Page 19
“Very well—I was here, but you refused to talk to me.”
Bauer’s old friend seemed to deflate. “I did not get very far at all before I was ordered to stop. Her body was moved.”
“Who ordered it moved? Chief Müller?”
Achterberg shook his head. “This goes higher than our chief.” He let out a shaky sigh. “The body was moved on orders of the justice minister.”
Franz Gürtner, he meant. The Bavarian minister of justice.
“So, there isn’t a postmortem report?”
“Oh, there’s a report.” Achterberg flipped his hands. “Would you like to see?” He angled past Bauer and pulled a document out of a basket. “Here,” he said. “Here is your report.”
Bauer looked it over quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading:
The fall forward to the floor caused a fracture in the nasal septum, resulting in antemortem edema and swelling.… The trajectory of the bullet’s path suggests self-infliction.… The stippling around the dress suggests a gunshot at close range.
By the time Bauer got to the conclusion, it was anticlimactic:
Cause of Death: Self-inflicted gunshot wound
Manner of Death: Suicide
Bauer shook the paper in his hand. “Do you agree with this, Elie?”
“Does it look like I agree with it?” Achterberg’s eyes were watering, his lips quivering.
Bauer checked the signature line. “You didn’t sign this.”
“I would not. No.” Achterberg shook his head.
Bauer put a hand on his shoulder. “Just tell me, no one else,” he whispered. “Do you think the broken nose came from the fall?”
Achterberg shuddered, as if shaking away a memory. “The angle of the break… it’s all wrong. No, she was struck.”
“And the swelling?” said Bauer. “That came before the gunshot?”
“That is almost… inescapable.” The old man spoke so softly that Bauer had to draw closer.
“What about the range? Close range, like the report said?”
Achterberg raised a wrinkled hand to his face. “Intermediate range. One meter, maybe one and a half, based on the stippling.”
Too far away to be self-inflicted, in other words.
“And the trajectory of the bullet?”
Achterberg looked up at Bauer, his eyes tearing up, his mouth twisted in a frown. “I could not examine the body conclusively. But judging from the entry wound, a downward trajectory is overwhelmingly likely. It is almost impossible to believe it was self-inflicted.”
Bauer nodded. “You never said a word of this to me, understand? If anyone asks, I came here, and you sent me away. That will be my story if asked. Okay?”
Achterberg wiped away a tear. “I am sorry I cannot be brave. I’m an old man.”
He was braver than he credited himself. He had refused to sign a bogus autopsy report and, in doing so, surely had endangered himself.
“You’re a good man, Elie.” Bauer placed the report back in its basket.
“Be careful, Tom,” Achterberg whispered. “Everyone will be watching you.”
