Private Berlin Read online

  I turn on the radio and listen to descriptions of Artur Jaeger’s murder and the chase on the autobahn. They’ve found the Maserati and are taking DNA samples from it.

  It doesn’t bother me. There’s nothing that can match me to the car.

  As the uppers kick in, I glance over at the folder on the seat beside me. I open it and turn over the picture of Artur and his mother from his archived file. Beneath it is a picture of two girls, one nine, one six. They’re hugging each other.

  Ilona and Ilse.

  I tried every trick I knew to get Ilse to tell me where Ilona lived. But she refused right up until the end. The only thing she’d tell me was that Ilona was mentally ill and a methadone addict because of me.

  And then it hits me.

  Methadone addict.

  It means she has a license. It means Ilona goes to a clinic.

  She can be found.

  She can die tonight, if I’m lucky, and with her almost all my secrets.

  Ilona Frei? I muse. Ilona?

  I glance at the photo.

  Such a name someone gave you. Ilona. What did your name used to be?

  No matter. I’d remember you no matter what they called you. You looked so very much like your younger sister, not like your mother at all.

  CHAPTER 81

  BURKHART AND MATTIE followed Michelle as she sashayed down a hallway at the Paradise FKK. There were doors on both sides.

  “Where are we going?” Mattie asked, feeling uneasy.

  “To talk to Genevieve,” Michelle said as she rounded a corner.

  Mattie followed reluctantly, with Burkhart walking beside her, still clutching his towel. Set against the walls of the hall and between the doors were gilded sofas with deep purple velvet upholstery. On one couch, a naked woman’s head bobbed in the lap of a man whose eyes were closed.

  “They’re doing it in public?” Mattie whispered sharply at Burkhart.

  He sputtered, “It’s not my idea of fun.”

  Michelle meanwhile went to the last door on the right, rapped loudly, and said, “It’s Michelle, Genevieve. Please stop what you’re doing, and tell your client he will incur no charges for time spent.”

  A moment later, an irate Italian man appeared in the doorway and started to upbraid Michelle for the interruption. Burkhart stepped forward, towering over the guy, and told him to hit the showers. The man hesitated but then stormed away, railing in Italian.

  Genevieve, a beautiful young woman from Guadeloupe with smooth cocoa skin and long wavy hair, came to the door.

  “I’m out a hundred and fifty euros,” Genevieve complained.

  “We’ll compensate you for your time,” Mattie assured her.

  Genevieve squinted and studied her. “Who are you?”

  Michelle said, “Perhaps we’d better go inside.”

  Genevieve shrugged and turned into the room, which was small and filled almost entirely with a bed. The walls were mirrors. So was the ceiling. There were reflections of the two naked women, Mattie, and Burkhart at every angle.

  Michelle introduced the Private investigators and told Genevieve that they were here to find out what happened to Ilse Frei, and to Chris Schneider. Reluctantly Genevieve agreed to talk.

  She corroborated much of what Tina Hanover had told them, but with more detail. She said that she was in the women’s locker room two weeks before when Ilse ran in shaking and crying. Ilse told Genevieve that she had just overheard a customer talking to one of the other girls in the lounge.

  “Ilse said she did not know him by sight,” Genevieve said. “He looked completely different than she remembered him. But she thought she knew his voice.”

  “Why?” Mattie asked. “Whose voice was it?”

  Genevieve bit her lip before replying, “Ilse said she thought he may have been the man who killed her mother.”

  Mattie absorbed that, her mind wanting to leap in a dozen directions, but she reined it in when Burkhart said, “But she wasn’t sure?”

  “She was pretty sure,” Genevieve allowed. “But when we went back upstairs together to try to hear him again, he was gone.”

  Mattie groaned. “So you can’t identify him?”

  Perplexed, Genevieve looked at Michelle, who said, “If he’s the punter we think he is, he’s been here six or seven times in the past few years.”

  “So you know what he looks like?” Mattie said, excited.

  “Not exactly,” Michelle cautioned.

  “What does that mean?” Burkhart said.

