Grantville Gazette 37 gg-37 Read online

  "Katharina Meisnerin of the Bibelgesellschaft. Most of us know Gena from Grantville High School. She defended us Anabaptists once."

  Meinhard frowned. "Her betrothed may not let her do that anymore."

  Neustatter laughed again. "It's clear you don't know Gena very well. Besides, you are underestimating Eric Hudson."

  Meinhard blinked. "I never said his first name."

  "No, you didn't. But I know him. It's true that he says he dislikes us Germans. But he tends to forget that once he knows you. He likes movies-the up-time moving pictures."

  Meinhard frowned. "Sergeant Hudson was transferred to Halle. He's courting Miss Krollin and watching movies in Grantville . . ."

  "And drinking at the 250 Club," Neustatter added. "He's very efficient. There's a reason the Army put him in charge of train schedules."

  Meinhard said, "We'll need to verify all this, of course."

  "Of course."

  "Under close questioning," the nasal voice added.

  "That's not going to happen," Neustatter answered. He didn't bother to turn around.

  "This is Erfurt," another voice spat. "Not Grantville."

  "They will be tried by our laws!" someone else in the crowd shouted.

  "Thuringian law is the same in Erfurt and Grantville," Watchman Meinhard stated.

  "They shot someone and carried him off!" came a shout from crowd. "They're working for the Catholics! They must be punished!" There was a general chorus of agreement from the rest of the crowd.

  Neustatter shucked off his coat and let it drop to the ground. His holster was very visible as he turned around.

  A few of the more perceptive citizens of Erfurt-and everyone who'd ever see one of the Western movies in Grantville-started moving away, thinking about such things as lines of fire.

  "Calm down, all of you!" Meinhard ordered.

  "We can take them!" one Erfurter insisted.

  Karl and Lukas exchanged incredulous looks.

  "Do something!" Astrid heard Katharina hiss at Georg.

  "What do you want me to do?" Georg asked.

  "I don't know! Think of something!" Katharina was becoming frantic.

  Georg started easing his way through the crowd toward the alley.

  Astrid decided that Katharina and Barbara would be safe enough for the moment. They were flanked by fellow students Horst Felke and Johannes Musaeus as well as having Karl and Lukas close by.

  "Karl," Astrid said, "watch the others. I'll cover Georg." She slipped through the crowd after him.

  Meanwhile, Meinhard was telling his partner, "Heinkel, go to the base and ask if Sergeant Eric Hudson and Fraulein Gena Krollin would please accompany you back here. Be polite. Bring Herr Kroll and Herr Stull if they wish. The whole rest of the city is here-they may as well be."

  ****

  Georg got to the front and stood there looking into the alley. The crowd was becoming increasingly aggravated. He knelt down. Astrid sighed. That would make him even harder to protect.

  Suddenly Georg straightened and carefully walked a little ways down the alley. "Whatever happened, no one was shot," he proclaimed.

  Everyone in earshot turned to look at him.

  "What?" Astrid demanded. "Of course someone was shot. There's blood everywhere."

  "Not shot," Georg insisted. "Stabbed or cut. Perhaps bludgeoned. But not shot."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "The blood, it's not right," Georg said.

  "Neustatter!" Astrid called. "There's something you'll want to know." She waved Georg forward. "Explain."

  "Whoever bled here, he or she was not shot," Georg said.

  "Speak up!" someone hollered.

  Neustatter motioned to the watchmen. "Gentlemen, we won't all fit. Perhaps the two professors and then you could pick out a couple dependable men?"

  Meinhard nodded. He pointed at two men. "Rudolf Schwartz. Klaus Huber. You witness for the crowd. And for the Committees." Huber was the man with the quarterstaff.

  Eight men crowding into an alley trying to avoid stepping in bloodstains was awkward at best. Once they were all at least close enough to hear, Neustatter said, "Say that again, Georg."

  "This is not blood from shot," Georg said again. "This is blood from a blade." He pointed at a streak of blood on the wall, three or four yards from the end of the alley. "This is artery spray. It's about one American foot from the ground. Not head or chest level. And then whoever it was collapsed right there." He pointed at a section of wall where the pattern sloped down to the ground, ending in a pool of semi-dried blood. It was irregularly shaped, about three American feet by a foot and a half.

