1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (67 page)

“Oh, I cannot take it, then,” Ursula said. “It must be important to you.”

“It is,” Gotthilf replied, “but I want you to have it.”

There was a moment of silence, then Ursula said, “All right. But why?”

There was a longer moment of silence. “It is a courting gift,” Gotthilf finally said.

“A courting gift? For me? You must be joking.”

“No, I am not.” That was said in a rather firm tone.

“But why me? I’m not pretty, I’m not well-educated…I am broken…” Ursula’s voice trailed off.

Simon heard Gotthilf take a step closer to Ursula. He wished he could see.

“Our Savior was broken, Fraulein Metzger,” Gotthilf said in a low tone, “and He is called beautiful.”

“But I am not the Savior,” she laughed, in a gulpy sort of way.

“But you are still beautiful.”

There was a very long silence after that. Simon tried to peek up through the boards of the landing, but he couldn’t see anything other than Gotthilf’s boots.

“Then I suppose,” Ursula finally said, “you had best call me Ursula…Gotthilf.”

* * *

Simon dropped into step with Sergeant Hoch as soon he stepped off the bottom step. “So, are you going to marry Ursula?” he asked.

“You heard,” Gotthilf said with a sidelong glance.

“I heard. Well, are you?”

Gotthilf stopped and looked down at him. “If she will have me.”

“Good.”

They resumed walking, and after a while, Simon spoke up. “Ursula is special.”

“I know she is.”

“And she’s been hurt a lot, so you’d better take really good care of her.”

They stopped again, and Simon stared up at the detective with all the fire he could muster. Gotthilf didn’t laugh; he just considered Simon, soberly and carefully. After a moment, he nodded.

“Understood.”

“All right then.”

* * *

Ursula leaned back against the closed door. The book was clasped in her arms and held to her bosom. She bent her head and smelled the rich leather of the binding.

A courting gift. From Gotthilf Hoch.

If only Hans could have seen it.

The tears welled up, but she managed a tremulous smile at how her brother would have ranted.

* * *

Marla’s eyes got wide when Franz announced the arrival of the first royalty check from Trommler Records for “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

“How many zeros?”

Her eyes got wider when she grabbed the check from his hands and read it for herself.

* * *

“I quite despaired of you, you know, for some time,” Johann Möritz Hoch said to his son Gotthilf as they walked home from church on a Sunday after services. He was taller than his son, but otherwise they looked very much alike, walking side by side with their hands clasped behind their backs.

“How so?” Gotthilf asked. “I mean, you had made it clear that you thought I lacked initiative, that I was lazy. But what occasioned despair?”

“I thought that you had no will, no spine, no inner fire to excel,” the elder Hoch said matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t.”

“Mmm, no,” Johann disagreed. “I was wrong then, and so are you now. I would say now that you did not lack the fire, but rather that you had not found the matter that would awaken it.”

Gotthilf considered that. “Point,” he responded.

They walked some distance before the elder Hoch spoke again. “I was not happy to see you join the city watch,” he said. “I did not consider it a service that would add to your reputation. And this new
Polizei
which took its place seemed at first like more of the same.” Gotthilf looked over at his father, who held up a hand. “I have spoken with Otto Gericke—or, I should say, he has spoken with me. He made it clearer to me the nature of the work that you do. He is quite your champion, the mayor is.”

Gotthilf felt some inner warmth at that thought. Before he could respond, his father spoke one last thought.

“It is not the work I would have chosen for you, Gotthilf. But you are a man, and you have chosen for yourself. And in the end, considering all, it is a worthy work. It occurs to me that I have reason to be proud of you. And so I am.”

That thought was one that Gotthilf stored away in his heart, for it had been long indeed since he had last heard those words from the elder Hoch.

“Thank you, Father,” he managed to reply.

Herr Hoch seemed to hear what Gotthilf was trying to say. He nodded gravely, and they continued to pace side by side, enjoying the sun, the afternoon, and the new aspect of their relationship in companionable silence.

