The Butterfly House

by Katrine Engberg

  He nodded reluctantly, and Jeppe held out his hand in parting. The psychiatrist’s hand was small but powerful.

  “Oh, by the way, just one last thing,” Jeppe said. “There was a cook and two nurses working at Butterfly House whose names Rita Wilkins couldn’t remember. Can you?”

  “No, unfortunately not.”

  Peter Demant answered without hesitation. All the same, Jeppe was absolutely certain that he was lying.

  * * *

  THE MUSIC PRESSED on her eardrums. Marie Birch raised her face toward the vaulted ceiling of Holmen Church and tried to follow the organist’s race up and down the musical scale. The hard, wooden pew yielded beneath her as she lay down. Churches were good places to find shelter when it rained. Mostly they were quiet and empty, but every now and then the chorus would practice, and then it was almost as if they were playing her a private concert.

  The organ sounds crashed down over her and left her nerve endings bristling. Sometimes she would get so angry. Even if she knew there was no point to the anger, that it was only taking a toll on herself. With time she had learned to talk sense into herself, but it didn’t always work.

  The thought of all those times she had stood outside a locked office door and waited humbly for a doctor who was too busy with paperwork to see her. The thought of backs turned, testy side looks, and stressed out, understaffed departments with nothing to offer but their exhausted sympathy. And pills.

  So sorry.

  You know how it is.

  We’re increasing your dose.

  Marie clenched her fists and pressed them to her eyes.

  Kim had been different. The only one to take the time for those long talks she so needed; he had helped her toward understanding herself. It was mainly thanks to him that she had found the strength to break free from psychiatry and was now able to stand on her own two feet. The thought of the open wards’ weekly doctor rounds where so-called sensible plans for the future were made in just fifteen minutes. Psychiatric hospitals just didn’t have the resources to treat people; they were merely parking garages, where the sick were supposed to share the space with other sick, who weren’t getting the help they needed, either. Plenty of expertise and goodwill, but no time, no hands.

  Marie had lost count of the number of times she had waited in a group of psychotic patients only to learn that there was only one bed left in Copenhagen and that they were going to have to choose among themselves which one of them needed it most.

  She hadn’t chosen to live on the street; she had been pushed out. Society wasn’t spacious enough to accommodate her, especially now that she was an adult. On the contrary, she sensed mistrust and even outspoken aggression from a world that otherwise gloated about how it cared for the sick. It was a lie meant for the healthy to maintain their self-image as being decent and inclusive. But their caring didn’t extend to the mentally ill. There was never any real sympathy for diverters, for the crazy ones who hit their heads on the wall. They were dangerous.

  When did I become dangerous? she wondered. Quiet, introverted, damaged Marie. Somewhere along the way the anxious child she was had let go of her fear and embraced her fury. She was no longer afraid of the dark, of being alone, of the shadows. Now she was the darkness and the shadows. Didn’t hesitate to fight back when someone hurt her. When had that happened? When she lay strapped down by the belt screaming at the naked walls? When murky chemistry intoxicated her body? When Kim died?

  When you have to bear the unbearable over and over again, you have to make the pain your ally.

  “So take me home, a poor sinner, to Your righteousness…,” a crisp soprano sang out beautifully somewhere above her.

  Marie sat up, gathered her things, and headed for the exit.

  There was still a lot to do.

  CHAPTER 14

  “The party’s over, it’s over, the party’s over, it’s fucking over now.…”

  Prophets of Rage’s nihilistic rock mantra ran on repeat through Jeppe’s tired brain, throbbing to the beat of his pulse as he walked down Gothersgade toward Queen Louise’s Bridge. Like so many times before, he longed for a pill that could smother his internal soundtrack. That pill did not exist, of this he was quite sure after having tried most of them, but as long as there was money in medical research, maybe there was hope. Until then there was nothing to do but try to reduce the stress that set off the music in his head in the first place. Solve the case, amigo, then you’ll be freed from this incessant internal jukebox!

