Garden of Beasts

where would he park?”
    “I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been there.”
    “Can you find out where he’ll be in the next few days? When he might go to the office?”
    “Yes, I’ll try.” A pause. “I don’t know if . . .” Max’s voice faded.
    “What?” Paul asked.
    “I know some things about his personal life too. About his wife, daughter-in-law, his grandson. Do you want to know that side of his life? Or would you rather not?”
    Touching the ice . . .
    “No,” Paul said in a whisper. “Tell me everything.”
    •   •   •
    They drove down Rosenthaler Street, as quickly as the tiny engine could carry them, toward the Summer Garden restaurant.
    Konrad Janssen asked his boss, “Sir, a question?”
    “Yes?”
    “Inspector Krauss was hoping to find that a foreigner was the killer and we have evidence that the suspect is one. Why didn’t you tell him that?”
    “Evidence that suggests that he might be one. And not very strongly. Merely that he might have had an accent and that he whistled for a taxi.”
    “Yes, sir. But shouldn’t we have mentioned it? We could use the Gestapo’s resources.”
    Heavyset Kohl was breathing hard and sweating furiously in the heat. He liked the summer because the family could enjoy the Tiergarten and Luna Park or drive to Wannsee or the Havel River for picnics. But for climate he was an autumn person at heart. He wiped his forehead and replied, “No, Janssen, we should not have mentioned it nor should we have sought the Gestapo’s help. And this is why: First, since the consolidation last month, the Gestapo and SS are doing whatever they can to strip the Kripo of its independence. We must retain as much as we can and that means we need to do our job alone. And second, and much, much more important: The Gestapo’s ‘resources’ are often simply arresting anyone who seems in the least guilty—of anything. And sometimes arresting those who are clearly innocent but whose arrests might be convenient. ”
    Kripo headquarters contained six hundred holding cells, whose purpose had once been like those in policestations everywhere: to detain criminal arrestees until they were released or tried. Presently these cells—filled to overflowing—held those accused of vague political crimes and were overseen by Stormtroopers, brutal young men in brown uniforms and white armbands. The cells were merely temporary stops on the way to a concentration camp or Gestapo headquarters on Prince Albrecht Street. Sometimes to the cemetery.
    Kohl continued. “No, Janssen, we’re craftsmen practicing the refined art of police work, not Saxon farmers armed with sickles to mow down dozens of citizens in the pursuit of a single guilty man.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Never forget that.” He shook his head. “Ach, how much harder it is to do our job in this moral quicksand around us.” As he pulled the car to the curb he glanced at his assistant. “Janssen, you could have me arrested, you know, and sent to Oranienburg for a year for saying what I just did.”
    “I wouldn’t say anything, sir.”
    Kohl killed the ignition. They climbed out, then trotted quickly up the broad sidewalk toward the Summer Garden. As they got closer Willi Kohl detected the scent of well-marinated sauerbraten, for which this place was known. His stomach growled.
    Janssen was carrying a copy of the National Socialist newspaper, The People’s Observer, which featured Göring prominently on the front page, wearing a jaunty hat of a cut that wasn’t common in Berlin. Thinking of these particular accessories, Kohl glanced at his assistant; the inspector candidate’s fair face was growing red from the July sun. Did today’s young people not realize that hats had been created for a purpose?
    As they approached the restaurant Kohl motioned Janssen to slow. They paused beside a lamppost and studied the Summer Garden. There were not many diners remaining at this hour. Two SS officers were paying and leaving, which was just as well, since, for the reasons he’d just explained to Janssen, he preferred to say nothing about the case. The only men remaining were a middle-aged fellow in lederhosen and a pensioner.
    Kohl noted the thick curtains, protecting them from surveillance from inside. He nodded to Janssen and they stepped onto the deck, the inspector asking each diner if he’d seen a large man in a brown hat enter the restaurant.
    The pensioner nodded. “A big man? Indeed, Detective. I didn’t