  “We think it’s the same guy,” Michelle explained. “But he looks different every time he comes in. Sometimes he’s blond and blue-eyed. Other times brown with dark hair. His eyebrows. His cheeks. One time his hair was slicked black like a helmet. Another time he wore a devil’s beard and—”

  Genevieve interrupted. “He was green-eyed and redheaded last week when I saw him, about eight days after Ilse disappeared.” Genevieve was openly agitated by the memory. “He’s a freak, you know? He likes to make you feel threatened. Gets off on it.”

  “He give you a name?”

  Genevieve’s eyes flashed darkly. “That night he called himself the Invisible Man.”

  Michelle nodded grimly. “But we all call him the Mask.”

  CHAPTER 82

  ABOARD PRIVATE’S CORPORATE jet, returning to Berlin two hours later, Mattie finally got up the nerve to call Katharina Doruk.

  She answered in an infuriated rave: “You hung up on me?”

  “Calm down,” Mattie said. “We’ve made a break. A big one.”

  “I don’t care!” Katharina shouted. “Where are you?”

  “On the jet. We’ll land in half an hour.”

  Katharina fumed, “You didn’t talk to Frankfurt Kripo?”

  “We’ll do it by phone,” Mattie said. “We—uh, Burkhart and I—felt like we needed to get back to Berlin ASAP.”

  “That makes you a fugitive!”

  Mattie had had enough. “Only if we don’t catch the bastard who killed Chris and Ilse Frei and Artur Jaeger and who knows how many others!”

  That silenced Private Berlin’s managing investigator for several moments before she said in a hoarse, barely controlled voice, “What did you find?”

  Mattie gave Katharina a wrap-up of their trips to Ilse Frei’s home and the Paradise FKK, including the vague description she’d gotten of the Mask man.

  “Did you show them pictures of Hermann Krüger or Maxim Pavel?” she demanded.

  “Both,” Mattie said. “They said they couldn’t be sure in either case because the only reason they know it’s one guy coming back is the fact that he always shows up with a new mask.”

  “So, what, he’s an art collector like Krüger?” Katharina asked.

  “They didn’t know, but one of the women said he knew everything about the mask he wore while they had sex. It’s called a Chokwe tribal mask. She says it was leather and ebony and ivory and depicts a monster.”

  “My money’s on Krüger,” Katharina said. “High Commissar Dietrich thinks it’s him as well. He called here looking for you about an hour ago. Berlin Kripo found a gun in the trunk of one of Krüger’s cars this morning. Ballistics tests show it’s the same .40 caliber that killed Agnes. They’re preparing an arrest warrant, but I’ll call Rudy Krüger, see if his stepfather collected masks.”

  “Good idea,” Mattie replied, then asked Katharina to tell Dr. Gabriel that Ilona Frei had been in and out of mental facilities and was a methadone addict. She also told Katharina about their suspicions regarding the son of the man named Falk who’d run the slaughterhouse.

  After Katharina promised to start running those leads down, Mattie called her aunt Cäcilia to warn her that it was going to be another late night. Mattie felt a few moments of guilt at not spending time with Niklas. But she told herself that it was justified. Niklas wanted to know who killed Chris as much as she did.

  Mattie hung up just as the pilot came on over the intercom to tell them they were in thei
r initial approach to Berlin and to turn off all electronic devices.

  She looked over at Burkhart, who turned off his iPad.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  Burkhart nodded as he slid it into a neoprene sleeve. “There’s a professor at Potsdam I found, an expert on masks and primitive art. He’s roughly the right age. And there are several galleries in the city that specialize in primitive art. I’m thinking that if our boy is a serious collector, they just might know him.”

  CHAPTER 83

  THEY LANDED DURING a sunset that made the skies over Berlin look bruised.

  At least to Mattie, who immediately began making calls on her cell phone while Burkhart went to retrieve the car.

  The line of Franz Hellermann, the art professor at Potsdam University, went directly to a voice mail prompt. She hesitated and then decided not to leave him a message. It would be better to talk with him face-to-face in the morning.

