Mason couldn’t stand it any longer. “The hell with this.” With Wolski and Becker right behind him, Mason dashed into the next room. They found themselves in a typical doctor’s examination room.
“Ramek was still practicing medicine?” Mason asked aloud.
They went from room to room and, while all had clean, modest furniture, they lacked any personal touches: no pictures or knickknacks of any kind; aside from the living room, the place was more like a furniture store showroom than living quarters. Mason and Wolski stopped in the kitchen, and again, showroom clean but void of pots and pans.
“Does this guy even eat?” Wolski asked. He opened the pantry. “Look at this.” He grabbed a can out of the pantry and tossed it to Mason. “Almost exclusively old Wehrmacht rations. I could barely eat army rations when I had to, and he does it by choice.”
Mason examined the label. “Conserved pork meat. He must have salvaged this stuff from somewhere around the city.” A thought came to him. “That butcher’s table in Ramek’s workshop. The manufacturer said those kinds of tables were sold to meat-processing plants, right?”
“Yeah, the manufacturer said those kinds of tables were sold to five meat-processing plants in and around Munich, but they couldn’t say which one it came from.”
Mason nodded. “I bet it’s from the one that made these rations.”
Excited voices erupted from a room off the kitchen. Mason and Wolski rushed into the room and saw two German police trying to open a reinforced door. One of them called for the sledgehammer. Someone passed the hammer down the line. It took three blows to break open the door. Beyond was a small dark bedroom with the windows boarded over and blackout cloth attached to the boards. With guns drawn, the German officers charged inside the room. Mason and Wolski entered right behind them and looked around with their flashlights. No Ramek, only a writing desk, two chairs, and a full-length mirror.
Mason had been almost certain they wouldn’t find him, but it still was a crushing disappointment. Becker and the German officers filed out, leaving Mason and Wolski alone in the dark. In the adjoining room, Mason heard Becker giving orders to his men to interview the neighbors. Wolski started to search through the small writing desk, while Mason walked up to the wood-framed full-length mirror that stood on a throw rug in the middle of the room.
“Strange,” Mason said. “The top third of the mirror has been painted over.”
“The desk doesn’t have much. Pens, blank paper, some office supplies in the drawers.”
Timmers and Pike came into the room out of breath. “We rummaged around out back,” Timmers said. “No garage or other structures. Looks like he never went out there much. No signs of fresh graves.”
“We checked the basement, too,” Pike said. “Nothing down there but a bunch of junk.”
“Look at this,” Mason said. He had the flashlight trained on a small carpet that lay in front of the mirror. “Seems to be bloodstains.” He squatted and touched the spots. “They’re not fresh.”
Mason lifted a corner of the rug, revealing a partial print of a shoe. He pushed the mirror to one side and pulled the rug away. Underneath was a trapdoor. They gathered silently around and drew their pistols. Mason lifted the small ring handle recessed in the door and looked up at the others. “Ready?”
The others nodded. Mason yanked the trapdoor back. Silence and darkness in the space below. Flashlight beams searched the hole. Wooden stairs led downward. The smell of dank earth flowed into the room.
Mason yelled down. “Ramek? Your house is swarming with police. There’s no escape. Come out with your hands up. . . . Ramek?”
Nothing.
“In the good old days, we’d’ve tossed a couple of grenades down there and been done with it,” Timmers said.
With his flashlight in one hand and pistol in the other Mason took a tentative step. He crouched low and slowly descended. His body tensed without his volition, as if preparing for the explosion of gunfire and a bullet slamming into his leg. Halfway down, he could see most of the center of the room. He braced himself, jumped, and landed on the dirt floor with his gun and flashlight up and ready to shoot.
Nothing obscured his view, and there was nowhere to hide. “Clear,” he said with a dispirited voice.
While the others clambered down, Mason concentrated on the room’s contents. The twenty-foot-square space of dirt walls had probably been a root cellar at one time. Used candles sat everywhere: on the floor, in small holes dug into the walls, and clustered on a long, narrow table. In the middle of the table, surrounded by the candles, Ramek had placed a tall crucifix. Framed pictures of saints dotted the walls behind the crucifix.
“Looks like some kind of shrine,” Wolski said.
“To your left,” Mason said.
All turned. Ramek had created a baptismal cross of wooden planks painted black. The planks were a foot in depth and the arms spanned six feet end to end. It was mounted slightly off the floor, making it higher than Mason’s head height. At the ends of the eight points of the cross, alcoves had been fashioned, and in each alcove was a large glass specimen jar. Each jar contained a different human organ. In the very center, a ninth alcove held a specimen jar containing a human heart.
“There’s a light switch, here above the table,” Pike said behind Mason. He turned the rotary switch, and the cross lit up.
Ramek had installed lights behind the entire cross and it created an eerie glow in the dark space.
“The sick fucking bastard,” Timmers said.
Mason approached the wall and examined the jars. “The brain is in the top jar. Lungs, kidneys, intestines . . .”
“Probably the poor nurse’s remains,” Pike said.