  "Right," Meinhard said. "Then he picked up the body and left these footprints here." He pointed at a couple impressions that ended in a confused tangle with a smaller patch of blood at the edge of the alley where it met the street.

  "What is the point of this?" Jost asked.

  "Figuring out what happened," Meinhard told him. "Someone stepped in blood and walked to the edge of the street. There's no blood out in the street but there is this spot. As if someone who was bleeding stopped and stood here."

  "It would have happened while they were loading the body," Jost said.

  Georg pointed at it. "That's dripping. Uh, gravitational spatter, they call it. See how the drops here by the street are all round? And that-" He indicated a spray pattern. "is not gravitational. It's from a new wound." He squatted down to look closely. "There is also white stuff on the ground. I smell something, too." He sniffed the ground. "I think it's horseradish."

  Jost opened his mouth to argue and then reconsidered. But Huber said it for him. "So the heretics stabbed him again and then put the body in a wagon."

  "That's not what happened," Georg said. "Look at these blood drops."

  Watchman Meinhard frowned. "There are two blood trails. We're standing in one of them! Everyone step back against the wall." He pointed at the ground and traced the trail as everyone got out of the way. "One going into the alley and one coming back out?"

  "Both blood trails are going in," Georg corrected.

  "You couldn't possibly know that unless you saw it happen," Huber stated.

  "It's very clear," Georg countered. "The footprints come out to the street. But both blood trails are going back in."

  Meinhard took a close look. "Yes."

  "You can't tell that . . ." Jost began.

  "Yes you can. Blood drops from a moving person aren't round. They're pointed, and they point in the direction of movement."

  "I don't believe that," Huber said.

  "Please, feel free to cut your finger and walk around," Georg challenged.

  "Why, you . . ."

  "That's enough, Herr Huber," Meinhard said without lifting his gaze from the ground. "Why do you know all this, Georg?"

  "My sister Katharina keeps staying after school for Bibelgesellschaft work. I was bored waiting, so I took the forensics class."

  "Forensics?" Meinhard stumbled over the word.

  "Crime scene investigation."

  "Ah. Herr Frost has told us a little about this. He said he will say more about it on his next circuit. I remember that he said the up-timers have a chemical that shows blood."

  "Yes," Georg agreed. "Luminol. It's usually used to see where someone cleaned up blood. No need for it here." Then a thought struck him, and he laughed. "But it wouldn't work here anyway, Watchman Meinhard. You can smell the horseradish, right?"

  "Ja."

  "Horseradish causes luminol to show a false positive," Georg said. "If we had any to spray around, I think this whole end of the alley would turn blue."

  "Have you used this luminol before?"

  "No. I've just seen pictures of it in a book. If there is any left at all, it is not enough to let students use it."

  Meinhard was quiet for a few moments. "Could someone have put the horseradish there on purpose so that luminol couldn't be used?"

  Georg thought about that. "I believe Herr Frost would
say that forensic countermeasures suggest careful planning. Given the amount of blood everywhere, I don't think this was carefully planned. Certainly no one tried to clean up the scene. I think the horseradish is just an accident."

  "Good point," Meinhard agreed. He turned his attention back to the scene. "Steps in the blood, tracks it to the street, spills blood there, two people come back this way," he mused. "Steps over here around the blood pool."

  "I didn't see that one," Georg admitted.

  "It's just blood drops. There aren't any footprints."

  Georg cocked his head to one side. "Why not? If there are footprints going out there should be footprints coming back."

  "This is hard ground," Meinhard pointed out. "We're not leaving footprints either."

  Georg thought about that for a minute. Then he stamped on the ground. "Look – I can leave a footprint if I stomp. But why would anyone stomp after stepping in blood? I'd scuff my shoes to scrape it off."

  "He didn't scuff," Meinhard observed. He pointed at a misshapen footprint. "Georg, he slipped!"

  Georg understood at once. "He slipped in the blood and stumbled to the edge of the alley. Wait-then he stood around bleeding? Why was he bleeding?"

  "He stabs the other guy . . ." Meinhard began. "No, the other guy stabs him. No, that's not right, because they walk off together."

