Ruins of War

by John A. Connell

  “You said Dr. Scholz came and went at odd hours. Did he ever leave the premises after curfew?”

  Frau Wruck stopped at a door, bringing the group to a halt. She chuckled as she fished for her keys. “It’s not that hard to get around the curfew. If you’ve got the gumption there’s a way.” She finally found the right key and inserted it in the lock.

  Mason put his hand on hers to get her attention and put his finger to his mouth telling her to be quiet. When she saw Wolski and Timmers with their guns drawn, she retreated to the opposite wall. Mason unlocked the door, pushed it open, and let Wolski and Timmers enter with their guns held high. Mason slipped in behind them.

  The three investigators split up, Mason silently instructing Timmers to take the kitchen, and Wolski to search the bedroom. A quick room-to-room search of the apartment confirmed what Mason had expected, that Dr. Scholz was not there. He then returned to the living room and found Frau Wruck standing just inside the front door.

  “He ain’t here, is he?” Frau Wruck said.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “At least he’s paid up ’til the end of the month.”

  “Do you talk to him much? Maybe talk to him about him having a second residence? Or a place he likes to go when he’s not staying here?”

  “Hell, most folks don’t have a primary residence, let alone a second. Is he rich or something?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But thank you for your time. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Don’t you boys do any damage to the apartment. I want to rent it out again, and I don’t have the money to fix it up.”

  Mason reassured her and asked her to wait downstairs. When she left, Mason took a moment to survey the room. The absence of photographs or artwork on the walls struck him first. Either the doctor was a neatness fanatic or he didn’t spend much time actually living here. Mason checked the coal-burning fireplace, but it looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. A search through the books and cushions turned up nothing. He moved on to the small bathroom, which contained a handful of toiletry items all neatly arranged.

  It turned out that all the surprises waited for him in the smaller, second bedroom. Though the room had a simple iron-frame bed, area rug, and dresser, it appeared that the room served more as a showplace for Scholz’s family. All along the top of the triple dresser sat close to thirty framed photographs of two people who Mason assumed were his wife and son, mostly formal portraits, some tinted, all depicting two smiling faces. Several were wedding pictures; in a couple his wife, Gertie, wore a nurse’s uniform. The boy, Max, looked to be twelve or so, wearing either a suit and tie or his school uniform. A rocking chair had been placed so that the chair’s occupant could behold the photographic collection. A spindly end table accompanied the chair, where Scholz had placed a half-full bottle of schnapps and a drinking glass.

  Mason tried to imagine the doctor sitting there, what had driven him to kill and butcher, what had prompted him to set up these pictures and rock in front of them, drinking schnapps, raise his glass to toast his family before getting on with his butchering. How could he be so evil while still functioning perfectly in society? Mason could see and understand the dark side of the man. He’d experienced enough of the evil that men could do in the camps to know it very well, but he couldn’t understand how someone could live in both worlds. That didn’t make any sense to him.

  He bent low and noticed a steamer trunk under the bed. He knelt and pulled it out, disturbing the layer of dust coating the floor. The trunk slid easily, and he brought it to rest by the rocking chair. The lid opened with a creak of protest.

  Wolski poked his head in the room. “The guy can’t have more than a day’s worth of clothes in the bedroom. . . . What’s all that?”

  “Kid’s toys,” Mason said as he proceeded to pull out cast-iron soldiers, stuffed animals, a spinning top with a carousel design, a jack-in-the-box, and finally a music box shaped like a grand piano.

  Wolski stepped into the room to get a better look. “This must be the boy’s room.”

  “I don’t know what this room is. Like the rest of the apartment, there’s nothing that says anyone lives here.”

  After emptying out all the toys, Mason noticed a tray insert at the bottom. He lifted it out, then removed a folded woman’s dress wrapped in tissue paper. “This stuff must be his wife’s: dresses, shoes, hairbrushes. . . .” He stopped. Beneath the woman’s things he found a creased and water-stained envelope devoid of writing. It contained a folded letter. Mason took out the letter and read it. “It’s from a woman in Stuttgart, 1942. A Heidi Mendel.”

  Dear Heinrich,

  I have the sad task of informing you that Gertie and Max have been missing since the last bombing raid. It took me a week to compose myself before I could face writing you with this unhappy news. Mother says we should continue to hope. . . .

  Mason stopped reading and put the letter back in the envelope.

  “Who are Gertie and Max?” Wolski asked.

  “Scholz’s wife and son. That explains the photographs and the schnapps.”

  “Scholz’s sister or sister-in-law, sounds like,” Wolski said. “This is getting stranger by the hour. Next thing you know, we’re going to find Scholz’s wife’s and son’s preserved bodies are in the icebox.”

  Mason started to put the items back in the trunk. “Let’s finish up and get out of this mausoleum.”

  • • •

  Mason entered the Wirtschaft Alter Hof and spotted Laura waving at him from a corner booth. He crossed the room and slipped onto the bench across from her. She wore her correspondent’s outfit, a conservative brown wool suit coat and skirt, but still looked as amazing as she had in her evening gown.

