"On Widenmayer Strasse."

The association clicked in Berg's brain. Anna Gross had lived on Widenmayer.

"It isn't necessary to pay Frau Schoennacht a visit, Axel," Kalmer said. "We talked to her at length. She knows nothing. She was horrified."

"I am sure you are right, Rudolf." Berg smiled with closed lips. "Still, I would like to speak to her."

Messersmit frowned. "Whatever for, Berg? You don't trust our skills as Inspektoren?"

"I'm sure that isn't the situation," Volker broke in. "Berg is a mysterious one and has his own ways. Being the head of the Mordkommission, perhaps he is more intuitive about these grisly matters than we are. Let us indulge him in this matter. The hour grows late. How about if we keep this quiet, a possible link between Gottlieb and the other murdered woman, Druer, ja?"

"Kommissar, even if this murder makes its way into the papers, who will care about a Jewess?" Kalmer said.

"A good observation, Rudolf," Volker agreed. "If the connection is discovered, we can always link it to the recent outbursts in the streets. We have just calmed the good people of Munich. There is no need to alarm the city now that order has been restored."

Berg said, "Especially since we so conveniently ascribe Anna's murder to her dead husband. It would not look good for us to backtrack."

Volker's eyes darkened with anger. He turned to Messersmit and Kalmer. "I thank you for your time, meine Herren. You may go now."

The two baffled inspectors did not react right away, but no one spoke until they were out the door. Then Volker lashed out, his anger a gush of whispered fury. "I defend you in front of those two and this is how you repay me?" Volker clenched his fists. "I was hoping a holiday would temper your cynicism. I see I was wrong. Another snide comment and I will fire you for insubordination. Are we clear about this?"

"Quite," Berg answered.

"Then you may go." A pause. "Now!"

Berg looked down at his feet. If he wanted to get to the bottom of these murders, he'd have to be more conciliatory. "Herr Kommissar! I apologize for my outburst!"

Volker stared at him, sizing up his sincerity. Decided it was real . . . more from fear than from wrongdoing. He nodded acceptance.

"If it's all right with you, sir, since Professor Kolb is here, I'd like to talk to him . . . to go over the autopsy report."

Volker thought a moment. "That's acceptable."

"We can talk at my desk then," Axel said. "That way I can take notes."

Volker said, "You two can talk here . . . in my office."

Berg said, "Sir, I wouldn't want to keep you here any longer than necessary."

"You're not. I have no appointments and if you two are discussing the case, I'd like to hear what you have to say."

Berg couldn't help himself. "Why do I feel that you don't trust me entirely?"

"It's not a feeling, it is reality. I have many reasons for not trusting you, Berg. Starting with your insolence."

"So why give me Frau Gottlieb's Mordakte?"

"Because you are the most competent of my men to do the task. Because I need you to catch this phantom before he kills again. We both know another murder would send the city into chaos. Can we get on with the case, Inspektor? Can you let go of your petty tantrums for one moment in order to do a greater good for your city and its citizens?"

"I will if you will."

In a flash, Volker whacked Berg across the face with an open palm. The room fell into dark silence, Volker daring Berg to respond. But the suddenness of the Kommissar's attack had stunned Berg into paralysis.

When he recovered, Berg spit at him.

Not on him, at him. And not exactly at him but next to Volker's shoes.

Still, the message was clear. Berg knew this was a line drawn in the sand, his own fury rendering him blind to the consequences of his behavior.

The seconds ticked on.

Finally, Volker smiled contemptuously. "Throat problem, Axel? You should really see a doctor for that."

Berg didn't answer. And that was that. They had reached another cold, distrustful truce: like the truce between Berlin and Munich . . . between Berlin and the Yanks. A truce that begged to be rewritten and ultimately broken.

Kolb cleared his throat. Both of the men turned to the sound. They had forgotten that the professor was still there.

Volker turned to him. "You have something to say, Herr Professor?"

"Whenever both of you are ready."

"Ready, Inspektor?" Volker asked.

Berg nodded, slowly withdrawing his hand from his cheek. It was still hot and sore, but not nearly as sore as his pride. The murderous rage had passed . . . for both of them. The consolation prize was that, for the time being, Berg's job was safe.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

What Volker wanted to do was fire the bastard. But it would be a mistake to give in to impulse. For one thing, who would he have to blame if these irritating murders remained unsolved? No, cooler heads would prevail. When this phantom killer was discovered, then he'd take care of Axel. Without looking up, he said, "Now what was it you wanted to say, Herr Professor, but not in front of Messersmit and Kalmer?"

