LEX TALIONIS
Magdeburg
Early March, 1636
Marla Linder stopped. "What's that?" Her head tilted to one side.
"What?" her husband Franz Sylwester asked. He moved a couple of steps past her in the snow, then stopped and looked back. "What?"
Marla turned slowly, head still tilted, almost as if she was hunting something. After a few moments, she stopped. "That," she said, pointing toward a nearby door.
Franz gave her an 'are you jesting' look. "That's Walcha's Coffee Shop."
"Not that." She looked at him from under lowered eyebrows. "The music."
That caused Franz to close his mouth on the statement that was about to come out of it, and listen. After a moment, he could hear what Marla had evidently heard with no problem—a faint sound of guitar or lute music, apparently wafting out of Walcha's Coffee Shop. At that exact moment, the door opened for a patron of the shop to exit, and the music became louder. He still couldn't tell if it was guitar or lute, but whatever it was, it was being played by someone with at least some level of skill.
"I think I hear a cup of chocolate calling my name," Franz said with a grin.
"Ditto for a cup of coffee." Marla shivered. "C'mon."
Franz opened the door and ducked through the doorway after Marla entered. Walcha's was about half-full: not unusual for early afternoon. Anna, the server, waved at them after she set an order on a table, and Georg looked over his shoulder and grinned at them as he poured water into a coffee maker.
Franz waved back, but his attention was immediately drawn to the side of the room. Marla was drifting in that direction, and he followed. They settled at a table for two near where a man's head was bent over a down-time vihuela as he played it. At least, Franz assumed it was a man; legs were clad in trousers, shoulder-length disheveled hair hung about his downturned face, and large knobby-knuckled hands stuck out beyond short cuffs and moved so smoothly as to almost be caressing the instrument. Franz didn't recognize the music, but he did recognize the talent and craft. This was no tyro. For a street musician, this was rare skill.
Marla was focused on the performer with her usual intensity, so when Anna came by, Franz just murmured, "The usual." Anna responded by mouthing "Coffee and chocolate?" That got a nod from Franz before he turned his own attention back to the music.
The music didn't sound much like a structured piece. But about the time their drinks arrived, Franz decided it wasn't just idle doodling, either. So he sat and sipped his chocolate, listening to the musician but watching his wife. Marla was leaning forward a bit in her chair, eyes focused on the player, head slightly tilted to one side. Franz recognized this; this was her "acquisitive" mode, where something attracted her attention and she studied it intensively. He'd seen it before, especially with music. And he was glad to see it now, as it was one more sign that she was getting over and moving beyond the trauma and loss of the miscarriage of their daughter Alison back in October.
The music shifted, and Franz realized that what he was hearing was an improvisation, an extended variation on a theme. His own interest rose, and he became as focused as Marla, setting his cup down and resting his arms on the table.
The player's fingers began to move faster, bringing forth ripples of melody, of moving lines and parallel sounds, of brightness, evoking images of flowing water. Fingers danced, notes followed, up and down the neck of the vihuela, until a final ripple flowed up the neck to end with a single clear high tone singing from the last plucked string.
Still almost crouched over the vihuela, the player sat motionless for a long moment, until the last resonance of that last note faded from the air. Then the tension fled his body, and he slumped to the extent that it looked for a moment as if he would slide out of the chair. But then he took a deep breath, rested the butt end of the vihuela on his left thigh, leaned the neck of it against his shoulder, and wiped his hair out of his face with his right hand. A couple of the patrons tossed coins into a hat on the table as they walked out.
Marla started clapping. The performer's head jerked around toward her, eyes widened, obviously startled, maybe even a bit alarmed. Franz felt that was a bit odd. Most performers welcomed applause. But there, the man was relaxing, so maybe it was just surprise.
Now that he had a clear look at the man, Franz found himself a bit startled. The visage facing him was heavily lined, with a network of wrinkles, for all that the hair surrounding the face was uniformly dark. This was not a young man, not by anyone's standards, which might explain the skill that had been demonstrated.
Marla stopped her applause. The player embraced his instrument and inclined head and shoulders toward her. "My thanks, Frau . . ."
"I'm Marla Linder, and this is my husband, Franz Sylwester."
Franz's mouth quirked as the player's eyes got very wide and round again. "Not . . . the Marla Linder?"
Marla's eyebrows rose, and she looked over at Franz. "Is there another Marla Linder in Magdeburg?"
Franz grinned. "I believe you're the only one, dear heart."
She looked back at the player, and Franz could hear the laughter in her voice as she said, "Well, if I'm not the Marla Linder, I'm as good as you're going to get here in Magdeburg. There doesn't seem to be another one around. And you are . . ."
Franz couldn't see how the man's eyes could have gotten any wider, but it seemed to happen nonetheless. "I . . . uh . . . my name is Karl." He swallowed. "Karl Tralles."
Anna came by, and Franz pointed to their near-empty cups and at Karl. She nodded and moved on.
"Well, Karl," Marla continued, "you play a mean guitar."
Franz had to chuckle at the expression that came on Karl's face. "She's an up-timer," he interjected. "They have some unusual figures of speech. She means you play your instrument very well. Where are you from?"
"Ha . . . Hamburg," Karl replied, still hugging his vihuela.
"Cool." Marla beamed at Karl. "I don't think we've got anyone from Hamburg in our group, do we?" She looked at Franz.
He shook his head. "A couple from Hannover, but no one from Hamburg."
Anna arrived with their drinks, which paused the conversation for a moment. Tralles started to push his cup away, but before he could say anything, Franz said, "I'm buying. Drink up." He smiled, which seemed to put the other man more at ease, as he relaxed his stranglehold on his vihuela and lifted his cup to his lips. When he lowered it, Franz almost laughed at the sight of a bit of chocolate foam on his upper lip.
After burying his laugh in his own mug of chocolate, Franz picked up the thread of conversation. "That was a nice piece you just played. Yours or someone else's?"
"Oh, I didn't write that," Karl protested. "That started as a violin solo piece by Master Johann Schop, the best composer in Hamburg." His eyebrows lowered for a moment, as if thinking, then went back to normal. "In that part of the Germanies, for that matter."
"Schop, Schop," Marla repeated. "Don't think I've heard of him. We need to see if Master Schütz knows him."
"I heard of him when I was in Mainz," Franz replied. "We never played anything by him, though."
"He does very nice work for strings," Tralles said. "Anyway, I learned the piece while I was a violinist in the city players, then started trying to adapt it for the vihuela."