  “May I say that your perfume is almost as seductive as the smell of beer and bratwurst?” Mason said.

  “Are you trying to upset my bourgeois sensibilities with that blue-collar remark?”

  “It means I’m starving.”

  “But a simple declaration isn’t good enough for you. And speaking of good enough, I thought for a first date you’d have asked me to somewhere a little more romantic.”

  “Who said anything about a date? I asked you to meet me here to get you up-to-date on the investigation. I promised I would, so here we are.”

  “That’s just an excuse. You’re really just too shy to come out and say it. That’s sweet.”

  “And you giving me sass is a way to hide that you’re head over heels for me.”

  “I hardly know you.”

  “Not to know me is to love me.” Mason waved for the waiter. “Thanks for arranging access to the Medical Corps personnel files. That was pretty impressive.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Not much. There are a few possibles we might look into, but now that we have a prime suspect, we probably won’t need to.”

  “I’ve noticed there hasn’t been one article about the murders in any of the newspapers. Not even a blip. No editor will touch it. Even if I wanted to publish something, no one will print it.”

  “Then our exclusive arrangement is working out good for you.”

  “I don’t like it when the press is censored. It sets a bad precedent, even for an occupational force.”

  “In this case, I think it’s justified.”

  “It’s never justified. People have a right to know.”

  “To know what? That there’s a mad killer on the loose and the police appear powerless to stop him? Normally I’d agree with you, but legitimizing the rumors might incite people to resort to vigilante justice, turn to the underground networks that want to form a Fourth Reich and pine for the good old days of the iron-fisted Gestapo to bring back order.”

  “Rumors can be more dangerous than the truth, you know.”

  “This is where we differ, reporter and cop.”

  “Is that a pro
blem?”

  “Not for me.”

  The waiter arrived, and they both ordered bratwurst and beer.

  “I can’t stay long,” Mason said. “I’ve got to get back to headquarters.”

  “I heard about your snafu at the hospital.” Mason was about to respond, but Laura laughed and held up her hands. “Truce. Okay? Tell me what happened today.”

  Mason quickly summed up what had led them to Scholz; the interview and escape; then the manhunt, the hospital staff interviews, and the bizarre findings at Scholz’s apartment. “The CID detachment in Stuttgart is trying to track down the woman who wrote the letter about his wife and son, a Heidi Mendel. The MPs and German police are distributing the sketch of Scholz. I imagine calls will be coming in anytime now from people with mostly well-intentioned but erroneous sightings.”

  “Let me get this straight: Scholz had two tickets to a concert, says it was his wife, but she’s been missing for three years?”

  Mason nodded. “I had someone check with the concert hall manager. It was a single-night performance and every seat was taken. One of the ushers said she seated a tall man with a thirty-something blond woman that evening in those seats.”

  “And he had some kind of shrine to his wife and his son in a place he rarely stays?”

  The beers came. Mason sipped his while Laura thought a moment.

  “It sounds to me like he feels guilty,” Laura said. “He still loves them, but he’s created a shrine to their memory in an out-of-the-way place. He goes there when the guilt becomes too much, drinks his schnapps in front of the photos, asks for forgiveness, then leaves. He’s got a lover, and he feels guilty about it.”

  “Interesting theory. But based on what?”

  Laura shrugged and started fidgeting with her beer mug. “I’ve known a few married men and widowers. None of them could stand to be alone, but they always felt guilty about stepping out on the little woman. Most of them, anyway.”

  Mason felt a pang of jealousy, and though he thought he hid it well . . .

  “I see that look in your eyes,” Laura said.

  “What?”

  “That look of condemnation.”

  “I’m just wondering if I can keep up with you.”

  “I’ve had a few wild years in my past. So what?”

  “Laura, I’m not judging you. Let’s get back to the subject.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Let’s start with that woman at the concert. If the doctor has a lover, she could be hiding him. Find the lover, and you just might find your killer.”

  “That’s not bad. Ever thought about being a detective?”

  “Being a reporter is a little like being a detective. Sometimes to get at the truth, you have to dig for it.”

  Their dinners arrived, and they fell silent a few moments.

  “So, how about a real date next time?” Mason asked. “That is, if you’re not committed to a certain CID general.”

  “That smacks of jealousy. You’re not the jealous type, are you?”

  “My grandma used to say that the only useful thing about jealousy is it makes you recognize what you want; then all you have to do is go after it.”

  “Smart woman, your grandmother.”

  “So? What about it?”

  “About what?”

  “A date. A reporter and cop. A modern-day Capulet and Montague.”

  “Haven’t you got enough on your plate right now?”

  “Meaning, you do.”

  Laura shrugged. “Maybe there’s something I can do about that. Something I should do before we ever think about becoming star-crossed lovers.”

  “Fair enough,” Mason said. He downed one last bite of food and rose from the table. “I have to get back.” He stopped next to her, leaned in, and kissed her.

  “Too bad you have to rush off,” Laura said.

  “We both have some business to take care of first. Then watch out.”

  Mason gave her a peck on the forehead and left.

  NINETEEN

  Corporal Manganella intercepted Mason as soon as he walked in the front entrance of the station.

