Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

“We just received a telegram about a suspect in a case you are working on.”

“Yes, yes, Georg. Have you found a gun shop that sold a Spanish Star Modelo A? Already?”

“No, but I heard of some SA complaining that a man attacked them at a bookshop on Rosenthaler Street not long ago. He fit the description in your message.”

“Ach, Georg, this is most helpful. Can you have them meet me where the assault occurred?”

“They won’t want to cooperate but I keep the fools in line if they’re in my precinct. I’ll make sure they’re there. When?”

“Now. Immediately.”

“Certainly, Professor.” Jaeger gave the address on Rosenthaler Street. Then he asked, “And how is life back at the Alex?”

“Perhaps we’ll save that conversation for another time, over schnapps and beer.”

“Yes, of course,” the Orpo commander said knowingly. The man would be thinking that Kohl was reluctant to discuss certain matters over a telephone line.

Which was certainly true. Kohl’s motive for ending the call, though, had less to do with intrigue than with the pitched urgency he felt to find the man in Göring’s hat.

“Ach,” the Brownshirt muttered sarcastically, “a Kripo detective has come to help us? Look, comrades, here’s an odd sight.”

The man was over two meters tall and, like many Stormtroopers, quite solid: from day labor before he joined the SA and from the constant, mindless parading he would now do. He sat on the curb, his can-shaped, light brown hat dangling from his fingers.

Another Brownshirt, shorter but just as stocky, leaned against the store-front of a small grocery. The sign in the window said, No butter, no beef today. Next door was a bookshop whose window was shattered. Glass and torn-up books littered the sidewalk. This man winced as he held his bandaged wrist. A third sat sullenly by himself. Dried blood stained his shirt-front.

“What got you out of your office, Inspector?” the first Brownshirt continued. “Not us, surely. Communists could have shot us down like Horst Wessel and it wouldn’t’ve pried you away from your cake and coffee at Alexander Plaza.”

Janssen stiffened at their offensive words but Kohl’s glance restrained him and the detective looked the men over sympathetically. A police or government official at Kohl’s level could insult most low-level Stormtroopers to their faces with no consequences. But he now needed their cooperation. “Ah, my good gentlemen, there’s no reason for words like that. The Kripo is as concerned about your well-being as everyone else’s. Please tell me about the ambush.”

“Ach, you’re right, Inspector,” the larger man said, nodding at Kohl’s carefully chosen word. “It was an ambush. He came up from behind while we were enforcing the law against improper books.”

“You are…?”

“Hugo Felstedt. I command the barracks at Berlin Castle.”

This was a deserted brewery warehouse, Kohl knew. Two dozen Stormtroopers had taken it over. “Castle” could be read “flophouse.”

“Who were they?” Kohl asked, nodding at the bookstore.

“A couple. A husband and wife, it seemed.”

Kohl struggled to maintain a look of concern. He looked around. “They escaped too?”

“That’s right.”

The third Stormtrooper finally spoke. Through missing teeth he said, “It was a plan, of course. The two distracted us and then the third came up behind. He laid into us with a truncheon.”

“I see. And he wore a Stetson hat? Like Minister Göring wears? And a green tie?”

“That’s right,” the larger one agreed. “A loud, Jew tie.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He had a huge nose and fleshy jowls.”

“Bushy eyebrows. And bulbous lips.”

“He was quite fat,” Felstedt contributed. “Like on last week’s The Stormer. Did you see that? He looked just like the man on the cover.”

This was Julius Streicher’s pornographic, anti-Semitic magazine that contained fabricated articles about crimes that Jews had committed and nonsense about their racial inferiority. The covers featured grotesque caricatures of Jews. Embarrassing even to most National Socialists, it was published only because Hitler enjoyed the tabloid.

“Sadly, I missed it,” Kohl said dryly. “And he spoke German?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“A Jew accent.”

“Yes, yes, but perhaps another accent. Bavarian? Westphalian? Saxon?”

“Maybe.” A nod of the big man’s head. “Yes, I think so. You know, he would not have hurt us if he’d come at us like a man. Not a cowardly-”

Kohl interrupted. “Might his accent have been from another country?”

The three regarded one another. “We wouldn’t know, would we? We’ve never been out of Berlin.”

“Maybe Palestine,” one offered. “That could have been it.”

“All right, so he attacked you from behind with his truncheon.”

“And these too.” The third held up a pair of brass knuckles.

“Are those his?”

“No, they’re mine. He took his with him.”

“Yes, yes. I see. He attacked you from behind. Yet it’s your nose that has bled, I see.”

“I fell forward after he struck me.”

“And where was this attack exactly?”

“Over there.” He pointed to a small garden jutting into the sidewalk. “One of our comrades went to summon aid. He returned and the Jew coward took off, fleeing like a rabbit.”

“Which way?”

“There. Down several alleys to the east. I will show you.”

“In a moment,” Kohl said. “Did he carry a satchel?”

“Yes.”

“And he took it with him?”

“That’s right. It’s where he had his truncheons hidden.”

Kohl nodded to the garden. He and Janssen walked to it. “That was useless,” his assistant whispered to Kohl. “Attacked by a huge Jew with brass knuckles and truncheons. And probably fifty of the Chosen People right behind him.”

“I feel, Janssen, that the account of witnesses and suspects is like smoke. The words themselves are often meaningless but they might lead you to the fire.”

They walked around the garden, looking down carefully.

“Here, sir,” Janssen called excitedly. He’d found a small guidebook to the men’s Olympic Village, written in English.

Kohl was encouraged. It would be odd for foreign tourists to be in this bland neighborhood and coincidentally lose the booklet in just the spot where the struggle had taken place. The pages were crisp and unstained, suggesting it had lain in the grass for only a short time. He lifted it with a handkerchief (sometimes one could find fingerprints on paper). Opening it carefully, he found no handwriting on the pages and no clue to the identity of the person who’d possessed it. He wrapped up the booklet and placed it in his pocket. He called to the Stormtroopers. “Come here, please.”

The three men wandered to the garden.

“Stand there, in a row.” The inspector pointed to a spot of bare earth.

They lined up precisely, as Stormtroopers were exceedingly talented at doing. Kohl examined their boots and compared the size and shape to the sole prints in the dirt. He saw that the assailant had larger feet than they and that his heels were well worn.

“Good.” Then to Felstedt he said, “Show us where you pursued him. You others can leave now.”

The man with the bloody face called, “When you find him, Inspector, you will call us. We have a cell at our barracks. We will deal with him there.”

“Yes, yes, perhaps that can be arranged. And I will give you plenty of time so that you can have more than three men to handle him.”

The Stormtrooper hesitated, wondering if he was being insulted. He examined his crimson-stained shirt. “Look at this. Ach, when we get him, we’ll drain all the blood out of him. Let’s go, comrade.”