Garden of Beasts (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Keep your hands still. Yes, yes, please, Mr. Schumann. Keep them raised.”

The American was quite large, Kohl observed. Easily four inches taller than the inspector himself and broad. The street artist’s rendering had been accurate but the man’s face was marred with more scars than in the sketch, and the eyes… well, they were a soft blue, cautious yet serene.

“Janssen, see if that man is indeed dead,” Kohl said, returning to German. He covered Schumann with his own pistol.

The young detective leaned down and examined the figure, though there was little doubt in Kohl’s mind he was looking at a corpse.

The young officer nodded and stood up.

Willi Kohl was as shocked as he was pleased to find Schumann here. He’d never expected this. Just twenty minutes before, in Reginald Morgan’s room on Bremer Street, the inspector had found a letter of confirmation taking rooms in this boardinghouse on behalf of Paul Schumann. But Kohl was sure that after he’d killed Morgan, Schumann would have been smarter than to remain in the residence his victim had arranged for him. He and Janssen had sped here in hopes of finding some witnesses or evidence that might lead to Schumann, but hardly the American himself.

“So, are you one of those Gestapo police?” Schumann asked in German. Indeed, as the witnesses had reported, he had just a trace of accent. The
G
was that of a born Berliner.

“No, we are with the Criminal Police.” He displayed his identification card. “Janssen, search him.”

The young officer expertly patted every place that a pocket—obvious or secret—might be. The inspector candidate discovered his U.S. passport, money, comb, matches and a pack of cigarettes.

Janssen handed everything over to Kohl, who told his assistant to handcuff Schumann. He then flipped open the passport and examined it carefully. It appeared authentic. Paul John Schumann.

“I didn’t kill Reggie Morgan. He did.” A nod toward the body. “His name is Taggert. Robert Taggert. He tried to kill me too. That’s why we were fighting.”

Kohl wasn’t sure that “fighting” was the right word to describe a confrontation between this tall American, with red calloused knuckles and huge arms, and the victim, who had the physique of Joseph Goebbels.

“Fight?”

“He pulled a gun on me.” Schumann nodded toward a pistol lying on the floor. “I had to defend myself.”

“Our Spanish Star Modelo A, sir,” Janssen said excitedly. “The murder weapon!”

The same
type
of gun as the murder weapon, Kohl thought. A bullet comparison would tell if it was the same gun or not. But he would not correct a colleague, even a junior one, in front of a suspect. Janssen draped a handkerchief around the weapon, picked it up and noted the serial number.

Kohl licked his pencil, jotted the number into his notebook and asked Janssen for the list of people who had bought such guns, supplied by police precincts around town. The young man produced it from his briefcase. “Now get the fingerprint kit from the car and print the gun and our friends here. Both the live one and the dead one.”

“Yes, sir.” He stepped outside.

The inspector flipped through the names on the list, seeing no Schumann.

“Try Taggert,” the American said, “or one of those names.” He nodded toward a stack of passports sitting on the table. “He had those on him.”

“Please, you may sit.” The inspector helped the cuffed Schumann onto the couch. He’d never had a suspect assist him in an investigation before but Kohl picked up the stack of passports that Schumann suggested might be revealing.

And indeed they were. One passport was Reginald Morgan’s, the man killed in Dresden Alley. It was clearly authentic. The others contained pictures of the man lying at their feet but were issued in different names. One could not be a criminal investigator in National Socialist Germany these days without being familiar with forged documents. Of the others, only the passport in the name of Robert Taggert seemed genuine to Kohl and was the only one filled with apparently legitimate stamps and visas. He compared all the names with those on the list of gun purchasers. He stopped at one entry.

Janssen appeared in the doorway with the fingerprint kit and the Leica. Kohl held up the list. “It seems the deceased
did
buy the Modelo A last month, Janssen. Under the name of Artur Schmidt.”

Which still didn’t preclude Schumann from being Morgan’s killer; Taggert might simply have given or sold him the gun. “Proceed with the fingerprinting,” Kohl instructed. The young officer opened the briefcase and began his task.

“I didn’t kill Reggie Morgan, I’m telling you. He did.”

“Please, say nothing now, Mr. Schumann.”