  He crossed the busy thoroughfare Farimagsgade and checked his phone without slowing his pace. An email had come in from Nyboe confirming that all three victims had died the same way and within the same time frame on the previous three nights—between midnight and 3:00 a.m.

  And the superintendent had called more than once. She would have to wait. Jeppe didn’t need to be reminded of the importance of finding the murderer who was tossing his victims in the city’s water holes.

  The sound of the traffic broke through the soundtrack in his brain just as Gothersgade opened up to reveal the Lakes, Copenhagen’s own little piece of Paris. The police psychologist was waiting for him lakeshore, by the bridge.

  Mosbæk was one of those people who looked like the embodiment of a child’s drawing. A thin wreath of hair highlighted his balding pate, and a permanent smile beamed in the middle of his full beard. Mosbæk radiated positivity, especially right now, holding a leash with a shaggy puppy, trying to stop it from running in circles around him.

  “A puppy is really the best cure in the world for a bad mood, Jeppe. No! Settle down, Maslow, heel!” Mosbæk went in for a hug, but luckily the bouncing dog prevented it.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I brought the dog?” Mosbæk asked, extricating himself from the leash with a grin. “He’s just a puppy, so I’m bringing him to work until he learns to be alone. You’re my last appointment of the day, so a little end-of-work stroll seemed appropriate.”

  Jeppe eyed the dog skeptically. It didn’t really matter what he thought about its presence since the little bugger was here, whipping around their legs.

  “Should we walk?” Jeppe suggested.

  “He’s an Australian cattle dog, bred for herding. You can pet him.”

  Jeppe waved aside the offer and began strolling along the lakeshore under the fading fall foliage on the chestnut trees. Mosbæk and the puppy trotted after him. The lakeside path was teeming with joggers in provocatively tight Lycra, and Mosbæk had to zigzag apologetically to avoid tripping them with the leash.

  “Well, Jeppe… what a mess of a case.”

  “Three dead in three days.” Jeppe waited while Mosbæk caught up with him. “And there still isn’t a single witness or piece of concrete evidence. I need your help to understand why someone chooses to kill people this way.”

  “I assume that we’re basing our theory on the victims’ ties to each other through the residential program?”

  “Exactly. Do you know about the young girl’s suicide?”

  “Pernille Ramsgaard, yes.”

  “Her parents have an obvious motive of revenge, but seemingly an alibi for last night when Rita Wilkins was killed. The father, on the other hand, claims that the staff at Butterfly House failed the residents, especially the psychiatrist who was affiliated…”

  “Peter Demant.”

  “You know him?”

  “Come, Maslow, come!” Mosbæk spun around to unwind the leash from around his legs. “I’ve met him a few times. Peculiar guy.”

  “Agreed. But whether or not he failed the residents at Butterfly House, he doesn’t have an obvious reason to start murdering his former colleagues, does he?” Jeppe stopped again to wait for Mosbæk and the dog. “And then there are the residents. One, Isak, is an inpatient in the pediatric psych ward, which is locked and monitored twenty-four hours a day, and the other, Marie, is missing and no one’s been able to find her. And then to make matters worse, there were also two nurses and a cook who we can’t find, p
lus one social worker who’s dead—”

  “I’m going to stop you for a minute, Jeppe.” Mosbæk stroked his beard with his free hand. “Sometimes we blind ourselves, staring at all the things we don’t know. Let’s start somewhere else, like with what we actually do know: the murderer’s modus operandi is unusual. Bleeding out is a classic suicide method, but is not traditionally used for murder.”

  “And, by the way, the method of the young girl, who committed suicide. She slit her wrists,” Jeppe interjected.

  “Good, so there’s a potential connection there, a comment from the murderer. And the murder weapon is unusual, too, I understand. A scarificator, which was historically used to treat people, not to kill them. Heel, Maslow! Good boy!” Mosbæk fed the dog a treat from his pocket and sent it a goofy smile. “What about the locations where the bodies were found?”

  “Fountains in the city, the lake here. The bodies apparently have to lie in the water when we find them.”

