Collision of Evil Read online

  Like a temper tantrum that had spent itself, the mountain thunderstorm hurled down the last of its fury before sputtering into a soft shower, the mass of clouds gradually thinning and drifting off. It was nearly dusk and such vestigial light as there was promised to be fleeting. The pine trees cast long shadows across the grasses and the rich greens of the alpine meadows were rendered richer still, enhanced by the magical, deep golden light of a summer’s afternoon in noble decline. Somewhere, far below the craggy dolomite peaks, a cowbell rang as its charge meandered to a rude hut in the valley to spend its night.

  Pushing aside the chaos of fallen branches and brush that had concealed the mouth of the cave, Charles emerged from his shelter, breathed deeply of the cold post-storm mountain air, and retraced his path back through the somber stand of pines, the woods alive with the sound of falling drops of water. The scent of spruce was overwhelming and Charles found it pleasant after the stale, claustrophobic air of the cavern. He stopped and noted his surroundings carefully, consulting his map. He would need to come back here to what he had discovered, and did not want to risk losing the location. Satisfied that he could find the cave again, Charles moved ahead, picking his way through the woods in the fading light. After twenty minutes of hiking, he could detect the brighter green of the meadow in the distance. He breathed easier and concluded that even if darkness descended before he reached the hotel, he should have no trouble navigating through the fields with the aid of his flashlight. The worst was behind him.

  He continued to walk downward, the incline steep enough to cause him to shift his weight backward to avoid pitching forward. The nocturnal panorama of the valley spread out around him now and the first stars crept into a sky still not entirely surrendered to darkness. He found the path that had lead him from the valley floor and knew that he had simply to follow it down until he arrived at the hotel. Just a matter of one step at a time. A crudely erected timber fence embraced the meadow near the path and he moved to it, leaning his weight against the wood for a moment of rest before continuing on. He slipped off his backpack and indulgently stretched his taut muscles.

  The force of the first blow was massive, sufficient to drive him to his knees. The blow caught him hard at the back of the head and he was strangely conscious of a resounding crack as his skull lost integrity. He was in the process of trying to turn and understand what was happening when the second assault caught him full between the shoulder blades, slamming him forward into the fence, the rough wood tearing his cheeks and lips. He felt a sticky tide of warmth cover his back and extend over his ribcage and he knew that it was his own blood. He felt oddly detached but fought to remain conscious and to understand. His limbs were shaking uncontrollably now, but he struggled to push himself up to see his attacker. The third blow ended that attempt with shattering finality, a sharpened edge of metal cleaving through Charles’s thick dark hair, ripping scalp tissue and sundering his skull. A mist of blood sprayed from the head wound, a strip of pulsing brain tissue revealed and steaming in the cold alpine air. His final feeling, no longer fully sentient as his mind shut down, was of overwhelming confusion. That he was experiencing his own death he did comprehend, the terror of its breathtaking suddenness combining with an equal amount of wonder as to why it was happening at all.

  That a guest had not returned to his lodgings that night was not noted by the hotel staff that, in the European fashion, treated customers with both discretion and distance. The corpse might have gone undiscovered for days given its solitary location, had it not been for the passing of a Bergwacht climber who had decided to check the high meadows to see if lightning strikes from the storm had hit any cows.

  Indeed, the man at first thought that Charles’s body, seen initially from a distance, was a calf, but wondered at the adjacent blue splash of color from what later was discovered to be a backpack. Proximity having clarified his initial error, the Bergwacht worker vomited into the tall grass near where the body lay. After some minutes of heavy breathing, he pulled a cell phone from his windbreaker and had the operator connect him with the Bavarian police. The police responded with celerity, their four-wheel-drive Mercedes wagon climbing into the meadow twenty minutes later, flashing blue lights dwarfed against the majestic background of the mountains.

  After several paper cups of coffee at the scene offered by the policemen, the Bergwacht volunteer was permitted to return home, having told his tale many times, and now free to deliver its morbid details yet again to a circle of fascinated friends who would buy him rounds of beer in exchange. Charles’s wallet was in a pocket of his jeans and made identification a simple affair. It was short work to determine that he had been a guest at the nearby Hotel Alpenhof and his plane ticket was soon after found in the room. A list of scrawled telephone numbers in his pocket organizer, also found in the room, made next of kin notification a minor task. At the top of Charles Hirter’s telephone list was the name of one Robert Hirter.

  As the deceased was an American, the local police decided to have one of their men with high-school-level English make the call to Robert Hirter and to the nearest U.S. consulate, which was in Munich. The “death of a U.S. citizen” notification to a consular official was concluded with cool dispatch on both ends, but the policeman knew that notifying a relative of such an unanticipated loss was trickier. The six-hour difference in time zones between Bavaria and the East Coast meant that Robert Hirter was awakened from sleep at four in the morning.

  For a moment, it was apparent to the policeman that Robert Hirter did not understand the phrase “We have find your brother Charles who it is sorry for us to say now is dead.” The policeman’s efforts were quickly simplified when Robert Hirter began asking questions in very passable German. The policeman gently, politely provided what details he thought appropriate, determined that his interlocutor was the older brother of the murder victim, and advised him how best to journey to Gamsdorf to claim the remains and arrange for their transport to the United States. When, after a few minutes, Robert Hirter stopped asking questions and began to sob, the policeman understood that the conversation was at an end.

  Chapter 2

  Dulles Airport and the Virginia suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C., fell away rapidly, the distinctive patterns of housing developments and other visual details framed by the small double-paned window of the passenger plane. In a few minutes there was no trace of solid land at all, only the soundless expanse of the Atlantic, shimmering dull silver in the subdued light of an overcast afternoon. The ocean, too, lost detail as the aircraft gained elevation until there was nothing but clouds pressing close and gray against the gently humming fuselage.

  The time-zone difference meant that Robert Hirter would fly to Munich through the night, arriving in early morning, the unseen crossing of the sea rendered banal by bad films and worse food, plastic knives that could not cut and plastic forks that could not stab. The events of 2001 had made air travel safer by placing passengers in the position of self-destructive patients in a mental asylum. A necessary response to brutal times, Robert thought. The nature of brutality had occupied him considerably in the day it had taken to find his passport and arrange his flight. The Bavarian policeman had been quite clear on the point that his brother Charles had been murdered.

  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.

  Chapter 3

  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 slump
ed 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.”