  "Do we know they left together?" Georg asked.

  "There are the two blood trails," the watchman pointed out. "They never cross." He began again. "The first man walks through the alley and stabs someone. He slips in the blood. The victim injures him at the edge of the street. But the second man arrives. They kill the victim, and they load the body on a wagon, then walk back down the alley."

  "Why wouldn't they just ride away on the wagon?" Georg asked. "Especially since the first man was wounded?"

  "So there's a third man driving the wagon . . ." Meinhard shook his head. "No, that is far too complicated." He looked at Jost. "Do you have a theory?"

  "Not anymore," Jost answered. "But yours has the big blood stain made before the one next to the street. But the one next to the street is dried, and the big one is still sticky. Doesn't that make the one by the street older?"

  Astrid watched Georg and Meinhard exchange looks of consternation. Then they both practically dove at the blood stain by the street.

  "Where did we go wrong?" Meinhard asked.

  "I don't know," Georg muttered.

  They kept staring at the blood stain. At length, Georg observed, "It's not just dried. It's clotted."

  "Well, yes," Meinhard agreed. "Blood clots."

  "The larger bloodstain isn't clotted like this." Georg sounded excited. "It's not older. This one is two different blood types!"

  "What?"

  "The first man and the second man were both wounded at the edge of the street. This is blood from both of them. It clotted because they're different blood types," Georg pointed. "See the arterial spray there? It's not clotted because it's from only one of them."

  "Two men were injured here?"

  "Since they were both hurt and left walking side by side, I don't think they could have carried a body," Georg said slowly. "One of them is bleeding badly. He's needs help, and soon."

  Meinhard slapped his forehead. "That's why they went back into the alley. The clinic is this way."

  Dr. Zapf spoke up. "The university medical faculty is the other way."

  Meinhard shook his head. "We've been seeing more and more sick and injured people being taken to the clinic. It's just a couple of nurses. They're not really doctors. But a lot of people don't care.

  "Jost, we're going to follow the blood trail. Go back and tell everyone else that if they come, they have to stay back and they have to use a different alley. Georg, let's go find these two men."

  They followed the blood drops to the other end of the alley and out onto the next street.

  "It's getting hard to see," Georg noted.

  Meinhard grunted. "Less blood, too."

  Halfway down the block they lost the trail.

  "I don't see any more blood," Georg said.

  "Me, either." Meinhard turned around. "Form a line."

  He put Schwarz, Huber, Neustatter, Johann Gerhard, Niclas Zapf, and Jost in a line across the street, and they started slowly moving forward.

  "Blood!" Dr. Gerhard called.

  Several yards farther along Schwarz found another drop. After another twenty yards, they heard a hubbub as the crowd caught up to them.

  Meinhard made a decision. "Jost, let's just check the clinic. If they're not there, we can come back with lanterns and look for the blood trail."

  They were almost to the base when they met Watchman Heinkel coming the other way with three up-timers in tow, two men and a woman. The younger man was wearing USE feldgrau. That probably made him Eric Hudson, although Astrid didn't recognize any of them.

  Katharina did, though. "Guten abend, Gena," she called.

  "Kat Meisnerin? Georg? Horst? What are you all doing here?"

  "The Bibelgesellschaft came to Erfurt to meet with the university theology faculty. But people think that Herr Neustatter and his security service have killed someone."

  Gena gave an unladylike snort. "That's ridiculous."

  "Gena. Sergeant Hudson. Herr Kroll," Neustatter greeted them.

  "What's this about, officer?" Gordon Kroll asked.

  Meinhard gave him the short version.

  "Wait, wait, wait," Sergeant Hudson drawled. "You think Neustatter and one of his men would attack someone in an alley? And then hide the body? Seriously?" He laughed.

  "Why is this funny?" Watchman Jost asked.

  Eric Hudson jerked a thumb at Neustatter. "The idea of John Wayne here using a partner to ambush a guy."

  "But . . . why is it funny?" the watchman pressed.

  "C'mon. Neustatter goes to the movies to watch John Wayne, Harrison Ford, and Arnold Schwarzenagger. He wouldn't knife someone in an alley. He prefers a straight-up fight to all that sneaking around."

