Collision of Evil (3 page)

The policeman had explained that someone had purposefully ended Charles’s life with a series of blows from a sharp object. It made no sense; Charles knew no one in Europe, had never before visited there, and had hardly been killed in an area known as a cesspit of violence. Yet, Robert did not doubt that it had happened
just that way; a vicious, primitive attack at dusk in a cow pasture in the mountains.

At least he had some time to try to make sense of things. Robert had used no leave this year and bought a ticket permitting him a full three weeks in Bavaria. He would bring Charles’s body back with him; it mattered little if the funeral was delayed, there were no other siblings and their parents had died years ago. More important was being present for the hunt for the murderer. An arrest would bring some degree of comprehension, some sense of why his brother had been killed. Robert shifted in the narrow economy-class seat and listened to the subdued hum of the engines.

The police had offered to meet him at Strauss Airport in Munich but he had declined and reserved a rental car, intending to drive to Gamsdorf. He wanted time alone after arrival to sort out his thoughts before confronting foreign officials. He had reserved a room at the same hotel where his brother had lodged. With a final glance at the gray skies, Robert pressed a button on the arm of his seat and eased it back, intent on trying to sleep to limit his raggedness upon arrival in Munich.

Police
Kommissar
Franz Waldbaer stood alone in the high meadow and gazed down the slope of grassy green toward the valley floor far below. It was nearly dusk and he permitted himself his third and final cigarette of the day, cupping his hand around it in a protective gesture against the slight summer breeze. He had parked his unmarked police car near the Alpenhof and arrived at this place by foot, alone. It had taken him longer than expected, the unaccustomed climb straining his legs, racing his heart, and causing him to gulp in prodigious amounts of air. It occurred to him that he had stopped routine walks in the mountains a decade ago. This unhappy realization lead to depressing thoughts about age, mortality, and the decline of the human body; he shook the unwelcome theme resolutely from his head. At fifty-five, he had decided that it was best not to contemplate such topics.

He glanced again at the rough-hewn fence before him and the area surrounding it, but the image revealed nothing. There was nothing apparent to suggest what had happened here a few days ago. The young, clever technical boys had gone over everything with commendable thoroughness. They’d found nothing of interest secreted in their grass samples, slivers of wood or dabs of dried blood. But he had anticipated nothing and was not disappointed. He was, he thought, almost pleased about this in a perverse sense; the lack of antiseptically produced evidence crying out that there was yet a role for outmoded, old-fashioned police work. His cigarette down to the filter, he let it drop to the moist vegetation and pressed it into the dirt with his shoe.

Franz Waldbaer had no doubt that the act that had played out here, transforming this pastoral meadow into a brief theatre of remorseless violence, had been a cold and pitiless act. And he felt with unshakable certitude that the killer knew no remorse and was incapable of reasoning in terms of right and wrong,
Tugend und untugend:
virtue and vice. What was it an old Benedictine monk had said to him years ago? Evil is merely the absence of good. Yes.

The commissioner pushed the thoughts away and studied the terrain once again, staring for a full minute at the dark and silent line of forest from which Charles Hirter had emerged and arrived at his death scene. Had the American gone deeply into the woods? All the way to the dolomite peaks? For protection against the elements? There was no way to know, at least not yet. The storm with its driving rain and merciless hail had erased any trace of Charles’s movements. He noted that the landscape was darkening by degree, mirroring the deepening hue of the cloudless sky above. He felt the air cooling and rubbed his hands together. Unlike southern Italy, the Alps did not permit waning warmth to linger after the sun departed the visible world. Like a jealous God, the sun removed warmth with it, content to let night reign over its domain in frosty coolness. The mountain peaks high above would be bitingly cold tonight.

Waldbaer watched as a serpentine line of street lamps flickered into life in the valley below, a necklace of pale light against the
rapidly obscuring land. Waldbaer permitted himself a tired sigh as he began the slow descent to his automobile. The scene around him appeared tranquil, but he knew this to be a deceit. Somewhere nearby, at least one author of an evil act remained undetected. A chill hit him suddenly, not caused by the drop in temperature alone. A terrible thing had recently transpired here, but he sensed that more malevolent things were set to happen still, were perhaps beginning to happen already. Authored by what unseen hand or agency he did not know.

German roadmaps being clear and detailed, Robert had no difficulty driving from Munich south to Upper Bavaria, taking the A-8 autobahn. An hour underway, he crested a hill and was presented with a spectacular view of the Chiemsee Lake spread out below him, the perfection of its deep blue waters and surrounding hilly shore looking like a postcard.

He felt guilty for even noticing the scenery. He was here because someone had killed his brother and because he intended to have it solved. He set his jaw and edged the speed higher, recalling that there was no speed limit on the autobahn. Seconds later, with a straight stretch of road in front of him he was doing a hundred miles an hour. He eased back on the gas pedal, but felt exhilarated at the feeling of movement after the passivity of sitting in an airplane.

The broad expanse of lake now behind him, Robert began to look for the exit marked Gamsdorf, knowing that it could not be far ahead. He felt grimy from the flight and had decided to go directly to the hotel for a shower, something to eat, and sleep. He also intended a brief walk around the hotel environs to get a sense of what his brother had seen during his time there. He would call the police from his room and make an appointment to see them in the morning, and later visit the morgue. He pulled a crumpled slip of paper from the pocket of his tweed blazer, checking to ensure that the police telephone number was legible. He read again the name of the officer in charge of the homicide investigation.
Kommissar
Franz Waldbaer.

