Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke (22 page)

FOR THE NEXT HOUR, GRETCHEN AND DANIEL
discussed the diary’s contents with Friedrich, going over and over Fräulein Junge’s comment about the inquisitive fireman. Daniel said it was common knowledge that an underground tunnel connected Göring’s palace and the Reichstag because the two buildings shared a central heating system. Before the Socialist and Communist newspapers had been shut down last week, many of them had reported the fact, speculating that Göring had sent SA men through the tunnel to set the blaze. The tunnel was reached through a doorway next to Göring’s porter’s lodge and ended in the Reichstag cellar.

Gretchen remembered Hanfstaengl’s careless words at the gangsters’ ball about secret passages causing trouble for the Party. She had assumed he meant the passage connecting Hitler’s Chancellery with the Hotel Adlon. But he must have also
meant the tunnel beneath Göring’s palace.

There was so little they knew about the fireman: a nickname—presumably “Heinz” was short for “Heinrich”—and he must work at a station close to the Reichstag, or he wouldn’t have been on the scene that night. Friedrich was confident his men could track down the fellow, for they were experienced at locating men who didn’t want to be found: gamblers who’d skipped out on bets, borrowers who’d defaulted on a loan. If the fireman was still alive and in the city, the
Ringverein
would find him.

Finally Gretchen and Daniel crawled into bed. Her thoughts were spinning, but the instant she closed her eyes they silenced like leaves after a windstorm, and she sank into sleep.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in Uncle Dolf’s rented room. Cakes frosted with eagles and swastikas had been stacked everywhere: the linoleum floor, the top of Hitler’s bookcase, and on a writing table.

Hitler sat on the edge of his bed, his face pale and haggard. He wore a white shirt without the attached collar, suspenders, and carpet slippers. Strands of hair fell over his forehead. Gretchen had never seen him so disheveled.

Papa sat in the middle of the room, cradling an iced cake like a baby. Concern was etched into his face. His mouth was open, as if he was about to speak
—

Gretchen shot up in bed, her heart thundering.
Just a dream, just a dream
, she reassured herself, but she knew it wasn’t.

She remembered that afternoon in Hitler’s old bed-sitting-room, for it had been the last of his birthdays that she had celebrated with her father, as he had died seven months later.
During that first horrible winter without him, she had often recalled that day, wishing she could freeze it like an insect in amber because it had seemed so perfect. Her and Papa and Uncle Dolf, stuffing themselves with cake, then trooping out to the old piano in the entrance hall when Hanfstaengl had shown up with flowers.

Hanfstaengl had played
Die Meistersinger
while Hitler marched back and forth, conducting an invisible orchestra. She had tagged along after him, mimicking his every move until finally, flushed and laughing, they rested on the floor, and she had leaned against him, smelling his familiar scents of sugar and sweat-dampened cotton.

Shuddering, she scrubbed her face with her hands, as if she could clean away the memory. Why had she dreamed about it—and about that particular instant in the room Hitler used to rent on the Thierschstrasse, before he had moved into his posh apartment? That had never been the part she had chosen to remember when she had run through that afternoon in her mind.

She knew what Alfred would say: The subconscious often hid secrets within dreams. Was her mind trying to tell her something?

Outside, church bells were ringing—it was Sunday, she realized, the nineteenth of March. Four days until the Reichstag session. Her stomach dropped. They had so little time left.

The bedroom door burst open. She whirled, her hand at her throat. Daniel bolted up in bed. Friedrich stood in the entrance, clad in a leather greatcoat and bowler hat. Today he carried a blackjack, which he tapped lightly in his gloved palm.

“Get up,” he barked at Daniel. “My men have learned the
fireman’s identity. His name is Heinz Schultz. He works night shifts out of the Linienstrasse fire station, but he hasn’t been seen in about three weeks. Since a few days after the fire, in fact.” He slipped the weapon into his coat. His smile was quick and predatory. “If he’s home, I’m sure he’ll talk to us. And if not . . .” He patted his pocket. “I can be very persuasive.”

