The Butterfly House

by Katrine Engberg

  “Do you know why dinosaurs can’t clap?” Falck asked cheerfully.

  “No I don’t, Falck,” Jeppe said with a sigh. “Because their arms are too short?”

  “Because they’re extinct!” Falck’s teddy bear laugh filled the car.

  Jeppe leaned his cheek against his side window, watching his breath fog up the glass.

  When they reached Copenhagen’s Latin quarter, Falck turned onto Sankt Peders Stræde and started looking for a parking spot. The neighborhood’s four- to five-story apartment buildings from the 1800s housed bars, vegetarian restaurants, and bizarre secondhand shops, and the narrow streets varied confusingly between picturesque idylls and punk. The residents lovingly referred to their neighborhood as the “Pissoir,” not because of its many pubs, but because back in the day people here used to let their livestock piss in the streets.

  Falck turned off the engine and pointed to a pastel green town house with a fetish shop on the street level.

  “She has a workshop up on the second floor,” Falck explained. “I told her we’d be there at nine.”

  He maneuvered himself free of the steering wheel and out onto the sidewalk. Jeppe watched him ring the doorbell by the name Reborn Dolls / Tanja Kruse. A moment later they were buzzed in the building’s narrow door and climbed the old, crooked staircase to the second floor.

  A tall, ample woman wearing a gaudy poncho over pink leggings stood in the rust-red-trimmed doorway, waiting for them with a coffee mug in her hand. She was about thirty-five, her face void of makeup and her hair still wet from her morning shower. When she saw them, she broke into a big smile that pressed her eyes into narrow slits.

  “Good morning, welcome! There’s coffee.”

  She herded them affably into a low-ceilinged single-story apartment with crooked wood floors and drafty windows. They could have stepped right into nineteenth-century Copenhagen, if it weren’t for the retrofitted electricity and the digital devices around the place.

  The apartment’s walls were covered with shelves and cabinets overflowing with colored fabric, steel containers, paint, and unidentifiable objects. On an old-fashioned workbench in the middle of the room a French press was steaming alongside a sleeping baby.

  “Let me just move Amalie out of the way, so we can sit here.”

  Tanja gently picked up the little one in her arms and moved her to a cot in the corner of the room. It wasn’t until she set the bundle down that Jeppe realized the baby wasn’t real. Tanja saw him looking and flashed another big smile.

  “Although they’re just dolls, they come alive for those of us who have them. I know it’s hard to understand, but there it is.”

  “May I?” Jeppe asked.

  She nodded.

  Jeppe approached the doll and leaned closer. It had round cheeks, puckered lips, and plump arms, soft baby hair, and teeny tiny fingers. Jeppe had to force himself to understand that it was indeed a doll—it seemed so real.

  “Some people collect model airplanes, others dolls,” Tanja said, meeting his questioning gaze. “They’re an enormous comfort to those of us who can’t have children.”

  “You make them yourself?”

  “Yes. Amalie is my own, but I make and send dolls to collectors all over the world, custom orders. There’s a big market for them.”

  She pulled a barstool up to the workbench and started pouring coffee. Jeppe sat down and discovered another doll lying in a basket under the workbench. It lacked both hair and skin color and clearly wasn’t finished yet. A photo of a real baby was taped to its belly.

  “That’s for a customer in North Carolina whose baby was stillborn. We’re re-creating little Micah in vinyl to help lessen the grief.”

  Jeppe suppressed a shudder and set his notepad on the workbench. He looked for a pen, using the brief pause to clear his mind. Dolls had never really been his thing. And dolls modeled after dead babies definitely gave him the creeps.

  “Does this mean that you’re not working as a nurse anymore?”

  “Yes.” She smiled again, eyes disappearing behind fleshy cheeks. “After Butterfly House, I decided to take the doll business seriously and start my own company.”

  Jeppe nodded.

  “Well, you know why we’re here.…”

  Her smile instantly transformed into an expression of concern. “Yes, it’s terrible to think about.… Completely inconceivable that they’ve been killed.”