“None of the victims had their brain removed,” Mason said. “Where did he get that?”
“There’s obviously a victim we don’t know about,” Wolski said.
Becker and Mannheim came down the stairs. “One of the neighbors—” Becker began, but stopped when he saw the alcoves. “Gott im Himmel . . .”
“Ramek’s shrine,” Mason said, then he turned to Timmers and Pike. “You two get the crime scene techs and forensics out here. The rest of you search for trapdoors or false walls throughout the rest of the house.”
They spent another two hours searching the house, but found nothing that might indicate where Ramek was now or what he planned to do next. Mason and Becker exited the house and stepped out onto the front lawn. The fresh air and cold sunlight broke the nightmarish spell of the root cellar.
Mason turned back to look at the house. “I can’t figure the mirrors. Every one of them has a portion masked out. I stood in front of them, and you can’t see your face. For the smaller ones, I figured at his height, he wouldn’t be able to see his eyes.”
“Very curious, indeed,” Becker said.
Wolski exited the house and joined Mason and Becker. “So far we haven’t found any ledgers, letters, or a diary. If he kept one.”
Becker said, “What I was about to say in the cellar, one of the neighbors says she saw Ramek. . . . She knows him as Dr. Schiller.”
“Another alias?”
Becker nodded. “She saw him last night exit the house with two large canvas bags.”
“By the looks of his exam room, he left in a hurry. He made a big mess in there, grabbing everything he could jam in those bags.”
“He didn’t take many clothes, either,” Wolski said.
Mason and Wolski shared an unspoken acknowledgment about what that meant. . . . Ramek had no intention of running and every intention of killing again.
“Let’s go check out those meat-processing plants.”
“Now?” Wolski asked.
“He got the butcher table and army rations from one of them. He could be using it as a hideout.”
“It’s going to be pitch-black in an hour.”
“It’s the only lead we have right now, so unless you can think of something better to follow up on, we’re searching the plants.”
• • •
Mason, Wolski, and Becker, along with four German policemen, approached the lone security guard for the Lindenberger meat-processing facility, though what the man actually guarded was a mystery to Mason. Like most of the surrounding buildings in the complex north of Munich, the two that made up the processing facility were nothing but shells. The sun lay on the horizon behind heavy rain clouds, obliging everyone to use flashlights.
After brief introductions, the guard led them through the main doors to the plant.
“I’m not sure what you’re expecting to find,” the guard said. “Most everything that wasn’t nailed down has already been salvaged.”
Indeed, only the machines beyond repair and the debris from the collapsed roof remained on the factory floor. Mason thanked the guard and said they would have a look around anyway. The guard shrugged, then left them to their task.
“Exactly the same as the other two processing plants,” Wolski said. “Ramek wasn’t the only German to salvage the Wehrmacht rations for food. I told you this was a waste of time.”
“Your lack of enthusiasm is disturbing,” Mason said sarcastically, but Wolski ignored him.
Adding to Wolski’s foul mood, a cold rain began to fall.
Mason pulled his collar tight around his neck. “We’re here. Might as well look around.”
They spread out in a line and proceeded to search the expansive factory floor. Gusts of wind howled through the building’s glassless windows. Everyone bent forward against the driving rain.
“These remote factories do make an ideal place for Ramek to bring his victims,” Becker said.
“Yeah,” Wolski said, “this one and about a thousand others.”
A ten-minute search brought them to the far side, and they descended the stairs to the sublevel. As on the floor above, much of the metal and small machinery had already been removed, leaving only the large furnaces, the heavier can-manufacturing machinery, and traces of the overhead conveyor system. The group spread out again and searched the area with the beams of their flashlights. The darkness and cascades of rainwater made the going slow, but in twenty minutes they reached the opposite wall. They gathered by another set of stairs, and each man shook his head to say he’d found nothing. Then they repeated the process in the shipping and receiving building, remaining silent as they did so; it had been a long, frustrating day, and the foul weather threatened to sap their resolve.
“Let’s call it a night,” Mason said. “We can do the last two plants tomorrow.”
“You mean when we can actually see something?” Wolski said with bitterness behind it.
Mason decided to let it go. Wolski had been sullen since the incident with Wertz. And the series of setbacks had worn on all three of them. They needed an evening’s break.
As Mason led them through the rain and toward the vehicles, he fought grim thoughts of Ramek still out there somewhere, always one step ahead and stalking his next victim.
THIRTY-NINE
Mason attacked the helpless typewriter keys with increasing violence. He sat in his office typing up his daily report: a series of actions that ran long on detail and short on results. He also had to file a preliminary report on his shooting of Wertz. Preliminary, meaning a pile more to come, since the man was an American soldier, and then an inquest with army lawyers. The whole process took much longer than usual, his train of thought constantly drifting to images of the day playing out in his mind.
A welcome moment of calm had descended on the squad room. Most of the investigators were out on assignments or finished with their shift. In the otherwise quiet squad room, Mason could hear Wolski typing. He got up and sauntered up to Wolski’s desk. He pulled over a chair and sat.