In the morning light, Robert found the police station in the middle of town. It was not a separate structure but occupied space in the city hall, an elegant nineteenth-century building painted a giddy pale blue and sporting two decorative towers. An ancient coat of arms was emblazoned above the main entrance with the designation “Gamsdorf City Hall” etched underneath it in gold leaf. A more prosaic marker off to the side of the main portal carried the simple notation
Polizei
, printed in white against a navy blue background.

Robert parked his vehicle nearby, checked his appearance in the rearview mirror, adjusted his travel-rumpled tie, and stepped out into the brilliance of a late summer morning in the Alps. Crossing the street to the police station, he pushed open the heavy oak door and found himself in a foyer with arched ceilings. A cardboard sign with an arrow directed him to the basement. The walls along the stairwell were decorated with wanted posters for an assortment of heavy-browed, grim-visaged thieves and terrorists. There was a general dinginess to the paint and a faintly musty institutional smell to the air. It occurred to him that there existed an international police station motif of which this was a sterling example. Police offices from Buffalo to Berlin shared the same look.

The bottom of the stairs opened onto a large bay area with a long, high reception desk and several office cubicles. Half a dozen green-uniformed policemen were engaged at their computers or in conversation over cups of coffee. One of them, a thin, balding man in his thirties, approached the reception desk upon seeing Robert.

“How can I help you?” the policeman asked in German, a combination of courtesy and mild concern detectable in his voice.

“I have an appointment with Kommissar Waldbaer” Robert replied in the same language.

“Are you Herr Hirter?”

When Robert answered affirmatively, the policeman offered him his hand. “I am sorry about your brother, Herr Hirter. We will do everything we can to be of assistance. The Kommissar is expecting you. Please follow me.”

The police officer led him past the reception desk and through
a maze of metal cubicles. At the back of the bay area, a door led on to a private office, which the policeman signaled for Robert to enter before he himself returned to his colleagues. Robert knocked once and opened the door.

“
Gruess Gott,
” a voice intoned deeply from behind a desk. Robert returned the traditional, ancient Catholic greeting, recalling that it was the common invocation used in Bavaria rather than the simple
guten tag
employed in northern Germany.

The man behind the greeting was slumped casually in a cracked leather chair and rose to his feet with an audible grunt. He was shorter than his visitor by a few inches, and broader, not so much fat as solidly built, his excess pounds having the lived-in look of comfortable permanence. Graying hair was cut short above a slightly rounded face complete with the unmistakable signs of incipient jowls. The Kommissar was outfitted in a blue linen jacket, horn-buttoned and of Bavarian cut. The jacket, while of good quality, displayed a network of creases and had undoubtedly not seen the inside of a dry cleaner’s in a long time.

“My name is Waldbaer, Herr Hirter,” the police official stated, shaking hands with a firm grip and looking Robert in the eye. He offered his guest a chair and leaned back again in his own oversized one, issuing a contented sigh as his weight settled. Waldbaer offered his condolences, then moved the conversation into more substantive waters.

“You no doubt have questions. I can give you some answers, but there is much that we still don’t know. I’m glad to see you speak German, that will make things a lot easier. My English is, unfortunately, not very strong. By the way, how is it that you speak German so well? Most Americans I’ve encountered don’t bother much with foreign languages.”

Hirter laughed at this truth about his countrymen. “My grandparents were immigrants from Germany. They left for Massachusetts from Bremen before the First World War. They ensured that their son, my father, kept the language and he passed it along to my
brother and me. It’s rusty, but I expect it will get better in the next few days.”

Waldbaer nodded. He placed his hands squarely on the desk in front of him and leaned forward. “The hotel staff recollected that your brother spoke German to them. That puzzled me; now I understand. Maybe the best procedure is for me to tell you what we have come up with to date.”

Robert signaled agreement and the Kommissar continued, locking eyes with his visitor.

“Your brother was at the hotel alone. As far as we can tell from hotel staff testimony, he knew no one there. He dined alone and would sometimes read a paper by himself in the lobby. He might have exchanged a few words with other guests, but didn’t strike up any real acquaintances. Your brother seemed mainly interested in hiking and was most of the time out on the country paths. He had walking shoes and gear on him at the time of his death. He was athletic your brother?”

“Yes. More than me. He’s—was—younger and always took to sports.”

The policeman nodded and continued. “Your brother had purchased terrain maps of the area, so he had a sense of where to go. Some of the other Alpenhof guests recalled having seen him on some of the paths on the valley floor where the hotel is located.”

“I’m staying at the same hotel,” Robert interjected.

“I know,” his host replied with a thin trace of smile.

“On the day of his death your brother decided to hike in a different direction; up the slopes rather than traversing the valley. He set out rather late though, at least a waiter recalled him leaving the hotel in mid-morning. I think your brother underestimated how long it would take to reach the peaks and return; it’s a common mistake for tourists. Anyway, he took a path that isn’t heavily traveled due to its steep incline. The path is on the map he had in his possession when he died, and there’s a pencil mark next to it. The path he chose goes through a series of meadows, some fairly high, and then
winds through heavily wooded areas before opening up to the rock face of the mountain summits. But I don’t think he ever got to the peaks.” Waldbaer leaned back in his chair, eyes still on Robert.