Straight into Darkness Read online

  Copyright © 2005 by Faye Kellerman

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: August 2005

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-1413-3

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Munich, 1929

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Epilogue

  ALSO BY FAYE KELLERMAN

  The Ritual Bath

  Sacred and Profane

  The Quality of Mercy

  Milk and Honey

  Day of Atonement

  False Prophet

  Grievous Sin

  Sanctuary

  Justice

  Prayers for the Dead

  Serpent’s Tooth

  Moon Music

  Jupiter’s Bones

  Stalker

  The Forgotten

  Stone Kiss

  Street Dreams

  Double Homicide (with Jonathan Kellerman)

  For Tech Sergeant David Kellerman of blessed memory—my dear father-in-law.

  For Corporal Oscar Marder of blessed memory—my treasured father whose life and stories live inside of me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Straight into Darkness, like many historical novels, posed inherent problems that at times seemed daunting and insurmountable. Thankfully for me, many people volunteered their time and expertise, and I remain indebted to them for their services. I took creative liberties in writing the story, so any inaccuracies are solely my invention, certainly not the fault of anyone listed below. I hope that by mentioning their names, I don’t cause them undue embarrassment.

  To the following people, I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Robert Hultner is a distinguished crime writer in Germany. The information he imparted to me about Germany between the wars was invaluable. I still remember the reading of his book that took place at a German beer hall complete with orchestra and actors. It wasn’t just a reading, it was drama!

  Heinz Prinz, Erster Hauptkommissar of the Munich police, is now retired. He authored an enormous history of the Munich Police Department that was a major source of information for me. Over coffee at a crime festival in Munich, he offered me many unique insights and perspective into the workings of the police department.

  Dr. Barbara Distel—Leiterin der Gedenkstätte Dachau—is the director of the Dachau memorial. There is a Jewish saying that the world is based on righteous Gentiles. Certainly this is Barbara, a tireless worker in a thankless job. She didn’t set off to become a hero, but that’s what she is.

  Rudolf Herfurtner is an award-winning writer of children’s books in Germany. Generous with his time and knowledge of Bavarian history, he carted me all over the countryside as I took copious notes. He gave me a glimpse into the intricacies of Bavarian life, everything from rococo architecture to farm equipment.

  Chaim Frank gave me a detailed tour and history of Jewish life in Munich. For years he has worked tirelessly to keep a Jewish presence in a land that tried so hard to eradicate it.

  Ellen Presser is director of the Jewish Cultural Center of Munich. Her warmth and hospitality made my stay in Munich special. The synagogue was my home away from home, something that was emotional and familiar, something I could reach out and touch.

  Deanna Frankel is a dear friend. I thank her for the Russian lesson.

  Agnes Krup went way beyond the job description by agreeing to read my novel for correct German names and grammar not just once but twice. Many many thanks.

  How many Germans who were alive during the Holocaust would dare to speak to a Jewish woman who identifies herself as such? There were two of them who did.

  Maxi Besold died in 2004, but I distinctly remember her describing the tears running down her mother’s face while listening to the radio reporting the election results in 1933. Meeting her was an enriching journey into a past that is being increasingly relegated to pages in a history book.

  Franz Geiger is an author, playwright, and literary translator. Now in his eighties, he was a member of the World War II resistance group the White Rose. I was in awe of his memory as well as his energy. His help was invaluable, especially his descriptions of the Munich he recalled as a young boy. His hospitality and his tour of Bogenhausen added immensely to the richness of my understanding of the times.

  Ulrich Moritz and Sabine Deitmer turned my working stay in Dortmund into something warm and wonderful, from the strictly kosher lunch to the stories of their new Israeli family.

  Dr. Andreas Heusler, senior scholar in contemporary and Jewish history, is one of Munich’s premier archivists, and I say without hesitation that I could not have written this book without his help. Dr. Heusler was a font of esoteric information: maps, streetcar lines, gas lines, the police station, the electricity lines, and phone directories. During the past two years, he has made himself available to me in person as well as by e-mail, answering my persistent nagging questions with accuracy and good humor.

  My utmost thanks belong to one fabulous individual. Dr. Regula Venske is a scholar, crime writer, award-winning children’s author, and, most important, a wonderful friend. From the beginning, she has been my eyes and ears in Germany. Fluent in English with a beautiful speaking voice, she has been my voice in Germany since we first appeared together to do readings five years ago. During my subsequent visits, it was Regula who arranged for me to meet all my sources and contacts for Straight into Darkness, schlepping me back and forth, translating written material as well as conversation. Once in Germany, she basically took charge of my life, from scheduling events to finding Orthodox synagogues and kosher food. She was meticulous in every way and flawless in the execution of details. Over the past years, I have pestered her with countless questions and she has always been so gracious in indulging me, giving me stories and anecdotes, enriching my knowledge of Germany as well as my life.

