Children of Wrath (17 page)

“Because that’s where you’d get live animals from in Berlin.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, how clever. Could you turn on that light for me, darling?”

He switched on a nearby lamp, noticing the little red Indian stamped on the shade.

“Now that you mention it”—she ran her hand along her side—“I do sort of recall a family business involving the
Viehof.
” She stopped at the waist, pinching herself. “But don’t bother asking me what. You don’t suppose I’m getting fat, do you, Sergeant?”

She grabbed Willi’s hand and placed it on her.

He pulled away. “I’m happily married.”

“Oh?”

“What about Ilse was so violent and ugly?” he pressed.

Helga’s eyes darkened, her expression growing faint. “I just don’t think she had a very happy childhood, that’s all. God forbid you made her feel unwanted. She practically ran amok.”

“Amok? Explain.”

“Explain?”

“Yeah. An example, Helga. A specific time you made her feel unwanted and she practically ran amok.”

Helga gave him an almost gut-wrenching look, then shrank in her chair as if really afraid of something.

“A specific time. Well, let’s see. For instance, there was the day I told her I’d reached a new plateau of spiritual understanding.”

“Yes.”

“That I wouldn’t be needing live animals for rituals anymore.”

“I see. And what did she do?”

“What did she do?”

Helga’s eyes began fluttering, her fingers twitching in her lap. “You want to know what she did?”

She jumped up and spun around, staring at Willi, her face still half-covered in cream.

“I’ll tell you what she did.” Her voice careened up what seemed a full octave as it flooded with hysteria. “She threatened to skin me alive. Can you believe it? Skin me alive! I hardly think you can blame me, Sergeant, for deciding the time had come to terminate our friendship.”

Thirteen

For the dozenth time Willi looked at his watch. Sweat dripped down his forehead. Afternoon sun baked his car. If he ever made Inspektor, he’d be entitled to use a department vehicle. In the meantime the family Opel would have to do. One way or another he was determined to find the home base of the fellow he’d officially dubbed the Ox. The big, bald steer who’d pulled a knife on him last autumn seemed best friends with just about everyone in the market. If anybody, he’d know who was chopping up kids.

Two men trudged by lugging a crate of slop. Willi hunched in his seat and lowered his hat. It would have been nice to find a more secluded spot—in the shade. But this was where he needed to be right now: across from the market entrance, the Ox’s black van square in his rearview mirror. Three hours he’d been sitting here. He could use a trip to the toilet about now. Except that yesterday when he’d gone, he’d missed the son of the bitch. Times like these he sorely lacked backup. Only the image of those six Gypsies languishing in prison made him feel less sorry for himself.

At least, though, finally, he was on the trail of
Der Kinderfresser
. He was sure of it. Who’d have imagined—a woman. It seemed impossible. But the instant Helga’d described that threat to skin her alive, he was certain it had to be her—this Ilse, the Shepherdess—he was after.

Just her, though? Could it possibly be? One woman kidnapping, killing, boiling the bones, and making designs of so many children? Selling their flesh? It’d be hard enough for one man. A woman’d have to have accomplices, wouldn’t she? Even if they weren’t aware of what they were doing. Unless he was really selling this one short. As High Priestess Helga warned against.

“I’ll do what I can to help, Sergeant. But trust me,” Helga’d insisted, “whatever the crime, don’t think this bitch isn’t capable of it.”

What sort of crazed being was he up against?

The next morning, first thing, he hurried across Alexanderplatz in pursuit of the other lead he had on the Shepherdess.

“Kai!” He found the boy at his haunt near the base of Berolina, the giant female warrior looming near the Tietz department store. The dozen or so members of his gang, all wearing eye makeup and painted fingernails, whistled as he walked toward Willi in his Mexican poncho and bush hat.

“Never mind them.” Kai’s earring sparkled as they moved to the busy area near the store so no one could hear them. “Fine to see you again, Sarge.”

“You told me kids in Neukoln were talking about a lady.”

The boy’s mascaraed eyes widened. “You mean she’s real—the Shepherdess?”

“I need to speak to those kids. Can you arrange it?”

“I could take you right away.”