"You play violin?" Marla said, then snorted. "That was silly of me. You just said you did. I think what I meant to say was, are you as good with the violin as you are with that?" She pointed at the vihuela.
"I used to be better," Tralles said. "Somewhat out of practice now. But I love the vihuela more."
"Why?" Franz asked.
"I can get more voices than I can with a violin, even with a slack bow, never mind an Italian-style bow. The most I can get on a violin is three. I can get four or more on the vihuela, so it makes more complex music, more voices, more layers and complexity." A grin appeared on his face that lit it up. "I love that."
"True," Franz said with a nod, "but if that's your desire, why not an organ, or even a clavier?"
"Or piano," Marla added.
"Hard to carry on your back," Tralles' grin reappeared.
"Also true." Franz responded in kind. "So why are you here in Magdeburg?"
Tralles grimaced. "Hamburg got a new Kappellmeister, and . . ." He said nothing more, but Franz could read the rest of the story in his face. The new music leader had booted Tralles from the band of musicians for whatever reason—maybe his age—and he was left with no place, and being a musician, doubtless had little money.
"And so you came here?" Marla asked quietly.
Tralles nodded. After a moment, he found his voice again. "And so I came to Magdeburg. After hearing the stories of the music, after hearing the Trommler record of Do You Hear the People Sing, where else would I go?" He looked at Marla. "But I didn't expect to meet you . . . or at least, not like this."
"What did you expect?" Marla grinned at him.
"To see you in palaces, in mansions, in fancy carriages driving by. Not walking the streets or sitting in . . ." He looked around. ". . . coffee shops."
Marla laughed, silver voice flashing above the background noise of mingled conversations around them. "Oh, Karl, you set too high a standard for me. I'm just another musician. I walk in the same mud and slush and snow and dirt you walk in. I eat the same food and drink the same wine as you do. I have to please patrons just like you do."
Franz's eyebrows twitched for a moment as he saw Tralles waver in his chair. It dawned on him it was quite possible that the man hadn't eaten well in a long time. He looked around, saw Anna by Georg's counter, stood and made his way there.
"You need something, Franz?" Georg asked.
"You have any soup today, and some plain bread?"
"Ja, some cabbage soup and both wheat and barley rolls."
"Three bowls of the soup, then, and three wheat rolls. Our friend hasn't eaten in a while."
"Ah. Say no more."
Franz returned to the table and listened as Marla and Tralles discussed the stringing and tuning of the vihuela. As he suspected, four courses of paired octave strings, common enough in the down-time. Luthiers had yet to standardize on the six-string guitar model, although Franz suspected that the samples of up-time instruments that came back through the Ring of Fire would speed that process up. He listened, sipping on his cooling chocolate, as they talked about that very thing. Marla's brother had played guitar, so she was more than familiar with the history of the instrument.
"You need to go to Grantville," she said, as Anna appeared with a tray, "and spend some time with Atwood Cochran. He'll show you the modern designs and teach you the techniques to play them." Anna started setting bowls of soup out and small plates with rolls. Tralles looked confused and started to push his away.
"Eat it," Franz said, picking up his spoon. "You need it."
"I can't pay for it."
"I'm buying. Eat it."
Now Tralles looked distressed. "I can't pay you back."
"You don't have to. And before you tell me that you can't take it, the up-timers have this concept called paying it forward, where if you get help from someone today but can't pay them back right away, you just give similar help to someone who needs it in the future. There were those who fed me in my poorest days. I'm paying it forward today. You'll do it for someone else before long." Marla nodded as she took her spoon in hand.
Tralles didn't look convinced but took up his spoon and began eating. It took some little while, as he spooned the soup up slowly and with care, pausing to take small bites of the roll which he chewed thoroughly. That spoke of previous experience with being undernourished. On the one hand, Franz was glad to see him not gorge himself to the point of triggering the inevitable vomiting. On the other hand, he was sorry that Tralles had had the experiences that had taught him that self-control. It was no fun to be brought to that point of hunger.
"So where are you staying tonight, Karl?" Marla asked.
He ducked his head for a moment. "They said I could sleep here tonight if I played for the patrons this evening."
"Take them up on it," Franz advised. "They're good people, and they'll let you stay a night or two. But you'll have to develop some other places to play as well."
"Try The Green Horse Tavern," Marla said. "It's just down the street here. Tell Ernst, the owner, that I sent you. He should give you at least a couple of nights to perform, and maybe let you sleep in the common room after everyone leaves at night."
Tralles nodded. "Thank you, Frau Linder."
"Call me Marla," she said with a smile. She pushed back her sleeve and looked at her watch. "We need to be someplace else."
Franz stood. "Leave word here where you will be," he said to Tralles. "We'll catch up with you."
"Good luck," Marla said. She patted Tralles on the shoulder, then led the way out. Franz lifted a hand in farewell and followed his wife. He could hear the music again as he stepped through the door.
Half a block down the street, Marla muttered, "I really don't care for cabbage soup."
Franz chuckled. "It's good for you, and it was all they had. And if we were going to get him to eat it . . ."
"We had to eat it with him. Got it." A few steps farther on, she said, "We need to keep track of Karl. I don't want to lose him. He's too good to let drift away. I want him to go to Grantville and study with Atwood like that Italian guy did. We need a really good guitarist here in Magdeburg."
"And for that matter, I want to hear what music he knows. And maybe get a connection to Master Schop. It would be good to have someone in that part of the Germanies to correspond with and send news and music both ways."
"Yep. Remind me to check with Master Heinrich to see if he's corresponded with the man. That would make it easier."
"Right. Now, we're almost late to the Academy."
"Step it up, then," she said with a grin. "You're the one doing all the talking."
And Franz found he had to step it up indeed to keep up with her as she headed toward the Royal Academy of Music.
✽✽✽
Over the next week or so, Marla shepherded Karl's career in Magdeburg, guiding him from taverns to restaurants to inns. The pinnacle of the experience was the evening she had him sit in with her friends when she sang at The Green Horse Tavern. Her friends were great to play with. They'd feed him the key for each song and let him just play chords and support the music. As the night went along, he got the feel for the music and began to elaborate more, adding obbligatos to later verses and somewhat flashy runs to choruses. He caught grins and nods from some of the other musicians, especially Franz and his close friend Isaac.