  And of course, my final thanks go to the one person who has been my truest and most constant source of support, not only through this project, but also through my entire life. Jonathan Kellerman is not only an award-winning author extraordinaire, but a supreme gentleman and the best husband and boyfriend a woman could ever want. Thanks for the last thirty-four years, babe. And like t
hey say: to a hundred and twenty.

  PROLOGUE

  New York, 2005

  I paint because I am still able to do so. Stiff and knobby, my fingers can bend just enough to grasp a brush and dip the boar bristles into puddles of reds: crimson, ruby, garnet, cinnabar, rose, rust, magenta, vermilion, Venetian—the list seems endless—turning my wooden palette into the full tonal spectrum. I am known as the painter of red because that is how I see the world.

  Back in 1980, at the opening of one of my many New York art shows, I was asked by a waif of a child what exactly did I mean painting in all those reds. Her expression was very earnest, and I noticed her face was very pretty. Midnight eyes were hooded by long lashes, and an alabaster complexion was surrounded by chin-length, straight black hair. Her lips had been painted bright red, and I flatter myself that she did so to honor me. She must have been in her early twenties, wearing a clingy black dress with spaghetti straps that crisscrossed over a smooth, creamy back. A lovely back to complement a lovely front: full breasts that spilled out of a plunging neckline. She could have stepped out from a page of my history: I saw her as a sultry hostess in a 1920s Berlin Kabarett.

  Immediately, I wanted to take her to a room and liberate one of those luscious tits, sucking on it for hours. I even thought about making love to her. Back then, it would have been possible—not easy, but possible. Now, at my advanced age, even with the advent of the little blue pills, some things are better left in the perfect world of imagination.

  What exactly did I mean by painting in all those reds?

  Many critics have pondered and analyzed my art. The consensus is that given my background—growing up in a city consumed by horrible events, disarray, and death—how could I not express my soul in the color of blood? Then there are some who liken my reds to Picasso’s blues, a different interpretation if you will. No matter that the master was years older than I and had painted his teals and slates while I was still in diapers. Why let logic interfere with facile thinking? Finally, there are the mavericks who say that I paint in red because red is the color of shame.

  The last point is well taken.

  When one is embarrassed, one turns red. The greater the embarrassment, the deeper the infusion of color. It is the shame of my generation, of a people who accepted genocide as the most expedient way to restore the Fatherland to purity and greatness. I paint in red because the children of my homeland, the children of my generation, must carry the burden of shame and guilt for their elders’ unspeakable acts. This is the real German shame.

  Ah, but this is not the German shame I remember. The German shame of my childhood was the shame of having to endure the injustices heaped on us good Volk by the November Criminals and the hated Versailles Treaty. The degradation of being bullied by the leaders of the Weimar Republic, those good-for-nothing Prussians who looked down their noses at Bavaria and all of Süddeutschland.

  I must explain.

  It is simple. Germany didn’t really lose the Great War. We “lost” because the hated fates conspired against us, the bloody Kommunisten, the licentious Americans, the impetuous, warmongering Serbs, and, most of all, the ugly, evil Jews with their hook noses and inferior bloodlines and their pernicious cabals and conspiracies to take over the world. Why should we take responsibility for a debacle that should have been settled internally by the Austrians, for a disaster that was not of our creation? And if, because of misinformation, you actually considered Germany a defeated country, think again. It wasn’t we Bavarians who were defeated. No battles were waged on our soil, so how could the losses be attributed to us? No, you see, the responsibility and guilt do not lie with Bavaria in the south but, instead, with the hated Prussians up north and the despised Weimar Republic with its heinous rules and regulations, and the foreigners who carved up our beloved country. This is the shame that I remember—that inferior minds were allowed to control our land.

  We Bavarians did not need Prussia and its ridiculous experiment of American democracy. Nor did we need the Soviets tutoring us about the ideals of Kommunismus. We needed the restoration of our beloved Wittelsbacher monarchy, although we knew that wasn’t going to happen, not with the Prussians at the helm. So in lieu of a king, Germany would accept a dictatorial leader who would take from us the shame of defeat and lead us back to glory.

  And didn’t the Fatherland find the perfect Führer, the anointed one who would erase the humiliation of ignoble failure and eradicate the abasement suffered by the people of the Aryan race.

  That is the shame I remember. That is the shame of my youth.

  The shame of genocide came later to the Fatherland, after the Allies pointed out that the Germans might garner more sympathy if, at the very least, they felt a tiny bit disconcerted by the corpses spilling out of the gas chambers, and the bones and ashes clogging up the ovens.

