Children of Wrath (9 page)

The news conference was in the Commodities Exchange building, upstairs in the dining room, a giant feudal-styled “great hall” with Gothic arches and flying buttresses, packed now with hundreds of reporters. Willi recognized several who’d interviewed him back in the days when he was actually working murder cases—Lauterbach from the
Morgenpost,
Woerner from
Abend Zeitung
. On a dais up front the
Viehof
’s ten-man board of directors sat facing the crowd, the elephantine figure of Herr Direktor Gruber unmistakable among them. Eventually he leaned to the microphone, speaking with all the flourish he’d shown to Willi that day in the Daimler.

“
Guten Morgen,
all of you. Thank you for coming out. It’s a most auspicious occasion. At last we can announce with confidence that this difficult time—this citywide nightmare—is over. Our meat supply is safe. Let us offer a prayer of thanks.” He bowed his large head, then lifted it after several seconds, stroking his waxed mustache. “Following the news conference, the board of directors will celebrate with a meal of fresh sausage and beer. We’d like all of you to join us.”

No apologies? Willi wondered. No admission of guilt?

“First off, let me introduce the head of the investigation on the part of the Ministry of Public Health.” Gruber stepped aside.

As Frau Doktor Riegler took her place in front of the microphones, she looked pale, Willi thought. Not happy as she ought to be.

“The presence of
Listeria
—” The loudspeakers screeched as she spoke too near the microphone, causing everyone to cringe. “Sorry. Pardon me.” She cleared her throat. Her cheek, Willi noticed, was twitching again. “The presence of
Listeria monocytogenes
was confirmed yesterday in a section of Slaughterhouse Seven under long-term lease by the firm Kleist-Rosenthaler, a major supplier of trimmings to the factories where tainted sausages were produced. Prior testing failed to show positive results because of the strenuous disinfection efforts undertaken by the firm after the
Listeria
infection was first announced, in compliance with directives by the
Central-Viehof
. Our investigations show no prior knowledge on the part of any Kleist-Rosenthaler employees, no breach of regulations. No efforts at a cover-up. Simply a random and thankfully very rare occurrence.”

Riegler’s face, Willi saw, was twitching like a firecracker.

“Lady Doktor’s certainly basking in her glory.”

Willi turned to see Heilbutt next to him, an investigator for the Ministry of Public Health, who headed up their lab work. He’d encountered the crusty old goat a number of times in the field. A real relic from the Kaiser Reich, nearing retirement, he was a stickler for protocol and meticulousness, completely contemptuous of his boss, whom he referred to only in a mock Russian accent as Lady Doktor, as if female physicians were synonymous with Bolshevism. When her speech turned to thanking the
Viehof
directors for their limitless cooperation, he shot Willi a real fish-eye.

“Smell that stink?”

Willi smiled, figuring the old geezer was simply casting aspersions on Lady Doktor’s diplomatic niceties, which was understandable. A lot of people had died. Where was the finger of blame here? A glint in Heilbutt’s gaze, though, struck him far more darkly. What might he be suggesting? Willi wondered. Had pressure to end the crisis brought about too rapid a conclusion? A cover-up? Was that what Riegler’d meant before about “politics”?

“I’m surprised the
Listeria
turned up here at the
Viehof,
” Willi probed quietly. “I’d have put my money on a peddler.”

Heilbutt’s gaze narrowed. “They may not be so different, Detektiv,” he grumbled from the side of his mouth. “A few years back, during the inflation, you wouldn’t guess what kept popping up in sausages. Bow wow-wow. That’s right. You never heard about it because no one got sick, so the powers that be kept a lid on it. But that’s just what it was. Dog meat. And plenty of it. We never identified the source, but it sure as heck was right here in the
Viehof
. Ask Lady Doktor about that sometime.”

Seven

“Go on, ask the saleslady,” Willi urged, feeling Erich was old enough to learn the proper way to address a clerk.

“Excuse me, madam,” Erich said.

Willi quickly saw there was nothing to worry about.

“Have you got a model Fokker Dr.1 triplane, in red, please, like Baron von Richthofen flew?”

The boy had his mother’s savoir faire. Or at least, her skill in department stores.

Unfortunately, the saleswoman didn’t display a comparable level of social aplomb. “There we go.” She found the box and placed it on the counter. “A most beautiful craft. And so complex. Three wings. ‘For boys twelve and up,’” she read.