  “What is it, Sal? Can it wait until I’ve had my morning coffee?”

  “Sorry, sir, but there’s a woman waiting for you in the auxiliary room near the cages.” He motioned for Mason to follow him through the downstairs lobby. He looked at his notes and strained to pronounce the name, “A Beata Walczak. She’s Polish.”

  “Thank you, Private. I figured that out by the name.”

  “A German cop brought her in. She doesn’t speak English, and I guess her German ain’t so good, either. The German cop said she has information about Scholz but refused to say anything to them. She insisted on talking to the American detective in charge.” They stopped at the closed door of the room used to search arrestees before putting them in the overnight cells. “She was pretty upset, so we put her in here.”

  Mason saw Wolski breach the front entrance and signaled for his partner to join him. Wolski met him by the door, eyes sunken and bloodshot.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” Mason asked.

  “A couple hours. I spent most of the night shuttling between the 508th headquarters, the OMGB public safety office, and the CIC records division. So far nothing on a Dr. Heinrich Scholz. There was a Heinrich Scholz, but he was an aviator killed in North Africa. A Helmut Scholz, a low-level bureaucrat in the propaganda offices in Berlin. But so far, a Dr. Heinrich Scholz doesn’t exist.”

  “It figures he’s using an alias. Did you also try the name Mendel in your search?”

  Wolski moaned.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Wolski nodded toward the closed door. “Who’s in there?”

  “We’re going to find out.”

  They entered the room together. A thin, brown-haired woman sat at the small table. Her shoulders were drawn deep into her chest, her head bowed low, her eyes fixed on some unseen vision. Mason and Wolski sat at the table across from her.

  “I understand you wanted to talk to me, Frau Walczak,” Mason said in German.

  Frau Walczak looked up at Mason, and he had to suppress a shiver. He’d seen eyes like hers many times before, in the faces of the inmates at Buchenwald. Wolski cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, alerting Mason that he had been staring at her in silence.

  Mason introduced them and asked, “I understand you have information on a Dr. Scholz?”

  Frau Walczak removed a folded and crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and laid it on the table. She opened it with shaking hands and flattened it. It was the sketch of Scholz they had distributed. “This man sterilized me,” she said in German with a thick Polish accent.

  “What do you mean, ma’am?”

  She jabbed the photo with her forefinger. “He . . . sterilized me. In the camp.”

  “This man? Dr. Scholz?”

  “I do not know his name. But he was at Ravensbrück. I will never forget his face.”

  “Ravensbrück concentration camp?”

  She nodded. “I was resistance fighter in Poland. They arrested me and put me in Ravensbrück. This man was SS doctor at the camp, and he selected me. They forced me to hospital barrack. He . . .” She fought for a breath as she wiped a tear with a trembling hand.

  “If you need a moment . . .”

  She shook her head and choked back her tears. “He injected something into my uterus. . . . The pain, you cannot imagine. Then two days later . . . he took out my uterus. I will never have children. He ruined my life. He did this to many women. Some children, too. Little girls . . .”

  Mason pulled out a photo reproduction of Scholz’s portrait from his personnel file. He placed the photo in front of Frau Walczak. “This man? Are you sure?”

  Frau Walczak nodded. “I am sure.”

 
“And you’re sure you can’t remember his name?”

  “No one ever spoke his name. Only the nurses talked to me.”

  Mason glanced at Wolski, who understood the silent command. Wolski shot out of his chair and left the room.

  “When did this happen?” Mason asked.

  “Winter of 1942.”

  “Were you liberated at Ravensbrück? And was this doctor still there?”

  “In late 1944 I was sent to two other camps. I was at Dachau when the Americans liberated us.” She looked into Mason’s eyes. “You find this man. You hang him for what he did.”

  Mason took her hand and held it while she wept.

  • • •

  Mason mounted the stairs to the CID floor. He could see Wolski sitting at his desk and on the telephone spreading the new information to all departments. Colonel Walton and Havers were in the middle of a heated discussion in the colonel’s office, so Mason waited outside the door. He didn’t have long to wait; Colonel Walton ordered Havers to quit sniveling and get back to work.

  Havers stomped out of the office and blocked Mason’s way. “Colonel Walton gave me your train robbery case. And while you guys have been floundering around trying to find that Ripper, the same gang knocked over a payroll train. If we don’t get paid, we’ll know who to come for.”

  “They actually pay you for what you do?” Mason asked, then turned and walked into Colonel Walton’s office.

  Colonel Walton angrily shoved papers around on his desk. “I suppose you’re here to ruin my perfectly crappy morning.”

  “I just talked to a witness who says that Scholz was an SS doctor at Ravensbrück, but she never heard his name.”

  “You’re sure she’s positively identified the guy?” Colonel Walton said.

  “The look in her eyes when she pointed him out didn’t leave much doubt in my mind. I would like to request access to files pertaining to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Maybe that way we can discover his real name. Then see if we can find someone who was there to give us more information about him. Maybe where he lived, where he went on leave, his habits, if he was transferred to other camps.”