The baby started fussing.
Svend cocked his head to the side. Accusatorily.
“Oh, whatever, I guess she’s just not that tired after all. I’ll take her.”
Anette hurried over to her daughter and gently picked her up. Her little cheek was warm, she was probably overdressed. It was so hard to decide how to dress her, Anette thought; too cold, too hot, never just right.
Never just right.
“You want me to make us some lunch?”
Lunch? Anette was so removed from being in touch with her normal, physical needs that she might as well be dead.
“Yeah, please. Lunch would be great. Then I’ll try to get the baby to settle down again.”
“Shouldn’t we just name her Gudrun after your mom?” Svend paused in the kitchen doorway. “Gudrun is a good Nordic name. And we would be paying homage to Grandma.”
They had discussed this before, many times. Anette knew it came from a place of love, when he suggested naming their daughter after her late mother. Even so, the suggestion ticked her off.
“My mother hated that name. Why do you think we all called her Didder? No one likes the name Gudrun!” Anette saw the look in Svend’s eyes and stopped. She had hurt his feelings. It seemed like she was doing that several times a day lately. He tried to be understanding, not let things get to him, give her space. That just made things worse.
“Is an omelet okay? We don’t have much in the fridge.”
She nodded and turned her back to him. Svend went into the kitchen, and Anette started rocking and swaying impatiently to calm the baby. It didn’t matter how, as long as there was motion.
The baby quickly settled. Anette kept swaying and bouncing, while she looked out the window at the little yard’s sad-looking snowberry branches, butterfly bushes, and dark shady patches underneath.
The Butterfly House, a residential program for troubled kids. The envelope with the address burned in her pocket.
* * *
THERE WAS NO telling what made Esther decide to cook ravioli from scratch for a completely average Tuesday lunch. She had not made homemade pasta for many years and was not expecting guests. Even so, she began the day—after having taken a long bath, putting on her favorite, lavender sweater, and walking the dogs—by looking up recipes in cookbooks, composing a shopping list, and taking a detour to the good cheese shop to buy proper ricotta. She was hungry. For the first time in a long, long time, she was excited about food: she wanted Italian home cooking, companionship, and wine.
Maria Callas provided the soundtrack as she poured a heap of flour onto the table, cracked the eggs, added oil, and started kneading. Every once in a while she would get carried away by the music and chime in with her tenuous soprano as she worked at the kitchen table, causing Dóxa and Epistéme to howl from their basket. She didn’t care. She felt like singing again, like laughing, like living. While working the dough, she poured herself a glass of wine and sipped it in good conscience. There had been phases when her drinking had been decidedly unhealthy, but over the last six months she had managed to get her consumption under control.
The ravioli ended up looking a little clumsy, but they were still tasty. And once she had tossed them in a sage-infused butter sauce and seasoned them well with salt, pepper, and Parmesan, they tasted as life asserting as only homemade pasta can.
Esther drizzled the warm platter of ravioli with chopped parsley, grabbed the wine bottle, and was on her way downstairs before it occurred to her that this was what she had been planning to do the whole time. When she rang the doorbell, her heart was racing like an enamored teenage girl’s, and she felt like she could die a hundred times over before the door opened and she knew her answer.
Alain looked even better today than he had the day before, relaxed and sexy, like a chameleon in the sun. Stubble, heavy eyelids, tousled hair—had she woken him up? He eyed her, slightly disoriented, but then he stepped out onto the landing, pulling the door almost shut behind him.
“Chérie! This must be my lucky day.”
If men only knew how much mileage they got out of calling a woman chérie.
“I was just making lunch and thought that I would welcome my new neighbor to the building.”
Alain hesitated for a long moment, leaving Esther with ample time to regret her decision several times over and decide to turn around and go back upstairs. When he finally spoke, his voice was husky.
“That might be the sweetest thing that’s ever happened to me in Denmark. Of course you cook, of course you come down to welcome me. You’re”—he put his hand on his chest—“you’re magnifique. Thank you!”