The highlight of the evening came when Marla offered Karl an opportunity to perform a song of his own. He hadn't known she was going to do that, but he was an experienced performer so he had a song tucked away in the back of his mind. Shaking his right hand to limber it up a bit, he stepped forward and, without saying a word, started playing a sprightly dance tune. It was in a triplet meter and literally seemed to bounce. He saw smiles around the room and heads bobbing and hands waving as he played it through three times, ending with a flourish after repeating the chorus.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur—song after song after song. He was caught up in the rush of the music; caught up in the heat of it, playing with fervor, smiling and laughing, shaking the sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. For a brief moment a thought crossed his mind that this was the most he had enjoyed himself in months, maybe years. Definitely since before he had left Hamburg. And everyone around him seemed to see that, as he got smile after smile from them all, especially Marla.
The evening drew to a close with a rambunctious version of Tim Finnegan's Wake, which left them all limp and laughing when it was done—all but Marla, that is. From what Karl could see, she was ready for another round. She looked around at the rest of them, though, and obviously decided to have mercy on them, for she waved her hand over her head and called out, "Good night! See you next time!"
Karl was almost panting, and it took him a long moment to get his vihuela put back in its bag. Just as he got it slung over his shoulder, Franz walked over and passed him some USE dollars folded over. "Your share."
"Thanks," Karl responded as he riffled the money with recently acquired expertise, and felt his eyebrows rise at the amount contained in the bundle.
"Ernst the owner threw in a little extra at the end of the night," Franz said with a grin. "Even with Marla leading we don't ordinarily pull in that much."
"Thanks," Karl repeated.
"You remember you're staying with us tonight?"
"Ja."
"You ready to leave?"
Karl shook his head. "I want to have a mug of beer and let my mind slow down first."
"Okay. You remember how to get there?"
"Ja."
"Don't take too long. Word is the weather is looking nasty outside."
"How can you tell?" Karl asked. "It's pitch dark out."
Franz laughed. "Some of the latest customers say they've been seeing a few snowflakes."
Karl shivered. "Right. That qualifies as nasty. I won't be long."
Franz clapped him on the shoulder, then joined Marla by the door. She waved at Karl. He waved back and watched as they left.
Karl slumped at a table and lifted a hand as a server went by. A few moments later a mug of beer landed in front of him, and he passed over a couple of pfennigs. And for the next little while, he took slow sips of the beer while he simply basked in what had happened earlier that night. It had been a long time since he had been able to play with other musicians just for the joy of it. And never had he been able to play with a group like the players who surrounded Marla Linder. He was as close to heaven in the afterglow of the night as he had ever been or likely ever would be while he walked the earth.
Karl reached the bottom of the mug at last, looked around, and realized he was one of the last three customers. Ernst was there that night behind the bar counter. He looked at Karl, didn't say anything, didn't change his expression, but Karl could tell he wasn't getting another beer that night. So he stood, waved a hand at Ernst and the two servers, and left the tavern, still feeling the warmth of the evening.
That lasted for about one breath after he closed the door behind himself. It was an early March night in one of the coldest years in recent memory, and the snow had thickened from the few desultory particles reported earlier in the evening to a steady fall of thick flakes. The street lamp not far away from the tavern's door was partially obscured. Karl shivered, pulled his collar up around his neck, stuck his hands in his pockets, and started trudging through the accumulating snow.
After some time, Karl shook off the cold and realized that nothing around him looked familiar. Somehow he must have missed the turn-off of the street that would have taken him into the Neustadt. And now that he thought about it, he kind of remembered crossing the Big Ditch, which would mean he was in the Altstadt part of Magdeburg. But where?
The snow was getting thicker. Karl turned around in a full circle. He couldn't see much at all. And he had no idea where he was. But there . . . there was a light visible through the snowfall. He headed that direction. It resolved into a torch starting to gutter beside a low door. It must be a tavern, Karl decided. He pulled the door open and ducked in.
Karl shook his head to dislodge some of the snow that had settled on his hat and hair. Afterward, he looked up to see every eye in the tavern staring at him. The warmth in those gazes was on a level with the temperature of the air outside the door.
"Um-mm," he stuttered, "I . . . I lost my way in the snow. I need to get to the Neustadt. Can anyone here help me?"
The man behind the bare board counter snorted, then growled, "Go out the door, turn left, next street go left, go to the big street before the wall. That's Gustavstrasse. Turn right. Once you're across the bridge, you're in the Neustadt."
And from what Karl remembered, that would be by the Royal Opera Hall and the Royal Academy Music. He thought he could find Franz and Marla's house from there. "Um, thanks."
The guy behind the counter turned away. Everyone else still stared at Karl, cold-eyed. He suppressed a shiver and ducked back through the door.
Once outside, he followed the directions and started slogging back the way he'd come—he hoped. The snow fall was still thick. He could make out the nearest buildings, but not much beyond that in the blurry darkness. There was the corner, so he took the turn. Karl could see his earlier footprints in the snow, so that helped him make sure he was at least retracing his steps . . . although, as thick and as rapidly as the snow was falling, he wasn't sure how long he would be able to make them out.
Karl shivered, fisting his hands inside his pockets. It was cold and felt like it was getting colder. His feet were so cold they hurt. Cold, dark, trudging through the snow, he really hoped he could find Franz and Marla's house before too long.
"Hey!"
Karl's head jerked around at the call from behind him, but he kept moving.
"Hey! Wait for me, man! I can help you." At that, Karl slowed down. A dimly seen, almost just sensed, bulk began to manifest through the snow, until a broad-shouldered man came up beside him. "I'm glad I caught up to you. I was back in the Chain . . ."
"The Chain?" Karl asked.
"The tavern back there. I was there when you came in, but you left before I could get up and speak to you." The man's voice was a nasal tenor, penetrating, that in other circumstances would have grated horribly on Karl's ear. At the moment, maybe because he was so cold, Karl didn't care. "I was ready to leave anyway, so I can help you get where you want to go, and if you want to give me the price of a mug of beer, I'd be thankful for it."
"Do you know where Frau Marla Linder and Franz Sylwester live?"
The man snorted. Karl couldn't see his face, but he had the impression that the man was grinning. "Everyone knows where Frau Marla lives. That where you need to go?"
"Yes, please. And I'll give you a beer's price when I'm there."
"Done and done," the other man said. "So, keep heading the way you were heading." They faced up the street and started walking again. After a few steps, the other man said, "You from around here?"
"No," Karl said. "I'm from Hamburg."
