Ring of Fire IV Read online

  “Did you get some good face shots?” Byron asked.

  “Three of them,” Nathaniel answered. His grin was long gone.

  “Need copies as soon as possible.”

  “They’ll be on your desks by lunch time.”

  Nathaniel swung his pack up off the ground and headed for the street, exchanging words with the coroner as they passed each other.

  “Another one?”

  Dr. Schlegel set his case down beside the body and opened it up.

  “Looks that way,” Byron said. He stepped closer, hands still in his jacket pockets.

  The coroner shook his head. “Same as the other two.” The probe in his hand pointed to the eyes. “Eyeballs removed. I’ll have to examine the tissue in autopsy, but…”

  “Yeah.”

  The probe moved down to push the collar in different directions. “Ligature marks. Placed more like the Döhren woman than Seyfart, but very similar otherwise.”

  The coroner made a few simple tests, then sat back and looked the corpse over. “I’ll confirm it with the autopsy, but I’d say the pattern will almost exactly match the other two murders. This is victim number three.”

  Dr. Schlegel stood and motioned to his attendants to come remove the corpse.

  Gotthilf stared at the dead young woman. It took him a while to realize that he didn’t really feel much nausea, even though she had also been murdered and mutilated in the same manner as the two previous victims. He was already angry because of the senseless violence; now his anger increased because he realized that he had started to become inured to even this level of atrocity.

  “Last one,” he whispered to himself. “This is the last one.”

  * * *

  Two days later the case file on Gotthilf’s desk was fatter by another set of crime scene photographs and another autopsy. Said photos documented the condition of the body very well. Unfortunately, they provided no more illumination as to who the killer was than the previous victims’ photos had. Dr. Schlegel had confirmed that the removal of the eyes of the third victim from their eye sockets had been done in the same manner and with the same technique as the previous victims. He even ventured an assertion that the same tool had been used in all three mutilations.

  And they knew who the third victim was. One Justina Hösch, wife of Lorenz Mühlhäuser. They had not been married long, and Herr Mühlhäuser had been down at the police station the morning after the murder but before it had been publicized. He had been out looking for his wife much of the previous night, and was not in a good mood when he arrived at the station. His reaction on being taken to the morgue and asked to view the latest victim was not a positive one. It had turned out to be advantageous that the coroner’s assistants were sturdy men—and that there were several of them.

  Gotthilf opened the file and looked at the autopsy. Amongst all the other details, which simply confirmed that Frau Hösch looked much like Fräulein Döhren and Fräulein Seyfart, was the one hard-fought fact that had been extracted from Herr Mühlhäuser before the shock finally caught up with him: his wife’s eyes were blue, of a particularly dark and piercing shade.

  He looked over at Byron’s desk, where his partner was reading another report.

  “Hey, Byron.”

  “Hmm?” The up-timer didn’t look up.

  “What’s that saying…the one about how many times something happens?”

  Byron took his eyes off the page in his hand. “Huh? Oh, you mean the one that goes something like ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action?’”

  “Yah.”

  Byron set the paper down. “Why?”

  “Because all three of the victims had dark blue eyes.” Gotthilf didn’t have to specify who the victims were. There was only one set of three victims on the minds of the entire police force at the moment.

  “Hmm, yeah. Maybe so. But we don’t have a connection yet.”

  Before Gotthilf could respond, Martin the messenger walked through the door from the hallway, carrying an envelope with care, his fingers only touching the very edges of it. He walked to Gotthilf’s desk and displayed it.

  “This came for you, Sergeant.”

  Gotthilf looked at it. Same style envelope; same styling of his name and “Confidential”; same handwriting.

  He pulled a pair of gloves out of his jacket pocket and put them on, then took the envelope from Martin. From his other pocket he pulled a switch-blade knife and flicked it open, using the blade to open the envelope. Holding the envelope over his desk, he turned it open side down and shook it.

  Unlike the previous communications, there was no newspaper story clipping. What fell out of the envelope was a third clipping from the Bible.

