The Butterfly House

by Katrine Engberg

  The police confirmed that both cases were likely the work of a single killer and were searching for people who had seen a cargo bike that apparently had something to do with the murders. They were also asking people with knowledge of the identity of two unnamed nurses and a cook named Alex who had worked at a now closed residential facility to come forward. The journalist had found one of their former coworkers and obtained a statement from him. Esther was puzzled by the name, Peter Demant. The psychiatrist she had seen just yesterday had worked with the two murder victims? The hairs on the back of her neck rose just thinking about it: a mixture of thrill and curiosity.

  She found Jeppe Kørner’s number in her contacts and called. Since their paths had crossed the previous year in connection with a murder case, they had stayed in touch, more than that even. They had become friends.

  “Kørner speaking.” He sounded busy. He usually did.

  “Hi, Jeppe. I’m sorry. Of course you’re busy with the case.”

  “Hi, Esther. Yeah, you can say that again. I’m still stuck at the station. Everything all right?”

  Suddenly it occurred to her how long it had been since they had last spoken. Over the last year, their growing friendship had surprised them both. Usually they talked on the phone once a week and routinely met for dinner or to see a play. To her great surprise, Jeppe had turned out to enjoy the theater as much as she did, and she liked to skim through the season’s schedules to find performances that would interest them both. Despite their age difference and their completely different lives, they had become confidants. But she hadn’t gotten around to telling Jeppe about her depression or the fact that she had begun seeing a psychiatrist, and now it seemed silly to start explaining that she was feeling better again. Why waste his time with long-winded coincidences when he was busy solving a double homicide? Just because she was curious.

  “Gregers is having heart trouble.” Esther decided to stick to the essentials. “He’s lying here next to me at National Hospital.”

  “Oh no,” Jeppe sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he okay?”

  “Yes, or hopefully he will be. They’re going to run some tests and then make a decision on whether to operate.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “Thank you, Jeppe,” Esther said, her heart overflowing at his compassion. “That means so much to me. I know how busy you are. How about this: I’ll keep you posted by text for the time being? Then we’ll see if things start to improve for him.”

  She said goodbye to Jeppe and put her phone away, then looked over at Gregers and realized he had fallen asleep, the little stinker. Hopefully the doctors could offer him yet another balloon dilation so his blocked arteries could be of use for a little longer. Age might be against him, but other than that he was as healthy as a busker. It would be a shame if he wasn’t able to make the most of the rest of his life.

  She packed up her things, put on her waterproof trench coat, and practically crashed into a nurse entering the room with a pill tray.

  “Hi, I was just on my way out. Gregers is asleep,” she whispered with a smile, trying to edge around the nurse.

  “Are you his wife?”

  “No, I’m a good friend. I just came by with some dinner.”

  “Well, that was sweet of you. Hopefully he’ll get a good rest. I can give him a little something to help him sleep if he wakes up.” The nurse moved past her into the room.

  Esther turned around hesitantly in the doorway to watch her. Trine, her name tag read. Trine started checking the blood pressure of the patient by the door, smiling and efficient. Half a minute later she looked back up at Esther, who hadn’t yet left.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, no. I just wanted to… Gregers doesn’t need sleeping pills. He always sleeps like a rock.”

  “We’ll take good care of your friend,” the nurse said, and smiled.

  Esther nodded and closed the door behind her with a nagging feeling that she ought to stay at the hospital.

  * * *

  “MAN, THAT ROAST was tough! It was like gnawing on Queen Elizabeth’s labia.”

  “Whoa, Larsen, just because Anette Werner isn’t here, you don’t need to talk like her.” Sara thwacked Thomas Larsen on the shoulder. Even so, Jeppe noted that she was smiling at the crude joke.

  The smell of roast pork hung heavily over Homicide’s small break room. Jeppe cracked the window open, gathered up the remnants of the team’s dinner, and tossed them in the trash. No need to expose anyone to that meal a second time.

