton made by a French watchmaker in 1850, with the watchmaker’s stamp still visible on the brass plate. Most of the surviving contents of the house had already been “salvaged” by neighbors, the elderly owners having made the unfortunate decision to remain during a particularly devastating bombing raid. And when he had entered the house he could still detect a faint odor of burned flesh.

  He always enjoyed exploring the ruins. Where most people regarded them as symbols of tragedy, he saw them as symbols of rebirth. The fate of the occupants meant nothing to him. They were all wretched vessels of sin and depravity—as his mother had always reminded him.

  He closed the backing of rabbit fur, which had been damaged by fire but he’d repaired, then turned the key clockwise three times. With a flick of the switch, a Strauss waltz resonated in the room. The rabbit bowed the strings and fingered the fingerboard in time with the music. It swayed and swiveled its head and blinked as if concentrating on the music.

  He noticed the bowing arm still made erratic movements, meaning there were still adjustments to be made. Still, the repairs were almost complete, and for a moment he relaxed and enjoyed the performance. It reminded him of his childhood, and the music box his father had given him, a more humble version with a motionless rabbit playing a trumpet on a base that turned with the music. The memory brought up images of his boyhood bedroom, but with that there always came another vision—a flash of his mother’s face as she shrieked at him about sin and the impurity of the flesh. And the worst, telling him that men were the origin of all impurity, the penis a vile instrument . . .

  The rabbit grinned at him. The man’s back stiffened. It wasn’t supposed to do that. He blinked. The rabbit had returned to playing.

  The lantern flame fluttered, exaggerating and distorting the shadows. He felt the air shift as if disturbed by a great presence. His pulse pounded in his temples, and his bowels cramped.

  Oh, God, not so soon.

  The music stopped. The rabbit became lifeless, with its head turned in his direction.

  They were coming. The voices would whisper and hiss at first, then rise until the screaming overwhelmed him. He had very little time.

  He took up his pen again and entered a final sentence:

  As we write this, we feel the stirrings, the pleading for further action, more glorious beatifications . . .

  Another wave of retched memories swept over him.

  The other He who dwelled within him crawled up from his bowels like a cancerous cloud, bringing with it the memories of the inception of the black days: the gates of the prison and a descent into a hell so abhorrent that he’d bargained away his soul for a pitiful life among the damned; losing control of his bowels as he peered at a door opened just enough to let out a blinding light, as an unseen force propelled him slowly to the operating room where he dared not go, consuming him again and again until he could no longer look upon the world in cleanliness: visions and voices haunting a weak man until he breaks.

  He shot up from his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the table for support. He was completely naked. The frigid air cramped his muscles and stung his skin.

  Discomfort is not enough.

  He took the lantern and descended a set of rickety stairs. He came to a floor-standing mirror. He could gaze upon only his naked torso, the upper third of the mirror painted black so he could not see his face and—most important—his eyes. From a table he picked up a short leather strap he had fashioned. Short nails protruded through the leather with a rawhide string attached on either end.

  He placed the lantern on the table and wrapped the strap around the base of his penis and scrotum. He turned with reverence to a man-sized representation of the cross his mother had worn around her neck, the cross that had dangled near her breasts as she bent low and prayed for his condemned soul. With a rawhide string in either hand, he took one deep breath and yanked. He bit his lip to stifle a scream. He fell to his knees, doubled over in agony. Even as he did so, his penis became erect. There was no sexual gratification. His penis responded to pain. Just as it stood erect with the ecstasy of each beatification. Just as it had, the previous morning on the street, when he’d passed his next Chosen One. The excitement of knowing rushed hot blood to his groin. When he had caught a glimpse of the Chosen One’s face he knew the voices had brought him someone in the likeness of a suffering innocent he had once known, his first encounter, his first initiation into an abominable existence.

  The excruciating pain forced the other He back into his bowels. He was gone, for now. The unrelenting visions, the screams of the innocents, the memory of his sins quieted, if for only a few hours. But the strap would stay on for a few more minutes. Then sleep would come.

  We must rest, for we have
glorious plans.