  “And what does that tell you, Jeppe?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Pernille Ramsgaard was found in a bathtub.…” Mosbæk opened his hand, as if to reveal a possible clue he had hidden there.

  Suddenly Jeppe remembered why Mosbæk was the one he always called when he got stuck on a case.

  “At any rate, I think you should consider it a possibility, that the locations of the bodies is a comment on the suicide. Our killer runs quite a risk of being seen when he dumps bodies in the middle of the city. The third victim was found right around here, right?” Mosbæk stopped and nodded toward a house on Søgade. “Are you familiar with that building?”

  Jeppe looked at the big facade of yellow brick with horizontal stripes of red interlaid. It was topped off by a large green copper dome.

  “Isn’t it part of the university…?”

  “It is now, yes. But until the millennium it was the Copenhagen Municipal Hospital. And that building there”—Mosbæk pointed to a facade that faced the lake—“was once the notorious Ward Six for Mental and Neurological Diseases, in other words, the psych ward.”

  Jeppe turned around to look at Fish Island. Clouds hung low over the rooftops, coloring everything a leaden gray, drawing everything downward into the depths of the water. It was only a hundred meters from the old hospital to the little island.

  “The locations where the bodies were found are all associated with psychiatry. Maslow, leave it!” Mosbæk pulled the eager puppy away from an approaching German shepherd.

  “Is this the work of a sick man?”

  “What’s a sick man, Jeppe?” Mosbæk sighed. “Are you healthy yourself?”

  “Healthy enough not to murder people, yeah.”

  “There is no health; physicians say that we, at best, enjoy but a neutrality.” Mosbæk eyed Jeppe expectantly. “Are you familiar with John Donne, the English baroque poet?”

  “I don’t think he’s made it onto my reading list, no.”

  “That’s a mistake. An Anatomy of the World is a classic. Among other things, Donne says, ‘We are born ruinous.’ ”

  “The point is…” Mosbæk was searching for the right words. “Who is sick and who is healthy? You could argue that any deviation from societal norms is pathological. You could also argue the opposite.”

  “You know what I mean.…”

  “Yes, and I don’t mean to quibble. These are just muddy waters, is all I’m saying.”

  Jeppe eyed him skeptically.

  “All right, anyway, there seems to be a water theme to it all, no?” Mosbæk explained. “But that’s just it. On the one side the water can symbolize purification and maybe could be interpreted as a mania for cleanliness as part of some broader pathological picture. There is a close connection, for example, between fear of bacteria and OCD.”

  “A psychopath, then?” Jeppe asked. “I can tell you don’t buy that.”

  “No, not really. The killings are too organized, planned down to the slightest detail and carried out very neatly. It takes vision and courage to leave a body in the middle of Strøget.” Mosbæk squatted down to pet his puppy lovingly.

  “So what sort of a person is our killer? Can you say anything about that?”

  “Cautiously, yes. I don’t dare come up with a formal profile just off the cuff, though.” Mosbæk stood back up and wiped a bit of puppy drool off on his trouser leg. “We’re talking about a person with tremendous motivation. Three murders in just as many days requires a massive incentive, meaning the emotion behind it must be very strong. My guess is that the killer has been saving up, so to speak, planning for a long time and amassing the rage that must be behind this.”

  “Agreed. Anything else?”

  “Hm… people who progress to violence generally have the flaw that they feel like rulers of the world and completely insignificant at the same time.”

  They moved out of the way of a group of young soldiers in sweats who came running along the lakeshore path at high speed wearing fully packed backpacks, their eyes focused ahead.

  “Why does the murderer let his victims bleed out like that?”

  “I think you already know, Jeppe.” Mosbæk gave him an almost apologetic look. “It has to be about making them suffer before they die.”

