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  “Tell me what you confessed to at the church!” Heinrich shouted, raising his gloved hands above his head.

  “It’s between me and God!”

  “Tell me!”

  People walking by started to look at the adolescent and investigator yelling at each other.

  Martin shut his eyes tight and clenched his jaw. His teeth clamped so hard together that Heinrich could hear them grind.

  Martin growled, and then blurted out, “I think my mother did something bad!”

  Ah hah! Heinrich immediately thought, pleased with himself. But then his mind whirled and he scrunched his brow. That is not what he had expected to hear. His mother? he thought.

  Heinrich started to speak, but then stopped. “Thank you for your cooperation, Herr Achterberg.”

  Tears were dripping down Martin’s cheeks, and his eyes were still shut. “Can I go now?” he growled through gritted teeth.

  Heinrich thought for a moment, twirling his mustache. “No,” he said at last, and then turned to Tomas. “Arrest the boy.”

  The soldier’s eyebrows rose. He leaned in to whisper in Heinrich’s ear. “For what, sir?”

  “We’ll figure that out later. Just do it,” Heinrich whispered back.

  Tomas shrugged and walked toward the boy.

  “W-wait,” Martin said, taking another step back. “What have I done? I’ve told you everything you wanted to know!”

  “I know you did, son, and I thank you for that. You will be all right.”

  Heinrich turned away from the boy and leaned toward Tomas’ ear again. “Take him to the jail, put him in the second room, and wait for me. I’ll be there shortly.”

  As Heinrich walked away, he could hear Martin’s sobs, until the regular noises of the town drowned them out. He left Bedburg through the southern gates and made his way to the Achterberg estate.

  When he arrived, he knocked hard on the front door.

  “Dammit, boy, what took you so long to get back?” called a voice from inside.

  The door swung open and Heinrich stared at the face of Karl Achterberg. The farmer took on a horrified expression, as if he’d just seen Satan.

  “Afternoon, Herr Achterberg,” Heinrich said.

  “Bah, what are you doing here? Haven’t you hurt me and my family enough?” Karl asked. He was holding his bandaged hand.

  “How is your hand doing?” Heinrich asked.

  Karl spat on the ground. “I hope you burn, investigator. Where is my son?”

  Heinrich shook his head. “I’m not here for you, Karl,” he said, ignoring the farmer’s question. He looked past Karl and saw the man’s wife sitting on a stool, knitting. “I’m here for her.”

  Karl crouched, took a wide stance, and made his hands into fists. “Not until I’m dead and buried,” he said, clenching his jaw.

  Heinrich backpedaled, reached behind his back, and swung his arm around. He aimed a pistol straight at Karl’s forehead. “Easy there, farmer,” he said calmly. “I am a man of the law, and your wife is under arrest.”

  All of the color drained from Karl’s face as he stared down the barrel of Heinrich’s pistol. His fists went slack. “U-under what charges?” he stuttered.

  “Murder.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Bertrude groaned and stood from her seat. After a moment, she waddled to the door. “It is nonsense,” she said, “but could you stop being so dramatic, Karl?”

  Bertrude allowed herself to be taken into custody, without putting up an argument.

  Heinrich followed the big woman all the way through Bedburg, toward the jailhouse at the northern end of town. Since Heinrich was alone and didn’t trust her, he walked behind Bertrude and held his weapon on her the entire way. Questioning eyes glanced in their direction, but, for the most part, people distanced themselves as the investigator and his suspect walked through the town.

  During their long march, Bertrude asked again and again, “What have you done with Martin?”

  Heinrich decided that Bertrude Achterberg was a strong woman. Despite being so sullen and having a broken family, she clearly loves her son. Heinrich thought he might have even felt a bit of admiration for the woman.

  “He’s fine,” Heinrich responded, again and again.

  When they entered the dark, cold chambers of the jailhouse, they descended a flight of stairs. At the bottom, Heinrich gave his scarred punisher a nod. Ulrich took Bertrude into a cell.

  The first room of the jail had four cells, one of which Bertrude occupied. Heinrich walked into the second room—which also had four cells—where Tomas was keeping watch over Martin. The boy was huddled in the corner of his cell, knees against his chest.