"Very good, Herr Kommissar!" The Professor pounded the floor with his cane for emphasis. "You have deduced my true mission. May I ask now if you are familiar with the Psychological Wednesday Circle-the group later known as the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society?"

Volker frowned. "I know nothing about psychoanalysis. Nor do I follow anything associated with that swarthy Austrian Jewish Doktor."

"Ah, but you should, Herr Kommissar. His theories have much to say about the subconscious, the inner workings of the mind. I'm quite sure Professor Freud would have much to postulate about our fiend."

"Such as?" Berg said.

"This is a man who takes sexual pleasure from raping women, ja?"

"I think that's evident." Volker snickered.

"More importantly, Kommissar, he takes even greater sexual satisfaction from killing them. He is imbued with Lustmord."

Volker's look was skeptical. "Why not a man killing the primary witness against him? If the woman is dead, she can't accuse him of rape. Furthermore, Marlena Druer was not assaulted. And lastly, we don't know for certain that Anna Gross was raped. The sex could have been a consensual act. No, I don't think you are correct at all."

"Herr Kommissar, none of them consented to being strangled. And Regina Gottlieb fought off whoever assailed her. And even if no rape had been involved, it just makes my point stronger. Sex wasn't enough satisfaction for him. The fiend had to murder. Furthermore, he collected objects from his victims-a silk stocking, a shoe, a boot. This is clearly someone who experienced trauma during the anal stage of development, as evidenced by the man's inability to give up anything he has produced. This is definitely the result of poor mothering. If you couple a rejecting mother with a traumatizing event, the results are devastating."

Before Volker could object, Berg broke in. "What kind of traumatizing event?"

"The first thing that comes to mind is battle in the Great War."

"We all were soldiers," Volker said. "Killing in battle does not a murderer make."

"Exactly what I am saying, Kommissar." Kolb held up a finger. "Most of us can discern the difference between killing in war and killing in general. Another possibility is that the man did not participate in the Great War either because he was too young or because he was infirm, making him feel inadequate as a man. But even these deficiencies would not have made him a murderous fiend. It took the combination of trauma and a bad mother to make this man a killer. Ja, no doubt this man hates his mother because of what she did to him."

There was a long silence. Finally, Volker said, "Are you serious, Herr Professor?"

"Indeed, I am dead serious." Kolb laughed at his own joke. "Perhaps this man's mother was overly seductive. Perhaps she was cold and rejecting. Whatever the trauma was, we have, meine Herren, a perfect, living example of destrudo. He is not killing randomly. He is killing young women. Every time this monster kills a woman, in his head he is killing his mother."

Berg integrated Kolb's words into his brain; he found them very distasteful. "Why all the substitutions, Herr Professor? Why not simply kill his mother?"

"Inspektor, you have just touched upon the fiend's psychological conundrum. He doesn't murder his mother because his desire to kill her is hidden deep in his subconscious. He is not even aware of it. Instead, he murders other women, taking out his hatred on them."

"And he doesn't feel guilty about killing these women?"

Kolb shrugged. "Perhaps, but even if he does, it can't be helped. He has an obsession to kill."

"Honestly, Herr Professor," Volker scoffed, "couldn't you say that the man murdered these women in order to rape them . . . or . . . or rob them? The women he murdered were rich."

"Regina Gottlieb was not rich."

"But she appeared rich," Volker said. "Perhaps he thought she was wearing expensive jewelry."

"She didn't own any jewelry," Kolb said. "She was a peasant."

"He couldn't tell from a glance," Berg countered.

"Gentlemen, this is a man who has murdered three times. He will not stop at three because he has a compulsion to kill. The irony is that this compulsion will never be satisfied because the woman he wants to murder, he cannot."

Kolb gathered his thoughts further. "Witness the fact that he takes things from the scene of the crime. Holding the purloined object in his hand, the fiend tries to relive the satisfaction of his latest conquest. But after a while, the item fails to evoke the joy he feels when he murders. So he kills again. He will not stop at three, Kommissar, I can tell you that much."

"Twice," Volker said. "Anna Gross was murdered by her husband."

"Herr Kommissar," Berg said, "with all due respect, it might be helpful in the privacy of this room to drop the charade. Anna Gross was strangled, sir. And in all three cases one shoe or a single stocking was taken. So unless Anton Gross came back from the grave to steal Regina Gottlieb's shoe, we must assume that all the cases are related."

"Two women, three women . . ." Kolb rolled his cane back and forth in the palms of his hands. "There could be ten others that we don't know about. At the root of it all, this man clearly hates his mother."