* * *

Gustav looked at one of the Marine guards in his fancy dress uniform.

“Hmm. It has a certain style, I think. I wonder what it would look like in purple velvet.”

Caroline Platzer rolled her eyes.

“I want one too,” Kristine insisted, bouncing.

Ulrik rolled his eyes.

* * *

“Once we promised to keep him away from Achterhof and the CoC, Burckardt started singing like a canary,” Byron said.

“Spilling his guts, huh?” Bill Reilly asked.

“Yah,” Honister responded. “He seems to be proud of what he had done, pitting Schmidt and Schardius against each other, and maneuvering the two Italians to eventually take both of them down.”

“Although he thought One-Eye was going to shoot Schardius for him,” Byron said. “He was surprised that Gotthilf and I got him instead. It was apparently his idea to kill One-Eye all along.”

“He had some grandiose idea of taking over both men’s businesses,” Gotthilf added, “both the licit and the illicit. He had picked up a pretty good understanding of what Schardius was trying to become: one of those crime bosses you described way back when. If he hadn’t gotten nervous about how we were closing in fast, he might have gotten away with a lot of money, and maybe even a foothold in the crime boss racket.”

“He does know he’s going to hang for this, doesn’t he?” Reilly asked.

“Yah,” Gotthilf responded. “He just wants to stay out of Achterhof’s hands. He has no desire to experience the Old Testament, ah…”

“Up close and personal,” Byron concluded.

“So, good job there at the end of it all,” the captain acknowledged.

That was the end of the meeting about the Schmidt/Schardius/Burckardt mess. Honister left, but Reilly motioned for Byron and Gotthilf to stay.

“We never did nail anyone for the Delt murder, did we?”

“No,” Byron said. “We have three potential witnesses…”

“That would be the men in the hospital?” Reilly asked.

“Right,” Gotthilf responded. “And we have talked to them, but they tell conflicting stories, and with all the other potential witnesses and suspects dead, well…”

“We may never be able to take the Delt case to a magistrate,” Byron finished. “But these three do agree enough with what Metzger told us that it’s pretty certain that Schardius and his warehouse manager were the ones who orchestrated the murders, even if they were perhaps carried out by underlings.”

The police captain stared at the table for a long moment, then sighed. “Right. Put the Delt file and the other cases in inactive status. We won’t pursue them any further, but we won’t close them either. Maybe something else will come up someday.”

He closed the folder in front of him.

“And now for one last piece of business. Sergeant Hoch?”

Gotthilf looked at him. The captain sounded awfully formal, and there was a very serious expression on his face.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Turn in your badge.”

Gotthilf was stunned. He shot a glance at Byron, but his face was like stone.

“Captain, I…”

Reilly held out his hand. “Give me your badge.”

Mind whirling, wondering what he had done, Gotthilf pulled his badge wallet out of his pocket and handed it to the captain.

Reilly took it in his left hand, then slid something across the table to Gotthilf with his right. Gotthilf looked down at another wallet, then looked back up at the captain.

“Go on, take it,” Reilly said.

Gotthilf picked up the wallet and opened it. Inside was another badge; a snarling lion’s face cast in brass staring at him, with Magdeburg
Polizei
engraved above and the word
Inspector
and a number engraved below. He looked up to see both up-timers grinning at him.

Reilly stood up and leaned across the table to offer his hand.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Inspector Hoch. And congratulations on becoming the first detective inspector of the Magdeburg
Polizei.”

Gotthilf shook his hand, mind still whirling, but this time in a daze.

Byron held out his hand as well, saying “Good going, partner.”

“Thank you,” Gotthilf stammered. “I didn’t expect…thank you both.”

“You earned it,” Reilly said, “especially during the last few weeks. But the reward for a job well done, of course, is…”

“More work,” Byron said, rising. “Come on, partner. Let’s go encourage the good citizens of Magdeburg to keep on being good citizens. And the first round’s on you tonight.”

Gotthilf followed his partner out of the conference room, smiling down at his new badge.