  Falck yawned loudly without covering his mouth, while Larsen balanced paper cups of coffee, offering them around. Even Sara had one, and she usually never drank coffee. Jeppe poured milk into his and yawned as well.

  “Okay, folks.” Jeppe noted on his Omega watch that it was close to 9:00 p.m. “Let’s do a summary and divvy up tasks for tomorrow, so we can go home to bed. Falck, how did it go at Bispebjerg Hospital, any witnesses to our fountain murder?”

  Falck straightened up with unexpected zippiness and said, “No usable testimony unfortunately. We were there most of the day. But it turns out that one of the patients in their pediatric psych ward used to live at Butterfly House and knew both victims.”

  He paused for dramatic effect, letting the statement sink in.

  “Isak Brügger?” Jeppe volunteered.

  Falck, looking slightly deflated at having his big reveal spoiled, said, “Unfortunately he was asleep, and it didn’t seem right to wake him up. So we haven’t talked to him yet. The staff says he hasn’t left the hospital all week. It’s a closed ward, doors are kept locked and it’s staffed around the clock. We’ll interview him in the next couple of days.”

  “It might be a coincidence?” Jeppe squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Yeah, or it might not. We’ll see.” Falck raised one bushy eyebrow and hooked his thumbs under his suspender straps.

  “By the way I’ve located psychiatrist Peter Demant,” Sara broke in, looking every bit as tired as she felt, “and nurse Tanja Kruse. They both live and work in Copenhagen.…”

  “We’ll interview them tomorrow.” Jeppe nodded at Falck to indicate that he should set it up.

  “But I haven’t yet found the cook from Butterfly House. It’s kind of hard since we only have the name Alex to go on. The same is true of the two part-time nurses, whose names the owner couldn’t remember at all.” Sara sounded defensive, as if it bugged her to not yet have completed her assignment.

  “Rita Wilkins did promise to locate those names. Let’s call her so we can proceed. Remind me, were there any other staff members?”

  “One more, a man named Kim Sejersen. He was a social worker, so we’ve asked their union for help locating him.”

  Jeppe got up and walked over to close the window. The sentimental scent of rain on asphalt hit him, and he stood there for a second breathing it in before latching the window shut and turning back to the others.

  “Larsen and I interviewed Bo Ramsgaard, the father of Pernille, one of Butterfly House’s other residents. His daughter committed suicide when she was only seventeen, even though she was in treatment. He claims that the staff neglected their work and let the kids down. He thinks they didn’t intervene soon enough in his daughter’s case. He and his wife, Lisbeth, sued Rita Wilkins and got the home shut down, but the case ended there. They tried to get the police to bring charges against the director but lacked evidence of the alleged neglect. Apparently none of the other employees was willing to testify.” Jeppe returned to his chair and sat down. “But the Ramsgaard family does have a clear-cut motive of revenge.”

  “Do they have alibis?” Sara was leaning forward on her elbows like an eager teenager.

  “Hard to say. The mother is at a meditation retreat in Sweden, where the attendees are not allowed to bring their phones, one of those disconnect sorts of retreats. The father claims they were both home on Sunday night, but we don’t have her confirmation of that yet. And he seems… I don’t know�
� what do you think, Larsen?”

  “I think he seems pretty fucked-up,” Larsen said, flipping the hair out of his eyes with a slight toss of his head.

  “Agreed.” Jeppe let out a sigh. “So, based on the golden rule of motive plus opportunity, I think we ought to keep an eye on Bo Ramsgaard. I’ve asked for a surveillance team to be stationed outside their house overnight.” He checked his watch again. “We need to get some sleep. Falck and I will interview Tanja Kruse and Peter Demant from Butterfly House tomorrow. Larsen, will you call Rita Wilkins for the last few pieces of information?”

  “I’m on it,” Larsen confirmed. “I might look into her ex-husband, Robert Wilkins, too. He was apparently a co-owner of the place.”