Alain took the platter from her, and suddenly she was unsure if he was going to take the food and eat it in his apartment without her. There was an awkward silence, as they stood with the platter between them, and she was unsure if she should just turn around and go.
“We’ll eat it together! And you brought wine, wonderful! But we can’t sit here… the apartment is a disaster, boxes everywhere, and… no, it’s just no good. Do you think we could go up to your place, chérie?”
“Sure.” Esther took the platter back from him with a smile. “Good idea.”
“I’ll just put on a shirt. Set the table, and I’ll be there in two minutes.”
He opened the door to his apartment, darted in, and closed it behind him before she had a chance to peek in. Of course he didn’t want guests in his unfinished apartment! He was French, a perfectionist.
She went back up to her place and set the pasta in the oven on low to keep it warm. It really should have been eaten right when it was done, but there was no helping that now. Quickly she cleaned the table and then set it with her best Royal Copenhagen blue-and-white plates, checked her reflection in the cupboard glass, and cursed the blushing that always gave her away when she was excited. Would it be over the top to light candles?
A motion just behind her gave her a shock. Had she forgotten to close the door?
“What in the world are you doing?”
Gregers!
“Lunch. The new downstairs neighbor is coming for lunch. We won’t bother you…”
“Pshaw!” Gregers walked over and looked in the oven. “Um, I don’t feel like pasta. What else have you got?”
“There isn’t anything else, and I also only…”
There was a knock on the door, restrained and polite. When Alain had said two minutes, he meant it.
“I’ll be right there! See you later, okay, Gregers?”
Esther hurried out to the door, hoping that her dancing pulse wasn’t showing. Alain had changed into a wrinkled and slightly too short shirt, combed his gray hair, and put on an overwhelming amount of cologne. In his hand he held a stick with a clump of crumpled aluminum foil at the top. He handed it to her like a flower, and it occurred to her that that was exactly what it was meant to be.
“I, uh, didn’t have a chance to get to the florist. But a woman like you deserves flowers every day.”
Esther accepted the aluminum rose with slight embarrassment. She couldn’t quite decide what was more awkward: the hopeless flower or the words that accompanied it.
“Well, come in. I think we’d better sit down and eat right away. Then I can give you a tour afterward.”
Alain smiled sweetly and winked. It dawned on Esther that she might have said something flirtatious even though she hadn’t actually meant to. Boy, was she rusty!
She led the way to the kitchen, suddenly painfully aware of all the cracks in the varnish of her life: the wrinkles on her face, the dusty surfaces, and the dogs, who were growling at the stranger. Is a person even allowed to think romantic thoughts when she’s so old and worn-out?
Gregers sat at the dining table, by one of the two place settings Esther had laid out. Alain hurried over and greeted him politely, but Gregers merely turned to her, looking offended, as if the presence of their new downstairs neighbor was somehow inappropriate.
“Is he going to eat with us?�
�
Esther could have strangled him.
“Gregers, my friend, did you forget that I mentioned I was having lunch with Alain?”
The silence that followed was as thick as cold oatmeal, and every bit as uncomfortable. Gregers’s milky eyes darted back and forth between them. Then he looked down, nodded a couple of times, and grabbed the edge of the table to stand up. He pushed his chair back and stood with difficulty. Esther didn’t dare look at either him or Alain. Therefore the noise was her first indication that something was wrong. A moan, but deep and hoarse: like the muted howl of a dying wolf.
She looked at Gregers. He was pressing both hands to his chest, his face ash gray, his eyes glazed over and vacant-looking.
“Gregers, are you okay?”
He didn’t respond, didn’t react at all.
“Gregers, answer me!”
Esther was already by her friend’s side, shaking his arm, yelling at him, probably squeezing way too tight. Still he didn’t respond. Alain lightly touched her shoulder.
“He’s having a heart attack. We need to call an ambulance.”