HEINZ SCHULTZ LIVED IN AN APARTMENT ON THE
Nollendorfstrasse. Shabby stone buildings lined the street. Even at the early eight o’clock hour, lamps burned in the cellar shops. Store windows were crammed with tarnished silver pots and broken furniture: wood chairs missing an arm, tables with uneven legs, lamps with ripped shades.

The cheap smells of horsemeat and stopped-up drains permeated the air. Gretchen skirted dirty-faced children playing jacks and families trudging to church services. A few men clustered on the corner, rags in their hands, a bucket of water at their feet, ready to leap forward and wash car windshields for a few groschen. A couple of rangy mutts skittered across the street, slipping on the icy cobblestones. Last night’s rains had washed away the snow, leaving the roads frozen.

Gretchen saw desperation in the men’s lined faces and the
children’s thin cheeks and the dogs’ matted fur. Years of hunger and unemployment had ground everyone down to shadows. She doubted any of them cared who had set the Reichstag on fire or about politics in general; they were too concerned with finding the next mouthful of food, the next lump of coal, the next pfennig. Uncle Dolf had always said that was how the Jew prospered, like a weed in the heart. Growing when others were too burdened with their own survival to notice.

He had lied, Gretchen thought, rage sweeping over her. That was how
he
grew.

Number 19’s front door was unlocked, its lobby unlit. Friedrich took the stairs two at a time, his leather greatcoat flapping about his ankles, Gretchen and Daniel rushing after him. Four closed doors lined the third-floor corridor.

Friedrich knelt before the second door and inspected the lock. “It’s been broken into. See the scratches around the keyhole?” He rattled the knob. “Someone’s locked it again.” Without waiting for a response, he inserted a metal pick into the lock, jerking his wrist once. The tumblers clicked and the door swung open. Clearly he’d earned his position as the top
Ringverein
member—Gretchen had never seen a lock picked so fast.

Inside, the curtains had been drawn and the lamps left unlit, so walking into the parlor felt like walking into unbroken blackness. As Gretchen’s eyes made out the humped shadows of furniture, a horrible smell reared up. Something foul, like fruit gone rotten, magnified a thousand times. She fell back, struggling for fresh air.

“I know that stench.” Friedrich dashed through a door in the
wall opposite, presumably into the kitchen or bedroom.

Daniel held out his arm, blocking Gretchen’s way. “Stay back. You won’t want to see this.”

Gretchen didn’t have to ask why. There was nothing else it could be: a body long dead. She breathed through her mouth, trying not to imagine the corpse beyond the door, bloated and disfigured by time.

Blinking, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Friedrich staggered back into the room, holding a handkerchief over his mouth. Sweat had pearled on his forehead.

“It’s bad,” he gasped. “A man, lying in pajamas on the bed. I couldn’t tell any more than that—the body’s too badly damaged. I’ll go down to the lobby to telephone the police.”

Then they were too late. The fireman’s secrets about the blaze had died with him. Gretchen struggled to swallow down her disappointment. There had to be another way to find the information they needed.

Then Friedrich’s other words registered. She stared at him.

“The
police
?” Daniel asked. “Surely they’re among the last people we should contact?”

Friedrich wiped his handkerchief over his damp forehead. “I’ll speak to Superintendent Gennat, naturally.” Gretchen remembered the heavyset detective from the hoodlums’ court as Friedrich added, “We must be quick before any of the neighbors notice we’re in here. You two search the parlor while I telephone. Maybe you can find something to explain what happened to Schultz. You’d best keep your gloves on. Gennat will be sure to dust for fingerprints.”

The urgency in his voice told Gretchen there was no time to
ask questions. She held her hand over her mouth, trying to block out the horrific odor.

Pale slivers of light shone through the curtains. Daniel moved to open them, but Friedrich said, “No. We must disturb things as little as possible. You’ll have to work in the dark.”

He hurried from the apartment. Gretchen rushed to the parlor table while Daniel looked through the writing desk. She yanked open drawers, riffling through the contents. Nothing except for a couple of issues of
Vorwärts
, the Social Democrat paper. So the fireman hadn’t been a National Socialist—the Party couldn’t have depended on his silence or loyalty, if he had discovered something incriminating.