Reginald Morgan’s wallet was also here. Kohl looked through it. He paused and looked at the picture of the man at a social event, standing with two older people.

We know something else about him… that he was somebody’s son…. And perhaps he was somebody’s brother. And maybe somebody’s husband or lover….

The inspector candidate proceeded to dust powder on the gun and then took Taggert’s prints. The young man said to Schumann, “Sir, if you could sit forward please.” Kohl approved of his protégé’s polite tone.

Schumann cooperated and the young man printed him then wiped the ink off his fingers with the astringent cleaner that was included in the kit. Janssen placed the gun and the two printed cards on a table for his boss’s inspection. “Sir?”

Kohl pulled out his monocle. He examined the weapon and the men’s prints closely. He was no expert but his opinion was that the only prints on the pistol were Taggert’s.

Janssen’s eyes narrowed and he nodded to the floor.

Kohl followed the glance. A battered leather bag there. Ah, the telltale satchel! Kohl walked over and opened the clasp. He leafed through the contents—deciphering the English as best he could. There were many notes about Berlin, sports, the Olympics, a press pass in the name of Paul Schumann, dozens of innocuous clippings from American newspapers.

So, the inspector thought, he’s been lying. The bag placed him at the murder scene.

But as Kohl examined it carefully he noted that, while it was old, yes, the leather was supple, not flaking.

Then he glanced at the body in front of them. Kohl set the case down and crouched over the dead man’s shoes. They were brown, worn, and shedding bits of leather. The color and shine were just like the ones they’d found on the cobblestones of Dresden Alley and on the floor of the Summer Garden restaurant. Schumann’s shoes were not shedding such flakes. The inspector’s face twisted in irritation at himself. Another erroneous assumption. Schumann
had
been telling the truth. Perhaps.

“Search
him
now, Janssen,” Kohl said, rising. A nod toward the body.

The inspector candidate dropped to his knees and began examining the corpse carefully.

Kohl lifted an eyebrow at Janssen, who continued the search. He found money, a penknife, a packet of cigarettes. A pocket watch on a heavy gold chain. Then the young man frowned. “Look, sir.” He handed the inspector some silk clothing labels, undoubtedly cut from the garments Reginald Morgan had worn in Dresden Alley. They bore the names of German clothing manufacturers or stores.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Schumann said.

“Yes, yes, you may talk in a minute. Janssen, contact headquarters. Have someone there get in touch with the American embassy. Ask about this Robert Taggert. Tell them he’s in possession of a diplomatic identity card. Say nothing about his death at this time.”

“Yes, sir.” Janssen located the phone, which Kohl noted was disconnected from the wall, a common sight nowadays. The Olympic flag on the building, unaccompanied by the National Socialist banner, told him the place was owned or managed by a Jew or someone else in disfavor; the phones might be tapped. “Call from the wireless in the DKW, Janssen.”

The inspector candidate nodded and left the room again.

“Now, sir, you may enlighten me. And please spare me no details.”

Schumann said in German, “I came over here with the Olympic team. I’m a sportswriter. A freelance journalist. Do you—?”

“Yes, yes, I am familiar with the term.”

“I was supposed to meet Reggie Morgan and he’d introduce me to some people for the stories. I wanted what we call ‘color.’ Information about the livelier parts of the city, gamblers, hustlers, boxing clubs.”

“And this Reggie Morgan did what? As a profession, I mean.”

“He was just an American businessman I’d heard about. He’d lived here for a few years and knew the place pretty well.”

Kohl pointed out, “You came over with the Olympic team and yet theyseemed unwilling to tell me anything about you. That’s curious, don’t you think?”

Schumann laughed bitterly. “You live in this country and you ask
me
why anyone would be reluctant to answer a policeman’s questions?”

It is a matter of state security….

Willi Kohl allowed no expression to cross his face but he was momentarily embarrassed at the truth of this comment. He regarded Schumann closely. The American appeared at ease. Kohl could detect no signs of fabrication, which was one of the inspector’s particular talents.

“Continue.”

“I was to meet with Morgan yesterday.”

“That would have been when? And where?”

“Around noon. Outside a beer hall on Spener Street.”