The twelve panic-filled minutes that elapsed from the 112 call until Gregers was being carried out of the apartment, strapped to a gurney with an oxygen mask, both sped by and seemingly dragged on forever. Esther had experienced this sort of unreality before, had been close enough to death to know its smell. Even so, she wasn’t prepared for the fear that filled her and the overwhelming urge to flee. It wasn’t until the door closed behind the EMTs that she was able to breathe again, hear sounds, sense the world.
Alain pulled her gently into a warm hug, comforted and calmed her.
“I’d better go to the hospital. Gregers doesn’t have anyone but me. I really want to be there for him, if he… if he needs me.” She reluctantly pried herself out of his arms.
“You’re a good person, Esther.” Alain nodded understandingly and wiped a tear from her cheek.
She grabbed her purse, her waterproof rain jacket, cell phone, and her comfortable shoes.
Alain watched her get ready, but showed no sign of leaving himself. As she stood in the doorway, his dimples were back.
“It’s almost a shame for that lovely food to go to waste, Esther. Should I maybe just eat it?”
* * *
A HOODED SHAPE wheeled slowly around the corner from narrow Østre Længdevej onto Lindringsvej. Under a tarp a bundle was strapped to the bicycle’s cargo rack. The front wheel splashed up water, as it cut through a puddle. Then it was gone.
“So far, this is the only footage we’ve found of the suspect. The hospital’s private security contractors aren’t really as on top of the whole video-surveillance thing as they would like their clients to believe. This is from five forty-three a.m. They can’t find any other clips from the area that night. Once again he seems to have appeared out of thin air.”
Jeppe swallowed some bitter coffee and promised himself to make a fresh pot when he went back for the next cup.
“They’ve started questioning the hospital staff, but one of us better go help the officers once we’re done here.”
Jeppe emptied his cup, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the trash can under his desk. The team was seated in his office, all eyes on his computer.
“This is a different situation now. Two killings in two days, same MO. Nyboe confirms that the murder weapon in both cases in all likelihood is a scarificator. Everything currently indicates that the killer is the same. That means that we need to focus on connections between the victims. I’ll come back to them.…”
Jeppe looked up from his three colleagues to the wall behind them. He still thought of the picture that hung there as new, even though it had been more than a year since he hung it up. A suspect who had been brought in for questioning had smashed the old one, Monet water lilies in a prefab frame. Now it was a Gustav Klimt poster of naked people and skeletons floating around in the clouds, one of the ceiling paintings from Vienna. Jeppe tried to remember what it was called, maybe Medicine?
“Falck and I just came back from Nicola Ambrosio’s autopsy, and, to put it succinctly, he died exactly the same way as Bettina Holte. Cut with a scarificator on both wrists and the one side of the groin, marks on the skin after having been strapped down and gagged, organ failure, and cardiac arrest due to exsanguination. Time of death sometime between midnight and three a.m. last night. Am I forgetting anything, Falck?”
Falck shook his head slightly, stingy with his bodily motions, right down to the tips of his fingers. Thomas Larsen leaned closer to Sara and said something the others weren’t meant to hear.
She smiled in response.
Jeppe cleared his throat and said, “Saidani and I interviewed the victim’s girlfriend, Malene Pedersen, this morning. He was an Italian citizen living in Denmark, thirty-four years old, worked in a day care and drove a taxi at night. She thought he was working. Has his cab turned up?”
“It was found in a parking lot on Tagensvej, not far from where the body was found,” Larsen replied. “Parked at the curb and locked. The forensic team is on its way.”
“Good,” Jeppe said, “but I don’t think they’ll find anything in the car. The victims don’t show signs of having resisted; no scratches, no apparent struggle, no DNA under their fingernails. My guess is that they knew the killer and met him or her willingly.”
Jeppe had only his gut instinct to base this on and didn’t usually make such sweeping statements. That was Anette Werner’s domain. But someone had to do it while she was away.
