Chapter 8
February 7, 2024 at 8:49 PM
Adler was sitting in his uniform at the desk in Wieland’s office where they all gathered. The dark maroon curtains were drawn tightly. The night was not energising, but the thoughts and memories that came to mind kept him awake. Adler opened a thick file with a case he had been working on for about six months with his assistant. The case had seemed simple and straightforward at first glance, but he had no idea that it would be so connected with Ingrid’s death.
He opened a file and refreshed his memory of the events of that time. Wieland and Ehrman waited for the details. They had plenty of time: almost the entire night was theirs. The man squirmed in his chair, folded his hands in a lock, leaning on them, and spoke in a quiet voice:
“So, where do we start? Firstly, when we arrived to the crime scene, it was a very hot summer day. We were informed that we would be working on the case because nobody wanted to take it: neither the Gestapo nor the police. Actually, I was not happy about it, because I don’t like dumped cases that much. However, there was nothing to do, so we went to the crime scene together with my assistant. It turned out to be a half-abandoned neighbourhood in the outermost quarter of the city, where criminals lived,” Adler, as if in reality, now remembered the dusty roads, a bunch of beggars, dilapidated houses and tons of rubbish. He remembered, as he had then, the horror of the people turning towards him. They were looking at his uniform, not at Adler himself. It was the cap with a skull that instilled fear in them, not him himself. His assistant disliked such places as much as Adler did, but there was nothing to be done about it. To refuse a case was to sign papers for a retroactive dismissal. The sun was very strong and right on the horizon.
“Were you called there?” wondered Wieland, bringing Adler back to the present.
“Yes, it surprised me at first, too. They don’t usually call the SS there, but I thought that maybe what they stole was important to some German industrialist, that’s why they made such a fuss. However, we arrived and found just a little: there was hardly any evidence. The whole shop window was empty, but there were no splinters, no looting,” Adler showed the crime scene photos and drew Ehrman’s and Wieland’s attention to the details.
“Wait, if I understand correctly, there was no glass, was there? Was it confiscated?”, Ehrman interjected for a clearer understanding of the picture. Adler nodded in agreement.
“There was no glass at all, not a speck of it, which surprised us very much. Then, when we went into the shop itself, there wasn’t even any forced entry visible. I got the impression that the thief was close to the owner. He just took the keys, took what he needed from the shop and left. The door was not broken in, it was also locked from the outside,” Adler pulled out reports, documents and photos.
“How was the theft discovered and, in fact, who exactly discovered it?”, Wieland stretched his stiff shoulders and back. The warmth of the office made him drowsy, but he told himself that he would go home and get a good night’s sleep, but for now he had to stay focused.
“It was discovered by the shopkeeper who had by then gone downstairs to the ground floor. He lived on the first floor.”
“What happened next? You interviewed the witnesses, there should have been some,” Ehrman leaned his elbow on the table, half-listening.
“No, we haven’t done it, what’s the point?”, spreading his hands and relaxing, mumbled Adler.
“Well, yeah, you’re right. If the neighbourhood really belonged to the criminals, they’d be unlikely to sell them out. Or they would mislead you. What happened next?”, Wieland fell silent.
“My assistant insisted that the diamonds and jewellery were most likely stolen by those living there. However, I sent an enquiry to an acquaintance of mine who worked in imperial security and received a reply. The jewellery I asked about had a really complicated history. They were brought to Germany by a Hindu man after the First World War. After his death his wife sold off the gold and jewellery wherever she could. The jewellery was first sold to a rich man in Austria, then after his death it was distributed to shops, but it was also brought into the country illegally, it had been stolen. Then I had a thought: could they have been stolen not for the jewellery themselves, but for the stones, which were very valuable? So I sent a request to all jewellery shops asking if they had received any stones for appraisal, as it happens when jewellery is pawned. The reply came back from Munich that the stones were fake,” Adler finished his thought and was about to continue, but Ehrman interrupted him.
“And you get it right away,” Ehrman picked up on his thought.