* * *

“That will be all, then,” Gustav said, concluding the meeting. Otto Gericke began gathering his papers and stuffing them back into their folders.

The emperor had wanted an update on the status of the rebuilding of Old Magdeburg. They had spent over an hour poring over plans and drawings. Gustav had seemed almost like a child in his glee at how many of the projects were either completed or nearly so. The one sour note had been the state of the hospital expansion, but even that was recovering after the explosion.

Gustav turned at the door and looked back at Gericke with a mischievous grin.

“And by the way, Otto; you can now start styling yourself Otto von Gericke. The Holy Writ says to not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the grain. You’re not an ox, but you get the point.

“Go home and tell your wife. We’ll save the formal announcement for later.”

With another flash of that grin, the emperor left a dumbfounded Otto.

* * *

Gotthilf looked up from his desk when Byron walked in, and whistled. “You are looking rather well-dressed today,” he commented. Indeed, Byron was wearing an up-time suit, complete with white shirt and up-time style long tie. “What is the occasion?”

“Jonni got tickets to the opera from Marla, and we’re going this evening.” Byron’s face displayed an expression that could only be described as long-suffering.

“But I thought you said you didn’t like the opera, that you didn’t want to go see it,” Karl Honister observed from his desk.

“You remember what I told you about sometimes doing things to make Jonni happy because of what she has to put up with because I’m a cop?” Byron asked.

“Yah,” Gotthilf nodded.

“Well, this comes under that heading.”

Byron sat down in his chair and leaned back. “And let me introduce you boys to a piece of gen-u-ine hillbilly wisdom: if Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Gotthilf considered his family; particularly his own mother.

“Point.”

* * *

Simon left Frau Zenzi’s with his usual roll. He didn’t need the rolls now like he used to. Between his improving earnings as a messenger and the money that Ursula had, neither of them went hungry anymore. But Frau Zenzi insisted, and to make her happy he did it. Besides, he thought as he took another bite of the roll, it was still some of the best bread around.

Schatzi appeared from around the corner of a building, and stopped close to him, tail wagging slightly. Simon took one last big bite, then tossed the rest to her. She caught it out of the air, and wolfed it down before he could even chew his piece twice. He laughed around the bite. She looked at him with her head tilted for a moment, then turned and headed back the way she came.

Simon was still chuckling when he started back down the street. He wasn’t quite ready to go back to the rooms yet, so he just wandered for a while.

In the days since Hans’ death, he had passed through what Pastor Gruber assured him was a cycle of emotion that almost everyone encountered. He had gone from being numb, to angry, to questioning, and he was finally arriving at acceptance. Oh, he still had days where he was angry with Magdeburg, with the
Polizei
, with himself. But he had come to see that Hans had made the choices that took him to that end. And like it or not, at that end, Hans had willingly paid that price.

Consequences.

That word had been rolling around in his mind ever since that night. But now, instead of thinking about Hans and his consequences, he had started thinking about his own.

He could see that he had choices to make. And he wanted to be wise in making those choices. He had no desire to come to the same end as Hans. At the same time, he had no desire to remain a crippled orphan. For the first time in his life, he had developed an ambition to do more than just stay alive another day.

There were four men who had recently made a difference in his life. Four men representing four choices. He had been considering them for days now, and he was still considering them.

Before long he found himself standing outside St. Jacob’s church. The evening light made the front of the church almost seem to have a golden glow. Small and old and shabby it might be, but at that moment it was a beautiful building.

At that moment, Simon made a decision; one that he had been weighing for some time. He went to the small side door and knocked. There was the sound of movement behind the door, then it was opened. Pastor Gruber stood in the opening.

“Yes, who is…Oh, it’s you, Simon. Come in, my boy.”

The old pastor ushered him back into the same crowded little room they had last used.

“Well, what can I do for you, Simon? Do you have an interesting question today?”

The pastor’s gnarled hand reached into the breast of his coat and pulled out his old worn Bible, in expectation.

Simon leaned forward on his stool.

“I need to make a choice, Pastor, about what I want to do with my life, now that Hans is gone.”