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Sins of the Child - Wolfgang Vogel Series 02 (2020)
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SINS OF THE CHILD
A KRIMINALINSPEKTOR WOLFGANG VOGEL MYSTERY
J. ROBERT KENNEDY
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BOOKS BY J. ROBERT KENNEDY
* Also available in audio
The Templar Detective Thrillers
The Templar Detective
The Templar Detective and the Parisian Adulteress
The Templar Detective and the Sergeant's Secret
The Templar Detective and the Unholy Exorcist
The Templar Detective and the Code Breaker
The Templar Detective and the Black Scourge
The James Acton Thrillers
The Protocol *
Brass Monkey *
Broken Dove
The Templar’s Relic
Flags of Sin
The Arab Fall
The Circle of Eight
The Venice Code
Pompeii’s Ghosts
Amazon Burning
The Riddle
Blood Relics
Sins of the Titanic
Saint Peter’s Soldiers
The Thirteenth Legion
Raging Sun
Wages of Sin
Wrath of the Gods
The Templar’s Revenge
The Nazi’s Engineer
Atlantis Lost
The Cylon Curse
The Viking Deception
Keepers of the Lost Ark
The Tomb of Genghis Khan
The Manila Deception
The Fourth Bible
Embassy of the Empire
The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers
Rogue Operator
Containment Failure
Cold Warriors
Death to America
Black Widow
The Agenda
Retribution
State Sanctioned
Extraordinary Rendition
Red Eagle
The Delta Force Unleashed Thrillers
Payback
Infidels
The Lazarus Moment
Kill Chain
Forgotten
The Detective Shakespeare Mysteries
Depraved Difference
Tick Tock
The Redeemer
The Kriminalinspektor Wolfgang Vogel Mysteries
The Colonel’s Wife
Sins of the Child
Zander Varga, Vampire Detective Series
The Turned
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
The Novel
Author's Note
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgments
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Thank You!
About the Author
Also by the Author
For the victims of the Lebensborn project.
“Freedom is when one hears the bell at seven o’clock in the morning and knows it is the milkman and not the Gestapo.”
George Bidault
“It is particularly pleasing to us men in the new government that families with many children are given particular attention, since we want to rescue the nation from decline. The importance of family cannot be overestimated.”
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda
March 18, 1933
AUTHOR'S NOTE
While German ranks are given for each soldier or police officer initially, their Allied equivalent is then used. For example, Unterscharführer is meaningless to most people, however corporal is universally understood. This is done for the sake of clarity so you, the reader, can enjoy the book without trying to determine if an Unterscharführer outranks a Standartenführer.
PREFACE
In Nazi Germany, position meant power. The higher the position, the greater the power, the greater the wealth. Those who were in the Party from the early days were rewarded for their loyalty, receiving plum appointments, often with no qualifications. As in any totalitarian state where patronage and nepotism were a way of life, an administration was built to vet these appointments to avoid embarrassment to the Führer and his senior ministers.
But Nazis were fickle creatures, and one’s good fortune could quickly turn, leaving one ostracized from the Party, and the privileges only it could provide. For those thrust into positions they could never have imagined, and the wealth this offered, it could mean losing everything, and a return to poverty or even death.
Yet the wealthy were insulated. The Nazis needed them as much as any society did, and for some of the nouveau riche, their only hope of security was through their children.
And the hope they would marry into wealth, and protect all their parents had gained through the horrors that were the reality of Nazi Germany.
1 |
Dettman Residence Berlin, Nazi Germany 1941
Annie Dettman’s heart hammered as she pressed her back against the wall, peering around the corner. The door to a section of the house she rarely went into was only feet away. Under normal circumstances, getting caught would be of no concern—the act of going through that door wasn’t something about which her parents would care. But to cross that threshold into the servants’ wing for the purpose she intended, would undoubtedly get her knuckles rapped should she be caught.
And if they found out the purpose of her foray, she didn’t know what her parents might do.
To say they would be disappointed would be an understatement. They had such plans for her future, that if they discovered she didn’t share in their dreams, they would be enraged.