Wolski’s gaze never left his typewriter. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to see if you’re feeling okay.”
“Right as rain,” Wolski said in a deadpan tone.
“Good. Then you won’t mind if I sit here awhile.”
“If you want to get something off your chest, there’s a bartender down the street who’ll listen. Even pretend he cares.”
“You’ve seen what that killer does to his victims. I’m not going to let an asshole who sells bad penicillin and cut baby formula get in the way.”
“You made that pretty clear.”
“I told you when we first met that homicide isn’t like anything else. You’ve got the makings of a good investigator, and you might as well know right now that sometimes you have to push the boundaries to make a case. I’ve never taken a bribe, leaned on an innocent interviewee, or tampered with evidence to get a conviction. But if I know a guy is a lowlife who has information, I’m not above beating it out of him. And Wertz shot a cop.”
“Maybe I’m not that kind of guy.”
“We’re the only ones standing between a homicidal maniac and innocent victims. And when you’re on the job people have the right to expect you to catch the bad guys. It’s not like what you read in the detective comics or see in the movies. It’s the real thing, and it can get ugly.”
“You don’t need to lecture me. I know what the score is. You’re the best detective I’ve ever worked with, and maybe I had too high expectations. A cop who could get results using his brain and not his muscle. I don’t want to get to the point where it tears me up enough to beat on a guy even if he is a lowlife.”
Wolski fell quiet, and Mason let him mull things over while they both stared at nothing in particular.
Finally Wolski said, “The army’s offering courses in criminal justice and law. I’m going to finish this case with you then I’m going to sign up. Maybe after that, I’ll see if I can get into law school. Colonel Walton’s already set it up for me.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Mason pulled out a cigarette and lit it to mask his disappointment. “I hope I didn’t push you into becoming a lawyer, of all things.”
“Nah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I think I prefer to work the other side of the justice system. You bust ’em and I’ll convict ’em.”
“I bet you’ll be good at it.”
Wolski gave him a halfhearted smile. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. . . .” The telephone ringing in his office distracted him for a moment. He tried to ignore it. “No hard feelings? I’d like to think we can still work together and find this maniac. I’d also like to think we could be friends.”
Wolski gave him a sly look. “I noticed you don’t have too many friends.”
“Consider yourself a charter member in an exclusive club.”
“We work together, but no more torture. You do, and I have the right to break your jaw.”
“Done.”
The telephone continued to ring. Mason hauled himself from the chair while mumbling a few obscenities. He walked slowly to his office, hoping the ringing would stop before he got there. No luck. He picked up the phone. As he listened to Becker, he fell into his chair and let out a tired sigh.
• • •
Manganella parked the jeep in front of Laura’s hotel. “Good luck in there.”
Mason thanked him. “For once I’m glad you drive like a maniac.” He jumped out of the jeep and headed for the hotel entrance.
Before he could pass through the hotel door, Laura came out. She wore street clothes and a heavy wool coat. “Laura—”
Laura blew past him, stepped up to the curb, and hailed the single waiting taxi. Just as the taxi pulled up, Mason slipped in front of her and opened the front passenger’s door.
“She changed her mind,” Mason said to the taxi driver. He threw some money on the seat. “Drive yourself anywhere you want. Beat it.”
The taxi drove off, leaving Laura by the curb. �
�What did you do that for?”
“We need to talk.”
Laura turned and walked down the street at a fast clip. Mason caught up with her.
“I’ve got an appointment,” Laura said without looking at Mason. “Now I’m going to be late.”
“It’s to meet Kessler, isn’t it?”
“None of your business.”
“Kessler’s dead.”
Laura kept walking but her pace slowed to a crawl. She looked at the pavement and said nothing.
“The German police found him in Gärtnerplatz,” Mason said. “His throat was cut.”
Laura stopped. “I was afraid of that when he didn’t show up this afternoon.”
“You went there this afternoon?”
Laura finally looked at Mason. “You and I are to blame for his death.”
“We swept him up in a raid. We picked up a number of people. No one should have suspected. . . .” He decided that wasn’t the right tact. “Laura, Kessler was beaten and tortured before they killed him. They’ll know about you. . . .”
“My college wit and debutante charm are failing me right now. All I want to do is cuss you out—” She groaned and turned in place, taking deep breaths to control her temper.
“If the gang put it together this fast and took Kessler down, then they suspected him long before we snagged him. This could have happened to him regardless. And it might have happened to you if you’d been with him. I said you were playing a dangerous game—”
Laura took off toward the hotel, and Mason had to catch up again.
“Berlin is out now,” Laura said.
“I’m going to see that you get protection.”
“I don’t want protection. I want the story.”
“Wolski knows some MPs who’d be great for you. They’ll do it on their off time for some extra cash—which I’ll take care of.”
Laura had stopped listening and talked more to herself than to Mason. “I know enough to pick up the trail in Garmisch. There are some guys I know down there. . . .”
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