  Heinrich leaned in to Tomas’ ear. “Bring the boy to the cell adjacent to his mother’s,” he whispered. “Make sure he’s quiet, and make sure she doesn’t see him.”

  Tomas nodded.

  Heinrich went back into the first room, and into Bertrude’s cell. Ulrich had laid out a set of sharp tools on a small table, and a tin bucket in front of Bertrude. The woman sat on a steel table in the middle of the room, and her legs dangled above the floor. Heinrich placed the bucket at her feet, while Ulrich stood in the corner of the room, tapping his chin and playing with his torture devices.

  Heinrich slowly took a parchment from his tunic, unraveled it, and placed it beside Bertrude.

  “What in Christ’s name is that?” she asked.

  “A confession,” Heinrich said.

  “A confession for what?”

  “For the murder of Dorothea Gabler.”

  Bertrude grunted and spat on the cold ground next to Heinrich’s feet. “You’re an evil man, investigator. I’ll never sign that.”

  Heinrich left the cell and came back with another chair. He placed the chair in front of Bertrude’s table, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other. “Practical? Yes. Truth-seeking? Absolutely. But evil? No, Frau Achterberg.”

  Bertrude kept staring at the investigator. Her frown caused her jowls to sag.

  “I have all the evidence I need, Bertrude. I’m surprised, really, at your husband’s willpower. I pulled every fingernail from his hand, and yet he still didn’t scream your name. He must love you quite immensely.”

  “Karl is a fool,” Bertrude hissed.

  “Why is that?” Heinrich asked, tilting his head to the side.

  Bertrude stayed silent.

  After a long pause, Heinrich pointed at the bucket at Bertrude’s feet. “You see that bucket?” he said, and cleared his throat. “Well, when it’s filled with ice cold water, and your feet are dipped in, it’s not so bad. Frigid, of course, but survivable. After a long enough time, however, your feet grow so cold that your entire body begins to shake, and then it starts to shut down. Your feet go numb, and before long, your toes are black. In order to keep you from dying, your feet will have to be removed.”

  Bertrude seemed unaffected. “And you say you’re not evil?”

  Heinrich stood from his chair and raised a finger toward the ceiling. “Or,” he said, and started pacing, “we could place a rag over your face, and pour the cold water down your throat. You’ll think you were drowning, but you’ll live. Your lungs will burn so badly that you’ll wish you were drowning.” The investigator faced Bertrude and smiled. “Isn’t it funny how your body could burn from something so cold?”

  “Yes,” Bertrude said dryly. “How funny.” She put her hands on her big stomach and shrugged. “What is it you want from me, investigator?”

  Heinrich frowned. “I know that Dorothea Gabler came to your estate the day of her murder. I know that your husband was the only person there, but you must have come home at some point, after leaving Martin at the church. The timeline fits—and God only knows what you witnessed upon arriving.”

  For the first time, Heinrich could see the fear start to creep into Bertrude’s stone-cold face. Her expression changed. Her eyes went a little softer, her eyebrows slumped, and her lips started to quiver, ever so sligh
tly.

  “If it were my guess, I’d say you found your husband, together with a young, ripe, beautiful girl. Was he violating her? Or perhaps it was consensual?”

  Bertrude scowled, and she shut her eyes. “Stop it,” she demanded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Heinrich began pacing again. “I wonder how that must have made you feel,” he muttered. “I know I would be heartbroken. But your son . . . he was in love with the poor girl. He could never know what happened in your home, could he?” Heinrich’s voice rose as he kept speaking. “No,” he said, nearly shouting. “She had to disappear.” He stopped pacing and faced Bertrude with a confused look. “Is that why your home is so broken—because your husband broke your trust? Because Karl broke your heart?”

  Bertrude’s eyes turned hard and steely. Her trembling lips turned into a straight line on her face, and her fear turned to anger. “I said stop it!” she screamed.

  “Then tell me the truth, dammit! You or your husband killed that girl! Then you chopped up her body and hid her remains in the wild, to hide your guilt. You can save your soul, Bertrude! Confess and be forgiven in God’s eyes!”

  Bertrude clenched her teeth. She was on the verge of an outburst, Heinrich could tell, but she stayed quiet for a long time. She let out a long droning sound.