  She called two of the art galleries Burkhart had found and got recordings that listed their addresses and hours of operation. She looked at the third number and address and realized that the I. M. Ehrlichmann Gallery was just south of Savignyplatz on Schlüterstrasse, not far from where Agnes Krüger had died.

  “Let’s swing by this place on the way to the office,” she told Burkhart.

  They were outside the I. M. Ehrlichmann Gallery in less than ten minutes, only to find a man lowering metal-grate security gates on the establishment.

  “Hello,” Mattie called.

  “I’m closed,” he said and turned, revealing a trim, academic-looking man with black-framed glasses, close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and a tweed jacket and tie.

  He blinked at Mattie, and then glanced up at Burkhart. “You’re a big fellow.”

  Burkhart nodded. He showed the man his badge, identified himself, and said, “This is Mattie Engel. We work for Private Berlin.”

  “Isaac Ehrlichmann,” the man said agreeably. “But my gallery is closed.”

  “We were hoping you could help us,” Mattie said.

  “Tomorrow, I would be glad to,” the gallery owner said. “But I have a dinner engagement to attend, a birthday dinner actually. My lady friend’s.”

  “Just one question,” Mattie insisted.

  Ehrlichmann sighed. “One question.”

  “Is Hermann Krüger a collector of masks? Have you sold any to him?”

  “That falls under client privilege, I’m afraid. And that’s two questions.”

  “You know he’s under suspicion in his wife’s murder?” Burkhart asked.

  “That’s your third question, and I did read about that in the paper. Yes.”

  “This could be part of it, Herr Ehrlichmann,” Mattie said. “Please, off the record, does Krüger collect masks? If he doesn’t, we’re on our way.”

  The gallery owner checked his watch, going through some inner struggle before replying: “Herr Krüger has bought many masks from me over the years.”

  “Any recently?” Burkhart asked.

  Ehrlichmann paused and then nodded. “As a matter of fact, early last week he bought a valuable Chokwe tribal mask.”

  CHAPTER 84

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, the Chokwe mask showed on the big screen in the amphitheater at Private Berlin.

  Before hurrying off to his dinner engagement, Isaac Ehrlichmann had told them where to find a digital photo of the mask in his online catalogue and promised to make himself available to them in the morning.

  Jack Morgan had ordered take-out food and the entire Private Berlin staff and Daniel Brecht were in the amphitheater eating. Morgan sat next to Mattie and studied the mask skeptically.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said. “Hermann Krüger goes to brothels in disguise and then wears these masks while having sex?”

  “That’s evidently the long, strange journey he’s on,” Mattie replied.

  “And I thought LA was the world capital of twisted.”

  Mattie laughed. “Berlin will definitely give LA a run for its money. What about Pavel? Does he have any interest in masks?”

  “No idea,” Brecht answered. “He hasn’t surfaced in more than two days now. But I’m predicting he makes an appearance about an hour or two after Berlin’s game tomorrow night.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re setting up a little surprise for him,” said Morgan cryptically.

  Staring once again at the Chokwe mask, Mattie felt lingering doubt. Did Hermann Krüger kill Chris, his wife, and the others? Or could Pavel be somehow involved? Were they in on it together? And where were they?

  Mattie said, “I can’t believe Interpol can’t find Krüger.”

  “They’ll find him,” Katharina Doruk said. “You can’t hide a billionaire for long, especially when his stock’s taking such a beating. In the meantime, call Frankfurt Kripo and give them a statement.”

  Dr. Gabriel’s phone rang. He answered it.

  “So, Burkhart,” Brecht said. “Explain again how he got away from you.”

  Mattie laughed and said, “The story of the skimpy towel he had to wear at the FKK club is better.”

  Burkhart frowned at her. “I thought we had an understanding about that.”

  Mattie tried to swallow her grin. “I couldn’t resist. It was just so classic.”

  “Mattie,” Katharina said. “Frankfurt Kripo?”

  Mattie sighed and nodded.

  But then Dr. Gabriel hung up his phone and said, “I’ve got the sister. Ilona Frei. She is a registered methadone addict, and she lives in Wedding.”

