A Matter of Breeding (14 page)

Gross shook his head so violently, he made the loose skin at his neck quiver.

‘We never had much of a relationship, Otto and I. I was too busy with my cases and writing and research. But I refuse to use him now as my alibi. I refuse to break his trust.’

‘Otto was the one to explain your silence as trying to avoid public scrutiny. A “misplaced sense of propriety” he called it.’

Gross sat on his bed, glowering at Werthen. ‘No matter. It is the least I can do for him after all the bad blood between us.’

‘Meanwhile, you sit in here helpless while innocent women may become victims of this madman.’

‘I was not aware that we had fully determined our killer’s mental capabilities, Werthen. Nor have I been sitting idly by. I have discovered something we should have realized days ago. When was the first murder?’

‘The day after you arrived in Graz,’ Werthen said meaningfully. ‘That fact is all too apparent to Lechner.’

‘Thank you for reminding me. But what date would that be. Humor me, Werthen. I have had much time on my hands in here.’

‘October fourth, and you know that well enough.’

‘Correct. And our second victim?’

‘The Saturday of the next week.’

‘Right again. October twelfth.’

Werthen was tiring of this game, and then suddenly it dawned on him. He remembered Otto Gross reeling off the dates:
You say these murders were committed on the fourth, twelfth, and twentieth.

‘You’re right,’ Werthen said. ‘We should have seen this earlier. Ursula Klein, victim number three, was killed on the twentieth. That means we are dealing with eight-day intervals. The first bit of pattern we have to these crimes.’

‘No,’ Gross corrected. ‘The second. The first is, of course, the mutilations to the bodies of the victims.’

Which made Werthen wonder again about the whereabouts of Eddie Pichler on the days and nights in question, but he filed this concern away for later.

‘If that is the case, then the next killing could be—’

‘Correct, again, Werthen. On Monday, October twenty-eighth.’

‘We’ve got to stop him.’

‘
You’ve
got to stop him, Werthen,’ Gross said. ‘I am a prisoner.’

‘Voluntarily. Do your duty, Gross.’

‘You are wasting your time, Werthen. It is up to you to prove my innocence. Up to you to stop any further outrages.’

‘You are infuriating, Gross.’

‘So I’ve been told.’ And then he fixed Werthen with a look of absolute honesty and sincerity. ‘This is important to me, Werthen. Please try to understand. It may be my last chance to connect with my son.’

A fool’s errand, Werthen thought. Both father and son had already grown too far apart. But, seeing the look on Gross’s face, he was not about to tell him that. He only nodded at the request.

‘Get to Thielman,’ Gross said. ‘Apprise him indirectly of the eight-day-intervals. Lead him to discover it himself and he will be a far better ally.’

‘You seem very adamant about this, Frau Meisner.’

She sat across the café table from the journalist Theo Krensky. ‘I am.’

‘I mean, more so than if it merely involved some family presence in the matter.’

‘Is that a question?’

Krensky, whom she had once again tracked down to his favorite café this Saturday afternoon, smiled at the comment. ‘You have your questions about my source for the Lipizzaner story—’

‘Which you appear none too eager to reveal,’ she reminded him.

‘And thus I have my own questions about your involvement in these matters. It would seem larger than that of a loyal daughter-in-law. Visiting Styria, bearding the ogre Hohewart in his office in Piber. That sounds more like a commission to me.’

She began to see what might make Krensky a good journalist; he was a most perceptive young man.

‘If you must know, I do have a commission, from a person concerned about the status of the empire. The death of the riding master elevates matters to an entirely different level.’

‘So secretive. Who is this unnamed patriot?’

‘And
your
source?’

‘Ah, a trading game, then.’ He shook his head. ‘I think not. I have the advantage here. Your benefactor is obviously the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.’

She could not control herself, feeling a blush of crimson go up her cheeks.

He laughed at this. ‘So it is he. Excellent. You see, my advantage is that I was aware of the archduke employing your husband on other occasions. Such matters are difficult to keep secret in Vienna.’

‘Play fair,’ she said, but teasingly. ‘Now your source.’