"All men hate their mothers, Herr Professor," Volker said. "She is supposed to be the ultimate virgin, yet she screwed your father, making her the ultimate whore. But civilized men don't go around murdering their mothers, even soldiers with blood on their hands-which happens to be most of us."

"People have different ways of integrating the war experience," Kolb said, "especially if they have a predilection for a certain kind of expression, if you will. Artists such as Otto Dix paint their war experiences, writers write about them, composers create discordant symphonies . . . and those sick individuals with damaged upbringings, those who are inclined toward the darker side, they express their experiences by doing what they have to do . . . which is to murder."

Volker said, "I can't believe that you are comparing murder with a painting or a composition."

Berg remembered Gross and Druer, how odd it was that their hair had been combed outward as if framing their faces. Murder as art? He said nothing.

"I'm not comparing it, Kommissar, I'm just remarking that those with a particular slant express the horrors of a bitter life or of war in their own specific ways. If he had murderous impulses because of his mother to begin with, war may have brought them out."

Berg said, "Just look how similar Otto Dix's war paintings are to his Lustmord series of rape and sexual murder."

"If I hated my mother that much, I would just kill her," said Volker. "Freud and his theories are pure rubbish. What would you expect from a Jew and an Austrian?"

"It isn't only the Jew who talks about the subconscious, Kommissar," Kolb said. "Carl Jung isn't Jewish. As a matter of fact, he has no love whatsoever for Jews. Yet his theories also are predicated on subconscious motivations of the destrudo."

Berg said, "What exactly is this destrudo you refer to?"

Kolb smiled. "Freud postulated that every individual has a life force, conscious or otherwise, that motivates him or her to act in a prescribed way. This life force he called the libido. But then, after the tremendous havoc of the Great War, Freud was left with a paradox: how to incorporate into his theories the terrible death and destruction he had lived through. He was left to conclude that, in counterpoint to the life force or libido, everyone must also harbor a death force called the destrudo. And in some individuals, it doesn't take a war to unleash this death force. Just look at the NSDAP. Everything about civilized life seems to unleash the destrudo in Hitler's men."

"How does this theory help us solve our crimes?" Berg asked.

"A very good question, Herr Inspektor. Let us analyze what we know. This fiend has murdered, but not in a random way. Two of the three women were rich. The latest, Frau Gottlieb, appeared to be rich because of her fine dress. Since the fiend hates his mother and is murdering rich women instead of his mother, one might postulate that his mother is rich."

"So you're saying he's a man of means?" Volker said.

"Possibly. Or it could be just the opposite." Kolb shook his cane in the air. "He could have come from an impoverished background. He could have hated all women of means, and that's why he's killing them."

"In which case he wouldn't be killing his mother," Volker said. "She would be poor like him. If he hated her, he would be killing poor women. So you have contradicted yourself."

"Not so, Herr Kommissar Volker, he still could be killing his mother and resentful of rich women at the same time. Whatever his background, rich or poor, this man clearly thinks himself a gentleman or, at least, is masquerading as one. The man who called upon Anna Gross, the flowery letter to Marlena Druer . . . everything points to a man of refined tastes."

"We knew that from day one," Volker said. "The man who accompanied Anna Gross into the theater was either a real gentleman or a Hochstapler. We know that we're not dealing with some thug in the NSDAP."

"The NSDAP has some wealthy supporters," Berg said. "Some of their leaders are doctors, military men . . . some come from money."

Volker said, "Are you implying that one of the NSDAP leaders is a murdering fiend?"

Berg said, "I'm just pointing out a fact."

"Which brings us to another potential motive," Kolb said. "Anna Gross had once flirted with Kommunismus. The letter to Marlena Druer from a man named Robert suggested that the two of them were on some kind of political mission. So let's refine our parameters. We have to consider that this might be a man who justifies his violence in political terms even though the subconscious motivation is hatred of his mother."

"He is sounding like the Austrian," Berg said.

Volker leveled his eyes at his chief Inspektor. "A word to the wise, Axel. You should watch your words, especially around the station house where NSDAP has many followers."

Berg was unperturbed. "I'm just saying that fanatics have often used politics to justify murder. Look at Fememord. A stupid farm girl who had the audacity to obey the law and report a hidden stash of illegal guns. For her efforts, she was murdered."

"Axel, we'll never truly know why Amalie Sandmeyer was murdered. Furthermore, we seem to have digressed from one ridiculous conversation to another."

"Yet, Kommissar, you cannot deny that there are senseless murders committed by fanatics," Kolb said. "Sometimes by fanatics who are even gentlemen."

"Count Anton Arco-Valley," Berg said.

"Exactly!" Kolb said in triumph.