Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

“That’s right. A friend of his joined us there. I don’t recall his name.”

Ah, the laborer.

“He whispered something to Taggert, who looked worried and said we ought to beat it.” A frown at the literal German translation of what would be an English idiom. “I mean, leave quickly. This friend thought there were some Gestapo or something around, and Taggert agreed. We slipped out the side door. I should’ve guessed then that something wasn’t right. But it was kind of an adventure, you know. That’s just what I was looking for, for my stories.”

“Local color,” Kohl said slowly, reflecting that it is so much easier to make a big lie believable when the liar feeds you small truths. “And did you meet this Taggert at any other times?” A nod toward the body. “Other than today, of course?” Kohl wondered if the man would admit going to November 1923 Square.

“Yes,” Schumann said. “Some square later that day. A bad neighborhood. Near Oranienburger Station. By a big statue of Hitler. We were going to meet some other contact. But that guy never showed up.”

“And you ‘beat it’ from there as well.”

“That’s right. Taggert got spooked again. It was clear something was off. That’s when I decided I better cut things off with the guy.”

“What happened,” Kohl asked quickly, “to your Stetson hat?”

A concerned look. “Well, I’ll be honest, Detective Kohl. I was walking down the street and saw some young…” A hesitation as he sought a word. “Beasts… toughs?”

“Yes, yes, thugs.”

“In brown uniforms.”

“Stormtroopers.”

“Thugs,” Schumann said with some disgust. “They were beating up a bookseller and his wife. I thought these men were going to kill them. I stopped them. The next thing I knew there were a dozen of them after me. I threw some clothes away, down the sewer, so they wouldn’t recognize me.”

This is a wiry man, Kohl thought. And clever.

“Are you going to arrest me for beating up some of your Nazi thugs?”

“That doesn’t interest me, Mr. Schumann. But what does very much interest me is the purpose of this whole masquerade orchestrated by Mr. Taggert.”

“He was trying to fix some of the Olympic events.”

“Fix?”

The American thought for a moment. “To have a player lose intentionally. That’s what he’d been doing here over the past several months, putting together gambling pools in Berlin. Taggert’s colleagues were going to place bets against some of the American favorites. I have a press pass and can get close to the athletes. I was supposed to bribe them to lose on purpose. That’s why he was so nervous for the past couple days, I guess. He owed some of your gang rings, he called them, a lot of money.”

“Morgan was killed because this Taggert wished to impersonate him?”

“That’s right.”

“Quite an elaborate plot,” Kohl observed.

“Quite a lot of money was involved. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Another glance at the limp body on the floor. “I noted that you said you decided to end your relationship with Mr. Taggert as of yesterday. And yet here he is. How did this tragic ‘fight,’ as you call it, transpire?”

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was desperate for the money – he’d borrowed a lot to place the bets. He came here today to threaten me. He said they were going to make it look like I killed Morgan.”

“To extort you into helping them.”

“That’s right. But I said I didn’t care. I was going to turn him in anyway. He pulled that gun on me. We struggled and he fell. It seems he broke his neck.”

Kohl’s mind instinctively applied the information Schumann had provided against the facts and the inspector’s awareness of human nature. Some details fit; some were jarring. Willi Kohl always reminded himself to keep an open mind at crime scenes, refrain from reaching conclusions too quickly. Now, this process happened automatically; his thoughts were deadlocked. It was as if a punch card had jammed in one of the DeHoMag sorting machines.

“You fought to save yourself and he died in a fall.”

A woman’s voice said, “Yes, that is exactly what happened.”

Kohl turned to the figure in the doorway. She was about forty, slim and attractive, though her face was tired, troubled.

“Please, your name?”

“Käthe Richter.” She automatically handed her card to him. “I manage this building in the owner’s absence.”

Her papers confirmed her identity and he returned the ID. “And you were a witness to this event?”

“I was here. In the hallway. I heard some disturbance from inside and opened the door partway. I saw the whole thing.”

“And yet you were gone when we arrived.”

“I was afraid. I saw your car pull up. I didn’t want to get involved.”

So she was on a Gestapo or SD list. “And yet here you are.”

“I debated for some moments. I took the chance that there are still some policemen in this city who are interested in the truth.” She said this defiantly.

Janssen stepped inside. He eyed the woman but Kohl said nothing about her. “Yes?” the inspector asked.

“Sir, the American embassy said they have no knowledge of a Robert Taggert.”

Kohl nodded as he continued to ponder the information. He stepped closer to Taggert’s body and said, “Quite a fortuitous fall. Fortuitous from your perspective, of course. And you, Miss Richter, I’ll ask you again – you saw the struggle firsthand? You must be honest with me.”

“Yes, yes. That man had a gun. He was going to kill Mr. Schumann.”

“Do you know the victim?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve never seen him.”

Kohl glanced again at the body then tucked his thumb into his vest watch pocket. “It’s a curious business, being a detective, Mr. Schumann. We try to read the clues and follow where they lead. And in this case the clues put me on your trail – indeed they led me here, directly to you – and now it seems those very same clues suggest that it was actually this other man I have been seeking all along.”

“Life’s funny sometimes.”

The phrase made no sense in German. Kohl assumed it was a translation of an American idiom but he deduced the meaning.

Which he certainly could not dispute.

He took his pipe from his pocket and, without lighting it, slipped it into his mouth and chewed on the stem for a moment. “Well, Mr. Schumann, I have decided not to detain you, not at this moment. I will let you leave, though I will retain your passport while I look into these matters in more depth. Do not leave Berlin. As you have probably seen, our various authorities are quite adept at locating people in our country. Now, I’m afraid, you will have to quit the boardinghouse. It’s a crime scene. Do you have another place to stay where I can contact you?”

Schumann thought for a moment. “I’ll get a room at the Hotel Metropol.”

Kohl wrote this down in his notebook and pocketed the man’s passport. “Very well, sir. Now, is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

“Not a thing, Inspector. I’ll cooperate however I can.”

“You may leave now. Take only your necessities. Uncuff him, Janssen.”

The inspector candidate did so. Schumann walked to his suitcase. As Kohl watched carefully, he packed a shaving kit with a razor, shaving soap, toothbrush and dental cream. The inspector handed him back his cigarettes, matches, money and comb.

Schumann glanced at the woman. “Can you walk me to the tram stop?”

“Yes, of course.”

Kohl asked, “Miss Richter, you live here in the building?”

“The back apartment on this floor, yes.”

“Very well. I’ll be in touch with you, as well.”