  “Yes,” Bertrude growled at last, “I found my husband with that Catholic whore. But I did not kill her! I only sent her away.”

  Heinrich pulled at his lip, and then his mustache. But the Achterbergs are Catholic, he thought. And yet she calls Dorothea a Catholic whore . . .

  Heinrich said, “If you won’t do it for your soul, or God, or your husband, then confess for your son, Bertrude. Confess for Martin’s sake. Do you want your entire family in ruins?”

  Bertrude began sobbing, and her anger faded away. “Don’t talk about my son, you devil. N-not my son.”

  Heinrich nodded, knowing his evaluation was correct. This woman cares for her son more than anything else. Martin was the catalyst for this entire affair, but it wasn’t his fault. Bertrude will do anything to protect him.

  “Yes,” Heinrich said, eager for a breakthrough. “Martin will be the son of an adulterous father and a murderous mother. He will be stigmatized for the rest of his life. So, tell me, before I dip your feet in the bucket, the truth!”

  Bertrude’s sobs turned into wails, and she started shaking. She put her head in her hands, and kept muttering, “Not my son, please . . . not my son.”

  After a long moment, she looked up with bleary eyes. “It . . . it isn’t the truth.”

  “Ulrich, pour the water,” Heinrich said. “I’ve had enough of this.” He glanced back at the defeated woman and asked, “What will you do, Bertrude?”

  The woman’s shoulders slumped, her head sank, and she stared at the ground. She sniffed and wiped her nose and eyes, and muttered something under her breath, but Heinrich couldn’t understand her.

  “What was that?” he asked, leaning closer.

  “I said I’ll sign.”

  Heinrich let out a long sigh and put a hand on Bertrude’s shoulder. Then he stood straight and turned to face Ulrich. He nodded to the torturer.

  Ulrich pounded on the eastern wall of the cell, and within a few seconds Tomas strolled into the room, guiding Martin Achterberg by the shoulders. The boy was weeping.

  When Bertrude looked up from the ground, she stared at her pained, shocked son, and she wailed.

  “How could you, mother?” Martin asked. “How could you hurt Dorothea?”

  “M-Martin, it isn’t what you think, son,” Bertrude stammered. She reached an arm toward the boy. “Please, come here, Martin.”

  But Martin had already left the room.

  “Wait!” Bertrude’s voice echoed in the cell. “It’s not true, son! Please, come back!”

  The last thing Bertrude heard from her son was the faint sound of feet, running up the stone staircase, and she wailed as unsettled dirt rained on her from the ceiling.

  An hour after Bertrude signed the confession, Heinrich and Tomas arrived at Castle Bedburg.

  The structure was a brick keep with four towers on each end, and two twisting spires near the front gate. Besides the town barracks, it was the largest structure in Bedburg. Heinrich couldn’t be bothered with the majestic sight. He felt somewhat sour as he walked over the front bridge and through the gates, and he stamped his forehead with a handkerchief.

  He strolled through the main foyer and found Lord Werner. Everyone knew Archbishop Ernst of Cologne was the real sovereign of the land, and Lord Werner was his puppet ruler in Bedburg.

  Werner was a small man with a nervous twitch. Heinrich chuckled to himself as he approached the lord—Werner’s large head didn’t quite fit his small body, which made the phrase “puppet ruler” even more apropos, at least to the investigator.

  “You summoned me, my lord?” Heinrich asked.

  “Yes, some time ago,” Werner said with a thin, annoyed voice. “How go the murder investigations?”

  “I’ve just attained a signed confession for the murder of Dorothea Gabler, lord,” Heinrich said proudly, straightening his back. “That is why I was tardy.”

  “And what about the other girl—the pretty one?”

  Heinrich felt his lungs deflate. “Well, I haven’t found the perpetrator in that case . . . yet.”

  Lord Werner stared at Heinrich with discontent, as if the investigator was nothing more than a useless, feeble-minded beggar. “What a shame,” Werner said slowly.

  After a moment of silence, Heinrich cleared his throat. “So, you sent for me . . .”

  The lord squinted, and then his blank face lit up, and he pointed a finger in the air. “Ah, yes! It appears you will be traveling to Cologne.”

