Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2) Page 14

  Now, she could smell the smoke. A different smell than what occasionally came from the neighbors' wood stove. More pungent, like burnt foam rubber from lawn chair cushions.

  Her skin was all pins and needles as she walked down the steps and along the snowy path through her yard, where heavy snow had weighted down all the rosebushes the past several days. She seemed to hear the flames snapping, but she knew it was her imagination; her hearing wasn't what it used to be. She thought of St. Petersburg and Raskolnikov smashing the old woman's skull over and over, the blood spurting out. For the first time in many years, she felt unsafe in the dark.

  When she rounded the corner, there was no longer any doubt. Something inside was burning. But how was that possible? The shed door was closed, but it looked like flames were lapping at the ceiling at the far end. She turned back to the house, then changed her mind. The fire department would ask how serious the fire was. She had to take a look.

  She had a bad feeling as she approached the shed. What in the world could have started the fire at this time of year? Maybe some of the kids in town were still shooting off fireworks from New Year's Eve, maybe it was a bottle rocket or a screamer? Though, surely, almost all of them had been shot off by now. Possibly some unknown underground cable had shorted out. Her hands shook as she unlocked the padlock and peeked in. The smoke was heavy, and she coughed involuntarily when she stepped inside. Sure enough, a pile of green lawn furniture on a piece of cardboard was burning. And flames were quickly taking hold of the treated pine wood on one wall. A small window had been broken. She was staring in disbelief at the sight in front of her when a loud noise made her jump. Immediately, she checked the spray cans and bottles of turpentine stored in the shed, but they were all undamaged. Only when she turned around did she see: the door had been slammed shut.

  In shock now, she grabbed the door handle and pulled. The sound of metal, the latch rattling as she hysterically jerked on it, drowned out the crackling of the fire. Any second, she expected the door to open, the cold, soothing, fresh air to hit her face. But the door didn't open. She desperately kept pulling, until finally, she realized that the heavy padlock her son had recently bought for her at Silvan, the one hanging on the door's latch, had in some mysterious way locked itself again. But that was impossible! And it hit her: she was trapped in the shed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "Good girls stay at home; bad girls go to Amsterdam," Lisa's T-shirt announced from underneath her winter coat. A light breeze blew through the streets, accompanied by a drizzling rain that gathered into cold droplets on her face. It was 2°C. Warm enough to keep the Dutch capital free of snow.

  Lisa's head was numb from all the new information, and it hadn't been difficult to lure her out on a late tour of the city after the seminar. She and James were happily plodding along behind a charming Italian man from the Roman crime division and two Dutch officers. One of them, a female forensic technician in her 40s, Annelies, served as an unofficial guide; she was from Amsterdam, and she had insisted on dragging them into a coffee shop. A little bit of culture would do them good, she thought.

  * * *

  The day's menu at the seminar had featured serial killers. A number of grotesque photos lingered on the back of Lisa's eyelids–examples presented in an attempt to explain the difference between organized and disorganized serial killers and their methods. Of course, she already had some knowledge of the area, but by going through a series of cases, the two instructors had shown how the discrepancies played out in the real world.

  The disorganized killer typically had a below-average intelligence, sometimes much lower. His crimes were impulsive and incidental, and generally, they resulted in a messy crime scene, where little had been done to hide the body. It was logical to think that disorganized crimes would be easier for the police to solve, that all kinds of evidence would be left in their wake. Some criminals worked so quickly, though, that the police couldn't keep up. Others were simply lucky not to get caught.

  The organized killer was much closer to the public’s idea of a serial killer. The murder was well-prepared and thought out, with little left to chance, and as much physical evidence as possible was removed from the crime scene. These killers were much more difficult to catch. Some of them never were caught, in fact. Lisa had speculated on what it was like to be a police officer in the country with the most serial killers. So many that they could be divided into types, each one with their own terminology. Lisa wasn’t envious of American cops. Not one bit.

  * * *

  Darkness fell as they walked down Oudezoids Voorburgwal, and there was activity behind the windows of the prostitutes’ small booths. Every possible shade of red light streamed out from the buildings, casting their glow on the street and the parked cars along the canal. Several drunk young Englishmen stood egging each other on in front of a young woman wearing a red corsage in one of the windows. She blew them a kiss and leaned forward to give them a better look at her charms. The men laughed, shoved each other, talked dirty.

  Several streets later, Annelies stopped and said, "Let's go in here; it's a fun place."

  They were standing in front of a red brick building with white windows and sills. Blue letters on the windows spelled out the name of the bar: Hill Street Blues.

  "It fits us perfectly," she said, "it's not one of these tourist places like Grasshopper, with all the loud techno and high prices. And I promised you culture. Irvine Welsh mentioned the place in one of his novels, and Eminem has a photo of it on his first cover."

  She smiled indulgently. "And, yes, you can buy a beer here too."

  "It looks very nice," the Italian officer said. "So, let's go in."

  He opened the door, and the rest of the group followed like a line of soldiers.

  * * *

  Annelies offered Lisa a joint, but she declined. She pointed at her beer and said, "I think I'll keep to this."