  “Could you please tell us a little about Butterfly House?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Was it a nice place to work?” Jeppe asked, intently ignoring the doll’s insistent stare from the basket below. “What were your coworkers like, and the young people who lived in the home?”

  “It’s been a couple of years, but one does get close to each other, of course.” She rolled her lips absentmindedly, as if they were dry. It looked like a bad habit. “Nicola was such a nice guy, and that psychiatrist, Peter Demant, well, he was good, there’s no denying that. Rita, the director, had a firm hand, but then again that was necessary.”

  “What do you mean by a ‘firm hand’?” Jeppe scooted his chair a bit so the doll in the basket wasn’t staring directly at him.

  “You need to be strong when you’re working with kids like that. Boy, they were hard work! Each in their own way. Just kids of course, sweet and lovely, but also… challenged. And challenging.”

  “Are you by any chance talking specifically about Isak Brügger?”

  She avoided his gaze.

  “You won’t get me to say anything negative about any of my patients.”

  “I am by no means asking you to share confidential information or bad-mouth anyone,” Jeppe said, holding both hands up in front of him. “But our two murder cases seem somehow connected to Butterfly House. Two of your former coworkers are dead…” He left the rest of that thought for her to finish.

  “Isak,” she began, then made a face that seemed to denote both discomfort and make it look like she was trying to remember. “He was such an unbelievably sweet, lovely boy, but when he was in a bad phase, he could definitely act out. We weren’t that many grown-ups, so sometimes we had to restrain him until he calmed down on his own.”

  “You strapped him down?” Jeppe heard a touch of indignation in his question, but too late to correct it.

  “It’s easy to have opinions about psychiatry when you’re not personally dealing with the mentally ill. You guys all sit up there on your high horse and expect the rest of us to keep the deviants under control.” She sneered the word. “How are we supposed to provide quality care when we’re constantly understaffed?”

  “It wasn’t meant as a criticism.”

  Tanja sighed heavily. “Sometimes it was necessary for Isak to relax and calm his body. Strapping him down was the way to do it so he didn’t take it out on the others.”

  “Can you tell us a little about the other three residents?”

  “They didn’t act out in the same way. Marie was a sweet girl, just extremely introverted and crippled by severe anxiety attacks. She mostly kept to herself; I don’t think she ever felt comfortable with us grown-ups. Her mother had committed suicide when she was eleven, maybe that was why. She would always pull away and not answer when you asked her something. Kenny was totally different. He came from a loving extended family on a farm near Lemvig in northwestern Jutland. He had ADHD and was quite a handful, but he actually got along well most of the time. He was just a misfit and had a really hard time concentrating.” Tanja seemed to have calmed down again, even broke into one of her unexpected, big smiles.

  “And then there was Pernille, who later committed suicide,” Jeppe prompted. “What can you tell us about her?”

  Tanja stood up and walked over to the little kitchenette, poured herself a glass of water, and returned to the workbench.

  “Pernille had an eating disorder. She was a lovely girl, just extremely sensitive, had no filter. Could go from singing and dancing for us all to the depths o
f despair in a couple of minutes.”

  Tanja glanced across the room at her doll, as if it gave her the affirmation she needed.

  “Why do you think she killed herself?” Jeppe asked.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the ringtone from Falck’s phone interrupted her answer. He checked the screen, stood up with difficulty, and walked to the front door to take the call. Tanja watched him go and then responded thoughtfully.

  “I’ve been asked that many times. I don’t know, I don’t suppose anyone really does. But Kim’s death was important.” She poured more coffee and wiped the edge of her cup with her thumb.

  “Kim?”

  “Kim Sejersen, her caseworker. He died suddenly three years ago. Pernille killed herself less than a year after his death. She was very close to him. So tragic, she was a sweet girl; I was very fond of her.”

  So that’s why they hadn’t been able to find him. Yet another one of the home’s employees who wasn’t around any longer. Why hadn’t Rita Wilkins mentioned that he was dead?

  “Who has asked you?”

  She looked at him in confusion.