  SIX

  Mason entered the narrow alley that ran along the rear of the factory where the victim had been found. The morning sun hid behind a heavy veil of fog that froze to anything it touched. He shivered once from the cold, and his feet ached from the close call with frostbite during the previous year’s horrible winter. I should have asked for a post on the damned equator.

  He stopped next to the fire escape and looked up to the fourth-floor landing where the killer had rigged the booby trap and left his grim message.

  Wolski came around the corner, stifling a yawn. “You got here early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  Wolski lifted a Thermos. “Coffee?”

  Mason accepted, and Wolski poured some into the Thermos cap. “Colonel Walton thinks you’re out investigating the train robbery. Corporal Manganella told me where you really were.”

  Mason looked at Wolski, who turned an imaginary key to lock his lips. Mason took a sip of coffee. “I’ve been out here trying to imagine how someone could kill and dismember a body in one place then transport it here. All the surrounding buildings have been searched for blocks around. No sign of the killing taking place there, so he had some distance to travel.”

  “He sure as hell couldn’t have carried it, so that leaves transporting by car, wagon, or cart.”

  Mason pointed to the center of the alley. “There’s a mix of tire and wagon-wheel tracks.”

  “I just can’t see the killer coming by wagon with a cut-up body in the back, in the middle of the night, through MP patrols and checkpoints.”

  Mason shrugged. “This is a big city, and he could know enough backstreets to pull it off. Could be he has an after-curfew pass or permit. If he came by car, it means he’d have to be with the army or the military government.”

  “And you think he came down this alley and went up the fire escape?”

  “He couldn’t have gone in the front. Too many witnesses.” Mason pointed to a hole in the base of the factory wall thirty feet from where they were standing. “Then there’s that hole.”

  As if on cue, an MP emerged from the hole and said, “Mr. Collins, the engineer would like to see you. If you’ll follow me.”

  Mason and Wolski ducked low to enter the hole in the wall, then climbed down the rubble to reach the basement level. They followed the MP through several corridors before coming to an open area with a series of boilers. The engineer stood at the base of the same column to which the killer had lashed his victim. They had to negotiate heaps of concrete slabs fallen from the floors above to join Lieutenant Edwards, the engineer.

  The daylight made little difference in the dark factory; the place still felt gloomy and oppressive. Work lights had been distributed throughout the crime scene, but Edwards still had to use his flashlight to scan the floors above them.

  “Begging your pardon, Chief,” Edwards said with a Tennessee drawl, “but I don’t think the killer used the fire escape to carry the body up there. It’d have been easier to lift the corpse from down here.” He pointed his flashlight at the spikes driven into the exposed flooring of the fourth floor. “He probably hooked pulleys on those spikes up there, then attached the body to ropes down here and hoisted it up to a spot on the column and tied off the lines.”

  Mason nodded. Much as he’d guessed. “How do you think he got up there to secure the body to the column?”

  “Well, it’s easier to drop down from above than to lift your own weight. I’d say he rappelled down to the spot, either from the fourth floor or the next one up, and grabbed on with his legs. That way he’d have free hands to lash the body to the column.”

  “It took some know-how to rig that all up,” Wolski said.

  “Not really,” Edwards said. “It’s pretty simple if you have even some basic mechanical or engineering skills. Welders and maintenance workers use these kinds of rigs all the time for hard-to-reach areas.”

  Mason nodded. “All right. Thanks, Edwards.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Edwards said and left.

  “Well, that goes a long way to explain how he did it, just not why,” Wolski said.

  Manganella called down to Mason from the second floor. “Chief, word came in that Major Treborn has a preliminary report for you on the autopsy.”

  As Mason headed for the stairs he said to Wolski, “You stay here and coordinate the canvassing by our boys and the German police.”

  “I’d like to go along.”

  Mason started to object, but Wolski added, “Like you said, I’ve got a lot to learn about homicide. Watch and learn, remember?”

  “You might change your mind after your first time at an autopsy.”

  Wolski jumped down off the pile of rubble and followed Mason down a maintenance corridor. “The message he left on the door talks about saints and hell. Must be a religious guy.”

