Garden of Beasts

in the direction they’d gone. “They’re members?”
    “Of the Party? Several are, yes.”
    Before Hitler came to power it was illegal for a police officer to be a member of any political party. Kohl said, “Don’t be tempted to join, Janssen. You think it will help your career but it won’t. It will only get you stuck further in the spiderweb.”
    “Moral quicksand,” Janssen quoted back his boss.
    “Indeed.”
    “Anyway, how could I possibly join?” he asked gravely then offered one of his rare smiles. “Working with you leaves me no time for the rallies.”
    Kohl smiled back then asked, “Now what do you have?”
    “The postmortem from Dresden Alley.”
    “It’s about time.” Twenty-four hours to perform an autopsy. Inexcusable.
    The inspector candidate handed his boss the thin folder, which contained only two pages.
    “What’s this? Did the coroner do the autopsy in his sleep?”
    “I—”
    “Never mind,” Kohl muttered and read through the document. It first stated the obvious, of course, as autopsies always did, in the dense language of physiology and morphology: that the cause of death was severe trauma to the brain due to the passage of a bullet. No sexual diseases, a bit of gout, a bit of arthritis, no war wounds. He and Kohl had in common bunions, and the calluses on the victim’s feet suggested that he was indeed an ardent walker.
    Janssen looked over Kohl’s shoulder. “Look, sir, he had a broken finger that set badly.”
    “That does not interest us, Janssen. It’s the little finger, which is prone to breaking under many circumstances, as opposed to an injury that is unique and might help us understand the man better. A recent break might be helpful—we could call upon physicians in northwest Berlin for leads to patients—but this fracture is old.” He turned back to the report.
    The alcohol in his blood suggested that he’d had some liquor not long before he’d died. The stomach contents revealed chicken, garlic, herbs, onion, carrots, potatoes, a reddish-colored sauce of some sort and coffee, all digested to the point that suggested the meal had been enjoyed about a half hour before death.
    “Ah,” Kohl brightened, jotting all these facts down in pencil in his battered little notebook.
    “What, sir?”
    “Here is something that does interest us, Janssen. While we can’t be positive, it appears that the victim ate a very sublime dish for his last meal. It is probably coq au vin, a French delicacy that marries chicken with the unlikely partner of red wine. Usually a Burgundy such as Chambertin. We don’t see it here often, Janssen. You know why? Because we Germans make piss-bad red wines, and the Austrians, who make brilliant reds, don’t send us very much. Oh, yes, this is good.” He thought for a moment then rose and walked to a map of Berlin on his wall. He found a pushpin and stuck it into Dresden Alley. “He died here at noon and he had lunch at a restaurant about thirty minutes before that. You recall he was a good walker, Janssen: his leg muscles, which put mine to shame, and the calluses on his feet. So, while he might have takena taxi or tram to his fatal encounter, we will assume that he walked. Allowing him a few minutes after the meal for a cigarette . . . you recall his yellow-stained fingertips?”
    “Not exactly, sir.”
    “Be more observant, then. Allowing him time for a cigarette and to pay the check and savor his coffee, we will assume that he walked on his sturdy legs for twenty minutes before he came to Dresden Alley. How far could a brisk walker go in that time?”
    “I would guess a kilometer and a half.”
    Kohl frowned. “I too would guess that.” He examined the legend of the Berlin map and drew a circle around the site of the killing.
    Janssen shook his head. “Look at that. It’s huge. We need to take the photograph of the victim to every restaurant in that circle?”
    “No, only to those serving coq au vin, and of those only the ones that do so at lunchtime on Saturday. A fast look at the hours of service and the menu in front will tell us if we need to inquire further. But it will still be a huge task and one that must be undertaken immediately.”
    The young officer stared at the map. “Is it up to you and me, sir? Can we visit all of them ourselves? How can we?” He shook his head, discouraged.
    “Of course we can’t.”
    “Then?”
    Willi Kohl sat back, his eyes floating around the room. They settled momentarily