Ruins of War

by John A. Connell

  Mason pointed to Sergeant Hague and said, “Inspector, if you can provide a list of where you’ve been and places left to visit, we can have some of Sergeant Hague’s team help out.”

  “Sir,” Sergeant Hague said, “we don’t have that many MPs who can speak good German.”

  “Perhaps we can form teams,” Becker said. “One American and one German, to go out together. It would greatly improve our ability to cover such a large area in the shortest amount of time.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sergeant Hague said, “that’s going to go over big with my boys. I can’t ask them to team up with kr—” Hague stopped and glanced at Becker from the corner of his eye.

  “We’ll discuss that later, Sergeant.” Mason turned to Becker. “Anything you would like to add, Inspector?”

  At that moment, Becker looked old and tired. He bowed his head and walked to the back of the room to join Mannheim.

  The door opened, this time without a knock. Two privates carried in a large trunk labeled, Restricted. CID eyes only. Attention Chief Warrant Officer Collins.

  One of the privates said, “This came in from Colonel Marsden at the repository, sir.”

  Mason directed them to set the trunk down next to him. Wolski broke the seals and opened it. Mason and he began removing file folders.

  “These are copies of documents, photos, ex-inmate affidavits, eyewitness accounts,” Mason said. “This is what most of you will be going through in the next few days. I want you to split up into groups and divvy up the folders.” He had to speak up over the groans. “I want you to find and separate out any information on Dr. Albrecht. One of the camp doctors we interviewed mentioned some prisoner doctors who worked with Albrecht.” In brief, Mason explained the role of the prisoner doctors in the camps. “Other inmates referred to one of Albrecht’s prisoner doctors in particular as the Healing Angel. If you can get the identity for that man, or for anyone else who assisted Albrecht, then find out if they’re still alive and where we might be able to reach them.” A thought came to him as he was speaking. “Also, cross-check any names that match employees at the Ludwig Maximilian University hospital. If Albrecht managed to evade detection and got work there, then there may be more. Pay attention to detail. The slightest reference might be a clue. There are also transcripts from the first Dachau war crimes trial and the Belsen trial, both of which just wrapped up, plus JAG and War Crimes Commission lists of potential witnesses for upcoming proceedings. Remember, many of the medical staff, including the prisoner doctors, were transferred around over the years, especially as the Allied forces began to overrun the camps. This is probably only the first trunk. Others will likely be coming over the next few days.”

  This elicited another round of groans.

  “Okay, gentlemen, start divvying up the material and get to work.”

  As Wolski started organizing the folders into piles on a long folding table and guiding the work of the various teams, Mason walked over to Becker.

  “That was a nice speech you made,” Mason said.

  “I am learning how to talk to you Americans. I just think like a coach at an American football game. You always seem to need your egos boosted.”

  “The term is ‘sucking up.’ I bet you guys had lots of practice at that before we came along.”

  They both smiled, their initial animosity having turned into a game.

  “Mr. Wolski and I are going back for another go at the hospital administrator and chief of surgeons. Care to come along?”

  Becker shook his head. “We must check a few reported sightings. Besides, you and Investigator Wolski will scare them more than I will.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Mason roamed Dr. Sauber’s office, fingering books on the shelves, opening cabinet drawers, and leafing through things on Sauber’s desk; not usually Mason’s style, but it unnerved Sauber to no end. Wolski’s imposing stance next to Sauber’s desk certainly added to the administrator’s fluster.

  “Herr Collins, please, I’ve already told you all I know.”

  “That’s hard for us to believe,” Wolski said, “since you concealed and lied about Albrecht’s identity and his activities at Ravensbrück.”

  Mason opened one of the file folders stacked on a chair. “You’ve already violated a number of regulations by aiding and abetting a war criminal. If you want to stay out of prison, I suggest you tell us everything.”

  Sauber dabbed his brow. “As I said before, we were desperate for surgeons. I was the one with reservations. But Dr. Tritten pressured me into hiring him.”

  “That’s odd. Dr. Tritten said the opposite.” Actually Tritten had offered nothing, but Sauber didn’t know that. “He said you’d threatened him with exposure of his Nazi past if he didn’t agree.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “It’s his word against yours. If you two can’t agree on the truth, then we’ll be forced to have you arrested for the cover-up. However, if you cooperate, nothing of this incident needs to leave this hospital. Tell me what you know about Albrecht. His friends, anyone else at this hospital who may have concealed his true identity. That person may be harboring him.”

  Sauber suddenly became very still.

  Mason stopped his travels around the office and stared Sauber down. “There is someone else, isn’t there?”

  Sauber shook his head as he held his breath.

  “Someone at this hospital also knows.”

  “I don’t know. . . . I mean, no.”

  “Who are you protecting, Doctor?” Wolski barked.

  Nothing from Sauber. Mason could see the guilt in his face. “It’s because he’s concealed the true identities of other staff at this hospital.”

  Wolski leaned on the desk, prompting Sauber to lean away. “Why, Doctor, shame on you. That could be very bad for you. Very bad.”