  Heinrich raised one eyebrow. “Excuse me, my lord? For what purpose?”

  The small man scratched his forehead. “Archbishop Ernst wishes you to escort a group of Jesuit priests back here. That’s what the letter says, anyway.”

  Heinrich pointed at his own chest. “Me . . . escort, my lord? Aren’t there people more suited to the task?”

  “That’s what I said. But he asked for you personally.”

  “There are bandits and highwaymen on the road to Cologne.”

  Lord Werner shrugged. “Bring an entourage of soldiers. He asked for you personally, Heinrich.”

  The investigator rolled his eyes, away from the lord, so Werner could not see. “Very well,” he said, “how long until I leave with this . . . entourage?”

  “Three days time.”

  Heinrich pulled at his mustache and sputtered. “With all due respect, my lord, that doesn’t give me enough time to bring our murderer to justice. It will be at least a week until a trial—”

  “It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Werner interjected. He stared Heinrich straight in the eyes, as if challenging him. “At least you can leave knowing that your work on the case has been greatly appreciated by myself, and by the people of Bedburg.” Then the lord smiled, as if to stick the blade a bit deeper in the proverbial wound.

  Heinrich felt his body tense up, and his vision narrowed. He frowned, and he sighed. After a moment, through clenched teeth, he said, “Very well, my lord, I’ll set to preparing.”

  “Good, good,” Lord Werner said. He turned to leave the foyer, and noticed Heinrich was still standing in place. “That’s all, Investigator Franz. You are dismissed.”

  All that work for nothing, Heinrich thought. Stolen.

  As he left the castle, he swore he could feel smoke billowing from his ears.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GEORG

  Georg was fueled with adrenaline as he left morning Mass. He and thirty men stomped through the misty roads of Bedburg, walking with their heads held high, taking up the width of the road. Merchants, peasants, and women alike stayed out of their way.

  The hunt was meant to be a send-off for autumn, welcome winter, and quell the fear that permeated throu
gh the town.

  We will find this beast, Georg thought, trying to stay optimistic. He followed behind Konrad von Brühl, who led the large group.

  Most of the men carried firearms—arquebuses and pistols—but Georg had his recurve bow slung over his shoulder.

  “You plan on killing anything with that?” Konrad asked, grinning and motioning to the hunter’s bow. “It’s a bit . . . outdated, wouldn’t you say?”

  Georg frowned at Konrad. “It’s more accurate than your hand cannon, and it’s quieter. All you’ll be doing is spooking the wolves.”

  “But a bow . . . on horseback?”

  Georg stayed quiet. For someone who claimed to have once known him, Konrad clearly didn’t understand how threatening Georg was with a sturdy bow in his hands.

  He will soon see.

  The group reached the southern end of town and then cut east, toward the largest stable in Bedburg. Everything had been prearranged—horses of all sizes packed the stalls. Georg picked a black, rowdy destrier named Alptraum, or Nightmare.

  “She’s quick, but unpredictable,” the stableman told Georg. “Be careful with her, and bring her back in one piece, or I’ll make sure you don’t leave here in one piece.”

  Georg smiled at the man and nodded. He took the reins of Alptraum, hefted his boot on the stirrup, and hoisted himself on her back. The leather reins felt good in his callused hands. He ran his hands over her muscular neck and coarse mane, and then spurred the mare onward. Alptraum whinnied, and started trotting down the road.

  Konrad was beside the hunter a moment later, bouncing on the back of his own brown-spotted steed. “That’s a beastly mare you’ve got there,” he said.

  “It takes a beast to hunt a beast,” Georg replied.

  Konrad grinned, and the scar running down his face puffed outward.

  The group was out of Bedburg and into the open countryside within minutes. One hundred and twenty hooves pounded the wet grass, and Georg could see the first signs of trees in the distance, about a mile east. The riders made their way over crops, up hillsides, and past houses and pastures.

  A single rider came from the eastern trees, heading their direction. The scout made his way to Konrad and slowed his horse. “I’ve found a large den in the middle of the woods, Herr Brühl,” the scout said, motioning over his shoulder. “There’s a pack of wolves just waiting, unaware. I counted around twelve, not including cubs.”