Collision of Evil (5 page)

“A feeling,” Waldbaer repeated evenly. Hirter raised his hands in protest. “I know what you’re going to say. I don’t have proof. That’s right. And I didn’t actually
see
anything. But I’m certain someone was there behind me, in the woods, watching.”

The police official still said nothing, and Robert’s voice took on an injured tone. “I’m not saying you need to believe it, but I want to tell you what I felt. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it, Herr Hirter, but on my own terms if you don’t mind. You are correct that your feelings, no matter how compelling to you, are not evidence. Any investigation relies on facts. A feeling is not a fact. A feeling is not rational.” He paused and placed both hands around his ceramic coffee cup. “But I’ve been around long enough to conclude that there’s always a bit of room on the margins of an investigation for the irrational. So, I don’t dismiss it, even if I can’t
do
much with it. At the very least, I have to consider the possibility that whoever killed your brother might still be in the area. Which logically opens up the possibility that you might have been followed. I can assign an officer to watch over you during your stay.”

Robert considered, furrowed his brow while reaching for his own cup of black Dahlmeier coffee. “No. Thanks, I don’t want that. I’d feel funny. Anyway, I’m not saying someone is out to kill me, just that I think someone was watching me there.”

A silence crept across the table as both parties reflected on what to say. The Kommissar was the first to articulate his thought. “You should think about going home soon,” he said. “I’ll take you to the morgue to view the body. Then fly home with your brother. The U.S. consulate in Munich will help you with the paperwork needed for the airline. There’s nothing more for you to do here. You’ve seen where your brother was killed. You have met me and established that we are conducting an investigation. It’s good that you’ve done those things, but what you can accomplish is ended. I’ll advise you personally about how our investigation progresses.”

Robert gripped the white cotton tablecloth in his hands as if preparing to snap it away in a magician’s trick. “I’m not going anywhere yet. You haven’t told me much that I couldn’t have figured out myself. I owe it to Charles to stay until his killer is found. You might not be comfortable with that, but I don’t care. Am I a nuisance? Probably. Am I a complication? Fine. But I’ll be on Bavarian soil for a while yet, Herr Waldbaer.” Robert’s face was flush, and his voice had turned brittle.

“Stay if you want. That’s your decision. But there is only so much we can do for you. Like it or not, this investigation will go ahead at its own pace.”

“I have time.”

The detective pushed his chair away from the table, the wooden legs scratching the varnished wooden floor. “That leaves your visit to see your brother. We don’t have a morgue here; his body is in Rosenheim. If you drive to the police station this afternoon, you can follow me there. After that, you will be on your own.
Guten tag
.”
The detective departed with a nod of his head but without shaking hands.

It was the coolness of the room and the cloying antiseptic scent of the air that Robert noticed. A morgue, he thought distantly, is the anteroom to the grave, a brief pause before the finality of being placed in the indifferent earth. The room was cavernous and bare of furnishings except for metal gurneys and tables, lit by bright tubular lamps overhead that glared off the white-tiled walls. Waldbaer had ushered the American into the chamber without comment, his silence not betraying whether it stemmed from respect for the dead or annoyance with the living.

There was only one other man in the room. He was balding and middle aged, with a thin frame wrapped in light blue, disposable surgical attire. The man’s complexion was sallow and the cut of his face severe, the sum effect suggesting that he had been predestined for this solemn work. Waldbaer introduced the man with the title of doctor, but Robert did not catch the long German name. The doctor nodded his head as he was introduced, muttered, “I’m sorry for your loss,” and gestured with his arm to a bundle on a wheeled gurney behind him.

The bundle, shrouded in a white cotton sheet, was, Robert knew, the sum of his brother’s existence. He felt his stomach do a turn and wished he were somewhere else, anywhere but in this stainless place of corruption. The thought passed quickly, and Robert found himself standing ramrod straight and tense, inches away from the remains of his brother, whose countenance he had last encountered over Chinese food in a seedy restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown. The doctor stepped to the other side of the metal gurney and deftly pulled at the cloth covering.

In a way, the form and face confronting Robert did not look much like his brother, though his brother it unmistakably was. It was not so much the awful intrusion of injuries to the head that accounted for this as the odd passivity of the features. He had, Hirter realized, probably never seen his brother in repose since they were
children. Robbed of animation, his brother seemed almost surreal to him. This was what death meant; everything rendered quiet and motionless.

“This is my brother. No question about it”. He looked first at the doctor and then at the Kommissar as he spoke. Both men nodded. The doctor moved to replace the covering over the body.

“Wait,” Robert said. He studied his brother one final time, his attention drawn to the invasive and disfiguring attack wounds. It was clear that the skull had been literally caved in, the top of the head a distorted mélange of matted hair, bone, and congealed blood. His brother’s nose had been broken and flattened by being driven into the fence post; it remained dark purple even now.

“You haven’t autopsied?” Robert inquired.

The doctor answered. “We’ve conducted preliminary examinations sufficient to confirm cause of death and provide my police colleagues with whatever information could be gathered. A full autopsy was awaiting your identifying the deceased.”

Robert nodded.

Waldbaer spoke softly. “If there’s nothing else, Herr Hirter, we can leave and permit the doctor to resume his duties.” Robert shook the doctor’s hand and followed the detective from the chamber.

Outside the temperature was notably warmer, but the sky had turned steel gray, perfectly suiting Robert’s mood. The two men stood together, both with hands in pockets as if they might find some object within to assist in conversation.

“I take it from your comments earlier that you will be remaining in the hotel a while?”

“Right, Kommissar. You can reach me there if you need me.”

