It had been a long time, so neither one could remember much. Doctor Rosenberg remembered Willi asking about drugs. Nurse Grosz remembered that she had described Friedrich Grosz to the detective’s satisfaction, but she didn’t think she could come up with the description again. However, Altdorfer had thought to find a photo of Reinhard Pabst. ‘Is this the man?’ he asked. Doctor Rosenberg couldn’t be sure, but Nurse Grosz was certain. ‘That’s him. For sure. I remember those eyes,’ she said.
The following Monday, Altdorfer was about to begin canvasing pharmacies when he got an urgent call from Detective Sergeant Gruber. Gruber had received an anonymous tip that Willi Geismeier had been spotted in his old neighborhood. It seemed like a long shot, but every criminal slipped up at some point. Gruber had caught Geismeier once. Maybe he could do it again.
‘Where are you off to, Sarge?’ said Bergemann.
‘Never mind,’ said Gruber as he was strapping on his Luger.
‘You don’t want back-up, Sergeant?’
‘No,’ said Gruber. ‘Not necessary.’ He hurried out of the office.
Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer was waiting at the corner of Tullemannstraße when Gruber arrived. They walked to number fifty-four and rang the bell. Heinz Schleiffer let them in. They showed him a search warrant to get into Karl Juncker’s apartment.
Heinz blinked. ‘It’s no longer Juncker’s apartment,’ he said. ‘It’s unoccupied, but his furniture is still there.’
‘Have you seen anybody go in or out?’ said Gruber again.
‘I haven’t, no. As far as I know, nobody has gone in or out for a long time. I tried to put the place up for rent, but I haven’t …’
‘So, you haven’t seen Juncker around?’
Schleiffer swore he hadn’t.
‘Just open the apartment,’ said Gruber. ‘And do it quietly.’ He pulled his gun, although he already knew they were on a wild goose chase. Geismeier wasn’t stupid enough to show up at his old apartment in broad daylight.
The blinds were pulled, there was dust everywhere. They searched the apartment, first the bedroom, the closets and dressers. Heinz was afraid they’d skip the desk, so he stood beside it. Eventually, though, Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer came over and opened the top drawer. He took out the envelope.
‘What’s this?’ said Gruber, taking out the small metal box.
‘Those are his medals,’ said Schleiffer. Gruber and Altdorfer both gave Schleiffer a look. ‘He showed them to me once,’ said Schleiffer.
Back at his office, Altdorfer went through Willi’s notes. They had been written recently and presented a damning case against Reinhard Pabst. It began with the prostitute Pabst had abused those many years earlier. She had not died after all, but had recovered and had eventually returned to her trade, telling everyone who would listen, including the police at one point, that the Pope had raped her. It turned out on further research that Reinhard had abused other women in a similarly frenzied manner. Willi had also included an account of the attack on Lola without mentioning her name.
Once Reinhard started killing, there were the muddy footprints, the all-night streetcar lines, the focus on Briennerstraße. There was Erna and Horst Raczynski’s accounts of the attack, their description of the assailant, including the sound of his voice. Then there was the chronology after Suzanna Merkl had stabbed him, the streetcar driver’s description of Pabst and his wound, his arrival at the clinic, with Nurse Grosz and Doctor Rosenberg’s descriptions, his cold demeanor, his bitten fingernails, the bloody rag he kept, the jagged cut around his hand, then the pharmacy with its registry and the SS number and the signature. Willi had even found witnesses who saw Pabst go in and out of Briennerstraße 20. Despite the late hour, two witnesses – one a streetcar monitor stationed near the building, the other a newspaper vendor at the train station – had seen someone fitting his description. And his arm was in a sling. The streetcar monitor had noticed his ‘ruined, bloody coat sleeve.’
‘Did you think to call the police?’ Willi had asked.
‘Are you joking?’ said the man. ‘It was Gestapo headquarters. No, thank you.’
‘Did you see him again?’ said Willi.
‘Well, not right away. But then, after a while, I watched for him and thought I saw him again, also late at night.’
‘Why would you notice this particular man?’ said Willi.
‘Well, at first his arm was still in a sling, then his hand was bandaged. Anyway, it’s my job to monitor the streetcars to make sure they’re on schedule. There’s lots of time between streetcars. Watching people come and go helps pass the time.’
Willi had written finally that, while in Dachau, he had been interrogated by SS Standartenführer Reinhard Pabst, who had become aware of Willi’s suspicions about him. The peculiar and savage scar circling Pabst’s right hand had confirmed Willi’s suspicions that Pabst was the killer, and when confronted with Willi’s accusations, Pabst had all but admitted that he was the killer.
Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer sat for a long time contemplating what he had just read. Geismeier presented a convincing case. There could be little doubt that Colonel Pabst was the perpetrator of multiple brutal attacks and these thirteen perverted and heinous murders of innocent women. Altdorfer also knew, however, that Pabst was a close disciple of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, and Himmler was not likely to accept the testimony of a renegade police detective, an enemy of the Reich and a Dachau escapee, against the word of his fair-haired boy.
Heinrich Himmler was in Berlin at the Prinz Albrecht Straße SS headquarters these days, occupied with other far more important matters. The Führer was finalizing war preparations, so messages were flying back and forth between the two men. Himmler had three aides whose job it was to arrange and oversee his communiqués and meetings with the Führer. A