"Figured that," the other replied. "You don't sound like Magdeburg, and most folks here don't come to the Chain unless they have business there or they don't have any place else to go."
The other man's tone had gone flat, so Karl didn't think it was wise to say anything in response. He just kept putting one foot in front of another in the deepening snow.
"So, you're going to Frau Linder's house. You a musician, too?"
The other man's voice sounded back to normal, so Karl coughed to clear his throat, then said, "Ja."
"You been in town long?"
Karl started wondering at all the questions. Maybe the guy was just trying to be sociable, but it was starting to feel a bit odd. "Couple of weeks, maybe."
Two steps farther he felt the other man's hand on his arm. "Come on, let's go this way. It's a shortcut that will save you almost a quarter of a mile."
The sudden yank on his arm took Karl by surprise and left him so off-balance that he had no choice but to follow the other man's lead for a few steps. Once he regained his balance, he planted both feet.
"Wait a hunh . . ."
A fist like a mace buried itself in Karl's stomach, producing a sudden compression of his diaphragm which forced all the air from his lungs and left him both dizzy and nauseated. In that condition he was unable to resist the grip on his arm which slung him around in a semi-circle until his back slammed against a stone wall, punctuated by the thunk of his head making contact with that same wall. His hat provided a minimal amount of cushion for the blow before it fell off, but it still hurt.
Head spinning, groaning with pain, Karl groped for his buttons to try to free his vihuela from where he was carrying it inside his coat. Rough hands knocked his out of the way and ripped the coat open, then spun him around and yanked it off his shoulders and down his arms, leaving him exposed to the bitter cold. He heard, "Aha!" just before the bag containing his vihuela was stripped from him.
"No!" he groaned, turning and reaching for the bag.
The mace slammed into the back of Karl's skull, which propelled him face-first into the stone wall. He felt his nose break, and his teeth mangled the insides of his lips. Everything started going dark as blood began flowing from his nose and mouth, but he tried one more time to turn, only to be rammed back against the wall again. That final thump of his head against the stone finished him off. He felt one of those rough hands press against his chest to hold him up long enough for the other hand to search for pockets and pouches. His fading hearing heard the exclamation as the hands found the parcel of bills that Franz had given him. As his vision totally faded to black, he felt the hand release him, and he slid down the wall to collapse into the darkness like an abandoned marionette. He never felt the kicks that added to his body's abuse.
Karl couldn't see the other pick up his coat and the vihuela in its bag and walk away, chuckling. In moments the night was dark and quiet, the only noise the susurrus of an eastern wind, the only motion the continuing fall of fat snowflakes. After some time, the snow began to stick to Karl, and before long there was a mound covering him where he slumped against the stone wall.
✽✽✽
Pastor Gruber looked around as he trudged through the snow. The unseasonable blizzard had lasted a day and a half and had left the streets of Magdeburg, both the old city and the new, covered with snow. Even though it was the afternoon of the day after, there were only paths cleared on the main streets, mostly from horses forcing their way through the drifts and mounds. Apprentices and journeymen were out in places with shovels and boards, trying to broaden and extend the paths.
Fortunately for the pastor, the street on which St. Jacob's Church sat was one of the major streets in the Altstadt part of Old Magdeburg, so there was already a path made that ran in front of the church. He only had to break through the snowdrifts that mounded before the front of the building in order to reach the doors.
Pastor Gruber was breathing quite heavily by the time he had waded through the deep snow to set foot on the first step leading to the doors. He paused to breathe, wanting his racing heart to slow down. As he took deep steady breaths of the cold air, his attention was caught by something to the side of the church building. He considered it, then pulled his foot down and slowly made his way through the snow toward the object of his attention. Once he was near it, he stopped again to breathe.
"Dear God," he said, once his breathing had settled again, "let this not be what I fear it is."
With that, the pastor bent over and reached out a hand to touch the top of the mound of snow before him. Snow dislodged and fell away, revealing brown disheveled hair. He brushed snow away from the head and face beneath the hair, revealing a visage partially covered with frozen blood.
Pastor Gruber took off one of his mittens, leaned forward, and touched the figure's forehead. Ice cold. Dead. No question of it. He put the mitten back on, then rested a hand on top of the body's head. His lips moved soundlessly for several moments before he straightened, crossed himself, and murmured, "In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
✽✽✽
"Byron, I'm telling you that I've got a missing friend."
That voice carried down the hallway into the detectives' office. The ones who were there all looked up.
"Uh oh," Gotthilf muttered. "That's Marla Linder. If she's got a problem, she's going to be all over the lieutenant, since he's her brother-in-law."
"Right." Karl Honister spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "She's the one Byron said was made of sword steel, right."
"Ja. And every word true, from what I've seen of her."
"Marla, I can't help that." That was Byron Chieske, the lieutenant that Inspector Hoch reported to, up-timer, and until recently Hoch's senior partner as an investigator. "We've got a dozen known dead found in the last four days after the storm, and we're still finding more. Unless you want to go to the morgue and examine bodies, I don't have anything else to show you." Byron was sounding long-suffering. It also sounded like he was heading this way.
"I'm telling you he's missing, and you need to be looking for him."
Byron came through the door into the investigations office, followed by a very determined-looking Marla Linder and her husband Franz.
"Guys, listen up," Byron said. That attracted the attention of Gotthilf and the two sergeants in the room, Karl Honister and Kaspar Peltzer. "Frau Linder here has a friend that may be missing. Marla, describe him."
"Short," she began, holding a hand above the floor to mark a height that was still taller than Gotthilf. "Straight brown hair about shoulder-length, brown eyes, no obvious scars on his face, but old enough that his face is very wrinkled. From Hamburg, so he has that northwest accent. Last seen in a bluish-gray coat. He'd have a vihuela or guitar with him."
Byron looked at the detectives and raised his eyebrows. Honister and Peltzer shook their heads. Gotthilf thought for a moment, then reached over and opened a file which had been delivered from the coroner that afternoon. There was a photo on top of the papers in the file. He picked it up, looked at it for a moment, then turned it around to display to Byron and his sister-in-law.
"Is this him?"
Marla took two steps forward and bent to look at the picture. Gotthilf could see the recognition dawn in her eyes before they closed. She lowered her head, and stood in that bowed position for a long moment. Then she straightened, and when her eyes opened Gotthilf almost flinched. The steel in her almost shone from them.