  And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.

  “Sonofa…” Byron breathed from where he was reading over Gotthilf’s shoulder. “I was right. There is some kind of sexual angle in play here.”

  Gotthilf nodded, but his mind was racing. Something was trying to jump out at him…something…something…then it connected. He flung open the case file and pulled out the previous two Bible excerpts and lined them up.

  “And here’s your connection,” he said, using the tip of the blade to point to the same word in each excerpt.

  Byron’s eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles bunched, then he nodded slowly. “You’re right. The eyes are connected to this guy’s sexual obsession, somehow, someway.”

  Gotthilf inhaled sharply. Whether he meant to or not, the murderer had finally told them something real, something about himself. Two somethings. Now the hunt could begin in earnest.

  * * *

  When the latest missive from the murderer arrived back at Gotthilf’s desk from the fingerprint department, smudged with powder from another fruitless attempt to find a fingerprint, Gotthilf put it in an envelope along with the other two fragments cut from the Bible and one of the smaller envelopes in which the fragments had arrived, and stuck the envelope in the same inside jacket pocket where he carried his notebook and pencil. He looked over at Byron’s desk. His partner was in a long meeting with the captain, with no expectation of seeing him anytime soon.

  Not wanting to lose the rest of the afternoon to mundane tasks in the office, Gotthilf scribbled on the back of a piece of used note paper. The note he dropped on Byron’s desk read, “Gone to talk to the preachers again. G.”

  Gotthilf grabbed his hat from the peg on the wall it was hanging from and clattered down the stairs. Stepping out the front door of the police station, he gave a shrill whistle. A moment later, a police vehicle pulled up before him. He looked up to see the red-haired driver that he and Byron usually used. They grinned at each other, and he clambered up into the light wagon.

  “St. Ulrich’s church,” he said, pointing toward the Old City.

  They arrived at the church a few minutes later. Like most of the churches in Magdeburg, St. Ulrich’s had been damaged during the Sack of Magdeburg, although unlike some it hadn’t been totally destroyed. Nonetheless, it had taken some time to repair the building, and the final touches had only been applied that summer. There were a few places in the exterior walls where the fresh mortar in some of the stonework was a pretty obvious clue as to where some of the repairs had been made.

  “Wait for me, please,” Gotthilf said as his feet touched ground again. He looked around to see a group of clergy standing by one of the side doors to the church, so he headed that direction.

  “Good afternoon, Archidiakon Demcker.”

  “And a good afternoon to you, as well, Sergeant Hoch,” Demcker replied. Gotthilf looked as his two companions and raised his eyebrows. “Ah, excuse me. Sergeant, this is Archidiakon Simon Schönfeldt, from Heilige Geist Church, and Pastor Timotheus Ag
ricola.”

  “Currently serving at St. Jacob’s Church until Pastor Doctor Paulus Gronovius recovers from his illness,” the second man said, completing his own introduction.

  Schönfeldt was an average looking individual. There was nothing physically remarkable about him. In fact, he and Demcker bore a certain resemblance to each other, as if they were patterned after a model “Young Lutheran Pastor.” Agricola, on the other hand was the shortest pastor Gotthilf had ever seen; slight of build and not much taller than he himself was.

  The other thing Gotthilf noticed during the introductions was their dress. They were all dressed in dark sober clothing, as befit pastors. None of them was clothed at the level of sumptuousness that Dr. de Spaignart had worn the other day. Surprisingly, though, it was Agricola who was most well-dressed of the three.

  “Is Dr. de Spaignart in the church at the moment?” Gotthilf asked when the introductions were concluded.

  “Alas, no,” Demcker replied. “Can I be of assistance in his place?”

  “Perhaps,” Gotthilf replied. “I need to consult with you about some scripture references that may apply to a case we are working. But since I have three of you here, I would also like to ask if any of you have heard any rumors or whispers about the recent spate of murders?”

  “You mean the slain women? That’s right; there was another one recently, wasn’t there?”

