Children of Wrath Read Online Free PDF

collar. A manager at some second-rate insurance firm in the Hermannplatz, he was fond of asserting superiority over his wife with such inanities, Willi recalled. The man was a certified boor.
    The wife wasn’t such a treat, either.
    But broiled in all that hot pepper, mustard, and horseradish, those ribs looked dandy indeed. And enough to give one dyspepsia for a week. Perhaps irritation was just a natural part of life’s cycle, Willi considered, noticing his gastric juices already pumping as a heaping plate passed his way. He’d never cared a bit for the Winkelmanns’ pompous in-laws, for example, but found himself dining with them regularly enough.
    Like most apartment buildings in middle-class Wilmersdorf, 82-84 Beckmann Strasse was built around a central courtyard with a small patch of grass and some trees. For seven years the Krauses and Winkelmanns had lived next door to each other on the third floor. They shared a common terrace. Their boys were the same ages. And although one family was Jewish and the other Christian, their lives had grown as entwined as the vines that ran along the courtyard walls.
    Kids’ birthdays were communal affairs. Luckily, it was warm enough to celebrate Heinz Winkelmann’s on the terrace in only light jackets. It had been a warm autumn. Roses still blossomed on the trellis overhead. The kids, who, even on birthdays, didn’t get delicacies such as deviled ribs, had already finished dumpling dinners and were audible below in the yard playing cowboys and Indians. The adults, on their third bottle of Riesling, were more than ready to feast. But just as they were about to dig in, Frau Klemper froze with her knife in midair and looked around red-faced with embarrassment. “Are you really all so convinced the ribs are safe to eat?”
    The silence could have knocked down the building.
    The horror in Frau Winkelmann’s eyes made plain she thought her sister-in-law might just as well have stuck a knife in her throat. She’d killed the evening certainly, all her hours over a hot oven, Heinz’s entire ninth birthday.
    The Kommissar had been right on this one, Willi realized. The sausage scare was terrorizing Berlin.
    Two more people had died this afternoon. A dozen more had gone to hospitals. The Ministry of Public Health had officially put a stop to all sausage sales until the source of contamination had been found. WURST IN BERLIN—AUS! the afternoon papers screamed in a headline size reserved for events such as the kaiser’s abdication.
    Casting a look as if to say she hoped she wasn’t about to betray Willi, Vicki leapt in to attempt a rescue. He’d told her a few details he’d learned since being assigned to the case today, and while she’d normally never dream of bringing up such things in a social situation, this time, her glance pleaded, circumstance demanded it.
    “Yes, of course, the meat’s safe, Frau Klemper.” Her eyes glimmered beneath their long, dark lashes. “The problem’s entirely confined to sausages. Isn’t that so, dear?”
    The glimmer flashed on Willi.
    “Oh, absolutely,” he backed Vicki instinctively. “Our beef could not be safer.”
    He had no sure knowledge this was true, only that his word would suffice to end the discussion and rescue the Winkelmanns’ party. Reason enough, he believed, to give it. For seven years the families had seen each other through births, deaths, chicken pox, broken bones, boom times, and economic chaos. A little white lie, a slight abuse of power, seemed hardly out of order. Certainly Frau Klemper took it as the next best thing to an imperial edict, all but curtsying with gratitude.
    “Well, then, from a Sergeant-Detektiv in Kripo!” She nodded at Willi repeatedly, but waited for him to dig in first. He obliged, and in seconds everyone was tearing at the ribs. Which did not, however, preclude the discussion of meat contamination.
    “The early edition of Berlin am Mittag was explicit.” Otto Winkelmann picked up his