Garden of Beasts

run.”
    “Don’t run? Why?”
    “Because there are far too many people in this country who will chase you simply because you are running. Now hurry!” Morgan turned back to his task with the quick precision of a tailor.
    •   •   •
    The dusty, pitted black car pulled onto the sidewalk near the alleyway, where three Schupo officers stood, wearing spotless green uniforms with bright orange collar tabs and tall green-and-black shako hats.
    A middle-aged mustachioed man in a three-piece, off-white linen suit climbed out of the passenger side of the vehicle, which rose several inches, relieved of his considerable weight. He placed his Panama hat on his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, which was swept back, and tapped the smoldering tobacco from his meerschaum pipe.
    The engine stuttered, coughed and finally went silent. Pocketing the yellowing pipe, Inspector Willi Kohl glanced at their vehicle with some exasperation. The top SS and Gestapo investigators had Mercedes and BMWs. But Kripo inspectors, even senior ones like Kohl, were relegated to Auto Union cars. And, of the four interlockingrings representing the combined companies—Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW—it was, naturally, a two-year-old model of the most modest of those lines that had been made available to Kohl (while his car ran, to be generous, on petrol, it was telling that the initials “DKW” stood for the words “steam-powered vehicle”).
    Konrad Janssen, smooth-shaven and hatless like so many of today’s young inspector candidates, emerged from the driver’s seat and buttoned his double-breasted, green silk suit jacket. He took a briefcase and the Leica case from the trunk.
    Patting his pocket to make sure he had his notebook and evidence envelopes, Kohl wandered toward the Schupos.
    “Hail Hitler, Inspector,” the older of the trio said, a familiarity in his voice. Kohl didn’t recognize him and wondered if they’d met before this. The Schupo—city patrolmen—might assist inspectors occasionally but they were not technically under the command of the Kripo. Kohl had little regular contact with any of them.
    Kohl lifted his arm in a semblance of a Party salute. “Where’s the body?”
    “Through there, sir,” the man said. “Dresden Alley.” The other officers stood at half attention. They were cautious. Schupo officers were very talented at traffic offenses and catching pickpockets and holding back crowds when Hitler rode down the broad avenue of Under the Lindens, but murder today called for discernment on their part. A killing by a robber would require them to protect the scene carefully; a murder by the Stormtroopers or the SS meant they should disappear as quickly as they could and forget what they’d seen.
    Kohl said to the older Schupo, “Tell me what you know.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s not much, I’m afraid. A call came intothe Tiergarten precinct and I came immediately here. I was the first to arrive.”
    “Who called?” Kohl walked into the alley then looked back at the other officers and impatiently gestured for them to follow.
    “She gave no name. A woman. She heard a shot from around here.”
    “The time she called?”
    “Around noon, sir.”
    “You arrived when?”
    “I left as soon as my commander alerted me.”
    “And you arrived when?” Kohl repeated.
    “Perhaps twenty minutes past noon. Perhaps thirty.” He gestured down a narrow offshoot that ended in a cul-de-sac.
    Lying on his back on the cobblestones was a man in his forties, overweight. The wound in the side of his head was clearly the cause of death and he’d bled profusely. His clothes were disheveled and his pockets turned out. There was no doubt he’d been killed here; the blood pattern made this conclusion obvious.
    The inspector said to the two younger Schupos, “Please, see if you can find witnesses, particularly anyone at the mouths of this alley. And in these buildings here.” He nodded to the two surrounding brick structures—noting, though, that they were windowless. “And that café we passed. The Beer House, it was called.”
    “Yes, sir.” The men walked off sharply.
    “Did you search him?”
    “No,” the senior Schupo said then added, “Only to verify that he was not Jewish, of course.”
    “Then you did search him.”
    “I simply opened his trousers. Which I refastened. As you can see.”
    Kohl wondered whether whoever had decided that the deaths of circumcised men were to be given low priority had