  “You said that you have been asked about Pernille’s death many times. Who asked you?”

  “Well, the family, right? Pernille’s father has called so many times, not just me, but the whole staff. It’s tiring, but he is grieving, of course.…”

  Jeppe wrote Bo Ramsgaard on his notepad and underlined the name.

  “And where were you the last two nights?”

  “I returned home yesterday from a long weekend in Ystad, Sweden. A romantic getaway. It’s cheaper if you go Sunday to Tuesday… a spa hotel, really nice place…”

  “And your partner can confirm that, I presume?”

  “I can give you her number, so you can call her and ask. Her name is Ursula Wichmann.”

  “Thank you for the coffee,” Jeppe said, standing up. “You may hear from us again. And be careful. Not to frighten you, but there seems to be…”

  She nodded anxiously. “I’ll make sure I’m not alone.”

  Tanja lifted the doll up in her arms and walked Jeppe to the front door to say goodbye. Jeppe wondered if the doll had gone with her on the spa vacation or if it had had to stay home all by itself.

  Falck was standing on the street below, still talking on his phone. When he saw Jeppe, he wrapped up the conversation and unlocked the car. They got in, Falck squeezing into his seat behind the wheel and Jeppe reluctantly next to him in the passenger seat.

  “Larsen and Saidani have been in touch with Kenny Ewald’s parents, who say that he’s living in Manila,” Falck muttered as he felt around for the seat belt. “He’s working at a nightclub and hasn’t been back to Denmark for almost a year.”

  “So he’s out of the picture. What about Marie Birch?”

  “It’s as if she vanished into thin air. She doesn’t have any family and apparently hasn’t had contact with the public-health service since she turned eighteen. The trail goes cold after Butterfly House closed. Saidani has heard rumors that she might hang out around the Central Station downtown, but the police there don’t know her.” Falck started driving. “Peculiar lady, that Tanja.”

  Jeppe smiled in surprise. Falck so rarely shared what he was thinking.

  “Yeah, definitely one of a kind.”

  “I’m not a big fan of dolls,” Falck admitted.

  “I’m with you on that one, Falck. Me neither.”

  * * *

  “OH, DAMN IT!”

  Simon Hartvig cursed to himself as he dug around in his coat pockets. Aside from bike lights and an old rubber band, they were empty. He gave the white wall of the staff room a quick punch and started again. It wasn’t until he had searched them all again to no avail that he remembered having left the blister pack in the front pocket of his backpack. He unzipped the bag, pushed out a pill, and swallowed it dry right there by the coat hooks.

  “Hey, were you the one who baked bread this morning?”

  He whirled around and saw Gorm standing in the doorway, his eyebrows raised.

  “Ha-ha, yes,” Simon said. “You gotta have something to do when you’re on the night shift.”

  Gorm shut the door behind him and took a roll from the bread basket on the breakfast table.

  “Kind of above and beyond the call of duty, all this baking. Is it spelt flour?” Gorm buttered it and took a bite.

  “It’s a blend of øland and emmer wheats,” Simon replied. “Milled in my own flour mill and made with sourdough.”

  “Tastes good.”

  “I figured they wouldn’t go to waste,” Simon said, still lingering by the coat hooks.

  Gorm sat down and watched him with a strange look in his eyes. Gorm was weird. Friendly and professional, but one you couldn’t really figure out. A once-burned child, he often thought, when Gorm walked through the ward with his bike helmet pushed way down over his forehead and his piercing eyes, always shifting uneasily here and there.

  But his eyes weren’t shifty now. Right now, Gorm was looking straight at him, scrutinizing him.

  Simon tore himself away from the coat hooks, walked over to the sink, and started washing the baking dishes.

  “This kind of dough sure is hard to wash off if you let it dry.…”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Gorm, who was still watching him, bread in hand. The room fell quiet.

  The charge nurse opened the door and interrupted the awkward moment.

  “Wow, smells great in here,” she said. “Have you guys seen Isak this morning?”

  “No, I think he’s in his room.” Simon turned off the water.