  "Smart," the Dutch tech said. "Not to insult anyone, but most foreigners don't know their limits with hashish; they stagger around the streets, stoned out of their minds. And if you're not used to smoking, it's hard to know your limit. That's not so good when you have to get up early in the morning like we do."

  "I'm not smart," the Italian said in his lilting accent. He lit his joint. "I haven't smoked pot since I started in the police."

  Lisa smiled. Several times that day, his intent gaze had landed on her, flipping a very pleasant switch in her body.

  They talked back and forth a bit about the turnout of Dutch officers at the seminar and discussed how valuable the day's presentations had been. The consensus was they'd gained useful knowledge in spite of an American slant to the material. Lisa talked about her reservations with profiling and repeated the arguments she’d made when discussing it with Agersund.

  "Luckily, we don't have many of these horrible murders in our country," Lisa said. "In fact, homicides were lower last year than ever."

  "Good, that's good. What do you think is the reason?"

  Lisa took a sip of beer and thought for a moment. "I don't really know. I think it might be just coincidence. But it's very rare that a victim doesn't know the murderer. Mostly, it's men who kill their wives or ex-wives, and addicts who get into fights. Right now, though, we're working on a case that isn't so simple."

  "Okay. Do you want to tell us about it?" Annelies put out her joint in the ashtray.

  Lisa nodded. "It started when the body of a young boy was found in a creek."

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  "So, you've thrown your net out wide, I think is the expression, but you don't have any serious suspects," Annelies said when Lisa had finished outlining the case.

  "That's right. We're trying to identify the man on the surveillance camera, trying to find a connection between the fires in the area the past six months, looking for fibers, investigating the people closest to the boy. But I have to admit, we don't have anything solid yet. The forensic evidence hasn't pointed us anywhere."

&nbs
p; "And the family," the Italian officer said. "In Italy, the family is also the great killing machine; that's a good place to start."

  "Excuse me for saying this, but you also have the Mafia," Lisa said.

  "It's not only Mafia. Unfortunately."

  Annelies nodded. "The worst case we've ever had of this kind of child homicide was family too. The girl from Nulde, do you remember? We found the torso of a little girl there. Then her head showed up somewhere else. It’s so horrible how she was mistreated. Believe me, you don’t want to hear. An artist's reconstruction of what she looked like was made and put it in newspapers, and that’s how we found the mother and stepfather in Spain, with another daughter. They killed her and cut her into pieces, and they tried to get rid of her that way."

  "That's definitely horrible," Lisa said.

  "Yes, after that, I'll believe anything is possible."

  "But in that type of case, there's usually been a history of serious child abuse. And we have no proof of that. Only circumstantial evidence. And anyway, there’s some indication that the person setting the fires is involved."

  "There are many types of those people," Annelies said. "Tell us a little more about it. If it's a real pyromaniac, you should check the local fire department. A lot of pyromaniacs turn out to be voluntary firemen."

  Lisa repeated what Trokic had told her about the fires in Mårslet. "Does that sound like one?"

  "That's hard to say, but real pyromaniacs are rare. Only a few percent of all the arsonists. Most of them are either mentally handicapped to some degree, or have some kind of psychosis or personality disorder. And there's often a connection with alcohol."

  "But what do you think about it?" Lisa said. "I mean, in relation to the rest of the case."

  "If the fires are connected to the homicide, I would say it's not a pyromaniac. I would think it's more likely a man with an antisocial personality disorder. Maybe he drinks. And I think that anger is a big part of it. It sounds like revenge. Not like pyromaniacs, who get pleasure from what they do."

  Lisa thought about Lukas's father. How angry was he, really? He’d seemed tense underneath the surface like he was holding something back. Maybe Lukas had been too big a burden for the family? Could they have killed him, maybe in a moment of rage, and then tried to camouflage the murder by throwing him in the creek?

  She began thinking out loud. "But if the killer is a stranger, why would he pick Lukas? And nothing points to any sexual cri–"

  Abruptly, she looked at James. From out of the blue, an image had popped up in her head. The grandfather clock. Her heart skipped a beat; she'd seen it before. Or at least one identical to it.

  Eight years earlier, she and James had been at a similar seminar in London. They'd been given a presentation on how child pornography was evolving, and she'd been shown a photo thought to be from Denmark because of the clock.

  Suddenly, Lisa could barely breathe in the small bar. She remembered the faded photograph, and the beer inside her rose from the familiar nausea that followed. A small, naked girl eight or nine years old was tied to a chair with armrests, with her small behind hanging over the chair’s edge. A black-haired woman was squatted down between her legs. The photo had been taken from an angle that showed clearly what was going on. A brown bottle the size of a beer bottle had been stuck up inside the child, and the woman was spreading the girl's small, bare labia with two fingers. The girl's expression was dead. The terror of this had been excruciating, not least because of the countless abrasions on the girl's body. It had taken far too long for the image to fade out of Lisa's head. To make it even more depressing, the photo had been used as an example of a case that remained unsolved. Similar photos of the same girl had circulated in a British pedophile ring, but no one could say where they came from.

  * * *

  "Excuse me, I need to make a call."