  Neustatter grinned.

  "Plus, since you came and got us," Hudson continued, "you already know that Gena's been teaching him martial arts. Now if you had someone who'd been blown away on Main Street or had a broken neck, Neustatter'd be a suspect. But a stabbing? Uh-uh."

  "That's . . . an interesting insight," Meinhard acknowledged. He glanced at Georg.

  Georg shrugged. "Don't look at me. That's not forensics. I think they call that profiling."

  "Let's go check the clinic before it gets completely dark," Meinhard directed.

  ****

  Lorrie Gorrell was finishing up with a couple sick kids while Maurine Kroll tried to keep the day's paperwork somewhat current. Someone banged on the door of the clinic. Maurine pushed back from the shelf pegged to the wall that served as a desk. Being on paperwork made her the receptionist, too. She opened the door to find her husband, daughter, and, well, probably not half of Erfurt standing there, but it seemed like it.

  A quick glance didn't reveal anyone obviously in need of medical care. "What's going on, Gordon?" she asked. "Can I help you?"

  "We hope so," said a man wearing the armband of the city watch. "There is a lot of blood in an alley near the university. We believe there were two men injured, and the blood trail led in this general direction. One of them would have been bleeding badly."

  "Lorrie!"

  The door to the examination room opened. Lorrie Gorrell ushered a woman and her two boys out. She was carrying the younger, who looked about six. The older was probably nine or ten.

  "Keep giving them purified water and an aspirin morning, noon, and night," she directed, then asked, "What's going on, Maurine?"

  "They're looking for a couple injured men, one bleeding heavily," Maureen told her. "They must mean Griesser and Unsinn."

  Lorrie nodded. "Hans Griesser and Gerhard Unsinn came in this afternoon. Griesser had a deep laceration to his right arm, and Unsinn had a broken nose. I stitched up Griesse
r and did what I could for Unsinn's nose."

  "Did they say what happened?" Meinhard asked.

  To his surprise, Watchman Jost laughed softly. "I can guess. I know Unsinn, by reputation at least. He is a klutz."

  "Yes," Lorrie confirmed. "Hurrying to bring a knife to his master."

  Meinhard nodded. "I can see it. Not quite running, but moving fast. He slipped in the blood and stumbled forward just as . . . Griesser, you say? . . . came around the corner." He paused. "Where are they now?"

  "They both lost a lot of blood," Lorrie said. "This isn't Leahy or Magdeburg Memorial. We don't give transfusions unless it's really life or death. I can't even give Sergeant Nagel's kids as much aspirin as I'd like to. I stitched them up and sent them to a tavern. At least they'll get some fluids back in their systems that way."

  Maurine took a deep breath. "And I gave them some marijuana for the pain."

  Gordon Kroll blinked a couple times. "You prescribed beer and pot?" he asked his wife.

  "Yes. I told them to come back tomorrow. If they need it, we'll give them a pint of O negative and some chloram."

  Kroll winced. "Let me talk to Dennis Stull and some others. We've got to see about getting you more medical supplies, especially if you're becoming the walk-in clinic for the city."

  "Thanks, honey."

  Meinhard cleared his throat. "Any idea which tavern they went to?"

  "Probably The End of the Woad. It's closest."

  "Thank you."

  Maurine exchanged glances with Lorrie.

  "Go with them," Lorrie said. "I'll close up here."

  ****

  Outside, Meinhard gave a quick summary that caused most of the remaining onlookers to disperse. Potential murder had been interesting; a clumsy journeyman was not. That left just three watchmen, Georg, the two professors, Neustatter, Astrid, Schwartz, Huber, Gordon and Maurine Kroll, Gena, and Eric Hudson. They filed into The End of the Woad and filled the place up.

  "May I help you?" the waitress asked.

  "City watch," Meinhard said. "Looking for Hans Griesser and Gerhard Unsinn."

  "Right over there."

  Griesser's arm was bandaged, as was Unsinn's nose.. Both their shirts were bloodstained but they had cleaned themselves up.

  Eric Hudson sniffed. "Must be our guys. That is definitely a doobie." Gena smacked him.