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Later I will gladly reveal the name. But for now, I want this to be my story solely. My publisher
has
to run it now that the archduke himself is involved.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Berthe said. ‘The royal house has one ambition with this story and that is to make sure that it goes away. That it does not see publication.’

‘But it won’t go away,’ Krensky insisted. ‘I am traveling to Styria this very night to make sure of that. I will get to the bottom of Herr Hohewart’s Premium Breeds.’ Then he cast her a teasing smile. ‘Perhaps I will even contact my mysterious source once again.’

Werthen included Stoker on his visit to Thielman late that afternoon. As Gross suggested, Werthen broached the subject indirectly, wondering out loud if there was any significance to the dates of the murders and suddenly Thielman discovered the eight-day intervals for himself.

‘My God, man,’ Stoker thundered, ‘that is genius. That surely means that the next killing could come on Monday the twenty-eighth.’

‘Excellent, Inspector Thielman,’ Werthen chimed in. ‘What precautions will you take?’

‘Are you mad, the both of you? Precautions? Should we shut down all of Styria on Monday on a hunch? Should we terrify the populace with dire warnings of more blood rituals or vampire attacks? Is that your idea of solid police work?’

‘Well,’ Werthen said finally, ‘what do you plan to do?’

‘As it is my free day, I will go fishing in the Grüner See, weather permitting.’

Monika Stiegl climbed the last steps to the ruins of Gösting Castle on the northwestern outskirts of Graz the next day, Sunday, October 27. The climb was steep and she was winded by the time she reached the ruins. There were not many other visitors around today, even though it was a Sunday. A cold front was moving in from the east and it was most definitely a day to be sitting near a warm fire sipping tea instead of plunging uphill in the frigid weather for half an hour. The sky was low and dark overhead. She hoped it would not rain.

That silly Rainer,
she thought. It was his romantic nature to schedule such an assignation. He loved the novels of Sir Walter Scott and obviously this ruined castle fit in perfectly with his imaginings of the Scottish Highlands; imaginings because he had never been there. But he promised to take Monika on their honeymoon. She would rather visit Paris, but she did not say so when he mentioned it, so utterly flabbergasted was she at the comment. He had yet to propose, but was already planning their honeymoon. That was Rainer for you: impetuous. Monika Stiegl liked to read and she enjoyed learning new words that she might use to surprise the other typists at Kleinman and Brothers, the pharmaceutical firm she worked for. ‘Impetuous’ was her new word for the coming week. She couldn’t wait to run it by her colleague, Hannah Vogel, always such a know-it-all.

She pulled the note out of the pocket of her heavy winter coat, double-checking where she was to meet Rainer. ‘Lover’s Leap,’ it said, in funny little-boy type of block printing. A real tease was Rainer. She knew the tragically romantic legend of this spot, of course. Anna of Gösting was a young woman in the thirteenth century who was courted by two suitors, one wealthy and the other one, Heinrich, a common man whom she desperately loved. These two fought a duel over Anna, and when Heinrich was killed, she could not face life without him and jumped to her death from a cliff just below the castle walls. Monika Stiegl made her way around the back of the castle ruins toward the cliff, wondering what surprise Rainer had in mind. Was he finally going to propose properly?

The sky was getting darker with clouds; there were no other visitors in sight in this part of the ruins. In fact she had seen only a solitary stroller in a long oilskin coat since she reached the top of the hill. She began to worry that Rainer had gotten the dates wrong. That would be just like him, so absent-minded he would forget his umbrella on a rainy day.

‘I am glad you came.’

The voice made her spin around in surprise. But it was not Rainer. No. It was the solitary stroller she had seen earlier.

‘I … I don’t understand,’ she said.

He winced at the words.

A sense of fear gripped her suddenly. ‘Who are you?’

There was no chance for her to scream as he slashed at her neck suddenly with a blade. The movement was so rapid she did not even feel the pain, only the warm rush of blood onto her muffler.

Werthen was dreaming of a recent lawn tennis match he had seen in Vienna featuring the British phenomenon, H.L. Doherty. It was often this way for Werthen: his waking life could be quite bizarre, but his dreamscape was generally very realistic, often a replaying of pleasant moments already experienced. Once again he was able to admire the wonderful grace of Doherty, now everyone’s bet to win next year’s Wimbledon Championships, as he seemed to float about the grass courts in the Prater, running down impossible shots, trading backhand for backhand with the best Austria had. His brother Reginald had taken the singles title the year before; now it was surely the other Doherty’s turn.

