More Beer

5

“What a surprise.”

Nina Kaszmarek was wearing a black taffeta gown with a black lace collar, black high-heeled shoes, black silk stockings, and long black gloves. Her neck, arms, and ears were adorned with heavy gold jewelry. Her hair was carefully coiffed, her face was elegantly made up. Her eyes were shining; I couldn’t tell whether this was from alcohol or tears. Perhaps both. She opened the door wide.

“Do come in, and don’t mind my getup. This is my last evening here, so … I’m packing my things.”

I nodded and entered. She closed the door behind me and said, “Just come right in. I think I know why you’re here.”

The apartment was silent as a tomb. The small entrance hall was lit only by candlelight emanating from the main room. Two small doors led off the hall, probably to the kitchen and the bathroom. I entered the main room slowly. It was bigger than I had expected. Gigantic, overloaded bookshelves lined all four walls, interspersed only by the two windows. Twenty-odd candles, artfully distributed around the room, provided a warm yellow light. On a low table stood a magnificent steaming samovar, with two cups next to it. One of the cups was empty. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a small record player, records, a rocking chair, two heavy burgundy armchairs, and in the middle of the room, a white divan bed. One of Nina Scheigel’s Russian cigarettes crackled quietly in a marble ashtray. On the bed lay Barbara Bollig her hands folded over her midriff, staring at the ceiling. Candles to her right and left lit her face. It was a kind of wake.

“Quite a production.”

I went to Barbara Bollig. Her hand was ice-cold. I turned and asked, with a glance at the samovar, “Arsenic?”

Nina Scheigel retrieved her cigarette and sat down in one of the armchairs.

“Are you always such a Sherlock?”

“No. But I paid a visit to your friend Nikolai this morning, soon after you had left. He must have supplied you with the stuff. But why today? Why not five months ago?”

“I caught Fred last night, with the money. He told me everything before he took off.”

“How much did they pay him?”

“Fifty thousand. For going away forever.”

Not a whole lot, I thought. I surveyed the bookshelves.

“You sure had a lot to read here.”

“How else do you think I could have passed the time?”

I lit a cigarette. “You’re packing? Where are you going?”

“To the police.”

I turned to her abruptly and shouted, “Why, goddamn it-why did you do it?”

She gulped. “The story had to have an end. And not just any end, but exactly this one.”

She pointed across the room.

“This woman took Friedrich Bollig away from me. She did not let me come to his funeral. As I found out yesterday, she was an accomplice to his murder. All these years I have had to drown my thoughts and my grief in drink-and I should let her get away with all that scot free? I could not let that happen. This is my farewell party … my farewell to it all! A little dramatic, but I like it that way.”

She coughed.

“You’ll go to prison.”

She got up and walked to the window.

“You think this is better than a prison? It’s a cave filled with bad memories. How many years do I have left? Who will find me?”

“Did you spend a lot of time here?”

“A couple of hours every day. I used to read, write letters to the dead. Whatever old people do to pass the time.”

I brushed off this last with a wave of my hand. “What did Fred Scheigel tell you about the night of the murder?

They had fired him the day before. He was afraid to tell me, so he just went to his hut at the factory as always, but this time only to get drunk. When he heard the shots, he ran outside and found Friedrich. Dead. He must have sat there for a moment, because when he turned around, that Henry was standing behind him. Henry must have gotten rid of the gun. Otherwise, I’m sure, he would have shot Fred too. Then there was that explosion, Henry assured Fred that if he kept his mouth shut he would be given enough money to disappear from here forever. He only had to say that someone had knocked him down. Then Henry took off. A little later Barbara Bollig appeared, and when she too realized that Fred had seen something, she told him the same thing and promised him a lot of money.”

She shrugged, sighed.

“Fred didn’t particularly regret Friedrich Bollig’s death. Besides, he was glad of the chance to get away from her at long last, with the money he was offered. And the detective accepted his story without questioning it.”

“And the detective’s name was Kessler?”

She nodded. I clapped my hands.

“Genius! The guy’s a genius.”

Nina Scheigel looked puzzled. I didn’t go into that, but told her, “It was you, wasn’t it, who killed Otto Bollig back then? With arsenic. You thought that would make everything all right with Friedrich.”

She smiled.

“That’s so long ago. Who cares about it now?”

She was right. Ultimately, I didn’t give a damn. I paced back and forth and tried to clear my head.

“You’ve killed my only remaining witness. Henry’s gone.”

Once again she didn’t understand, and once again I let it ride. I cast a glance at the corpse. “I brought you a bottle of vodka from Nikolai.”

“You are a strange young man.”

“Why did you do it?” I asked, myself more than her. Then I said, a little too loudly, “I have to take you along now.”

She cleared her throat and asked, “May I ask you a favor?”

“Well?”

“Let me pack my suitcase and go to the police by myself. By myself, do you understand? I don’t want to be taken there.”

I nodded and walked to the door.

“You can run away, for all I care. It won’t make any difference.”

She laughed sadly.

“Where would I go? No, no. If you want to be nice to me, send the bottle to jail. There won’t be a whole lot of difference between drinking it there or here.”

I bit my lip.

“Farewell, Mrs. Kaszmarek.”

“ ‘Well’? Don’t poke fun at me, young man.”

In the candlelight, her face was that of a painted old alley cat. Her green eyes were smiling.

I pulled the door shut behind me and walked slowly down the stairs. Halfway down, other ladies living in the building came rushing out to ask me what I knew about the Biblis disaster. I just walked past them. In the street I turned my face up to the rain. The cold droplets felt good.