Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

“Elisabeth von Pommeren,” the superintendent now told the Czech, “was a member of the oldest noble family in Germany; her husband was a general of the Reich’s armed forces and was posthumously awarded the Knight’s Cross. For this reason, we are invoking the Security Decree of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, signed on first September 1939, section two, paragraph twelve, according to which — and I quote—’the police departments of the Protectorate are required to act on the instructions of the Reich’s criminal police,’ end quote. What’s more, the imperial protector will no doubt offer a reward for the capture of this criminal. The murderer must be found. Lack of diligence will be treated as sabotage.”

Buback watched the youth scribbling in his notebook, concentrating so hard his tongue nearly hung out. The kid wasn’t their intended audience, but he would convey the message accurately to his superiors. Thirty-three months ago, thousands of Czech hostages had paid with their lives for the assassination of the Nazis’ acting imperial protector, Reinhard Heydrich. The boy could certainly imagine the carnage to come if Germany decided that this murder had a political motive.

“Do you want your people to keep the evidence?” the youth asked with surprising practicality.

“I’ll tell you what we want,” Meckerle thundered. “I want that monster’s head. How you get it is your business! Detective Buback will be watching your every move. Unless he finds incredibly good reasons for your mistakes and delays, I will personally bring them to the attention of the Prague Castle and Berlin.’ 5

The colonel’s explosions always rattled his own men; therefore, it irritated Buback when the kid merely cleared his throat again.

“I understand. May I use the telephone?”

Meckerle gestured with a glove.

“Tell your supervisor that his absence today is quite exceptionally excused. Tomorrow at eight hundred hours I expect to see his personal status report on my desk at Bredovská Street. Even“—and here he raised his voice again—“if it’s thundering and bombs are falling!”

More bombs were falling on his beloved Dresden as they spoke, Buback remembered. Was his old home still standing? Anyway, what was the difference…? Once the others had trooped off, Buback took his anger out on the Czech.

“Is there a problem? The telephone is in the entrance hall; hop to it and look smart. We haven’t touched anything here, it’s your neck on the line now.”

The kid rushed off and was heard asking a Jitka to get him an autopsy team quickly. Buback was alone in the apartment for the first time. He looked at the unbelievable object, which someone had created not long ago from a human being, and shivered.

He described in a whisper how he had done the deed and, as expected, heard praise. He left the church a new man; the unbearable tension of the previous days was behind him. He had done it! He’d erased the shame of Brno. He had proved he was worthy of TRUST, and now he, and no one else, would carry out the rest of the assignment. This morning he had still doubted himself; would it be humanly possible? But incredibly SHE had calmed his fears and confirmed him as HER judge on earth.

For the first time in years, his spirits were high. However, he had a new problem. He had less and less control over his body. Even after a long rest, he felt as if he’d been marching all day. But even when doing IT he’d just stood there; there had been no resistance. Why this stupor; why did even a light bag weigh him down?

The answer he received was so simple he had to laugh. A woman rolled her bicycle out of a nearby courtyard; as she walked she bit into the heel of a loaf of bread, and his stomach immediately cramped up. Of course, he realized; with all the excitement, he’d had nothing to eat or drink since yesterday.

He placed his satchel on the sidewalk and pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his raincoat. Sure, he had tons of ration coupons left, even halfway through the month; he’d neglected himself completely the last few days. This would have to stop. If he was to succeed and fulfill the HIGHEST OBLIGATION, he needed strength.

He looked around the unfamiliar street and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find a restaurant directly opposite. “Angel’s.” How appropriate. His spirits revived immediately and he could feel his saliva start to flow.

Superintendent Beran had an excellent alibi. At the ruins of a building in Pankrác that had housed German bureaucrats’ families, he had met the entourage of State Secretary Karl Hermann Frank. Frank was the Protectorate’s eternal second fiddle, but he had outlived all the first fiddles; he ordered Beran to accompany him as he toured the path of the raid. When the messenger from Police Commissioner Rajner delivered Colonel Meckerle’s command, Frank had merely shaken his head briefly.

However, the report, which reached them less than an hour later, roused the impassive Nazi to anger.

“How repulsive — disgusting!” he screamed at the superintendent, as if he had suddenly discovered the Czech to be responsible for the murder. “I expect you to find the murderer immediately. And I hope, for your people’s sake, that it’s some deviant and not a bloody Resistance fighter trying to frighten the Germans in Prague. Otherwise you Czechs will pay for it from now till doomsday.”

Beran proceeded immediately to the scene of the crime but found only a locked building. The single policeman out front was on his way home. The on-site investigation had just ended, he told Beran, and they’d taken the remaining pieces back to the pathology lab. What pieces? The officer hadn’t seen them himself and his secondhand description sounded like the product of a sick imagination. The superintendent returned to the Bartolom jská Street office, wondering whom he could put on the case. The Germans had shot his best homicide detective in the Heydrich affair — for “condoning” the assassination — and his senior detectives, both aces, were ill with the flu. He was glad it was the ever-diligent Morava who’d stepped in in a pinch, but his country-born assistant could be as stubborn as a mule; he hoped the kid hadn’t made waves.

The assistant detective was now sitting on the other side of his desk. The photos had not yet arrived, so Morava was reading his notes from the scene to Beran. They were far beyond anything even Beran had ever witnessed.

“Point A: The victim, forty-five, a well-bred woman in good physical condition, evidently offered no resistance. Apart from the mutilations listed below, there are no scratches on her skin, and her nails show no traces of a struggle;

“Point B: Using several strips of wide tape (the sort used at post offices and to protect windows against bomb blasts), he taped over her mouth and genitals; the doctor’s preliminary investigation suggests that she was not raped;

“Point C: The perpetrator tied the victim to the dining-room table with straps — judging by the cuts on the skin — on her back, so that her head fell back over the edge; he tied her arms at the elbow to her legs underneath the tabletop;

“Point D: The perpetrator cut off both breasts just above the chest and placed them next to the victim on an oval serving dish, which he apparently took from the sideboard;

“Point E: The perpetrator sliced open the victim’s belly from chest to below the waist, pulled out her small intestine, twisted it skillfully into a ball, and placed it in a soup tureen;

“Point F: The perpetrator cut the victim’s throat almost through to the spinal cord; however, he did not cut the cord itself, so the head remained hanging beneath the body and the blood ran into a brass container, which he had taken from under a potted ficus tree;