Hitler's Angel by Kris Rusch Read Free Book Online

said.
    ‘But you didn’t care for Geli.’
    ‘She is – was – trouble.’ Frau Reichert opened her handbag and put the damp handkerchief back inside. Then she whispered, ‘God forgive me.’
    ‘Trouble?’ Fritz asked.
    ‘Herr Hitler did not permit her to go out. Munich is dangerous, he says, and he is right. And she would not listen to him. She said she had no one after the bird died.’
    ‘Bird?’
    ‘Hansi. Her canary. She wouldn’t let us bury it.’
    ‘When did the bird die?’
    Frau Reichert snapped her bag closed. ‘Not long ago.’
    ‘Why do you think Geli died?’ He waited for the answer. He purposely did not mention suicide.
    Frau Reichert stared at her hands. ‘She was willful. Capricious. She never listened.’
    ‘She killed herself because she never listened?’ Fritz asked.
    Frau Reichert lifted her head. The tears had formed again. Her lower lip trembled.
    ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ she said, and he realised that from the way she spoke, she was not referring to the gunshot. Something had happened. Something else was going on, and she was trying, in her inefficient way, to hide it.
    The trip to Vienna might not be wasted after all.
    ‘What happened after you found the body?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Frau Reichert said.
    ‘You don’t know what you did?’
    ‘I went and told my mother. She heard nothing either.’
    ‘When did you come out of your room?’
    ‘When Frau Winter arrived with the constable.’
    ‘Frau Winter lives on site as well?’
    ‘No. She went home last night.’
    ‘Who called her?’
    Frau Reichert shrugged. ‘I was with my mother.’
    Fritz bit back his frustration. The woman was terrified, but he did not know if she was terrified of him. She was old enough to remember some of the excesses after the war, but not everyone viewed the police with fear.
    ‘Where was Herr Hitler this morning?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Frau Reichert said. ‘He was to give a speech, but I don’t know where. Not Bavaria. They don’t let him speak in Bavaria. The restrictions are unfair, he says.’
    ‘Where can he speak?’
    ‘He spoke in Berlin.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know much about his business.’
    ‘When did he leave?’ Fritz asked.
    ‘Yesterday. Afternoon. After lunch.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘Did he have lunch with Geli?’
    ‘Spaghetti,’ Frau Reichert said. ‘Geli said she was sick of spaghetti. But he loves it, you know.’
    ‘When did she say she was sick of spaghetti?’
    ‘Yesterday.’ Frau Reichert’s voice had lowered. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
    ‘Were they fighting?’
    ‘She wanted to go to Vienna. Ungrateful girl. She has everything right there.’
    He noted the shift to present tense. Frau Reichert had said those words before. ‘Is that what they fought about?’
    ‘He didn’t want her to go. He had called her back from the last trip. But she was yelling at him.’
    ‘Did you hear what they said?’
    Frau Reichert shook her head. ‘Not after I served the spaghetti. They yelled all through lunch.’
    ‘Then?’
    ‘He left. And she went into her room. I know because she slammed the door so hard the walls shook.’
    She could hear a slammed door but not a gunshot. Fritz said nothing about that. ‘And then what happened?’
    ‘Nothing. I did not see her.’ Frau Reichert swallowed and looked at Fritz. ‘Until this morning.’
    A tear ran down the side of her face and remained under her chin. She did not wipe it away.
    ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked softly.
    The tears fell hard now. She bit her lower lip, then opened her bag and removed the crumpled handkerchief again. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know.’

EIGHT
    F  ritz takes a breath. ‘I need a cigarette,’ he says. He is out. He is hoping she will offer to buy him a pack, although he refuses to ask.
    She looks at her watch. It is round and gold with tiny roman numerals on its face. A slender hand ticks