  CHAPTER 85

  THE AIR HAD warmed during the break in the storm, and a mix of recent immigrants and low-income workers was out strolling the streets of Wedding—northeast of the Berlin Technical University—when Burkhart turned onto Amsterdamer Strasse, where Ilona Frei lived in a government-subsidized apartment on the second floor of a shambles of a building.

  They parked, climbed a front stoop blackened with grime, and found the front door unlocked. Rap dueled with Middle Eastern music as they ascended a bare wooden staircase to a second floor that smelled of jasmine and curry.

  Mattie heard an infant squalling with the distinctive rattle of colic and her mind flashed back to Niklas as a five-month-old racked with the affliction. She felt instant pity for the poor woman who must care for the child. Mattie had had no husband while raising Niklas as a baby, but she’d had Aunt C and her mother, and that had saved her.

  “Mattie?” Burkhart said, startling her from her thoughts.

  Mattie blinked, surprised to find herself stopped in the hallway, looking at the door to the apartment where the infant was crying and coughing.

  “Sorry,” Mattie said, feeling slightly bewildered and suddenly more tired than she thought possible. “What number is she?” she asked, yawning.

  Burkhart gestured toward the far end of the hall. “Twenty-seven.”

  They’d no sooner passed apartment twenty-five—a mere ten feet from Ilona Frei’s door—than they heard a woman shrieking in abject terror.

  CHAPTER 86

  AT THE FIRST scream, I spin and leap down the fire escape and reach the ladder just as the screeching turns hysterical. I hear pounding and yelling mixed with the screaming as I swing off the ladder and then land in the alley behind the apartment building where Ilona Frei lives.

  I sprint away. People are yelling from windows above me. But I’m wearing a simple black ski mask. No one has seen me, the real me, I’m sure.

  Approaching the mouth of the alley where it gives way to Turiner Strasse, I tear the mask off, stick it in my back pocket, and force myself to step out slowly and deliberately, and I continue down the sidewalk.

  From there, with all the traffic, I can’t hear the screaming at all. I tear off the dark anorak as I move, revealing a bright yellow jogging coat with reflectors.

  My heart is racing and I’m berating myself for being so bold, so cocky after so many years of careful movement. I never should have attempted to use
the fire escape to reach her apartment.

  I should have slowed down, watched her, and patterned her movements.

  But I no longer have the luxury of time.

  On what was supposed to be a scouting mission, I spotted the fire escape leading up past an open window of what had to be her apartment. I’d glanced around, seen no one in the alley, and opted for a quick, improvised plan.

  I pulled the mask on.

  I started climbing.

  When I reached the landing, I squatted there a moment and then slipped to the window. My old and dear friend Ilona had been right there, right in the hallway of her apartment with her back to me.

  I couldn’t help it. My throat clicked in that way it does when I’m pleased.

  She must have heard it because she twisted, saw me, and screamed.

  Now I start to jog toward Schiller Park. When I reach it, I dump the anorak in the first trashcan. Then I keep jogging, figuring that I’ll go thirty minutes or so before looping back to the Mercedes.

  Stay calm, I tell myself. You know where she lives. And she’s an addict. My friends, we know exactly where she’ll be come morning, don’t we? Hmmm?

  CHAPTER 87

  AS THE SHRIEKING intensified, Mattie pounded on Ilona Frei’s door and shouted, “Frau Frei? Ilona Frei?”

  “That one,” said a woman’s voice. “She crazy.”

  She stood in the doorway of apartment twenty-five, a disgusted old Vietnamese woman wearing a maroon scarf on her head. “She always screaming and crying ’bout ghosts and something. Crazy.”

  The screaming inside had turned into hysterical sobs.

  “Stand back, Mattie,” Burkhart ordered.

  Mattie got out of his way. Pistol drawn, Burkhart hurled his weight against the door. The jamb splintered and the door blew open.

  They followed the sound of the woman sobbing, “No! No! God, no! Please, Falk! Please!”

  At the mention of Falk, Mattie ran past Burkhart into a bedroom that featured a mattress, a few blankets, and a lamp burning a naked bulb.