  That was Agricola. The man’s voice was rather high in pitch, and a bit nasal. Not an especially pleasant sound, especially when combined with a heavy Saxon accent.

  “Yes.”

  The three pastors looked at each other, and one by one they shook their heads.

  “If you hear of anything,” Gotthilf said, “send word to the police station and we will come talk to you.”

  “I have heard nothing about them other than what I read in the papers,” Agricola said.

  “Nor have I,” Schönfeldt added. “Other than a few of the older women gossiping that the unfortunates may have been selling their bodies.”

  “I would not be surprised if that were the case,” Agricola replied. “For all that we preach against it, more of these lower class women do that than we might imagine.” He shrugged. “And if that is the case, then it is perhaps understandable that they came to such an end.”

  For a moment, Gotthilf had to bite his tongue to hold back an outburst. “No one deserves to die alone in the dark, murdered and mutilated,” he finally said.

  “I agree,” Schönfeldt interjected, “but it is also true those who commit sins must bear the consequences of those sins. Jeremiah says, ‘Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.’ Even if one of them was from my own parish.”

  Ah, Gotthilf thought to himself. Frau Hösch was a parishioner of Heilige Geist Church, so of course Schönfeldt should know of her. Interesting way he presented it, though.

  Agricola nodded in agreement with his fellow.

  There was silence after that.

  Gotthilf finally looked to Demcker. “About those scripture references…”

  The pastor looked to his friends. “If you will excuse me…”

  “Certainly,” Agricola said. “I will speak to you in a day or two.” He nodded his head, turned, and left.

  “Actually, I’d like to stay, if I might,” Schönfeldt said.

  Demcker looked to Gotthilf. Gotthilf shrugged, then nodded. It was no concern to him if the other pastor wanted to see what was going on.

  “Then let us go inside,” Demcker said.

  He led the way through the doors and to a small room that Gotthilf decided must be the vestry from the robes that were hanging on the walls. There was a small table shoved into one corner with a rickety looking chair beside it. There was a large Bible lying open in the middle of the table, surrounded by books. Daylight shone through a small window high in one wall, and there was an oil lamp in a bracket mounted to a wall over the table.

  “Erm,” Demcker said, looking a bit abashed. “I use this for my study. It is much quieter than my rooming house. But I have no other chairs.”

  “That is not a problem,” Gotthilf said with a smile. “I am very used to standing.”

  Demcker clasped his hands in front of him. “So, Sergeant Hoch, what assistance can I,” he looked at Schönfeldt, “or rather we, provide?”

  Gotthilf pulled the envelope from his jacket pocket, took the three sliced pages from it, and laid them on the table. “What can you tell me about these?”

  Demcker and Schönfeldt both bent over the table to scrutinize the page fragments. After a minute or so, Demcker put a finger on the first piece that Gotthilf had received. “This one,” he said, “this is from the book of Job.” He sat down and began turning pages in the Bible.

  “Chapter 3, I believe,” Schönfeldt said.

  The pages stopped turning, and Decker ran his finger down a column of print. It stopped, and he compared the fragment to the verses his finger had found. “Correct,” he said. “Verses 8 and 9.”

  Schönfeldt touched another piece. It was the second one he had received, Gotthilf noted. “Isaiah Chapter 1,” Schönfeldt said. “Verse 15, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Of course,” Demcker said. Again the turning of pages; again the finger running down a page and stopping; again the comparison. “Exactly so.”

  They both looked at the third fragment. “I am not so certain about this one,” Schönfeldt said. “Deuteronomy, perhaps?”

  Gotthilf got the feeling that they had forgotten him.

  “No,” Demcker said. “I believe Leviticus.” Pages were turned slowly as they were scanned by both men. “Ah. Here.” He pointed to a column.

  “Chapter 20, verses 4 and 5,” Schönfeldt said. He clapped a hand on his fellow pastor’s shoulder. “I bow to your knowledge, my friend.”