The Black Knights, largest of the Wild Boys groups in working-class Neukoln, had a permanent residence in a basement off Hermannplatz, right across from the giant new Karstadt store. Unlike Kai’s group, who stuck together for survival, this gang was a tough lot of pickpockets and shoplifters, boys who liked girls and grew into men who made a career of crime, a sort of school for the adult
Ringverein,
which regularly recruited from them. Yet a score of these gangsters-in-training managed to overcome their aversion to law enforcement when they heard a Kripo detective had come to hear about the Shepherdess.

It was standing room only in the smoke-filled basement. The few females on hand looked tougher than the guys. The leader, a pimply-faced veteran of seventeen who called himself Friedrich the Great, sat in the center of a busted-up Biedermeier couch, a big-bosomed girl under each arm. He started things off with a real tirade about how the cops didn’t care if they lived or died.

“Eight of our boys, all under fourteen, have vanished around here since the beginning of the year. Two more just last week, after the supposed criminals were in jail. No matter how many times we try to talk to you guys, nobody listens. It’s like we don’t exist.”

“Yeah!” the other kids started shouting. “No wonder we turn to crime!”

“I’m here,” Willi’d assured them, “to find out everything.”

He might as well have tossed a grenade, so raw was the explosion of anger and fear, everybody talking at once.

“She lures with money!”

“She’s got a knife!”

“She works with a man!”

“She works alone!”

“Has anybody actually seen her?” Willi tried to bring some order to it.

“She’s tall with short red hair.”

“Short, with long red hair.”

Everyone was certain it was a red-haired woman—yet not a soul had seen her. The boys vanished either alone or in pairs. Yet where she took them, how she got them there, or even how anyone came to call her the Shepherdess, no one had a clue.

Whoever she was, Willi realized, this lady had talent.

“From now on,” he instructed, “travel only in groups of three and four. Spread the word. And keep your eyes open. If anyone actually sees this Shepherdess, I want to be told. Immediately.”

He was taking a huge risk here, he realized. If word got back to the Kommissar he was involving himself in Freksa’s case after all, he didn’t want to imagine. Nor did he want to imagine if Vicki found out. At least, though, Wild Boys across Berlin would be organizing for protection. And on the lookout for the Shepherdess. So was the High Priestess and her entourage, Brigitta, the bodyguard. Eventually someone would spot her. He prayed.

*   *   *

In the meantime he continued his reconnaissance at the peddlers’ market, sitting in his little black Opel, waiting. If the missing boys were ending up as sausage filler, he figured, it might be possible to work the trail backward, trace his way to where the cutting and grinding were done. Had to be some god-awful place.

On the overhead tracks the electrified S-Bahn slid into the Landsberger Allee station. Part of the ring of railroads responsible for so much of Berlin’s industrial might, these commuter trains shared the lines that split off and ran into the
Viehof
a quarter mile farther. The very same rails that shuttled people by the hundreds of thousands brought livestock from across Europe to feed them. The sound echoing off nearby buildings, he could hear the conductor warn,
“Zuruck bleiben!”
and see people trampling down to the street. When the train slid out, he glanced at his rearview mirror.

There he was. The Ox’s massive arms were hustling along two lanky boys who looked exhausted but relieved to be out of the hellish market. Throwing in some empty crates first, they climbed in the back of the van, which the Ox then slammed shut before lumbering up front.

The man really was the size of a small steer. His limbs twice the width of Willi’s, solid muscle. Amazing he could even fit behind the wheel, Willi thought, taking a deep breath and waiting for him to pass before turning on his own motor. And how’d he get away with having no license plates? In this town they pulled you over for a dirty windshield. Keeping a car’s distance behind he was glad he didn’t have to give chase. The Opel didn’t do more than 50 mph. Fine for taking the kids to Grandpa’s. But it’d be nice to get a faster car one of these days. Of course, given this traffic, speed was the last thing he needed to worry about.

Inching along Thaer Strasse onto Eldenaer, he saw the Ox make a left finally through the main gates into the
Central-Viehof
. Allowing an empty truck to pull between them, he turned in behind. The graveled streets were a tangle of cars and trucks and horse-drawn wagons. The handsome buildings in red and gold brick glowed in the late-day sun. Fifty-seven structures on 120 acres, he remembered Herr Direktor Gruber boasting. Eleven hundred individual firms. Five thousand people who earned their daily bread here.

And at least one mass murderer.