“I’m not quite nine but I want to try.”

“Really?” She shot Willi a glance. “And St. Nick lets you pick your own toy?”

“We don’t believe in St. Nicholas, ma’am. We celebrate Hanukkah.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Imagine that … a Jewish boy wanting the Red Baron’s plane.” She felt no compunction in declaring, “And your people against Germany in the war.”

Erich frowned as if she were absurd. Willi was stunned not merely by her misinformation but by her utter gall.

“Go grab Stefan before he wanders off,” he told his oldest boy, then turned to the saleswoman, flashing his veteran’s badge. “Listen, lady. I happen to be a holder of the Iron Cross First Class. So unless you want to find yourself in hot water with the Veterans’ Association, I’d suggest you can the commentary and wrap the kid’s plane, huh?”

As she obeyed, red with embarrassment, he stood there fuming. How dare she? Jews had been in this country since Roman times, thriving in highly advanced communities along the Rhine—Worms, Mainz, Cologne—for a thousand years, until the hordes of the First Crusade swept in and burned the synagogues of Worms, Mainz, and Cologne—with all the congregants inside. After that, German Jews were forced to live in filthy ghettos, locked behind walls each night. For seven hundred years they were persecuted, tormented, expelled en masse by princely whim. Only during the Age of Enlightenment did the ghetto walls begin to crumble, slowly.

Not until 1871, when Germany finally united as a nation-state, were all restrictions on Jews’ civil and political rights lifted. But legal emancipation did not end discrimination. Even today, in 1929, if not brick walls, then certainly glass ones separated most Germans from their Jewish neighbors. In plenty of areas, Jews dared not tread. Such as law enforcement. Out of several thousand employees at the Police Presidium, only a handful were Jewish. Even if one was Dr. Weiss, the deputy president. And though mob violence and government pogroms obviously were a thing of the past, there’d been flare-ups of nasty political anti-Semitism in Germany in Willi’s lifetime.

“Thank you for shopping at Kaufhaus des Westens.” The saleswoman passed them the gift-wrapped box without so much as a smile.

Willi nudged Erich to thank her, and they headed down the escalator.

After the defeat of 1918, a number of far-right parties had propagated the idea that an international conspiracy of Jews had “stabbed the fatherland in the back.” The Centralverein, the main union of German Jews, fought back with a vigorous counteroffensive, making it known that one hundred thousand soldiers of the Jewish faith had served in the kaiser’s armies, and that nearly twelve thousand had fallen—startling percentages considering less than half a million Jews even lived in the country. Willi was enlisted as a sort of poster boy, presented at gatherings in uniform and medal, his story put out in national publications. He hadn’t particularly cared for the attention. But after all, how else had he won Vicki’s hand? When wooing a beautiful woman of means, having your nation’s highest medal of honor doesn’t hurt. A full decade on, though, he’d hoped such myths as Jewish antipatriotism would have faded away. The saleswoman in KDW made it clear they hadn’t. Not that it destroyed his faith in a slow but steady march of progress. He was still quite confident that tomorrow’s Germany would be better for his sons than the one he’d grown up in.

Outside, big flakes of snow were tumbling onto busy Wittenbergplatz. By the time they boarded the tram home, it was coming down heavily. The kids, oblivious to their recent encounter with anti-Semitism, were thrilled at the unexpected development. “Let’s make a snowman in the courtyard with Heinzie!” Erich clutched his gift box. Stefan wiggled excitedly on Willi’s lap. As they rattled around the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, little by little the sidewalks turned white.

On a newspaper across from him, Willi noticed that the firm of Kleist-Rosenthaler had announced it was closing. Hardly surprising. No criminal charges had been filed yet. His report wasn’t even due until after the holidays, and he still had questions, especially after Heilbutt’s insinuations. Then the Homicide Commission still had to make a recommendation. And ultimately, it was up to the district attorney’s office. But with so many dead and sickened, no one in his right mind would do business with that company. Strohmeyer A.G., Fine
Wurst
Since 1892, would likely be next. Meanwhile, the criminal process would go on for God knew how long, tying him up for the duration.