  Mason stepped up to the desk as he spoke. “Who else are you conspiring to conceal? Which one of them is hiding Dr. Albrecht?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Wolski dropped his handcuffs on the desk in front of Sauber. Sauber nearly jumped out of his chair, then jutted out his index finger in the general direction of Tritten’s office. “He’s the one. He talked me into hiring those people. I protested but he insisted. I’m trying to run a hospital. You’ve seen what we’re up against. You can’t arrest me for looking the other way. He’s the one you should arrest.”

  Mason softened his tone; he didn’t want Sauber to have a heart attack. “Provide us with a list of names. We are not here to persecute you—we are here for information—but we will be forced to arrest both of you if you do not cooperate.”

  Wolski took the lead from Mason and lowered his voice to a soothing tone. “Giving us the list will convince us that your only concern is caring for your patients. We respect that, and we want to help you.” He placed his notepad and pen in front of Sauber, then lifted away his handcuffs.

  Sauber stared at the blank page as he wiped more perspiration from his brow.

  “Someone at this hospital is harboring a murderer,” Mason said. “Write down the names, Doctor.”

  Sauber picked up the pen with a shaking hand, but his hand hovered over the page.

  The idea of other staff at the hospital having hidden Nazi pasts had not occurred to Mason until that morning. Someone had covered Albrecht’s tracks, protected him from detection. Someone at the hospital had helped him escape. Warned him of their arrival the day of the interview . . .

  He remembered Laura’s words: Albrecht had a lover. Find the lover and find Albrecht. It was a woman employed at this hospital. Then he recalled the eyewitness testimony of neighbors around Albrecht’s apartment and from the concert hall: They had all stated having seen Albrecht with a blond woman in her middle thirties. . . .

  “The receptionist,” Mason
said aloud.

  Sauber slowly looked up from the notepad. He didn’t need to say anything. Mason knew by the look on his face. Wolski spotted it, too. Sauber had just confirmed it.

  Seconds later, Mason and Wolski took long strides down the corridor and into the lobby. The receptionist stood behind the counter talking to a young woman with a baby. When Mason and Wolski were halfway across, the receptionist noticed them. Her eyes widened with fear, and she burst into a run.

  Mason and Wolski dashed after her. Heads turned; people jumped out of the way. Just before the receptionist made it through the front door, Wolski grabbed her. She screamed and cried out for help.

  Mason held up his badge. No one made a move to interfere with the two American military police officers. Mason joined Wolski and helped wrestle the receptionist to a vacant corner.

  “Where is Dr. Albrecht?” Mason said.

  “Let me go!”

  “You’re hiding him. Where is he?”

  “I am not hiding him.”

  “You’re harboring a murderer. Do you want to go to prison?”

  “He’s not a murderer.”

  “Then why did he run away?”

  “He ran because he didn’t want to be arrested. He knew you Amis would put him on trial for war crimes and hang him. Just like you did to the people at Dachau. He didn’t murder anyone.”

  “You’re lying. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Mason spun around to face the reception counter. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Wolski. He marched over to the counter. An image had been growing in his mind since the interview with Fischer. A picture behind the counter, one of several bucolic images of rural Germany. Dr. Fischer’s remark about Albrecht being an avid hunter had seemed innocuous at the time, but Mason hadn’t realized why it stuck with him until now. He plucked the receptionist’s photograph of a chalet-style cabin from where it had been taped to the inside wall of the counter next to her desk. He turned it over. Someone had written on the back: Your father and I are having a wonderful month here. Do come down, darling. Mother.

  Mason returned to the corner and held up the photograph. “Albrecht is hiding in your family’s cabin, isn’t he? Where is this?”

  The receptionist turned her head into Wolski’s arms.

  “Where is this cabin?” Mason yelled.

  The receptionist collapsed and began to weep.

  • • •

  The large chalet-style cabin stood on the low rise of a hill and overlooked a lake. A hundred yards of field separated the cabin from the forest that circled the hill. Mason knelt in a thicket a few yards into the forest and peered through the snow-laden trees with his binoculars. Becker knelt next to him and did the same thing. Wolski and the other CID investigators observed from strategic points around the perimeter of the hill. Becker also had a twenty-man contingent of officers waiting for orders to charge the cabin.

  “No smoke in the chimney,” Mason said. “He’s either being very careful or he isn’t there.”

  “It is possible he saw us coming,” Becker said. “Or he could be out in search of food.”

  “Or his next victim.”

  The cabin door opened, and they crouched lower in the thicket. A figure hesitated in the dark doorway, then glanced around before disappearing again into the cabin.

  Mason spoke into his Handie-Talkie. “Go, go.”

  Mason and Becker stood and walked out of the forest with a group of Becker’s men. The others surrounding the hill emerged from their posts. Then all started a cautious climb up the hill with their guns drawn.

  Albrecht breached the doorway, emerging backward this time as he led a horse out of the cabin. Unaware of the approaching circle of police, he mounted the horse. He froze in the saddle and watched the men climb the slope.

  Mason called out, “Stay where you are, Albrecht. You’re under arrest.”