The flash of glass on the wall caught her attention: a framed photograph, showing two young men, dark-haired, smiling and squinting into the sun, wearing firemen’s uniforms. Heinz Schultz, presumably, and a brother or cousin—the similarities in their faces were too pronounced for them to be anything except relatives.

“I’ve found a letter.” Daniel held up an envelope and a slip of paper. “Written to Heinz and Gunter, both of this address, from their mother.”

Brothers, then, and roommates. An idea occurred to Gretchen, and she slipped the photograph from its frame. Written on the back were the words,
Gunter (left), and Heinz (right), at Linienstrasse fire station, October 1929.
She studied the image. Gunter was at least six inches shorter than Heinz.

The door opened, and Friedrich came inside. “Gennat’s on his way. Find anything?”

Gretchen slid the photograph back into its frame and hung
it on its nail on the wall. “Maybe. How tall was the body in the bedroom?”

“Short. Perhaps five three, at the most. Why?”

“It could have been Gunter, not Heinz.” Gretchen’s pulse jumped with excitement. “The men looked so alike, the killer could have made a mistake and murdered the wrong brother. Heinz might still be alive.”

“What’s this about brothers?” Friedrich stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket.

She started to explain, but he waved her off, saying they could talk outside in the clean air. They checked over the parlor, making sure they had left everything precisely as they had found it. The stench had grown so overpowering that Gretchen’s eyes watered.

In the corridor, Friedrich closed the door behind them. “No sense locking it as Gennat will be the next man to enter,” he said. “What else can you tell me?”

“It was quick,” Daniel said, and Gretchen nodded, thinking of the tidy parlor. “There was no evidence of a struggle, at least in the front room. So either the victim knew his killer and wasn’t afraid of him or it was the work of a professional.”

Tires squealed from the street.

“That must be Gennat now,” Friedrich said. He led Gretchen and Daniel into the street, where an enormous, dark six-seater Daimler sat at the curb. A patrolman in a blue cape was opening its trunk, and Superintendent Gennat stood on the sidewalk, surveying the apartment building. He had heavy pouches of skin under his eyes, perhaps a remnant of last night’s late festivities.

Friedrich leaned against the car, pulling a cigar from his coat
pocket. “Before you ask, Gennat, no, the fireman had no dealings with my crew. We suspect his brother is the dead man.”

“Indeed?” Gennat raised his eyebrows. “And what were you doing in their apartment at what is for you the ungodly hour of nine o’clock?”

“Searching for answers,” Friedrich said smoothly. “The fireman might know about our Fräulein Junge’s murder. You’d best watch yourself, Superintendent, or I’ll be after your job.”

Gennat laughed as he rummaged through the car trunk. It was enormous and packed with all sorts of materials: bottles of chemicals, searchlights, cameras, tape measures, rolled-up maps, and dozens of tools from diamond cutters to pickaxes. As Gennat opened a small black leather bag, the sort doctors used for house calls, Gretchen glimpsed the silver flash of surgical instruments inside. She’d never seen such a bizarre assortment of things.

The detective must have sensed her interest, for he smiled at her. “This is the first crime car in the world, Fräulein. I designed it myself.”

“And the most famous car in Berlin.” Friedrich puffed his cigar, gray curls of smoke wreathing his face. “It’s called Gennat’s Toboggan.”

Gennat hefted his medical bag. “You’d best get moving, unless you fancy being locked up.” Through the hum of traffic, Gretchen heard the far-off wail of a police siren. Her legs tensed, ready to run. She glanced at Daniel as he flipped up his coat collar to hide the lower half of his face.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

They walked fast, heads down, saying nothing. Behind her, she heard a police car screeching to a stop, then the low murmurs
of Gennat’s and the patrolmen’s voices. Footsteps rang on the iced-over cobblestones, growing louder as they got closer.

She looked back. It was only Friedrich, hurrying to join them and pitching his half-finished cigar into the gutter. When he reached them, no one spoke. They kept moving, gazes trained on the grimy pavement, but she didn’t feel as though she breathed until they boarded the S-Bahn to carry them across the city, back into Moabit.