  She felt their eyes on her back as she walked out onto the wet street and found the number of her former boss on her phone. She called him and stuck a finger in her other ear to block out the Amsterdam nightlife.

  Lieutenant Detective Jannik Lorentzen answered on the second ring, and she quickly explained the situation. He knew at once which photo she was talking about. In many ways, their memories were much more effective than any databases of photos. Many details stuck. The surroundings. A curtain, a hat on a child's head, the material of clothing, a landscape, a photographic technique. And Jannik remembered the grandfather clock.

  "Do you think you can find the photo for me?" she asked.

  "I'll try. I think I know where I can find a copy."

  "If you can, will you send it to me as soon as possible? I'll be home tomorrow evening, then I'll take a look at it."

  "Of course, but I think you're beating your head against a wall here. The photo is ancient. Just so you're not disappointed."

  But Lisa was adamant. "I’m sure there's something about that clock."

  "You’ll have it tomorrow if I manage to find it. I don't suppose you'd consider coming back to us here in Copenhagen? A little bird told me your boyfriend lives here."

  "Not a chance."

  "Too bad. You were one of our best and brightest. If you change your mind, the offer stands. You know it’s not all like that photo. We have an enormous problem with phishing, and the cryptography nerds are getting better all the time."

  "Thanks for the offer, but for the time being, I'm staying in Århus."

  "All right then. Say hi to Agersund for me."

  Lisa hung up and took a deep breath.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sidsel pulled the red-checked scarf up over her nose so her breath could warm her face. It was just past midnight, the moon was low and clear, and it was almost light out. Mars shone from the east like some precious red stone. That evening, the snow had formed a crust, which made walking on the path a noisy affair. She'd had three glasses of red wine before leaving, but now the cold made her feel sober. Just for variety, she'd zigzagged along several small streets and into the center of Mårslet, turned around at the church, and now was taking the short way back home.

  She smelled the smoke from far away. Like an uninvited guest in the crispy clean air. First, she picked up the pace, then soon she was trotting. She reached Annie Wolters' house and immediately saw the shed was on fire. While catching her breath, she glanced around, uncertain of what to do. A light was on in the old red house. Had Annie discovered the fire and called the fire department already? Sidsel ran up the narrow, badly-shoveled walk to the house and gauged the danger: could the fire spread to the house itself? There was almost no wind, but sparks flew up from the shed in all directions. Moonlight and the glow from the fire cast faint shadows on the walls of the house.

  Then she spotted her by the gnarled plum tree about ten meters from the shed. For a moment, it looked like Annie was sitting calmly, enjoying the moonlight. Or maybe had just given up. Sidsel swallowed hard and shivers bolted down her spine as she rushed over to the old woman. Everything looked all wrong. Her flowered dress was pulled up all the way to her hips–or no, it had burned away. Just like much of the skin on her face. One eyeball was exposed, and body liquids were streaming out where she'd been burned. Her thin, bluish-white hair had also been consumed by the flames; only a charred stubble remained on the left side of her skull.

  Sidsel heard herself moaning like a tormented animal while she fished her phone out of her coat pocket. Quickly she punched in 112, and she could hardly recognize her shrill voice as she briefly described the situation. Then she found the detective's number.

  "Trokic."

  He sounded as if she'd woken him from a deep sleep. Suddenly, a hand brushed her leg–the old woman was still alive. A sound too gravelly to be called a word sprayed out of her charred lips.

  Sidsel could barely speak. "Oh, God. Help."

  "What is it? What's happened?" Trokic yelled, wide-awake now.

  "I'm in my neighbor's yard, she's an old woman, she's been in a terrible accident."<
br />
  Trokic immediately took charge. "What exactly happened to her, Sidsel? And have you called for an ambulance?"

  "Yes, I called 112, they're on their way. She's been burned; it's horrible."

  "How was she burned?"

  "The shed. Oh, God, it's still burning. And it stinks so bad. She's going to die here in the cold." The words jumped out of her mouth of their own free will.

  "I'll be there in less than ten minutes. Stay with her and don't touch anything unless you absolutely have to."

  He was gone before she could answer. Once more, she was alone with the silence. Sidsel stared at what was left of the old woman's lips, blue now, and trembling slightly. She was definitely alive, despite the shape she was in.

  Suddenly, Sidsel stiffened. The fire might not have been an accident; it might have been set. And if that was the case, the arsonist might still be around. But why would anyone do this? And why had Annie gotten so close to the fire? Sidsel shook all over; a nerve in her cheek began twitching violently. She felt paralyzed. But the yard was empty, and all she could hear was a distant car and an apple tree creaking from the weight of snow. All around, she noticed deep footprints like the ones in her own yard, but in some places where the snow wasn't so deep, they were much clearer. It looked like a sneaker to her. Had somebody been in her yard too? The thought angered her, and for a moment, she forgot how scared she was. She took off her coat and covered as much of the woman's body as she could.

  The hideous smell of burnt flesh almost made her throw up when she leaned over close to Annie's ear. "Don't you dare leave me. And tell me how this happened." Though she spoke softly, her voice seemed to boom out in the yard.