"That's him," she said in a very hard tone. "That's Karl Tralles. Dead? Why didn't you know about this before now?" Her voice had a very accusatory tone as she looked at Byron.
Gotthilf put the picture down and made a note of the name. "Because the coroner hadn't made his report yet."
"Coroner?" Marla almost spun to face Gotthilf. "If he froze to death in the storm, why would the coroner be involved?"
"Because." Gotthilf picked up the report from the folder and summarized it. "It appears he was assaulted. Multiple bruises to the face and head, broken nose, probable cracked skull, at least one fractured rib, and severe contusions to the abdomen and right leg." He flipped through the rest of the report. "No coat, no vihuela." He looked up. "Apparently robbed, beaten, and left to die in the storm . . . which the storm accomplished." He put the papers back into the folder, placed the picture back on top and closed the folder. "We received the coroner's report two hours ago."
Marla's hands fisted at her sides, and her head slowly turned toward Byron.
"He was a stranger here—an unknown." Her voice shook slightly. "He had no enemies. He was a good man and a great musician. And somebody killed him for a coat and a guitar. Some scum of the earth killed him . . . for nothing. For next to nothing. I want that person found. I want him held accountable. I want him punished for taking the life of Karl Tralles."
"We'll do the best we can, Marla," Byron said in a quiet tone. "But we have nothing to go on here. The storm basically wiped out any evidence at the scene, so we really don't have anything to go on."
"You can look for his vihuela." Her voice was sharp and hot.
"Right. Look for a guitar in a city of 100,000 people, many of whom are musicians or wannabe musicians. We'll look, but unless you can identify and prove that a specific instrument was his, we're not going to have much luck."
"Byron, please!" There was raw naked pleading in Marla's voice, but still hot tones. "You can't let this go. Karl deserves to know that his killer was caught." After a moment, she repeated in a softer tone, "Please."
Byron sighed. "We'll do our best, Marla. We don't want someone like that running around free if we can help it. But we have no evidence, so even if we develop a suspect, it will be hard to bring charges. We can only do so much."
Marla gave a sharp nod, then turned and left. Franz lingered long enough to say, "I gave Karl thirty dollars after we played at The Green Horse the night the storm began. He was supposed to come to our house that night. He never made it." Then he followed Marla.
Byron looked at Gotthilf. Gotthilf looked back and said, "We'll check into it, but it's like you said . . ."
Byron nodded. "I know. But ever since Marla's baby was stillborn back in October, she's been really moody and temperamental . . . almost as bad as she was right after the Ring of Fire happened, which is pretty bad. This isn't good. So do what you can, okay?"
✽✽✽
"We're at a dead end, Marla." Byron's voice was solemn, and he had his hands clasped in front of him on his desk. "The storm basically wiped out any physical evidence we might have found otherwise. The body and the environment was covered with snow. There was no way to remove the snow without destroying any evidence that was there, and when the snow melted, it basically destroyed what hadn't been disrupted when they removed the body. We have nothing to go on from the scene."
"Well, can't you ask around?" Marla's face was grim, her voice was hard, and her posture in one of Byron's visitor's chairs was rigidly upright. Waves of wrath almost seemed to be rolling off of her. Gotthilf leaned away from where he was sitting in the other chair.
"We did," Gotthilf said. "We took his picture up and down every street and alley between The Green Horse and the riverbank. And the only thing we found was that he apparently stumbled into The Chain in the middle of the evening."
"The Chain?" Marla's control broke for a moment to show puzzlement. "What was he doing in that place?"
"The only thing we can figure is that he got turned around in the snow. It was coming down heavy enough by mid-evening that that would certainly have been possible, especially since he was new to town."
"So what did you get out of them?" Marla's hard exterior was back.
"Nothing," Gotthilf replied, fervently wishing he had something else to report. "The tavern keeper admitted that he came in for a moment, asked for directions back to the main road into the Neustadt, and then he left." He shrugged. "That's his story, and he's not wavering from it."
"What about anyone else in the bar?"
"He won't tell us who else was there. Says he doesn't remember."
"And you can't force it out of him?" Marla's tone verged on bitter.
"We know who many of the regulars are," Gotthilf concluded. "We questioned them anyway. No one admits to seeing him. They all claim they were home the night of the storm. After we sent a squad into the tavern to break up that big fight a few months ago where a couple of people got killed, they won't talk to us about anything. Not even things that would help them."
"Somebody's lying. You need to come down hard on them."
Byron sighed. "Marla, we're the good guys. We have to operate within the law. The third degree isn't an option here and now."
"Well, maybe it ought to be," she muttered.
"Marla." Byron didn't say anything else, but his voice was very cold. Gotthilf had only heard that tone from his former partner once before, really early in their partnership. He was not glad to be hearing it now, although he understood why. Hopefully it wouldn't need to be repeated any time soon.
"Sorry," Marla said quietly after a moment. Her tone, while still angry, did express some regret. Her body, however, showed no flexing, no bending, only rigid uprightness.
"We have no witnesses and no evidence other than a snow- and water-soaked frozen body," Gotthilf said with care. "We have nothing to go on. It will take a miracle to give us a suspect. And God hasn't delivered many of those lately. We've got two dozen unsolved anonymous suspicious death case files on my desk right now. I hate to say it, but this looks to be just one more in that growing list."
Marla stood suddenly. "Keep looking." Her voice rivaled the blizzard for coldness. "There's got to be something out there." She swept out the door, with Franz right behind her.
Byron and Gotthilf looked at each other. Byron shook his head. "That was as bad as anything I saw after the Ring of Fire fell."
"Ja," Gotthilf said. "After that, I'm worried she may do something."
"What could she do if we can't find anything?"
"She knows Achterhof."
The two men stared at each other with glances that bordered on horrified.
"Crap," Byron said after that sank in.
"Indeed."
✽✽✽
The door into The Green Horse Tavern opened. Gunther Achterhof looked up as Marla Linder entered, shadowed as usual by her husband Franz. He straightened as she stalked over to the table where he sat with some of the local leaders of the Committees of Correspondence.
"We need to talk," she said in a tight voice.
✽✽✽
Wilhelm Schneider looked up at the sound of the bell on his door ringing. Two people entered his shop. His face tightened at the sight of the second man—Gunther Achterhof. That meant the other man was probably also one of the CoC. They lined up at the counter. Gunther looked at his man, who pointed at a vihuela hanging on the wall behind the counter.
"That one. That's new."