“His family in Naples has been informed, and the parents are on their way to Copenhagen. According to his girlfriend, Nicola was easygoing with no enemies or old scores to be settled. No substance abuse as far as she knew. But the victims both used to work for the same residential treatment home for mentally ill teens.” Jeppe glanced down at his notes. “A place called the Butterfly House in Gundsømagle outside Roskilde. The place closed two years ago.”
“What was a taxi driver doing at a psychiatric facility?”
“That’s the million-kroner question, Larsen. Apparently you don’t need any kind of certification to work with mentally ill kids.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not kidding, Larsen. That’s how it is. Nicola Ambrosio worked temporarily as a caregiver at several institutions and homes, including Butterfly House. For obvious reasons we don’t know anything about the home’s patients yet, but we know the names of the employees. Sara, were you able to look into the staff?”
Too late, Jeppe remembered that they usually addressed each other by last name only when at work.
Sara held the home’s brochure up and pointed to the faces one by one.
“Bettina Holte, our first victim, worked as a health-care aide at Butterfly House, from when the place opened five years ago until it closed two years ago. Nicola Ambrosio, as was already mentioned, worked there part-time as a temporary care worker for a year and a half. The director—and owner—of the place, Rita Wilkins, has been helpful about providing information about the staff—”
Jeppe held his hand up to stop Sara and asked, “Where does she live?”
“Up north in Virum, well, the village of Brede to be precise. She has a new facility called Forest-something-or-other. I have it here somewhere.”
“Let’s interview her first. Who’s coming with me?”
Larsen wiggled his index finger.
“Okay, Larsen. We’ll head up there as soon as we’re done here. Continue, Saidani!”
“Other employees were”—she pointed to a bald man in a soccer outfit—“Kim Sejersen, full-time social worker, and next to him…” Sara moved her finger to a tall blond woman. “Nurse Tanja Kruse and the affiliated psychiatrist Peter Demant.” She pointed to a man with round cheeks and dark curly hair.
“You’ll find them and set up appointments?” Jeppe said. “Then Falck, Larsen, and I will interview them.”
She nodded.
“Rita Wilkins s
ays that there were another couple of nurses associated with the place but only part-time. She couldn’t remember their names but promised to look in the archives and find them. There was also a chef working there, but he’s not in this group photo.”
“A chef?”
“Yes, a guy who cooked all the meals. The kids called him Dinner Daddy. His first name is Alex, but she couldn’t remember his last name. Said the bad news had rattled her.” Sara put the brochure back down on top of a stack of papers. “I’ve looked at both of the victims’ computers—Nicola Ambrosio’s just cursorily so far—but haven’t found anything suspicious in their emails or social media accounts. On the other hand, their phone histories show that they both received calls from a prepaid cell phone the day they were killed, and those calls lasted for eleven and seven minutes respectively.”
“I think that reinforces the idea that the victims knew the killer,” Jeppe said, shutting his laptop. “We’ll keep all channels open. That residential home definitely seems to be the link, but it’s too soon to draw any definite conclusions. The victims’ families are still in the picture. We’re keeping an eye on Michael Holte and doing a background check on Nicola Ambrosio to see if he had any skeletons in his closet.”
“Where would one even buy a scarificator?” Sara asked, tapping a ballpoint pen absentmindedly against her chin. “Do any of you know?”
“Specialized online stores are my guess. They could be located anywhere in the world, so the chance of finding where the murderer bought it is probably pretty small.”
“I’ll look into it anyway.” Sara puckered up her lips and creased her brow the way she always did, when she focused on something. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Of course, Saidani.” Jeppe turned back to Falck. “Will you go to Bispebjerg Hospital and talk to witnesses? We have a team of people out there already, but I’d like someone from Homicide to supervise.”
Falck seemed to consider whether that was of interest to him and then nodded slowly. Jeppe got up and walked over to the window. It was still raining.
The Butterfly House Page 9