Making sure to maintain a vehicle between himself and the van, he followed past the huge, glass-roofed cattle market, then the sheep and swine halls, the acres of outdoor corrals, on through the tunnel that led to the south side of the complex. If they continued beyond the slaughterhouses, he told himself, feeling perhaps there might be a little payoff for all his patience, he’d be heading just as Riegler and Heilbutt had postulated, straight into the by-products zone—which might narrow things down considerably.

One by one the brick slaughterhouses passed, each with its towering chimney at the far end belching smoke. He rolled up the window but it made no difference. The odor of fresh blood and burning fat seeped in like poison gas. Willi’d hardly believe people could work in such stench, if he hadn’t spent three years on the Western Front.

The truck in front decided to stop suddenly and wouldn’t move. He gritted his teeth. This whole area was a warren of little streets the Ox could vanish down in an instant. He honked, receiving an angry gesture from the driver, then stuck his head out praying there was room to pass. To his dismay he saw the road ahead blocked by a herd of cattle trudging by the hundreds onto the slaughterhouse ramps. He couldn’t believe it. After all his patient waiting! He jumped out and climbed on the running board, straining to see if he could spot the black van through the dust, but it was useless. All he could make out were brown-and-white figures clomping toward the butcher’s mallet.

*   *   *

Tired but not dispirited, he headed home. He’d been at the game long enough to know that a fish who slipped away one day wound up a fine fillet the next. In the meantime, hopefully, no more disappearing kids.

It was dark by the time he reached Wilmersdorf. He parked in front of his apartment building and pulled the brake tight, wondering if his choice for Vicki’s anniversary present was really the wisest. She’d love it, of course. So would he. He was entitled to the days, he reminded himself, getting out and breathing in the neighborhood air. But could he afford it? It’d be one thing if lives didn’t depend on it. On the other hand, he considered, entering the carpeted lobby and starting up the stairs, he didn’t want to end up like so many cops obsessed with their work. Divorced.

Ten years. My God. He and Vicki deserved a second honeymoon.

Upstairs, he found the boys playing with the new doctor’s kits their grandmother had given them, pretending to operate on Heinzie Winkelmann, who was sprawled out on their bedroom rug.

“Vati!”

Hugging them, he couldn’t help but notice that damned model airplane still half-finished on the desk. Not that it seemed to bother Erich.

“Don’t worry,
Vati
. We’ll get it done.”

“
Guten Abend,
Herr Sergeant-Detektiv.” Heinz looked up from the operating table.

“
Guten Abend,
Heinz. How is everything at home?”

“Not very good.” The boy was too young to be embarrassed to announce. “Because of the slump my dad lost his store. Now we don’t have any money at all.”

Willi’s throat closed. How awful—like a terrible plague he’d been hearing about had appeared across the hall. Poor Otto. He’d worked so hard for that store. Now what would he do?

Vicki already knew from Irmgard.

“Oh, Willi, I wish there was somehow we could help them.”

“So do I.”

They were both so upset Willi didn’t even bother telling her about their second honeymoon, until later, when they were in bed. Holding her from behind, he cuddled near and whispered in her ear, watching her eyes gradually light.

“Just like ten years ago? A whole week in Venice? Oh, Willi—” She flipped around, bursting into tears. “You couldn’t have chosen a better present!” A moment later, though, she took his face in her hands. “But, darling, let’s not tell the Winkelmanns, okay? It seems kind of rude. We’ll say we’re going to visit my great-aunt Hedda instead.”

Then, pressing her lips against his in a grateful kiss, she slid atop him, running her fingers through his chest hair.

*   *   *

At breakfast, though, when he saw the morning paper, Venice seemed a fool’s paradise:
KINDERFRESSER TRIAL SET! GYPSIES FACE GALLOWS
.

Willi completely lost his appetite.

It was Saturday. Half a workday. At eight o’clock as he approached the Police Presidium, he could think of nothing else but stopping Freksa. The prospect of that unit lunch meeting later made him slightly ill. Entering the elevator, though, his stomach really clenched. He couldn’t believe it. The only other person in there was the big, blond, smug-as-hell Nazi himself. Half of him wanted to step out and wait for the next car, the other to charge full steam ahead and just tackle the guy. But he gritted his teeth and simply stood there until the doors closed. Freksa gave him a quick glance, then broke out a newspaper, turning to the second page.