Gunther looked at Wilhelm and raised his eyebrows. Wilhelm took a deep breath, but said nothing as he lifted the instrument from the hook it hung from and passed it to Gunther.
He lifted it in both hands, looking at it carefully, turning it to and through the light and examining it with care. He paused for a moment and fixed Schneider with a stare. "You oiled a varnished instrument?"
"Ja," Wilhelm replied. "It was dirty, so I cleaned it and oiled it to make it shine."
"Idiot," Gunther muttered, and returned to his examination.
Wilhelm schooled his expression to blandness, and folded his hands together behind his back. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he had a feeling he wouldn't like it.
Gunther set the vihuela on the counter, pulled a device from his pocket, and started squeezing a handle. Bright light shone from one end. Wilhelm swallowed. That had to be an up-time flashlight, which were incredibly rare and impossible to acquire. That meant Gunther was playing with the up-timers, which meant Wilhelm was now playing in a game that was well above his usual level. He swallowed again.
Gunther shone the light into the sound openings of the instrument and moved it around. After a moment, he stopped motionless, then with deliberation turned the flashlight off and returned it to his pocket. The gaze he directed to Wilhelm should by rights have turned him to stone.
"There's a label from a Hamburg luthier glued to the back," Gunther said to his man. "You're sure this is a new item in here?"
"Ja. Wasn't here last week," the nameless CoC man said. "You can tell, there's no dust on it."
Gunther looked at the vihuela, ran a finger along the top edge, and displayed the clean digit to Wilhelm. "You see, Master Schneider, I have reason to suspect that this vihuela was stolen from a friend of Frau Marla Linder's, one Master Karl Tralles, from Hamburg."
There was a sardonic grin on Gunther's face as he made that statement, and Wilhelm's heart sank even lower. Oh, God—Frau Linder had access to the Emperor. If she had cause against him, he needed to start running a week ago. He mustered his nerve and retorted with, "I have no knowledge of that, and unless you have proof, you should be careful making such allegations."
"Of course you are totally innocent, Master Schneider. No one would suspect you of receiving stolen property." Gunther's voice dripped sarcasm, but Wilhelm said nothing. He had learned long ago that the less he said to anyone, the more trouble he stayed out of. But he was also sure there was more to come. He was right.
"What you don't know, Master Schneider," Gunther's voice switched to a cold hard tone, "was that the theft was accomplished by the murder of the friend in question."
That jolted Wilhelm, and his eyes widened despite himself. "I know nothing of that!"
"I believe you," Gunther said, still in that hard tone, "because I know you don't have the courage to take the risks involved in fencing property associated with a murder. I absolutely believe that whoever you bought the vihuela from didn't reveal that to you. It is, nonetheless, true."
Gunther's hard eyes still speared Wilhelm. "What did you pay for this instrument, Master Schneider?"
"Eight guilders," Wilhelm replied, his mouth moving before his brain could catch up with it.
Gunther turned the instrument over to reveal the scrap of cheap paper glued to the back of the instrument with a number written on it. "Yet you are only asking ten guilders for it. So based on your usual practices, that means you really only paid maybe five guilders for it, maybe as little as four. Right?"
"Five," Wilhelm snarled. Gunther had him caught. His business methods were well-known. "And not a pfennig less."
Gunther looked at Wilhelm without expression for a long moment. When he spoke, his tone was level. "I will give you six guilders to redeem this instrument: five to recoup your investment, and one to give you enough of a profit to make the deal fair and remove any possible cause of action later."
Wilhelm's mouth twisted, but he gave a short nod of his head. Gustav's companion stepped up to the counter, pulled several coins out of a pocket, and counted out six guilders onto the countertop. When the sixth hit the wood, Wilhelm scooped them up and pushed the vihuela toward Gunther. He started to turn away but stopped as Gunther laid a hand on his arm.
"A receipt, if you please." Gunther's focus returned to Wilhelm. "Marked paid in full."
Caught in that gaze, Wilhelm had no choice. He pulled out a piece of paper, opened an inkwell, dipped a pen, wrote out a receipt, and signed it. Gunther examined it, then tucked it into a pocket. "Something to take this label off?" He pointed at the paper.
Wilhelm rummaged around, found a rag that he dipped into a nearby bucket and wrung out before rubbing the paper with the wetness of it. The cheap paper immediately crumbled upon being soaked and then rubbed by his calloused fingertips. He finished with a wipe of his sleeve and handed it back to Gunther.
"Give me that rag." Gunther proceeded to wipe the vihuela down all over. "Too much oil. Shouldn't have been oiled at all. Idiot."
He shoved the rag back at Wilhelm, and the two of them left the shop with no further words. Wilhelm dropped the rag in the bucket, sat down, and put his head in his hands. He needed beer.
✽✽✽
"Where did you get this?" Marla asked, eyes gleaming with unshed tears as she turned the vihuela in her hands.
"Is that your friend's instrument?" Gunther's voice was calm. He wanted this to be a low-key discussion, although he wasn't certain that would be possible.
"I think so," Marla said. She looked over at Franz, who nodded. "It looks like it." She plucked a string and winced at the tuning, but continued with, "Sounds like it." Her gaze returned to Gunther. "Where did you get this?"
"I'm not going to tell you." Still in the calm tone.
Marla's gaze darkened, and she lowered her eyebrows in a harsh frown. "Why not?
"Because you don't need to know. Because the person we got this from could not have been the person who assaulted your friend. He is totally incapable of doing that."
"But if he had this, he must know who did it." Marla's tone was harsh and cold. "Tell the police. Take this to Byron—they can check it for fingerprints."
"It won't do any good, Marla," Gunther said. "The guy wiped it down with oil to clean it and make it shine. The only fingerprints will be his and mine. And this guy will never admit anything to anyone. We were lucky that someone noticed this." He reached out to touch the vihuela.
"I want the killer," Marla snarled. "I want him to pay for what he did to Karl."
"Marla, leave it to the police." Gunther made a calming gesture.
"No! If they can't find him, I want you to find him! I want him to pay for what he did!" She sat back in her seat, breathing heavily.
"Marla, leave it to the police," Gunther tried again.
"No!" She leaned forward, eyes narrowed, and slammed a fist down on the table between them. "No! If they can't do it, if you can't do it, I'll do it!"
Gunther felt his mouth twitch and took a deep breath. He really had hoped it wouldn't come to this.
"Marla, you don't want to do that." She opened her mouth, but before words came out he pointed a finger at her and barked in his commander's voice, "Listen to me!" Her eyes got round, she paled, her mouth closed, and she sat back in her chair again.