  They were still two hundred feet away when Albrecht dismounted the horse and tapped the horse’s flank. The horse trotted away. Albrecht stood still and stared at them. Mason quickened his pace, as did the others, and the circle tightened. Albrecht came to attention, head back, chest out. Mason suddenly had a bad feeling. . . .

  In a swift, fluid motion, Albrecht pulled out his Luger, jammed the barrel in his mouth, and fired. He slumped to the ground just as Mason and the others reached him. Everyone stared at the crumpled body as Mason checked for a pulse. Albrecht was dead.

  Mason felt nothing resembling relief or satisfaction, none of the emotions he would have expected at finding the killer. While the others talked excitedly or congratulated Mason, the only feeling that persisted for Mason was that of perplexity.

  • • •

  Applause erupted when Mason, Wolski, and Becker entered the building, and it continued when they entered the detective squad room. Most of the other investigators and staff stood and applauded, though Havers refused to join in. Colonel Walton stepped out of his office and leaned against the door frame. He offered a weak smile but refrained from clapping.

  Mason allowed a few men to shake his hand as he made a beeline for his office. Wolski and Becker entered a moment later and the applause died down.

  “What’s wrong with you guys?” Wolski asked. “We got the killer.”

  Becker looked at Mason with an expression that said he knew what Mason was thinking. “He didn’t seem to be the type to commit suicide,” Becker said.

  Mason nodded his head in agreement.

  “What difference does it make?” Wolski said.

  “The notes at the crime scenes . . . the symbols, the references to rising up from hell,” Becker said.

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  “If he really was as religious as he indicated, if he was truly a Catholic, then he knew that suicide was a sin that would send him to hell.”

  “He could have used all that religious mumbo-jumbo to throw us off the track. Look, not only did he torture and butcher here, in Munich, but he did the same thing in the concentration camps. I don’t get you guys. Acting glum when you should be happy and proud.” He looked at both of them. “You two are like a couple of old hunters. Once you’ve bagged the game, the fun is over.”

  Becker and Mason exchanged knowing looks.

  “Now you two are just giving me the creeps,” Wolski said. He pointed toward the squad room. “Colonel Walton is still standing by his door, waiting for us to give him a rundown. Unless you’re looking for a battle, we better go over there and talk to him.”

  Mason gestured for Becker to go first.

  “After you,” Becker said.

  As soon as they exited Mason’s office, Becker’s second in command intercepted Becker and pulled him aside.

  Mason and Wolski turned to watch them but continued on their way to Colonel Walton, who had remained at the doorway to his office and looked unwilling to wait.

  “Glad you two finally remembered how to find my office,” Colonel Walton said.

  Before Mason could respond, Inspector Becker called his name loudly.

  All heads turned to Becker.

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  Becker, white faced, rushed up to them.

  “There has been another murder.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Like an immense stone rib cage, the remnants of Munich’s great Frauenkirche cathedral walls arched upward to nothing, a result of the vaulted ceiling collapsing under the pounding of Allied bombs. The damaged cathedral reminded Mason of some ancient Roman temple that had slowly crumbled, leaving only a vague impression of its proud past.

  Mason had paused a moment next to the small convoy of jeeps and army sedans that had brought him, Wolski, and two other CID investigators to the scene. He continued to stare at the hallowed ruins, dreading what he would find. His team gathered around him, waiting silently
as if unsure of what to do without Mason’s leadership to get them rolling. Mason hissed a curse and headed for the cathedral, feeling like he’d been kicked in the teeth.

  Wolski trailed him and tried to talk him down from his anger. “Maybe Albrecht slipped into town and murdered this victim, then slipped back out again.”

  “He got on his horse and galloped thirty-plus miles into town, found a victim, cut him up, placed him in this church, then galloped back just in time for us to find him? Or, I know—he killed a victim near the lake, then strapped the bloodied corpse on the back of his horse and rode into town to hang it here. Yeah, that’s what he did.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Face the truth. We hunted the wrong man.”

  Becker and Mannheim met them, and together they climbed the broad shallow steps. A group of women stood to one side, some crying and one hysterical. It was apparent by their overalls and hair wrapped in scarves that they had been toiling to clear the tons of rubble. Other women stood around two small mining cars that sat on short rails leading from the church to a dumping site on the cathedral plaza.

  An MP intercepted Mason. “Sir, we found some fresh wagon-wheel tracks just on the other side of these mine-car rails.” He led them to the spot, and there, in the mud, were deep ruts left by a set of wagon wheels.

  “Aren’t these from the wagons that haul off the rubble?” Wolski asked.

  “I checked on that. The wagons that haul off the rubble are twice as big. The tracks they leave are much wider and they stop on the opposite side.”

  Mason nodded and said to the MP, “All right. Get the word out. We’re looking for a civilian with a wagon.”

  Becker instructed Mannheim to lead the interviews of the women who’d discovered the body, while Mason, Wolski, and he proceeded through the collapsed south wall. Large chunks of stone still littered the floor, interring the wooden pews. On the remaining columns of the nave, stone carvings of saints looked down upon them . . . except the fifth and final one. Instead of a saint, a mutilated corpse hung in its place.