  So I paint in reds because I express myself in paint. Words have always been harder for me. I have tried writing, but it is not the same. Painting involves corporeal participation—the eye, the hand, the fingers, the physicality of the sweep of the brush against the blank canvas, the palette knife gouging through layers of impasto. There is no bodily participation in writing, in punching out little black letters in the same script, the same hue, the same size—all in neat little lines. No, I cannot write. Still, as I clack away at the letters on my Remington, if I were to write, I think I would have a good story to tell.

  MUNICH, 1929

  ONE

  Papa, it’s them again!”

  The banging on the door accompanied by the panic in Joachim’s voice roused Berg to action. Flinging off the covers, he bolted from the warmth of his feather bed, scarcely registering the frigid air as his bare feet contacted the worn oak floor, running into the common room of the family’s apartment. He was awake and ready for confrontation.

  It was still dark, but Berg could make out the duvet draping over the sofa. Of late, his son had taken to sleeping on the couch, leaving his sister alone in the room they had once shared. Privacy issues: typical of a boy of fifteen. His body demanded attention without his sister as an audience. Joachim was tall, lean, and movie-star handsome with hound-dog blue eyes and a thick mop of hair, blond in color from his mother, but the curl came from Berg.

  The room shook from hurling rocks hitting the outside stone.

  “That’s it!” Berg turned on the lone electric bulb that hung over the dining table and fit the crank into the window. It was a blessing that his family lived on the top floor. The hoodlums below did not have enough force to propel the rocks up to their unit. “That is it!”

  “Axel, what are you doing?”

  His wife’s voice. Berg stopped and turned. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep, and her tresses stuck out at odd angles. Even though the rainstorm had passed, the air was filled with static electricity. He said, “Go back to bed, Britta. It’s cold.”

  “If it’s cold to me, it’s cold to you.”

  “Then be a love and get me my coat.”

  “Axel, leave them alone. At least, they don’t break anything.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t know who they are.”

  “Of course I know who they are. They are the Austrian’s finest—”

  “How do you know? They’re not even dressed in brown.”

  “I know punks!” He leaned into the window crank and felt his face get hot from exertion. “They are punks.”

  “If they are from Hitler, it’s not you they want. It’s probably the Jews down below.”

  “Which Jews?”

  “The Weinstocks on the second floor. Or the Maslanokovs.”

  “The Maslanokovs are Russian, not Jewish.”

  “Kommunisten. What’s the difference?”

  “I thought they were Social Democrats.”

  Britta dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Same thing.”

  “I beg to differ. I voted Social Democrat in the last election.”

  “I wouldn’t publicize that if yo
u want to keep our windows intact.”

  Berg ignored her and gave another push on the crank. “What is it with this window? You would think we glued it to the framework.”

  “We did. We shut it with paste because it was letting in so much cold air.”

  “What? When was this?”

  “About a month ago—”

  “Aha!” The window sprang open, and immediately a bitter cold wind slapped Berg’s face. He could almost taste the snow from the Alps. He shouted at the boys below. His displeasure just egged them on. The projectiles began to fall at a faster rate. “Shout at them for me, Britta!”

  “I will not!”

  “I need you to distract them. I ask little of you.”

  “And risk being stoned?”

  “I’ll do it, Papa.”

  Britta glared at her elder child. “So you join your father in stupidity! One moment I have a clever son. Then he grows to a certain age and becomes idiotic like all men!” She huffed and went back into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  Joachim suppressed a smile. He turned to his father. “What should I do?”

  “Distract them.” From the closet, Berg took out his jacket, his boots, and thick woolen socks. “Yell at them, make faces at them, whatever comes to mind. Just keep them occupied.”

  The boy looked out the window and frowned. “There are four of them, Papa.”

  After pulling on his socks and boots, Berg quickly tied up the laces. “That’s good. When they scatter, my luck at catching one of them will improve.” He put on his coat.

  “You’re going outside in your pajamas?” Joachim asked. “You will freeze.”

  “Ice doesn’t form on a moving object.” Berg kissed his son’s forehead. “They seem to be losing interest. Curse at them, Joachim. Be loud and vile. That should fire them up again.”

  Berg slipped out the door, down the hallway, and into the nearly black stairwell. Using the wall as his guide, he jogged down four stories’ worth of steps, heels clanging against the metal. The air was pure frost, making it hard to breathe. He scrunched his face in disgust as odors assaulted him: rotting garbage, fresh cat piss, and predawn cooking smells, specifically sizzling sausage. That anyone had money for breakfast meat surprised him. Berg’s own breakfast—when he ate breakfast—was usually a roll with butter. Times were better, yes, but no one had any savings. The city was still reeling from the Great Inflation of five years earlier. There was little trust in the present currency or the fools in Berlin who now claimed a healthy monetary system.