  “He has a visitor! A young girl who says she knows him. She’s waiting out by the front desk.” The charge nurse smiled nervously. “It would really be a shame if he missed her. Would you go see if he’s awake?”

  “Of course!” Simon set the dough bowl down and dried his hands on his pants, only too happy to have an excuse to leave. “I’ll go get him.”

  When he entered the room, Isak was lying in bed looking at the ceiling.

  “Hey, champ, you have a visitor,” Simon said, patting him gently.

  Isak slowly turned his head and looked at him.

  “It’s a girl. She says you know each other.”

  “A girl?”

  Isak was dressed in under a minute. On his way out the door he instinctively stopped by the bookshelf and pulled out a book.

  A young girl was waiting in the quiet room on one of the pink beanbag chairs. She looked small and skinny under her many layers of wool and leather, and her wispy dreadlocks stuck out from under a knit hat. Her highwater pants revealed dirty ankles and a pair of worn slip-on shoes. Simon thought she seemed familiar, but couldn’t place her.

  “Hi, Isak.”

  Isak stood still, staring at her.

  “Always a book in your hand, that’s the way I remember you, too.”

  “Hi, I’m Simon,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Nice to meet you.”

  She didn’t take his hand, just eyed him warily. He was struck by her big gray eyes under the edge of her hat. That look! Still just as sharp and dangerous, just as unpredictable. It had been a long time. Back then her hair was short and her body heavier. He couldn’t think of her name, but in that instant he knew exactly who she was.

  Simon gave Isak a wave and left the quiet room, grabbed his coat, and hurried out into the rain. Feeling the heavy drops on his forehead, he took a deep breath, as if something heavy had been sitting on his chest for the last ten minutes. Had she recognized him, too?

  He biked home to Hans Egedes Gade in Nørrebro in the highest gear. By the time he let himself into his apartment on the third floor, he was drenched with both rain and sweat, and the pulse in his temple was throbbing unpleasantly. His dad had called and left a message again. Simon deleted it without listening. He peeled off his clothes and tossed them into the laundry, got out a dry T-shirt, and pulled the blinds so the dim daylight disappeared. Lay down on
the twin bed in the bedroom, pulled the comforter up, and closed his eyes.

  This was it. The worst time of day, the time when sleep was supposed to come but never did. He could lie here for hours with the Ritalin throbbing in his blood, listening to the pulse in his ear.

  This was going to have to end soon. He couldn’t take it much longer.

  CHAPTER 12

  The unique currents in Sortedam Lake—one of the string of man-made lakes in Copenhagen that dated back to the Renaissance—were the reason no one discovered her until nine thirty. A moderate easterly wind had blown her across the lake to the little island, paradoxically named Fish Island, an overgrown spot in the middle of the waters, where birds could hide and breed in peace. There she lay in the lee by the stones, until a park service crew boat bumped into her, and the boat’s operator, Frank Thomas, who was already under a great deal of stress, had to put his head between his knees to keep from passing out.

  Once the police cordoned off the area, and the medical examiner and his team arrived, they determined that the lake’s ducks and rats had started eating the body. The eyes especially and then the places on the body where the skin had been sliced up with twelve little symmetrical cuts.

  Her colleagues at Forest’s Edge had not thought twice about her absence. Wednesday was her usual riding day, so they just assumed she was with her horse. The staff believed she had gone home after dinner yesterday. At any rate, they hadn’t seen her since then.

  Jeppe and Falck stood at the edge of the lake with the old municipal hospital building behind them watching as Rita Wilkins’s body was removed from the water by the crime scene technicians from NKC East. She was naked, the cuts on her wrists gaping like the gills of a dead fish.

  Three murders in three days. Jeppe had rejoiced too soon, thinking they had steered clear of one today.

  “Falck, we have to notify the next of kin. Ask Larsen to go by her ex-husband Robert Wilkins’s place and talk to him. And then we need to put the remaining employees from Butterfly House under surveillance. Peter Demant and Tanja Kruse must be monitored day and night until we’ve found the killer. Get that going!”