Her father was a Nazi, which wasn’t saying much these days, for so many were, but he had been there almost from the beginning. He was very proud of that fact, even having sat with the true senior mem
bers such as Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and Göring. At least according to her father. If one heard her mother speak, one would think her husband ran the Reich, and was single-handedly winning the war.
Yet her father did have power. He held sway over the futures of so many people. For years, she had tuned out most of the conversations, but it was impossible to ignore them, and she knew enough to know her father was responsible for vetting potential appointees. If someone had done you a favor, and you wanted to reward them with a job, it was her father’s department that would make sure that potential candidate was worthy, and in today’s Germany, that had nothing to do with qualifications, and everything to do with purity and loyalty. The lifestyle they now enjoyed thanks to her father’s position, was far beyond anything they had experienced in their hometown of Munich before the accident that had immediately preceded her family moving to Berlin, and her father starting his new job.
She shuddered, her chest aching at the memory. They had moved to Berlin within days, leaving everything and everyone she had ever known behind, and it had left her lonely. Terribly lonely. Her father’s position meant associating with a different type of person. Every child her age she now met were raised by true Nazis, filled with so much anger, hate, and pride, that she found it impossible to relate.
Her father had been a Nazi from the beginning, yet her impression was that he had recognized an opportunity as opposed to an ideology he could embrace. Her mother had always been a simple woman, content to clean the homes of those that could afford such a thing, but she had changed so much. In the six years since they had been here, she was almost unrecognizable. She was obsessed with being invited to the right parties and having the right people over for tea. It was so disappointing.
Then there were their plans for her that had begun from the moment she turned sixteen. When she had discovered what they were up to, she had vowed never to let them accomplish their goals, though it wasn’t until six months ago that she had found a way to perhaps thwart their plans.
And tonight would be the fruition of everything toward which she had been working.
But only if she hurried. She had left work at her lunch break, and there was no time to waste before her shift resumed. She darted for the door, twisting the knob and pushing open the entrance into the servants’ wing. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her, then listened. She could hear chatter coming from the end of the hall where the staff was collected for their midday meal. She rushed forward and ducked into the pantry, filling the bag gripped in her hand with the necessities she would require for tonight, including various cheeses, pâtés, and crackers.
Her eyes brightened at the sight of grapes.
She was careful not to take too much, for she didn’t want anything missed. She descended the stairs to her left, into the wine cellar, and grabbed the first bottle she could reach. She knew nothing of wines, and had no idea whether what she had selected was worthy of consumption or reverence, but it didn’t matter.
Her plans tonight demanded she be relaxed, at ease.
For tonight she was giving herself to a man for the first time.
Tonight, she was giving herself to the only man she had ever loved.
And tonight, she would ruin the plans her mother and father had for her.
Forever.
2 |
Charlottenstraße, Berlin, Nazi Germany 18 Hours Later
The aftermath still haunted him. The only person he had ever loved was dead, murdered, yet the confusion over what had happened, the shock of last night’s events, had him almost convinced it perhaps was all a dream.
For what had unfolded was unfathomable.
As the ultimate sin had been committed, it was as if he were frozen in fear, much like he had seen in the movies, his disembodied soul witness to a crime he couldn’t believe was being committed, as if he just stood there while Nosferatu claimed another desperate innocent.
Yet there was no doubt she was dead. He had watched, as if detached from his own person as the knife slit through her throat, then the furious rage that had stabbed his poor love repeatedly.
Why hadn’t he stopped what was happening? Why hadn’t he saved her life? Bile filled his mouth as guilt overwhelmed him at what he had done. He would burn in Hell for eternity, of that he was certain. He had run like the coward he was, and now had no clue what he should do. He couldn’t go home. He should turn himself in to the police and let justice prevail, yet that wasn’t what would happen in today’s Germany, for more was at risk than just his life. Last night, he had destroyed one family through his actions, and if he turned himself in, his own family would be as well.