Right next to Dresden Alley, Kohl reflected. And around the time of the shooting. Surely, if he had something to hide, he would not place himself near the scene of the killing. Or would he? The National Socialist criminals were by and large stupid and obvious. Kohl sensed he was in the presence of a very smart man, though whether he was a criminal or not, the inspector could not tell. “But, as you contend, the real Reginald Morgan did not show up. It was this Taggert.”

“That’s right. Though I didn’t know it at the time. He claimed he was Morgan.”

“And what happened at this meeting?”

“It was very brief. He was agitated. He pulled me into this alley, said something had come up and I was supposed to meet him later. At a restaurant—”

“The name?”

“The Summer Garden.”

“Where the wheat beer was not to your liking.”

Schumann blinked, then replied, “Is it to
anyone’s
liking?”

Kohl refrained from smiling. “And you met Taggert again, as planned, at the Summer Garden?”

“That’s right. A friend of his joined us there. I don’t recall his name.”

Ah, the laborer.

“He whispered something to Taggert, who looked worried and said we ought to beat it.” A frown at the literal German translation of what would be an English idiom. “I mean, leave quickly. This friend thought there were some Gestapo or something around, and Taggert agreed. We slipped out the side door. I should’ve guessed then that something wasn’t right. But it was kind of an adventure, you know. That’s just what I was looking for, for my stories.”

“Local color,” Kohl said slowly, reflecting that it is so much easier to make a big lie believable when the liar feeds you small truths. “And did you meet this Taggert at any other times?” A nod toward the body. “Other than today, of course?” Kohl wondered if the man would admit going to November 1923 Square.

“Yes,” Schumann said. “Some square later that day. A bad neighborhood. Near Oranienburger Station. By a big statue of Hitler. We were going to meet some other contact. But that guy never showed up.”

“And you ‘beat it’ from there as well.”

“That’s right. Taggert got spooked again. It was clear something was off. That’s when I decided I better cut things off with the guy.”

“What happened,” Kohl asked quickly, “to your Stetson hat?”

A concerned look. “Well, I’ll be honest, Detective Kohl. I was walking down the street and saw some young…” A hesitation as he sought a word. “Beasts… toughs?”

“Yes, yes, thugs.”

“In brown uniforms.”

“Stormtroopers.”

“Thugs,” Schumann said with some disgust. “They were beating up a bookseller and his wife. I thought these men were going to kill them. I stopped them. The next thing I knew there were a dozen of them after me. I threw some clothes away, down the sewer, so they wouldn’t recognize me.”

This is a wiry man, Kohl thought. And clever.

“Are you going to arrest me for beating up some of your Nazi thugs?”

“That doesn’t interest me, Mr. Schumann. But what does very much interest me is the purpose of this whole masquerade orchestrated by Mr. Taggert.”

“He was trying to fix some of the Olympic events.”

“Fix?”

The American thought for a moment. “To have a player lose intentionally. That’s what he’d been doing here over the past several months, putting together gambling pools in Berlin. Taggert’s colleagues were going to place bets against some of the American favorites. I have a press pass and can get close to the athletes. I was supposed to bribe them to lose on purpose. That’s why he was so nervous for the past couple days, I guess. He owed some of your gang rings, he called them, a lot of money.”

“Morgan was killed because this Taggert wished to impersonate him?”

“That’s right.”

“Quite an elaborate plot,” Kohl observed.

“Quite a lot of money was involved. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Another glance at the limp body on the floor. “I noted that you said you decided to end your relationship with Mr. Taggert as of yesterday. And yet here he is. How did this tragic ‘fight,’ as you call it, transpire?”

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was desperate for the money— he’d borrowed a lot to place the bets. He came here today to threaten me. He said they were going to make it look like I killed Morgan.”

“To extort you into helping them.”

“That’s right. But I said I didn’t care. I was going to turn him in anyway. He pulled that gun on me. We struggled and he fell. It seems he broke his neck.”

Kohl’s mind instinctively applied the information Schumann had provided against the facts and the inspector’s awareness of human nature. Some details fit; some were jarring. Willi Kohl always reminded himself to keep an open mind at crime scenes, refrain from reaching conclusions too quickly. Now, this process happened automatically; his thoughts were deadlocked. It was as if a punch card had jammed in one of the DeHoMag sorting machines.