Neither Gruber nor Bergemann knew anything of what had actually happened to the serial killer until Altdorfer showed up one morning to give them the details. Gruber was amazed, Bergemann less so, although he put on a good act. But then Altdorfer astonished both men when he said, ‘The credit actually belongs to Geismeier.’
‘What?’ said Gruber. ‘That’s ridiculous! What are you talking about … Herr Hauptsturmführer?’ Gruber’s incredulity had caused him to momentarily forget his place.
Altdorfer didn’t seem to notice or care. He explained that Geismeier had not only assembled a compelling and irrefutable case, but had then managed to get the evidence before Himmler. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he got it to Goering, Goebbels, and all the rest as well. Anyway, justice was done.’
Justice? Well, not exactly, thought Bergemann.
Heinz Schleiffer was surprised to find Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer looming at his door one morning as well. ‘You have done the Führer a great service, Herr Schleiffer, by helping rid Munich of a dangerous serial killer. You can be proud of that. And if you should see Geismeier again’ – Altdorfer winked – ‘thank him for me as well.’
Heinz didn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect he would ever see Geismeier or Juncker or whoever he was again. At least he hoped he wouldn’t. He stammered a bit, and took the captain’s huge hand when it was offered.
‘Justice was done,’ said Altdorfer again.
Reinhard had received special treatment when he first arrived in Dachau. But that had lasted about twenty-four hours. It took that length of time for the camp administration and the guards to make the mental adjustments they needed to make. By the next afternoon, when he was part of a road building crew and stood looking at the sky, having disappeared into his own thoughts, an SS man came up behind him and hit him hard in the side, knocking him to the ground. Reinhard tried to stand and the SS man knocked him down again. When he cried out that he was SS Standartenführer Pabst and demanded to see the officer in charge, the SS man hit him with his club, this time in the face. Reinhard’s nose was crushed and bleeding, his cheekbone was broken, and he spit out several teeth. The SS man told him to get up and start working, but Reinhard lay there bewildered and confused. When he finally struggled to his feet, the SS man hit him again and this time Reinhard remained lying on the ground. He stayed there the entire afternoon. Sometimes he would speak or whimper, but he didn’t move and no one tried to move him.
Soon enough it was time for the crew to move to a different part of the road. They got into formation. Reinhard stood up then. He was unsteady on his feet. He got in line at the back of the formation. As they started to march, Reinhard spun around suddenly and started running. He charged with surprising speed, given his injuries, toward the death zone and the fence beyond it, screaming incoherently as he ran. By the time the guards in the tower could swivel their machine gun around and point it in his direction, he had reached the zone and was only steps from the fence. They began shooting, splattering the ground with raking fire. Reinhard was hit several times, but somehow kept moving forward, jerking and convulsing with each step, almost as though the bullets were carrying him to his destination. His arms were stretched out in front of him as though he wanted to, he had to reach that fence. No one knew whether he was still alive when he did. The fence’s barbs caught his clothes and his flesh and held him upright while the electricity crackled and flamed around him.
There was a hum from the west that grew into a roar as a squadron of Stuka dive bombers passed overhead on their way to Warsaw. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Reinhard’s body smoked and smoldered. It remained hanging there on the fence until the prisoners were back in their barracks and the electricity running through the fence could be turned off.
Table of Contents
Contents
Also by Peter Steiner
Title Page
Copyright
Part One
Willi
Schloß Barzelhof
The First Kiss
Operation Hummingbird
And It Didn’t Stop There
Tullemannstraße 54
Heinz Schleiffer
The First Report
The Gestapo
The Blood Flag
The Second Report
Frau Schimmel
Detective Sergeant Hermann Gruber
The Steins
Lili Marlene
The Logbooks
Corpus Delicti
Erna Raczynski
Briennerstraße 20
The Green Dress
Degenerate Art
The Ninth Victim
The Mind of a Killer
The Third Report
The Lion and the Hyenas
Part Two
Dachau
Outside
Schleiffer in Trouble
The Sudetenland
Hard Labor
The First Interrogation
The Riegsee
Frau Schimmel Again
The Second and Third Interrogations
Kristallnacht
Friedrich Grosz
Escape
The Man Who Loved Women
Altdorfer Investigates
The Bavarian Forest
Heinz Schleiffer Gets a Letter
The Evidence
The Arrest
The Woodcutter
The Holy Fire