  They started walking again, the tip of a headache starting to throb behind Jeppe’s eyes. The person with the most obvious motive was Bo Ramsgaard. He had lost his daughter and for that he openly blamed the very people who were now dying one by one. His alibi was even shaky. It was obvious. Even so, there was something off about the theory, which Jeppe couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  He looked out over the murky lake waters, where the clouds were drawn neatly on the surface and let Mosbæk’s words sink in. The puppy barked and happily jumped up his leg, so that he nearly lost his balance.

  We are born ruinous. Yes, he thought, Mosbæk’s right. We are all lost.

  * * *

  ESTHER DE LAURENTI hammered away at the keyboard at breakneck speed without looking at the words forming on the screen in front of her. She was on a roll and had neither time to think, edit what she had written, nor take a break to pee. She had no idea where it was coming from. All of a sudden she was just full of words, tripping over themselves to get onto the paper.

  The doorbell pulled her abruptly out of her flow.

  She hurried to the door and yanked it open. Alain stood on the landing, wide-eyed and startled by the sudden movement.

  She raised her eyebrows in an impatient unspoken question, but he just stood there as if paralyzed, saying nothing for several seconds. He was holding her pasta bowl in his hands and was wearing a sailor’s sweater and worn jeans, his feet still bare. He was unreasonably, annoyingly handsome, she thought, and before she knew it, she had taken the bowl from his hand and pulled him inside.

  When the door closed, they were standing close in the narrow vestibule; he a head taller and about fifteen years younger, Esther filled with a fierce energy.

  And desire.

  She set the pasta bowl on the floor.

  He looked at her, his eyes smiling, and once again she was the sixteen-, twenty-three-, thirty-eight-, forty-six-year-old sensual woman she had always been. She was still that woman, not a dried-up, depressive, anxious shadow of her former self.

  The back of his head was soft, and he didn’t resist as she pulled him down toward her. That first kiss almost wasn’t a kiss, but more of a light grazing of cheeks, noses, lips. The next was dizzyingly wet and hot and lasted both forever and only for an instant.

  Esther felt her legs give out. She hadn’t been kissed like that in many years, maybe ever.

  Alain picked her up in his arms and carried her through the apartment. She sheepishly rested her forehead against his shoulder to minimize the risk of eye contact that could break the magical spell.

  In the bedroom he carefully put her down on the bed and she felt her first flash of panic. Who was this man, anyway? She hardly knew him, had no idea what he was up to.


  Mixed in with her nerves was also a fair amount of vanity. Was she really going to take her clothes off in front of a stranger, a Frenchman no less, reveal her age spots and varicose veins, her saggy skin and brittle bones?

  He started unbuttoning her shirt.

  Apparently so. He was slow and focused, a bit clumsy, and it helped with her insecurity that he too seemed nervous.

  She kissed him again. He wanted her, too. Why would he pretend?

  Alain pushed Esther over onto her back, suddenly violent, and lay down on top of her. She closed her eyes. The swarming thoughts wandered from her brain, down her body, making her quiver.

  It was over fast, and after that it was awkward.

  That’s how it is when you don’t know each other, she thought, not daring to reach over and stroke his cheek. At least all her parts still worked.

  After they had lain side by side for a bit, he sat up and started putting on his clothes without looking at her. He was regretting it, that much was clear, and Esther desperately searched for a way to smooth over the situation.

  Once he was dressed, he turned to her with heavy eyes.

  “Sorry! I was much too rough. Maybe I was just nervous. You are…” He exhaled with a smile, designed to illustrate how amazing she was. “I’ve always loved mature women—wise, gorgeous, experienced women. You’re… out of my league.”

  Esther was so surprised that she practically fell off the bed. He was insecure?! More than she was?

  She laughed.

  “I’m at least as nervous as you. You are totally amazing, Alain. Really! And I’m just an old hag who…”

  “Stop! Don’t ever say that about yourself!” He kissed her palms tenderly and continued to her belly. For a second she thought he was going to seduce her again. Then he stopped.

  “What time is it? I actually came up to ask you if I could borrow your car. I have to move a dresser that the movers forgot in my old apartment.”

  “Is this how you normally go about asking a neighbor for a favor?” She smiled and sat up in the bed.