Willi sighed. Far down the Ku’damm he caught sight of the giant radio tower over Wilmersdorf, casting a lonely light through the snow. He hadn’t felt this bored, this frustrated at work, for a long time, he realized. Since joining the force. Perhaps that’s why he was doing what he was … trespassing again on Freksa’s case. Tonight. After dinner. Just a little reconnaissance. He’d noticed this afternoon that Freksa hadn’t displayed his usual braggadocio at the unit lunch meeting. Too quiet, withdrawn almost. Clearly the star wasn’t getting far with the Lichtenberg bone investigation. He was starting to get nervous about it. Willi could tell. But the Kommissar, observing his keen interest in the case, pulled him aside afterward.

“Don’t even dream about getting back in on this, Kraus. Freksa’s doing just fine.”

At home on Beckmann Strasse after dinner, when the courtyard was covered enough for the boys to go out and build their snowman, Willi and Vicki enjoyed a quiet coffee in the dining room. In her short dress, short hair, and dangling earrings, the matching bracelets clinking as she lifted the cup to her lips, Vicki was so graceful. Willi thought she ought to be on a billboard in Potsdamer Platz advertising silk stockings or some glamorous getaway. That she was so natural in her elegance only enhanced it in his eyes.

“I know, I know”—she was trying to preempt him—“you crossed no-man’s-land half a dozen times, Willi. Spent weeks behind enemy lines. But honestly, a spiritualist mission?”

She swept the dark bangs from her brow, scowling as she often did when confronted with the more frontline aspects of his job, as if to say,
Maybe it would have been better had you gone into my father’s business
.

Which they both knew was nonsense. She’d never have married him.

“I’m not joining it, darling.” He’d softened up Braunschweig’s description, naturally. He wasn’t going to tell her it was a “satanic love cult.” Leaning across the table he inserted his tongue between her lips a bit. “Just snooping around.”

But he knew she wouldn’t like it one little bit if she ever found out what he was really up to. More than once she’d made abundantly clear she could close her eyes to the dangers of his career as long as he never put the children in harm’s way. Now suddenly, he was poking about after a child killer.

*   *   *

It was still snowing when he climbed from the U-Bahn station at Uhland Strasse an hour later, sanitation workers in brown uniforms sweeping the sidewalks with huge brooms. On the Ku’damm crowds jostled under umbrellas, the store lights and cinema marquees flashing hypnotic rhythms against the falling flakes.

Bleibtreu Strasse 143 proved to be a Jugendstil mansion, with marble steps leading to a portico held aloft by naked nymphs. Over their heads a shiny brass sign read
DIVINE RADIANCE MISSION.
It was dark as hell inside. Not a light on. How disappointing. His imagination had been on overdrive since Braunschweig first described this place. Now what?

He took the steps two at a time.

On either side of the front door were small opera windows with half-open curtains. No hours posted. No phone number. Checking over his shoulder, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a flashlight.

Through the window, a handsome foyer decorated with exotic-looking urns, candelabra, a shelf full of crystals. Like a fancy palm reader’s. On one wall, a large, framed oil painting in a shimmering-gold art nouveau style: boys and girls dancing in a circle—naked.
LET US BE REBORN INTO A STATE OF PARADISIACAL INNOCENCE
written across the top. Willi stared, then switched off the flashlight. Given the penchant for mysticism in Berlin these days, it seemed rather tame. Respectable even. Short of breaking in, there really wasn’t much he could do.

Thwarted, angry, he turned to leave.

On the far side of the street, though, a small red light twinkling through the snowflakes lured his attention. Squinting, he made out a sign above a shop window:
DIVINE RADIANCE BOUTIQUE.

His mood lifted.

The smell of incense nearly knocked him out when he entered. The small shop was crowded with candles, pendants, charms, potions, all, Willi rapidly ascertained, for the casting of spells. A Victrola behind the counter was pounding a tango. Next to it, a pale young woman with an angular face and even more angular haircut dyed a preposterous red ignored Willi as he perused the merchandise. Stimulation Spray … Potency Powder … Fall in Love Flakes … Fall out of Love Flakes … Revenge Dust. Two other customers, a husband and wife from the looks of it—she in a stylish fox coat—were on their way out.

“
Wiedersehen,
Brigitta. See you at Saturnalia.” They squeezed past Willi, bundling up against the storm. Once they were gone, this Brigitta stuck a monocle in her eye and examined him as if he were an odd little insect that’d blown in.