He pulled at his hair from across the street as the first police officers arrived at the scene, then scurried away through the alley he had concealed himself in since he had found the courage to return. He prayed to God for guidance on what he should do, knowing that none would be forthcoming, for he was as guilty as any in the murder of a poor, innocent woman.
A woman who had trusted him with her most precious gift.
3 |
Charlottenstraße, Berlin, Nazi Germany
“So, what do you think?”
“I think she’s dead.”
Kriminalinspektor Wolfgang Vogel eyed his much younger partner, Kriminalassistent Otto Stadler. “If you intend to be investigating homicides, I think you’re going to need to be a little more thorough than that in your reports.”
Stadler’s cheeks flushed, unaccustomed to being challenged, his father well-connected within the Nazi Party. While Vogel was careful what he said around the young man, he was not about to let him off easy. Stadler wasn’t qualified for the job. He hadn’t put in the time, and was only his partner through nepotism. But that was the way things were today in Nazi Germany—one had to be a member of the Party to advance, and even then, it was who one knew, not what one knew.
As a member of the Kriminalpolizei, Criminal Police, Vogel was forced to be a member of the Nazi Party, as all Kripo were. If one refused, one lost one’s job, or worse, one’s life. He had a wife and two children to worry about, and had swallowed his pride taking the oath. He didn’t attend any of the rallies, he didn’t support the Party in any way, yet he had to live in this new reality.
And that meant biting one’s tongue no matter how desperately one wanted to speak out against what was happening.
The masses had swallowed what Hitler and his ilk were spreading, and he could understand why. In the beginning, even he had to acknowledge the fact that things were better under the Nazis than they had been. Germany’s loss in the Weltkrieg, the World War, had been humiliating, with the Treaty of Versailles debilitating. The war reparations forced upon them had bankrupted the country, and that, coupled with the Great Depression, had left most in poverty, too many starving, not knowing when or from where their next meal would come.
Hitler had offered them an alternative. He had promised to restore German pride and strength by ridding themselves of the burden of the Treaty of Versailles. It had attracted enough votes that what was once a fringe party, became a significant minority party. And then, through orchestrated events, Hitler had manipulated the Reichstag into naming him chancellor. The moment he had the power, despite never having the majority of the electorate, he had rid himself of the nuisance of elections, becoming the dictator of a nearly-failed state. But today, eight years later, Germany had one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and had conquered a significant portion of Europe.
Part of him was proud of what his country had achieved in rebuilding itself, but he had no interest in territorial conquests. Germany should have remained within its borders and insisted it be part of the global community. Instead, Hitler had taken it too far, and now that the Allies were regrouping, it was feeling the pain of war.
Reichsmarschall Göring had promised not a single allied bomber would ever reach Berlin, yet that vow had proven impossible to keep as the Allies were now regularly bombing the capital city Vogel called
home. People were dying, and dying needlessly, but from his point of view, as a homicide detective, those who died during bombing raids were none of his concern, for murderers still murdered.
And judging by the sight that lay before him, they had a particularly vicious one with which to contend.
He pointed at the victim lying on the bed, the woman’s naked body mutilated, her hands and feet bound with the sheets. “Tell me what you see.”
Stadler became serious, recognizing he was being tested. Vogel felt for the young man sometimes. If his father weren’t a senior member of the Party, he would have entered the police force at the bottom, and received the proper training to work his way up. But instead, he had been thrust into his current position years ahead of when he should have been, by a father who didn’t want his son on the front. “Well, obviously it’s a woman. Looks like she’s late teens, maybe early twenties, blond.” He reached over and opened one of her eyes. “Blue-eyed.” Stadler glanced over his shoulder at Vogel. “She’s a good Aryan specimen.”
“She was a good Aryan specimen.”
Stadler frowned. “Yes, you’re right, of course. Sorry.”
“What else can you tell me about her?”
Stadler carefully examined the body then shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks like she might have been raped and then her throat was slit. And she was stabbed multiple times.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Was she a prostitute? Was she a student? Did she come from a rich family or a poor family?”
Stadler eyed him. “How the hell would I be able to tell that?”