  “Could be,” Mason said. “But I think the message refers to his own personal hell. One he’s desperately trying to escape. He doesn’t kill out of perverted lust or thrills. He doesn’t torture for pleasure or power over his victims.”

  “Maybe he’ll move on. Hit a different city for each killing. It’d be easier to stay under the radar that way.”

  Mason had already thought about that, and wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he hoped that wasn’t the case. He wanted to be the cop to take this guy down. He wanted him badly. “It’s possible, but Germans have travel restrictions, and these types of killers are as likely to stay in one place as they are to move around.”

  As they climbed the stairs, Mason said, “Let’s look at this murder another way. What can the killer’s methods tell us about him that he may not have intended to communicate?”

  “Well, he has medical knowledge. Some engineering skills since he’s good at rigging up the dead weight of a corpse. You say he’s probably working alone, so, lugging a heavy corpse around in the dark, he’s got to be fit and agile. With the curfew and night patrols all over the city, you said yourself he might have a pass. He might have a car. Hell, he might even be disguised as a U.S. soldier.”

  Mason picked up Wolski’s train of thought. “Or could be he’s in the U.S. Medical Corps.”

  That stopped them both, as they considered this possibility. Mason could tell by Wolski’s look that he didn’t want to go there.

  “We’ve got to consider every angle,” Mason said.

  They emerged from the dark factory, squinting against the daylight, and headed for Manganella and the jeep.

  “You want to start looking at U.S. Medical Corps personnel?” Wolski said. “We can’t have access to those files or start questioning personnel without a damn good reason.”

  “We start by scanning MP and CID files for any arrest reports involving medical personnel.”

  “Then if we come up with a list of suspects on vague information and have to get permission to interrogate them? What kind of shit’s going to hit the fan if the army brass finds out we suspect one of our own?”

  “We tread carefully,” Mason said.

  “Like hell,” Wolski said as they climbed in the jeep. “That’s treading into a minefield.”

  • • •

  The U.S. Army Medical Corps had taken over a Munich police forensics lab and morgue, a nondescript blockhouse in the Maxvorstadt district. The front desk receptionist gave them directions to Major Treborn’s office. They followed the hallway, passing desks and small offices of the major’s staff of doctors, technicians, and secretarial workers. At the end of the hallway they came upon Major Treborn’s office. Mason and Wolski waited outside the open door while the major lambasted someone on the phone.

  “And tell the captain that if I don’t get those replacements and supplies soon, I’m going to personally embalm him in his sleep.” He listened a moment, then said, “I don’t give a damn. No more excuses. Get it done.” He hu
ng up. “Get in here, you two.”

  Mason and Wolski removed their caps and entered. Major Treborn was still clearly worked up about the phone call. “We’ve got five cases pending. A private who expired under mysterious circumstances, a Negro sergeant knifed to death, two vehicular manslaughters, and a major’s wife, who the major claims fell down some stairs. The Judge Advocate’s office is chewing out my ass for things to go faster, and army lawyers are breathing down my neck. Understaffed, undersupplied, and working in an outdated facility. There’s partial structural damage to the building, water leaks, intermittent electricity, and no clean room to keep contamination of evidence down to a minimum.”

  Major Treborn sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “You’ve got a hell of a case, Collins. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve heard of them but never been involved in one personally. I’ve had the occasional mutilation, but yours . . .” Treborn shook his head, and his attention went somewhere for a moment. “I haven’t written up the final report, but I knew you were anxious, and this case is exceptional.” He looked at both of them in turn. “You ready for the trip down horror lane?”

  As they followed Treborn down two flights of steps, he began filling them in: “The victim’s a male. Midsixties. No semen on the body or in the anus, and his genitals are intact, so we can rule out the sexual angle.”

  “You have a better estimate of the time of death?” Mason asked.

  “The last few days the temperatures haven’t gone above freezing, so that makes it harder to pinpoint by body temperature. He was virtually bled out, so lividity is minimal.”

  They reached the subbasement floor and proceeded down a long corridor. Treborn continued, “The same goes for putrefaction. Cold temperatures screw that all up.” He turned to Wolski when they stopped in front of a wide steel door. “You been to one of these before?”