  “Good plan,” Jeppe said, catching Sara’s eye. “And, Saidani…”

  “I’m trying to locate the former residents—the kids.” Sara smiled and looked down at her notes. “Isak Brügger lives at Bispebjerg Hospital; Marie Birch, who’s apparently living on the streets; and Kenny Ewald, who moved to Asia somewhere. I think I might also look into Pernille’s—”

  Sara was interrupted by a knock on the door. It opened before any of them had a chance to respond to reveal a rain-soaked Monica Kirkskov. When she spotted Jeppe, she broke into a big grin.

  “There you are!”

  “Monica, what are you doing here?”

  Jeppe could sense the other detectives sending him curious looks. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Thomas Larsen sit up in his chair with an interested smile. She was uncommonly pretty, Jeppe could certainly see that. Dark, rain-moistened curls outlined her face, and her curves were emphasized by her raincoat’s belt.

  “Yes, well, you said I should call if I thought of anything. I did actually try earlier today, but… anyway, police headquarters is right on my way home from the museum.…”

  She was looking only at him.

  Jeppe, feeling slightly embarrassed, turned to his colleagues and said, “This is Monica Kirkskov, an expert on antique medical devices, including the scarificator.”

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Oh, it’s fine. We were actually just wrapping things up here.” Jeppe clasped his hands. “Let’s call it a day.”

  He sought out Sara’s eyes to signal that she should wait for him, but she deftly avoided his gaze and exited the break room without saying goodbye.

  Larsen edged past Jeppe, giving him a rather unsubtle look, which left Jeppe feeling like a cad who had been caught red-handed.

  “Well, what are you selling?” Jeppe held out his hand in invitation. “I mean, what information do you have?”

  “Let me just slip out of my coat, if that’s okay?” Monica asked coyly.

  “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.” Jeppe pulled out a chair for her but remained standing himself.

  “The reason I stopped by is that I heard on the news that Peter Demant is connected to your murder case.”

  “And you know him?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “We studied medicine together ten to twelve years ago, until I dropped out. I haven’t been in touch with him since and didn’t know him well, but…” She furrowed her brow and smiled to herself, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. “How much do you know about humoral pathology?”

  “Uh, yeah. I wouldn’t say that’s my forte,” Jeppe conceded.

  “In antiquity, people believed in humorism, which is to say that the body was a system comprising four liquids. For the body to be healthy it was essential for these liquids, or humors, to be in balance. The liquids were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.”

  “Yummy.”

  She chuckled and said, “Not only that. The treatments were all liquid-related and had to do with bringing balance to the body, for example by giving people emetics. Or by bleeding them, sometimes with a scarificator.”

  Jeppe pricked up his ears.

  “The body’s four liquids were linked to the four seasons and the four fundamental elements—it was all really very holistic—and people were said to have four different temperaments, depending on which bodily liquid they had the most of. The thoughtful melancholic had too much black bile, for example. And the friendly, but somewhat passive, phlegmatic had too much mucous, and so on.”

  She eyed him expectantly. Jeppe smiled. Her mellow voice hit him right in the abdomen.

  “That’s very interesting,” he conceded, “but I don’t really see—”

  “This might be totally ridiculous. I know how it must sound, but…” She leaned forward, giving him an unobstructed view of her cleavage. “Cholerics, who had too much yellow bile and were associated with the blood circulation, were aggressive and extroverted, considered quick thinkers, very independent and decisive. In antiquity most murderers would probably have been seen as having a choleric temperament.”

  “We have a rather different way of classifying criminals today, I suppose,” Jeppe said, wondering if she had really come here to tell him about the antiquity’s view of human nature.

  “I’m aware of that. But bleeding someone to death with a scarificator isn’t exactly a modern way of killing. It might make sense to consider a historical view of things. Or maybe not, that’s for you to decide.” She held up her hand to indicate that she was getting to the point. “The study of the four bodily liquids and how they relate to disease and temperament dates all the way back to Hippocrates, but over time it has developed into a regular typology of anthroposophical temperaments, among others by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf philosophy of education. According to that typology, the choleric looks a specific way. He is short and stocky, upright, with sharp features and dark eyes. He walks decisively and quickly and usually has red or dark hair.”