The detective sighed loudly, his chin inclined toward the sky as if searching for something. “That’s the problem, Herr Hirter. There’s no need for you here. Unless you want to try to enjoy Bavaria, visit the castles of King Ludwig or something. But have it your way.” He turned to leave, stopped, and added with a puzzled tone in his voice. “One last detail. This morning the lab boys called me, the ones who
examined the murder scene; the meadow that you visited. It’s probably not important but they’ve found a piece of wood wedged into your brother’s shoes. Not a twig. A sliver of wood from a crate more than likely. Not part of the natural surroundings. It’s probably not important, but I thought I’d pass it along to show that we
are
checking every shred of evidence, literally.”

Robert muttered his thanks, still not sure how to judge the policeman. As an unexpected aside Waldbaer added, “At the hotel bar you might want to try the dark wheat beer, it’s
Weihenstephan
, one of the better examples of that style.
Auf wiedersehen,
Herr Hirter.”

Driving the autobahn south from Rosenheim, Waldbaer distracted himself by reconsidering the oddities that defined
Fall Hirter
; the Hirter case. First fact: a young American tourist with no known contacts in Bavaria arrives in the region for a vacation alone. Fair enough; Bavaria plays host to millions of tourists every summer. Second fact: the American has no criminal record and it is unlikely that he can be considered a “dubious person” in any sense. Third fact: interviews with hotel staff established that the young man fit the hiker profile and had not been involved in any scenes at the hotel bar, with the cleaning staff, or so forth. All very well.

But things started to fall apart with the fourth fact. The young hiker was murdered in a postcard-perfect alpine meadow after a thunderstorm early one evening. Fifth fact: as far as could be determined, nothing was stolen from the deceased nor was there any other suggestion of motive for the crime. Sixth fact: there were no witnesses—no wonder, given the isolated location of the murder, inclement weather, and time of day. Seventh fact: the police had no suspect.

Random murder. The words had always filled Waldbaer with professional skepticism. How many people in the world were actually murdered at random? Some, doubtless, but not many. It was statistically unlikely that the notion of “a random murder” had any application to
Fall Hirter.
Eighth fact: the victim’s brother arrived in Bavaria not only to identify and claim the body, but to watchdog
the investigation. Waldbaer had briefly entertained Robert Hirter as a potential suspect or someone with special knowledge about what happened, but quickly dismissed the notion. Robert Hirter was becoming an irritant, like a small pebble lodged in a shoe, but was neither murderer nor conspirator.

But where did this assembly of facts lead? Nowhere, Waldbaer concluded, braking expertly as a museum-vintage truck with faded Turkish license plates pulled out in front of him.
“Scheisskopf
,” he muttered unheard at the lorry driver. If no other information developed over the coming days, it would become a mathematical certainty that the murder would not be solved. This irritated him; murder offended his sense of order and he viscerally wanted the murderer found and made to pay. He felt himself beginning the descent into a foul mood and wanted to arrest it; ill-temper jibed poorly with a criminal investigation. A beer, perhaps a few beers, would certainly help, he concluded.

Robert Hirter swung his car into the hedge-trimmed Alpenhof parking lot and sat for a while before locking it and walking into the building. The air in the lobby was colder than outside, the air conditioner a concession to tourists who insisted that seasonal temperatures be steadily arrested at around mid-April.

As he picked up his room key at the main desk, the young dirndlclad desk girl passed him an envelope that had his name broadly scrawled in blue ink across the front.

“What’s this?” he mumbled.

The girl raised her eyebrows and shrugged her strong country shoulders. “I don’t know, sir. It was dropped off by a gentleman who said to give it to you as soon as possible.”

Waldbaer again, Hirter thought automatically.

“Was he about fifty, rumpled, a bit heavy?”

The girl shook her head sideways with the conviction of the just. “Oh no, sir, I took the letter from him myself and I’d guess that he must be in his late seventies with white hair. And the gentleman is not heavy, quite trim in fact.” She smiled and Robert returned the
courtesy, knowing there was nothing more to be clarified with her.

He decided to read the unexpected missive in the lobby. The envelope was unsealed and the slip of paper slid out easily. Robert unfolded it, translating the broad, jerky handwritten scrawl into English as he went along.

Herr Hirter,

It has come to my attention that you are staying at this hotel and are engaged with the circumstances surrounding the death of your brother nearby, an event covered in some detail in the local newspaper. It could be that I can add something to the limited information that the police have likely provided you. Let me ensure that there is no misunderstanding: I have nothing to do with the murder nor do I know who the murderer is. But I do perhaps possess some historical background that might prove of interest to you.

This is strictly a private initiative of my own. If you choose to involve the police or show them this note I will—as is my right—decline to speak to you since, as I have noted, I have no knowledge of the crime itself. If you choose to meet with me, you should be at the Alte Post restaurant this evening at seven. If you are not present by seven fifteen, I will conclude that you have no interest in conversing and my offer will be from that point void.

August Sedlmeyer

Robert read the message again. The letter was odd. It was an offer to provide information, but only vaguely suggestive of relevance to his brother’s death. Historical background. The tone was odd as well. The phrasing in native German was imperious, as if from someone accustomed to giving orders. The handwriting was unsteady, supporting the hotel desk girl’s observation that the person who delivered the note, presumably Sedlmeyer himself, was an older man.
Perhaps Sedlmeyer was a crank who had simply read newspaper articles about his brother’s death and wanted to rant.

Meeting with Sedlmeyer could prove a waste of time. Still, Robert considered, it was hard to envision that meeting with the old man could be a real
mistake.
Other than time, there was little to lose. The proposed meeting was in a public place and Robert hardly felt physically threatened by someone who might be a deranged septuagenarian. So why not? He would need to eat somewhere at any rate. He returned to the still-smiling desk girl and inquired as to how to get to a restaurant called the Alte Post.