“Exactly. The stones were switched for fake ones because the shop refused to accept them. I understand who stole them. Most likely it was those people who once owned them. I checked up the records and found out that one of the criminals living in that neighbourhood was the nephew of that Hindu.”
“They didn’t share the inheritance with the woman,” Wieland continued his thought, then everything fell into place.
“Since he hadn’t got his share, which belonged to him by the right of inheritance, he decided to steal it, that’s why he went to prison. When he got out, he tried again. By that moment the jewellery was in the shop. He probably decided to return it. We went to the crime scene, searched the neighbourhood and found the stones in a dirty place. However, there was only half of them. No matter how hard we looked for them, nobody knew anything about the two missing rings or the stones. After questioning in the cellars, the rest came out on its own. The rest was clear. The stones had been stolen by figureheads. On top of that they cut the glass in several places and removed it. They had a cast of the key and took the jewellery from the display case and from the shelves.
“Now it’s clear,” concluded Wieland, “the instigator was someone else. But what good would it do him? That’s the main question. Let’s suppose he had promised a share to the Hindu. And then, I suppose, he ended up dead, right?”, Adler nodded and leaned back in his chair.
“Most likely he co-operated with them and decided to take a little on his own,” muttered Ehrman.
“Then what does it have to do with Wilhelm?” Ehrman lighted a cigarette, stood up and opened the small window, letting the air in.
“He was a carrier, working for someone else,” Wieland shivered from the cold. Ehrman, noticing it, threw away his unfinished cigarette and closed the window, taking a couple of puffs.
“No…”, paused Adler. Wieland and Ehrman immediately paid their attention to it. “He was the instigator.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what. He’s a smuggler. He’s probably very familiar with the black market and its rules. Wilhelm wanted to build himself a house. I wondered where he’d get the money for it. Of course, he stole the diamonds: he couldn’t release the half of them and took the rest to Austria or Norway. With his friend and another person. Ingrid might have found out about it or found out where she got the ring from.”
“Yeah, remember when you were talking to Wilhelm, you told how they didn’t get along with the father. Most likely Ingrid found out where the ring came from or about Wilhelm’s business, they had a fight and he killed her. It all makes sense now.”
“But why is there so little blood on the carpet?”, Ehrman asked a perfectly logical question that could not be answered.
“Maybe because she was killed at another place, so the blood stayed there,” Wieland suddenly realised how Ingrid had been killed. The picture of the flat and what had happened to her at that time was quite clear to him.
“What do you mean under “at another place”?”
“That’s what it means. Tea. Ingrid doesn’t drink green tea. Ehrman, was there anything in the tea?”
“Let me see,” the man opened a folder from his briefcase. He looked at the sheet, running his eyes over the lines. “Yes, there was. A plant poison was found there in small quantities.”
“And her brother is a chemist. He could have put something in the tea,” Adler recalled his interrogation. They had not touched the subject. He should have pushed him then.
“Most likely it’s because she was killed by poison, the blood on the carpet was the result of Ingrid being poisoned. He stabbed her in the stomach afterwards, trying to figure out how to act to throw us off.”
“But then the question is still open. Where did he put Ingrid’s car? It wasn’t seen at the funeral today or anywhen else.”
“Maybe he drowned it,” — Adler thought of the first possibility.
“Maybe. Or maybe he resold it,” Wieland shouted.
“On such short notice?”
“Why not? It’s difficult for an ordinary person, but for a smuggler who has a lot of connections, it’s easy to do. Besides, now there’s a question of whether he’s still in the country.”
“Do you think that when he found out we were in contact with his friend, he ran away from the funeral?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Adler stretched sweetly.
“One thing is clear, we need to go to his estate. Not to his father’s, but to his own place,” Wieland got up and made a phone call, trying to request the address of Wilhelm’s estate.
“I’ll go,” Ehrman replied.
“I’ll go with you. There’s no telling what you might find there,” Adler responded.
Wieland informed them that the house was in the southwest suburbs of Berlin, twenty kilometres away. Ehrman and Adler scrambled off, in motion getting papers to search the house and to charge Wilhelm Fuchsmann.