"You will listen to me now," Gunther continued. "I promised you and Franz three years ago that I would protect you to the best of my ability. And I've kept that promise. But I never expected that I would have to protect you from yourself."
Marla blinked, and she still looked angry, but a look of confusion was slowly forcing the anger down.
"You don't want justice," Gunther said in a slightly less intense tone. "You want revenge. And I understand that. Trust me, if anyone in Magdeburg can understand that, it's me." He jerked a thumb into his chest as he said that.
Gunther watched as the thoughts of his reputation crossed her mind, as she lifted her head and took a deep breath of her own. Before she could muster words, he continued with, "I don't think you could find and identify the man who killed Herr Tralles. But even the hunt would be bad. Marla, that kind of anger, that kind of rage and implacability, will poison you. It will change you in ways you don't even realize. It will change the way you relate to people. It can't help but do that, because you will become harder and darker." His thumb hit his chest again. His own mood was growing darker and his tone was hard, as the conversation was taking him back into his own memory.
He leaned forward and tapped the tabletop with a calloused finger. "It will change the way you relate to your friends." Tap. "It will change the way you relate to your students." Tap. "It will change the way you relate to Franz." Tap. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Franz was sitting very still.
"It will change the way you relate to your children." Tap-tap. Marla jerked at that one, and shook her head hard. The reference to children got through a major chink in her armor from the death of her child. "Yes, it will. I know." God, did he know.
Tap . . . tap . . . tap.
"And perhaps worst of all, it will change the music. You won't be able to find the joy in it anymore."
Tap.
There was a moment of silence as that most telling of points was made.
"So tell me, Marla, is it worth that price? Is it worth destroying everything you have?"
Her face was stricken. One lone tear edged out from her right eye, and slowly rolled down her cheek. Franz stood and stepped behind her, bending to wrap his arms around her and place his head next to hers. "He's right, Marla," he murmured. "He's right. Please don't go there."
"'How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it . . .' " Gunther quoted. It surprised a short laugh out of Marla.
"Moby Dick?" she said. She wiped her face with both hands. "Really?"
Gunther shrugged. "It's better than Atlas Shrugged."
"Oh, God," Marla replied with a pained expression. "Reading the dictionary would be better than Atlas Shrugged." She reached a hand up to palm Franz's cheek for a moment as the other grasped the arms that encircled her, then joined them before her on the table.
"Now I want to be mad at you," she looked at Gunther from under lowered eyebrows. "I was really working myself up to be a nemesis. I really wanted to be that. But you had to go and talk to me about the cost, didn't you?" She took a deep breath. "So now I can't go there."
"No, you can't," Franz said. He had straightened, and his hands rested on her shoulders. "You can't trade yourself for destruction, not of yourself, not of someone else."
"I'm surrounded by wisdom here." Marla's mouth quirked. "So if I can't hunt this guy down and skin him for my new boots, what do I do? Hmm?"
"Embrace the grief, cherish the memories of your friend, and move on." Gunther's voice was quiet, giving her the advice that some days he wished he had been given years ago. "Be yourself. You have some experience with that, I think."
Tears glistened in Marla's eyes again. She wiped at them again, and looked up. "Yes . . . yes, I do. I got through that. I'll get through this. But damn, it hurts." That last was almost whispered, and she looked down at where her hands were clasped together again, white-knuckled.
Gunther leaned forward and placed his hand on top of hers. "Yes, it does. But you'll get through it." And his voice was rock solid certain.
After a moment, he stood and gestured to his companion who had stood all this time against the wall. "I've got to be someplace else in a few minutes. Let the boys know if you need to talk to me again."
Franz looked at him over Marla's head and mouthed, "Thanks."
✽✽✽
There was silence in the room after Gunther closed the door. Marla considered her hands, feeling the tension and pressure as they clung to each other as if they had lives of their own. Finally she made them release and unwind from their intertwined position. She took a deep breath, placed her hands on the table, and pushed herself to her feet.
"Are you all right?" Franz murmured from behind her. Marla said nothing, simply stepped to the corner cabinet and lifted the decanter to pour herself a glass of wine. She took a sip, then turned to face him, holding the glass in both hands.
"No, but I will be. It will take some time, though."
Marla drained the glass and set it back on the cabinet tray, then crossed to stand before her husband. Reaching out, she took his crippled left hand in both hers. She traced the lines of his frozen fingers, gentlest of touches.
"I feel like this looks inside right now," she said quietly. "First Alison, now Karl. It hurts, Franz." The tears began to drip from her face to his hand. "It hurts so much." She rubbed the tears with her fingertips like lotion, then just held the palm of his hand against her face. "It hurts," she whispered.
Franz said nothing, simply opened his arms to gather her in. Turning, Marla snuggled into his chest and brought his left hand up to cup her right cheek. She stood in the shelter of his strength as she released her grief and wept.
✽✽✽
A few minutes later, Gunther's companion said, "So, are we done with this then? Not going to follow it up?"
"No."
✽✽✽
Wilhelm Schneider stiffened in dismay when the shop door opened and Gunther Achterhof and his man came in. "What do you want now?" he snarled. "Haven't you done enough harm?"
"Simple," the CoC leader said. "I want the name of the man you bought that vihuela from."
"No," Wilhelm bit off. "You know I can't do that, Achterhof. My clients rely on me keeping their identities secret."
"Now what we have here," Gunther mused, "is what the up-timers would call a failure to communicate. Let me be perfectly clear, Schneider. I don't care about what you normally do, and I don't care a donkey's fig about your clients and their wishes and identities, secret or not. But this man killed one of Frau Marla's friends by beating him up and leaving him to freeze to death in the blizzard."
Wilhelm swallowed at that.
"You can tell me what I want to know this one time, Schneider, or I will park Heinz here," he jerked his thumb at his companion, "and his brother Fritz outside the door to your shop, where they will explain to all who pass by that your shop no longer has the confidence of the Committees of Correspondence and that we do not recommend patronizing you."
Gunther said nothing more. He didn't have to. Wilhelm could see that this would destroy him in a very short period of time.
"That's . . . that's uncalled for. It's illegal. It's immoral. It's . . ."
Gunther held up a hand, and Wilhelm sputtered to a halt. "Spare me the irony of you protesting legality and morality, Schneider. It is almost enough to make me laugh. Regardless, it will happen if you don't give me what I want. And don't think to protest to the Polizei. We are acquainted, and instead of defending you, they are much more likely to wonder what we know and begin investigating you . . . in depth."
