Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [110]
The Gestapo had told Dietrich nothing about their raid on the physician's office. He had learned of it from the precinct watch officer, who had investigated the clinic after the Gestapo had left, and had then telephoned Dietrich. Doctor Holenbein had been a casual acquaintance of Dietrich. Early in the war their wives had volunteered for bandage- packing gatherings, and had dragged their husbands to the coffee Watches afterward. The doctor had once spoken of his brother, a professor of architecture at the University of Berlin. After the watch officer had hung up, Dietrich had telephoned the doctor's brother and had told him what had happened, and that the Gestapo would undoubtedly be rushing through the professor's door at any moment, casting their net wide and gathering in many innocents, and that if the professor and his family had anywhere they could repair for hiding, they had better do so immediately. The professor had thanked Dietrich profusely, but quickly, and was frantically calling his wife to wake her before his telephone receiver was back on its cradle.
Dietrich stuck his finger into a blue ceramic washbasin. The water was cool and stained red. Cray had tended his wounds here. So the American hadn't been treated successfully at Doctor Holenbein's office before the Gestapo arrived.
Hilfinger rifled through a sewing basket, then the drawers of a desk. "Here's an address book." He dropped it into a canvas satchel he had brought with him. "And Christmas cards. A lot of return addresses on them. Maybe Katrin von Tornitz and her great-aunt have mutual friends, another place Cray might hide." The cards also went into the satchel.
Haushofer fingered a miniature doll collection. "You know why I became a detective?"
Dietrich answered, "So you can lawfully snoop around other people's bedrooms?"
"Precisely"
"You don't follow orders, do you, Inspector?" A new voice, abrupt and coarse.
Dietrich turned to find Heinrich Müller at the bedroom door, with Agent Rudolf Koder at his elbow.
The Gestapo chief stepped into the room. "How long have you known about this address?"
Dietrich feared this man, but he would not let Hilfinger and Haushofer see it. In a level voice, he replied evenly, "About an hour. Rather than spend time contacting whomever at your office, I thought it best to rush over here. We were still too late, as it turns out. The American has been here, and gone." Koder entered the room.
Müller rose on his toes, a bucking motion, his hands behind his back. "I specifically ordered you to report all your leads to me."
Dietrich sucked on a tooth before answering. "With Himmler's letter, I unordered myself."
Hilfinger smiled at his boss's dangerous impudence. So did Heinrich Müller, but narrowly, meanly. "It is a lack of respect, isn't it, Inspector? You simply do not respect my organization, and this leads to a lack of cooperation." Dietrich idly rubbed his jaw.
Müller bit down with such pressure that his lips paled. A signal must have passed, but Dietrich did not see it. Nor did he see the pistol in Koder's hand.
Koder took one step toward Peter Hilfinger, placed the muzzle of the pistol against Hilfinger's temple, and pulled the trigger.
Hilfinger collapsed to the floor. Blood and bits of his brain dribbled down the wall above the desk. Koder swung the pistol toward Haushofer, freezing the detective's hand as it reached under his coat for his weapon. Hilfinger's perpetually bemused grin was still on his dead face. Blood snaked across the floor toward the window curtain.
"Perhaps you won't forget to report next time, Inspector," Müller said pleasantly. He walked out of the old woman's bedroom.
Koder shrugged and put his palms up, perhaps a gesture seeking understanding, the pistol still in one hand, then backed out of the room, following Müller.
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