  Gotthilf cleared his throat. Both pastors jumped a little. Gotthilf suppressed a smile as it became clear that they had indeed forgotten he was there.

  “Was that what you needed, Sergeant Hoch?” Demcker asked.

  “It is a beginning,” Gotthilf said as he pulled his notepad and pencil out of his pocket. “What I would like your opinion on now, if you will, is taking those three passages together, what does that say to you about the man who sent those to me?”

  “Would that be the murderer?” Demcker asked with a frown.

  “We believe so,” Gotthilf responded.

  Demcker picked up the page fragments and stared at them one at a time for long moments, then handed them to Schönfeldt.

  “If the murderer did indeed send them, then he is a most disturbed individual.”

  Gotthilf snorted. “We have three murdered and mutilated women. I believe that he is somewhat more than ‘disturbed.’”

  Demcker grimaced, but nodded. “Can you disclose if the women were raped?”

  Gotthilf thought for a moment, then said, “Under seal, I can say that they were not.”

  Demcker folded his hands, interlacing the fingers, and raised them to cover his mouth, as if in prayer. He sat that way for long moments. Gotthilf noted that his fingers were turning red as his intense grasp cut off circulation.

  The young pastor looked up, pain in his eyes.

  “I would say,” he began, “that this man has been wounded by a woman in the past, probably in a sexual manner. But this is not revenge, no. This is not hot-blooded anger wreaking death and destruction.” He swallowed. “This is judgment, cold-blooded and hard. This is a man who has forgotten the mercy of the Lord. He has forgotten the lex talionis.”

  “The what?” Gotthilf asked.

  “An eye for an eye,” Schönfeldt said from where he stood by the window, carefully examining the page fragments. “The punishment must be fitting for the crime. Exodus Chapter 22.”

  “Ah,” Gotthilf made notes. He looked up. “Please continue.”

  “The fact that he made no sexual assault upon them proves this. He is not visiting vengeance. Rather, he has set himself up as j
udge rather than wronged lover, passed sentence, and is now serving as executioner.” Demcker closed his eyes, and his shoulders twitched. “But he is not an impartial judge. This man is so filled with rage he should by rights be a conflagration in the midst of the city.”

  “No,” Schönfeldt looked up. “Not fire. Ice. Rage, yes; but a cold rage. A deep-seated, icy burning rage that has been rising for long and long, until it overflowed its well.”

  Demcker opened his eyes. “Simon has the right of it, I think. But multiple slayings would indicate that the woman who injured him is gone. He has no recourse against her, or there would have been only one murder. He found someone who he thought was like her, and executed judgment. But it did not satisfy. And so he has struck again. And yet again.”

  “And will continue to kill until he is stopped,” Schönfeldt said in a heavy voice, “because there is no peace for a person such as him. Not now; not now that he has usurped the Lord’s throne of judgment.”

  Gotthilf scribbled notes furiously. So far nothing they had said contradicted his own observations about this case. In fact, they reinforced his own thinking that Magdeburg was going to be in trouble until they caught this man.

  Pencil still, he looked at the two pastors. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “About the man, no,” Schönfeldt said. “At least, not directly. But about his surroundings, perhaps.”

  Gotthilf raised his eyebrows.

  Schönfeldt’s mouth quirked. “Sergeant Hoch, have you attempted to identify the Bible that these pages were cut from?”

  “We contacted Zopff and Sons and a couple of other printers,” Gotthilf said. “They all said that the paper was of middling quality, the type-face was probably from Leipzig or somewhere to the south, but they couldn’t put a printer’s name to it.”

  Schönfeldt nodded. “You should know, Sergeant, that most pastors are bibliophiles. And when it comes to Bibles, those of us here in Magdeburg can discourse on their makeup and construction with the best of the printers. Show us a page, and we can tell you which edition it is from, and probably the name of the printer and the year in which it was printed. These mutilated leaves of the holy book,” he presented the fragments in a fan shape, “these speak to me.”