  Jeppe cleared his throat. She waved her hand again to show that she wasn’t done.

  “Perhaps it sounds silly, but back in medical school we actually used to call Peter Demant ‘the choleric’ behind his back, because that is exactly how he looks and acts.”

  Jeppe looked at her without responding.

  “Okay,” she said, shaking her head with a laugh, “perhaps it’s not exactly a smoking gun, but maybe it could be useful to you anyway?”

  Monica Kirkskov smiled, and Jeppe suddenly wasn’t sure what exactly she thought could be useful to him. He held out his hand to her.

  “At any rate, thank you so much for stopping by.”

  She rose, took her coat, and put it on slowly without losing that subtle, Mona Lisa smile. Only after her coat was tied did she accept his hand with a handshake that lasted slightly too long, and then they walked to the elevator.

  “Thanks for the visit,” he said. “It was… interesting.”

  For a long moment they stood maintaining charged eye contact until the elevator doors opened and she got in. The last he saw of her before the doors closed was her smile.

  Sara’s office was empty, and her things were gone. That wasn’t unexpected. She had to get home to relieve her mother, who had been babysitting. Jeppe checked his cell phone. She hadn’t called or written, and when he called her, she didn’t pick up. He waited a bit and then tried again, but still in vain. Apparently they would not be sleeping together tonight.

  All right, then! Jeppe threw his backpack on, pulled up his hood, and walked down to his bike and the steady rain.

  Home to Mom.

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11

  CHAPTER 11

  Whines from the rusty brakes of an early-morning garbage truck cut through the tower room, as his mother referred to the guest bedroom, and woke Jeppe from his sporadic sleep. The first thing he did was reach for his phone to see if more bodies had been found in any of Copenhagen’s fountains this morning. Phew! None. There was, however, a text message from Monica Kirkskov, saying that he was welcome to call if he had questions. Absolutely any time, she said.

  Sara on the other hand had not been in touch, and as Jeppe lay there waking up, he contemplated where that left them. Not for
the first time in their frail relationship he was thrown back to the trembling uncertainty that had been the basic emotion of his early teenage love endeavors. What did she want from him? What did he want from her, for that matter? Start a family or just have fun for as long as it lasted? Settle down or let love flare up and then die down on its own?

  Jeppe looked up at the portrait of a woman his mother had over the guest bed. A strong face with a heavy brow and judging eyes that followed you everywhere. How difficult and complicated everything is, when you’re a grown-up, he thought, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

  Under the cool water of the shower he tried to clear his head. Poor sleep, along with back pain and unnecessary worry, was yet another one of the gifts life bestowed upon you when you grew up. His mother had left early, probably to her yoga class, but had left a little breakfast of bread and boiled eggs for him. She had also set out an expired can of mackerel and a package of rice. Sometimes she was confused just after waking up. The gesture was touching, though, and Jeppe appreciated it. He also appreciated that his mother wasn’t there. In the mornings he preferred to be alone. Sometimes that went for the rest of the day, too.

  At eight forty-five, Detective Falck pulled up to the curb at the corner of Nørre Allé and Sankt Hans Square to pick Jeppe up in one of the police’s black Opel Vectras. Falck’s big belly was pushing against the steering wheel and made the car seem undersize compared to its driver.

  “Maybe I should drive?” Jeppe asked, eyeing him skeptically.

  “No, no, it’s fine. Hop in.”

  Jeppe climbed into the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt. Only when he was completely settled did Falck flip on the turn signal and gently pull out onto the road. He rolled up to the intersection at about fifteen miles per hour, just in time for the light to turn red. He slammed on the brakes sending Jeppe’s forehead dangerously close to the windshield.

  “Whoa, red light!”

  Jeppe sat back in his seat, ignoring Falck’s playful Groucho Marx eyebrow wiggle.