A Quiet Flame

“That’s all right. He was about to share some information on a murder he’d been working on. Elizabeth Bremer?”

Schramma nodded.

“We had a similar case in Berlin,” I explained. “I came down here to read the files and find out just how similar they were.”

He bit his lip uncomfortably, which did little to alter my first impression of him. He looked like a werewolf.

“Look, I’m really sorry to tell you this after you’ve come all the way from Berlin. But all Paul’s case files have been sent upstairs. To the government counselor’s office. When a police officer gets killed, it’s standard procedure to assume it might have something to do with a case he was working on. I seriously doubt that you’re going to be able to see those files for a while. Maybe as long as a couple of weeks.”

It was my turn to bite my lip. “I see. Tell me, did you work with Paul?”

“A while ago. I’m not up to date with his current cases. Of late, he mostly worked on his own. He preferred it that way.”

“He preferred it or other detectives preferred it?”

“I think that’s a little unfair, sir.”

“Is it?”

Schramma didn’t answer. He lit a cigarette, flicked the match out of the open window, and sat on the corner of a desk that I assumed must be his own. On the opposite side of the big room, a detective with a face like Schmeling’s was questioning a suspect. Every time he got an answer, he looked pained, as if Jack Sharkey had hit him below the belt. It was a nice technique. I felt the cop was going to win on a disqualification, the same way Schmeling did. Other detectives came and went. A few of them had loud laughs, and louder suits. You get a lot of that in Munich. In Berlin, we all wore black armbands when a cop got killed. But not in Munich. A different kind of armband—a red one with a black Sanskrit cross in the middle—looked a lot more probable. It didn’t look like anyone was about to shed any tears over the death of Paul Herzefelde.

“Could I see his desk?”

Schramma got up slowly and we walked over to a gray steel desk in a far-flung corner of the office, which was surrounded with a wall of files and bookcases, like a one-man ghetto. The desktop was clear, but his photographs were still on the wall. I bent over to take a closer look at them. Herzefelde’s wife and family in one. Him wearing a military uniform and decoration in the other. On the wall, next to this photograph, was the faint outline of a graffito that had been rubbed out: the Star of David and the words “Jews Out.” I traced the outline with my finger just to make sure Schramma knew I’d seen it.

“That’s a hell of a way to honor a man who got himself a First Class Iron Cross,” I said loudly, and glanced around the detectives’ room. “Three bullets and some cave art.”

Silence descended on the room. Typing stopped. Voices quietened. Even the children playing outside seemed to cease their noise for a moment. Everyone was now looking at me, like I was the ghost of Walther Rathenau.

“So who did it? Who murdered Paul Herzefelde? Does anyone know?” I paused. “Can anyone guess? After all, you’re supposed to be detectives.” More silence. “Doesn’t anyone care who killed Paul Herzefelde?” I walked over to the center of the room and, facing down Munich’s KRIPO, waited for someone to say something. I looked at my watch. “Hell, I’ve been here for less than half an hour and I could tell you who killed him. It was the Nazis killed him, that’s who. It was the bloody Nazis who shot him in the back. Maybe even the same Nazis who wrote ‘Jews Out’ on the wall beside his desk.”

“Go home, you Prussian pig,” someone shouted.

“Yes, clear off back to Berlin, you stupid Pifke.”

They were right, of course. It was time to go home. After a short while among Munich’s Neanderthals, the men of Berlin were already looking like a real advance in human evolution. By all accounts, Munich was Hitler’s favorite town. It was easy to see why.

I went out of the Police Praesidium by a different set of stairs, which led into the central courtyard, where several police cars and vans were parked. As I was making my way under the arches to the street, I encountered the burly desk sergeant, who was now coming off duty. I knew this because he wasn’t wearing his leather belt or his duty epaulettes. Also, he was carrying a Thermos. Moving to block my way out, he said, “Sure it’s always a shame when a cop goes down in the line of duty.” He chuckled. “Except when it’s a Jew, of course. The fellows who shot that yid bastard, Herzefelde. They deserve a medal, so they do.” He spat onto the ground ahead of me for good measure. “Have a nice trip back to Berlin, you Jew-loving prick.”

“One more word from you, you worthless Nazi gorilla, and I’m going to pull the tongue out of your thick Bavarian head and scrape the shit off it with the heel of my shoe.”