And that, Wilhelm knew, was nothing less than utter truth. And that would also ruin him. He slumped and put his head in his hands. "What do you want?"
"The name, Schneider. Give me the name, and we are gone as if we had never been."
Wilhelm didn't raise his head. "Make him go away." He watched out of the corner of his eye as Gunther jerked his thumb at the door, and Heinz left.
"The name." Gunther's voice was colder than it had yet been.
Wilhelm straightened. "Matthias Ackermann," he whispered. "And if you tell the Polizei, or anyone, I'll deny it."
"Matthias Ackermann," the CoC leader repeated.
Wilhelm nodded. In response, Achterhof turned and left the shop without another word.
Wilhelm placed his head back in his hands. His head hurt. He needed beer. He needed a lot of beer.
✽✽✽
"So are we done now? Are you giving up?" Heinz sounded a bit disbelieving.
Gunther snorted as they rounded the corner headed for the Magdeburg Golden Arches. "Of course not."
"But didn't you tell Frau Marla to leave it to the police?"
"Yes, because she should."
"And haven't you been telling us to let the police be the police?"
"Yes." Gunther stopped, and motioned Heinz and Fritz closer. "But there are two additional considerations here. First," he held up an index finger, "the Polizei won't be able to solve this without cracking either Schneider or Ackermann. Schneider will never talk, because he'd be a dead man if he did. Ackermann is just smart enough to keep his mouth shut. So they'll never be able to map that situation out."
The name of Matthias Ackermann hadn't surprised Gunther when he heard it. He was a reputed bully and strong-arm type in the city, who was known to have spent much time in The Chain. The CoC were aware of Ackermann. He wasn't from Magdeburg originally, although his accent wasn't far different from the regional norm. He was one of the earliest folks who had come to Magdeburg after the emperor had named it the new capital.
Ackermann had almost received a visit from CoC men at least once in those earlier days due to his bullying of children and women. He was smart enough, though, to first figure out that there was a line, and second figure out where that line was and to not quite cross it. He had, however, been observed frequently dancing along the edge of it. So yes, the CoC were very aware of Ackermann.
For the reasons he had given them, Gunther was going to keep this matter contained within the very small circle of himself and the two brothers. No one else was to know of it.
"What's the second thing?" Fritz growled.
Gunther held up the middle finger alongside the index finger. "I'm taking this personally. I promised Frau Marla and Franz years ago that we would protect them and theirs, and we should have protected Tralles. We didn't, and that's our fault. If I thought the Polizei had a good chance to bring Ackermann in, I'd let it go. But they won't be able to do it playing by their rules. So this once, this once we will play by the old rules."
✽✽✽
And so Gunther found himself in a boat on the Elbe River in the middle of the night with Heinz and Fritz Beierschmitt, two of his hardest CoC hands, men who had seen and done everything to survive in the years that had passed. They were also the only other men beside himself who knew of the connection of Ackermann to Tralles.
The boat neared the middle of the stream, and Gunther's musings stopped. "Okay, stop," he whispered. Sound carried extremely well over the water, and even in the middle of the night they didn't want to be heard.
The moon hadn't risen yet, so it was dark where they were. "Pull the oars in," was his next order. The two men on the thwarts ahead of him pulled their oars out of the locks and laid them inside the western gunwale of the boat. "Okay, move him. Carefully," he stressed, still in a whisper. "We don't want a huge splash."
Heinz and Fritz bent and pulled and rolled the unconscious Ackermann up to the gunwale of the boat. Moving the limp weight took some doing. Gunther leaned to the west to try to balance the load as they rolled him over the east side gunwale as gently as they could. There was an inevitable splash as his bulk hit the water. They all froze for a long moment, but there was no call from the bridge behind them or the banks on either side. After a long held breath, Gunther whispered, "Right. Back to shore."
As the brothers pulled the oars to turn the boat and return to the western bank, Gunther contemplated what they had just done.
Fritz had actually known Ackermann, at least enough to use his first name, so he was able to encounter Ackermann one night and get him good and drunk, and had gotten enough out of him to pretty much establish that he had beaten Tralles the night of the storm and stolen the vihuela. They had no factual evidence, only word of mouth, but Gunther was at that point absolutely certain that Ackermann had told the truth in his cups.
In the end, Gunther had decided on a case of biblical-level justice, and knowing what they knew, Heinz and Fritz were in agreement. They also understood the need to keep it quiet.
The three of them had taken Ackermann tonight. It was a few days after the evening carouse. There was no connection with Fritz or the rest of them. There were no witnesses. They just applied a sock full of sand to the back of his head as he headed down an alley and then carried him away like he was a drunken friend.
They had taken him to one of the nooks in the northeast corner of the Altstadt, the poorest part of Old Magdeburg. He roused once they doused him with cold water, then they had beaten him, much as he had beaten Tralles into insensibility. Shouts and sounds of fights were not uncommon in that part of Magdeburg, and the Polizei patrollers moved with care in that district, especially at night. With three of them, it didn't take long, and they were gone with the evidence before anyone came to investigate.
Which brought them to the river. They didn't have a blizzard available to balance the conditions when Tralles had been assaulted, but they did have the Elbe River, which at the moment was almost liquid ice. So they had just left the unconscious Ackermann to the mercies of the frigid river, much as he had left the unconscious Tralles to the mercies of the freezing storm. Ackermann had been shown equal mercy to what he had shown his victim and was now in the hands of God, or of fate, whichever you wanted to believe in. He could survive. It was about as likely as Tralles surviving in the storm, but it was possible. Gunther was at peace with that.
The body of a badly-beaten man in rough clothing might be found floating in the Elbe from any point from the Navy yards to hundreds of miles downstream. By the time he was found he would hopefully be unrecognizable. But even if someone downstream could identify him as one Matthias Ackermann, late of Magdeburg, what would they connect him to, and why? The odds were great that it would simply be assumed that this was another result of another argument among the growing underworld in Magdeburg. And ironically, Ackermann was exactly the kind of man who would likely have ended up that way anyway. This happened almost once a week, and most of the case folders about such in the Polizei file cabinets were marked closed but not solved. No reason why this wouldn't be treated as another, as long as the three of them never brought it up.
Which they wouldn't.
"Easy, lads," he whispered. "There's the wharf."