A rapping at his hotel door woke him out of this reverie to the reality of a drizzly dawn. He threw on a robe and opened the door to his room. Inspector Thielman stood there, wearing the expression of an undertaker.

‘You were off a day,’ he said. ‘Get dressed quickly. There’s been another one.’

It took them the better part of an hour to reach the crime scene by fiaker. They made the journey in silence, Thielman ignoring Werthen’s initial question about the identity of the victim. Werthen’s kidneys felt bruised and shaken by the time they arrived at Gösting Castle, for the driver did not spare the whip over the rutted country roads. There were members of the Graz gendarmerie on duty at the bottom of the hill to the castle and they let Thielman and Werthen pass as soon as they recognized the inspector.

Thielman made surprisingly good time up the hill, and finally he was in a talkative mood.

‘I was not appraised of any identification in the early report I received. But it would appear the wounds inflicted are similar to those of our other three victims.’ Suddenly he stopped, turning to Werthen and fixing him with a hard gaze.

‘Magistrate Lechner is sure to be there. I would say that this proves Gross’s innocence despite his unwillingness to discuss his whereabouts at the times of the other murders. This surely will not please Magistrate Lechner. He will have to set Gross free. Plus he now has a fourth murder to contend with on his watch.’

‘You’re telling me to keep a low profile. To keep my mouth shut.’

Thielman nodded.

‘Then why bring me along?’

‘Because I need a real investigator on this case. The very reason I called in Doktor Gross in the first place. I want you to go over the crime scene just like Gross would. Keep the plodding plough-boys-in-uniform off the evidence.’

‘Lechner will recognize me, surely. I lost a case in his court.’

‘He only remembers the lawyers
he
loses to,’ Thielman responded. ‘You stay out of the way, off the castle grounds until I can nudge the magistrate back to his office. He won’t like this weather. Bad for his lumbago. Lechner will be happy enough to hand this one over to me, just like all the rest. Better my head than his.’

And with that the suddenly engaged and energetic Inspector Thielman once again plunged uphill toward the crime scene leaving Werthen to ponder the man’s true loyalties. At one point, Gross had Thielman on his list of suspects, masterminding these hideous crimes simply to outwit the great criminalist. Now it seemed Thielman was firmly in Gross’s corner.

Werthen waited a quarter of an hour in the drizzle, watching his exhaled breath condensing into fog. He had the collar up on his coat and pulled his homburg down low over his eyes as Magistrate Lechner finally came down the path followed by a small retinue, passing him as if he were invisible.

This procession made Werthen realize that he had completely forgotten about Stoker, leaving him on his own at the hotel without so much as a note of explanation.

Werthen proceeded to the castle grounds now, moving toward a large huddle of officers, many of whom held umbrellas against the drizzle. He stood at the back of the crush for a time until Thielman caught his eye.

‘This way,
inspector,
’ he said, gracing Werthen with an official title.

They had roped off an area of a few hundred square feet abutting the edge of a cliff at the back of the castle. In the middle lay a lump under what looked to be an oilskin coat.

‘Who covered her?’ Werthen demanded as he went under the rope barrier.

Thielman, at his side, said, ‘They say it was on her when they arrived.’

This made Werthen’s heart beat more quickly. That meant that the killer had covered the body. Their first bit of solid crime-scene evidence.

Werthen and Thielman were careful to follow a row of boards that had been laid down leading to the body. Somebody was doing his job, Werthen figured.

‘Photographer?’ he said.

‘On his way,’ Thielman said.

‘We leave it like it is until he gets here, then.’ Gross’s first maxim for crime scene: never alter or pick up anything until it is photographed or entered in the report.

But Werthen badly wanted to go through the coat, hoping to discover any link to their killer. Instead, he spent his time with a close examination of the ground surrounding the body, looking for footprints, for any piece of litter or detritus that might provide a clue. The grass was wet from the light rain that had begun early yesterday evening.